by M. G. Cole
There was only the hoot of an owl from the fields beyond.
“Maybe he’s gone already?” whispered Chib.
He had planned this, Garrick thought. He knew I was closing in, even if I didn’t. He recalled that Huw Crawford tried to call Terri all night, but she didn’t pick up. But he talked to somebody. Maybe a last damning accusation made to a burner phone before he took his own life. Shielding the glow of his mobile’s screen, Garrick scrolled through the notes on his phone and found the number Huw Crawford had called. It rang–
And the classic Nokia Grande Valse echoed from the furthest hangar.
“There!” Garrick slipped the still-ringing phone in his pocket as he charged forward towards the noise.
Chib tried to follow, but her foot snagged on some junk in the shadows, and she fell flat on her face.
Garrick drew closer to the dark hangar – just as the growl of an engine drowned out the ringing phone. He could see nothing but darkness ahead. Then a huge shadow loomed, and he felt a sudden rush of air pulling him forward. At the last second, Garrick rolled aside as the whirling blades of a propellor slashed inches in front of his face.
He hit the ground hard. In the shadows, a wing sliced over his head. Garrick sprang to his feet and turned to see the silhouette of a biplane against the hangar doors. There was one figure sitting in the cockpit. The fool was going to fly himself out of the country.
Something suddenly struck him in the side, and Garrick felt a rib crack as he was pushed aside. He had forgotten about the tail’s horizontal stabiliser. The breath was squeezed from him as he dropped to his knees, fighting the pain in his ribs.
A sudden steely determination pulsed through him, numbing the pain. He clambered to his feet, and on shaking legs, ran after the Boeing Stearman biplane. He almost cannoned into Chib at the entrance as the aircraft taxied between two sheds, heading out to a dark field.
“Get the car!” he snapped. Before she could reply, Garrick sprinted between a line of trees. He was gasping for breath as each step jarred his injured rib. He emerged on a long dark field. The ground was waterlogged. Cold mud seeped into his shoes. In the ambient light he could just see the shorter, paler grass which had been cut to form a basic unregulated runway. The aircraft was pointed away from him as the engine throttled up. There was no way he could stop it as it trundled forwards. He gave chase any way.
A blinding light came from his Land Rover’s headlights as the vehicle suddenly sped onto the airstrip, cutting off the plane. The Stearman performed a tight U-turn as Fraser wrestled the peddled to avoid a collision. Now it was pointing straight at Garrick and still accelerating. Garrick didn’t know if it was a deliberate assault – or if Fraser couldn’t see him in the darkness. The manoeuvre was so sudden that Garrick skidded in the mud as he tried to stop.
He could barely breathe as the roaring biplane jounced towards him. He stopped, and then impulsively ran back the way he had come – but the aircraft was faster.
He was seconds away from being chewed up by the propellor.
The waterlogged airstrip was in no condition to take the weight of a plane. The wheels suddenly dug in the soft mud and the Stearman nosedived into the ground. The wooden propellors shattered on impact, leaving the engine howling. The biplane came to rest at an acute angle, tail-up, stranded in the field.
Garrick ran towards it. Fraser struggled to unfasten his belt. He motioned to clamber from the other side of the plane, intending to run, when Chib skidded the Land Rover to a halt, blocking his path.
“Derek Fraser,” Garrick roared over the roar of the engine. “You’re nicked, mate!”
29
Garrick glowered across the interview room. It was the following morning, and Fraser was crumpled over the table looking sorry for himself. Next to him, his solicitor, Rosamund Hellberg sat with a sullen look, knowing she was now backing a losing horse.
“I didn’t see you in the dark,” Fraser mumbled.
In Garrick’s view, it was a poor excuse for attempted murder.
“And you could’ve run sideways,” said Fraser sheepishly. “Who runs in a straight line?”
