For once, Alex wasn’t too quick to contradict Garrett. ‘Do I really need to be there, Harry? They don’t usually have field agents at these kinds of events.’
‘You’re my top operative,’ Rumble insisted. ‘And besides, this is no ordinary meeting.’ He turned to Garrett, who was trembling with indignation. ‘You’ll be there too, Xavier.’
Garrett smiled smugly, and relented right away.
As Alex left Rumble’s office and headed out of the building, she had other things on her mind than waste-of-time conferences with a bunch of stuffed shirts and bureaucrats. She was thinking back to the young guy Dec Maddon, and his wild story of a big house where a girl had been slaughtered by vampires. As she walked to the Jag, she took out her phone.
‘Thames Valley Police,’ said the breezy female voice on the other end.
‘Is DI Solomon available, please?’ Alex asked.
‘One moment.’ A pause. ‘I’m afraid he’s not at his desk. May I ask who’s calling?’
But Alex was already turning off the phone and getting in the car.
Chapter Forty
Lavender Close, Wallingford
12.16 p.m.
Gillian Hawthorne parked the Rover 75 in the drive before carrying the Sainsbury’s shopping bags round the passage to the back door, the way she always did.
‘Mrs Hawthorne?’
Gillian turned. She let out a loud huff when she saw Dec Maddon approaching from next door.
‘What do you want?’ she snapped. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be in prison or something?’
‘I want to see Kate,’ he said.
‘Do you indeed? No chance.’
‘Is she all right?’
‘That’s no concern of yours.’ Gillian turned her back on him and continued up the path.
‘I’ve got to see her,’ he yelled after her.
She wheeled around. ‘You’ve caused enough trouble as it is. Stay away from my daughter, or I’ll have the police down on you again. And don’t forget that Kate’s father is a solicitor.’
‘Please, Mrs Hawthorne—’
‘Get lost.’ Gillian stomped round the back of the house, leaving him standing there looking forlorn. As she turned the key in the back door lock she glanced up at Kate’s bedroom window. The curtains were still tightly closed.
Dumping the shopping bags on the kitchen surface, she turned on the grill, opened the pack of sirloin steak and sliced some bread. When the steak sandwich was prepared, she laid the plate on a tray with a glass of milk and carried it up the stairs. Balancing the tray on one hand, she turned the handle of Kate’s door and went inside.
Her daughter was still lying in bed, on her side with her back to the door and the duvet pulled up tightly around her neck. It was dark, and the air in the room was stale. Gillian felt like pulling back the curtains and throwing open the window, but thought better of it. She laid the tray down on the bedside table.
‘Kate, I brought you something to eat.’
No response.
‘Come on, darling. Dr Andrews said you needed to get something down you.’
Kate didn’t reply.
‘For God’s sake, I’ve just cooked this specially for you. I know you’re not feeling yourself, but I’m getting a little tired of this routine.’ She reached out to shake Kate’s shoulder.
Dr Andrews was the first to get the call.
‘I’m sending an ambulance,’ he told the hysterical mother once he’d drawn a breath and collected himself from the shock of the news. ‘And I’m on my way.’
And minutes later there were sirens and flashing blue lights all over Lavender Close and Dec Maddon standing there in the middle of it all screaming what’s happened? What’s happened?
Chapter Forty-One
Seymour Finch was in the gazebo, staring across Crowmoor Hall’s grounds at the river beyond and deep in thought, when he felt the presence and turned to see the young police inspector walking across the lawn towards him.
‘What a surprise, Inspector. I didn’t think we’d be seeing you again quite so soon. I’ve just been talking to the valuation people at Sotheby’s, by the way. You can expect to receive our invoice for damages shortly.’
‘Enough crap, Finch.’ Joel strode up the gazebo steps and looked the man in the eye. ‘You and I are going to have a talk.’
Finch’s gaunt face crinkled into a dry smile. ‘Splendid. And what will the topic of our conversation be?’
