Ashes to Ashes

by Margaret Duffy

  I took a largish sip of my wine, surprised to find that my hand was quite steady, and glanced again in his direction. He was probably in his forties, dark-haired, his skin tanned, and was wearing a pricey leather jacket one would have thought too heavy for a summer evening. A whisky was in front of him, and he appeared to be playing a game of some kind on his smart phone, a smile occasionally twitching at his lips. Then, as if sensing my interest, he looked directly at me and smiled – or rather leered.

  I made a play of looking at my watch, frowned and rose to my feet quickly as though I had suddenly remembered I ought to be somewhere else. And just then, Patrick appeared in the doorway. I took in all the details in a detached, automatic kind of way: black jeans, the plain white T-shirt with the Adidas logo, nowhere to hide the Glock. Unarmed.

  Was the man on my right Ray Collins? He had noticed the new arrival enter. If so, surely he wouldn’t start shooting in the pub.

  ‘Shall we sit outside?’ Patrick called from the doorway.

  Deliberately placing myself on a line between them, I approached the doorway.

  ‘You’ve forgotten your drink.’

  Heart pounding, I made myself go back for it, to act normally.

  ‘Sprog emergency,’ Patrick reported when we were standing just on the edge of the green opposite the building’s main entrance. ‘Katie tumbled down the last half-dozen stairs coming to say goodnight – she’s OK.’

  ‘There’s a man in there I—’

  ‘I know. I thought you might like some peace and quiet when I saw you sitting on the green so I walked along the lane behind you and went into the public bar to get a beer. You can see right through into the lounge along the counter. It’s Collins. I recognized him from a fairly recent mugshot. I’ve called Carrick and he’s coming, definitely no bells and whistles but with a firearms unit on standby. We’ll arrest him when he gets here.’

  ‘There can be only one reason why he’s here – to kill you.’

  ‘I shall enjoy asking him.’

  ‘Patrick, he might leave before Carrick gets here.’

  ‘Then I shall arrest him – but I rang Carrick a good ten minutes ago.’

  ‘You’re unarmed!’

  ‘There’s no way I’m starting some kind of firefight here.’

  Several agonizing seconds ticked by.

  ‘I think you should go to a safe distance,’ Patrick said gently.

  I gazed at him for a few more moments and then walked away. Turning to look again when I had gone about twenty yards, there was no sign of him.

  Fear was like cold lead in my stomach.

  But why was the man coolly sitting there, for anyone to see him, in the Ring o’ Bells?

  As requested, I carried on walking and then had a truly shocking thought. Would this be how it would all end? Like this, on a summer’s evening? Would the story that had started with us sitting face-to-face at a kitchen table come to a full stop here? The thought that he would be gunned down virtually in sight of his children was obscene.

  But surely, something told me, O’Connor would not be content merely to take out a contract with Ray Collins for Patrick’s death. He would want something more ‘satisfying’, a method of getting rid of him that would give him a thrill. But the real thrill, it appeared, was provided by the way he got rid of the body afterwards, which suggested that Collins might merely be in the pub to act as bait.

  By this time I had reached the edge of the green, virtually opposite the rectory drive, and turned to look back again. Any number of people could be concealing themselves in the parked cars. Quickly, almost running, I crossed the road, went down the drive, gained entry to the house through the conservatory and checked that the front door was locked, bolting it for good measure. No one was going to walk casually into my house with malice aforethought. Going back through the conservatory with a view to locking it behind me, and having collected the Smith and Wesson and shoved it in the pocket of my slacks, I met John coming out of their door.

  ‘Trouble?’ queried this one-time naval reserve officer.

  ‘There might be,’ I answered. ‘There’s a wanted man in the pub and Patrick and James Carrick are going to arrest him. I’m worried that he might have friends with him.’

  ‘Break out the shotgun?’

  ‘You could keep watch from the front bedroom window.’

  ‘I will.’ And without another word, he went back into the annexe.

  Another crack shot – at clay pigeon shooting.

