Ashes to Ashes Page 14

  ‘What?’

  ‘In the book I probably won’t write she was Judd’s wife, her first marriage.’

  It isn’t often that my husband is rendered speechless.

  ‘He went round the bend,’ I continued, ‘perhaps due to some inherited mental problem and chucked her out, or she bailed out, at around the same time as all the staff left. There was loads of money stashed away somewhere, the proceeds of crime, but she had no access to it. As she was involved with his criminal activities, big time, she had to go into hiding because she no longer had protection. She changed her identity to that of ordinary housewife, moved to Somerset and hitched up with Archie Peters – do we know if they were ever actually married? – who was old, ill and loaded, and needed someone to look after him. It suited her to disappear into the countryside just then as she had no money of her own which she needed to get her own back on Judd, plus a share of his money. In other words, she needed the wherewithal to hire hitmen. She probably knew exactly who she needed: O’Connor.’

  ‘It might have been his idea to cremate Judd’s remains.’

  ‘Well, you said yourself that he was different.’

  ‘Which means the theory that she came to see Dad because she hadn’t been paid for services rendered is wrong.’

  ‘Yes, it is, but we’ve already had an alternative idea: she was covering herself if it all went pear-shaped. She’d go back to being poor little Mrs Peters in the sticks, leaving her mobsters to save themselves as well as they could. Who would a court believe if the whole thing crashed around their ears?’

  ‘She might even have hastened old Archie’s demise with a little weed killer in his cocoa. From what the curate said she was struggling to get the shopping.’

  ‘And Archie’s money could have been hidden in his mattress. And they might have tortured Judd to make him reveal where his was located before they murdered him. Patrick, please remember that this is only a bit of make-believe on my part.’

  ‘No harm in checking to try to discover her actual status and working carefully to see if there’s any truth in it.’ Patrick remembered his sandwich. ‘She might not be safe, though. Not if she’s now sitting on two piles of cash and possibly stolen property courtesy of her one-time husband. O’Connor’s going to want that.’

  I wouldn’t lose any sleep over that possibility. Was any of it true or just a product of my imagination? The description circulated of Mrs Peters had been as she had appeared to us that day at the rectory: middle-aged, of medium height, straggly grey-brown hair, dark brown eyes and shabbily dressed, details that would fit thousands of women in London alone.

  Uninvolved with house-to-house enquiries and not ‘wandering around’ that area did not mean that we could not engage in a little low-key investigating in the High Street. We already knew that Frederick Judd had owned at least three businesses: a restaurant, a nightclub and a hairdressers. These had been closed down when he and his cohorts were arrested and subsequently jailed, but they were likely now to be under new ownership, especially as the properties they were in were almost certainly rented.

  Asking questions in a hairdressers – Google informed us that there were getting on for a dozen of them – being impractical for several reasons, we decided to forego those. There were around two dozen restaurants of all kinds so as we did not have a week to spare we decided to find the nightclub. Patrick has a notion that that is where you start when looking for low-life anyway. What we wanted more than anything was, of course, gossip.

  The nightclubs, four of which were listed, would only be open from about six o’clock onwards. It was now well into the afternoon but we still had several hours to wait. Patrick is not good at waiting and rang his new contact, the DI at the police station, to discover which club it had been. Her name, I now gathered, was Janice, and he was obviously cosying up to her like a real scoundrel to get as much information as possible.

  ‘It was called The Dead Zone,’ he duly reported. ‘It closed down for good and the property is now a recently opened Chinese restaurant.’ He pointed. ‘That one over there, The Paradise Garden.’

  ‘Just as well you asked,’ I said.

  He looked at his watch. ‘A beer. I need to think.’

  We ended up at a nearby hotel, a new one, in order that I could have tea, but I was not expecting any cerebral miracles from my particular choice of beverage as we seemed to have hit the buffers.

  ‘In my view,’ Patrick murmured after a while when he was down to the last inch of his pint, ‘we ought to take a room so we can stay the night here and, later on, have a Chinese meal.’

