Cradle to Grave (52 page)

But when he glanced at it, it wasn’t the number he was expecting. He picked it up and said hello cautiously.

The words he heard brought a smile to his face. ‘I’ll be there,’ he said. ‘Just go on as you would have done till I arrive.’

There was more, though, and he shook his head. ‘No. Not two. One. That was the deal.’

He listened, unmoved. ‘We’ll have to renegotiate, then.’ He named a price, heard the protests, then came down a little. He couldn’t afford to miss this chance.

Today he had almost begun to believe he might fail, for the first time in his professional life. Mounting surveillance on the police car park had proved impossible; indeed, he had obviously missed Fleming leaving. This had delivered her to him on a plate. With chips.

Lady Luck had always been a friend of his, and today she wasn’t just smiling, she was beaming and giving him a big, fat, sloppy kiss.

26

Cara brought in the tray and set it down on a low table. ‘It’s dark in here today!’ she said, and went to switch on a couple of the tall steel lamps in the corners of the room. As she bent over, the light caught her forearm, highlighting the needle marks and bruising. Fleming could see bloodied marks on her lips too, where the dry skin had flaked and been torn away, and the cracking at the corners of her mouth. The woman was in a bad way and, Fleming guessed, getting worse. Now Crozier had been got rid of, would Ryan start edging her from dependency into full-blown addiction?

Fleming began while the coffee was still being poured out. She wasn’t sure how long she would have; Ryan could walk out of the interview anytime and she didn’t want to be still on the premises when he got back.

‘Cara, this isn’t official, because I know what a difficult position you’re in. But my sergeant said you had told him in confidence about the man you saw in the house, and that you were scared Declan would find out you’d talked to him.’

Cara, handing round the mugs, didn’t say anything for a moment. Then she said, ‘Yes. Yes, I’m scared of him now. Things have been going on – he won’t tell me.’ She bit at the sore lip.

‘What have you noticed?’ Fleming had a low, attractive voice and now it was full of warmth and sympathy.

‘Well, there was the man, like I said. I asked Declan who he was and he was angry, said it was nobody and I hadn’t seen him. But I had. Then my father was killed, and when I heard about Alex, I was really scared.’ She looked at Fleming with wide, frightened eyes. ‘And then someone else died and I thought it was maybe the man I’d seen – I don’t know why. But who killed him?’

‘We don’t know as yet,’ Fleming said. ‘But your husband was here all that evening?’

Cara shook her head violently. ‘No, no! I said that because he said I must, but I didn’t see him after about seven. I don’t know where he was. He doesn’t tell me what he’s doing, you know.’

It was hard not to show satisfaction. This was the delicate part now, though, and Fleming said carefully, ‘Do you think you would feel able to make an official statement to that effect?’ As Cara hesitated, she went on, ‘You know, we have reason to think that your husband was implicated in your father’s murder, as perhaps you have realised?’

‘Oh, my father – yes,’ Cara said, but from the way she spoke Fleming guessed that this had not been, as she had been assuming, the motivating factor.

‘We would only ask you for it once we were sure of our ground,’ she assured her.

That worked. ‘Yes,’ Cara said. ‘Yes, I’d do it then.’

The phone rang. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, and as she went out Fleming could only be thankful that it hadn’t interrupted them a minute earlier. Cara could always go back on it, of course, but it was less likely once she’d made the commitment.

Time was getting on. When Cara came back, Fleming stood up.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘That’s been very helpful. We’ll leave it there today, though. I don’t want you to find yourself in difficulties if your husband comes back. Kim—’

‘Oh, no, no!’ Cara said. ‘Don’t go just yet. There’s – there’s other things I want to talk to you about.’

She was looking definitely jumpy. Starting to need another fix, or just nervous about something? Intrigued, Fleming sat down again. Kershaw hadn’t moved anyway.

He took back all he had said about Lady Luck. She was a bitch, after all. The moronic old bat who had pulled out from a side road straight into his path just might have buggered the whole thing.

