Sins of the Fathers (23 page)

‘Andy,’ Carlyle admonished him. ‘Leave it out.’

The constable settled back into his seat. ‘Do you want to get out of here or not?’

‘Fair point.’ Carlyle shut up and watched as the drivers in front of them tried to edge on to the pavement to get out of the way. Still waving his arms in encouragement, Grayson edged them forward. It still took them another couple of minutes to get past the National Gallery and on to Trafalgar Square. Eventually, after driving the wrong way up the Mall and past Buckingham Palace, they found clearer roads.

His temples throbbing, Carlyle knew that his headache was going to be a bastard. The noise from the siren wasn’t helping. Opening his window as far as it could go, he touched Grayson on the shoulder. ‘You can turn it off now.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

Somewhat reluctantly, the constable complied. But he kept driving hard, getting other drivers to pull over out of their way wherever possible.

After little more than an hour and fifteen minutes they were free of the city entirely.

‘It’s like a different world out here, innit?’

‘Yeah,’ Carlyle agreed. ‘The land that time forgot.’

They were cruising down the main street of a place that looked like it had come straight out of an advert for real ale or wholemeal bread – a Soho advertising executive’s idea of a ‘traditional’ English village.

‘I come from a place like this,’ Grayson said cheerily.

‘I’d keep that to yourself.’

The constable brought the car to a gentle halt to allow a couple of geese to saunter across the road as they headed for the duck pond in the middle of the village green. ‘I bet they don’t even have a Starbucks,’ Carlyle mumbled to himself. His headache had gone and the air was fresh. But he was missing Covent Garden already. He pointed to the only sign of life they’d seen so far, a small café at the far corner of the green. ‘Pull up over there.’

Lucy’s Diner was basically the end house on a small terrace where the ground floor had been turned into a café. Outside, two small tables sat underneath a green awning that sagged worryingly in the middle. The front door was open, but there were no customers and no signs of life.

‘Wait here a minute.’ Releasing his seatbelt, Carlyle opened the door and stepped out onto the road. Stretching, he walked ten yards up the road and then back again. After so long sitting in the car, it was good to know that his legs still worked. Then he headed towards Lucy’s.

Inside the café, it was a good ten degrees warmer than it had been outside. As far as he could see, the place was empty.

‘Hello?’

Rustling came from somewhere in the back. After a few moments, a woman popped her head out of the kitchen.

‘Sorry, just coming.’ The head disappeared again.

‘No problem.’ Carlyle nodded indulgently. After all, he was deep in the sticks and you had to make allowances.

Another minute or so passed before the woman reappeared, wiping her hands on a tea towel. ‘Sorry.’ She was blonde and pretty, with clear blue eyes and a strong jawline. He guessed early thirties. ‘I was working in the back.’ Her English had an accent, possibly East European. Maybe all the Poles coming over here didn’t stay in London, after all.

‘Are you Lucy?’ Carlyle smiled.

‘What?’ For a moment, the woman looked confused, then she smiled back. ‘No, no, that’s the lady who owns it. I am Anna. I just work here.’ She tossed the tea towel over her shoulder. ‘What would you like?’

Carlyle ordered a green tea – happy, for once, not to be paying London prices.

‘Take away?’

‘Yes, please.’ He let her hand him a paper cup.

Producing a selection of coins, he asked for directions to the cottage.

‘Ah,’ Anna said, staring him straight in the eye as she dropped the money into the till, ‘you must be police.’

‘What?’ Carlyle tried to appear surprised.

Anna shrugged. ‘You look for the rugby player, no?’

Carlyle gazed around. The place was empty. Grayson was still sitting in the car, watching him through the window. Even so, he still lowered his voice. ‘Have you seen the rugby player?’

Anna took a step backwards, clearly now regretting her conversational gambit. ‘Are you police?’

‘Yes, yes.’ Placing the cup on the counter, he pulled out his ID and let her study it. ‘I’m a policeman from London. I’m looking for Simon Collingwood. Have you seen him?’

Anna shook her head. ‘No. No one’s seen him. But everyone knew his family used the cottage for their holidays. When he escaped, people have been saying the police would come to take a look.’

Carlyle felt his headache returning. He took the lid off his cup and sipped at his tea. ‘So,’ he said slowly, ‘where do I find this place?’

