Cover Up

by Patricia Hall

  ‘There’s only one thing wrong with that as a strategy and it’s the thing you should remember better than anyone,’ Barnard said, angry now. ‘It wasn’t just Doreen Darcy who got hurt that night. Somewhere in the middle of that nasty little business going on at Dolphin Square was a child. He was frightened and hurt to gratify some evil bastards. If DCI Jackson tells me there’s going to be a serious investigation into what’s going on at this end as well as in Liverpool, then I’ll opt out if I’m told to. But if not, if there’s a cover-up because this involves important people who believe they can do as they like, even get away with murder, then I won’t back off. One way or another, I’ll nail them.’

  ‘I think you’re taking a dreadful risk if you try to do that without your boss behind you,’ Kate said, feeling hollow inside.

  Barnard sighed, then pulled her towards him and gave her a tentative kiss. To which she responded hungrily, in spite of her fears.

  ‘Forget all this and come to bed,’ he whispered. ‘It’s been too long.’ And clinging to each other like shipwrecked mariners struggling to shore, they went into the bedroom and pulled the blinds closed, shutting out the threatening sky.

  Next morning Barnard dropped Kate off at the Ken Fellows Agency just before nine, just in time to take the call she expected from the man in the grey suit. She answered him with more confidence this time. Harry, she told him, had been talking to DCI Jackson the night before but she had no idea what about.

  ‘You might as well pack this in,’ she said. ‘I’ve told you, he doesn’t discuss work with me and I don’t ask him. If you want to know what he’s working on, why don’t you ask his boss?’

  ‘Thank you, Miss O’Donnell,’ the voice said, ‘We’ll let you know when we no longer need you. Just keep focused on your brother’s situation as well as Sergeant Barnard’s.’

  He hung up before she could respond, and she had to disguise her fury when Ken Fellows emerged from his office with a rare smile and headed in her direction.

  ‘I’ve just had a call from Derek Matthews,’ he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. ‘He’s very pleased with your portfolio and is already getting it set up for the next edition. He just has a couple of questions about the captions.’ He handed her a piece of paper with a few scribbled notes on it. ‘If you check these queries out and get back to him by the end of the day, then we’re all systems go. Well done, Kate. I’m really pleased.’

  Kate was suddenly aware that she was being watched by the three male colleagues who were preparing to go out on assignment and that their expressions were uniformly hostile. She flashed a beaming smile at them before turning back to Ken.

  ‘Lady photographers aren’t such a waste of space as you feared, then?’

  ‘Not in your case, anyway,’ her boss said. And she knew she would have to be content with that.

  She was soon alone in the office and began to answer the magazine’s queries, most of which were easy enough to deal with. But when it came to a request for more details about Terry Jordan’s involvement in the regeneration of the city she picked up the phone and called the Liverpool Echo in search of some information from her helpful contact there.

  Liam Minogue picked up the phone quickly. ‘Hello Kate,’ he said, sounding slightly surprised, but pleased to hear her voice. ‘I was only thinking about you this morning and wondering how your project is going.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ Kate said. ‘Why was that?’

  ‘Well, the city’s alive with rumours about Terry Jordan. Apparently he’s landed some massive contract in London to build a new town near Runcorn. You remember Billy Jones, our municipal man? I was talking to him this morning and he says Macdonald-Jordan Construction have got a press conference laid on at the end of the week. Jordan will apparently be back by then and will be announcing all the details. At this rate he’ll be even more of a local hero than he was during the war. You might want to put something in your captions so they’ll be right up to date. It sounds as if the Catholic Church stands to benefit too – more money for Paddy’s Wigwam, perhaps. Apparently, they own some land that will be needed.’

  So that’s why Jordan was travelling with Father Dominic to meetings in Whitehall, Kate thought. If Jordan was already a benefactor, no doubt hoping to bank credit in heaven as well as on Merseyside, she could imagine how interested the Catholic hierarchy would be in his sudden good fortune, which would affect them too.

  ‘Funding for another strut for the crown, maybe?’

  ‘I didn’t realize you were that bitter,’ Minogue said, sounding shocked.

