Cobweb (22 page)

He nodded. ‘At least four people who are here now were there that night. The man they've arrested was too, but poor Jamie's not in the real world and although he's been violent in the past when desperate for a fix he couldn't commit murder. Not in my opinion, anyway.'

‘They found the murdered man's wedding ring among his possessions.'

‘Oh dear, did they? And now they're looking for any accomplices. It does seem to me that whatever anyone says they'll be accused if something remotely like a case can be made against them. Personally, I'm not saying one word.' He gave me another nervous glance. ‘Please don't say anything, but I always pretend to be simple when I'm picked up by the police.'

‘But, if any of you have real evidence—'

He interrupted with, ‘No one would believe what we saw … if indeed we did see anything.'

‘
Why
not?'

‘Because most of us had been on the scrumpy that someone had got hold of. I'm not at all sure what I saw actually took place. Probably not. Scrumpy's like that. No, it was too bizarre for words. The scrumpy, that's what it was.'

‘Try me,' I requested. ‘See if I believe you.'

‘You'll only think me a drunkard and an old fool.'

‘Tom, just by talking to you I know that, while you may have terrible problems, you're neither of those things.'

While I spoke I was monitoring the company, but no one seemed to be planning any more expeditions in my direction. And where the
hell
was my (expletives deleted) husband?

‘I saw a man who could have been him enter the park,' Tom began and then cringed back out of sight as the barrier across the entrance was thrust open, several constables plunged within and grabbed the first person their hands encountered. He was hauled off yelling and swearing.

‘Who –
Giddings
?' I said.

‘Was that his name – the MP? Yes. One can't be sure of course for it was still light and respectable people' – this with a certain irony in his tone – ‘were still about. But there came this chap, city sort, briefcase, nice overcoat, through the park going in the direction of the north entrance. He wasn't strolling, or taking the air, as it used to be called, but obviously on an errand of some kind. There was a purpose to his walk.'

‘What's at the other entrance? Is it just a residential area?'

‘Yes, it's a little backwater really. There are a couple of corner shops of the old-fashioned sort, a newsagent's and one or two others in a side road.'

‘Did you see him come back?'

The man averted his gaze and even in the dimness of where he stood I could see he was shaking.

‘Please don't distress yourself,' I said.

‘You asked me to tell you and I will. I didn't see him alive again but –' He broke off.

‘You came upon the murder scene?' I enquired incredulously.

‘It was quite a while later and the small group of us had had some chips when someone suggested that we could sleep in the park that night, as it has some good shelter in the bushes. That's if you don't get bothered by poofs or moved on by the police. I suppose we were wandering around in an aimless sort of way, still half canned and stupid when we saw – or at least I thought I saw, because no one else did – a ghost. It really frightened me, I can tell you, and I swore I would never touch cider again.'

‘What made you think it was a ghost?'

‘All white, bobbing about. In and out of the bushes. It was an alcohol-induced ghost, my dear. Be warned.'

‘But—'

He silenced my protest with a movement of one hand. ‘Then we came upon the blood. That
was
real.'

‘How could you tell it was blood in the dark?'

He gazed at me severely. ‘There
are
lights in the park – not very good ones, but … more than sufficient on this occasion. I was in the army, you know, and saw bad things. Blood looks black under the lights from orange street lamps. And you could smell …' Tom took a deep breath. ‘Then someone saw entrails. God, it was ghastly. The others just ran.'

‘And Jamie, the man the police arrested? Did he run off?'

‘Er – no, I think he was still hanging around. I didn't see him later, though.'

‘And then what happened?' I prompted.

‘I realized I was standing by a litter bin and could see that there was a round thing in it. I struck a match and …'

I waited for him to resume.

‘A head.' Tom's voice was barely audible. ‘I struck another match to make sure and then removed myself from the place as fast as I could.'

‘Are you sure it was the man you saw earlier?'

‘No, not at all sure. Not with all the blood. The hair was different too. And there are thousands of men who work in the city and look like that.'

