The Killing Club (15 page)

‘I packed a few things and went back to my flat, which mercifully hasn’t sold yet. Saved by the credit crunch, can you believe that? It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good,’ she joked.

He shook his head in disbelief.

‘I’m up for talking about it,’ she said, softly.

He opened his hands. ‘Go on.’

‘There’s been quite a bit of pressure from Jeremy in the past few weeks for me to give up my job.’ She let out a hiss of self-reproach, flung her arms out in frustrated disbelief of what she had to tell. ‘No, let’s be honest, it’s been there right from the start. I suppose I just assumed he was half joking, I mean even in the police force most men seemed to have cottoned on that it’s OK for a woman to hold down a serious job.’

‘Oh, we blokes are getting to be quite an enlightened bunch,’ Swift agreed.

‘In the last few days since I moved area and got involved in this case, he’s become quite pushy about it. And, of course, I became rather more determined not to start composing my resignation letter without giving the matter a lot of thought.’

‘Why did he want you to resign? I’d have thought having a high-ranking police officer for a girlfriend might have been something to feel proud about.’

She shook her head. ‘Ed, Ed!’ She chided. ‘Those are the thoughts of a reasonable, unprejudiced modern-thinking man. In no way does Jeremy fit into that category. And I suppose before the penny dropped I was automatically placing him in it, because he was so charming and seemingly thoughtful. Wrong! He’s the sort of man who wants a wife who is under his control, her life defined by him, his money and his business contacts.’ She put down her cup of espresso and he saw her hands shaking with feeling.

‘The dinner party we went to the night before last night was given by one of his business colleagues. There was quite a lot of interest in my job. Lots of questions, you know the kind of thing. And plenty of suggestions that the police were too soft on criminals nowadays, buried in bureaucracy, too few bobbies on the beat. I don’t think the words riff-raff or bloody immigrants were actually used, but I got the drift. I had rather more to drink than I should have, and I noticed that Jeremy was … monitoring it, if you like. Which, of course, made me worse. When we got back to his place he did a little gentle chiding about the drinking. And I more or less told him to piss off.’ She stopped. ‘No, I actually
told
him to piss off. He went rather quiet then, and I apologized for swearing at him. And then the job thing came up. He wants me to go away with him to Thailand. He’d actually booked a flight for next week. I said no way was I going, certainly not until this case is wound up and that, in any case, I wouldn’t leave the service without working out my notice. He said there was no need; I didn’t need to be scraping around, grubbing to make a living now I was with him. I was on the point of telling him to stuff his money and that I had my loyalty to my colleagues to think about. And that I rather valued my job.’

‘But, you didn’t.’

‘No. I just very quietly told him that I wasn’t going to Thailand with him next week.’

Swift knew what Cat was like when she told you something very quietly. Not many people would mess with her when she really meant something.

‘And suddenly I was aware of a sound like a shot. And falling. And then a very sore face and a split lip. It all happened so quickly …’ She stared at him, wretched and re-living the shock.

Swift reached out and touched her hand.

‘Oh God, Ed,’ she burst out. ‘I feel so stupid. At my age, with all my experience, not to have seen it coming. To have made such an abysmal assessment of his character. To have fallen for a bullying, chauvinistic bastard. I feel so … ashamed.’

‘Isn’t that what abused women often say?

She looked at him, shaking her head in self reproach. ‘Yeah. Textbook stuff. I’ve joined the ranks.’

‘No. You took it once because it came out of the blue. And then you cleared out. That’s not shameful. Totally the opposite.’

‘Thank God I didn’t marry him. It was on the cards.’

Yes, thank God, he thought. ‘What’s going to happen now?’

‘I don’t want to go back to my place,’ she said, and he could see she had worked things out, made some sort of plan.

‘You can stay at the cottage with me,’ he said. ‘No strings attached, of course.’

‘Bless you,’ she said softly. Her shoulders relaxed. ‘It’s not just that I know Jeremy will come to the flat to find me, try to persuade me to go back to him. I want to get away, to be in a completely different atmosphere.’

He smiled. ‘It’s very simple and rural out there in the National Park.’

