Over Your Shoulder

by C J Carver

  ‘Both.’

  I felt more than saw Fredericka stiffen but I didn’t look at her. My head was spinning. Both men had had relationships with Rachel? Perhaps it hadn’t been Rob who’d killed Tony in a jealous rage, but George Abbott.

  ‘They were both crazy for her,’ she went on. ‘She liked playing them against each other. I told her it would get her into trouble, but she said she didn’t care. She got a kick out of it.’

  A loud buzz ricocheted through the flat, making me flinch. The front doorbell. As Klaudia moved across the room to answer it, I put out a hand. ‘You didn’t see another woman that night?’ I asked. ‘Long dark hair, slim, around five foot seven?’

  Klaudia shook her head. ‘Just Rachel. And it was strange, because normally she is so proud of her looks, her–’

  There came a loud crack and the sound of glass shattering and at the same time Klaudia was punched sideways as though someone had shoved her.

  Crack!

  Klaudia spun round. The look on her face was one of shock.

  Her knees buckled and I dived for her, catching her, breaking her fall.

  Snapshot images clicked across my vision.

  Two spider webs of cracked glass in the window. Two rough-edged holes. Shards and splinters of glass on the floor.

  Blood spreading across Klaudia’s shirt. The look of terror in her eyes. She was whimpering.

  Fredericka crouched beside me. She was shouting into her phone for police, ambulance, medics.

  Klaudia was looking straight at me. She said, quite clearly, ‘I’m frightened.’ Then, ‘Sorry.’

  Her body trembled. ‘No, no! Hang on, Klaudia.’ My tone was fierce. ‘Hang on. Fredericka’s calling an ambulance, they won’t be long…’

  But her body continued to shudder and she kept looking at me with her huge blue eyes holding acres of ocean and then the light inside faded. It was like someone was turning the dimmer switch to low, then lower, and I was calling to her, ‘Don’t go. Stay with me.’

  The light went out and her body gradually stilled.

  ‘Fuck,’ Fredericka said.

  While she started CPR, I jerkily crawled across the carpet, through the broken glass to the window. Heart thumping, I inched to the sill and peered down, blinking into the shadows, then across the road to the block of flats opposite. I swept my gaze from side to side, searching for an open window with a gun barrel sticking out of it. Nothing. I looked up and down the street. Back to the block of flats. Something made me glance up. Right to the top of the building.

  All my senses tightened into a shrieking screaming knot.

  Someone was up there.

  They were looking straight at me.

  Chapter 49

  I ran like hell. I wanted to catch the person I’d seen on top of the roof. And if I couldn’t catch them I wanted to see them, so I could identify them later, like in a police line-up.

  I yelled at Fredericka, telling her where I was going as I flew across Klaudia’s flat and hared down the stairs, along the hallway, and burst outside. Put my head down and charged over the street, narrowly missing a London bus and causing two cars to lean on their horns, but I didn’t slow.

  I pounded across the pavement, darting across the forecourt. Glanced up at the block of flats, to the roof and where I’d seen the figure… the sniper? The sharpshooter? The assassin? I didn’t know what to call them, but I was buggered if I’d let them get away with it. I’d only had four storeys to run down, but they had twenty. They also had a gun. This thought slowed me up somewhat.

  Breathing hard, I pressed my back against the wall, next to the front door. Would the killer come out this way? I wondered. Or was there a rear exit? How could I catch sight of them without them seeing me and shooting me dead?

  The rear of the building, I thought. They wouldn’t come out the front. I legged it around the back to find a car park, rows of industrial-sized wheelie bins along with a rusting fridge and a threadbare sofa tucked in one corner. I hovered for a minute or so before running to the front again. Which exit would they use?

  I raced back where I’d come from and dithered briefly before I raced to hide behind the sofa. I hadn’t had time to get out of sight when a figure exploded from the rear door and tore across the car park. Dressed head to toe in black, a balaclava over their head, they had a rucksack on their back but their hands appeared to be free. No gun that I could see. It had to be in the pack.