‘Different in what sort of way?'

‘I don't know, really. Sort of more stylish.'

I was about to ask more about the ‘ghost' when another posse arrived, made straight for me and bundled me outside. They took no chances, at least three of them frogmarching me into the adjacent archway. It was lit by what looked like camping lamps.

And there, in all his unwashed glory, stood Detective Chief Inspector Colin Robert Hicks.

‘Christ, she stinks,' said one of my escorts, getting out of range.

‘Is it a she?' Hicks enquired sarcastically.

‘Don't know, guv, but the other blokes thought so.'

There were a few sniggers.

‘It doesn't matter,' Hicks said.

I had made a point of slumping to the ground and from this new, lower, level I could see that around the walls were sitting, or lying, the previous candidates for questioning. Most had bloody noses or split lips and one was a girl, sobbing as though she wanted to die.

‘Take a good look,' said Hicks. ‘It's called softening up, and that's what's going to happen to you unless you talk to me really nicely.' He took a handful of my hair and jerked my head up so I had no choice but to look at him, but squinting and grimacing fiercely. ‘Understand?' He frowned at me. ‘Speak English?' Then he let go of my hair and slapped my face really hard.

Dizzy, I was wondering how long my courage would allow me to carry on like this in order to get sufficient evidence against this disgusting man to result in his being drummed out of the force, when a vehicle approached, the headlights beaming into the archway for a moment before swinging away. The car came to a halt.

‘Who the fuck's this?' Hicks fumed, striding to the entrance. He spun round. ‘Everyone block the entrance – kill the lamps. Someone turn the headlights of that van off.'

Like a sack of turnips I was heaved into a corner and it became very dark and quiet but for the girl who was still weeping. Then I heard someone returning. Whoever it was carried a small torch. Before I could do anything there was the sound of a blow and the crying abruptly ceased. He came over towards where I was in my corner, the beam searching.

I had already crouched like a coiled spring and launched myself, aiming for his shins. I misjudged in the dark, slightly stunning myself on a knee, but he went head over heels across the top of me most satisfactorily into the wall behind. Accompanied by an odd set of Christmas-tree lights and with chiming noises in my ears I ran for the entrance. There was no wooden barrier here, just a palisade of coppers with their backs to me. I got one of them around the throat, yanked him backwards at the same time kicking him hard behind the knees where the nerves are. Somehow evading clutching fingers I got through the gap and tore outside. No one had switched off the lights of the van, nor of any of the other vehicles either.

Range Rovers have a distinctive engine sound, actually a bit on the noisy side unless they are V8s. I would have remained in ignorance about the latter fact if the gorgeous man now getting out from behind the wheel had not, once upon a time, told me. He was dressed well too, in his best leather jacket and designer jeans.

Hicks was now right behind me but stopped when he saw the identity of the arrival.

‘What the bloody hell do
you
want?' he shouted and then lunged forward and grabbed me by a wrist. ‘Got a problem here with junkies running amok.' He had me in a hold that he might have thought was an armlock but was not.

‘Please don't apologize,' Patrick said. ‘I'm looking for Ingrid. DS Melrose told me that she might have gone undercover on the streets looking for a suspect.'

‘I wasn't apologizing and I thought that's what you were doing.'

‘No, first I took a mugshot of him around shops in the area and struck lucky.'

‘Well, she's not here.'

I had been hardly listening to this exchange, working out what I was going to do, trying to remember every detail of the way I had been shown, practised: quite a difficult manoeuvre, come to think of it. With a bit of luck I would break Hicks's arm.

I heard myself grunt with effort, or it might have been a muffled roar of rage, applied all the science I knew and then Hicks was airborne. He thundered down on his back into the mud and stones and commenced to utter a sound not unlike a stuck pig.

Feeling really weak and wobbly now, I bent over, hands on knees, for some reason finding it hard to breathe and aware that Patrick was coming over to me. The rest of the audience seemed to have been turned to stone.