Who would ever call their house ‘Sunnyside Cottage’, Carlyle wondered grumpily as he wandered up a narrow, unpaved track about five minutes’ walk out of the village proper. Elegant elm trees lined both sides of the path – under different circumstances, it would have been another picture-postcard moment. The inspector seriously doubted if he could live somewhere with such a wet moniker. On the other hand, Winter Garden House was no great shakes either.

‘Get a grip,’ he mumbled to himself. ‘You have got more important things to worry about.’ For the third time in the last minute, he pulled out his mobile and studied the screen with exaggerated care as if he could will a signal.

‘Of course there’s no bloody coverage; you’re in the middle of nowhere,’ he chuntered. Maybe he should have thought this through better. ‘Why would you need a mobile? All you’re doing is marching off to find an axe murderer in the middle of nowhere.’ And maybe he should have told Umar. ‘Idiot.’ Or brought Grayson along, rather than leaving him to enjoy Anna’s Polish cooking.

Fed up with the complaints of Moaning Carlyle, Calm Carlyle tried to take over his thoughts. ‘Don’t be a drama queen. Collingwood is basically harmless.’

‘Unless he comes after you with an axe.’

‘But you didn’t rape his daughter, did you?’

‘Good point.’

‘Are you talking to yourself?’ asked a voice behind him.

Carlyle almost jumped out of his skin. ‘Jesus. You scared me shitless.’

‘Sorry.’ Simon Collingwood gestured towards the trees with the small axe in his right hand. ‘I was cutting some wood and I heard you coming up the road.’ He looked healthy and relaxed. Middle England personified. In his white and green check shirt, faded jeans and sturdy boots he could have walked straight out of a Boden catalogue.

Carlyle eyed the axe nervously. The blade looked decidely sharp.

Collingwood looked in the direction that the inspector had come. ‘Where’s the cavalry?’

Carlyle considered lying but didn’t see the point. ‘There’s no one else; it’s just me.’

Collingwood smiled warmly. ‘That’s kind of you, Inspector. I appreciate it.’

‘Er, my pleasure.’ It sounded stupid, but Carlyle didn’t know what to say.

‘Did Alison tell you where to find me?’

Carlyle nodded.

Collingwood smiled sadly. ‘I thought that she would. C’mon,’ he pointed further up the path with the axe. ‘The cottage is just up here. Let’s go and have a cup of tea.’

In keeping with the rest of the place, Sunnyside Cottage looked like it belonged on the front of a chocolate box or a calendar extolling the joys of the English countryside. A small, two-storey whitewashed building, it even had a thatched roof. Inside, the ground floor had been opened out into one large open-plan space with a kitchen at one end and a large fireplace at the other. Sitting at a cheap pine table, Carlyle sipped reflectively on his second tea in quick succession. Outside, the silence was broken only by the sound of the wind in the trees and the occasional cry of a bird. Feeling a long way from home, he missed the background hum of the city with a grim intensity.

Finishing his own drink, Collingwood placed the empty mug in the sink and moved over to the fireplace. Since coming inside, he had left the axe on the table, as if inviting the inspector to make a grab for it. But Carlyle had given that idea barely a second thought. The rugby player was younger, bigger and fitter than he was. Suppose that the inspector managed to get his hands on the weapon? He didn’t fancy his chances of being able to use it. Just as important, Carlyle had no inkling of Collingwood’s intentions. He was an intelligent man operating under great stress who had shown no ill-will to anyone other than the men who had attacked his daughter. The inspector had come here in the first place because he thought there was a good chance that Collingwood would simply give himself up. Even now, he was happy to let things take their course and see how they played out. Maybe Grayson would come looking for him. Sometimes you just had to wait and see.

‘We’ve come here every summer for, I don’t know, the last six or seven years.’ Collingwood gestured around the room. ‘The kids really like it. It’s so different from London.’

Carlyle nodded. He wondered what Alice would make of a place like this. Probably be bored after about ten minutes.

‘It belongs to the guy who runs the rugby club,’ Collingwood continued. ‘He doesn’t know I’m here at the moment, of course, so you should keep him out of this.’

‘I understand,’ Carlyle told him. ‘I’m not looking to cause trouble for anyone else. I said to Alison that I would do what I could to make things easier, and I meant it.’ He took a last mouthful of tea and put his mug down on the table. ‘But we need to deal with these issues.’

