‘So, Craig,’ Geoff said, having topped up Sam’s raki glass. ‘Any more developments with the gangland symbol?’
‘Not really,’ Craig said. ‘Like you say, the symbol sprayed on the door frame could mean anything. I’m a bit more concerned about an Albanian-speaking intruder wandering about on the lawns when there are two young children in the house.’
‘What’s this about?’ Madeleine asked. Geoff had clearly not mentioned anything, so Gillard explained the basics of the case without identifying Colsham Manor or naming the Lund family. ‘So we’ve got all these Albanian folklore symbols popping up – an effigy of the youngest child hung from a noose, for example – which is frightening the life out of the adoptive parents.’
‘How awful. It sounds like a campaign of harassment, rather than an attempt to actually harm the children,’ Madeleine said. ‘Could it be someone trying to scare them?’
‘Well, there is a feud going on with a female neighbour, which rather complicates matters. But I’m pretty sure she doesn’t speak Albanian,’ Gillard said.
‘But poor Craig, he’s so bloody diligent,’ Sam interrupted ‘He’s up to his neck in this shooting in Kingston, but this woman keeps ringing him up, doesn’t she?’
‘Yes, but I’m not taking her calls any more,’ Craig replied. ‘Much too busy with the Peter Young case.’
‘Maybe she’s a stalker herself?’ Meadows said.
‘I wouldn’t be surprised,’ Sam laughed. ‘Women are always making passes at you, aren’t they?’ She leaned across the table and caressed his cheek.
‘I wouldn’t say always,’ Craig muttered. ‘The odd one or two.’
‘But get this,’ Sam said, warming to her theme. ‘The ladies’ toilet at Mount Browne is full of graffiti about him. Some of it is really explicit!’
‘I’m told most of it was painted out some time ago,’ Craig said, noting how two glasses of raki, on top of the wine served earlier, had lowered Sam’s inhibitions.
‘Wasn’t there a suspicion that Alison Rigby had written some?’ Sam asked, enjoying the discomfort she had caused her husband.
Craig laughed to cover his embarrassment. ‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘I wish someone had written graffiti about me,’ Meadows said morosely, passing around the cheese biscuits.
‘Well, Geoff, you did get some once,’ Madeleine said. ‘That little chap you put away for robbing the Co-op found out where we lived and spray-painted “wanker” across the caravan, didn’t he?’
‘Yes, Maddy, not quite the same.’
* * *
Sophie sat bolt upright in bed, sure she had heard the sound of breaking glass. The clock showed 2.27 a.m. and Balfour was howling. He was usually a terrible guard dog. He slept on a blanket in the boot room, and it was rare for him to be woken up. But his barking sounded urgent and angry, as if he was face-to-face with an intruder. A Tuesday again, and as before Dag was away. Through the baby monitor she heard Amber calling for her. By the time she had thrown on some clothes, Estela had arrived. ‘What’s happening?’ she asked.
‘I think we have another intruder.’
Sophie reached under her bed and pulled out a long wooden box that she’d only put there a few days ago. ‘Estela, take the children, go downstairs to the safe room and lock the door. When you are in there, ring Michael, get him to call the police.
‘Why, where are you going?’
Sophie laid the heavy box on the bed and opened the lid to reveal a shotgun and a box of cartridges.
‘I’m going after him.’
Estela looked on in horror as Sophie cracked the gun and inserted two cartridges into the barrels. ‘Mrs Lund, are you going to shoot him?’
‘Only if I have to. I certainly want to scare him, just as he’s scared me.’ With that, Sophie took the loaded shotgun, strode out of the room and raced downstairs, calling for the dog. She realized that she hadn’t heard him for a couple of minutes. She flipped on every light switch she passed before reaching the ground floor, then moving along the panelled grandeur of the hallway, her boots clicking on the polished wooden boards. ‘Balfour, I’m coming,’ she whispered to herself. She took a short flight of stairs down to the back kitchen, where once again she could hear the dog, whining and whimpering, and the sound of some kind of struggle. With a crack, she closed the gun. ‘Whoever is in there, back away! I’m coming in!’ she said. She had never fired a gun in her life, and now wished she had done a little training. The sound of struggle intensified. She turned the handle and burst in. The back door to the outside was open, cold air had flooded the room.
