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  ‘And he’ll get a hell of a bollocking,’ Patrick added, having given me this latest news.

  ‘But he hasn’t actually done anything wrong,’ I protested.

  ‘Real cops aren’t supposed to do things like that – especially DCIs.’

  ‘So who the hell’ll know what he was doing? Will he own up or are the pair of you going to use your imaginations and say that, as a chum, he was watching your back, in his own time, on an assignment for SOCA? That’s not actually untrue.’

  Patrick gazed at me tiredly and I could almost hear the cogs in his brain whirring.

  ‘You used to be a hell of a lot more inventive when you worked for MI5,’ I said crossly.

  ‘As in cunning, if not an out and out liar, more like 007, successful in absolutely everything and better in bed?’ Patrick queried with the ghost of a smile.

  ‘No, you get better in bed all the time,’ I retorted. ‘Go and phone the man.’

  Between them they concocted a story and, as far as Patrick and I know, Carrick did not hear another word about it. Patrick did, though, from Greenway, the grapevine obviously having gone into overdrive over the rest of the weekend, when he returned to work, a little bruised and battered, on Monday morning. I know, because I was there. When the commander had finished commenting on the general lapse in commitment to the job Patrick apologized, admitting that the entire episode had been a disaster and no one was any closer to finding out more about the mobster in question.

  The commander then looked at me with every indication that he was aware I was not present in order merely to decorate my working partner’s arm and pass the painkillers. ‘You’re not happy, Ingrid,’ he said.

  ‘I wasn’t happy before I set off this morning,’ I told him. ‘This job of ours is rapidly turning into a complete waste of our time and effort.’

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Patrick shoot a quick glance of surprise in my direction.

  ‘On account of our D12, MI5 experience we were recruited as advisers and consultants,’ I went on. ‘But now you’re using my husband to do routine work. There are people in the main office who could have undertaken that assignment last week.’

  ‘There are a lot away on leave,’ Greenway observed.

  I ignored the remark. ‘To remind you: we advised you that there’s a problem with this London criminal who appears to have extended, or be in the process of extending, his zone of oper-ations to Bath. The man has proven connections with interfering in police cases. A Met CID officer working on one of those cases committed suicide – that was the official finding but it was disputed by his family. No one seems to have investigated that. Two newly released from prison criminals, Benny Cooper and his sidekick Paul Mallory, have been lurking outside DCI James Carrick’s house. Cooper is an associate of this mobster, they’ve been seen together, and he’s been stationing himself outside our house too. Apparently he got his old job back at a local newspaper writing a gossip column and the latest development is that we all, Patrick, I and James Carrick, featured indirectly in it on Saturday. It wasn’t as poisonous as the rant he delivered to me outside our house and no names were mentioned, but it was the old swipe at Bath CID and sundry friends those in charge there have – wealthy and dubious friends hiding behind the respectable facade of the church, a senior position in the army, etc. etc. ad nauseam.’

  ‘Cooper sounds a great guy,’ Greenway commented when I paused for breath.

  I continued, ‘I’ll give you the story in case you aren’t in possession of the full details. On Friday night when Carrick and Patrick were engaged in watching the area near Mallory’s flat, working undercover – just about unrecognizable – as down-and-outs, they were waylaid and an attempt was made to do them serious injury. Carrick was quite badly hurt and will be on sick leave for at least a fortnight. You told Patrick that it was Avon and Somerset’s problem. It isn’t, it’s very serious crime and this man, Raptor, or whatever he’s calling himself right now, is based in London. You know most of this, but you’re not even considering taking our advice and instead keep blethering on about Patrick’s lack of commitment!’

  Greenway’s brow furrowed as if he was trying to remember if anyone had accused him of blethering before. Probably … not.

  I went on, ‘If there had been some kind of official support the so-called disaster probably wouldn’t have happened and we would not have the situation whereby there’s every chance that Carrick will now go and shred one or both of them into very small pieces.’

  I had hazarded a lot in saying that, Carrick’s reputation and career included.

