The Hireling's Tale (23 page)
The drive did something to restore her sense of perspective, even a little grim humour. It was a low ebb, she thought, the day she had to visit her superintendent and her sergeant in different hospitals.
She wasn’t sure how Donovan would be. She knew he was on the mend and would be discharged within a day or two. What she was anxious about was his state of mind. It had been a trying week for all of them, but Donovan had been hunted like an animal and then had to watch a murder he was helpless to prevent. Knowing him, knowing how much he invested in his job, Liz understood that his spilt blood was only part of what he’d lost, that the hope of a conviction was about all he’d salvaged from the wreckage. When she took that away too …
She wondered if she should defer telling him. But she didn’t want him hearing it elsewhere. If he needed someone to yell at, better her than Hilton or Superintendent Giles. They knew one another well enough, and owed one another enough, that he didn’t have to hide his feelings in front of her.
She found him dozing, a blood pack dripping into the back of his hand. He looked pale and thinner
than ever, drained and insubstantial under the white sheet. Rather than disturb him she thought she might go and get some coffee; but he stirred, his eyes flickered open and his lips twitched an acknowledgement. So she pulled up the chair and sat down.
than ever, drained and insubstantial under the white sheet. Rather than disturb him she thought she might go and get some coffee; but he stirred, his eyes flickered open and his lips twitched an acknowledgement. So she pulled up the chair and sat down.
‘How are you feeling?’
‘OK.’ She waited for more, and finally it came. ‘Sick.’
Liz nodded. ‘It’ll pass.’
His eyes flared and flicked up at the drip stand. ‘I don’t mean this!’
‘I know what you mean.’
His breathing came ragged and uneven for a moment. Then he said, ‘He killed her.’
‘Yes.’
‘Like - it was nothing. Like switching off a light.’
‘A professional,’ said Liz. Her expression was tight, her voice acid.
‘Twice. He shot her twice. He didn’t need to, once was enough, but he was a professional. And it was only a little gun - he had to be sure.’ He heard the sob in his voice and stopped abruptly.
‘Donovan …’
‘I know: it wasn’t my fault. I know.’
‘So do I.’
For a second his eyes were grateful. Then he shook his head. ‘I can’t believe I watched somebody kill her.’
‘There was nothing more you could do. You couldn’t have done any more if he’d decided to kill you.’
‘I thought he was going to,’ admitted Donovan. ‘I don’t know why he didn’t.’
Liz gave a little shrug. ‘Professional respect. He didn’t have to, and after the job you’d done he didn’t want to.’
‘Respect?’
A shudder ran the length of his body. ‘I let her die. I watched her die.’
A shudder ran the length of his body. ‘I let her die. I watched her die.’
‘You couldn’t have saved her. If you need someone to blame, blame me. I didn’t take her fears seriously enough, and I told the one man who could stop us what we were doing! The first was an error of judgement, the second was downright stupid. After that an Armed Response Unit wouldn’t have got her through. Men with crack bodyguards still get assassinated, it just takes a better mechanic. Siddiq could afford the best.’
Donovan stared at her. ‘You know who it was?’
‘Ibn al Siddiq,’ said Liz, ‘some Saudi princeling. It seems two wives back home weren’t enough: he wanted to sample the local talent. Kendall fixed him up, and covered for him when it all went horribly wrong.’ She told him what she knew, ending short of Siddiq’s arrest; in return Donovan told her what Maddie had told him.
‘So we’ve got Kendall.’ He looked for some comfort in that, but there was no sense of the anger within him abating. ‘It isn’t enough. It’s like - prosecuting the monkey after the organ-grinder’s skipped the country.’
He had to know the truth some time. Liz steeled herself. ‘Donovan - no one skipped the country. He should have done, but he was so bloody confident he
went on with business as usual, and we got him. Siddiq. And just about now we’re losing him.’ She told him the rest.
went on with business as usual, and we got him. Siddiq. And just about now we’re losing him.’ She told him the rest.
For what seemed a long time Donovan hardly knew how to react. He was too tired to shout up a storm, and nothing less seemed adequate. Distantly, as if from a void, he said, ‘I heard the phone. In the car. I was pretty well out of it, but I heard the phone go and I heard him answer it. He just said, “It’s too late.” I don’t remember any more.’
‘There wasn’t any more,’ said Liz. ‘I was with Siddiq at the other end. I thought he’d killed you both. It was another hour before we heard you were safe.’