‘You’re going to tell me the truth,’ Joel said. ‘You’re going to show me how you open that hidden passage in the ballroom. And then you’re going to take me down to the crypt. I know it’s there.’
Finch’s smile widened to a grin, and then he gave a mirthless laugh, like the sound of sawing wood. ‘You do have a vivid imagination, Inspector. I thought the police only concerned themselves with the facts.’
‘Start talking.’
Finch shrugged. ‘Very well. If that’s what you want.’ He motioned down the gazebo steps. ‘This way, please.’
Joel looked warily at the man for a second or two, then started down the steps.
He hadn’t even reached the lawn before the flash of white light filled his head and he felt the wind explode from his lungs. The impact was like being hit by a train. The ground suddenly rushed up to meet his face, and then he felt nothing more.
The first thing Joel registered as the smudged blur of unconsciousness slowly faded back into light was the familiar, concerned face of Sam Carter peering down at him. The second thing he saw was the police officers and paramedics milling about the lawn.
And then he saw Finch.
Joel did a double-take.
Finch was sitting on the steps of the gazebo with a paramedic crouched by him, mopping blood off his face. He looked like he’d been in a serious fistfight, one eye blackened and puffy, lips split open, his teeth rimed with red, blood smeared over his bald crown.
‘You’ve really done it this time, haven’t you, Solomon?’ Carter muttered out of everyone else’s earshot.
‘I didn’t do anything.’
‘Love to say I believed you, Joel, but look at the guy. Have you lost your mind?’
‘I didn’t touch him.’
‘Then how did he get like that?’
‘I don’t know – someone else did it. Or he did it to himself.’
‘He says you attacked him. Says he had to defend himself and got lucky.’
Joel shook his head in protest, wincing at the pain that lanced through his skull. He felt as if he’d gone ten rounds with a heavyweight champ. It seemed impossible that Finch could have done this to him. And that was the whole problem, because there was no way anyone could see Finch as anything but the victim here.
‘No. I just came to ask him some more questions.’
Carter sighed. ‘You’re in deep shit. You know who Finch works for, don’t you?’
‘Yeah, yeah, I know who he works for.’
Finch looked like a frail old man as the paramedics escorted him into the ambulance. Joel watched as it drove away, and then it was him being escorted to the waiting police car.
Chapter Forty-Two
London docks
1.15 p.m.
Alex had to retrace her steps three times up and down the quayside before she felt certain of what she was seeing.
She hadn’t quite known what she was going to find when she returned to the wharf where the Anica was moored: the place swarming with police and forensics teams, maybe, everything sealed off with crime scene tape, dozens of people running around talking on radios. Or maybe the vessel would be much as she’d last seen it the night before – a floating graveyard of dismembered corpses that might, just might, offer up some kind of clue about the vampire attackers who’d ambushed them here, maybe even a lead that could guide her all the way back to the mysterious Gabriel Stone. She knew that might be too much to hope for. Stone seemed like a guy who’d had a lot of practice in covering his tracks.
But she
hadn’t expected to find this.
An empty space where the Anica had been just the previous night. The ship was just gone.
‘Who’s helping you, Stone?’ she asked herself out loud as she gazed at the vacant mooring. ‘How are you making all this happen?’
The rathouse pub that was Paulie Lomax’s and his cousin Vinnie’s watering hole of choice wasn’t more than a fifteen-minute walk from the dock. Alex stepped inside the door to be greeted by the surly stares of a bunch of severely nicotine-stained, tattooed, hard-drinking individuals. There were a couple of wolf whistles as she made her way up towards the bar and one of the card players in the corner yelled out something obscene. She wondered whether it would be witty and appropriate just to take out the .44 Smith and blow the top of his head off; maybe, but that wasn’t going to help with the business at hand. Without turning round, she gave him the finger instead. She ignored the whooping and cheering, and walked up to the bar.
In a London that was almost completely homogenised by the inexorable rise of the plastic middle class and the sterile health-and-safety culture that seemed to be taking hold everywhere, she almost relished the spit and sawdust, sweat and grime of a place like this. It reminded her of the old days. You just didn’t want to be a woman back then.