  ‘At The Paradise Garden? What will they know about Judd and Co.?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing, perhaps, but it means I can have another beer.’

  Why not? I suggested he booked in and fetched the car first, adding that I had seen something about an underground car park for residents. Patrick went off and, as fast as you could say Fuller’s ‘London Pride’, he returned, carrying our overnight bags, which we always keep ready packed in the Range Rover. Dumping them on the floor, he went over to the bar. I had already ordered myself more tea.

  ‘Test results from Bath,’ he announced when he came back. ‘Carrick rang me just now. There are no DNA records for O’Connor as he committed his crimes before their use became widespread in the UK. Then he scarpered abroad, but we still know that he was there, and in charge, when Sandra Stevens was shot because you saw him. As far as the other two are concerned there are no matches. So all negative then.’

  ‘And they might have arranged to finish Judd off before Archie Peters had died,’ I mused. ‘You know, I’m sure Anne Peters knew Judd years ago. She might even have known O’Connor.’

  ‘One big happy family? Actually there are far too many ifs and buts around for my peace of mind.’

  Patrick’s mobile rang and from what little I could hear it was James Carrick again. It was a short call.

  ‘A body’s been found in the River Avon,’ Patrick revealed. ‘White, male, with a bullet wound in the chest, so it could be the man I shot. The PM’s tomorrow afternoon. D’you think you’d recognize him?’

  I didn’t, and said so.

  ‘I ought to take a look at him. And the ballistics people will want to examine my Glock. As you know they can usually work out if a weapon’s fired a certain bullet.’ He smiled to himself. ‘That’s if they can find it in him as they make a hell of a mess – unless it went right through him at that close range, in which Scenes of Crime will have found it. Are you getting hungry yet? I’m famished.’

  I have known this man for almost ever and love him to bits, but his cold-bloodedness is sometimes hard to stomach.

  I reasoned that the recently wounded should be permitted to have squid, of which I have an absolute horror – when cooked, that is. When they wiffle around the oceans changing colour they’re actually rather sweet; reduced to curly bits with suckers on a plate like a cross between a jellyfish and a spider I would rather not be around. Patrick – who loves it – understands this and normally, and kindly, avoids having it unless dining alone.

  The place was very clean, opulent really, with subdued lighting, and like so many Chinese restaurants, ran like clockwork, a man in evening dress making sure that it did. He came over when we were eating and asked us if our meal was satisfactory.

  Patrick told him that it was, adopting a slight Scottish accent and a somewhat superior manner. He had also combed his hair so that it flopped over his forehead, hiding the recent scar. ‘We were actually looking for a nightclub in this immediate area,’ he continued. ‘But obviously our directions were wrong. The Dead Zone?’

  The man, who was not Chinese, shook his head. ‘No, sir, it was here but closed.’

  ‘There are quite a few clubs in the area already,’ Patrick observed in off-hand fashion. ‘I suppose the tenant decided a restaurant would be more profitable. I’m only mentioning this,’ he hastened to add, ‘because I’m in business myself and thinking of moving to t
his district.’

  ‘No, there’s a new tenant,’ the man replied. ‘But the place had been closed for quite some time while a new one was found. I understand there was a police investigation involving the previous business – nothing to do with us, of course.’

  ‘Is there a chance that I might be able to speak with whoever it is? Only I would value some opinions on this area from those in the position to know.’

  ‘I’m afraid the lady is abroad on holiday.’ He then excused himself, saying he had to get back to work and left us.

  ‘The lady,’ Patrick repeated thoughtfully. ‘I wonder who she might be?’

  There was a huge gathering at the hotel when we returned, a company dinner dance by the look of it, the foyer packed with people, some in evening dress, others not. It occurred to me that we did not look out of place as I was wearing my black dress with twinkly bits, and Patrick a dark suit and tie. I took his hand and led him around the edge of the throng in the direction of the music, he probably thinking we were heading for the lifts or, more likely, the bar.