The Vectra could be on the stolen-cars list by now, and he’d have been in even worse shtuck if she hadn’t taken so long to struggle out after the collision and get her addled brain round what had happened. By then he was three streets away, strolling along.

Now he had to find another car to nick. He’d have to rely on Cara to keep them there a bit longer, though he didn’t like it. She’d been nervy already and with the problems he’d been warned she had, she could go flaky on him at any time.

Grimly, he assessed the cars in the quiet side street. There was an old black Toyota Corolla, parked in front of an empty shop and opposite a blank wall – no prying eyes. That would do.

‘You see,’ Cara said, ‘I was scared. I found out that the woman who killed my baby was right here, on the headland.’

Suddenly Kershaw looked up. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘You lost your child. I lost mine, my daughter. She died yesterday.’

Fleming closed her eyes in dismay. There was nothing she could do about it.

Kershaw was going on, ‘Debbie was her name. I’m trying to learn what you do, after your child dies. You need lessons, but they can’t tell you. Can you help me? What did you do?’

Naturally enough, Cara was taken aback. She ground her teeth on her lower lip. Then suddenly it started pouring out. ‘I – I was angry, very, very angry. That bitch of a nanny killed her. How do you cope with that? And she said my son – my little boy! – had done this terrible thing. And they believed her. She was evil, evil! She should fry in hell.’

Her voice had risen almost to a scream and there was spittle flecking the corner of her mouth. ‘And you know who I blame? I blame my father, that’s who! Him and his lover – her grandmother. He believed all she said, put a woman with a violent temper in my children’s nursery. I could never forgive him, never!’

Just how wrong could you be about a person’s reactions? Fleming asked herself. Cara hadn’t grieved for her father at all – on the contrary – but there wasn’t time to pursue that thought now. She had to calm the woman down: Kershaw seemed bewildered by what she had provoked.

‘It’s been hard for you, Cara, very hard,’ Fleming said. ‘And you haven’t been happy either about what has been going on in the house here, have you?’

Cara’s eyes had been looking almost unfocused, but she stopped and took a deep, shuddering breath. Then she shook her head as if to clear it and said, ‘Sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean . . .’ Her voice trailed off.

At the same time Fleming saw that silent tears were starting to spill down Kershaw’s cheeks. She needed to cry, but not here! Fleming picked up her shoulder bag and got to her feet again. ‘We really have to go. As you can see, my colleague is under a great deal of strain.’

Cara got up too. ‘No, no, just a minute.’

‘I don’t think—’ Fleming began, but when Cara said suddenly, ‘There’s a laptop,’ her ears pricked up. She had always been convinced there was one.

‘The laptop? One that belonged to your father?’

‘That’s – that’s right. I think Declan must have hidden it. I’ll show you where it is.’

Fleming gave Kershaw a doubtful look, but this was a lead she couldn’t afford to ignore. She put down her bag again and with Kershaw at her heels she followed Cara across the hall and into the passage that ran under the stairs.

Cara stopped and unlocked a door. As she opened it on to a deep, walk-in cupboard, Kershaw said in a voice thick with tears, ‘It was worse for you. Your baby didn’t have to die. Someone killed her.’

‘Below that shelf,’ Cara said to Fleming, switching on the light. Then, as Fleming bent to look, she heard Cara say, ‘But it’s all right. She’s paid for it now. She’s dead too,’ and froze.

Cara shouldn’t know that – and suddenly Kershaw was pushed on top of her and Fleming fell under her weight, hitting the injured side of her head on a stone shelf. She saw stars, cried out and then everything went black.

Declan Ryan walked back to the Memorial Square, still feeling shaky. He wasn’t sure how much harm he’d done by walking out, but he couldn’t have taken much more of it.

At least Macdonald had seemed to take some interest in what he said about Lisa Stewart. God knew they’d been given enough hints before to look in that direction, which they’d ignored. Now he’d spelled it out for them, maybe they’d go after her at last, no matter what Ginger thought.

Or maybe she’d escape yet again. Charmed life that woman led! If all had gone well, she’d have been dead by now. If!

