by Jane Adams
“In his drawer?” In the sideboard. Rozlyn remembered that she’d left before the search had been completed. She didn’t recall seeing any news clippings, but Jenny would know.
“OK, I’d better go.” She got to her feet. “You get a good night’s sleep and I’ll drop back to see you. And please, don’t go wandering off on your own again.”
“I won’t,” Mouse told her. “I already promised Big Frank that.” He looked troubled all of a sudden and Rozlyn wondered why. Mouse enlightened her. “He says I should go to court and tell that it was Donovan that took my eye away,” he said.
Rozlyn sat down again. “And how do you feel about that?”
Mouse nodded. “I know I got to,” he said. “I feel scared, but I’ll do it, Inspector Priest. If he’s the one killed Charlie, then he ought to go to prison for ever.”
“He should go to prison anyway for what he did to you,” Rozlyn told him quietly. “Mouse, it’s very brave of you. I promise we’ll keep you safe.”
Mouse nodded across in the direction of the card players. “I’ll be fine,” he said. “Big Frank says he’ll take care of me. Don’t you worry. You just go and catch that Donovan man.”
* * *
Jenny was not best pleased to get a call just after she’d fallen asleep.
“Anyone but you and I’d have ignored the phone,” she told Rozlyn.
“OK, what can I do you for?”
Rozlyn grinned. “You know when you searched Charlie’s flat? Did you find any newspaper clippings?”
“God, yes. Piles of them all neatly filed in plastic pockets. I put them back in the drawer. You onto something?”
She told Jenny what Mouse had said.
“You want me to come over? I mean, being you, you’re not going to wait until morning, are you?”
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
“Well, you’re going to have to contact the key holder. The place has been secured on behalf of the council. You’ll have to get the shutter people to come out and unlock and I think they’re in Bedford or somewhere.”
“I’ll bear that in mind.” Rozlyn rang off and took two more of her tablets, remembering belatedly that she had no water to swallow them with. One stuck in her throat. She swallowed urgently, trying to get it down but it seemed as though it had wedged there. She had begun to feel rough again for, while the sleep had helped, its benefit was fast wearing off. Rozlyn stopped off at the police station, leaving the dustbin bag with the duty sergeant together with a note explaining what it was and that it should be sent to forensics. Then, armed with the number for the key holder, she drove to Charlie’s flat, to wait in her car for the man to arrive. It was just after one in the morning. Charlie had been dead for fourteen days.
By the light from the glove compartment she glanced at the booklet she’d bought on local history, reading about the chantry she had seen on Mark Richards’ land.
It was haunted, apparently — Rozlyn would have been disappointed to find otherwise — and had been excavated twice, once in the 1920s and again only three years ago by Dr Donovan Baker. From the sound of it, the 1920s excavation had been a casual affair, more of a treasure hunt to entertain guests at an elaborate house party. They’d turned up an eighteenth-century brooch shaped like a bird and a load of pottery, the earliest dating from the medieval rebuild, but rumours and legends of a hoard of gold being hidden there had come to nothing. The writer of the book commented that it was hard to find an historical site in the county that didn’t bear such a legend and they were only relieved that the house guests had quickly bored of their game and gone back to their charades.
Rozlyn thought back to the altar stone so carelessly removed from its mount. It compared so strangely to the careful and considered excavation she had seen at the Theadingford dig. No one there would have cast an artifact aside with so little concern. She’d willingly bet that the 1920s lot would never have troubled to move such a weight, but had Donovan Baker? He was at that time still a professional, the excavation being dated when Donovan Baker was at the height of his career, before his status as expert witness or conscientious professional had been challenged. What had been so important that he’d cast his training and his expertise aside? Was Donovan Baker also a would-be treasure hunter? Did he know some truth behind these all-too-common rumours?
Rozlyn needed to know more about Donovan’s fall from grace. He must have fallen fast and he must have fallen hard.
Headlights rounding the corner told her that the key holder had arrived, none too pleased at having his weekend interrupted.
