Blood and Stone (30 page)

‘Anything?' Mariner asked.

‘Not much more than you already told me. But you might want to come and have a look at this.'

Mariner followed Griffith down the landing to Hennessey's room, where he nudged the wireless mouse that sat beside the laptop on the little wooden desk. ‘It seems Mr Hennessey is interested in a little more than the wildlife.'

The screen revealed dozens of folders of photographs, many of which seemed to relate to the locality; they were simply labelled with dates, all of them in the last couple of weeks. Griffith double-clicked on one of the folders. It contained a few close-range shots, but none of them were of wildlife, nor even any particular subject that Mariner could see. If anything they just seemed to be random shots of the village and its inhabitants. ‘From what I can determine so far, the early stuff seems to concern the village itself and then moves on to the farm. Later ones seem to centre on Gwennol Hall. I'd love to get into the hard drive to see what else is on here, but if we start poking around that and Hennessey shows up again, he'll probably sue.'

‘Good old data protection,' said Mariner grimly.

‘If he's trying to disguise his real intentions he's been pretty smart about it,' said Griffith. ‘There's such a wide range of pictures on here that it would take an age to figure out what his actual target is.' Mariner could see long-range shots of a helicopter and some passengers getting off. Further scenes had been captured of the farm, including, Mariner noticed, his conversation with Willow. Mariner suddenly wondered if Hennessey held the same suspicions about Abbey Farm that he did.

‘So what the hell is he doing out here?' Griffith was thinking aloud.

‘Based on this folder, I'd start with Shapasnikov,' said Mariner.

‘Any particular reason?' asked Griffith.

Mariner indicated a couple of the pictures that had caught his eye. They were a sequence of shots recording the arrival of Shapasnikov's helicopter, with Shapasnikov walking out to greet his guests. ‘That might be one good reason,' he said, pointing to a man alighting from the chopper.

‘I understand Shapasnikov made much of his fortune out of gas and oil. Is there a reason he's cosying up to the energy secretary, do you think?'

‘Well, when Hennessey shows up again he'll be able to enlighten us himself,' said Griffith, optimistically. ‘Anyway, aside from being desperate to get out of that MIU, one of the reasons I wanted to come down here is to run a couple of things by you.' He looked at Mariner. ‘Have you eaten? I'm starving. Want to grab a sandwich?'

They went down to the bar where Ron Symonds found them a private corner and brought them some food including bowls of chips hand cut from Abbey Farm organic potatoes. Griffith waited until Symonds moved away before saying: ‘We've been up to the byre Jeremy Bryce told you about. He was right, there's plenty of evidence that someone has been living there, probably for some days, and fairly recently judging from the dates on some of the food packaging. And we could have had a breakthrough. Screwed up and stuffed into a crevice we found a set of waterproofs covered in what looks like blood. They've gone to the lab. We're also looking at a burglary at a holiday home about twelve miles west of here. We're not sure yet if that's at all related, but if whoever was hiding out at the byre escaped on foot, they may have stopped off there too.'

‘But going west? If it's someone who followed me out here from the Midlands, wouldn't we expect them to go back the way they came?'

‘Like I said, the break-in is probably no more than coincidence. But we also found this at the byre.' Putting down his knife and fork, Griffith fished in his inside jacket pocket and produced an evidence bag, which he passed to Mariner. Mariner stared at it blankly for several seconds, trying to make sense of what it contained. It was a white pamphlet with a photograph on the front of a smiling young woman. Anna. ‘That's the funeral I was at last week. She was my …'

‘I know,' said Griffith. ‘Tony Knox filled me in.'

‘But I don't get it,' said Mariner, baffled. ‘How the hell could that be there?'

‘Who else knew that you were coming out to Wales after the funeral?' asked Griffith.

‘No-one,' said Mariner. ‘I mean, my gaffer, DCI Sharp, but literally no-one else. I didn't even tell Tony Knox or DC Khatoon until I was leaving.' Mariner thought back to the journey over to Tregaron. ‘I might have been followed though.' He told Griffith about the SUV. ‘At the time I thought I must be imagining things, but maybe I wasn't.'

