Corpse in Waiting (23 page)

‘I have to say there
is
a certain degree of choreography here that, understandably, you haven't mentioned,' the Commander said slowly, tapping the sheets of paper before him. ‘You thought there was a strong chance that Capelli was in the cupboard in the living room where you were all standing. Why didn't you draw Leyland's attention to your suspicions?'

Patrick took a sip of coffee. ‘He was being uncommonly resentful about our presence and that, and tiredness, were affecting his judgement. I had an idea his lip would curl and he would open the cupboard to prove me wrong. And die on the spot, together with any number of those with him. It was important to de-clutter the immediate area to avoid collateral damage.'

Greenway's slightly battered from playing Rugby features split into a big grin. ‘You know, I really love the way you one-time soldiers talk. The Met'll just adore their crack response team being referred to as clutter at a crime scene. I might even put it in
my
report.'

Patrick effected a courtly ‘as master wishes' gesture.

‘What would you have done if they hadn't burst out of the cupboard?'

‘They had to. They'd run out of air. I knew exactly how big it was because I'd taken a look inside at our first visit.'

‘It was fine shooting.'

The word ‘clinical' had crossed my own mind.

Patrick said, ‘Ingrid dealt with a significant amount of rubber and compressed air last night too.'

‘And I'm sure I was responsible for the man driving the digger at the bank raid to have a heart attack,' I said unhappily.

‘Don't distress yourself about it,' Greenway said. ‘He'd had two already and the docs had told him that if he didn't lose weight and stop drinking ten pints of beer a day he wouldn't survive a third. He didn't.'

‘Do we know if the bank job was a ploy to make the Met think that was the real target and not the jewellery raid?' I asked.

‘It wasn't. They were different mobsters who largely hang out in Southend thinking for some reason that they're safe there. This is the most ambitious job they've ever attempted as they usually stick to top of the range car theft and drugs dealing. But the armed foursome were freelance, well known to us and hired for the night.
They
won't be bothering us for a while, one of them now permanently in the really warm slammer.' Greenway harrumphed with laughter. ‘As to the jewellery shop, it's under heavy, if discreet guard, but probably not many of Martino Capelli's lot are left standing to do anything even if the boss hadn't been killed, perhaps by his cousin.'

‘This really was Martino trying to reclaim his patch then,' Patrick said.

‘Oh, yes, it was a turf war all right.' Greenway consulted his computer screen. ‘Five were dead in the flat, including Martino himself, four wounded, one badly. Four were uninjured, one of whom was stuck in the window of the toilet, trying to get out, the other three either having given themselves up or stranded on the canopy over the shops. Outside at the rear, you apprehended two, Ingrid slightly wounded another and a fourth escaped. The Met think they know who he is.' He glanced at Patrick. ‘Tony Capelli was killed along with a man who appears to have been his minder. We don't yet know his name. You met them. Do you?'

‘No, he was his
new
minder,' Patrick answered. ‘The previous one tried to kill me but was clumsy and cut himself on my knife.'

The Commander made a note of this, a smile tugging his lips. Then he said, ‘There were a couple more who were arrested, with others, who were trying to escape at the front and had shinned down drain pipes. It's still in the melting pot as to who actually worked for who as it would appear that Tony Capelli had poached some of his cousin's followers.'

‘Are they talking?' I asked.

‘Some of them are. The usual thing, mostly bleating that they were threatened and coerced into doing as they were told. But that, as you know, has more than a grain of truth in it.'

‘Your plan of letting Martino Capelli out of prison a little early came off then, sir,' Patrick said quietly.

‘Yes, but like both of you, and despite what impression I might give, I regret the loss of life. The redeeming factor is that no members of the public or police personnel were hurt, or at least, only a constable who managed to shut his hand in a car door. A few egos might have taken a hammering though.'

And here he did laugh.

Almost all the rest of that day was taken up with the aftermath. I wrote a report of my own while Patrick went with Greenway to the two crime scenes, the Commander naturally wanting to see them for himself. After snatching a bite of lunch they went to a mortuary where Greenway, together with several other officers from the Met, was able to positively identify a couple of the bodies, the desired object of the exercise as some of the gangs' members had assumed stolen identities. All this took hours and by the time Patrick got away following another session of debriefings at HQ I was back at the hotel, having spoken to him a little earlier by phone.

‘We're on a long weekend's leave so home tomorrow,' he announced as he came through the door. ‘Are you feeling rotten again?' he went on to enquire, seeing that I was sitting on the bed with my feet up.

‘No, I'm fine,' I answered. ‘Just enjoying the sheer novelty. I never have time to do this at home.'

‘We must talk about your new writing room. Over dinner. God, I'm starving.' He threw off all his clothes and disappeared to have a shower.

Jeri Ryan, an actress in
Star Trek, Voyager
, which Matthew watches avidly, has the most superb way of questioningly twitching an eyebrow that I have ever seen achieved by a woman. I performed one of these, only mentally, right now, slipped on the one and only dress I had brought with me and applied a little make-up and perfume.

‘It's perfectly achievable,' Patrick said over a pre-dinner glass of wine in the hotel bar. I had said not one word when he had ordered one for himself as well as he was due to see his specialist in a week's time, who on the previous visit had strongly hinted that he would lift the alcohol ban.

‘What is?' I said, knowing perfectly well.

‘Your writing room. We had that small room created off the kitchen that used to be the old coal store with the view that the kids could have their computer in there and use it for homework. But it didn't work out.'

Before he could go on I said, ‘That was your idea and it didn't work out because even though Matthew and Katie – which is who we're talking about here – get on brilliantly together they do need their own space and both now have their own computers. Which are in their bedrooms.'

‘Perfect then. You can have it to write in.'