  ‘Stop!’ I shouted. ‘You! Stop!’

  The figure stumbled, making me think I’d startled them, but they quickly recovered and tore on. I gave chase. I didn’t shout again. I wanted to save my breath. They were shorter, had a lighter build than me, and although I’d been a handy fly half at one point, I’d eventually become too heavy and moved to a hooker. The figure raced through the car park exit and swung left. I sprinted after them. Switched left, pushing my right foot hard, bracing myself for a tight turn and totally unprepared for the blow that met me.

  The man’s fist hit the side of my head. I went down like a stone.

  ‘Sorry, mate,’ he said. Astonishingly, he sounded as though he meant the apology.

  The sound of running feet was drowned by the roar of a V8 revving. Headlights snapped on. I was scrambling up, disorientated, my feet not entirely attached to my body, trying to focus on the black Range Rover speeding into view. Doors opened and closed, swallowing the shooter and the man who’d bludgeoned me. The driver stepped on the gas. I knew it was futile but I ran after it. I ran as hard as I could. I ran until it was out of sight.

  An ambulance passed me as I jogged shakily back to Fredericka, along with two cop cars. I saw one cop take me in from the back seat and then she was leaning forward and thumping the driver’s shoulder, telling him to stop. She sprang out of the vehicle and came to me, hotly followed by three of her buddies.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I gasped, still out of breath, my words coming in spurts. ‘I’m with the woman… who reported the shooting. I was chasing… the car the shooter got away in. A Range Rover…’

  ‘Sir. Please put your hands behind your back.’

  The next minute I was handcuffed and stuck in the back of their patrol car with a burly cop on either side. I can’t say I blamed them since I must have looked mightily suspicious jogging down the street, wild-eyed and covered in sweat and blood, but as I said, why would I be running toward the crime if I was guilty? Wouldn’t I have been running away? They didn’t answer that one.

  It was only when Fredericka came outside and identified me, vouched for me, that they took off the handcuffs.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. The police didn’t acknowledge me, nor did they apologise. Cheers, I thought sourly. At least the bloke who’d clobbered me had said sorry. I didn’t feel particularly enthused about sharing anything with them so I brought out my phone and called DI Barry Gilder. If Susie thought he was okay, then he ought to be okay, but then I remembered Susie was being a bit treacherous – to put it mildly – which made me hesitate, but only for a moment. If she was in touch with him, then I should I be too. Plus, he seemed to be heavily involved in all this, especially considering his shock when he discovered the hiatus between his father arriving at the Mayfair Group the night Tony died, and the police saying they’d arrived.

  ‘It’s like an Ashdown rush hour,’ DI Gilder said when I announced myself. ‘First your wife visits, and now you ring.’

  ‘I was wondering what you’re doing right now,’ I said. ‘As I’d rather like a sort of… second opinion.’

  ‘Sure, why not. It’s not like I’m doing anything else, like trying to relax after spending the day trying to stop the tide of criminality into the nation’s capital.’

  ‘I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important,’ I snapped. I sounded exceptionally ratty, and although I knew my reasons he’d probably think I was just being bad-tempered, so I added, ‘the police are with me.’

  ‘Where are you?’ His tone turned sharp.

  ‘Haringey.’


  ‘Haringey?’ he repeated, sounding startled.

  When I explained what had happened, there was a long silence. ‘What are you, some kind of lure for this killer?’

  ‘It seems that way.’ I suddenly felt exhausted and moved to sit on the wall. It was damp with rain but getting a wet arse was the least of my problems. ‘Look. I saw the shooter running away. I managed to get the number plate of the car they jumped in.’

  ‘Fire away.’

  I rattled it off.

  ‘You told the officers there about it?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘I suggest you do. I will be there in…’ He paused and I pictured him studying his watch, gauging his travel time. ‘Thirty minutes max.’

  Chapter 50

  DI Gilder

  arrived at the same time as the forensic team. He raised a hand my way, then went to talk to one of the policemen. I watched them talk, occasionally sending glances my way, and then Barry Gilder went to the forensics van where he put on a pair of white overshoes and walked inside the building, no doubt to have a peek at the murder scene.

