Souvenirs of Murder (23 page)

‘Suppose you factor that in to what you've remembered already and have a think.'

‘As I said earlier, it's Friday. Suppose you come home for the weekend and we can talk about it then.'

‘Look, I'm standing in the back garden of the house in Park Road. Could you please have a little think now?'

‘OK, I'll phone you back in a minute.'

Approximately thirty seconds later my phone rang again.

‘I might have thrown it,' Patrick said.

‘Thrown it!' I exclaimed.

‘It might only be one of the hallucinations. I threw my knife somewhere out in the open. I was being chased by a monster of some kind, an invisible one.'

Hulton, I thought, a monster who had just killed his own daughter.

‘Well, I found the Queen,' I told him. ‘I'll have a hunt around and then come home. Oh, and by the way, there's a man who works at the Cricketers pub in Muswell Hill who answers Hulton's description.'

‘For God's sake stay away from the place then.'

‘Yes, all right.'

I knew how far he could throw his knife and how accurate he usually was. There were no trees in the garden but it was surrounded by overgrown hedges that could easily conceal several cannon and a small howitzer, never mind a knife. Working on the theory that even in extremis he would still not miss any target by a lot I began a search of the whole of the rear of the house, up to a height of about eight feet plus the ground directly beneath. I found nothing, nor were there any fresh chunks out of wooden window or door frames. I spread my search to the vegetation nearby and still failed to find it.

Moving the search area farther down the garden I examined every inch of what had once been a lawn, kicking through the rough grass and praying that I would encounter metal. I found nothing. The tangled borders were virtually impossible to hunt through but I reasoned that if someone had been chasing Patrick down the garden then anything thrown, which presumably missed, would be found somewhere within a few feet of the path, which was slightly to one side of the centre of the garden.

Nothing.

I had been looking for over an hour now and was very cold. Disconsolately going back towards the house I suddenly noticed that a small pane of frosted glass in the window of what looked like a downstairs toilet had a hole in it where one corner had been broken. There were no slivers of that kind of glass beneath it although there were what could have been smashed whisky bottles. I let myself back into the house through the front – I did not have a back door key. Truly, I told myself as I quick-marched to the rear, I shall have nightmares for life if I have to enter this literally bloody place again.

What might have once been a ground floor bathroom was now a dingy utility room: washing machine, tumble-dryer, central heating boiler, and shelving on the wall opposite the window that was crammed with old newspapers, pairs of boots and shoes and sundry other items.

Patrick's knife was buried up to the hilt a couple of inches above the heel of a Wellington boot. I photographed it in situ with my phone and then took it, boot and all, back to SOCA's HQ.

This was still not proof that he was innocent of murder.

FIFTEEN

It was three days later when I descended a flight of steep and slippery with half melted snow steps to the entrance of The Last Gasp nightclub. It had been difficult to locate but I had finally found it in a dimly lit alleyway just off the main shopping street in Acton. At the bottom of the steps I pushed my way through a very stiff to open door that slammed behind me like the jaws of a gin trap. The third obstacle turned out to be an extremely large gentleman with a mouth also like a gin trap who required to see my membership card.

‘I'm here to see Terry,' I told him, or rather yelled to make myself heard over the din.

He grimaced and jerked a thumb in the direction of a nearby curtained archway.

It was dim within but for a diminutive spotlit stage upon which, to the deafening racket that some might describe as music, a mostly naked woman writhed her way around a large fluffy red toy snake. My eyes just about succeeded in piercing the gloom and I congratulated myself that I had got it right as far as the rest of the females present were concerned. I can do tart very nicely, something that greatly amuses Patrick. It's mostly a matter of make-up, hair and deportment but a bosom that threatens to escape from confinement helps.

I was here with Greenway's blessing, in a way, and my reply to the doorman-cum-bouncer, an undercover policeman, had been a prearranged password. The stipulation had been that I would provide my own minder, something he had probably thought I would be unlikely to achieve. There were SOCA personnel already watching without, and within, the club, and although the Commander had not actually said that none of them could be spared to watch over a female loose cannon that was just about the truth of it.

I did not really mind: I would merely turn up with one of the best.

Terry Meadows had been Patrick's assistant in our MI5 D12 days and could be relied upon to drop everything, in practice his security consultancy business, and help out the person he still jokingly refers to as ‘the governor'. I spotted him almost immediately for he was one of the few men sitting on their own.

‘No thanks,' he said as I seated myself, a move that co-incided with someone slaying the hi-fi system, the damsel getting her way with the snake, or whatever, both disappearing to desultory applause. He then did a wonderful double take. ‘Ingrid! I didn't recognize you with –' his gaze strayed downwards from my face – ‘with . . .'

I helped him out. ‘Big boobs? It's temporary and just about the only advantage of getting pregnant. But you know that, you've two children of your own now. How are they?'

His good-natured features split into a big grin. ‘Fine, but exhausting.'

‘And Dawn?'

‘As gorgeous as ever. What can I get you to drink?'

‘I'd better have orange juice too,' I replied, eyeing the tumbler that was in front of him. ‘Thank you.' I put a hand on his arm. ‘It's really good of you to come.'

He asked the question when he returned with my drink. ‘So what are we doing here?'

I gave him a short history of events so far, and, professional that he is, he only refrained from closely surveying those assembled once during my account and that was when I told him that Patrick had to convalesce for three months.

‘Not a chance!' he said turning to stare at me in surprise. ‘He'll be off out as soon as he feels better.'

‘He's a little older and wiser now,' I countered.

Terry just smiled. He is younger than Patrick by just over ten years, of strong build and has conker-brown hair. Once upon a time I had almost fancied him and he me – we almost succumbed but not
quite,
ending up by having a very cold shower together instead.

