Catalyst (36 page)

He scrolled through the ‘contacts' on his mobile, found Omar and pressed ‘call'.

The Detective Constable answered quickly.

“Sir?” he said, seeing David's name on his display.

“Sorry to phone at this time, Omar. Do you fancy a spot of overtime? And before you answer that, I mean right now. If you can't make it, that's okay.”

“Hold on, please, sir.”

He was obviously checking with his wife. David sensed the discussion was relaxed, even though that did not stop him feeling guilty.

“That would be fine, sir. Where do you want to meet? At the station?”

“No, we're back at the Killing Fields, I'm afraid, or close by anyway. Could you pick me up? You know where I live, don't you?” A rhetorical question.

“Of course, sir. About fifteen minutes.”

“Fine. Thanks, Omar. Please give my apologies to your wife.”

Katey and Jack were both out when Tom and Mags arrived back at the house just before 6.00 pm. Jack phoned at around half-past.

“Hi, Mum. Just to let you know, I'm eating round at Gilly's and staying over. Is that okay?”

“Yes, that's fine, just as long as I know where you are.”

“Oh, come on, Mum,” he said, teasing her, “I'm letting you know out of courtesy and consideration, not because I
have
to, you know.”

“So why did you ask if it was okay?” said Mags.

“Just part of the aforementioned courtesy and consideration,” replied Jack.

“And it's very much appreciated, my love,” said Mags. “Have a nice time.”

“You, too, Mum. More Sumo wrestling planned for this evening?”

“Mmmm, you never know.”

Jack laughed.

“See you tomorrow.”

A little later, Katey returned with two of her friends for an evening in and a sleep-over. They would make themselves a meal, Katey said, leading the raiding party into the kitchen. As usual, her friends seemed more interested in spending the evening with Tom than with Katey. It took a gargantuan effort to extract them from her father's personal space and into her personal lounge, which adjoined her bedroom. This was in spite of the room being fitted out like a film-cum-recording studio with a massive wall-mounted television screen and a wireless sound system featuring eight speakers invisibly set into the walls.

After the girls had finally left them alone, Mags reclaimed the kitchen to prepare a stir-fry for the two of them. Tom remembered Jackie's call and listened to her message.

“Tom, sorry to call you at home. Just checked your website and noticed you've no surgery today. Wondered if you could phone me when you get the chance. Andrew's been in touch this morning, told me I'm fronting this New Regime thing, and said he's already told you. Look, I know I've been going on a bit lately about who's responsible for what. Put it down to insecurity, if you like. You've not been on the wrong side of Andrew yet; you don't know what it's like. But this just doesn't seem fair; these are your ideas, your proposals. I'd like to talk to you about it, if you've time, before Monday. Even get together and make a bit of a start, if possible. Anyway, sorry about the long and rambling message. Speak later. Bye.”

Tom was thankful he had not picked the message up earlier during their day out. It would certainly have put a damper on the enjoyment, because his immediate reaction was an overwhelming feeling of guilt about his and Andrew's plan to deceive her. He knew how much it would mean to her to be trusted with the Party's proposals. It would be a massive personal sacrifice if she were to decline the opportunity on the basis of wanting to see fair play.

He opened his laptop and logged on to Corporate Time to check their schedules for the coming week. Then he phoned her back, relieved that the call went straight through to voicemail.

“Hi, Jackie. Thank you for the call and my apologies for the delay in replying. Just to reassure you, I am perfectly okay with you leading this thing. It should be you, and I'm looking forward to working with you on it. Unfortunately I can't make a start this weekend, but we both seem to have some time available Monday and Tuesday mornings, and Wednesday afternoon. I've booked that on CT. Hope that's okay. Enjoy the rest of the weekend. Bye, Jackie.”

After their meal, Mags and Tom settled together on the sofa in the small front sitting room where Jack had burst in on them the previous afternoon. It was their favourite room in the house, because it had no TV, no hi-fi, no PC. Just a sofa and two armchairs round an occasional table, a couple of wing chairs in the bay window looking out onto the front drive and garden and, very importantly, a drinks cabinet. A room designed just for each other's company, as Tom described it.

They were on the point of turning in, and had just popped their heads round Katey's door to say goodnight, with much giggling and eyelash fluttering from her friends, when Tom's mobile rang. He saw that the call was from Jenny Britani and checked the time – 11.10 pm. It had to be something important or urgent or both. He sat down on the bed and pressed ‘answer'.

“Yes, Jenny?”

“Oh, Mr Brown, I'm so sorry to call you at this time, but I've just made the last check of your voicemails at the office and there's one from Chief Constable Rayburn, phoned a minute or two before eleven. No message, but she left a number for you to call.” She read it out and he wrote it down on a notepad on his bedside table. “I thought I'd better pass it on.”

“That's fine, Jenny. You did the right thing, thank you. I'm sorry that you had to interrupt your Saturday evening.”

“I don't mind. Hope it's nothing bad. Night, Mr Brown.”

“God, what's this about?” he muttered, going downstairs to make the call. Afterwards he went back upstairs to Mags.

“What's the matter?” she asked, as he appeared, white-faced, at the bedroom door. “Not Jack?”

