Right now Chris can see his DI, Terry Hallet, doing pull-ups with his top off. For the love of God.
But still Chris pedals in his loose-fitting T-shirt and baggy shorts. Shorts? That is what it has come to. And, of course, he pedals because of Patrice. Because for the first time in nearly two years a woman is regularly seeing him naked. Admittedly usually in as low a light as he can get away with, but still. And so far, so good, Chris is happy, Patrice seems happy, although what would she say if she wasn’t? Well, Chris supposes that she wouldn’t keep sleeping with him, but, even so, there is no harm in trying to eat better, trying to lose some weight and trying to echo-locate some muscles under his spongy surface.
It was still early days for Chris and Patrice, the days of lust and art galleries. Perhaps in six months they would be in love and he could safely put the weight back on. But for now here he was.
The exercise bike is a work of art, full of dials and buttons to increase resistance, to replicate hilly ground, to measure heart rate, to measure distance travelled, time elapsed and calories burned. Chris has most of the displays switched off. The heart-rate monitor was terrifying; Chris had seen numbers that surely couldn’t be right. The calorie counter was worst of all. Six miles of cycling to burn off a hundred calories? Six miles? For half a Twix? It didn’t bear thinking about.
So instead, he’s watching an antiques programme on the TV screen and glancing up at the clock on the gym wall roughly every forty-five seconds, praying for the hour to be up.
As an elderly man on the TV hides a look of disappointment that his ship in a bottle is only worth sixty pounds, Chris’s phone rings. He generally tries not to answer his phone in the gym, but he sees that Donna is calling. Something about Connie Johnson? Fingers crossed.
Chris slows his already slow pace and picks up the call.
‘Donna, I’m on the bike. I’m like Lance Armstrong but without the –’
‘Sir, can you get to the hospital?’
Donna had called him ‘Sir’. So it was a case.
‘Of course, what’s up?’
‘A mugging. A nasty one.’
‘Gotcha. Why me though?’
‘Chris,’ says Donna. ‘It’s Ibrahim.’
Chris is running before he hangs up.
8
Joyce is holding Ibrahim’s left hand. She squeezes it as he talks. Elizabeth is holding the other hand. Ron has propped himself against the far wall, putting as much distance as possible between him and his friend in the bed. But Ron has tears in his eyes, and Joyce has never seen that before, so he can stand where he wants.
Ibrahim has tubes in his nose, heavy bandages around his torso, a neck brace and a drip in his arm. He is entirely drained of colour. He looks broken. He looks frightened. He looks, Joyce realizes, old.
But he is conscious; he is sitting, propped up, and he is talking. Slowly and quietly, and clearly in pain, but talking.
Joyce leans in to catch what Ibrahim is saying.
‘You can pay for the parking on your phone, you see. It’s very convenient.’
‘Whatever next?’ asks Joyce, and squeezes his hand again.
‘Ibrahim?’ says Elizabeth, her voice as gentle as Joyce has ever heard it. ‘With respect, we don’t want to hear about the parking. We want to know who did this.’
Ibrahim nods as best he can and takes a shallow breath against the pain. He releases his hand from Elizabeth’s grasp and tries to raise a finger but gives up. ‘OK, but the app is really very clever. You just –’
The door flies open and Chris and Donna rush in, and make straight for the bed.
‘Ibrahim!’ cries Donna.
Joyce lets Donna take Ibrahim’s hand. They’ve all had a turn. Chris walks over to the other side of the bed and taps the headboard. He looks down at Ibrahim and attempts a smile.
‘You had us worried there for a moment.’
Ibrahim gives Chris a weak thumbs-up.
‘We should see the other guy, right?’ says Donna.
‘You should catch the other guy, certainly,’ says Elizabeth.
‘Yes, forgive us, Elizabeth,’ says Chris. ‘We haven’t managed to crack the case in the nine seconds we’ve been in the room.’
‘Don’t row,’ says Joyce. ‘Not in a hospital.’
‘Can you speak, Ibrahim?’ asks Donna, and Ibrahim nods. ‘Whoever did this, we’ll find them, and we’ll get them in a room with the cameras off and they’ll regret it.’