‘Jethro Hulton,' Terry mused. ‘D'you have any mugshots on you?'

I did, having wrung them out of Greenway.

‘He's got the boring kind of face that asks to be played around with, so he does,' Terry concluded, frowning at the three photographs. ‘Sometimes a beard, sometimes long hair, sometimes a moustache. Disguise apart, he probably has an ego problem because he's so nondescript.'

‘But hairy everywhere else,' I said, realizing that Terry was probably right.

‘Hairy?'

‘Yes, on his body. Andrea Pangborne liked hairy men.'

‘Right, so I'm looking for a woolly mammoth with clothes on.'

‘No, I haven't asked you along to find anyone for me. You're just here to ride shotgun for me because Patrick's not around. SOCA rules and regs.'

‘That's a real shame. I can feel a nostalgic, old times sort of mood coming on.' Unconsciously, perhaps he rubbed the knuckles of one hand against the palm of the other.

‘There are probably more police in here than genuine customers,' I breathed, a little alarmed. This was definitely something he had caught from Patrick; the love of occasional and well-orchestrated mayhem.

I had driven straight to Devon after delivering the boot with the knife in it for forensic examination. Worried and pleased in roughly equal measures upon finding Patrick up and dressed and planning to move into the main part of the house, the decorating having almost been completed, I had said nothing about that until we were temporarily on our own.

‘You'll have to negotiate the stairs.'

‘No, I'm going to sleep on the sofa. The heating's on in there now so I can keep an eye on things. Besides, I'm under Mum and Dad's feet staying here and I know they feel that having their favourite TV and radio programmes on is intrusive.'

He had not been able to conceal from me that he was still very weak and walking with the aid of one of his father's sticks to steady himself as he was suffering from occasional dizzy spells. His complexion remained unhealthily pallid despite the fact that he was still taking a lot of medication.

‘I found your knife,' I had told him, going on to say where it had been.

‘Pity I missed the bastard,' was all Patrick had muttered when I had elaborated on my theory.

‘Have you remembered any more about it?'

‘No.'

It had not been a happy couple of days. Even the two elder children had been subdued – all we could tell them was that Patrick was suffering from a virus, an untruth that made me feel very uncomfortable. But what else could we have said? I am afraid I had spent a lot of time with Justin, Vicky and Mark, convincing myself that it was about time their mother showed up and played with them.

‘You're really worried about Patrick, aren't you?' Terry said, breaking into my thoughts.

‘Yes, I am. All I have to go on is that he said his hand aches for a while after he's fired a handgun and it didn't. Like a few other people I can't see how he'd have noticed that when he'd been doped to the eyebrows and possibly knocked out for a while as well.'

‘The man's always skated on very thin ice.'

I looked him right in the eye. ‘Do
you
think he did it?'

‘No,' Terry immediately replied. ‘To use your words: integrity tends to inhabit the subconscious as well.'

I found that I was smiling reflectively. ‘It was actually Patrick who said that, to Joanna before she and James Carrick were married and he'd been accused of drink-driving when his car went through a hedge. It turned out he'd been set on because he'd witnessed a fight during which a man was killed and they'd tried to do away with him as well and make it look like an accident.'

‘We three have certainly worked on some weird cases together,' Terry commented. ‘D'you remember when we were out in Canada staying with a diplomat's family and trying to prevent some Brit engineers from getting topped and Patrick and I swapped undercover roles? He was the scummy gardener and I swanned it indoors as the man from MI5. Richard Daws blew his top when he found out.'

‘Yes, definitely not cricket,' I said, laughing. ‘He did all their winter pruning for them too.'

Other memories crowded into my mind: of Terry's correct diagnosis of Justin's screams one night when he was a very tiny baby of being boiling hot in a woollen vest that an over-anxious new mother had dressed him in; of his calm bravery in very tight corners but fainting every time medics went near him with needles. Of his unquestioning loyalty to Patrick and me, even when the former had given him a bad-tempered and unwarranted reprimand.

More and more people were arriving, a group that Terry described as a ‘sawn-off' jazz band set up shop on the stage, alcohol flowed as though it was being given away. By now it was just after midnight.

‘So why were the Bill watching this club in the first place?' Terry said, gazing around disparagingly at the tatty interior that someone had had a go at disguising with a coat of crimson emulsion paint and lighting effects.

‘Because, according to Greenway, according to the Drugs Squad, it's a favourite rathole for dealers and those who ought to be detained at Her Majesty's pleasure, but aren't.'

‘I'm surprised. They usually soon rumble that the eye of the law's on them and move on.'

Another hour went by and I was on my third orange juice. I began to wonder what the hell we were doing here on the grounds of one doubtful sighting. The jazz band had a rest, the lights dimmed and the female with the snake returned for Round Two, only with rather less on, the girl, that is. I stifled a yawn, wondering if this was the time when customers did their business deals, in the comparative darkness.

The snake was appearing to be getting the upper hand when there was a shout, then the crash of overturned chairs followed by utter pandemonium. Nearly everyone made a dive for the exits, emergency and otherwise, almost falling over one another in their panic. This was compounded when all the remaining lights went out leaving utter darkness but for one or two tiny red gleams that I guessed were the indicator lamps on electrical equipment.

Terry and I got to our feet just as there was an inrush of people carrying powerful flash lamps.

‘Police!' someone yelled. ‘Stand still! No one move!'

‘God help us,' Terry drawled into the ensuing silence. ‘It's the good officers of the law.' He dropped back into his seat again adding, ‘Who have screwed up yet again.'

Torches were shone right in our faces.

‘SOCA,' I said. ‘Mr Meadows here is my protection officer.'

‘ID?' a deep voice grated.

‘You don't imagine that I carry it with me when I'm working undercover, do you?'