‘That sounds just the ticket.’ She took in some deep breaths and he could see that the shock of an assault from someone you know well kept returning to strike her afresh with its horror. Spotting a passing waitress, Cat got herself together and ordered more coffees. ‘And by the way,’ she said, ‘the migraine wasn’t a fantasy. It hit me around three in the morning, just to make my day.’

When the fresh coffee arrived she heaped brown sugar into her cup. ‘I am up for doing some work,’ she told him. ‘I read your e-mails. I’m up to speed.’

He told her about his early morning meeting with Ravi Stratton. ‘We’ll have to wait for a warrant if we want to search Ruth Hartwell’s place. But I thought we should visit the house anyway, see how young Craig is getting on by himself, if you take my drift.’

‘See if Ruth has any belongings left,’ Cat remarked, grinning and then wincing and touching her bruised eye.

‘I don‘t want to prejudge him,’ Swift told her, ‘but he’s been inside a very long time, he’s missed most of his growing up period behind bars and has very little knowledge of the wicked ways of the modern world. It’s hard to expect him to behave like an angel.’

‘Right,’ she said, draining her coffee. She worked her fingers gently around her face. ‘Will I frighten the horses?’ she asked.

‘What police officer worth their salt never got a few battle scars?’ he said, settling up the bill, and tucking some coins under his saucer for the waitress to find.

‘Are you sure you feel up to this?’ he asked, as they got into his car.

‘Work,’ she said, ‘best medicine I can think of.’

Ruth was a tolerant and patient woman, but not patient enough to sit doing nothing in a hospital ward. She wanted out. She had reached the stage of having mainly recovered from the shock of her collapse, although she had a faintly woolly feeling in her head and a pain in her hip from her fall on to the concrete path in the park. But she judged she had not come to much harm and her main consideration was to get back home as soon as possible. She needed to give her family the reassurance she was not an invalid, she needed to be there for Craig, and she had to talk to the police frankly and openly about the events of the last two days, and the serious threat she and her family were under regarding Mac the Knife.

She was simply waiting for her doctor to do his ward round and agree to her discharge. She had breakfasted at 7 a.m. and the hours seemed to be dragging before any real life started up on the ward. She was spending her time deliberating on all that had to be done, interspersed with an occasional doze.

On seeing Craig walk into the ward, looking enormous, somewhat wild and utterly bewildered, she felt a spark of delight and relief that he had not run away in fright following her disappearance.

She held out a hand to welcome him. He stood, looking down at her, deep rings of worry under his eyes. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m very well,’ she told him, making her voice bright and cheery, although the effort to speak was exhausting. ‘I had breakfast in bed today for the first time in decades.’ She kept smiling, trying to reassure him. ‘Did Tamsin get herself home?’ she asked, suddenly remembering her dog.

He nodded. ‘A woman brought her back. I’ve given her some food. She’s all right.’

Ruth smiled. ‘She’s clever, that dog, if no one had found her she’d have made her way home on her own. She’s done it before.’

‘Yeah,’ said Craig. He remembered that he had something to tell Mrs Hartwell. His mind had gone blank with the effort of getting to the hospital and surmounting the hurdles to find where she was. ‘How long do you have to stay in here?’ he asked her.

Ruth smiled. He made it sound like a prison sentence, which in a way it was. ‘Not long, I hope.’

Craig saw someone moving to stand close to the bed. A shadow fell across Ruth’s white bed cover. He looked around, startled and then dismayed to see that it was Mrs Hartwell’s daughter. And that she wasn’t looking at all pleased.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’ she hissed at him, brushing past him to place her fingers briefly on her mother’s arm. ‘Mum! We’ve all been so worried about you.’ It sounded like an accusation.

‘I’m doing fine,’ Ruth said, her voice faint and laced with anxiety. She looked from her daughter to Craig, who sat in a miserable huddled lump on his chair. ‘Craig, will you get my daughter a chair?’ she asked, pointing to a small stack of chairs near the entry to the ward.

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ Harriet exclaimed. She rounded on Craig. ‘Don’t bother about getting a chair. I’ll have yours. Just get out. You shouldn’t be here anyway, and I want to talk to my mother in private. Just push off.’