  ‘You have no idea, Liam,’ Kate said quietly, surprised at how deeply she had been affected by the last few days and the memories of Father Jerome that had been stirred up by the small boy in Dolphin Square. But that was not something she intended to share with the Liverpool Echo, even if she thought for a moment they would print it. ‘Could you give me a call when you know exactly when the press conference is going to be? I’ll tell Topic magazine what’s going on at your end. I’m sure they’ll want to include a mention in the captions to bring them up to date. I might even get another trip out of it.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, there is something else that may interest you,’ Minogue said. ‘There’re always lots of rumours floating about, but the latest one Billy Jones whispered in my ear was a bit of a surprise. He told me Terry Jordan was likely to be arrested because someone has dug out proof he’s been lining the pockets of planners to get contracts. I’m sure your friend DCI Strachan would love to haul him down the Bridewell to talk about that. I’m not absolutely sure that Billy himself may not have done some of the digging now control of the Corporation has changed. He wouldn’t have wanted to embarrass his Tory mates, but he’d be keen to do down both the new lot and Jordan if he could. These things are difficult to prove and the editor won’t want a libel writ flying through the door, so the story would have to be cast-iron to get into the paper. In any case, if it’s true that Jordan’s the flavour of the month with the planners in Whitehall, then perhaps the idea has sunk without trace. Surely Whitehall would know about it if Jordan has a dodgy past! Anyway, Kate, good to hear from you again and I’ll let you know if and when the press conference is supposed to be.’

  Barnard belted down the stairs and out of the main door of the nick, hands clenched, face pale, and his whole body rigid with anger. He hurried across Regent Street and through the narrower alleys of Soho, with his jacket over his shoulder and sweat staining the back of his shirt, at a pace that alarmed the shoppers and tourists packing the pavements, seeking souvenirs or lunch or just a grandstand view of the alleged dens of vice that were the area’s trademark, even though they were mainly locked up and barred at this time of day. When he had dodged his way through the startled crowds and reached the photo agency in Frith Street where Kate worked, he lurched into the dark lobby, took the stairs two at a time, and flung open the main door without ceremony.

  ‘Is Kate O’Donnell in?’ he asked loudly, putting his head round the door to the photographers’ room, but he could see immediately that her desk was deserted.

  ‘She’s gone with Ken to Topic magazine,’ one of the two men who were at their desks said. ‘I think they are having lunch there. She gets all the treats. All we need to know is what she gives in return.’ For a moment Barnard was severely tempted to hit the man, but retained enough self-control to realize that would not be a very good idea.

  ‘Damn!’ Barnard muttered, knowing he should have phoned first. He took a deep breath and brushed the sweat out of his eyes as he tried to decide where to go next to calm the demons that had flung themselves at him across DCI Jackson’s desk ten minutes earlier. The DCI had sent for him halfway through the morning and not asked him to sit down when he came in, which Barnard knew was an ominous sign.

  ‘I’ve consulted the Yard,’ Jackson said, his face impassive. ‘They have decided to take over the investigation into the death of the woman in Soho Square. As they rightly say, she was not ki
lled there, Soho was just a convenient place to dump her. So, as the inquiry will be Londonwide, they will appoint a senior officer at the Yard to handle it. They also pointed out in no uncertain terms that your inquiries in Pimlico were outside our jurisdiction and must stop immediately. And don’t imagine that you can use your energetic girlfriend as any sort of proxy down there, either. They will hold you responsible for any interference she is involved in, and you will risk being suspended or worse. Is that understood, Sergeant? You – we – are to leave it well alone.’

  Barnard’s mouth had gone so dry that he was almost unable to respond, but as he fought for breath he managed a strangled sound which could have passed for assent.

  ‘You can pass any evidence you have collected to me and I will pass it on,’ Jackson said, avoiding Barnard’s eye. ‘And give me a full report by lunchtime on every aspect of the case, or cases, that you have in statement form.’

  ‘Sir,’ Barnard said, finding his voice at last but unable to hide the outrage he felt. ‘Does this mean the victim wasn’t who we think she was? Or is someone doing a massive cover-up?’