Despite the co-codamol Garrick had taken to combat his broken rib and piecing headache, he could still feel the pain. Between the bruises across his body, his sore buttocks, head, and rib, he was struggling to find an area that wasn’t hurting.
Fraser was a defeated man. His arrogance was replaced by malaise. He had admitted to murdering Oscar Benjamin after they had both performed the security truck robbery.
“I was broke. I was going to lose everything, and the artwork wasn’t selling for much. Aye, it was getting my face around and creating a bit of a mystery about this new talent, but I needed the cash now.”
“So you screwed over your business partner?”
“Oscar only came to me to because he knew I wouldn’t rat him out and nobody else trusted him. The deal was that he’d take seventy per cent to cover what I owed him.” He shrugged as if it was self-explanatory. “We dumped the loot in Matthews’ dealership and walked away. We didn’t have time to count it. It was only when I saw the news that I realised we hadn’t nabbed as much as expected. Eighty grand, not the two million we were expecting. So I broke in to steal it again. Not all of it, mind.”
“No, you’re too honest for that,” Garrick muttered.
“Fifty grand. I thought it would look like Matthews was short-changing Oscar when we both turned up to claim it.” He sighed and idly picked at the tabletop. “Huw helped me break in. He knew Oscar was going to use that cash to help Terri and Ethan leave the country to start a new life.”
“Which you didn’t want to happen.”
Fraser looked incredulous. “Why would I want anything good to happen for that little cow? She slept with Oscar behind me back. Had his kid, which I originally thought was mine! After the paternity test showed it wasn’t… that hurt.”
He took a long gulp of water, emptying his paper cup. “I knew Huw would help because he didn’t want her to go. Simple, right? I took the cash to Mark. I already had an offshore account lined up, and me and Oscar were going to use him to launder the loot, so it made sense. It made even more sense when we put the cash through the books to buy the Hoys we couldn’t shift.”
Garrick couldn’t help but laugh. “Let me get this straight, you used the now-twice stolen cash, to inflate the value of your own artwork?”
Fraser shrugged. “I didn’t think it would make much of a difference. Mark got his commission; I got me money. I burnt the paintings,” he added sadly.
“You could always whip a few more up in your kitchen, couldn’t you?”
Fraser looked up in surprise. Then he smiled in utter defeat.
“Ah, well. That was a good ride while it lasted. Goes to show that I could’ve been a famous artist.”
“If you hadn’t killed anybody, then you could carry on painting like an infant, I suppose.”
“Mark started demanding a bigger cut. I think he told Oscar what I did. I’m not sure, but Oscar confronted me.” He lapsed into silence, replaying the memory. “I didn’t mean to kill Oscar though It was an accident.”
“But you didn’t kill him, did you? He was still alive.”
“It wasn’t much of a difference, was it? When he came around, he’d kill me or have me killed. Oscar Benjamin was not a nice man. He was responsible for so many crimes he got away with while other people, like his own brother, did the time.”
“And you thought that by killing him you’d be doing society a favour?” He had expected Hellberg to protest, but she remained quiet and disengaged.
“I thought many people, including me, would be better off without him. And I saw a chance of turning it all in. Starting anew.”
“Faking your own death.”
“Aye.”
“Huw was training to be a doctor. He had aspirations of being a plastic surgeon. He could’ve had quite the career. But you blackmailed him to use his knowledge and skill to disfigu
re Oscar Benjamin just enough that he could pass for you, under the right circumstances.”
“I didn’t think it would work that well. I thought it would buy me enough time to disappear.” He smiled sadly and held up his hands. “Who would have thought my death would’ve suddenly made Hoy a must have? That next piece sold for stupid money!”
“And with you dead, Mark Kline-Watson was under no obligation to pay you. So you had no choice but to come back from the dead.”
Fraser waved both hands like a showman. “Ta-dah! Then guess what, I started making more money as Hoy than I could holding-up armoured cars.”
“Inspiring. And the more you were in the news, the higher that price climbed.”