‘Harriet!’ Ruth protested, knowing it was no use.

Craig leapt up from his chair and disappeared like lightning down the corridor leading to the exit doors.

Ruth sighed.

‘I’d like you to myself,’ Harriet said. ‘Without any of your lame ducks and dogs. Just for once.’

McBride was keeping a watch on the
Old School House
, being pretty sure the goods he wanted were somewhere in that rambling place. He recognized that the old lady might have been sharp enough to hide them elsewhere: with a neighbour, or a friend, or, God forbid, the police. He tried to dismiss such notions; those were the tactics of a canny criminal, not a law-abiding old woman. No, he judged the pictures were most likely to be in Ruth’s domain, why else had she looked so alarmed when he had mentioned them?

The problem was the big lad was still around all the time in the house. And the dog as well. Not good. And worse still, feelings of frustration and helplessness were now his constant enemies. His old bravado seemed to be seeping away from him. He had been so well briefed on this assignment: the boss’s foot soldiers had done all the research any action man could wish for. And still he hadn’t done what was required of him. He should be ashamed of himself. Moreover, time was running out and he was beginning to be worried, not an emotion which had usually seized him before.

His considerations regarding his next tactical move were suddenly jolted into decision-making by a call from his boss. It was almost unheard of for the boss to make a call personally to his minions. That task was usually delegated to the second-in-command, a bully-boy from the boss’s past who had been to school with him, apparently. Whilst bully-boy used a hectoring, threatening approach, the boss was softly spoken and excessively polite, a style which elicited instant shuddering tension in his hirelings.

‘Mac,’ he said, leaving his voice and its tone to act as his sole introduction. ‘I want those photographs. I want this matter dealt with. I want it dealt with within the next twelve hours.’

The connection clicked off, leaving McBride dry mouthed and shocked as though a bolt of electricity had passed through him. Without those photographs, he could well end up a dead man very soon.

He ran through the possibilities yet again. OK – there was no way he could work further on Mrs Hartwell, not with her in the security of a hospital ward. All he could do was simply go on waiting, keeping a watchful eye on the front door of the
Old School House
. He had been watching for twenty-four hours now without any sleep and he was feeling rough. He tried to squeeze new inspiration from his weary brain. He supposed he would have to steel himself: break in and disable or kill the lad if he was at home. Then deal with the dog.

But, joy of joy, as in answer to a prayer, at that very moment the young guy opened the front door and walked away down the path. Mac watched him turn into the road, walk down towards the bus stop and join the queue. Hallelujah! Now, at last, he could get going.

Without a break in his stride, he went up the driveway and peeled off to the side of the house, rounding the corner where the bins were kept at the back of the house. He schooled the muscles of his face to relax whilst he pulled on his latex gloves. He looked up at the side of the house next door. There appeared to be only one window and it had a pane of thick frosted glass, so not much danger of being overlooked from there. Stepping up to the dividing fence he checked that there was no one in the garden. Looking down Ruth’s garden, he noted a small wooden gate leading out to a narrow track which ran alongside the back of the row of houses, giving ample opportunity to make a quick getaway if necessary. He reached into his pocket and felt for his old trusty skeleton key, turning its cold firm shank in his fingers. It had been a while since he had used it, and most modern locks were complex now. But he’d eyed up this one on his last visit and it was pretty old and would cause no problem at all. He spat on the bit of the key, rubbing the saliva over it so as to muffle any sound from his entry. He crept up to the door and looked through the glass of its upper section. He saw the dog sleeping in her basket. Damn! Well, he’d dealt with dogs before. What needed to be done in that quarter, he would do. As he inserted his key into the lock, he heard the front doorbell chime. Once, twice. And then some pretty heavy knocking. The dog woke up.

And then, oh, Jesus God! There were footsteps sounding along the front, a shadow growing on the pathway at the corner of the house. It didn’t take him long to decide what to do. He bolted like lightning down the garden, pushed open the rotting wooden gate and was gone.

As Ruth watched Craig being banished from the ward by Harriet’s rejecting words, her pent-up patience in dealing with her daughter’s selfish and bullying behaviour through the years welled up inside and broke through like an explosion.