Ashes to Ashes Read online

  I had already picked up his Glock from the floor and wondered if the arm was broken, picturing the vicious downward blow, probably with the man’s handgun, when Patrick had been rendered unable to see.

  ‘There were three of them,’ I told him, not sure how much he had seen. ‘You must have shot one of them because they dragged him away. I got the one by the door in the shoulder and by an amazing fluke shot the weapon from the other bloke’s hand. You think you know him, you said.’

  ‘That bastard O’Connor,’ Patrick raged, finally allowing his fury to surface. ‘I’m sure it was him. He had a deep voice like that. God, I simply daren’t move this woman to see how badly she’s hurt. Where the hell’s the ambulance got to?’

  It arrived shortly afterwards, together with an area car. Patrick had the choice of making a statement there and then if he wished, or being taken to A&E to get his cut, which was still bleeding, seen to, which was mine. I won and stayed behind to talk to DS Lynn Outhwaite, who turned up as Sandra Stevens was being placed in another ambulance. Quite a crowd seemed to have gathered outside.

  ‘No, you go,’ she said after I had given her the bare bones of the story. ‘You’ll need to collect Patrick from the hospital, by which time he’ll have calmed down a bit. We can do the official bits at the nick later and I’ll persuade the boss – who’s in a bit of a mood today – to have a proper de-briefing at the pub you all go to – the Ring o’ Bells? – this evening as both blokes will be in a better frame of mind by then. Meanwhile, I’ll start the hunt for these mobsters. How does that grab you?’

  ‘You know my husband almost as well as I do,’ I said jokingly. ‘Seven thirty?’

  Haunted by how Sandra had looked I did not feel remotely like joking, and only realized that Lynn had recognized that I was suffering from mild shock when I had pushed through the gawpers, walked to the car and found that my hands were shaking so much that I had to sit in the driving seat for five minutes before I could trust myself to drive away. Praying to the patron saint of Land Rovers that I wouldn’t do anything stupid in Bath’s nightmare traffic, I made my way to the Royal United Hospital.

  Probably on account of the gore all down the front of his shirt – the man had looked like something out of a vampire movie – Patrick had been seen immediately. I sat and waited. And waited. And then, on enquiring, was told that he had gone to have an X-ray on his arm. Finally, around another hour later, when it was getting on for two in the afternoon, he appeared, very pale and with a neat row of hemming, six stitches, across his forehead. Another couple of inches or so away and he would probably have been blinded for life.

  ‘I’m supposed to rest,’ he said laconically, collapsing beside me on the bench seat and closing his eyes. ‘Lost blood. Feel like crap.’

  ‘And your arm?’ I asked.

  ‘Not bust. That feels like crap too.’

  There was nothing for it but to deliver him to his mother and then go back to Bath to the Manvers Street nick to give whoever was there the full details. This also involved my creating a photofit image of the gunman Patrick thought was O’Connor and comparing it with a couple of mugshots of him on record. These had been taken some years previously when he had been considerably less hirsute, but there was a marked resemblance. Patrick would need to look at them as well, perhaps the next day, but I emailed the photofit image to his iPhone. I had no memory of the faces of the other two.

  ‘No, this is on me,’ said James Carrick, giving Patrick a whisky double. ‘There’s nothing like it as a remedy for bother.’

  ‘I thought it was just about the best thing to drink if you fancy rather a lot of bother,’ Patrick replied, then thanked him and tasted it appreciatively, left-handed, his right arm in a makeshift sling made from one of my silk scarves to rest it and already showing signs of being heavily bruised.

  ‘That only applies to Scotland,’ he was soothingly assured.

  Elspeth’s remedy had been more practical, a little brandy, for medicinal purposes only, of course, before a large helping of reheated chicken pie, homemade and leftover from her and John’s midday meal, followed by strawberries and cream. Patrick admitted later that he could not remember sitting down and falling asleep in one of his parents’ armchairs afterwards but that was where he awoke, about three hours later, feeling a lot better. A quick shower and he decided he could face the pub, easily.