  I went back outside and walked slowly down the drive. And then quickened my pace, putting my hand on top of the weapon. Pausing on the edge of the green, again I could see only a peaceful English scene, dusk now approaching – ‘dimity’, the country people call it. A few more folk than before were around, some sitting on the grass, while a foursome of boys were playing cricket. The party in the pub was still reverberating.

  As I got closer, I could see that only two tables outside the pub were occupied, one on each side of the door. I recognized none of the people sitting at them. I went in. Everything seemed to be perfectly normal, even in the lounge bar where three men were sitting at the same table I had.

  Patrick glanced up and then patted the chair next to him. I seated myself.

  ‘Your wine,’ he said, indicating a glass on the table in front of me. Then he said to me, ‘You know who this man is. James and I are going to have a short discussion with him.’

  I gave the DI, who looked exceedingly grim, what must have been a very small smile.

  ‘And this woman who I saw here just now is the one Jinty mentioned to me – your wife?’ said Collins.

  ‘My wife,’ Patrick agreed. ‘I take it O’Connor has paid you to remove me from the land of the living.’

  ‘That’s what he wants, yes,’ Collins drawled.

  He spoke precisely, with a slight accent, mid-European perhaps, but I guessed this was as a result of having lived abroad for a while to escape British law courts. Either that or it could be an affectation. This seemed more likely as he was supposed to be always chasing women. What did they see in him? He was as cold as death itself.

  He was giving me his full attention, together with what he might have thought was another of his fascinating smiles.

  ‘I don’t like snakes,’ I said.

  He uttered an empty laugh, but I had seen the flash of anger in his dark eyes. They were dark like those of Marlene Judd, come to think of it. Was it a characteristic of murderers?

  ‘So you come here in broad daylight and sit in the pub hoping I’ll just wander by?’ Patrick continued.

  ‘You did,’ Collins pointed out.

  ‘No one but a fool would kill someone in such a public place in front of around fifteen witnesses.’

  Whether the man took this as a compliment or not was impossible to tell, but he nodded gravely.

  ‘You’re hoping to do a deal?’ Patrick prompted.

  ‘I might be.’

  ‘I haven’t the time to play riddles,’ Carrick had harshly, his Scottish accent always more pronounced when he’s angry. ‘And I can assure you that Wiltshire Police won’t be prepared to do any deals as you’re wanted for the murder of Hereward Stevens, the funeral director. One of us is going to arrest you right now.’

  ‘But you won’t,’ said Collins. ‘Because you want O’Connor. I can give him to you.’

  Carrick jerked a forefinger in Patrick’s direction. ‘He wants O’Connor, not me. I’m doing no deals with you.’

  I left the glass of wine where it was. I might need it.

  Collins shrugged. ‘In that case, I shall leave and then, very shortly, fulfill my obligation to Jinty. A contract’s a contract – and it’s a lot of money,’ Collins finished by saying, gazing intently at Patrick.

  ‘And then what? O’Connor will then roll up having prepared a little plan to dispose of my body? That’s where he gets his real kicks from, isn’t it?’

  ‘I think he’s got the idea he’s going to boil the flesh f
rom your bones, feed the meat to his dogs and post what remains to this woman of yours.’

  I almost vomited.

  Patrick leaned forward and spoke quietly. ‘He killed a friend of mine who was unarmed. He knew he was unarmed. I’m of a mind to arrest you, and then the pair of us will take you to a very quiet place where we’ll paste all hell out of you until you tell us where this bloody mobster’s hiding out.’

  To Carrick’s great credit, he didn’t say a word.

  ‘You’re not allowed to do things like that,’ Collins declared, as proved only recently, the time-honoured comment.

  ‘I’m quite prepared to lose my job over it.’

  ‘What is your deal?’ I asked Collins. We were getting nowhere and they would be snarling at one another all night at this rate.