  ‘Is there a serious risk of that happening?’ Greenway asked us both. ‘I know you told me that Cooper was sent to prison for, among other things, masterminding an attack on Joanna Mackenzie, now Carrick’s wife.’

  ‘There was a touch and go situation recently when Mallory, almost certainly under Cooper’s orders, was parked outside his house, having turned up again after the crew of an area car had moved him on,’ Patrick answered. ‘That was when I promised to do all I could to help him sort it out.’

  The commander does not have worry beads but a collection of brightly coloured paperclips which are either in a small antique china bowl on his desk or arrayed, as they were now, in complicated patterns on the leather blotter that, for some obscure reason, senior policemen never seem to be able to do without. Now, he impatiently swept the whole lot back into the bowl.

  To Patrick, he said, ‘How did these people know who you were?’

  ‘God knows. As Ingrid said, we were in pretty heavy disguise. Even my parents didn’t recognize me when they came upon me dozing on a bench in Victoria Park.’

  This was a new one on me.

  Patrick resumed, ‘I’d hung around in the area close to Cooper’s place the previous night but there’d been no sign of him. His car wasn’t there either and he didn’t come home. Carrick and I met up, quite by accident, in Beckford Square. He’s very experienced in that kind of work as he used to go undercover when he was in the Met’s Vice Squad. We shared a can of beer he’d brought with him – for authenticity’s sake – two fingers, I’m afraid, up at Bath and north-east Somerset’s No Alcohol in Public policy. A resident got highly annoyed and told us to leave so we spent an hour or so hanging around outside down-at-heel pubs and clubs. As I had previously, I whispered to a few guys that I was looking for someone calling himself Raptor in connection with a job for a friend of mine – I reckoned I was too filthy to get any job myself – but just got blank looks so gave up. We’d seen nothing of Mallory that night either, not even when we returned and went round the back of the terrace where he lives to a small private car park. That’s where they jumped us.’

  ‘Did anyone follow you back to the square?’ Greenway wanted to know.

  ‘We didn’t see anyone but someone must have been watching our movements.’

  ‘I take it this is being investigated.’

  ‘Yes, DI Campbell’s working on it. Several of these yobs were arrested so we might get a lead from them.’

  There was silence for a few moments, broken by Greenway saying, ‘You’re beginning to convert me. Because now, if the local rumours are correct, Cooper has a powerful associate. From what you’ve told me, taking into account his job as a sort of newspaper hack, he must know everyone and everything about the city, especially anything on the illegal side. Perhaps this Raptor character is using him for that reason.’

  Patrick said, ‘Or if he just wants a place to enjoy quiet weekends away from the hard grind of serious criminal activities in London he could be using Cooper to sniff out and even deal with any bother from what he regards as the local plods or resident mobsters.’

  ‘Does Bath have resident mobsters?’ Greenway enquired.

  ‘Right now, probably not. Not since the turf war when we cleared out those left standing or they disappeared or died from the effects of drink and drugs. What we don’t want – and here I’m speaking both as a peripheral cop and someone
who lives in the area – is an outsider to spot an opening and move in.’

  The commander turned to me. ‘Believe me, Ingrid, I do value what you both do here and I’m sorry if I’ve given you the impression that I don’t.’ And to Patrick, ‘My concern having weighed all this up is that Carrick might take the law into his own hands and do his force untold harm. It’s just as well he’s out of it for a while. With Avon and Somerset’s permission I’ll send you back there with a remit to check up on the Raptor side of this – and I don’t need to tell you not to tread on this DI Campbell’s toes.’

  We decided to start right where we were, in London.

  ‘You really don’t have to tolerate a carpeting from Greenway,’ I said, still aggrieved, a little later. ‘I know he’s a commander but he did say a while back that he didn’t want you to call him sir on account of your being a retired lieutenant colonel.’

  ‘It’s not a rank thing,’ I was told. ‘He has trouble at home, the usual kind that happens to policemen who work long hours, his wife fed up with hardly ever seeing him. She’s threatening him with divorce.’