  Despite the good humour between the two men, we were all in a subdued frame of mind – Joanna had also come along because, in a way, she was part of the ‘team’ and, as this meeting had been her idea, Lynn was here too. I was agonizing over the thought that Patrick and I had somehow been responsible for an innocent woman having been shot because we had been followed. Sandra Stevens was in intensive care and under police guard following an operation to remove a bullet from her chest. The medics were cautiously hopeful as, miraculously, it had missed all vital organs. The next forty-eight hours would be critical.

  Patrick, I knew, was also acutely worried that someone was watching and tailing us despite the precautions that he takes when we visit witnesses, potential and otherwise. What had happened, he had told me, was a reflection on him and, like me, he was feeling responsible for it.

  ‘There was blood everywhere so there’ll be five lots of DNA,’ Carrick was saying encouragingly. ‘Patrick’s, to eliminate him from the inquiry, of course, Sandra’s, the man he shot who they took with them, the one you hit over by the door, Ingrid, and the other one holding a weapon on Patrick who had it shot from his grasp, the guy you reckon was O’Connor.’

  ‘I’m convinced it was but that’s not proof,’ Patrick asserted. ‘I could recognize him from that photofit created from Ingrid’s description alone, even though he’s a lot older. His face was slightly lopsided even years ago, almost as though he’d had a slight stroke.’

  ‘His hand might not have bled,’ I pointed out.

  ‘It takes just one drop to have fallen on the carpet,’ Carrick said. ‘Although I’m not sure if we have his DNA on record. But we have the remains of the gun as well so there may be fingerprints on it.’

  I had an idea he had been he wearing gloves but said nothing as I could not really remember.

  ‘Did those mobsters seem surprised that they met with an armed response?’ the DCI asked.

  ‘I didn’t have time to see the expression on their faces,’ Patrick said with a hint of impatience. ‘But they weren’t wearing balaclavas, which might suggest they only expected to find Sandra in the apartment and, besides which, they intended to kill her.’

  ‘At least we now have proof that there is a case,’ Joanna said. ‘I wonder if Sandra told anyone that the NCA was going to pay her a visit this morning.’

  ‘Canny, aren’t you, hen?’ her husband said to her. ‘That’s far more plausible than them having tailed Patrick and Ingrid to the flat.’

  ‘How about Sarah Dutton, the secretary of the crematorium’s manager?’ I suggested. ‘She’s possibly a suspect and Sandra, as the ex-wife of a funeral director, might have got to know crem staff. Did she at one time work for her husband and his brother in the office?’

  ‘I’ll ask him,’ Patrick decided, finding his mobile.

  The answer was that she had but after the divorce had made funeral arrangements, handled announcements and booked hotels and restaurants from home.

  Full details of the shooting had been kept out of the media, who knew only that a woman had been injured following the attack and that the police had several good leads. A little spin is always a good idea.

  ‘O’Connor was probably bringing up the rear as they entered,’ Patrick said. ‘I’m only saying that from what I know about him and the fact that I shot the bloke in front, causing him to fire high as he fell, taking out the light fitting. Although I never shoot to wound under those circumstances and I reckon he’s dead by now, the other bloke might still be alive. Has anyone with gunshot injuries been taken to hospital in the past twenty-four hours?’

  We were half
an hour into an early morning brainstorming session in Carrick’s office the following Monday, just the three of us present. DI Campbell was still on his course and Lynn was coordinating most of the rest of the CID team in house-to-house enquiries in the immediate vicinity of the crime scene.

  James Carrick shook his head. ‘Not in Bristol, Somerset, Devon, Wiltshire, or Gloucestershire. We’re still asking – all the way to London. I just wish to God I knew what all this was about other than that someone’s trying to destroy evidence and, one way or another, there has to be an awful lot of money involved.’

  I said, ‘Whether we were followed or not – and I don’t see how we could have been – it’s getting really serious if people we interview are targeted.’

  Patrick said, ‘I’m all in favour of putting a very low-key watch on Sarah Dutton.’