‘And now he’s on his way home?’ He couldn’t get his head round it. From the bottom of his reserves he was dredging up enough energy to get angry. ‘We know what he did, but we’re letting him go? Jesus Christ! - is that what we risk our necks for? To bring down only those who can’t afford to buy us off? I got shot! The chief got shot. Why didn’t we just stick our hands out at the start and set a price for looking the other way?’
Liz tried to mollify him. It felt like tinkering with the weights on top of a pressure cooker. ‘I know: it’s a sickener. Frank warned me it might happen. I didn’t believe him.’
Donovan shook his head, his breathing rough enough to threaten his stitches. ‘So nobody pays for them. Two dead girls, and Wicksy, and nobody pays. Maybe they weren’t Citizen of the Year material, but they were worth more than that.
‘I wish you’d met her, boss. Maddie Cotterick. She was a nice girl. I don’t care what she did for a living, she was a nice girl. Straight, and decent. She was pretty scared most of the time, but she kept going as long as she could and she didn’t complain. I liked her.’
He looked at Liz then, surprised, as if he’d just remembered, or just understood, something. ‘She could have got away. He was down to this little pop-gun with an accurate range of about a metre and a half, and she was behind the wheel. If she’d put her foot down, he couldn’t have stopped her. But he had his pop-gun in my ear, and she wouldn’t buy her life with mine. He said he only wanted the car, but she couldn’t have believed that. She traded her best chance for my neck, and it cost her her life. And she knew it would.’
These two people had worked together for three years in a business which was occasionally so intense it left them closer than friends, almost like lovers. They had seen one another stripped to the soul. Each had been and would be again a kind of refuge for the other, a place where it was all right to be afraid, to hurt and to heal. They were still what the signs on the doors said they were, a Detective Inspector and her Sergeant; it wasn’t a personal relationship. Yet there were times when they needed contact with another human being who knew how it felt out here in the dark.
Liz touched the back of Donovan’s hand with her fingertips, carefully avoiding the catheter. ‘What goes around comes around.’
He didn’t understand. He looked down at her hand, then at her face with a puzzled frown.
She smiled sombrely. ‘Donovan, all the time I’ve known you you’ve taken risks for people. You do it so automatically you hardly notice you’re doing it at all. But it’s rare enough that people notice. That girl can’t have known a lot of kindness - the genuine article, that comes with no price tag. It would matter to her that you kept your word: you looked after her, you didn’t walk away when the going got tough. You’re right, she was a decent person. She wasn’t going to do any less for you.’
‘I was only doing my job,’ objected Donovan.
Liz shook her head. ‘The job doesn’t ask that much. But you never know when to quit, when to say you’ve done enough. Then you’re surprised when someone wants to return the favour.’
His eyes widened. ‘By committing suicide? Yeah, that does tend to make an impression.’
Liz shook her head. ‘It wasn’t suicide. Either she believed him, that he’d take the car and go, or she thought she was dead anyway but maybe you weren’t. Either way, she thought you’d done enough and it was her turn.’
Like most of his countrymen, Donovan had a sentimental soul. Tears pricked his eyes. ‘You expect trouble. You expect to get hurt sometimes. But you don’t expect to go through all that only to have the sods actually bloody
win
. You watch enough television, you start thinking that right triumphs in the end. Maybe bloody, maybe even a little bowed, but
by the time they run the credits the good guys’ll have won and the bad guys’ll be talking to their lawyers.
win
. You watch enough television, you start thinking that right triumphs in the end. Maybe bloody, maybe even a little bowed, but
by the time they run the credits the good guys’ll have won and the bad guys’ll be talking to their lawyers.
‘You forget there are people who really are above the law. Who have the money and the connections to do what they like. Who don’t care what we find out, because pulling the right strings will get them out from under any consequences. Who can pay for their pleasures, even ones that leave other people dead.
‘It’s wrong. Three murders, we know who’s responsible, we got him - and you’re telling me we can’t hold on to him? It’s not fair. And I don’t know what to do about it.’