  ‘Mike told you this himself?’

  ‘No. Benedict, his son, still keeps in touch with Matthew. He told him and Matthew told me. I said it was a good idea to keep very quiet about it.’

  ‘Even to keep it from your wife?’

  ‘Ingrid, sometimes you’re not very good at hiding your feelings. You might have displayed some kind of – well, sympathy that would have led Mike to realize we knew. I’ve only mentioned it now to explain what happened so please don’t say anything.’

  Sometimes women have to accept that men have their own laws of the jungle. And come to think of it, Patrick hadn’t even looked mildly irritated at Greenway’s diatribe.

  The Metropolitan Police Detective Sergeant, Paul Smithson, who had supposedly committed suicide, had been living on his own at the time of his death as he was separated from his wife, Susan. The time lapse involved, getting on for a year, and the fact that the flat had been re-let meant that it was pointless for us to go there to talk to neighbours. We went instead to see his widow, who had moved from the family home in Ilford, but only a few streets away, to a terraced house in a street crammed into the area between the High Road and a large railway depot. We did not park outside.

  The door was opened by a man, probably in his late twenties, with luxurious tattoos and a very generous paunch. When he saw us he prepared to shut it again but Patrick had already put his foot in the way, following this up with announcing who we were and that we wanted to talk to Mrs Smithson.

  ‘Thought you were them religious nutters,’ the man said sheepishly.

  ‘I can do that as well when I’ve had a few pints,’ Patrick told him in matey fashion.

  He received a gap-toothed grin for this and we went in.

  The place smelt like the pubs of yesteryear, of stale beer and cigarette smoke. It had that same look of time-worn nicotine-stained weariness of old hostelries too, and I found it hard to tell whether the beige-coloured soft furnishings in the room we were shown into had started life like that or had never been washed. The middle-aged woman sprawled on the sofa followed this trend, sporting a faded fake tan and a tight tracksuit – she was a large lady – that might have been one of the lucky ones but had been put into the washing machine with various garments from which the dye had run, the end result being a strange pinky-purply grey.

  ‘Susan Smithson?’ Patrick queried after introducing us.

  ‘I don’t call myself that now,’ the woman replied.

  ‘How would you like to be known?’

  ‘Just call me Sue; it saves a lot of bother.’

  ‘May we sit down?’ Patrick went on to ask politely.

  ‘God, you must be the first one to have asked that in here – ever,’ she answered with a guffaw of laughter. ‘Go on, sit. Cigarette?’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘Is she allowed to have one?’ Sue enquired, gazing at me dubiously. Well, as was our working habit I had merely been referred to as an assistant who would take a few notes.

  ‘Thanks, but I don’t smoke,’ I said.

  ‘We do, don’t we, Jonno? He’s my son,’ she added with a wave of her hand in his direction.

  They both lit up and there was a short silence before Sue said, ‘You must want to talk about Paul.’ She swung fiercely in Jonno’s direction. ‘Unless you’ve been up to something. Have yer?’

  Her son twitched in alarm and almost dropped his cigarette. ‘No, Mum. Would I?’

  ‘I do wonder sometimes,’ the woman remarked darkly. ‘I just wish you’d go and get an effin’ job.’

  ‘I have tried, Mum,’ was the faintly snivelling response.

  ‘It is about your late husband,’ Patrick confirmed. ‘I understand you didn’t agree with the inquest findings.’

  ‘No, never in a million years. Someone killed him.’

  ‘Look, I’m sorry to bring back unpleasant memories but he had taken a large overdose of sleeping tablets together with enough whisky to have rendered him in danger of dying from alcohol poisoning.’

  ‘Paul never took sleeping tablets, never even ’ad one – he slept like something … well … dead.’ A flicker of emotion crossed her face. ‘Well, he did. And he never touched whisky either – didn’t like spirits. Bitter was his drink. I told you lot that at the time.’

  ‘In desperation, though?’ Patrick prompted gently.

