Requiem for a Dealer (21 page)

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Authors: Jo Bannister

BOOK: Requiem for a Dealer
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Deacon sucked in a breath. ‘No,' he agreed, ‘that's not normal. And Alison's checked the house?'
‘So have I. I'm there now. There's no sign of him. He hasn't left a note, and his wallet's in the kitchen.'
‘Any signs of a struggle?'
‘None that I can see.'
Deacon wanted his bed. He wanted to finish this day so he could start another in the hope it would be better. ‘I'll be round in five minutes.'
There were no signs of violence that he could see either. He crossed the Promenade to the Victorian terrace opposite, some of them houses, some of them shops with flats over them. He started at The Singing Kettle. The café was closed now, but it would have been open until nine and Mr and Mrs Miskimmin lived on the premises.
Mrs Miskimmin had spent most of the evening baking for the next day, but her husband had been in the café and saw a vehicle parked close to the netting-sheds. He hadn't seen anyone get in or out, but it was there for a few minutes. Then it drove away.
‘What kind of vehicle?' asked Deacon.
‘A van of some sort. I couldn't tell you what make. White, high sided – a bit bigger than a Transit.'
Deacon considered. ‘Could it have been a horse-box?'
The café owner shrugged. ‘I suppose.'
‘Were there any markings on it? A company logo, anything like that?'
‘I don't think so. Or if there was I didn't notice. But then, it was already dark.'
‘What time was this?'
‘About eight o'clock maybe, or a little later? Mr Deacon, what's going on?'
Deacon didn't answer him. ‘Did you see Hood at any time during the evening?'
Miskimmin nodded. ‘He was out on the balcony with that telescope of his. It's a clear night,' he added with a tolerant grin. ‘He's always out there if it's a clear night.'
‘Before or after you saw the van?'
‘Before.'
‘And after?' He wanted to be sure.
Miskimmin shook his head thoughtfully. ‘No.' He asked again, determined on a reply. ‘What's happened? Is Daniel all right?'
Deacon had noticed this before: that people who had no reason to care whether Daniel Hood was alive or dead found themselves doing so. It wasn't that he had a lot of friends, more that a lot of people who were mere acquaintances somehow recognised him as a decent human being and enjoyed his amiable presence just enough to miss him. He added a little value to a lot of lives. When the time came there wouldn't be a crowd at his funeral – just Brodie, and Paddy, and Brodie's neighbour Marta; and probably Deacon too because there was every chance he'd be looking for a murderer, someone whose patience Daniel had finally pushed to breaking point. But half the town would notice he was gone and be sorry.
Deacon didn't understand that, and not understanding troubled and annoyed him. But then, Deacon was a good man rather than a likeable one. People who knew him well mostly admired him. But an awful lot of people didn't want to know him that well.
He said honestly, ‘I don't know, Mr Miskimmin. We can't find him.'
‘Maybe he went off in the van.'
Deacon nodded grimly. ‘Maybe he did.'
‘It's true, then.' Daniel's voice was not much more than a shocked whisper. ‘Stanley Barker
was
murdered. Alison was right. Everybody told her she was letting emotion cloud her judgement. But she was right all along. He didn't jump and he didn't fall — he was pushed.' His chin came up like a challenge. ‘By you?'
‘Of course not,' said the vet. ‘I wasn't even in this country at the time.'
But Daniel couldn't stop thinking. Worse, he couldn't stop doing it aloud. ‘But Johnny Windham had an alibi. He was abroad when Stanley died – the police asked him to prove it and he did.' He looked up, his eyes widening. ‘There's someone else.'
For a moment, before he managed to mask it with annoyance, the vet looked troubled. He was an intelligent man – far more intelligent than Windham, which was why until now he'd done all the thinking and Windham had taken all the risks – and not given to painting himself into corners. What he'd said hadn't been careless or unthinking, verbal wallpaper to fill a gap. He'd said it because, if you need someone to do what he's told and not get stroppy and argue with you, and not start to wonder if he could take you in a fair fight, there's a lot to recommend putting the fear of God into him.
What he hadn't expected was that Daniel would pick the threat apart to see what it would tell him. ‘Mr Hood, you're asking too many questions,' he observed. ‘It's not a healthy thing to do.'
Somehow Daniel managed to laugh out loud. ‘You mean, you might have to kill me twice?'
The man laughed too. Even people who found him in their way could sometimes hardly resist Daniel's quite unconscious charm. ‘No. I mean, who knows what may happen in the next few hours?'
‘So you're going to kill me, but not yet.'
The man gave a non-committal sniff. ‘I'm merely suggesting that we try to remain civil while we wait, and not anticipate the balance of necessities.'
Daniel swallowed hard. ‘So what are we waiting for?'As soon as it was out he realised this was not a sensible thing to have said.