Rozlyn calmed him down, promised to lock up herself and assured him that this was too important to wait — the very murder case could pivot on his cooperation. Then she made her way up to Charlie’s landing.
Only two weeks and yet so much had changed. Charlie had been removed from his small corner and his world collapsed behind him. The tubs of plants had gone, not just from his door but outside his neighbours’ too and the steel doors that prevented vandals from entering his little flat had been sprayed with graffiti. Rozlyn knew that it was fresh; the tag a familiar one, “byo” being a local with the facility for marking his domain that the average tomcat would have envied.
The landing stank of drink and piss.
Rozlyn let herself in, glad that the power was still connected. She shut Charlie’s door, careful to pull the metal shutter closed before she did so, not wanting to advertise her presence inside, then made her way swiftly to the sideboard and withdrew the drawer that Jenny had searched. The flat already had that faint smell about it that indicated damp and neglect. Rozlyn thought about Mrs Chinowski. She had no one now. Charlie was gone and so was Clara Buranou. What would she do? Rozlyn sighed, knowing that she would have to ensure that Charlie’s dependents had someone to take his place. She couldn’t just walk away.
Rozlyn sifted through the neatly arranged bills and papers. Jenny had put things back as close to Charlie’s order as she could and the cuttings, because of their size in their plastic folders, had been put back beneath the rest. There were about twenty of these clear wallets, their edges pierced so that they could be fastened in a ring binder. Charlie had filed roughly two clippings in each, back to back, cut precisely and, where the clipping had removed them, the date and newspaper recorded carefully in Charlie’s neat round hand. Most were meaningless to Rozlyn, though she found one which talked about the new crime initiative on the estate and another which advertised Rozlyn coming to talk to the residents. The clipping she wanted was easily identified.
Mark Richards posed for a picture at the top of the steps leading to his grand front door. He’d had a garden party to raise money for a local charity and some of the more prestigious guests stood with him, dressed in their summer finery.
“Are you our Mr Thomas Thompson?” Rozlyn asked the photograph of Mark Richards. “Did our Charlie realise this, confront you with it? Though, why should he, you provided him with the cash he needed. Why would Charlie care that you bought houses under an assumed name? Or was it because of what Clara told him? I can’t see Charlie wanting any part of that.”
Rozlyn scanned the names beneath the picture. Most meant nothing, though she could recall having heard them in other connections. “Or did he clip this out because of you?” One other name stood out. On the right of Mark Richards, chatting affably to a female guest, was Donovan Baker.
One more thing to look at. Rozlyn went through to Charlie’s bedroom and opened the small wooden wardrobe. Two identical pinstripe suits. He’d been wearing his third when his body had been found. At first she thought she must be mistaken. No sign of a tear or a snag that might account for her find in the chantry, that little scrap of fabric that she had tucked into a plastic bag and kept in her pocket. Rozlyn sighed. So much for that idea. She was suddenly horribly deflated.
And then she saw it. The tiny rip in the sleeve, now carefully mended in black and pale cream thread using a technique her grandmother had called invisible darning.
She doubted Charlie had done this; Charlie was always clean, but frayed sleeves and little snags were part of his standard uniform. She placed the fragment of fabric against the now camouflaged hole. It matched. “My God, Charlie, what did you think you were doing, going there?”
Was it enough for a search warrant?
Rozlyn shook her head. Not on its own. But it was a start.
She found a black bin bag in Charlie’s kitchen and packed the suit inside, then left, locking the door carefully behind her.
CHAPTER 35
Rozlyn drove out to Mark Richards’ place and climbed the wall. She knew it was stupid, she wasn’t even sure what she was looking for, but despite the way her body ached and her head thumped she couldn’t even think of going back to bed. The answer lay in that house or in the chantry.
Answer to what? The reason Charlie had been murdered? She couldn’t quite get to grips with the logic of it or see the full picture, but the answer had to be yes.