  ‘We can’t come in here,’ he protested in a loud whisper when we were almost on the dance floor, couples moving slowly to quiet, smoochy music.

  ‘You learned to dance again in order to reach full mobility,’ I said in his ear. ‘Please dance with me.’

  Still, he hesitated. ‘The notice said it was some kind of engin-eering bash.’

  ‘OK, you’re the CEO of Balls and Balls for Hunky Rivets,’ I told him. ‘Dance.’

  We danced.

  I caught sight of us in one of the large wall mirrors – an attractive couple perhaps, he tall and dark, the woman also dark-haired, her head on a level with his shoulder – and found myself thinking that I would remember this always, a special moment to look back on when I was old and perhaps alone. I can’t bear to think of being alone before I’m old, but I know I have no choice in the matter.

  ELEVEN

  Joanna had been back to Wellow, asking more questions, this time pretending to be a journalist from a Wessex newspaper, telling people she was trying to trace Anne Peters, this being true, of course. By interviewing elderly men in the village pub, and buying them quite a lot of beer, she had discovered a few interesting details. One old man told her that Archie Peters had been a regular in the public bar at one time, before his health really started to fail. Yarning about the past, he had never mentioned a wife, only, comparatively recently, a housekeeper. No one had been really interested in anything he said as he had been a bore and ‘a bad-tempered ol’ bugger’. Gossip had it that the man had been wealthy but mean to the point of mental instability; anyone unwise enough to call round at the bungalow with a charity collecting box likely to have a shotgun poked in their face. The police had, apparently, visited him with ‘advice’ on more than one occasion, and he had finally lost his firearms licence. It was thought he had lived not all that far away before he came to Wellow, but no one seemed to know exactly where. No one knew anything about his housekeeper-cum-wife either.

  ‘Oh, would Patrick give me a reference?’ Joanna had asked at the end of her call to me while we were having breakfast the next morning.

  I told her that of course he would.

  ‘Did you believe that guy when he said the boss was abroad on holiday?’ Patrick queried, lavishly spreading marmalade on a slice of toast.

  ‘Not sure,’ I replied. ‘But I could stay here and try to catch sight of her while you go off to look at the corpse.’

  ‘No, she really could be away and you’d hang around for no reason. Besides which, you’re not staying in this place on your own.’

  I had offered in order to try to make up for my ‘freak-out’.

  We left the local police to get on with their house-to-house enquiries and, while Patrick returned to HQ – having decided that the corpse would have to wait – as he still had to carry on with his ordinary duties, I went home. Several days passed and, having decided to turn the case into a plot, with all details changed of course, I started work on my next novel. I did a signing at a book shop in Bath and gave a talk to the local Women’s Institute. People always ask me where I get my ideas from. I can hardly tell them. Being ‘normal’ like this always gives me a slightly surreal feeling, and I was amused when a couple of the ladies enquired why I had not brought my ‘handsome’ husband with me. I promised to, next time, wondering what Patrick would make of that.

  The next morning, just before lunch, there was the news that a couple of police officers had been fired on and wounded, one seriously, while doing house-to-house enquiries in a district of Feltham. Passers-by and one motorist, whose car had been almost struck by a vehicle as it speeded away from the scene, reported that three men and a woman had run from the house, at least one man carrying a handgun. I was watching this story unfold on the TV news when my mobile rang.

  ‘I’m going along there,’ Patrick said, after asking if I had heard what had happened. ‘Janice seems to want someone to be a bit supportive as her boss is on long-term sick leave and the super, who’s not a lot of help at the best of times, is in hospital with suspected appendicitis as of last night. She has an idea I’ll know who these people are. Descriptions so far aren’t too good but one could fit O’Connor. I’ll keep you right up to date.’

  ‘D’you know the address?’ I enquired before he could ring off.