‘I'm waiting for nature to take its course with this pony's digestive system,' the vet said calmly. ‘Until then, this is a good place to be. It's quiet, no one will come, we will not be disturbed. If I leave here I must take the animal with me and risk your friend the policeman spotting me. Afterwards, I can walk away with all I need in a plastic bag.'
Daniel didn't want to be reduced to begging, but ultimately he valued his life above his dignity. ‘At which point, I can't do you much harm,' he said in a low voice.
The man shrugged. A chill like meltwater ran down Daniel's spine. That was how much someone's life meant to these people: a shrug of the shoulders. If pressed, perhaps he would toss a coin. ‘I'll tell you what, Mr Hood. I'll think about it.'
 
Deacon knew now he'd done the wrong thing about Windham. If he'd held onto him he could have asked him about the white van. He had a fair idea that the missing pony was in it, and it seemed likely that Daniel was in it too.
He should have considered the possibility of another vehicle. He knew Windham wasn't in this alone. That they could rustle up a second horse-box to break their trail should not have come as a surprise. In all likelihood it was on the same damn ferry. That would be the smart thing to do. While Customs were watching for the Windham Transport lorry they were hardly likely to pull in a second horse-box. A white van with a nondescript pony on board would have been less likely to attract attention on that sailing than any other.
But that meant Windham had boarded the ferry knowing he would be stopped. The operation had been blown long before Calais. Deacon shoved his hands deep in his pockets and glared at Brodie. ‘He made you.'
‘What? No way!' Her dark eyes flashed dramatically.
‘He must have done.'
‘It's not possible, Jack,' Brodie insisted. ‘We were so careful.'
‘Maybe he spotted the car,' said Meadows in a low voice. ‘I tried to keep my distance, but it's a long journey – maybe he saw
it just once too often.'
It wasn't impossible. But she hadn't taken any chances, or made any mistakes, that she shouldn't have. ‘It wasn't your fault,' said Brodie stoutly. ‘I suppose, if you've the makings of a fortune with you, you're probably pretty paranoid. Maybe he did notice the car and it was just enough to make him wonder, and wondering was enough to make him dump the evidence.'
Then she shook her head. ‘But he was never out of our sight. And if he suspected he was being followed, why leave the motorway at all? He could have stuck to his schedule and picked up the catalyst another day.'
‘He didn't spot you until after he'd met with his vet friend,' growled Deacon.
‘But that was the last place he could have off-loaded the pony,' insisted Brodie.
‘He didn't stop at all between there and Calais?'
‘He went into a service station for a coffee and a paper. Then he drove on.'
‘And you had the lorry in view throughout?'
‘Yes.' Then Brodie's eyes narrowed. ‘And no. We had the front of the lorry in sight. We could see Windham in the cab. The back was sandwiched between other vehicles and the garage wall.' She grimaced. ‘I suppose, if there was someone else to do it, the pony could have been taken offWindham's lorry and put onto another one without us seeing.' Understanding how easily an expensive surveillance had been compromised made her feel very small.
Deacon was spitting tacks. ‘So all he had to do was phone his mate from his cab to say he might have company. His mate met him at the service station and while you were watching Windham he off-loaded the pony onto another horse-box. It wasn't exactly
The Great Escape,
was it? My Aunt Martha could have pulled it off!'
Brodie didn't know what to say. She'd thought they'd done a good job; only it turned out Windham had done a better one and now the pony was missing and the drugs were missing and Daniel was missing, and she didn't know where to start looking for any of them. The only thing she was sure of was that they
weren't at Windham's yard. He hadn't made enough mistakes to give them reason to hope he'd made that one.
‘What will you do?' she asked in a low voice. ‘Pull Windham in? Give him the third degree, make him tell us where they've taken Daniel?'
Exasperated as he was, Deacon could find it in him to be sorry for her. This odd-couple relationship she had with Daniel, he might not understand it but he knew how important it was to her. If Hood got hurt because she'd made mistakes she wouldn't forgive herself. He wished he had an answer for her.
‘I could, but it wouldn't achieve anything. He knew we were onto him before Daniel was lifted. He knew he was being watched: it was the perfect alibi. I can pull him in but I can't make anything stick and he knows it. He'll just sit there smiling, inviting me to try. Time's on his side, not ours. Once he has the catalyst from inside it his mate can shoot the damn pony, and Daniel too, and torch the van, and we wouldn't know him if he walked down Battle Alley in broad daylight.'
Brodie knew – the conclusion was unavoidable – that Daniel was in danger. But Deacon saying that made it real. Tears welled in her eyes and she could do nothing to stop them.
Seeing them made Deacon feel like shit. He knew there was no kindness in his soul. Most of the time he either didn't notice or didn't care, but just occasionally he hurt someone he didn't mean to and then he felt like shit.