“Exactly.”
“That’s why you persuaded Huw Crawford to fake an attempt on your life to steal the art, knowing that the reporter you had been talking to was in the building at the same time.”
“You got me.”
“I don’t think Huw did that willingly, did he?” Fraser looked away. “I bet you kept blackmailing him, didn’t you? Told him how everybody would know about his involvement in killing Oscar. You laid on the guilt, knowing he’d buckle.” Fraser stared at the table. At least he had the good grace to look guilty. Garrick was swelling with anger. “That’s why he ran when he saw me. Knocking over PC Lord was an accident, but one that made his guilt and self-loathing push him to suicide. He felt he had no choice. You were blackmailing him. The woman he loved was still leaving the country. What else did he have? He killed himself. Your actions made him take his own life. You were the last person he called. What did he say to you?”
Fraser shook his head and refused to answer.
Garrick was struggling to keep the venom from his voice. “Because of that call, you knew I would turn up to ask you about the Terri connection. That gave you plenty of time to brew up an alibi. Didn’t it? It’s what made you decide to run last night. You’ve been playing everybody. You played me. Asking for protection, throwing accusations at everybody else to cover your own dirty tracks. Offering the cops assigned to protect you a cuppa and a biscuit, to lull them into a false sense of security so that you could park your car down the lane between shifts, ready to do a runner when the time came. Is there anybody you didn’t use?”
Fraser looked offended. “Rebecca forced me to do this! You should arrest her!”
“For what?”
“For killing Mark, for a start!”
“But she didn’t, did she? That was you.”
Fraser’s mouth was still open, ready to refute it. He slowly closed it and leaned back in his seat. The absence of denial was enough for Garrick. There had been a question mark over just who had killed Mark Kline-Watson. Now he knew.
“You just told me he wanted more money.”
Fraser sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “He called me to say Rebecca had been down that morning demanding to know what had happened to Oscar. She knew he was our laundry man, so…” he shrugged. “Mark knew he had a hold over me. Oscar was missing, I’d turned in a big chunk of money. I think he’d put two-and-two together.”
“So he had to go.”
Fraser didn’t meet Garrick’s gaze. He gave a slight nod.
“Meanwhile, Rebecca was still going ahead with the plan to get Terri out. That’s when she went to pick up the cash from Matthews as arranged and saw there was just thirty grand there. She really thought Oscar had run off with the lot.”
The only vaguely innocent person in all this mess was Terri Cordy. She may have known Oscar was unscrupulous, but she had faith that his dishonesty didn’t extend to looking after his only son. Poor Huw Crawford had been drawn into hideous acts to win back the woman he loved. Whereas Rebecca Ellis was Oscar’s accomplice in the heist, without knowing the man she loved was dead.
Quite a picture, Garrick thought dryly.
There was a muted atmosphere in the Incident room when Garrick returned. Chib, Fanta, and Wilkes had been writing up their case notes, but without the boisterous PC Harry Lord making them emergency brews every few minutes, it didn’t feel like a time to celebrate. Fanta was irked that the collection for Harry had raised a pitiful eight pounds.
That wasn’t helped when Harry made an unexpected entrance in a wheelchair, pushed by his wife, Claire. One leg was raised straight out in plaster, his arm in a sling. The swelling on his forehead had gone down, leaving a small cut stitched together.
“Don’t worry! Lord is here to crack the case wide open!”
“You’re too late, as usual,” said Chib with a smirk. “Where have you been?”
Garrick snatched the collection cup before Fanta could put it in Harry’s lap.
“There you go, mate. We had a whip-round.”
Harry’s face dropped when he counted it. “Eight quid?”
“Imagine what you would’ve got if you’d broken both legs.”
Everybody roared with laughter, cracking the gloom that had been hanging over them. They debriefed him on the case, and Garrick even offered to make everybody a round of drinks to celebrate.