She ran through everything in her mind. Charlie had worked for Mark Richards — Richards’ alias was Thomas Thompson. Donovan knew both Charlie and Richards. Question, how did he get to know Charlie? Ah, that was right — Mouse said he’d met him at one of the houses, that he organised work for those people Richards brought into the country. Or was that speculation? He knew that Charlie took any items found at the houses to Donovan’s office — with the exception, presumably, of the little radio he had given to Mouse. Did Mark Richards know of this arrangement? And what did Donovan want, anyway, with those sad little items the migrant workers had left behind?
Yet whether or not Mark Richards and Donovan had continued with what had been a superficially friendly relationship was irrelevant, really. The important thing was that she now knew Charlie had been at Richards’ place.
So, why had he gone there? Did Mark Richards have something Donovan wanted? Was Charlie going to warn Richards of that? Was Charlie threatening to tell what he knew about Richards’ alias, as Thomas Thompson, a man who brought illegal immigrants into the country?
Had Charlie stolen something from Mark Richards’ place? Rozlyn’s best guess was that Donovan had stolen from Richards and had used Charlie to carry out the theft. Charlie had then kept something for himself, something he hoped to sell to help Clara Buranou, and Donovan had killed him because of it — except, of course, Rozlyn couldn’t even prove there’d been a robbery and Charlie couldn’t have returned whatever it was before he died because otherwise Donovan would not still be looking for it and his attack on Mouse clearly showed that he was.
So, had Charlie simply refused to tell where he’d hidden the object and Donovan murdered him because of that? Seeing what he’d done to Mouse Man, Rozlyn would have expected Donovan Baker to try and beat the information out of Charlie rather than killing him immediately, but there’d been no other significant marks on Charlie’s body. The thrust of the spear spoke of a single impulsive act, not a systematic attempt to extract information, so, not Donovan Baker, then? Mark Richards, perhaps?
Had he caught Charlie returning to collect whatever it was he had stolen? Rozlyn was more than half convinced Charlie would have concealed the object in the grounds, rather than risk Donovan searching him later and discovering it — and Rozlyn did not for one minute believe that Donovan would put trust in his associates. So, it would have to be something small, something Charlie could slip into a pocket and hide easily and, also, something Charlie would have immediately recognised as valuable.
Something like that missing brooch — which might not be missing at all, but simply, as Alfred had told her, sent for restoration or whatever he’d said. Had she any sense, she’d talk it over with Brook in the morning and, should Brook agree with her, demand that Mark Richards produce the missing brooch or give the address of the conservator and, Rozlyn supposed, that would knock her theory of the robbery fair and square on the head especially if Mark Richards then produced his inventory. An inventory which would not, anyway, include the supposed stolen objects because he’d not declared them in the first place. Rozlyn’s head swirled. Her fever had returned, accompanied by the thumping head and dryness in her throat that no amount of fluids or soothing pastilles could shift.
Simplify your story, she told herself sternly. Charlie had been in the chantry. Had he also been in Mark Richards’ house? Had he gone there to tell Richards he knew exactly what he was up to and maybe try and blackmail him? Maybe while there he had stolen something on impulse. The cabinets in the room that housed the collection were not locked. Maybe Charlie took something valuable and Donovan got wind of it after Charlie was dead, assumed Mouse must know where it was.
She tried again to order her thoughts. She had been thinking in terms of the insurance scam that her colleague at Art and Antiques had told her about, but if the chantry treasure — the probably mythical chantry treasure — had been found, then Mark Richards hadn’t declared it so it wouldn’t be insured, so there’d be no money to be made from such an enterprise even had he declared the robbery. Had he intended to sell it and promised Donovan a cut from the profits? And, if so, why wait three years? Had he reneged on that agreement?
Rozlyn sat, perched at the top of the wall surrounding the estate and told herself that this was stupid. Not only did she not know what she was looking for; she didn’t even know if there was anything to look for.
Then, she decided that she’d never know unless she tried to find out and, feverish fuzzy logic taking precedence, she swung her second leg over the wall and dropped down on the other side.