  Carrick stretched and then got to his feet. ‘That’s not a bad idea. How are the head and arm today?’

  ‘Both would much rather be somewhere else, thank you,’ was the immediate reply.

  ‘OK, coffee then with a couple of painkillers for you that I know Lynn has in a desk drawer, and then when she gets back we’ll have an in-depth briefing with everyone in the main office.’

  ‘It’s his nick,’ I said quietly to Patrick after Carrick had gone on ahead, saying, ‘I’ll make sure we don’t get it in those damned polystyrene things.’

  ‘Within these four walls he’s king,’ Patrick agreed. ‘We’ll watch the Dutton woman.’

  The tablets were for period pains but Patrick took two anyway.

  After the briefing, during which the entire case was presented to the team, going right back to when Anne Peters had complained to Patrick’s father, Carrick announced that he wanted to visit the scene of the previous day’s shooting – he had been tied up with a meeting at HQ at the time. But it turned out that forensic personnel were still on site and would probably not be finished until the following morning. I persuaded Patrick, whose right arm was painful and because of this was taking a couple of days’ sick leave as he was worried about not being ‘firearms fit’, that the best thing for him would be to go home and rest it, and he reluctantly agreed. This did not mean that I could not carry on with a little investigating. Later.

  At a little before five that afternoon, having made sure that she did not need it, I borrowed Carrie’s car and went out to the crematorium involved in the case. Driving in, I circled around the car park as though I had made a wrong turning and then exited. There were no vehicles in this public area so business must have finished for the day, as I’d thought, but around the side of the complex three cars were visible – I could only assume that they belonged to the staff. Joanna had said that Robin Williams had a silver-grey VW Golf, and I had glimpsed a car of that colour but had been too far away to make a proper identification.

  Back in the main road I turned the car and parked in a lay-by a short distance away, where I pretended to make a phone call. Remembering our working rules, I then did make a phone call, to Patrick, to tell him what I was doing. He appeared to have vanished from the house when I left and I had not been in the mood for a full-scale manhunt. Perhaps he had been in the annexe talking to his parents. It was engaged so I left a message.

  Another car, one I recognized, drew up behind me and I got out and waved.

  ‘No boring remarks from me along the lines of great minds thinking alike,’ Joanna said as she joined me in the car. ‘Besides which, Patrick suggested it. I take it you are going to follow Sarah Dutton.’

  I nodded, and then said, ‘But only to find out where she lives.’

  ‘Same here. I have some news. The latest on Sandra Stevens is that she’ll probably pull through.’

  ‘I’m so glad to hear that,’ I replied.

  ‘And I received a letter this morning with a date and time for my interview at HQ.’

  ‘Brilliant!’

  ‘And a woman, or women, answering Mrs Peters’s description have been seen in Hammersmith, Oxford Circus and Fulham.’

  ‘I hadn’t realized her details had been circulated that widely.’

  ‘James got on to the Met. He thinks she’s in London on account of Fred Judd operating, or having operated, there, O’Connor being a mobster there, Dougie I’ve-forgotten-his-surname having been a henchman there and yours truly being set upon there when I was trying to trace Sarah Dutton’s family. It’s got a lot going for it but the sightings might be a no-no. What the hell are they doing in there, having another session?’ This last remark had been with a nod of her head in the direction of the building almost opposite us.

  ‘There are three cars parked at the side,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Having sex in a crem would have a certain edge to it,’ Joanna commented thoughtfully.

  We then agreed that when and if Sarah Dutton appeared we would tail her in the car I was driving and I would bring Joanna back afterwards. We had just arranged this when we heard a car, or cars, coming out. I grabbed a road map I had noticed on the back seat – Carrie can’t be bothered with satnavs – and we pretended to be looking at it, lowering our faces.

  ‘The manager, Williams, first, Sarah Dutton second in a black hatchback,’ Joanna said. She has the advantage of having long hair she can peer through. ‘There’s another vehicle some distance behind them.’

  ‘Probably the foreman,’ I told her, waiting until the first two had gone a short distance in the same direction, towards Bath, before starting the car. ‘He’s OK.’