  ‘I think you should get back to work, Sergeant, before you say something you will really regret.’ After looking at his boss for a second for some sign of emotion, and finding none, Barnard turned on his heel and left. He picked up his jacket from the CID room, wanting to talk to Kate urgently, only too able to predict her anger at this unexpected turn of events and wondering how far he would be able to deter her from following her heart rather than her head. If he wanted to keep his job, he had no choice. But Kate was a different matter, and he was not at all sure how she would react.

  Still rooted to the spot outside the Fellows agency, he was surprised to see Evie Renton weaving her way down the street towards him, slightly unsteady on her feet. She looked startled when she saw Barnard, and there was no welcome in her smile as she stopped beside him.

  ‘Well, your mates from Pimlico came to see me at crack of dawn,’ she said angrily. ‘Bloody charming they were. Almost broke the door down when I didn’t answer fast enough.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I did try to warn you,’ Barnard said. ‘What did they ask you?’

  ‘All sorts of stuff about you, about me, whether I paid you to leave me alone. They were digging for dirt. And then, how did I know Alicia? And what did I know about where she used to work? I told them I thought it was Dolphin Square but I wasn’t sure. And did I know who the dead woman in Soho Square was? And why did I think she wasn’t on the game? They went on and on, Harry, and I had to answer them. They said they’d put me in Holloway for years if I didn’t cooperate.’

  Barnard put an arm awkwardly around Evie’s thin shoulders and could feel her shaking as he turned her back in the direction of her flat.

  ‘Come on, we’ll go back to your place,’ he said. ‘It’s all over now. Scotland Yard have taken over the case, no doubt working with the Pimlico detectives, and I’m not on the case anymore. I’m sorry I got you involved.’ She led him up the stairs to her room and flung herself into the only comfortable chair, beside the unmade bed. For the first time in all the years he’d known her she allowed herself to cry.

  ‘Did DCI Buxton turn up personally?’ he asked. ‘That man is a bully and probably bent as a corkscrew, though I’ve no way of proving it now.’

  ‘Oh yes, it was him and a sergeant, detectives both of them,’ she said.

  ‘They’ve already interviewed me as a suspect because I talked to Alicia the day she was killed, so I know just what thugs they are. Can I get you a drink of something? Coffee? Something stronger?’

  ‘There’s a bottle of Scotch under the sink by the bleach,’ Evie said with a half-smile. ‘Might cheer us both up.’

  ‘Sounds like an excellent idea,’ Barnard said. ‘Then I suppose I’ll have to go back to the nick, and hand over all the evidence to the Yard and toe the line. I don’t seem to have much choice.’

  NINETEEN

  Kate O’Donnell woke up in pitch darkness with a splitting headache that felt as if it had taken over her whole consciousness. She could hardly think coherently but knew she was not anywhere she recognized: the air felt cold and damp and had a musty smell, like in a long-closed cellar. She lay for what felt like a long time with her eyes shut, then reached out tentative hands to see what she could feel around her. She seemed to be half-covered with a rough and scratchy blanket and to be lying on a hard surface, with a wall to her left and a drop on the other side. She could be on a bed or even a table, but with no indication of how high she was above the floor she didn’t dare risk moving far; and when she rolled over slightly the blanket slithered away and, although she reached over the edge as far as she dared, she found no way of retrieving it. She carefully inched into a foetal position and wrapped her arms around herself in a not very effective attempt to keep warm, but soon began to shiver.

  After keeping her eyes closed for a while, the headache slowly began to recede and she began to focus on other discomforts. Her mouth was very dry and in a moment of blind panic she wondered if she had been left to die of thirst. She took deep breaths and told herself that she would soon be missed, and Harry Barnard would move mountains to find her. But in the inky darkness she even had trouble persuading herself of that.

  She tried to think back to what she could remember before the darkness descended. It had seemed a normal enough day, even a good day. She recalled Ken Fellows taking her to meet the staff at Topic magazine, where the work she had done for them was welcomed enthusiastically and she watched the page proofs for the feature being put together. She remembered filling them in on what Liam Minogue had told her about Terry Jordan’s latest success in the building trade, and she remembered having lunch with some of the staff in a little Italian restaurant, close to their offices off Kingsway, and the talk turning to the possibility of other commissions in the future. In an expansive mood, Ken had hailed a taxi to take them back to Soho and she remembered following him up the stairs to the office, feeling slightly muzzy after an unaccustomed three glasses of wine over lunch.

