Souvenirs of Murder (5 page)

‘There,' Greenway said. ‘He probably passed out.'

There was nothing for us to see here and we started to walk back. I said, ‘Have you ever had any experience of truth drug?'

‘I've never come across anyone wandering around with it in their veins but from what I can remember of training I was told it makes you feel hellishly sick and a complete zombie. Have you?'

‘We had to experience all kinds of horrible things during training for MI5. You tend to lose inhibitions and that makes some people friendly and chatty although most retain self-control. You become more suggestible but less wilful. High doses can render people unconscious which is obviously what happened to Patrick, but mostly, you just want to go to sleep. And you're saying he killed and injured several people despite having had a skinful of the stuff?'

‘I did tell you that he wasn't under arrest. How did Patrick behave during training?'

‘Although tending to yarn endlessly about his army days and sing his self-control remained in charge. As I've already said, he was a bad subject. He's a good liar – you have to be for undercover work.'

‘Doesn't that make you feel a bit uncomfortable?'

‘We're talking about work,' I retorted. ‘He doesn't lie in his private life.'

Greenway spread his large hands in a gesture of peace. ‘Sorry. What about when he's had a drop too much of his favourite single malt?'

‘Maudlin, soppy and in love with the whole world,' I replied.

‘Um,' was Greenway's only response to this. ‘But he still must have told them he was an undercover cop or whoever it was wouldn't have said he was going to fetch Pangborne.'

‘It's perfectly possible.'

A constable on duty at the front door stood aside for us to enter. I knew without being told that I must not touch anything and there would be rooms which we would only be permitted to look into from the doorway. This was the case with the first that we came to on the right in the wide hallway, a large, bright living room within which white-suited figures moved carefully, collecting microscopic samples, examining fingerprints or taking photographs.

‘The souvenirs of murder,' Greenway said quietly, wrinkling his nose at the smell of stale blood. ‘There's not much to see in the rest of the house. The child seems to have been shot on the upstairs landing judging by the bloodstains and somehow made it into the bathroom where she collapsed. At least, that was where she was found. It's all guesswork at the moment, as you're aware and until test results confirm otherwise or Patrick remembers what went on here that's how it'll have to stay.'

We gazed into the room. Bottles and drink cans were all over the floor, and on a side table was the remains of a buffet meal of sorts: crisps, shop-bought sausage rolls and other party food, an untouched sickly looking, lipstick-pink ‘strawberry' gateau. I suddenly noticed that someone had vomited all over a nearby armchair. Otherwise the room looked as though several people had been executed by firing squad, the walls on one side splattered and smeared with blood and brains.

‘How many were killed?' I asked.

‘Seven, including Pangborne and the child. As I said earlier, those who survived can be described as innocent parties slightly injured in other ways.'

‘Who were the other five?'

‘We know that three were part of Pangborne's empire and wanted for crimes in other countries, namely, France, Germany and Italy. They were a trio who had worked together sometimes over the years. The other two are, as yet, unknown to us but photos have gone off to various agencies. My guess is that they were illegal immigrants and that we'll find forged passports when we discover where they lived.'

‘I take it Hulton wasn't among the dead.'

‘No.' Greenway took a deep breath. ‘Shall we go and see Patrick?'

Housed in a large, bland but beautiful house in a terrace very similar to SOCA's HQ the clinic was situated in a quiet square in Richmond. A discreet sign on one of the gateposts gave the information that the establishment was run by the Nightingale Memorial Trust.

‘Florence is still helping injured soldiers then,' I remarked to Greenway with a flippancy brought on by sheer nerves.

‘Oh, I understand it was one Nathaniel Nightingale, a Victorian mill owner, whose original quest was to rescue fallen women from the streets of London.'

‘I'll tell Patrick that.'

‘I already have. He wondered if they still had any stashed away somewhere.' Greenway shot me a look. ‘Don't worry, he was right off the planet.'