  He considered me and visibly decided that I might have a crumb of intelligence. Then he said, ‘O’Connor’s dangerous. He says something one minute and changes his mind the next. And he’s also treacherous. He might even contact you tomorrow, Gillard, and offer you a large sum of money to take me out. It would amuse him – you must have discovered by now that he has an unusual sense of humour – if we spent the next twelve months stalking one another like a couple of morons in a movie. I don’t operate like that. Frankly, he’s beginning to bore me. I like a simple life and it would suit me admirably if he was behind bars or on a mortuary table. You can have him in exchange for an amnesty.’

  Furious, Patrick said, ‘You must know perfectly well that no one here has the authority to agree to that.’

  ‘You said you’d put your job on the line.’

  ‘But I won’t,’ Carrick interposed.

  ‘All I ask is that you look the other way when I leave for the airport.’

  ‘No,’ both men said in unison.

  ‘I could have shot you last night when you entered your own front door,’ Collins said to Patrick through his teeth.

  ‘No, you couldn’t,’ he was told, but without elaboration.

  ‘Then we have no deal and you don’t get O’Connor. Arrest me and I shall go to prison. You won’t get O’Connor. You won’t be able to prevent him from carrying out his next job which I understand is to start taking out senior cops in the Met and leaving their bodies in public places – outside infant schools, that kind of thing. Just for fun, you understand.’ He broke off with a humourless grin.

  Carrick prepared to rise. ‘The man’s making fools of us. I’m going to call for some backup.’

  ‘Tell me where he is,’ I said to Collins. ‘I’m a sort of a go-between.’

  He smiled broadly, displaying what my dentist would call heavily restored teeth. ‘But you don’t like snakes.’

  ‘It depends on the kind of things they hiss at me.’ I found the will to give him a smile.

  ‘Will you spend the night with me if I do?’

  I already had my hand over the Smith and Wesson and it slid from my pocket like a dream. ‘No, I shall merely put a bullet in you if you don’t. Right now. In here. Then we shall both go to prison – if you survive – but my husband will have a better chance of staying alive with you out of the way.’

  He caught sight of the weapon and actually gaped at me.

  Then bolted.

  For several reasons I was right behind him. Out on the green, running, I yelled, ‘Armed police! Stop or I’ll fire!’

  He stopped, snatched under his jacket, spun around and there was a gun in his hand.

  I jumped aside, fired and he performed the greater part of a cartwheel into the ground.

  Patrick was suddenly right by me as Carrick speeded past us. Carefully, he removed the gun from my grasp, using his handkerchief, holding it by the barrel.

  ‘This is all going to be done properly,’ he said very quietly in response to a look from me. ‘By the time witnesses have been interviewed in connection with this we’ll have drink-fuelled tales that I, or even Carrick, shot him in a fit of rage. And no, I don’t for one second want you to take any blame as no crime has been committed.’ He pecked my cheek. ‘That was fantastic shooting.’

  I returned to the pub, drank the glass of wine in one, then went home and stood down John with his shotgun. He showed no surprise when I had to explain my involvement, merely patting my arm.

  SIXTEEN

  The next day, Sunday, the church was unusually full for the morning service. I stayed away, not wishing to be the target of around a hundred and fifty pairs of eyes, but Patrick went and did a rough count of the worshippers. His father made a statement after the sermon, making it clear that both his son and daughter-in-law worked for the police and that the previous evening a man wanted for murder had been arrested. The circumstances of the arrest had been witnessed by Detective Chief Inspector James Carrick of Bath CID but, as was laid down in the rules, the incident would be reported to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

  I anticipated having to put up with a lot of whispering behind hands and stares from now on as I went about the village. The children were another matter – the eldest ones, that is – and after discussing it with John and Elspeth we decided to explain the true state of affairs to Matthew and Katie that afternoon and deal with any other problems as they arose. The result of this was that I suddenly became elevated in their opinion to a mixture of Lara Croft and Scott and Bailey. This, I have to confess, would more than make up for any nonsense I got from the locals.

