Souvenirs of Murder (4 page)

He swore under his breath.

‘I can't understand why he has his own phone,' I said.

‘He probably hasn't. He was issued with one that has a completely false set-up and for emergency use only. Your number could have been one of those in it.'

‘He still might have told them the codes for it.'

‘It wouldn't have done them a lot of use as someone calling themselves Auntie Mamie answers and yatters on for fully half a minute about life in Frinton before anyone can get a word in edgeways.'

‘He's a very poor subject for truth drug actually,' I recalled, forcing myself to be pragmatic. ‘Keeps singing and going to sleep. I could hear someone singing in the background.'

‘I'll do everything in my power to pull him out,' the Commander promised before ringing off.

I sat on Matthew's bed staring at the shiny new phone, my mind in a whirl. It seemed inconceivable that Patrick, so professional in everything he did, had had his own phone with him and I hoped Greenway was right. Unless he was living in some kind of rented accommodation that had been raided by whoever had rung me – and I wondered if it was the Thug in Charge working for the Executioner – and his personal possessions, which I knew would have been well hidden, had been found.

But under truth drug he might have told them where they were. It was possible he had told them everything about himself, about me, the children, where we lived, everything.

But on the other hand . . .

I reasoned that it must have been Patrick himself who had rung me originally as he had allowed it to ring only four times: the emergency call using our own prearranged code that Greenway did not know about. Even if the person who then acquired his phone had been given the information for what reason would they want me to phone back? The man had presumably used the last number redial facility in order to see who he had been trying to contact. Was his cover, in fact, blown? What had he told them other than his name? Was he even alive?

I stared at the phone and then slowly, fearfully, having to know something,
anything,
dialled his number.

It rang and rang.

Then, just before I knew the messaging service would cut in, there was a sudden silence. Then, laboured breathing.

‘Patrick?' I shouted. ‘Patrick! It's Ingrid. Where are you?'

There came the ghastly sound of someone vomiting, on to the floor, probably.

‘Oh, God, where are you?' I cried.

‘I – I don't know,' Patrick's voice said faintly.

‘In your room?' I asked. ‘Is it your room?'

‘Yes . . . it's my room,' came the answer after several very long seconds had elapsed. He then sang the first verse of a rather rude Rugby song.

‘Are you hurt?' I managed to get in before he could start on the second.

‘I don't know.'

‘Have those people gone?'

‘What people?'

‘The people who were with you. I rang after you tried to contact me and a man answered.'

‘I can't remember anyone else being here.'

‘Think!'

Another long silence followed during which I could picture a man trying to gather his drug-addled wits while he fought nausea. He lost on the latter count.

‘Patrick, please talk to me when you can,' I pleaded, not knowing if he could even hear me.

‘Yeah, that's right,' he gasped, finally. ‘They broke in. They've gone to get her.'

‘Then get out!' I shrieked. ‘You know what happened to the others!'

‘I don't think I can walk. They gave me a jab and I passed out.'

‘Does Greenway know where you are?'

‘Who?'

‘Greenway. Michael Greenway. Your
boss.
'

‘I don't know.'

‘He said he'd get you out. He
must
know where you are.'

There were scuffling and grunting noises that went on for far too long for my peace of mind. Then, panting for breath, Patrick said, ‘Yeah, I can stand. And walk – sort of. I'm going to get her.'

‘No, that's what
they're
doing,' I frantically told him. ‘Save yourself! Find a taxi, or a bus. Just
go
!'

‘I'm going to get her,' he repeated. ‘It was part of my brief.'

I opened my mouth to again implore him to escape but he had gone.

The news broke at around four thirty that afternoon. There had been a shoot-out at a house in Muswell Hill in London with several fatalities. The police were saying very little, only that, at present, the incident was being treated as a battle between two rival gangs. Three people had been taken to hospital, one of whom was a girl around eight years of age who had died shortly afterwards from her injuries. A man found collapsed and in a confused state nearby, armed and with his clothing bloodstained, had been arrested.

THREE

‘Patrick hasn't been arrested,' Michael Greenway said. ‘That was for the benefit of the media. We actually carted him off to the private clinic SOCA uses when we want a little anonymity.'

By this time I was fuming because of being, in effect, on the far end of a very long piece of wire. ‘Am I permitted to resume duties?' I enquired stonily.

‘You can talk to him over the phone if you want to. No restrictions there.'

‘Where are the restrictions to be found then?' I countered.

He had a habit of chewing his bottom lip when he was thinking and I could imagine him giving it hell now.

‘What I meant to have said was that you can talk to him about everything but the job over an open line.'

‘Please answer my question. Can I get back to work so I can help Patrick deal with this?'

‘Are you sure you're fit? I mean, I wouldn't want you to—'

‘I'm fit,' I interrupted.

‘Well . . . yes. Of course.'

‘I'm coming to London – now. Where do I find him?'

‘Ingrid, before I give you the address I feel I must tell you that he does appear to have killed or injured several people. The woman who sometimes called herself Andrea Pangborne was among the dead. It was the drugs he'd been pumped full of, of course, and no one's talking about arresting him until he's recovered and can make a statement.'

‘Is he supposed to have shot the little girl?' I asked him, shivering now.

‘We won't know until his clothing has been DNA tested but I'm afraid it would appear so.'

‘I spoke to him,' I revealed. ‘When he'd just regained consciousness.'

‘Come to HQ and we'll talk about that. I'll take you to the clinic afterwards.'

‘It might not be as bad as we think,' was Greenway's opening remark when I entered his office later that day. Not for the first time, I wondered if his wife and family ever saw him. ‘Would you like some refreshment?' he went on to ask.