Collingwood held up a hand. ‘Do you think I should have killed them?’

Carlyle coughed. ‘I can’t answer that.’

‘What would you have done?’

‘I don’t know.’

Collingwood gave him a disapproving look. ‘That’s not much of an answer, Inspector.’

‘It’s the only answer I can give.’ Carlyle scratched his left ear. ‘Please God, never let me be in a situation like that.’

‘But if you were,’ Collingwood pressed.

‘But I’m not,’ Carlyle snapped, feeling irritated for the first time. Maybe he had indulged this man too much. ‘It is pointless hypothesizing. We can talk around it forever but it doesn’t do either of us any good.
What ifs
are for people with too much time on their hands.’

‘If I get banged up,’ Collingwood laughed, ‘I’ll have plenty of time on my hands.’

Yes
, Carlyle thought,
I suppose you will
.

Collingwood’s face then hardened into a stern mask. ‘Prison is just not for me. I’m not going back.’

‘I can understand that,’ Carlyle smiled sadly. ‘But you have to. It is the only way that everyone can get through this.’

Irritated, Collingwood said, ‘I thought that you understood.’

Half-expecting Bambi to appear through the trees, Carlyle gazed out of the window. He turned back to face Collingwood. ‘I think I do.’

‘But you came to take me back.’

‘Yes. You go back to go forward. That’s the way it is sometimes. Your family—’ For the first time, he saw real anger in Collingwood’s face.

‘The family is gone.’

Shifting in his seat, Carlyle shrugged. ‘You don’t know that.’

‘It’s over.’ Collingwood pawed at the carpet with the toe of his boot. ‘We are getting a divorce. Alison says I’m an animal for what I did.’ Tears welled in his eyes. ‘What
I
did.’ Sniffing, he wiped his nose on the back of his hand.

What should he say now? John bloody Carlyle, all his wisdom used up. ‘They still need you,’ was all he could manage.

‘I won’t be much use in prison,’ Collingwood snorted, ‘will I?’

This time, Carlyle couldn’t think of anything to say at all. Scanning the room, he caught sight of a telephone, sitting on the floor by a moth-eaten sofa. Following his gaze, Collingwood said, ‘I’m
not
going back.’

Carlyle took hold of the axe handle and stood up. ‘I need to make a call.’

‘I don’t think so.’ Barrelling across the room, Collingwood pulled back a fist. A row of scarred knuckles hurtling towards him was the last thing the inspector saw before the lights went out.

He was woken by a woman’s screams. Distant at first, they got closer and closer until he could hear what she was saying, some strange foreign language. Carlyle opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling. It was blurry and indistinct. After a moment, he realized that he had lost his spectacles. Rolling on to his side, he pushed himself up from the carpet and looked around until he found them under a chair. The right lens had been cracked but they were wearable.

‘Another trip to the opticians beckons,’ he grumbled, as he slipped the specs back onto his nose. Pulling himself up by the chair, he staggered over to the sink and took a drink from the tap. The dull pain at the base of his skull was growing steadily and he splashed some water on his forehead.

‘Are you okay?’

He turned to see Grayson standing in the doorway.

‘What happened?’ the constable asked.

Ignoring him, Carlyle stormed out of the cottage. The sun had fallen behind the trees, leaving them in an ethereal twilight. Ten yards beyond Anna, the body of Simon Collingwood turned gently in the evening breeze, his feet almost touching the ground.

Grayson appeared at his shoulder. ‘I checked for a pulse – nothing. You wouldn’t have thought that branch would have been able to hold his weight. Who is he, anyway?’

Anna’s cries had now reduced to steady, undulating sobs. ‘Get her out of here,’ Carlyle said quietly, ‘and call an ambulance.’ He watched a squirrel run past the sobbing Anna and climb up the tree from which Collingwood was hanging. ‘I’ll make a few calls from inside and we’ll try and get this wrapped up as quickly as possible. Then, hopefully, we can get back home.’

*   *   *

Glancing at his watch, Detective Superintendent Quentin Pinkey felt like crying. The first suspicious death on his patch for well over three years – a celebrity axe murderer to boot – and it had to happen on the very day when the Police Choir were holding their annual charity concert. Proceeds from this year’s event were going to the local Samaritans. Pinkey felt like giving them a call himself. There was no way on God’s sweet earth that he was going to get away from the crime scene in time to take part.