‘Have you been in there lately?' I snorted. ‘I already know the answer to that, no. Well, I can tell you, it's just about full and now a utility room. It houses the tumble dryer that wouldn't go in the kitchen, your parents' new chest freezer that wouldn't go in
their
kitchen, plus any number of boxes and crates, some of which contain your stuff, that haven't been unpacked yet.'

‘Can't all this be changed?'

I looked at him over the rim of my glass. ‘No.'

‘Look, I have been trying to think this through for you.'

‘I've already thought it through all by myself, thank you. I'm buying the house in Bath.'

Patrick took a fierce swig of wine. ‘But Alex has put in a higher offer.'

‘I've put in a higher, higher offer. And, don't forget, she's shortly going to end up behind bars.'

He just looked at me.

‘You don't get it, do you? This woman was responsible for my having the prang and—'

‘We don't know that for sure yet. Nor about any of the rest of it.'

‘Then let me have your defence thesis by nine tomorrow morning, double spaced, written on one side of the paper only, no more than ten thousand words.'

‘Ingrid . . .' Unusually, words failed him for a moment. ‘You never used to be quite as stormy as this.'

‘That might be because no one's ever tried to take you away from me before.'

There was a longish silence before Patrick grinned ruefully. ‘Perhaps you're getting more like me.'

‘That's perfectly possible seeing we've spent so much time together,' I murmured. ‘Shall we eat?'

But he still just sat there looking at me. Then he put out a hand and lightly stroked my cheek. ‘I really love you, you know.'

I realized that I had been terribly thoughtless about something and took the hand. ‘No police or members of the public were hurt as a result of you killing several mobsters yesterday. Are you all right?'

‘I was wondering when someone was going to ask me that.'

‘I'm really sorry.'

‘Yes, I'm all right – it was the job, and either them or us.'

James Carrick showed commendably more sensitivity when we met him and Joanna in the Ring o' Bells in Hinton Littlemoor the next evening for dinner. I was wondering how the business of the Gaelic diatribe would affect the evening but should not have worried, both men miming extreme terror on first clapping eyes on one another and then bursting out laughing. The subjects of work or our partici-pation in any shoot-outs were not even mentioned until after we had eaten and were relaxing over coffee in the snug.

‘I wish I'd had a pud now,' said the glowingly pregnant Joanna in a faraway voice.

‘I'll fix one for you,' Patrick offered, getting up.

‘No, really,' she said, going pink.

‘They do a mean treacle sponge with home-made custard.'

‘Oh . . . all right. But I'll go and order it. I might change my mind and have the apple pie and cream instead.'

‘Thank God she made a hundred per cent recovery from the Scottish nightmare,' James said fervently when Joanna had left the table.

‘Tony Capelli's dead,' Patrick said in an undertone. ‘You won't have to worry about him any more.'

‘So I understand. The names of those known to have died were on internal memos yesterday. I heard a Met DCI almost got himself filled with lead.'

‘He'd probably been on duty for the best part of two days without much of a break and was just about done in. So when he told me to bugger off I stayed around.'

Their gaze met and Carrick understood and nothing more was ever said about it.

Although the case was not mentioned that same evening I knew that Carrick had had to release David Bennett as there was no proper evidence to link him with the death of Imelda Burnside. Tests were still being carried out on her remains and until these came through all the DCI could do was tell him not to leave the area. I made a mental note to phone and ask him if anything had come of the discovery of the knife and truncheon in the garden over the wall.

A couple of weeks went by. Patrick returned to work to apply himself to his self-styled role of ‘Chief Inquisitor of Those Left Standing', as Michael Greenway had significant unfinished business with the late Martino Capelli's criminal empire. I stayed at home and tried to write. I began to make progress with this, forced into it by the news from James that the little house in Cherry Tree Row was no longer a crime scene. I contacted the estate agents only to be told that the solicitors acting for the owner were stalling and that other people had shown an interest in viewing the place. Alexandra appeared to have gone off the map, which, in the circumstances, I thought was understandable. I found myself beginning not to care about the house, a fair price to pay perhaps if it meant I would not have to think about the wretched woman again.

The car was returned to us and I had to make myself get in it and drive to Bath station to meet Patrick off a London train. Not being able to recollect what had happened was still upsetting. I was having nightmares about driving a tractor down an almost vertical road in a mountainous region in heavy rain and braking to no effect so perhaps my subconscious knew exactly what had gone on and imagination was adding a few frills.

‘Developments,' Patrick said, breaking off to give me a quick kiss. ‘In connection with Stefan's knocked out front tooth and associated bloodstains. The DNA matches that found on a woman who was raped and an attempt made to strangle her in a back lane in north London two years ago. A couple of off-duty firemen heard her screams and ran to assist. She survived but her attacker got away. The police know him as Steven Harris but he also calls himself Stefan Jabowitz when he's assuming a foreign persona, a sort of dark glasses and leather coat look.'

‘Presumably he got the job as handyman at Boyles House using that identity.'

‘And has apparently been known to use others.'

‘Is SOCA looking into this now?'

‘We are, and since that prison room was discovered he's been tacked on as a suspect in connection with other cases where women are forced into prostitution. Needless to say, a warrant's out for his arrest.'

‘The cops were a bit slow then seeing as he's been as large as life in Kensington for some time.'

‘Looks like it. By the way, that photo of Alex you took by accident didn't make any waves. It really doesn't look as though she has a criminal record.'

‘Has anything come up in connection with that character I met in Boyles House?' I had looked through mugshots to no avail and a facial image had been created using E-FIT, again with no result, the only possible match already serving a sentence for attempted murder.

‘Nothing. But as we both know, it's easy for people to change their appearance.'