‘That’s my girl,’ says Elizabeth. ‘That’s a proper police officer.’
‘Hundred yards from your station,’ says Ron, jabbing a finger at Chris. ‘That’s what it’s come to. While you’re off arresting someone for putting the recycling in the wrong bin.’
‘All right, Ron,’ says Joyce.
‘I was at the gym,’ says Chris.
‘Well, that says it all,’ says Ron.
‘It doesn’t say anything, Ron,’ says Elizabeth. ‘So be quiet and let Chris and Donna do their job.’
Chris nods to Elizabeth, then perches on the bed and looks at Ibrahim. ‘Mate, if there’s anything you remember, anything at all, then it all helps us. I know it must have been a blur, but even a small detail.’
‘Only if you can,’ says Joyce.
Ibrahim nods again and begins to speak, slowly, with the occasional pause when the pain gets too much.
‘I don’t remember much, Chris. You know I’m normally good with details.’
‘Of course, mate, that’s fine. Just anything.’
‘There were three of them. Two white, one Asian – Bangladeshi, I would say.’
‘That’s great, Ibrahim,’ says Chris. ‘Anything else?’
‘All on bikes. One of the bicycles was a Carrera Vulcan, one was a Norco Storm 4, and I’m afraid I’m not quite certain of the make of the third, but probably a Voodoo Bantu.’
‘Right …’ says Chris.
‘All three wore hooded garments, one a burgundy Nike top with a white drawstring, and the other two in black Adidas. Their trainers were white Reebok, white Adidas, and I have forgotten the third.’ Ibrahim looks to Chris in apology.
‘Yes, I see,’ says Chris.
‘I do remember that one of the white boys had a watch with a beige strap and a blue face, and the other white boy had a tattoo of three stars on his left hand. The Bangladeshi boy had acne scars down the right side of his face. One of the other boys had a shaving rash, but that is moot, as I don’t imagine it will last longer than a day. One had a rip in his jeans, and on his thigh you could see the bottom of a tattoo, which looked to me like a football crest, Brighton and Hove Albion, I think, and I could make out the letters “r-e-v-e-r” which I took to be the end of the word “forever”, but of course I couldn’t swear to it. That’s all I remember, I’m afraid. It’s a bit of a haze.’
Joyce smiles. That’s her Ibrahim.
‘I mean, I’ll be honest,’ says Chris, ‘that was more than I expected. We’ll find them on CCTV somewhere, and then we’ll find those bikes. We’ll get them for you.’
‘Thank you,’ says Ibrahim. ‘And also, I know the first name of the one who attacked me, if that helps?’
‘You know his name?’
‘As I was lying there, they shouted, “Ryan, come on!”’
‘Come on, Ryan?’ says Donna.
‘There’s your man,’ says Ron. ‘Right there. Stop pillocking around and go and arrest Ryan.’
‘If I arrested every Ryan with a criminal record in Fairhaven, we’d need more cells,’ says Chris.
A nurse walks in and Joyce recognizes the look on her face. Joyce stands.
‘Time to go, everyone, let the nurses get on with their jobs.’
Ibrahim gets gentle hugs and kisses from everyone in turn, and they start to file out. Only Ron remains.
‘Come on, Ron,’ says Joyce. ‘Let’s get you home.’
Ron shuffles from foot to foot.
‘Um, I’m staying.’
‘You’re staying
here?’
‘Yeah, I just … Well, they’re going to make me up a camp bed, and they said I could stay.’ Ron shrugs; he looks a little awkward. ‘Keep him company. Got my iPad, might watch a film.’
‘There is a Korean film I have been looking forward to,’ says Ibrahim.
‘Not that,’ says Ron.
Joyce walks over to Ron and gives him a hug, feeling his embarrassment as she does. ‘You look after our boy.’ Joyce then walks out of the door, letting it close behind her, and sees Chris and Donna in conference with Elizabeth.
‘The phone was just snatched, so there’ll be no forensics,’ says Chris, ‘and from what I’ve heard we don’t have witnesses. There’s no CCTV there either, they’ll have known that. We can find them for sure, with Ibrahim’s description, but they’ll laugh in our faces in an interview.’
