Good People (19 page)

‘Don’t ever push me out of the fucking way again!’ I yelled down into his face as I dragged him across the pavement. I was travelling beyond reason, high with it, a feeling that was arcing between elation and terror. At last I was doing something real for the cause that was figure-headed by Magda, and bolstered by my frustration.

I punched down hard into his solar plexus to give him something else to think about while I shook my handcuffs out of their pocket. He doubled up with a grunt that tailed off into a gargle as his breakfast returned to his tonsils. I snapped the cuffs shut around one of his wrists, wrapped them round a post that carried a
waiting limited
sign, and let go of his hair as I secured his other wrist.

I backed away, bent at the waist, sucking in air. I felt light-headed and fought down nausea. A large drop of blood appeared on the pavement. I touched my cheek and my fingers came away wet. I straightened up. Monica was glaring at me, breathing hard, her hands still locked into claws. I hadn’t felt her rake me.

I knew that I had to run with the crazy-man dynamic before sanity returned.

I pointed at her. ‘I just wanted to talk to you,’ I yelled, still breathless. ‘I just wanted the explanation that you owe me. And now look at it –’ I pointed at Lloyd, slumped up against the pole, gagging into the gutter, and the small circle of onlookers. ‘This is not good for business, Monica. Your boyfriend cuffed to a pole, his car double-parked, causing an obstruction …’

‘Turn him loose,’ she said, catching her breath, still defiant.

‘Fuck it, Monica, I’ve had enough. I’m leaving you to deal with this shit.’ I walked away from her. ‘Call your friends in high places to sort it out.’

I was checking my cheek in the vanity mirror, staunching the blood from the two rents her fingernails had made, when she tapped on my side window. She just nodded when she caught my attention, her face harsh. I gestured for her to come round to the passenger’s seat.

‘You were nice to me before,’ I said as she climbed in.

‘You were a paying customer then.’

‘You’ve got a problem, Monica.’ She didn’t flicker. ‘You backed up the alibi because you thought that it couldn’t be safer. Five honky farm boys, as straight as they come. As safe as vouching for Jesus.’

‘Get to the point.’

‘It’s four honky farm boys now, Monica.’

She turned her head and looked at me coldly.

‘Trevor Vaughan, the one you told me you thought was gay, is dead.’

‘How?’

‘He hung himself.’

She looked away and shook her head. I let her finish her internal dialogue.

‘Who told you to bring up the gay thing?’

She looked back at me. ‘They both did.’

She still wasn’t doing names. I didn’t push it. ‘They gave you the story?’

She nodded slowly. ‘They gave me the names. I was to mention that Paul was out of it, and that Trevor didn’t want to play. If they pressed me on that point, I was to say that I thought he was gay.’

‘Did anyone press?’

She shook her head. ‘No one was particularly interested.’

‘What about the rest of them? How were you supposed to describe their behaviour?’

‘Uncomplicatedly pissed.’

‘Did they tell you why you were supposed to use those particular details?’

‘No. I didn’t ask. I just assumed they wanted me to drop in something that was off-the-wall, but verifiable.’ We were both silent for a moment. ‘Have you got what you want now?’ she asked.

‘Not quite.’

She glanced into the rear-view mirror. Checking out Lloyd. ‘What more?’

‘I want information on who they moved on to. After you.’

She nodded, digesting this. She took a chunky address book out of her handbag, and turned her back on me. When she swung round again she handed me a loose leaf of paper. A name and address.

‘Understand this: it didn’t come from me.’ She opened the door, but then stopped and turned back towards me. ‘I want one favour from you in return.’

‘What’s that?’

‘If you ever manage to turn this thing around, I want prior warning. I want to be able to walk in and retract my statement before people come knocking.’

‘You could always do it now.’

What she gave me then was as close to a smile as we came to that day. ‘Fuck off, Sergeant Capaldi.’

I gave Monica the key to the handcuffs. Weighing it up, I reckoned that taking the flak for their loss was preferable to trying to release an angry Lloyd. He looked like the kind of guy who might just be ready for another round of testosterone-crazed diplomacy. I couldn’t face it. I had had my berserker moment, and now I was just knackered.

I drove for a couple of blocks and stopped to recuperate. I was shaking. The reaction to the quick-release hormone surge was making me shivery, and my insides felt like they were twisted into an irresolvable cat’s-cradle web.