  He was back within five minutes, putting the overshoes in a bag next to the forensic van, and then coming to stand next to me.

  ‘Talk me through it,’ he said.

  Knowing a run-through with Gilder would make giving my statement to the Haringey Police much easier, I complied. He listened intently, a corkscrew of concentration between his brows, his head haloed by the streetlight behind him.

  After I’d finished, the detective made me go over it all again, asking questions, probing. Finally, I ground to a halt. ‘I think that’s probably it,’ I told him, bone weary. He stopped with the inquisition. Stood there looking up at the balcony, the windowpanes punctured with bullet holes. I passed a hand over my eyes. I couldn’t believe I’d seen Klaudia shot. Held her in my arms while she died. Poor Klaudia. Poor, poor Klaudia. Did she live with anyone? I wondered. A husband, a lover? I hadn’t seen any photographs of kids in her flat, which made me hope she didn’t have children so they’d be spared her murder.

  ‘Gilder,’ the detective said. I hadn’t realised he’d answered his phone. ‘Unh huh. Right. Thanks for that. Really appreciate it.’ He hung up.

  ‘Got an owner for your number plate.’

  His face was filled with tension.

  ‘I don’t think you’re going to like it.’

  Covered in Klaudia’s blood, the side of my face still pounding, my hands and knees stinging from a multitude of glass cuts, I was almost past the point of caring.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Mr Robert Ashdown.’

  No way. Rob had been on the run, presumed dead, yet he’d registered a car? Through my confusion I realised

  Gilder was looking at me with an odd expression and for a moment I didn’t recognise it, but then I did. It was pity.

  Dear God, they thought Rob had killed Klaudia. Did I know my brother anymore? People didn’t change that much, surely, even if they did work with MI5. And as far as Rob owning a Range Rover? You had to be joking. He hated them. Called them banker-wanker cars for nob heads. And where would he get the money to buy one? With a lurch, I remembered the missing million quid. Oh, shit. I took a couple of breaths to steady myself but it didn’t seem to be helping. My mind was thundering ahead, thinking of Rob who knew where Mum kept our house keys – so you got the CCTV then – who knew how to bug an office block, who knew how to punch and disable an armed gunman.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Gilder. The pity didn’t dissipate.

  ‘You can’t be serious.’ I rose to my feet. My jeans were damp and clung to my thighs.

  Gilder gave me a long look. ‘It’s as serious as it gets. It looks as though he had an accomplice, because someone rang the doorbell to get Klaudia to move for a clear shot.’

  Unable to cope, I walked off. Presented myself to the woman cop who’d slapped me in handcuffs earlier. ‘I’d like to make that statement,’ I told her.

  My third police station. More brick walls, more cream paint, more posters on the walls exhorting people not to drink, not hit one another, to report domestic abuse, rape, racial hate. It took less time than before, probably because I was getting good at coordinating and expressing my thoughts coherently. Not something I’d been longing to improve upon, I have to admit, and when I was released two hours later, it was to find I’d missed the last tube into town, and thus the last train home.

  I stood on the pavement outside the station, drizzle dampening my hair and shoulders, wondering where to go. Part of me desperately wanted to ring Susie, have her come and collect me, tuck me up in her giant king-sized bed in her luxurious flat, but I knew it wouldn’t happen like that. She’d want to know why my clothes were caked in blood, what had happened during every minute of every hour, and I simply wasn’t strong enough to deflect her questions, let alone ask my own.

  I looked up and down the street. Not a cab in sight. I wondered vaguely about calling Uber.

  ‘Nick.’

  I turned to see Fredericka stepping onto the pavement beside me.

  ‘How’d it go?’ I asked.

  ‘Tiring.’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed. I continued staring up the street.

  ‘Have you got somewhere to stay the night?’

  I realised it was time to get a grip and find a hotel or B&B. I needed sleep. Rest. I could worry about everything when I woke the next day.

  ‘Not yet.’