‘I wasn't aware that you saw him earlier,' I said reproachfully.

He held open a door for me. ‘It was never my intention to keep the fact from you. He went straight back to sleep after he'd said that.'

In a silent lift we travelled up to the second floor and walked down a corridor through a hushed and opulent world of marble panelling, works of art and the scents of aromatherapy.

‘I'll wait here,' the Commander told me when we had stopped outside Room 46, gesturing to a waiting area. ‘And have a very quick word with him afterwards. Stay as long as you like. I could do with an excuse not to do much for a little while.'

I went in, not of the opinion that wives should knock. The room had an adjoining private bathroom in which the occupant was having a shower so I had to sit down and wait a few minutes, more like hours, actually.

Wearing what can only be described as a voluptuous cream towelling robe the man in my life finally appeared. There was a small graze on the side of his cheek, a bruise on his jaw and he was as white as the immaculate bedding, only with a greenish-grey tinge. I surveyed him closely as he registered surprise when he saw me.

‘Hi! I'm off the drip,' he said, somewhat unnecessarily. ‘No more honking.'

I got to my feet and went over to him. Close up, the fine grey eyes looked a little strange, which was to be expected.

‘It all went horribly wrong, didn't it?' I said, putting my arms around him.

‘Yes,' he replied.

‘You've had a hell of a time.'

He hugged me tightly and then, his head on my shoulder, wept.

Good, it would help.

The room was quite large with armchairs in it, over to one of which I steered him after a couple of minutes when the worst was over. There was a jug of orange juice on a bedside cabinet and I poured some into a glass for him.

‘Flushes through the system,' I said matter-of-factly, handing it over, together with a tissue.

‘How's the new boy?' he asked when he had mostly recovered, making an heroic effort to behave normally.

‘Bouncing,' I told him. ‘James Carrick thinks he's just like me.'

An eyebrow quirked and I suddenly realized that a joke about the likelihood of fallen women being stored away for possible further use did not
have
to mean that a man was stoned out of his noddle on drugs. There was such a thing as putting a brave face on things too so I became even more confused as to his real state of mind.

‘You saw James then?'

‘Yes, there was a murder in the church.'

‘What, at Hinton Littlemoor? At
home
?'

I nodded. ‘It happened a few hours before your parents came back from holiday.'

‘Who died?'

‘You probably don't know him. A Squadron Leader Melvyn Blanche.'

‘I do know him. The man was insufferably rude to me. He came round while you were in hospital after having Mark and told me we had no business to buy the rectory.'

‘On what grounds?'

‘He didn't say but I rather got the impression that he'd have gone after it himself if the place had not been sold by private treaty before it went to auction.'

‘Don't tell James – you might find yourself on his list of suspects.'

Patrick actually smiled. ‘So he hasn't got anyone for it yet then?'

‘No.'

‘How have Mum and Dad taken it?'

‘As they usually cope with what life throws at them; splendidly. Your father's asked the bishop to hold some kind of reconsecration service.'

There did not seem to be much wrong with his recall of family matters.

‘Before the funeral presumably.'

‘No, that's going to be held somewhere else. Your mother told me that the woman's making it no secret that she'll never worship in St Michael's again.' There was a short silence before I added, ‘Can you remember what happened this morning?'

‘Some of it,' Patrick answered shortly.

‘Do you want to talk about it?'

‘No, I'm trying not to think about it at all,' he retorted harshly.

I waited.

‘She's dead, isn't she?' he then said so quietly I could hardly hear him.

‘Who? – Andrea Pangborne, or whatever she was calling herself at the time? Yes, she is.'

Patrick shook his head. ‘No, Leanne, her daughter.'

‘The eight-year-old?'

‘Yes.'

‘I'm afraid she is too.'

This was all so utterly ghastly that I was feeling faint.

‘As I said to you when you rang, I went to get her. I failed.'

My ears roared. ‘You mean you went to get her
out
?'