Liz nodded slowly. ‘It
is
wrong, and it isn’t fair, and I don’t think there’s anything we can do about it. I tried to think of something on the way over, and I couldn’t. Nothing that would put things right. Maybe it’s just one we have to live with. It wasn’t our failure, it was a political decision. I don’t think there’s any point resigning and going public - it’s a forty-minute drive,’ she said wryly, ‘I covered all the options - when the man responsible would still be out of reach. I think we have to take our beating and move on.’
is
wrong, and it isn’t fair, and I don’t think there’s anything we can do about it. I tried to think of something on the way over, and I couldn’t. Nothing that would put things right. Maybe it’s just one we have to live with. It wasn’t our failure, it was a political decision. I don’t think there’s any point resigning and going public - it’s a forty-minute drive,’ she said wryly, ‘I covered all the options - when the man responsible would still be out of reach. I think we have to take our beating and move on.’
A ward orderly stuck her head round the door. ‘Detective Inspector Graham?’
Liz nodded. ‘That’s me.’
The woman produced a telephone and plugged it in. ‘Call for you.’
Liz had obeyed the sign at the front desk and turned off her mobile rather than reset somebody’s pacemaker. So she’d been unavailable for half an
hour. Somebody must have wanted her quite urgently to route a call through the hospital switchboard.
hour. Somebody must have wanted her quite urgently to route a call through the hospital switchboard.
It was Superintendent Hilton. He didn’t waste time on pleasantries. ‘Can you get hold of a wireless?’ He belonged to the last generation that used the term to distinguish a radio, which operates without physical connection to signal source, from all the other things which do as well.
Liz blinked. ‘I suppose so. Can you wait a minute?’
‘Let me talk to DS Donovan.’
Donovan took the phone cautiously. A lot had happened since he’d set off for King’s Lynn primarily to avoid Edwin Hilton, but the memory of that voice, dry as old bones, and the dislike in the eyes that went with it remained untarnished. And right now he hadn’t the heart to continue evasive manoeuvres. If Hilton started on him, there was a strong possibility Donovan would bite back. ‘Sir?’
‘How are you feeling?’
Donovan sniffed. ‘I’ve felt better.’
‘They tell me you’re out of danger.’
‘Yeah?’ Donovan seemed to remember telling Maddie Cotterick the same thing.
Hilton clung to his patience. People had told him Cal Donovan had changed since his days at the Met, had acquired some polish and maturity, but holding a civil conversation with him was still like getting blood out of a stone. ‘I just wanted to say, you did a good job. I’m sorry it didn’t work out better, but no
one could have done more. I wanted to put that on record in case I don’t see you before I go.’
one could have done more. I wanted to put that on record in case I don’t see you before I go.’
Donovan appreciated that. ‘You’re leaving?’
‘My job’s done. DI Graham is perfectly capable of running CID in normal circumstances. I was brought in to take over a murder inquiry, one way or another that’s wrapped up. I’ll be away by the weekend.’
Donovan thought he’d finished; but Hilton added, ‘Don’t let DI Graham hog that wireless. You’ll be interested in the news too.’
Liz found a porter and borrowed his transistor. But when she got back to the side ward Superintendent Hilton had gone. ‘What did he want us to listen to?’
Donovan shrugged. Between the horizontal and diagonal stripes of his dressing his bare torso was like the body of a greyhound, just ribs and muscle. ‘Something on the news.’
She surfed the airwaves until she found it. The local station had it first because some of the wreckage had landed on their roof.
‘ … shortly after take-off from Castlemere Airport. Eyewitnesses describe a mid-air explosion followed by a fireball. No other aircraft was involved, so mechanical failure is considered the likeliest explanation. Pilot error was ruled out by expert observers, who say the take-off was normal and the executive jet was climbing towards a thousand feet when the explosion occurred.
‘Prince Ibn al Siddiq was a regular visitor to Britain, with both business and pleasure interests in this country. He attended a sales conference held
by the Castlemere company Bespoke Engineering before visiting local studs in search of Thoroughbreds for his successful racing string. The tragedy has caused shock throughout the Anglo-Saudi trading community …’
by the Castlemere company Bespoke Engineering before visiting local studs in search of Thoroughbreds for his successful racing string. The tragedy has caused shock throughout the Anglo-Saudi trading community …’
There was more of it but they’d heard enough. They stared at one another in disbelief. When Liz finally found a voice it was to state flatly, ‘No one’s telling
me
that was an accident’
me
that was an accident’
Donovan shook his head, stunned. ‘He told me. He said he had a plane to meet.’
‘What?’
‘Dodgson. He said he couldn’t waste any more time on me, he had a plane to meet.’
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