I waited out the shakes and the dizziness before I checked out the piece of paper that Monica had given me.

Alexandrina Borgia.

As a professional name it was corny but effective. It cut straight to the promise of exotica and cruelty. I got my road map out to check the address. It surprised me. I had expected somewhere closer to civilization. Instead, it was a hamlet up in the hills between Monmouth and Chepstow. No telephone number.

I tried to get a hook on Alexandrina Borgia. If she was prepared to do the things that Monica had put off limits, the chances were that she had slipped most of the way down the hill. Too old for the select trade? A junkie?

I was out of practice. I had spent too much time sucking the same air as the Women’s Institute. How was I going to charm a depraved, junkie hooker into my confidence?

The call from Jack Galbraith came through early enough for me to realize that he had made it one of his priorities.

‘Where are you, Capaldi?’ The absence of a profanity made the question even more ominous.

I was heading for the Usk turn-off. ‘Almost in Dinas, sir,’ I lied.

‘What were you doing in Cardiff last night?’

‘I was on my own time, sir.’

‘I didn’t ask that.’

I let the silence swell. There was nothing lighting up on my excuses board.

‘Capaldi, I asked you a fucking question.’

I decided to take a chance and see where the truth led me. ‘I was seeing a prostitute, sir.’

This time it was Galbraith who went silent. ‘Why?’ he asked after the pause, his tone an octave lower.

So far the truth was working. I decided not to push it. ‘For some relief, sir.’

‘I didn’t mean that. I meant, why Cardiff?’ I heard it then; he sounded flustered. Had I actually got Jack Galbraith embarrassed?

‘I don’t know where else to go, sir. I haven’t found any outlets up here for …’ I played out the hesitation ‘. . . you know … Release.’

‘For Christ’s sake, Capaldi! That was a long way to go for some fucking relief,’ he boomed, and it sounded like I had just used up this year’s quota of sympathy and understanding. ‘Isn’t there anything a bit closer? A shepherdess or something like that?’

‘Shepherdesses are pretty thin on the ground, sir, and they tend to end up with shepherds.’

He grunted. ‘Okay, whatever. But in future keep out of Cardiff – they’re still embarrassed to see you around there. I’m supposed to have you safely corralled. I don’t want them on my back telling me that you’ve slipped your leash.’

‘No, sir,’ I concurred meekly. ‘I promise you it won’t happen again. In future, I’ll –’

‘Capaldi, I don’t want to know about your sex life,’ he cut in over me.

‘No, sir.’

‘While you’re on: we’ve had the pathologist’s report on this farmer, Vaughan, and he seems to be okay with suicide. Is that your take on it?’

‘I don’t think there’s any doubt that he did the act himself, sir.’

He groaned. ‘Why do I always hear a “but” with you, Capaldi?’

‘There’s no suicide note. No message to his parents. I don’t know him or his friends well enough, but, from what I can gather, there were no prior attempts and no talk of suicide. He was also wearing a pair of young girl’s panties.’

‘I saw that in the report.’

‘I think that there could be something significant in that, sir.’

‘You’re still talking hunch, aren’t you, Capaldi?’

‘There’s something not right in his death, sir. Coming so soon after the incident with the girl. And another one of the group has gone AWOL from the Army.’

‘Hunch?’ He repeated the question.

‘Yes, sir.’ I sighed.

‘Talk to the women.’

‘Sir?’ I didn’t hide my surprise.

‘I didn’t tell you that. You’re on Morgan’s patch – you stretch this too far and I can’t protect you. But push the wives and the girlfriends, they’re the ones who usually have to tidy away the smelly stuff.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ I said.

But he had gone. His advice already nonattributable.

This was good grass country, richer than anything around Dinas: rolling hilltops, thorn hedges and beech trees. A big sky, high cumulus clouds blowing up from the Bristol Channel. A cold, clear winter’s day, with long shadows, and a sense, in a dog’s muted bark, that sound in this season could travel a lot further than it should be capable of.

The hamlet was little more than a bend in the road that had accumulated a few houses and a defunct chapel. No pub, no Post Office to ask directions in. No people. No red-light district.

Had Monica set me up?