‘You said there was a Range Rover hanging around the village the other night too.'

‘That may have belonged to Shapasnikov. He's got a couple of those in his garages.'

‘Okay, so that might account for that one,' Griffith said. ‘But was there anyone at the funeral you didn't recognize?'

Mariner grunted. ‘Loads of people. Anna had only recently moved out there from Birmingham, but she'd already picked up a whole new set of friends. In fact it was a perfect funeral for anyone who wanted to blend in; new friends would assume that any strangers were from her old life and vice versa.'

Griffith was studying the order of service. ‘Anna Barham,' he said, as if testing out the name. ‘She was in the job?' he asked. It was a reasonable assumption.

‘No.' Mariner shook his head as if trying to shake off the memory. ‘She was my ex-girlfriend. We'd lived together for a while. I was still … very fond of her.'

Then it came to Griffith. ‘My God. She was the girl involved in that incident off the M5, wasn't she?'

‘Yes,' said Mariner, and the old familiar pain in his chest that had lain dormant for a couple of days chose that moment to cut through him with renewed intensity.

‘Jesus, I'm sorry,' Griffith said. ‘It was a well-publicized case, wasn't it? It would have been easy for anyone to get information about her funeral. Would it have been reasonably expected that you would be there?'

‘Anyone who knows anything about me would put it together. This isn't the first time I've wondered about Goran Zjalic's reach either. At the time I thought that he might have had something to do with Anna's murder; that perhaps it was more than just a random attack. I'd met Anna in the city that day and if I was being watched …'

‘Didn't they have a couple of blokes in the frame for her killing?' asked Griffith.

‘Yes, but there hasn't been enough evidence to arrest,' Mariner said.

‘It was Hereford, wasn't it?'

‘Very near there.'

‘My old stamping ground.'

‘Elena told me you were SAS.'

‘I still have a few mates out that way. If you think there's anything I can do …' He let the sentence hang.

‘Thanks,' said Mariner, briefly wondering what he had in mind. ‘Anyway,' he said, pulling himself together. ‘This isn't helping you.'

‘This man Zjalic, he's into organized crime?'

‘Everything you can imagine,' Mariner said. ‘Has anyone come forward to claim Jeremy Bryce?' he asked suddenly.

‘Not yet. The mocked up photo isn't ideal, but even so …'

‘Early days,' Mariner said.

‘Yeah.' Griffith tucked the funeral brochure back into his pocket. ‘Although strange that no-one should come forward.'

‘Well if you get stuck there's always the locket.'

‘Locket?'

‘I found it in the footwell of my car the morning after I gave Bryce a lift. It's a gold locket, like a woman or child might wear around their neck. I didn't get round to giving it back to him, so it's still in my rucksack. You must have it. It contains a lock of his daughter's hair. Something happened to her, but again, he didn't get the chance to tell me.'

‘You mean he was hiding it?'

‘No, it was just late at night when we had the conversation. The timing was wrong. It's a long shot, but if hers was some kind of unnatural death there might be something on record, and it would be a start.'

‘It would. I'll get someone on to it.' Griffith looked momentarily sheepish. ‘We should be able to let you have all your stuff back soon.'

‘Whenever you're ready,' said Mariner. ‘And let's hope that in the meantime Joe Hennessey decides to show his face again.'

T
ony Knox had learned that wherever Kat might be she was still accessing her bank account. At least he hoped it was her. When he finished work on Wednesday he went back to her apartment building. As he was inserting the key in the door he noticed that the lock had been patched up, as if it had broken, or been smashed. He tried not to worry too much about that, but opening the door he walked into something odd, as if a burglar with a conscience had been at work. Drawers and their contents had been pulled out, but haphazardly replaced again. There was no sign of a handbag or phone or any of the personal items that women were in the habit of carrying round with them, nor was there much evidence from the kitchen that anyone had cooked or even eaten there for some time. The place had a strange feel to it and it wasn't good. Learning nothing from it, Knox let himself out again and as he stepped into the hall he heard a door nearby click shut, very carefully. He walked along the passage to Saira's apartment and rang the doorbell. There was no response.