‘And off they’ll trot, to do the same thing to someone else,’ says Donna.
‘You’re going to let them get away with this?’ says Elizabeth. ‘After doing that to Ibrahim?’
Chris looks around him, just to make sure he’s among friends. ‘Of course we’re not going to let them get away with it.’
‘Oh, good,’ says Joyce.
‘We’ll bring them in, I promise you that. We’ll waste a bit of their time. But other than that, there’s nothing me and Donna can do.’
Elizabeth looks at him. ‘Donna and I, Chris. How many times are we going to go through this?’
Chris ignores her. ‘But I know you well enough to reckon there’s probably something you could do, Elizabeth? You and Joyce and Ron?’
‘Go on,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I’m listening.’
Chris turns to Donna. ‘Who did it sound like Ibrahim was describing, Donna? From the name, to the clothes, right down to the tattoo.’
‘It sounded like Ryan Baird to me, sir.’
Chris nods, and turns to face Elizabeth. ‘It sounded like Ryan Baird to me, too.’
‘Ryan Baird,’ says Elizabeth. A statement, not a question. Locked into the vault, never to escape.
‘So we’ll nip off now and arrest him, and question him, and get a string of “no comments”, and then we’ll have to let him go, a little smirk on his face, knowing he’s got away with it again.’
‘Oh, he hasn’t got away with it this time,’ says Elizabeth. ‘No one gets away with hurting Ibrahim.’
‘I was hoping you’d say that,’ says Chris. ‘You know how much the four of you mean to us, don’t you?’
‘I do,’ says Elizabeth. ‘And I hope you both know the same.’
‘We do,’ says Donna. ‘Now let’s go and arrest Ryan Baird, and may God have mercy on his soul.’
‘I don’t think even God will be able to help him,’ says Joyce, as she sees a hospital porter wheeling a camp bed into Ibrahim’s room.
9
Elizabeth is finding it hard to focus. After seeing Ibrahim in the bed yesterday evening, hooked up to tubes, just as Penny had been. She doesn’t want to lose anyone else.
She has to keep her wits about her though. She is walking through the woods, high above Coopers Chase, with Douglas Middlemiss. Her ex-husband and her new responsibility. A job she never asked for. People died around Douglas. Too many people.
Why had she married him? Well, he had asked at around about the time she felt she ought to get married. And, dangerous though he was, he could also be kind. Pretend to be, at least. And it wasn’t as if she hadn’t killed a few people in her time, too. If Ryan Baird were in front of her now she would probably add another one to her list.
Trailing quite happily behind them is Poppy, headphones on. That had been the compromise. Poppy would need to keep Douglas in her sight, but Douglas would be able to speak freely to Elizabeth.
‘It was as routine as these things can be,’ says Douglas. ‘We took our photos, broke into whatever we could break into, and off we toddled. Couldn’t have been in Lomax’s house more than half an hour. He rarely goes out, so we had to be quick.’
Elizabeth stops for a moment to take in the view, Coopers Chase below her, the buildings, the lakes, the rolling fields. Above her, the cemetery where the nuns, who had previously called this place home for centuries, were buried. Still behind them, Poppy halts too and takes in the same view.
‘And you messed up somehow?’
‘I don’t know about messed up exactly, but two days later we get a message, through certain channels. Martin Lomax has been in touch.’
‘Has he now?’ says Elizabeth, as they resume their walk. ‘Do go on.’
‘Effing and blinding, they say. You broke into my property, human rights, flagrant disregard, the whole shooting match. Guts for garters, you know the routine.’
‘And how did he know it was MI5?’
‘Well, a hundred ways, I suppose. You never really leave things exactly where you found them, do you? If someone knows what they’re looking for. And who breaks in without stealing anything? Only us, dear, in this day and age.’
There is construction noise from further up the hill, where the final part of the Coopers Chase development is being built. Douglas stops by an old oak with a hollow pocket in its trunk. He pats it.
‘Perfect dead-letter drop, this, eh?’ he says.
Elizabeth looks at the oak and agrees. She has had dead-letter drops all over the world. Behind loose bricks in low walls, hooks under park benches, obscure books in old shops, anywhere one agent could hide something completely, and another could pick it up without suspicion. This tree would be perfect, were it in Warsaw or Beirut.