“No, no,” Tom re-assured her quickly. “Nothing like that.”

“What then?”

“It's Irene – Irene Holland. She's been… murdered, shot down outside the pub in Meadow Village. God, poor George – well, poor Irene, of course, but… God… I should go and see… ” although he was not sure what or who.

“How?” asked Mags. “When?

“Tonight, not long ago. A big gang from the estate attacked the village. They were after George; apparently Irene just got in the way. Oh, God, I can't begin to think what George must be feeling. She is – was – a really wonderful lady. Look, I must go to the village tomorrow – can't do anything tonight. Will you come with me? Please.”

Mags hesitated, just for a moment.

“Of course,” she said. “Come to bed. As you say, there's nothing you can do tonight.”

“Yes, yes, you're right.”

David and Omar arrived at 11.15 pm. The pub was illuminated by the flashing blue lights of a dozen police vehicles and several portable search-lights trained on the area where the action had taken place. As he approached, David's first impression was that it looked like an out-door disco experiencing a problem with the sound system. In the centre of the scene were three small tents each surrounded by movable posts on circular bases with crime-scene tape stretched between them. SOCOs in white hooded all-in-ones were searching the perimeter whilst others were crawling around close to the tents. Camera flashes added to the light display.

Omar's vehicle was stopped 100 yards or so short of the pub then waved through as the police constable recognised the DCI before he had chance to show him his ID. John Lawrence walked over to the car as Omar pulled up alongside one of the police vehicles. The inspector was tallish, well built, and with a friendly face dominated by a large moustache.

The front of the Dog and Duck was totally wrecked. All the downstairs windows were smashed and several in the living accommodation upstairs. One of the double-doors was lying inside the entrance; it had fallen away when the customers had come out to face the gang.

“Thanks for coming, sir,” he said as David got out.

“No, thank you for the early heads-up. You know DC Shakhir?”

“Yes.” The two men nodded to each other.

“So take me through the carnage, please, John.”

The inspector told the story from when the waitress had taken the call right up to the delayed arrival of the emergency forces.

“What were those things they'd used to block the road?” asked David.

“They'd rolled about ten big hay bales onto the road from a field and dumped them on their sides. Impossible to get them upright again by hand. Another farmer from the village, Redburn Price – the one who made the call to the pub and the initial one to the police – he ran to his place and got his tractor and shoved them off the road. It's a good job he did; not sure what would have happened otherwise.”

“And Mrs Holland? Did you say she died instantly?”

“No not instantly, but in the ambulance at the scene. They took her away. The other three bodies are still here.”

“And the injured? How are they doing?”

“One woman got a shard of glass almost through her throat. She's lost a lot of blood – touch and go apparently with her. The guy Ben, Alistair Neville's brother – Alistair's the one the young kid shot – got hit in the throat. He should be okay, looked a lot worse than it is – bad enough, mind. And two more with minor cuts on face and arms. Seems likely that there could be quite a number of the gang with minor injuries as well – sprayed by the shot that killed the first one. One's been taken to hospital with eye injuries. We found him afterwards in the car park, staggering around, blinded and screaming. Paramedics couldn't say whether it would be permanent; they won't know for a while.”

“And the young kid who fired the last shot?”

“Yes, we haven't got a full name yet. They called him ‘Jokey' – presumably a nick-name. We think he's the brother of the one doing all the talking – the first one who was killed. If that's true then, obviously, once we ID one of them, we'll know the other. We're all over the place down there right now.” He pointed in the direction of the estate, where on the skyline the usual orange glow was supplemented by blue flashes.

“Quite a few seem to know who they are but won't give us a name. But they reckon the young lad is eight years old.”

David shook his head sadly.

“What sort of reaction are we getting on the estate?” he asked.

“Too early to tell, really. Shock and disappointment, so far, but not sure how they'll react when it comes out that one of the villagers has killed two kids.”

“Well, they were ecstatic enough when Deverall killed three of them. Why would this be different?”

“It might not be; just waiting to see. It would be a shame if the good feeling between the village and the estate was to end. One thing for certain, there seems to be a massive amount of sympathy for Irene and for George. He's a real popular figure there; he's said a lot of good things about Cullen Field since the Brady thing.”

“Let's hope it'll be enough to get the honeymooners through it with their marriage intact,” said David.

He looked around at the scene.

“Can we move the bodies now, sir?” asked the Inspector. “Do you want to see them first?”

“No, I don't want to see them, but I guess I should.”

He looked briefly into the three tents. It was something he had never got used to.

“They can go now,” he said. “We'll just have a mosey round.”

The ground was marked out to reflect the last act with its shattering climax. David recognised one of the SOCOs.

“Hi, Karen,” he said.

“Oh, evening, sir,” said Karen Eccleston, standing up and pushing back her hood to reveal a mass of blonde hair tucked down the back of her suit. She was small and sturdy, with a round, pretty face. “Bad job.”

“You said it. Where does everything fit?” he asked looking round.

“Well, that's where Ben Neville was shot, and he crawled over to his brother there,” she pointed as she spoke to a pool of blood spread over a large area, where Ben had initially gone down, and a trail leading to one of the tents.