Blood Brothers (22 page)

Sorting her prints, Kate came across the negatives of all the photographs she had taken for Carter Price. Strictly speaking they probably belonged to him, but she reckoned it was up to her to keep them safe and she was not totally sure now that the agency office was the best place for them to be, and she certainly did not want to take them home with her. She could do nothing now about the set of prints Carter already had, which included the shots of Harry Barnard arriving at Mrs Robertson’s house. She looked at that negative for a while, pondering again just what it meant and whether she should simply destroy it. But that would not prevent Carter Price revealing everything that had happened in Bethnal Green if that’s what he felt made a story he could eventually publish, using his own prints as proof. She wished that Barnard would finally cut his ties with Ray Robertson but suspected he was too closely linked to him to ever do that. But whatever Ray Robertson was involved in now was even more opaque than usual and almost certainly as much a danger to Harry as it was to him. She thought for a moment longer and then put all the negatives into an envelope with a note to her mother, and addressed the package to her Liverpool home. She would post them at lunchtime and know they were safe until they were needed – if they ever were.

That task accomplished at the post box on the corner of Soho Square she headed back towards the Blue Lagoon. She had not contacted Harry Barnard today. It might be better, she thought, if she resolved some of her own uncertainties before she saw him again. She bought an
Evening Standard
and sat in the corner of the coffee bar eating a sandwich with her usual cappuccino and reading the paper. Just as she had decided that it was time to go back to the office she was surprised by a burly man in a leather jacket, dark-haired and with an aggressive expression apparently etched in place. He had come into the coffee bar and made a beeline to her table before she could even stand up, taking the stool opposite her, blocking her way out.

‘Excuse me,’ she said irritably. ‘I was just going, if you could let me by.’

‘No Flash Harry today, then,’ the stranger said. ‘Sorry, we haven’t met yet but I’ve heard a lot about you, young lady.’ He pulled a warrant card out of his pocket and flashed it in her direction. ‘DS Copeland,’ he said. ‘We need a word.’

‘I’m not sure I need a word with you,’ Kate said faintly.

‘You don’t have a choice, darling,’ Copeland said, his face darkening. ‘It’s either here over a nice cup of coffee or down at the nick in an interview room, and I can guarantee you won’t like that.’

‘I suppose it had better be here then,’ Kate said angrily. ‘I hear people don’t come out of interview rooms in one piece when you’re around.’

‘You’d better believe it,’ Copeland said. ‘Your boyfriend’s not in a position to help you any more. He’s got more than enough problems of his own.’

‘So what do you want to talk about?’ Kate asked.

‘This reporter from the
Globe
you’re swanning around with. What the hell is he up to?’

‘I think you’d better ask him that,’ Kate said. ‘I’m just the hired help. I take the pictures he wants taken.’

‘I don’t bloody believe that for a minute,’ Copeland said. ‘You’re a smart cookie. I don’t believe you don’t know exactly what’s going on. Who’s he talking to? I saw you both watching Ma Robertson’s house yesterday. Why was he there, for God’s sake? She’s eighty years old if she’s a day. Going ga-ga if what I’m told is true. He must have had a reason for turning up out there in the darkest depths of Bethnal Green.’

‘I told you. I just go along for the ride and take pictures when we get there.’

‘So you took pictures down at Ma Robertson’s house?’ Copeland snapped back.

Kate hesitated but could not see any way out of answering. She nodded and sipped the last of her coffee. ‘And where are these pictures now?’

‘Carter Price has got them,’ Kate said. ‘He’s paying for them so I print them out at the agency and then hand them over to him.’

‘You haven’t got copies?’

‘No,’ Kate said. ‘There’s no reason to keep copies.’

‘Not even the negatives?’

‘No,’ Kate said, thinking of her packet winging its way to Liverpool. She had taken that decision just in time, she thought thankfully.

‘But you know what you’ve taken, where and when, and that’s what I want to know,’ Copeland said. ‘You must keep records of some sort.’

‘You’ll have to ask Carter Price,’ Kate said. ‘They’re his pictures, his records. He makes the plans, takes the decisions. I told you. I just do as I’m told.’

‘So how long has this been going on? Where else have you been taking pictures?’ Copeland was looking more and more disgruntled, leaning across the table with his face turning red and uncomfortably close to Kate’s, his fists opening and closing in frustration.