If only they hadn’t all made such a shocking miscalculation about his father-in-law’s desire for vengeance, Jason would have done his pushing-off-a-cliff-to-order service by now, and with a hold like that over him, Gillis would have had no alternative but to let his son-in-law into proper partnership in the business. As was only fair – and Declan had no problem about the woman who’d murdered his daughter getting what she deserved.

Gillis had no right to the high moral tone he’d taken. Apart altogether from his business morals – or lack of them – he was the one who’d started it by issuing bloodthirsty threats.

He’d been beside himself that day, when they’d brought in the verdict. Oh, they’d all been angry, disbelieving, Cara hysterical, of course, but Declan had honestly thought Gillis would have a stroke. He’d been on every news bulletin in the country, eyes bulging, veins on his neck standing out, as he roared that she would pay in blood. He’d even been given a formal warning by the police.

For Jason, bumping into the girl in a corner shop had been like finding a pot of gold. All he’d wanted was a simple payoff for a favour done, but he couldn’t persuade Gillis to meet him to discuss it.

Declan was the obvious middleman. Jason was reluctant to cut anyone else in on the deal – he’d be doing the dirty work, taking the risks, after all – but he needed cash up front to make it work, and Declan had the money.

Or rather Cara did – the money, and the desire for revenge. Where Declan might have baulked, she had driven it on, with the scary ruthlessness she showed about anything she wanted.

But it was Declan who had added a bit of finesse, with the blackmail idea, and Cara had seized on it. She resented Gillis preaching to her about drugs anyway, and after Poppy died he had definitely become the enemy. Declan had been quite shaken by her glee at the thought of making her father squirm.

Only, of course, it had all gone hideously wrong. But how were they to know that Gillis hadn’t meant what he said? Mucking Jason about had just looked like distrust and the idea had been to engineer a meeting up here, so Declan could lay out the plan and assure his father-in-law that Jason was a man he could rely on.

Declan had felt sadistic enjoyment in sending the melodramatic texts. They’d worked too: the little bitch had really suffered. Hadn’t they all? And once they’d manipulated her into proximity with Gillis, the trap was ready to spring. There was no shortage of convenient rocky paths to push her off – tragic accident, a girl called Beth Brown with a sorrowing partner. And of course, once all the fuss was over, there would be the real, serious, permanent payoff – a dripping roast.

That was one thing. Killing the man in cold blood was another. Though he’d never liked Gillis, he was Cara’s father, for God’s sake! But Jason was hyperventilating in panic at having killed Alex, Cara was showing the sort of cold excitement he didn’t like to think about, and they were both insisting it was the only way out. He’d buckled under their certainty and now he was in it up to his neck. He’d set it up, even, telling Jason when Gillis would be coming up the path – and right under the nose of the snooping MacNee.

Declan felt just a faint flicker of pride at outwitting him. And after all, by bringing the police into it Gillis had signed his own death warrant – and Alex’s too, selfish bugger. Alex had been a great bloke, and Ryan felt sick all over again at the thought of what would happen when the police focused on the files he’d been holding.

Of course, they’d only found out who he was because that greedy bastard Jason had nicked Alex’s car, which should have been safely under a few tons of earth and rubble. He tried to tell himself that now they’d proof of Jason’s guilt, they wouldn’t bother with too much digging – they were always on about manpower shortages. Just as long as Fleming had been choked off before she brought in the serious fraud guys. If she hadn’t been . . .

He knew Hugh Lloyd and Paddy Driscoll blamed him already. And if they found out what by the law of unintended consequences had led to Alex’s death, God help him! Though admittedly there wasn’t much reason why He should.

Tam MacNee was restless. It would have helped to get out for a long walk, but with the weather bad and deteriorating, even the dogs were affected by the gloom, huddled in their beds and showing no enthusiasm.

He found his mind turning, yet again, to the case. Fleming should have finished her interview with Cara by now and he was consumed with curiosity to know what had emerged from it. He wished she would call him and tell him how it had gone – after all, he’d been the one Cara had talked to first – but it didn’t look as if she was going to. Part of his punishment, perhaps.