He gave me a very straight look, his eyes still swimming with tears. ‘Of course. What else did you think I meant?'

‘You were still a little wuzzy and I didn't know what to think you meant.'

Patrick looked appalled. ‘Someone filled me up with drugs thereby finding out that I was an undercover cop, took my gun and then had themselves a massacre. I couldn't stop it. And didn't save Leanne.'

‘You didn't fire a shot?' I exclaimed.

‘I'm not too sure but probably not.'

‘Patrick, you were carrying a gun when you were found, your gun.'

‘I'm pretty sure I didn't fire it.'

‘What can you remember, clearly?'

‘Really clearly only carrying Leanne as she didn't want to leave the house. The bastard shot her in my arms. He was probably out to get me.'

Patrick's voice broke as he uttered the last words and he put his head in his hands.

‘Do you know this bastard's name?' I asked gently.

‘No, I didn't really get a look at him. I'm not sure why.' A few seconds elapsed before he added, ‘D'you mind if I go back to sleep?'

I got up immediately. ‘Of course I don't mind. I shouldn't be asking you all these questions.' Quickly, I went over to him and kissed his cheek. ‘I'll come back when you're feeling better and take you home.'

‘Ingrid . . .'

I turned from going over to the door.

‘I've been going out with the woman.'

‘That was part of your brief?' I enquired, more shocked by the tortured look on his face than what he had just said.

‘Yes. I should have refused, shouldn't I?'

I made myself remain pragmatic. ‘You've done some iffy things in the past in order to take dangerous criminals out of circulation.'

‘There was a party at the house. I could have been dosed with something then, in a drink, as I can't really remember it at all. I might have slept with her.'

When men say ‘might' in this kind of context they usually mean ‘probably did'.

‘At least, I can remember wanting to,' he muttered to the floor. ‘She was naked at some point during the evening. I feel a real shit.'

‘You're not and we'll talk about it when you come home,' I told him. ‘But if that's all SOCA wants you for then you'd be better off in neck-end Bath selling second-hand cars for a living.'

I shut the door very gently behind me.

‘So then,' I said to Greenway, rounding a corner and making him start slightly. ‘He's screwing she-crooks to get their plans, ambitions and secrets. Is that what the training was for? All the latest techniques, positions, advice on the best aftershaves and talcs to drive women wild?'

He opened his mouth to speak but I ploughed on.

‘Did you have a vote among your female staff as to who would be the best-looking guy for the job? Oh, yes, Gillard's got quite the prettiest eyelashes and is actually quite a stunner when you think about it. Never mind that he's a clean-living bloke, even when he was in the army, and can't actually make much of a stand against filth who drug his drinks, strip off their clothes and then get their minions to drug him again. I told you he wasn't the right man for the job and he wasn't. My husband is crying in there, Commander, because a little girl he was trying to rescue – God knows how, the state he was in but I got the impression that it was part of his orders that she should come to no harm – was shot in his arms. We've had a murder in our church at home and the bishop is going to reconsecrate the building. Shall I ask him to do Patrick while he's at it?'

I walked off, aware that I had yelled the last couple of sentences.

‘Ingrid, listen – please!' Greenway desperately called after me.

I swung round. ‘If he's not been brought home by ten tomorrow morning I'm releasing everything I know about this wretched business to the media.'

FOUR

The media beat me to it, the front page of a tabloid newspaper braying
SOCA MAN IN GUN RAMPAGE
on the counter of the village post office when I went in there to buy stamps shortly after it opened the following morning. The story went on to report that the name Patrick Gillard had been mentioned by an ‘unofficial source' but nothing had been confirmed. I earned the thorough disapproval of the proprietors by establishing, there and then, that the story was carried, to a greater or lesser degree, by several other papers, all of which referred to the previous day's news of a gun battle in London. They went on to report that the police were continuing their enquires and were not denying that police personnel might have been involved.