  ‘No, but I’m going with someone who does. Apparently it’s in a road close to where Judd lived.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, be careful!’

  ‘I’ll phone you again later.’

  It followed then that if one looked out for flashing blue lights and police incident tape … I pulled myself up sharply. No, there was no point in my going all that way for no good reason. Just because I was writing a novel based on the case didn’t mean I should always be present during the investigation.

  Janice wants someone to be a bit supportive, eh?

  And she’s a detective inspector?

  I indulged in mental teeth gnashing for a few moments then got on with something else.

  ‘Later’ finished up by being just before nine thirty that evening, by which time my nerves were not so much jangling as in tatters. But to keep bothering him for news, a distraction, when I was half expecting the house they were investigating to have yet more hidden explosives in it, was absolutely out of the question.

  ‘According to neighbours the place was rented out,’ Patrick began by saying. ‘We got the bomb disposal unit to have a look round before we went in. Nothing in the way of explosives but Class A drugs and enough booze for a really good weekend party were just lying around. There was a dog tied up out the back that was a bag of bones, almost too weak to bark, and I called the RSPCA, who came and took it away. We touched nothing, of course, and Forensics are now working there. From what witnesses saw of these people, which wasn’t much, one of the blokes was almost certainly O’Connor – he was described as a big bear of a man with long black hair and the beginnings of a beard – but the woman doesn’t fit Anne Peters’s description. Blonde, quite smartly dressed, perhaps in her late-forties. Everything all right at your end?’

  ‘Fine,’ I replied.

  ‘I’m on my way to that Chinese restaurant now, mostly to get something to eat and also to keep my eyes and ears open.’

  ‘Where are you staying?’

  ‘Tonight? At Janice’s. She takes in lodgers, only members of the force, that is, but one’s just left so there’s a room spare.’

  I remained silent, eventually driving the man in my life to say, ‘Look, she’s like the back of a Routemaster bus and I don’t fancy her. All right?’

  Presented with a vivid image of an overweight, red-faced woman, I supposed it was.

  Then it appeared that the criminals we were trying to catch made a huge mistake. Patrick has a theory that they almost always do so eventually when the law is closing in on them. Therefore, when he was arrested later that night in Feltham for being drunk and disorderly, the doughty Jan
ice, summoned from sleep on account of the miscreant’s identity, immediately ordered that he be taken to hospital and tested for substances that might have been administered to him without his knowledge. Test results were inconclusive but the doctor who treated him concluded that as alcohol readings in his blood were very low he must have been given substances unknown. The DI reasoned that the idea behind such a move was that he would be removed from duty or it would even ruin his career. He was treated appropriately by the medical staff and then left to sleep it off for the rest of the night. Janice, meanwhile, decided to hold her fire in order to make certain people feel all warm and happy that they had got away with it, and was planning to raid the restaurant the following evening.

  Earlier that same morning, on hearing what had happened, I had driven like a Valkyrie to London.

  Patrick was at the nick, in the DI’s office, drinking coffee. He looked all right.

  I said, ‘I have an idea you went there with cop written all over you deliberately to make things happen.’

  ‘It pays off sometimes,’ he said.

  ‘Patrick, they could have killed you!’ He wasn’t as angry about it as I had expected.

  ‘It also pays to be underestimated by mobsters. I got a good look at the woman in charge. Blonde, smartly dressed, mid-to late-forties. Anne Peters.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘You know I never joke about things like that. The hair might have been a wig but I’m sure it was her. The rather angular way she moved, dark eyes that didn’t look right with the hair. Your theory must be right on the nail – she was connected with Judd in some way.’

  ‘And she saw and recognized you. What did they put whatever drug it was in?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  It occurred to me that, drugged up, he could have caused havoc in the town centre, or might have started firing at things. Or people. I said, ‘It was just as well you told Janice where you were going.’

  ‘I mentioned it deliberately. In case.’ He got to his feet. ‘I’m starving. Can you face the canteen?’