Balfour!
The dog had been hung up by his lead, clipped to his collar then looped onto the coat rack. His rear paws, scrabbling wildly, were unable to reach the ground. He was gradually being strangled.
‘Oh, Balfour,’ she sobbed, as she laid the gun on a table and released the red setter from his torment. The animal was delighted to be freed, whining and yelping with joy.
Nearby there came the sound of a car engine starting, then revving. Balfour began whimpering and barking wildly. Sophie grabbed the gun and a set of keys from the wall, then ran out into the yard. It was a blustery night, chill with the promise of rain. She could clearly see the rear lights of a large car, one she didn’t recognise, already a hundred yards away, making its way down the back lane towards Tithe Lane.
Sophie was seething with anger. She knew there would be clues on the CCTV to what had happened, but she couldn’t face being patronized again by some male policeman who considered her a hysteric. Thanks to the preparations she had made, the borrowed shotgun, ostensibly for killing rabbits, she was damn well going to get the evidence she needed. Before she hadn’t been believed, but now she would be, and vindicated too. ‘Come on, Balfour,’ she said, and ran with the dog towards the stable block. She flipped on the lights and heard the soft whicker of Caramelo. From the tack room she grabbed the horse’s saddle and bridle. She flipped a soft numnah over the animal’s back, following it with the saddle which she cinched carefully at the girth. Once the bit was in Caramelo’s mouth she eased the bridle over her ears, fastening the throat lash and noseband. She led the horse out into the darkness, slung the shotgun by its strap across her shoulders, then heaved herself up onto the animal’s warm back.
She could still hear the car, but where the rough and potholed lane curved right only the faintest red glow of retreating lights filtered through the undergrowth. The intruder may have a three-minute start on her, but that didn’t matter. One benefit of the ongoing row with Geraldine Hinchcliffe had been that the mile-long lane had been allowed to deteriorate because they couldn’t agree on how to split the cost of repair. Sophie knew a faster, more direct route. It might be 15 years since she had last competed in a three-day event, but with a little luck over the gates she knew she could cut the intruder off before the main road.
Sophie geed the horse up and let her canter across to the south paddock, with Balfour in pursuit. The gate was open and now, with the wind lashing her and fury in her heart, Sophie was ready for pursuit. No one comes to my home and threatens my children. Whoever you are, I am not afraid of you. Caramelo lengthened her stride and snorted with joy to be encouraged to race unconstrained. Sophie couldn’t remember the last time she had galloped in darkness, and she felt as one with this wonderful animal. The speed felt incredible, far faster than it would have done in daylight. It was only because Caramelo knew the route so well, this being one of their regular hacks, that she had the confidence to let the horse have its head. The first gate, a leaning aluminium affair, she saw glinting a few dozen yards ahead. Caramelo gathered herself, altering stride, ears forward in concentration. The exhilaration of the lift, the soaring stretch and the mud-splattering landing in the field beyond drew a roar of encouragement from Sophie. Caramelo thundered along the edge of a field next to a blackthorn hedge, aimed left for the mown ride through South Meadow thicket and tore up the rise to a stark ash, long dead from a ligh
tning strike. The next jump, a stile oblique to the bridleway, Caramelo took effortlessly after a flying change, while Balfour followed behind, taking it in a single leap.
In the distance, the clouds were basted in the orange light of Haslemere ten miles away and the only sound was a motorbike in the distance. A few hundred yards ahead was Tithe Lane, the lights of a vehicle approaching fast from the right. She had expected to be there long before, but it would actually be touch and go. Sophie urged Caramelo to cross this last field at full pelt, the only remaining barrier a long-ago felled sycamore, put in place to prevent traveller caravans coming onto the field. The mare stretched her limbs and took the tree trunk easily, and Sophie pulled her up short, just before the tarmac of the carriageway. Sophie turned the horse face-on to the car, unslung the shotgun and now, bathed in the headlights of the onrushing vehicle, aimed the gun into the glare.