‘No, thank you,' I replied, my insides still churning with the sheer horror of the situation. ‘What might not be so bad?'

‘Well, for a start, one of the people taken to hospital, a woman who said she was a cleaner, was locked in a cupboard by a man who fits Patrick's description. She broke her wrist trying to batter her way out. The other person receiving treatment turns out to be a passer-by who said he was about to investigate a wide open front door and the sound of smashing bottles but before he could enter the house was grabbed by a man, who again fits Patrick's description, and found himself chucked into a bush. His hand is gashed as there was some broken glass beneath it. So it sounds as though our man was at least lucid enough to try to save the innocent from injury, not someone who was crazed and off his head.'

I wondered if that actually made things worse and said, ‘I must ask you something before we go any further. Patrick's last words to me before he hung up were that he was going to get her. The people who had been with him had told him that they were going to get her and I understood that to mean that they were going to fetch Pangborne so that she could deliver the coup de grâce after whatever it was he'd said broke his cover. I thought he was confused – he
was
confused for God's sake! – and shouted at him to get out while he could. But he repeated that he was going to get her, adding that it was part of his brief. Was it?'

Slowly, Greenway shook his head. ‘No, he had no orders to do away with the woman, or even arrest her, if that is what he meant when he said it, only provide intelligence that would lead to her arrest. I don't have to tell you that SOCA isn't in the business of killing criminals. We might never know, Ingrid, what he meant. The first results of blood tests indicate that he was up to the eyeballs with a cocktail of stuff, including, as you correctly surmised, truth drug, Sodium Pentothal.'

‘He always reacts very badly to those kind of substances. He was throwing up everywhere.'

‘Tell me about it,' Greenway said with a grimace. ‘I've just come back from his digs. I've got scenes-of-crime people there to see if we can find out who his visitors were – if indeed they were all in that room when you spoke to them.'

‘Patrick remembered them breaking in,' I said. ‘They must have given him the jab, or jabs, and he told them his name.'

‘Rest assured he had none of his own things at that address so they won't have got hold of his private mobile with all the family numbers in. When I first briefed him for the job he told me he would leave everything in his locker here at HQ. Can you remember both conversations well enough to be able to write them down?'

I opened my bag to extract my notebook. Tearing out a few pages I handed them to him. ‘I wrote out what was said on the train,' I told him. ‘But I can't guarantee it's word for word.'

I had included background noises, even Patrick throwing up, how voices had sounded, everything that might provide clues as to what had happened.

‘You have a very good memory,' Greenway murmured, reading.

‘It comes in handy if there's a power cut and I haven't been saving my work properly,' I told him. ‘How is Patrick now?'

His quick glance in my direction was full of sympathy. ‘He's being treated for continuing nausea and dehydration, and also closely watched as his memory's returning and he's understandably suffering from shock.'

‘He actually remembers shooting those people?' I gasped. I could never recollect Patrick ever suffering from shock, not after any of the ordeals we had been through together.

‘No, not in the stark way you mean. He can remember hearing shots being fired but there's a dreamlike quality to his memories. That's caused by the after-effects of the drugs. I don't want him questioned yet, not by cops anyway.'

For dreamlike read nightmarish, I thought.

‘Not by cops?' I repeated. ‘But by his wife?'

‘That's absolutely at your discretion. The questions, that is. You're perfectly free to talk to him about anything else you want to now if you think that's the best thing to do.'

‘I think that before I do anything I'd prefer some background information.'

‘You can visit the crime scene if you want to.'

‘It's what we're calling her London HQ,' Greenway explained as we got out of the car and he had asked the driver to wait. ‘The woman had been under surveillance for just over six months in several countries and it's only recently that a clearer picture's emerged, partly, I have to say, because she's appeared to have become overconfident. As soon as crooks get cocky and careless it makes it easier for the law to catch up with them. And as you can see, although this isn't exactly the West End she believed in living comfortably.'

The house in Park Road was a large Victorian semi overlooking a recreation ground cum park and I could glimpse open water, probably a reservoir, in the distance. The road had been closed, except for access to residents, but was virtually blocked by police and associated vehicles anyway.

During the drive over Greenway had told me that Pangborne, real name either Horovic or Larovic – nothing about the woman was certain – had been born in the north of Serbia in the late sixties. Seemingly either abandoned by her parents or an orphan she had been raised by nuns, eventually leaving the convent to work as a waitress at an hotel. She and a junior chef had almost immediately run off together and started a life of crime, earning the nickname The Mad Wolves as they had tended to carry out raids, holding up filling stations and other retail outlets that were open during the night. Others joined them, all who tried to stand in their path were ruthlessly gunned down.

Life had gone on like that for some years but when the country was in turmoil and at war the gang had split up and gone their separate ways. Pangborne had by then rid herself of her partner in crime, by shooting him dead, having met more wealthy and organized criminals, one of whom, Jethro Hulton, she lived with. She never lost her taste for killing. Hulton was thought to be the eight-year-old girl's father.

The Commander lifted up a section of incident tape so I could duck beneath it and said, ‘Obviously the bodies have been taken away now but you can get the gist of what happened.'

I said, ‘May I first see where Patrick was found?'

‘Of course.'

Greenway then had to show his ID and explain who I was: clearly, the Met was running this side of things. We went down a path between the buildings that ran down the side of the house, walking carefully as there had been overnight frost and there were icy patches, emerging in a wider lane at right angles to it that gave access to garages sited at the ends of the gardens. A small area at one side had been cordoned off with more tape, the ground covered in dumped and mostly rotten grass cuttings and other garden refuse. There was a hollow of sorts in the heap.