  I felt her studying me. ‘Nobody coming to collect you?’

  I looked at her. ‘Nobody coming to collect you either?’

  She smiled. ‘My husband’s on his way.’

  Strange, I hadn’t thought of her as being married. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it was her immense no-nonsense independent attitude that had led me to think she’d prefer living on her own, but how wrong could an idiot be?

  ‘If you need a bed for the night, we have a spare room,’ she told me.

  I wasn’t sure she was being entirely altruistic. She was a journalist. She wanted my story. The Saint’s story. Rob’s story. Klaudia’s and Arun Choudhuri’s too.

  ‘No strings,’ she added. ‘I promise.’

  ‘Like hell.’

  That made her laugh. ‘It’s up to you.’

  At that point, a green Skoda came into view and drew up beside us. A man climbed out, tall, much taller than Fredericka, with a pair of big Timberland boots and thick fisherman’s sweater. He looked like an oil rigger. He hugged her close, kissed her on the lips, and although they didn’t say anything, I knew they were a good couple together.

  Fredericka looked at her husband then back at me. She said, ‘This is Nick. He’s coming to spend the night.’

  Chapter 51

  Fredericka was as good as her word and, to my eternal gratitude, she didn’t ask a single question. She gave me a double brandy in her kitchen, then gave me a glass of water and showed me upstairs.

  ‘I hope you’re not allergic to cats,’ she said. ‘Molly sleeps up here most days.’

  ‘No allergies,’ I said.

  The bedroom was small and neat, with arty prints of London on the walls and books everywhere, on the wall shelves, on the bedside table, in towering stacks on the floor.

  ‘Bed’s already made,’ Fredericka told me and fetched towels, a dressing gown, some soap and shampoo. ‘If you chuck your clothes outside the bathroom, I’ll stick them in the wash and get them dry for the morning.’

  ‘You don’t have to–’

  ‘Nick, I can’t have you walk out of here in blood-stained clothes.’ She gave me a wry smile. ‘What will the neighbours think?’

  I showered and dried myself and went to bed. I had several missed calls from Susie, so I dashed off a quick text saying everything was fine – I could lie too, thank you – and that I’d ring her first thing. I didn’t tell her where I was staying. Since I hadn’t texted all day, she would assume I was in the cottage. Fine by me. I thought I’d fall asleep straight away I was so knackered, but it di
dn’t happen for a while. Somewhere I heard a church clock chime once, and not long after that I nodded off and I went straight into a dream in which I was being chased down the street by two men but when I pounded around another corner it was to find the shooter, waiting, looking at me down the length of a barrel. They fired and as the bullet hit my chest, I woke up.

  Sunlight streamed through the window. I struggled up, shrugged on the dressing gown and pulled back the curtains to see it was a beautiful day. My room overlooked a tiny garden, beautifully cared for, with a pond. Through a lower window in the building opposite, I saw a woman sipping from a cup, also looking over Fredericka’s garden. It appeared as though she was having a thoughtful moment too, but her face was so serene I bet she wasn’t thinking about murder. Or maybe she was? Things were so topsy-turvy I was beginning to wonder if anyone could be taken at face value anymore.

  I texted Susie, who texted me back. I’ve got to see you, she said. Like yesterday. I have stuff to share.

  Tonight, I told her. Can you come home?

  She still occasionally referred to her London flat as home, but she knew what I meant. The cottage.

  Of course. I’ll bring dinner. Love you. She’d added some hearts but all they did was make me feel sad, rather than make me smile like they used to.

  I opened the bedroom door to find my clothes piled neatly outside. I slipped them on. No bloodstains. Just a few small tears and rips in the knees of my jeans from crawling through glass. I trod downstairs to find Fredericka at the kitchen table, reading the news on her iPad.

  ‘Coffee or tea?’ she asked.

  ‘Coffee, thanks.’

  ‘Mike’s already gone to work,’ she told me.

  ‘Please thank him for me.’

  ‘Cereal? Eggs?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘I can’t think of eating either,’ she sighed. ‘What a dreadful night.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I had no idea…’