Chapter 16
The car screeched to a halt 30 yards away. Sophie kept the gun pointing at the windscreen while she dismounted. The passenger-side door was flung open. The person who emerged was familiar.
‘Don’t you wave that bloody gun at me, Sophie.’
It was Geraldine Hinchcliffe.
‘What were you doing breaking into my house?’ Sophie said, the gun still levelled at her neighbour.
At this point the driver-side door opened. The tall woman who had savaged Sophie’s leylandii emerged. She thought her name was Alison something. ‘Please put the gun down, Mrs Lund,’ Alison Rigby said as if talking to a naughty child. ‘Possession of a firearm in a public place with intent to endanger life carries a minimum tariff of five years in jail. I take it you have a licence for it?’
‘You can bugger off,’ Sophie said, and fired at the front of the car. The blast tore across the night sky, shattering the car’s headlamps and throwing them all into darkness. The noise set Balfour off into a torrent of barking, while behind her the horse skittered, and edged backwards towards the hedge.
‘Will you calm down!’ Alison bellowed, clearly aghast at the damage caused to her vehicle.
‘You’re a madwoman,’ Geraldine said to Sophie. ‘We were pursuing an intruder, who smashed a window and got into the pottery. Now he’ll have got away.’
‘The only car I saw was yours,’ Sophie said accusingly as she cracked open the gun and removed the unused cartridge.
‘We were in pursuit of an intruder who, after breaking and entering into the pottery, effected his escape on a motorcycle,’ Alison said. She raised a mobile phone, tapped out a number, put it to her ear and began to issue orders.
‘You’re a cop, aren’t you?’ Sophie said. ‘I recognise that bureaucratic way of speaking from PC Kerrigan.’
‘Yes I am, and you, madam, are shortly going to be under arrest.’
As if by magic, it was only a minute or two before the blue lights of a police vehicle could be seen approaching on the main road half a mile away.
* * *
By next morning the police grapevine was abuzz with rumours about what had already been dubbed the Gunfight at the Lesbo Corral. ‘I heard that it was the chief constable’s ex, trying to bump off her new squeeze,’ Carl Hoskins sniggered to Gillard as he helped himself to coffee from a thermos flask in the Khazi. It was probably the last day before the mobile incident room was removed, there no longer being enough local evidence on the Peter Young murder case to justify it. With the investigation being scaled down, the two detective constables were happy to switch their attention to the latest gossip.
The detective chief inspector grinned, but said nothing. He had just received a text from the chief constable herself, asking him to ring her office immediately. Gillard scanned the message dubiously and excused himself. He walked out of the Portakabin and down a residential side street where there was less noise. She picked up the phone on the first ring.
‘Craig, good to speak to you. I’ve no doubt you’ve heard all about what happened last night.’
‘Only the rumours, ma’am.’
‘I shan’t bother to regale you with my side of the story. I shall be stepping aside in the interests of transparency and bringing in a senior officer from a neighbouring force to investigate whether or not to bring firearm charges against Mrs Lund. For my part, I wouldn’t take matters any further, despite the damage to my car, but it is right that it should not be my decision to make.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘There is, however, an underlying case here which I would like you to look into, as it’s got well beyond PC Kerrigan’s ability. There certainly was an intruder last night, who seems to have broken into the Manor as well as Geraldine’s pottery, so I don’t think we can assume that Mrs Lund was imagining things. As there seem to be no fresh developments on the Peter Young case, you can hand that off to DI Mulholland for now.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Geraldine will be available for interview at 11 at the Little Pottery.’ She hung up.
Gillard was well used to the chief constable’s control-freakery, but this was something else. She was again trusting him to investigate matters touching on her relationship, and to keep his own counsel about what he found.
10.50 a.m. Tuesday
Gillard bumped and crunched his unmarked Ford Focus up the back lane leading to Colsham Manor, working his way around the deep ruts and puddles. He parked by some outbuildings and followed hand-painted tiles which gave directions to the Little Pottery. Geraldine Hinchcliffe saw him before he had knocked, and let him in.