  Patrick abandoned interviewing Billy Efford, for the time being at least. One reason for this was that he was still very poorly as a result of his wound having initially been neglected; another that we now had a much bigger fish in the pond. Ray Collins had suffered a serious flesh wound to his leg and both his tibia and fibula were fractured. Three days later, during which Patrick worked from home, and my Smith and Wesson was returned to me, Collins was pronounced fit to be interviewed. On the Thursday morning, having shown our IDs to his armed guard, we found him propped up in bed in a side ward.

  ‘Oh, it’s you again,’ he muttered angrily.

  It soon became obvious that he was not really angry with us.

  ‘O’Connor!’ he practically spat. ‘The bastard!’

  ‘That is the general view of him,’ Patrick observed when we had found two chairs and seated ourselves.

  ‘He told me that when they went to silence the woman in Bath and you were already there – you shot his brother and a man called Billy someone or other and then he broke your arm. They’d already taken care of the woman. This woman here’ – he jerked a contemptuous thumb in my direction –‘hid herself behind a sofa. On the way back, he bleated, he shut his hand in the car door. I don’t believe that now. Your arm isn’t broken. I think he set me up and it’s the only reason I’m talking to you now.’

  Patrick said, ‘The real story is that I shot his brother who, as he fell, fired a shot that smashed an overhead light fitting. A piece of glass hit my forehead and I couldn’t see for blood, whereupon O’Connor brought his handgun down on my arm, causing me to drop the Glock. This woman here shot Billy Efford and then the weapon from O’Connor’s hand. They then ran for it.’

  His arm was still deeply bruised and, worse, shaky.

  ‘I’ll kill him,’ Collins muttered.

  ‘You’re due for a long jail term so no, you won’t. Think about it for a moment. He has a win-win situation as far as you’re concerned. You came to the village convinced that you were up against a man whose shooting arm was out of action and a woman who hid behind sofas. No problem, you do the job, ridding him of me. But, he reckoned, you might get caught and arrested, thus ridding him of both of us and he doesn’t have to pay you. Or I might kill you anyway and he still doesn’t have to pay you. You’ve been arrested and achieved absolutely nothing. And you told me he was treacherous.’

  Collins closed his eyes and put his head back on the pillows.

  ‘All the intelligence about the village came courtesy of Marlene Judd, I suppose,’ Patrick continued.

  ‘“That
stupid bitch”, O’Connor calls her. I don’t know; I’ve never met her. But it would figure. He said she’s the sort of person who hates everyone.’ He yawned. ‘I think she’s next on the list. Then he won’t have to give her any of Freddy the Bent’s money.’

  ‘Do you actually know where that is?’

  ‘It’s where O’Connor is. He told her he was putting it in a very safe place. I can’t imagine why she trusted him.’

  It’s called desperation, I thought.

  ‘And you reckon she’s next on the list?’ I said. The man obviously had no idea she had been taken into custody.

  ‘He said so himself. I think he’s going to chuck her off a bridge somewhere in a sack weighted with bricks.’ He chuckled.

  ‘Before he starts on the Met cops?’

  He stared at me. ‘Did I mention that the other day?’

  ‘You did.’

  ‘No idea. But probably.’

  ‘D’you have details of that?’

  ‘No. Do I have to talk to you for much longer?’

  I ignored the question. ‘In the pub you also mentioned a deal you hoped to do with us. Were you offering to lead the police to O’Connor in exchange for your freedom or would you just have indicated where he could be found?’

  A crafty look came over the man’s face. ‘Is there a deal to be done now?’

  ‘No, and you know what happened last time,’ I retorted.

  ‘You lied to me. You said you were a sort of go-between.’

  ‘I have sometimes acted as a go-between. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to do something about it if you threaten to kill my husband.’

  ‘What if I turn Queen’s evidence?

  ‘I haven’t the authority to make that decision,’ Patrick said abruptly. ‘Answer the question. Was what in your mind when you suggested a deal?’

  ‘I would have led you to where he is,’ Collins replied after a short pause.

  ‘Into a trap.’

  Another yawn. ‘He does seem to have a bit of a thing about you.’

  ‘You realize we would both have probably died in a hail of bullets.’