  ‘Yeah, he was in trouble, wasn’t he?’ A big sigh. ‘All I know is that he was working on this case involving some crime boss who the Met had been after for ages. Paul would have never taken money but someone might have threatened him to make him do something he shouldn’t. I can’t really help you as he never talked about his work. But he wasn’t the sort of bloke just to chuck in living and top himself if he’d screwed up.’

  ‘I shall have to ask you why you broke up.’

  ‘That was my fault,’ Sue said sadly. ‘He was never around, working all the time, so I went out with someone else – just for a couple of meals, you understand – not an affair. Paul took it very badly when he found out, didn’t believe me, and walked out. I was quite shocked, really. I thought we could have sorted it out.’

  ‘Is that why you no longer use your married name?’

  ‘No, not at all. I do on formal things, like at the bank. It made me feel a bit creepy after he died as I was sure it wasn’t suicide. I thought there might be someone out there watching us, someone connected with this crook. So how did you find me, by the way?’ she demanded to know.

  ‘I asked your old immediate neighbours.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Are you still worried about that – that you might be being watched?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘I suggest you move farther away, this time without telling the neighbours where you’re going.’

  ‘I could afford a better area if he got a job,’ said Sue witheringly, glaring at Jonno. ‘I work most evenings at the Black Horse as it is.’

  ‘Did you have any kind of communication with your husband just before he died that would lead you to think he was being threatened?’

  ‘We weren’t in touch at all for four or five months before it happened.’

  ‘What about you, Jonno?’ Patrick went on to enquire. ‘No contact with your father at all?’

  The man muttered, ‘We did meet up for the occasional pint. But he said not to say a word to Mum about it.’

  ‘Did you tell the police that at the time?’

  ‘No. Dad had told me not to say anything, hadn’t he?’

  Patrick swore very, very quietly under his breath and then said, ‘Well, now’s the time to speak up, sonny. This is the Serious and Organised Crime Agency trying to put a mobster behind bars!’

  Jonno jumped as though something had hit him, not surprising having been on the receiving end of Patrick’s parade ground voice.

  ‘How many times did you meet him?’ Patrick went on to ask
, albeit more quietly.

  ‘What, altogether?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A coupla dozen times, I suppose. P’raps a bit less.’

  His mother turned an astonished gaze on him but said nothing.

  ‘That sounds as though you met him quite regularly.’

  ‘About every other Saturday evening, unless he was doing something else.’

  ‘Such as? He can’t have worked that much overtime, surely.’

  ‘Dunno. Sometimes he’d just say he couldn’t make it. Perhaps there was something on the telly he wanted to watch.’

  ‘Where did you meet him?’

  ‘The Swan most times. Or The Dog and Gun. They do good sausage, egg and chips there.’

  ‘What kind of things did you talk about?’

  ‘Football, mostly – he was a West Ham fan.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Dunno, really. This and that. He’d go on a bit like Mum does about me not having a job.’ This with a worried look in Sue’s direction. ‘I know I’ll have to do the work experience scheme soon or I’ll lose benefits. But you don’t get paid for that. Slavery, I call it.’

  ‘But you’re already getting paid!’ I was forced to exclaim.

  ‘Exactly!’ Sue cried. ‘Ta, love.’

  I was not in a position to observe but had an idea that Patrick was giving Jonno a try-harder-to-remember-or-I’ll-wring-your-neck look.

  ‘And his motor,’ Jonno said eagerly. ‘He was for ever going on about that. It was always packing up on him.’

  ‘Did you see him just before he died?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah, I think it was a coupla days before.’

  ‘And?’ Patrick prompted.

  ‘Well, nothing really.’

  ‘Look,’ Patrick said, ice-capped volcano style. ‘This man was a suspect in an investigation because information about a certain criminal had gone missing, both from paper and computer files. Not only that, we know from subsequent events that personal details concerning witnesses, their addresses and so forth were leaked. That is a very serious matter. Did he not saying anything to you about it?’