‘I told you. You’ll have to ask Carter Price. If I start handing out confidential client’s information I could lose my job.’

‘If I find out you’ve been lying to me I’ll throw the book at you,’ he said, his face contorted with anger. ‘These pictures of yours look like being material evidence in a criminal case. I’ll follow up on your friend Carter Price and if I don’t get what I want out of him I’ll get a search warrant for your office and your flat. So don’t try any funny business like trying to hide your pictures.’ Kate thought again of the packet of negatives now safely in the hands of the Royal Mail and allowed herself a faint smile.

‘You’ll have to talk to Carter,’ she said. ‘He’s the boss, I’m sure he’ll be very helpful. He’s a crime reporter, for goodness sake. He’s on the same side as you are.’ Although that, she thought, might not be strictly true.

‘I’ll do that,’ he said. ‘Why aren’t you working with him today, anyway?’

‘He wanted to do some work in his office today,’ she said, feeling guilty that she was pointing the sergeant so forcefully in Price’s direction but sure she needed to disentangle herself from Copeland before he started probing even more sensitive areas of her life. She was surprised and relieved he hadn’t gone in that direction. Harry Barnard, she thought, could certainly do without that.

Kate strap-hung most of the way home on the Central Line and arrived at Shepherd’s Bush feeling tired and wrung out. There was a slight drizzle drifting over Shepherd’s Bush Green as she strolled under the wintry trees in the direction of Goldhawk Road and home. She crossed the main road at the lights and headed towards the turning where she lived and glanced over her shoulder ready to cross again but just as she stepped off the pavement she was aware of a car she could have sworn was safely parked heading towards her at speed. In a split second she leapt out of its way, falling heavily back on to the pavement where a concerned passer-by hurried to help her.

Shaking as she tried to assess the damage, hoping that nothing was broken, she allowed herself to be helped to her feet. ‘He came out of nowhere,’ she said. ‘I barely saw him.’

‘The maniac was accelerating towards you,’ her Good Samaritan offered, helping her pick up her bag and collect the bits and pieces, including her precious camera, which had been scattered across the pavement. ‘Are you sure you’re OK? Did he actually hit you?’

‘No,’ Kate said, realizing she was trembling uncontrollably and feeling unaccountably cold. ‘He came close but didn’t actually touch me. I don’t think I’m badly hurt. I’ll have a few bruises I expect.’

‘Where are you going? Do you need a hand?’

‘I live just over there,’ Kate said, waving at the tall Victorian house where she could see lights on in her flat. ‘My friend’s in, by the look of it. I’ll be fine, thanks.’

The two women crossed the road together and her new friend waited at the gate until she saw that Kate had opened the front door safely and made her way inside. But by the time Kate got up the stairs and through her own front door she could not hold back the tears.

Tess was in the kitchen and looked up in alarm as Kate walked in. ‘Whatever’s the matter?’ she asked. ‘You look a bit of a wreck.’

‘I think,’ Kate said through her tears. ‘I think someone just tried to kill me.’

Tess gasped and put her arm round Kate, helping her to sit down on the sofa. ‘Stay there,’ she said. ‘I’ll make you some tea. Hot sweet tea, isn’t that what you’re supposed to have for shock? We don’t have any brandy.’

She busied herself in the kitchen while Kate tried to control the shaking which had increased in intensity as soon as she sat down. Her sobs eased as she sipped the tea Tess brought in but it did nothing for the hollow feeling of fear in the pit of her stomach. In a whisper, she told Tess exactly what had happened.

‘I swear the car wasn’t in sight when I stepped off the pavement,’ she said. ‘It appeared suddenly from nowhere, accelerating at me. I only had a split second to get out of the way.’

‘What makes you think he was aiming at you? It could just have been a bad driver who didn’t see you. The lights out there are not very good.’

Kate thought carefully again about what had happened. ‘I don’t think the car had any lights on,’ she said. ‘I think he was waiting for me to come home. Which means he knows where I live.’ She felt suddenly sick and hesitantly she began to tell Tess why Carter Price seemed about to pull the plug on his investigation. ‘He’s not someone who can easily be frightened off,’ she said. ‘He’s done stories about villains for years, and he’s got lots of contacts in the police who should be able to help him. But he’s scared. Really scared. So I think I should be as well, don’t you?’

Tess looked tense. ‘Hadn’t you better ring Harry?’ she said.