  But after that her memory was hazy. She would normally have waited for Harry to pick her up around five, but she had no idea whether or not that had happened. Sometime towards the end of the afternoon this blackness had descended, but she had no idea when or how she had come to this place of terrifying cold and silence and pitch dark.

  As usual, Barnard drove back to Frith Street at about five thirty and parked half on the pavement opposite the Fellows agency to wait for Kate, leaving just enough space for black cabs to slide through the gap and earning a few curses from their drivers as he sat there smoking patiently.

  By about a quarter to six, when Kate had not come flying down the stairs at the end of the day as she usually did, he got impatient and, leaving the car badly parked, made his way for the second time that day up the stairs to her office, where he met Ken Fellows coming out.

  ‘Is Kate still busy?’ he asked her boss, not disguising the impatience in his voice.

  ‘Didn’t she let you know she was going home?’ Fellows said. ‘We had a slightly boozy lunch and she didn’t look too good, so I told her to get a cab about four o’clock. She was lucky, she picked one up right outside. I happened to be looking out of the window just after she left and actually saw her get into it.’

  A worm of anxiety infiltrated Barnard’s brain as he turned on his heel with a curt thanks to Fellows and headed down the stairs and into his car. There was no need to worry, he told himself, Kate had felt unwell so it was not really surprising that she hadn’t called him. No doubt he would find her in bed at the flat, sleeping off the overindulgent celebration she’d shared with her boss. Or maybe not, he thought as he accelerated into Oxford Street and headed north through the rush-hour traffic, attracting hoots and fist-waving from other drivers as he took chances at every junction and set of lights he came to.

  He parked carelessly outside his block of flats and hurried indoors with his anxiety now at fever pitch.
As soon as he opened his front door he could tell, from the silence, that the flat was empty. Clinging to the hope that perhaps she had gone back to her own flat in Shepherd’s Bush for some reason, he rang that number and the phone was quickly answered by Tess.

  ‘Has Kate come back to your place?’ he asked peremptorily.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Were you expecting her to?’ He could hear the surprise in Tess’s voice and it confirmed his worst fears.

  ‘Not really,’ Barnard said, his voice strained. ‘I’ll track her down. But if she does turn up, ask her to give me a ring, would you?’

  ‘Harry …’ He heard Tess speak but had hung up too quickly to hear what she had begun to say. He poured himself a generous Scotch, downed it in one, and called the nick to report Kate missing. Panic stricken, he wondered if he would ever see her alive again. And if a hair of her head was hurt, how he would ever forgive himself.

  The scalding white light came on without warning, illuminating what turned out to be a windowless room with stone walls and a stone floor, the only furniture the narrow bed on which Kate discovered she had been lying. She turned her head away from the dazzle, which was making her thumping headache worse, and put a hand over her eyes, barely able to see the two men standing over her. When one of them spoke, she instantly recognized the voice of the man in the grey suit who had bullied her into a promise to spy on Harry Barnard, a promise she had not strictly kept.

  ‘You’re awake, my dear,’ the man said almost solicitously, although she recognized the touch of steel behind the concern. ‘I’m sorry we could not issue a more conventional invitation to our chat, but the situation had become urgent. We needed you here quickly and there was not time for any objections on your part.’

  ‘Who are you?’ Kate asked angrily, turning away from the wall and putting her feet tentatively on the floor, though lacking the confidence to actually stand yet. The man was still wearing the same crumpled suit and glasses; if she had passed him casually in the street she would barely have noticed him, so insignificant did he appear. His companion looked more threatening: broad-shouldered and long-armed, with a bull-like neck and the same stone-cold eyes. He was obviously his inferior in some way – just muscle, she thought, although why his boss needed it she didn’t dare imagine. With her thumping headache and still disoriented senses, she would scarcely have presented a threat to a reasonably healthy five-year-old.