The guy behind the bar was battered and grizzled and looked like he’d served his time in the boxing ring and lost just about every fight he’d been in. He grinned wolfishly and leaned on the pitted wood as she approached.
‘All right, darling. What can I do you for?’
‘I’m looking for Paulie Lomax.’
The grin dropped. ‘Paulie Lomax?’
‘Guy they call Four-Finger. And his friend Vinnie. You know them?’
‘Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t. One thing I do know, love, is that I don’t know you.’
‘Maybe you’ve heard of Rudi Bertolino?’ she said, returning his stare. ‘He’s a friend of mine.’
The barman shrugged. ‘You need to talk to Cheap Eddie. Through there.’ He motioned at a door in the corner.
On the other side was a dingy corridor. It was lit by a naked bulb encrusted with last summer’s dead bluebottles. There was another door at the end of the passage, and she went through it without knocking. Inside the room, a morbidly obese guy of about sixty was sitting on a worn armchair, reading a rumpled copy of the Racing Times with a fat stogie clamped between his teeth. The room stank of stale cigar smoke. He didn’t glance up as the door creaked open.
‘Can’t you fuckin’ knock, Terry?’
‘No wonder they call you Cheap Eddie,’ Alex said as she walked in and shut the door behind her. ‘That thing smells like shit. Or is it you?’
A brindled pit bull stalked out from behind the fat man’s armchair, locked eyes on Alex and drew its lips back in a snarl. Alex calmly turned to meet its gaze, and it whimpered and drew away with its tail curled up tight between its legs.
Cheap Eddie stared at the cowering animal, then up at Alex. He plucked the cigar out of his mouth. ‘What’ve you done to my dog?’
‘Nothing yet.’
His bloodshot eyes bulged. ‘Who the fuck are you?’
‘Someone who’ll go easy on you if I get the information I want.’
He scowled, then his stubbly face creased up into a laugh. ‘Oh yeah? And what information would that be, flowerpot?’
‘Like where I can find Four-Finger Paulie Lomax and his mate Vinnie.’
Eddie took a big puff of his cigar and blew a cloud of smoke at her. ‘Never heard of them.’
Alex didn’t blink at the billow of foul smoke around her face. ‘I don’t have time for smart guys, Eddie.’
‘I’m not sure I like your tone, sweetheart.’
‘Better get used to it,’ she said. She slipped the .44 out of its holster, took a step towards him. Grabbed him by the throat, yanked him towards her and stuffed the gun muzzle hard under his cheekbone. ‘I really hate repeating myself, Eddie.’
He struggled against her grip. Close on thirty stone of muscle and lard, lifted half out of his armchair, one-handed, by a woman a fraction his size, and he couldn’t budge her an inch. Beads of sweat formed on his brow.
‘Okay, okay. They was here a few nights ago. Haven’t seen ‘em since.’
‘See how well we’re getting on now? Who were they with?’
‘Bunch of foreigners. They were talking in the corner.’
‘That’s it?’
‘That’s all I remember.’
‘Sure?’ She cocked the gun.
Eddie went a shade paler. ‘Wait. Hold on. Later on, after closing time, I was stacking crates in the alley when I saw Paulie hanging about with this big black geezer and this woman.’
‘Good-looking woman with black hair?’
Eddie nodded. ‘Real corker. Looked like she stepped out of a lads’ mag.’
Alex thought hard. So Rudi Bertolino hadn’t betrayed her. He’d been used to feed her information that would lead her into a trap. But how had Stone’s people known he was her informant?
‘Where does Paulie live?’ she asked Cheap Eddie.
‘Harlesden somewhere.’
‘You’ll have to do better than that, Eddie.’
‘I don’t have the address, honest.’ He gulped. Sweat poured off his nose and through the white bristles over his upper lip. ‘But I can get it.’
Alex let him go, and he slumped back into his armchair, breathing hard. She holstered the revolver and grabbed his wrist and a ballpoint pen from his desk.