‘You remember the tree we used in East Berlin? In the park?’ asks Douglas.
‘West Berlin, but yes, I remember,’ says Elizabeth. Almost ten years older, but memory sharper, she would take that victory.
They stop admiring the tree and Douglas continues.
‘So Lomax is shouting the odds, and he’s got us buggered all ways to Wednesday because we shouldn’t have been in there, and he knows that and we know that, and then he drops the bomb.’
‘The bomb?’
‘The bomb.’
‘And this bomb is why you’re here?’
Douglas nods. ‘There he is, Martin Lomax, firing both barrels and reloading, and then he says, “Where are my diamonds?”’
‘Diamonds?’
‘Stop just repeating what I said last, Elizabeth, it’s a terrible habit of yours. That and adultery.’
‘So these diamonds, Douglas?’ says Elizabeth, not breaking stride.
‘Says he had twenty million pounds’ worth of diamonds in the house. Uncut. Down payment from a businessman in New York to a Colombian cartel.’
‘And they disappeared after your visit?’
‘Thin air, says our man. Accusing us of I don’t know what, seeking reparation, yelling the ceilings off. So I get hauled in – quite right too, protocol, no complaint from me – and I take them through the operation, me and another chap, Lance, Special Boat Service, trustworthy, MI5 likes him. Poppy outside on lookout duty, waiting for the hunters to emerge. No diamonds seen, no diamonds taken, chap must be bluffing.’
‘And they believed you?’
‘No reason not to. We could all see the game he was playing. Getting a bit of leverage over us. So back they go to Martin Lomax, sorry we broke in, just doing our job, but come off it with the diamonds old boy, and let’s find a way to be friends.’
‘And he is unamenable to this?’
‘The definition of it. Swears this is no bluff, tells us he’s got Colombians ready to break this leg and that leg if they don’t get their diamonds back, and what are we going to do about it?’
‘And what did you do?’
‘Nothing we can do. They kept at me and the rest of the team for a couple of days, just to make sure we were telling the truth, then they report back and tell Martin Lomax, look, friend, if the diamonds ever existed at all, which frankly we doubt, then someone else has them. There’s a bit of back and forth, and then he drops another bomb.’
‘Goodness me, Douglas,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Two bombs.’
‘Martin Lomax says, “I’m sending over a photograph,” and through it comes, CCTV, a shot from the side of his house, it’s yours truly, full face, clear as a bell, mask off.’
‘You took your mask off?’
‘I was hot, it was itchy, you know me, Elizabeth, and the balaclavas are synthetic these days. Whatever happened to wool is something I would like to know. So there’s my face, and he’s done his research, knows who I am, and under the photograph he writes “Tell Douglas Middlemiss he has two weeks to return my diamonds. If the diamonds haven’t been returned within two weeks then I will tell the Americans and the Colombians that he has them.” Kind regards, and so on.’
‘And when was this?’
Douglas stops, looks around and nods to himself. He then looks at Elizabeth.
‘Well, this was two weeks ago.’
Elizabeth purses her lips. They have broken through the cover of the trees now, and find themselves by the path leading to the nuns’ cemetery. She motions to a bench up ahead.
‘Shall we?’
Elizabeth and Douglas walk over to the bench and take a seat.
‘So you are now being hunted by the New York mafia and by a Colombian drug cartel?’
‘Never rains but it pours, eh, darling?’
‘And the Service have sent you here to keep you safe?’
‘Well, if I may be honest, that was my bright idea. I’d been reading about you, about your recent escapades, and about this place, Coopers Chase, and it struck me as the perfect place to hide.’
‘Well, depends what you’re hiding,’ says Elizabeth, looking up at the cemetery. ‘But yes.’
‘So you’ll help look after me? Mobilize some of the troops around here? Keep them alert to stranger danger, but don’t tell them why? I’ll only be here until this sorts itself out.’
‘Douglas, you have no incentive to give me an honest answer to this, but, just so I’ve asked, did you steal the diamonds?’
The Man Who Died Twice (The Thursday Murder Club) Page 4