  ‘I take it we just need to get this woman’s address and have a general sniff round,’ Joanna said when we had travelled around half a mile.

  ‘I think that’s best, don’t you?’

  After a couple more miles Robin Williams turned into a slip road that served a small row of shops. Sarah Dutton carried straight on. I have been well tutored in the art of covert shadowing so was careful not to drive too close to her. The real hazard in built-up areas is traffic lights where you get a red when your quarry has gone through them on green. There was one very close call on the outskirts of the city when I sneaked through an amber, but otherwise I was lucky. Finally, as we were entering the district of Larkhall, the black car two vehicles in front of me indicated left into a side road. I followed and then went right on past the drive of the modern semi-detached house it had turned into.

  ‘Number twenty-three,’ Joanna reported when I had parked a little further along the street. ‘We can’t really snoop any closer, though, can we? She knows what we look like.’

  I got out, opened the boot and delved inside. Among an amazing collection of things that might come in handy – Carrie is actually very organized – I discovered an old anorak with a hood and put it on. Signing to Joanna what I was going to do, I walked back. As I approached the house another car, one of those flat-as-a-pancake sports cars with what Patrick calls a ‘picnic shelf’ on the back, drew into the drive and, either accidentally or on purpose, the driver tooted the horn. A man got out: early middle-aged, dark-haired, of medium height, grabbed a briefcase from the back seat, slammed both doors and went in the house. This had to be Sarah Dutton’s husband, Paul.

  I carried on and took the next turning left, wondering if there was a back way to the properties. There was not and I retraced my footsteps. Nothing else could be achieved now and if a ‘general sniff round’ was wanted it would have to be at another time, when nobody was in.

  ‘I think we ought to go and talk to the woman,’ Patrick said when I got home and told him the story. ‘Now.’

  ‘Young mouths to feed,’ I reminded him. ‘I’m late with starting dinner already.’

  ‘That’s OK, I’ll go on my own.’

  ‘You can’t drive with your arm like that.’

  ‘You’re probably right,’ he agreed after a few moments. ‘Feed the kids then and we’ll have something in the pub later.’

  I prepared vegetables, threw together a massive shepherds’ pie with the remains of Sunday’s joint that I had already dismember
ed and chopped, put it in the oven and begged Carrie to serve it and oversee the meal when it was cooked. They could have ice cream afterwards.

  ‘It’s late and I’d prefer it if you make an appointment and come back tomorrow,’ Paul Dutton said angrily after we had identified ourselves and established who he was.

  ‘Preference doesn’t come into it when a woman has been shot and very seriously injured,’ Patrick retorted. ‘I would like to talk to your wife. Or, if you prefer, we can carry on this conversation at Manvers Street police station.’

  The man flounced off to fetch her. He was not my idea of the perfect catch, having small, too close together eyes, a weak mouth and not much in the way of a chin. I wondered if he’d removed his pinny before answering the door.

  Sarah appeared. Joanna had not really described her to us but I had built up a mental picture from what she had said of a rather fluffy, good-time girl whose abilities would go little further than the type of job she now had. But in reality this brunette with brown eyes, a slim figure and a tight smile that she switched on in slightly unnerving fashion when she saw us was as hard as nails.

  ‘Rather an unsocial time to call on people, isn’t it?’ she said, achieving speaking with the smile intact and teeth just about closed.

  ‘Is there somewhere we can talk in private?’ Patrick enquired, giving a look to her husband, hovering by her shoulder, that caused him to step back several paces.

  ‘We can go in the study,’ she said, turning on her heel and leading the way into a room towards the rear.

  On entering, I immediately surmised that this was the original dining room and they now ate in the kitchen. There was a swivel chair by a reproduction desk with a computer on it, a bookcase containing mostly magazines, DVDs and videos, and that was about all if one discounted the cardboard boxes of various sizes, the contents of which, an assortment of possessions, had spilled out on to the floor.

  ‘We haven’t been here very long,’ said Sarah Dutton when she saw where I was looking.