‘I’ve been trying to contact him all day,’ Kate said dully. ‘I had a run in with another detective sergeant at lunchtime, asking about Carter Price’s pictures, and I’d like to get him off my back. But this is much worse.’

‘Let’s call him now,’ Tess said. ‘If what you say is true, maybe we shouldn’t stay here tonight.’ She shuddered. ‘You remember what happened last time someone found out where you lived in Notting Hill. We were lucky to get out of that flat alive.’

Kate took Tess’s hand and gripped it hard. She had always blamed herself for the fire which had stranded her and her two flatmates on the top floor of the house they had been living in. The thought of a repeat of that almost panicked her. ‘Will you make the call? I’ll write his number down.’ She scribbled the Fitzroy number and Tess dialled but as they waited, even Kate able to hear the ring tone from across the room, it became clear that Harry Barnard was not at home.

‘Do you want to call the local police?’ Tess asked, but Kate found that an impossible question to answer. Her faith in police officers was at a very low ebb. She shook her head helplessly and Tess nodded.

‘Right,’ Tess said, recognizing that if decisions were going to be made, she was going to have to make them. Kate, she reckoned, was in shock. ‘This is all too much, after what happened before. Let’s spend the night somewhere else. I’ll ring my friend Eileen. She teaches art so at least you’ll have something to talk about and I know she has a spare room. I stayed there after a party once.’

Kate nodded dully. ‘I’ll pack a bag,’ she said, as Tess picked up the phone again. ‘You’re right. We can’t stay here. It’s too dangerous. And if I can’t get hold of Harry I don’t know where else to turn.’

K
ate did not sleep well on a lumpy mattress on the floor of Tess’s colleague’s spare room. She got up early and the two of them accepted a sketchy breakfast in the kitchen and then walked the short distance back from Hammersmith to their own flat to wash and change for work.

‘Do you think that was a needless panic,’ Tess asked as they unlocked their front door and took a look round their undisturbed home.

Kate shrugged tiredly. ‘I just don’t know,’ she said. ‘I’ll talk to Harry later and see what he thinks.’

Tess looked at her sceptically, taking in her pale face with dark smudges under her eyes. ‘I’m not sure Harry is any good to you,’ she said with unaccustomed bluntness. ‘And if this job with the man from the
Globe
is coming to an end that might be a very good thing too. It’s a very odd sort of assignment.’

‘Well it looks as if that’s run into the sand, anyway,’ Kate said. ‘It wasn’t the most exciting job I’ve ever had, though watching Carter run around like a bloodhound is quite fun. But I did think he was beginning to get somewhere and then suddenly he decided to stop. Said he had upset the trade unions at the paper and that could lead to a strike, which sounded very odd. But he said that was the one thing even a paper like the
Globe
couldn’t afford.’

‘So what happens now?’ Tess asked.

‘I’ll see if he turns up this morning. If not, I think that’s the end of it. Ken Fellows won’t be best pleased. He’ll have to chase Carter Price for what he owes him, I’m sure. But for me it just means I’ll be back on the rotas, doing whatever comes up. It’s no skin off my nose, really.’

‘Well, I think after last night, that might be a jolly good thing,’ Tess said, tumbling a pile of exercise books into her bag. ‘That camera of yours tends to lead to too much excitement, if you ask me, not to say dire trouble. You’d be better off with a quiet life for a bit.’

Kate gave a shrug and did not look entirely convinced. ‘Maybe,’ she said as she pulled on her coat, wound a scarf round her neck and followed Tess out of the flat. ‘I’ll meet you back here at teatime,’ she said. ‘See you later, alligator.’

‘In a while,’ Tess responded automatically before turning back. ‘Your turn to cook, remember. Or shall we go to the chippie? I could fancy a fish supper.’

Kate laughed. ‘Friday night,’ she said mockingly, with instant recall of fish for tea with confession to follow. ‘We don’t have to do any of that any more, la. Remember?’

At the office after her half hour strap-hanging, Kate waited for Carter Price to contact her but when she had heard nothing at ten o’clock she pushed open Ken Fellows’ door and stuck her head round.

‘Hasn’t he been in touch at all?’ Fellows asked irritably.

‘Not yet,’ Kate said.

‘Give him a call at his office. He can’t expect you to hang around all day on the off chance that he needs you. He either does or he doesn’t. He should know by this time in the morning.’