She kept a small Maglite in the car and she used that now. She kept it low to the ground to minimise the chance of anyone seeing from the house. In her fever-fuddled brain, Albert had assumed almost superhuman faculties for observation and Rozlyn thought of him as a latter-day Argos, one eye always open while the others slept.
The distance to the chantry was further than she had expected, her expectation based on just that few minutes’ drive. Walking was different. For one thing the ground was boggy after the rain and the grass long, concealing holes and hollows that opened without warning beneath her feet. Twice, Rozlyn stumbled. She risked an upward flash of the light in order to orient herself and realised that she’d swung too far to the left. Much further and she’d have ended up on the lawn in full view of the house. A flick of the light to the right revealed the outline of the chantry, a darker shadow against a black sky. Rozlyn stared at it. Her feet were wet and she was cold and shivery and had a head that hurt worse than the most acute hangover she’d ever had. Just what did she think she was playing at?
Sighing, feeling that she’d committed herself now, she stumbled the final fifty yards towards the ruined wall and flopped down wearily upon the discarded altar stone and stared down at her wet shoes and soaking, freezing feet.
Somewhere off in the distance she heard dogs bark. Rozlyn frowned. She’d heard none the last time she was here. She hauled herself back to her feet and began to search, swinging the torch back and forth across the space. But the beam of light, though bright, was skinny compared to the area she had to search. She had to be more systematic about this.
Rozlyn chose a wall and, starting at the one end, began to search again, using torch and fingers to probe for gaps in the stone walls.
How high could Charlie reach? Not as high as Rozlyn. He was a good eight inches shorter. Rozlyn restricted her attention to the lower wall, nothing much above shoulder height. She figured that if Charlie had hidden anything here and done it in a hurry, it would have to be in a place that a casual observer would never see.
The grass was long against the wall and climbing, clinging vegetation covered a good third of the exposed stone.
Rozlyn played the light on the thick tendrils of ivy level with her head. There. What was that? A bird’s nest?
The dogs were barking again and, to Rozlyn’s alarm, they sounded closer. Peering round the safe haven of the wall, Rozlyn could see a light moving from the side of the house and round onto
the drive. As they passed the newly bright window at the side, Rozlyn could discern a man, then another, the second moving as though something tugged at his arm. The barking was louder now.
“Shit!”
She hesitated, wanting to go back and investigate that bird’s nest. If she did, if she delayed, she’d never reach the wall before the dogs reached her. Rozlyn hesitated no longer; she turned and ran, holding the torch so that the beam lit the ground ahead, not caring now that she could easily be seen. A shout went up telling her that she had indeed been spotted. Would they loose the dogs?
The thought that they might cleared her head and gave speed to aching limbs. She tried to recall what little she knew about dealing with dog attacks . . . about how fast a dog could run. She wished she’d brought a bigger torch; maybe one she could use to whack the dogs with.
The wall was just ahead. She could see it looming, dark but comforting in its proximity. Rozlyn leapt for the top, the Maglite falling from her hand as she scrabbled with both hands for purchase on the coping stones.
“Damn!” She heaved her body onto the ridge and looked back down. The torch gleamed in the grass, pointing back towards the pursuers. Rozlyn spared them only the swiftest of looks, appalled at just how close they were. Two men, two dogs. A voice that shouted, “Stop where you are or I’ll bloody shoot.” Rozlyn rolled off the wall, praying for a soft landing. Praying she had climbed close to where she’d parked her car. She landed on a bush, bounced and rolled onto the road, regained her feet and made a dash for the car, praying again that she’d make it before they climbed the wall.
Her keys were in her coat pocket. She pressed the pad to unlock the doors. The beep and little flash of lights as it responded were the most welcome sight and sound Rozlyn could imagine. She hauled on the door and fell inside, slamming and locking it then fumbling for the ignition. In her rear-view mirror she saw that one man at least had scaled the wall and was pounding along the narrow road. The engine fired and she crashed the car into gear, redlining as her foot clamped the pedal to the floor. The engine screamed . . . and so did Rozlyn. In her rear-view she saw the man halt and raise his arm. The flash, then the shattered screen as the bullet hit.