Later, Superintendent Margery Drury took Garrick aside in her office to congratulate him. He filled in the details, and she listened without interruption. Garrick suggested they give Molly Meyer’s the inside scoop. Thanks to her viral video, she had landed a job as an on-camera reporter for the BBC. She was a woman going places, and the Force could do with a friend in the media. Drury agreed.
Garrick was still stuffing himself with painkillers and was wondering if they were doing something to his senses, because despite the success, Drury looked pensive. Eventually, he found out why.
“We had an odd result from forensics. PC Liu picked it up and wasn’t sure where it fitted in the evidence.”
Garrick nodded, unsure where this was leading. “Okay.”
“It was something you put in. An envelope.”
Garrick winced. He’d forgotten about that.
“Is there something you want to tell me?”
He didn’t. He had no intention of letting her know he thought he had heard his sister’s voice, or that he was worried a possible brain tumour was making him hallucinate. Yet now he felt cornered.
“It arrived in the mail. The American postmark seemed odd. The fact it was empty was just weird.”
Drury didn’t blink as she studied him. “And that made you have it checked by a professional police forensics team?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I shouldn’t have abused our resources. I didn’t really think about it because of the case, and–”
Drury held up her hand to stop him.
“The misuse of police resources for personal reasons is one thing, David. Let’s put that to one side for now. What did you expect they would find?”
Garrick scratched his head. The co-codamol was picking the wrong time to wear off.
“I honestly wasn’t thinking straight. Maybe, where it had been posted from? I don’t know anybody over there, except at Flora PD, and why would they send me it. Then I wondered if somebody here was trying to dick me around.”
“Why would anybody want to do that?”
“You know how coppers are. Cruel tricks are our thing.”
“It’s sad that you think that.”
Garrick said nothing in case he’d incriminate himself.
“The postmark was from New York. City, not State.”
“Not Flora, then.” Flora was a small town in Illinois, eight-hundred miles from New York.
“The thing is our labs are very thorough, and you didn’t specify what you wanted them to focus on…”
Garrick felt a chill. “What was in the envelope?”
“Nothing.”
“Okay.”
“But it was sealed…” Drury hesitated as she worked out how to phrase it. “It was one of those old gum seals that you lick closed. There was DNA residue on that. It matches your sister’s.”
The sound of rain on the window grew louder. Garrick hadn’t been aware of it. I
t felt as if it had poured down every day for weeks. If it wasn’t for the wet weather, he mused, perhaps he would have been chopped into chum by the biplane’s propellor. His mind was knitting random moments, marvelling how they could be brought together in a seemingly endless chain of cause and effect that could take a life or save one.
“Well?” Drury had been speaking, but he had zoned out. He didn’t really care what she was saying.
“Sorry, what?”
“I said I had to notify the investigators in Flora PD. They want you to call them as soon as you can.” Garrick slowly nodded. “There was something forensics pointed out. It wasn’t saliva. A wet lip could have done it.”
Garrick knew what she was hinting at. Saliva is only produced when alive. He nodded in understanding.
Drury looked increasingly worried. “This is unusual. Obviously. There is no escaping that you have been targeted to receive something calculated to worry you. Emelie still hasn’t been found. Which means not only did they have access to her body, but this was also planned months ago.”
The implications of her words jerked Garrick upright. “Why would somebody…?” He trailed off. That was an age-old question that human behaviour constantly invoked.
“David. If this was planned so long ago, then somebody in American must have a grudge against you. I need you to think about who.”
“I don’t know anybody over there. If that’s the case, then maybe some villain I banged-up years ago.”
“Somebody who could have targeted your sister.”
Garrick’s blood ran cold. That threw his entire perception about her murder on its head.
“Are you trying to suggest that she was killed to get at me?”
Drury anxiously tapped a finger on the desk. “No, David. I am telling you that is what Flora PD is suggesting. They’re worried that the letter was a warning.”