It was too late to bite his tongue, and she wasn't stupid enough to believe him if he back-tracked now. An apology was all that was left. ‘I'm sorry. I'm tired, I'm bad-tempered – what do I know? Maybe he just wanted to find out what Daniel knows. It's his name on the paperwork, maybe they had him down as the brains of the operation. In which case, by now they know different. Maybe they've chucked him out on top of the Downs somewhere and he's walking back to civilisation.'
Brodie appreciated him trying, however unconvincingly. She managed a watery smile. ‘But you don't really think so.'
‘I don't know. I want to think so. It's possible.'
‘I think you were right the first time.'
He needed some realistic hope to offer her, not platitudes. He
groped in his tired mind for the next move. ‘If they'd wanted him dead they could have taken him into his house and killed him there, and Alison with him. They didn't. They wanted to talk to him. Obviously we suspect Windham, but do we have the rest of it – the German end, the vet, the factory? Just how badly are they blown? Well, there's nothing Daniel knows that he wouldn't be prepared to tell. He has no one to protect. He probably said this was my idea rather than yours, but apart from that he hasn't any information worth getting hurt over. That's one thing to be grateful for.'
After a moment Brodie nodded.
‘So they needed somewhere to talk where they wouldn't be disturbed,' continued Deacon. ‘Not Windham's place – he knew he was under surveillance before they arranged this. Somewhere else. Somewhere he could park a horse-box without anybody asking why, and stay for — I don't know how long a horse's gut is! – maybe a day or so.'
What had begun as an attempt to find some reassurance for Brodie was actually raising his own spirits. ‘You know, there's time left in the programme. This man isn't going to kill Daniel out of panic — he has no reason to panic. He's somewhere he feels safe enough to sit and wait, and he knows he's going to be there for maybe another day He knows we're watching Windham, but so does Windham — he's not going to lead us anywhere. As long as he can keep Daniel secure – and let's face it, he's not the Incredible Hulk — he doesn't need to do anything else.'
Brodie could see that. ‘But the time will come when he has to make some kind of a decision. He can take his package and run, and leave Daniel to be found. But Daniel's a witness against him — the only one who can tie him into this business. Why would he risk leaving him alive?' Her voice was desolate. She was desperate for an answer but she didn't think there was one.
‘I don't think he will,' Deacon replied honestly. ‘But that point could be twenty-four hours away. He won't kill him before he's ready to leave. You never know what the future holds and he'll want to keep his options open. If we catch up with him he can use a live hostage in a way that he couldn't use a corpse.' He'd done it again, and again he kicked himself at the flicker of pain
that crossed her face. ‘Brodie, we have a whole day to find them in. Don't tell me I can't find two men, a horse and a horse-box with twenty-four hours to look.'
He wasn't making this up. Policemen aren't used to having time on their side: in a situation like this, a day's grace was an unexpected luxury. But if he'd been talking to Voss rather than Brodie he'd have acknowledged that even one district of a small and over-populated island is dauntingly large when it comes to making a thorough search.
An experienced team would take a day to search one house thoroughly enough to be sure nothing had escaped their scrutiny. To search every wood, every barn, every garage or factory building that could hide a small horse-box was an impossible ambition – even if they confined themselves to a ten-mile radius of Dimmock, and there was no reason to suppose the box had travelled no further than that. It could be travelling still. Twenty-four hours was enough time to conduct a proper search only if they knew where to start searching.
Despite his efforts to shield her, Brodie was thinking pretty much the same thing. But at least she was thinking. ‘They'll have taken him somewhere they feel safe. Somewhere Windham knows but thinks we'll never find. But what about Ally? She's spent all her life with people like Johnny Windham, going the places they go. If he knows a secret hideaway, maybe she knows it too.'
Deacon turned and looked at the girl who was once again asleep on the sofa. ‘You want to ask her?' he said doubtfully.
‘With Daniel's life on the line? Damn right I will.'
First she went into the bathroom and turned the shower on. With the regulator turned right down the water was icy. She went back into the living room and fixed Deacon with a determined eye. ‘It might be better if you're not here for this bit. Do you want to nip out and buy some triple-roasted Colombian coffee?'
He knew that what she was protecting him from was not the sight of Alison Barker in a wet T-shirt but the elevated eyebrows and disapproving looks of his superiors. As a civilian and a woman, she could get away with things that he, as a detective
superintendent and a man, could not. But Deacon was always interested to learn just how much he could get away with. ‘Daniel's decaf'll do.' He helped her lift the sleepy mumbling girl and steer her into the bathroom.
Brodie was taller than Alison Barker, and when she was this determined she was strong. But even she still couldn't hold the girl at arm's length. Without a second's thought she kicked off her shoes and shed her jacket, and otherwise fully clothed she stepped into the bath and under the pounding water dragging Ally with her.

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