‘Hello again, Chief Inspector, good to see you. You come highly recommended.’
‘Thank you.’ Gillard didn’t quite appreciate feeling like a tradesman.
‘Where have you parked?’ she asked, peering out. Gillard pointed to his car. ‘Oh that’s all right, then – it’s just that her ladyship can get quite upset if you’re in “the wrong place”.’ She whispered the words as if expecting to be overheard.
‘I take it a fingerprint technician came earlier?’ Gillard asked.
‘Yes. He didn’t seem very optimistic, he thinks the intruder wore gloves. But there is broken glass.’ She led him to a glass-panelled side door which had clearly been forced. ‘This is where he came in,’ Geraldine said. ‘I don’t think he meant to break such a large pane of glass. It fell and smashed a vase.’ She pointed to the shards. ‘I would have been terribly frightened had not Ali been with me. She is so terribly capable, you know. Did you know she is a black belt in karate?’
‘No, I didn’t. She’s very senior to me, so I don’t get to hear about that kind of thing.’
‘My goodness, she’s so terribly impressive. She once smashed a pile of old slates with a single chop from her hand.’ Geraldine’s face lit up at this display of prowess. ‘If the burglar had got into the house itself, I wouldn’t have rated his chances.’ She made a chopping gesture with her own slim arm.
‘I think we should all be glad that it didn’t come to that.’
Gillard couldn’t help but notice a large amethyst ring on Geraldine’s engagement finger and a double-heart locket around her wrist. He couldn’t help thinking what his fellow male officers would make of this. But it remained his secret to keep.
Plied with ginger biscuits and a large, somewhat misshapen mug of coffee, the DCI took down the timings and details of the previous night’s events. He had to stop Geraldine telling him about the confrontation with Sophie Lund on the lane. ‘That has to be dealt with by another officer,’ he explained.
‘Oh why, for goodness’ sake?’
‘Precisely because Ms Rigby is so senior in the Surrey force, it could look like she is exerting pressure for a particular outcome. Justice has to be seen to be done, and in this case by a senior officer from another force who doesn’t answer to her.’
‘Well, I hope they lock the Lund woman up. She is absolutely bonkers. Even worse than my ex-husband, if that were possible.’
Anxious to wrap the interview up, Gillard asked if there was anything else about t
he break-in that they hadn’t covered.
‘Oh, there is this,’ Geraldine said, leading him back into the pottery itself. ‘I meant to mention it to the fingerprint chappie but forgot. But I put my marigolds on then slid it carefully into a paper bag, just like they do on Silent Witness.’ She giggled and handed him an A2-sized padded envelope. He peered inside and, after donning a latex glove, removed the object so he could look at it. It was a cheap plastic doll, around 15 inches high, missing an eye and dressed in a frilly pink dress. Overall it was a little grubby and a small hole had been punched forcefully right through its torso, while on its forehead was a burn mark about two inches across.
He recognised the mark.
Gillard pulled out his iPad and checked back for the photograph that Sophie Lund had taken of the stencilled graffito on the frame of the stable block. They looked quite similar.
‘Where did you find the doll?’ Gillard asked.
‘It was hanging up here, in the window of the pottery. Suspended by the neck on a piece of wire.’
‘Have you mentioned it to Sophie Lund?’
‘No. I mean, we’re not really on speaking terms.’
‘Good. Keep it to yourself – she’s got a young daughter and it would terrify her.’
‘Don’t worry, Detective Chief Inspector. You don’t need to have a young child to be terrified by this. We’re all bloody terrified.’
Gillard nodded. If Geraldine Hinchcliffe knew that the symbol on the doll was the calling card of the worst mafia in Albania, she would really learn what terror was. The hole through the doll’s body he was pretty sure had been made by a bullet.
* * *
Gillard had hoped to be able to speak to Mrs Lund herself, but she was in London all day. However, Michael Tolling, the estate manager, had agreed to meet him.
‘Detective Chief Inspector, so nice to meet you,’ he began suavely.
The Body on the Shore Page 11