I drove on and got lucky. A row of bungalows with a WRVS van parked outside. The driver, a woman in her late forties, was returning from one of the bungalows with an empty tray. She looked at me suspiciously.

I showed her the address that Monica had given me. She squinted at it. ‘That’s Mrs Morris’s place.’

‘Will I find Alexandrina Borgia there as well?’ I asked casually, testing to see whether her trade name was known locally.

She smiled, and it wasn’t entirely friendly. ‘I think someone’s been having you on.’ But she did give me directions.

The tarmac drive to the house was a new creation, lined with horse-chestnut saplings, with paddocks to either side, behind post-and-rail ranch-style fencing. I drove into a circular area in front of a stone-barn conversion. A fenced yard fronted a stable block on the far side of the barn.

I parked and walked up to the central glazed threshing bay and rang the doorbell. I glanced around. The CCTV camera here was tucked in under the eaves, more discreet than Monica’s. Through the glass I took in a big double-height space with oak-plank floors, a nice Persian rug, and the back of a big, colourful, but tastefully upholstered, chesterfield sofa. This place was definitely more
House & Garden
than ill repute.

No one was answering. I went over to the fence by the stable yard. A notice,
beware of the dogs
, was posted prominently on the gate. ‘Hello?’ I shouted, staying on the drive side of the fence. I took these warnings seriously.

A young woman carrying a rake came out of an open stable door. She blinked at the light, and then registered my presence. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you arrive, I had the radio on.’ She propped the rake against the wall and came across the yard towards me.

I put her in her early thirties. Country pretty, bright green eyes, apple cheeks, loose curled blonde hair piled up on top of her head, strands drifting. She was wearing a quilted red plaid jacket, worn through to the stuffing in places, over a white Aran sweater, tight blue jeans and fitted Wellington boots.

Something in her expression as she looked at me made me aware of Monica’s claw marks on my face. But she smiled. ‘How can I help you?’ she asked pleasantly, an English accent, but no regional shape to it that I could place.

‘I’m looking for Alexandrina Borgia.’

She pulled an amusedly puzzled face. ‘I’m sorry, not here.’

‘I was given this address.’

‘I’m Lisa Morris. I’m the only person who lives here.’ She smiled sympathetically. ‘And you are … ?’

‘I’m Glyn Capaldi. I’m a Detective Sergeant.’ I started to go for my warrant card, but an instinct told me to keep it in my pocket. ‘But this is a private matter.’

‘Sounds intriguing. Just hold on a moment, would you?’ She went over to a solid timber gate that separated the yard from the walled area behind the barn conversion, and opened it. Two large, tan-brown dogs bounded in. Big muscled things with heavy faces and serious momentum. They loped around her as she came back over to me.

‘These are my boys, Jason and Junior. Rhodesian Ridgebacks.’

‘They didn’t bark.’

She patted one of the dogs fondly. ‘They knew I was listening to the radio.’

The display of her protection was for my benefit. But she wasn’t exactly telling me to fuck off yet. ‘Why would someone give me this address?’ I asked.

She smiled mischievously. ‘You’re new at this, aren’t you?’

‘New at what?’

‘Looking for Alexandrina.’

‘You do know her?’ I challenged.

‘Only on Wednesdays and Thursdays.’

I smiled then, my suspicion confirmed. This lady was not a gatekeeper. ‘And this is a Lisa Morris day?’

She returned my smile. ‘Alexandrina doesn’t exist any other time.’ She bent down and pulled a big dog’s face into hers, jiggling it. ‘Does she, Junior?’

‘It’s important that I speak to her.’

She stood up and studied me for a moment, absently rubbing the dog’s ear between her finger and thumb. ‘Why would she want to speak to you?’

I was being offered a chance to pitch. ‘I’m concerned for the past, current and future welfare of a young woman who may have been abducted.’

She frowned and cocked her head. ‘If you are a policeman and you’re concerned that some young woman has been abducted, it wouldn’t be a private matter, surely?’ she asked, playing it mock simple.

‘It wouldn’t be, if the men involved hadn’t managed to persuade the powers that be that they are beyond reproach.’

‘And you’re not persuaded?’

‘No. As I said, I’m worried.’

‘And what has Alexandrina got to do with this?’

‘I think she might know the men concerned.’

She nodded slowly. ‘And you want to see what she can do to de-persuade the powers that be?’