‘You call me on this number,’ she said as she wrote it across the back of his chubby hand. ‘I’d better hear from you, Eddie. And I’d better not find out you talked to anyone about our chat. Either way, I’ll be back here to finish it.’
Chapter Forty-Three
Thames Valley Police Headquarters, Kidlington
1.49 p.m.
‘I’ve just got off the phone,’ Chief Superintendent Page said as Joel was marched into his office by two officers in uniform. ‘You want to know who with?’
Joel said nothing. Sam Carter stepped into the room after him and hung about uncomfortably in the background.
Page glared at Joel from across the broad desk. He was a heavyset man in his late fifties, with a downturned mouth like a razor slash. When he was pissed off, which was most of the time, the rash of broken veins across his cheeks glowed scarlet. At this moment they were the wrong side of beetroot.
‘Do you know whose employee you beat up? Do you have any idea the kind of friends Gabriel Stone has?’
‘I didn’t beat anyone up,’ Joel muttered resignedly. ‘But I have the feeling you’re going to tell me anyway.’
‘Jeremy Lonsdale. Name familiar?’
‘Let me think,’ Joel said. He could feel Carter’s gaze on his back, silently pleading with him to watch his mouth.
‘Probably our next Prime Minister. You certainly pick them, Inspector.’ Page shook his head in disbelief, and his jowls wobbled. ‘What’s wrong with you?’
‘Nothing.’
‘What’s wrong with you?’ Page repeated more loudly. ‘Destruction of valuable antique property. Accusations more bizarre and ridiculous than anything I’ve heard in nearly forty years in the force. Letting some dopehead kid fill your brain with nonsense. Secret passages. Underground crypts. And then beating up an innocent member of the public. Did you know Seymour Finch has a terminal medical condition?’
He punches pretty well for a dying man, Joel wanted to say. But that might have been pushing his luck.
‘And that’s not all,’ Page went on, warming to his anger. ‘I had a talk with a solicitor this morning. A certain Jonathan Hawthorne. Ring any bells? Apparently you were round at his home yesterday afternoon, harassing his family and upsetting a sick girl. Tell me this isn’t true.’
‘I wouldn’t call it harassment.’
‘So you’re not denying this?’
‘Something’s going on, sir.’
‘Damn right some
thing’s going on. In your head. Meanwhile, we’ve got a suspected serial killer going around our county. And this is what I have to deal with? One of my best officers going into a complete fucking meltdown.’ Page’s voice had risen to a shout, and he was out of his chair with his fists on the desk. His whole body seemed to be quivering with rage. ‘You’re suspended, Solomon.’
‘What?’
At the back of the room, Carter rolled his eyes. ‘Told you so,’ his expression said.
‘Six months. That’s it. No questions. And consider yourself bloody fortunate that you’re dealing with reasonable men. Jeremy Lonsdale has told me that neither Mr Finch nor Mr Stone will be pressing charges. If something like this got into the press…’ Page puffed out his cheeks. The veins were alarmingly inflamed. ‘Doesn’t bear thinking about.’ He pointed a stubby finger in Joel’s face. ‘But I’m warning you. I know you. I know you’re a determined bastard when you want to be. Go anywhere near the Stone estate – I’m talking within a mile of it – or anywhere near him or any of his employees…’ He made a face. ‘You even think about them, and I’ll have your bloody head on a plate. Tell me that’s as clear as I could possibly make myself.’
‘It is very clear, sir.’
‘Yes, it is. Now get out. I don’t want to see your face or hear your name for six months. I just hope that when you come back you’ll have learned some sense.’
Joel stormed out of Page’s office and slammed the door behind him with a noise like the crack of a rifle shot. He was halfway down the corridor when the door opened again and Carter came running out after him.
‘Hey, slow down.’
Joel pointed. ‘That stupid bastard has no idea what’s going on here.’
‘And you do?’
‘I think I do, yeah.’
‘So tell me. I’m all ears.’
‘I’m not sure you’d want to know.’
Uprising Page 16