‘I had an idea it was you when you came out of there like a burst water main,' he said under his breath, having peered into my face and offered a supporting hand.

‘You need to talk to a man called Tom,' I panted.

But Tom, and all the rest of those not yet interrogated, had taken advantage of the lapse in security and bolted into the night.

Strictly speaking Patrick had no real authority to take charge but one-time lieutenant-colonels are programmed that way. Ignoring Hicks, who was on his feet by now wandering around aimlessly clutching his arm, Patrick delivered a memorable tirade to everyone else about the state of the unfortunates in the archway, called up medical help in the shape of ambulances, especially for the girl, who was still unconscious, and then, with a restraint that was an education to witness, arrested Hicks.

I too then melted away when no one was looking and took to the hills. Ingrid Langley was definitely not involved with this one.

W
e said not a word: nothing useful could be gained by owning up to Michael Greenway that I had disobeyed his orders, never mind been present when Hicks was arrested. There was sufficient evidence against him already without anything I might say. But at a later date, perhaps …

I had arrived back at our digs before Patrick, obviously having walked, rammed all my outer clothing into a large plastic carrier bag to be binned, had a much-needed shower and hair-wash and fallen into bed, completely exhausted. I had only been vaguely aware of being joined in the warmth at some stage during what remained of the night but had surely dreamt the remark that, as I smelled of rotten onions, I was not being lusted after.

‘They're looking for the woman who wrenched Hicks's shoulder and severely bruised his backside,' I was informed over breakfast. ‘But only as a witness.'

‘They won't find her,' I said, knowing that I was smiling like the Cheshire Cat. ‘But we must find Tom.' I told Patrick what the man had said.

He grimaced. ‘I don't like it when people start mithering on about things that go bump in the night – especially when you say he admitted he was the only one who saw it and the whole lot were sozzled.'

‘He gave every impression of being an educated man,' I countered but suddenly remembering that Tom had thought what he had seen was as a result of the scrumpy. Basically, though, I believed him. ‘He saw something white, or someone dressed in white.'

A piece of toast heavily loaded with butter and marmalade halfway to his mouth went back on to the plate and Patrick said, ‘Ingrid, you don't go out to murder someone wearing some crazy outfit that means you're going to stand out like a neon sign!'

‘So you're discounting everything he told me?'

‘No, not at all. I think the group could well have happened upon the murder scene. He probably did see blood and guts and even the severed head in the litter bin.' Patrick saw that I was not happy with his rubbishing of my hard-won nocturnal efforts. ‘Look, I'll make a note of it all and give it to whoever's replacing Hicks before we concentrate on the Harmworth case.'

‘Does Brinkley know about his cherished underling?'

‘Too right. I gave him the news just after you did a runner – at a little after two this morning. And do you know what he said? He told me I ought to have accepted the offer of the job in the first place and then it wouldn't have happened!'

‘Did you tell him about that photo Hicks tried to smear you with?'

‘No. I've made an official complaint about that – but only because Erin Melrose was dragged into it.'

‘As I said earlier, that's why I was out on the streets – looking for you, not Brocklebank. Erin told me she was really close to him and I'm worried that she'll get hurt.'

‘And she obviously thought you yourself were at risk so that's why she rang me.'

‘But you didn't have your mobile.'

‘Yes, as I wasn't undercover I had my own and I'd already given her the number for use in emergencies. And now you've told me what she's up to I shall have to talk to her again. More coffee?'

I pushed my cup nearer. ‘So what lead on Brocklebank did you get by going around the shops?'

He polished off the toast before replying. ‘Well, as I said, I took a mugshot with me. Counter staff in a jeweller's in Woodhill High Street, of all places, thought it closely resembled a man who recently bought a gold chain and two rings and someone in the betting shop next to Woolworth's had an idea it might be a man who puts money on horses occasionally. He always pays with cash. Obviously this isn't someone who lives rough – far from it. He has a car and dresses as though he has money. We might be talking about nothing more than a lookalike, of course.'