‘Saira,' he called impatiently. ‘It's DS Knox. I know you're there, I heard you close the door.' He was rewarded by the door opening just a crack.

‘Sorry,' she said. ‘I knew it was someone in Katarina's flat, but I didn't know who.'

‘Can I come in?'Knox asked.

‘All right,' she said, though she didn't sound too keen.

They sat across from each other on Ikea reclining chairs.

‘How long ago was Kat's flat broken into?' Knox asked.

It hit the spot and she blushed. ‘About a couple of months ago.'

‘And in the circumstances you didn't think that was worth telling me?'

‘Kat made me swear not to tell anyone …'

‘Even someone who's trying to help her?'

‘I …'

‘It's all right,' said a voice from behind where Knox sat. ‘I'll take it from here.' Knox spun round to see Katarina standing in the doorway. ‘Is my problem, so I must explain.'

Katarina looked a very different young woman from the one Knox had first met. Today her hair was healthy and strong, growing down to her shoulders, her face had filled out a little and she had a hint of a tan. But the haunted look that Knox remembered so well had returned to her eyes.

‘That would be a good start,' he said, unsure whether to feel relieved that she was here in front of him, clearly safe and well, or annoyed that he had been led a dance. ‘So, what's going on, where have you been?'

Katarina came to sit beside Saira, who immediately took her hand in a gesture of support.

‘I went to see my friends in London, just for a short time,' Katarina said. Maybe it was having been among fellow Albanians but Knox noticed that her accent was more pronounced today. ‘I had to go, to get away from Giles and mostly from his friend Hugo.'

Knox shook his head in disgust. ‘I've met him, although we weren't exactly introduced. He seems like bad news all round. You were worried about the drug-taking?'

She nodded. ‘When Giles first brought him to his place I thought he was an okay guy. Right after he came Giles said he has to tell me something, and Hugo confessed that he has been addicted to heroin but he is trying real hard to get clean. Giles says he needs somewhere to stay away from that shit, so he is going to live with us. From the start I didn't trust him. He was living with Giles and eating his food, watching his TV, but he didn't offer any money and soon I realize he's taking drugs again. Giles is out at work all day, but sometimes I came back in the afternoon and I would see what Hugo has been doing. Money and things start to disappear from the flat and sometimes he stays out all night. I tried to talk to Giles but he says he has to help his friend. One day I came home and Hugo is rushing round the flat in a panic. He says I have to help him. There are some men after him but he doesn't know why. He thinks it might be his dealer made a bad deal. I try to find out what men, but he says I won't understand. They are from Tirana. Is a big shock. Now I think maybe they are not after him, but they are after me. The next day I came home to get some things and my door is broken down and my flat is wrecked. I was afraid. I had to go away.'

‘Why didn't you call Tom?' Knox asked. ‘He could have helped you; we both could.'

She stared down at her hand, twisting a ring around her middle finger. ‘Tom has already been too good to me. I didn't want to get you involved again. I don't want him to think I can't take care of myself.'

‘I think Hugo took your key to Tom's house and has been hiding out there,' Knox said. ‘I went back a couple of days ago and it was trashed too.'

‘Oh God, is my fault.' She looked up at him, distraught.

‘It might not be,' said Knox. ‘Tom has been caught up in some stuff out in Wales. There's a possibility that someone is after him and they may be after you too.'

‘I don't want to go back to my flat. Hugo has been there and he might have made a new key.' She shuddered. ‘He knows some bad people.'

Knox was thinking on his feet. Partly he was imagining what Mariner would do. ‘You can come and stay at my place for a couple of days, at least until you can get the locks changed on your flat,' he said. ‘It's right away from here and I can keep an eye on you.'

‘Thank you.' Both girls looked relieved and Knox realized at that point the risk that Saira had been taking in helping her friend. Knox waited while Kat collected together her things then, as quickly as possible, they left.

Mariner had just seen Griffith on his way and was considering where he might go for the afternoon, when the door of the bar swung open and Suzy came in. For a moment he thought she was going to avoid him, but then she came directly across to where he was sitting. ‘Can I get you a drink?' Mariner asked.