A Dog's Life (The Romney and Marsh Files Book 4) (22 page)

‘Yes. Are you at home?’ Lying seemed the easiest and quickest way to find out what he needed to know.

‘Yes.’ She read her address out to him. North Kent. It could have been worse. Romney made a decision.

‘Stay there, Mrs Allen. Don’t go out. I’m sending a vehicle with officers immediately. Do you understand?’

‘Am I in some sort of danger?’ she now sounded quite frightened.

‘Possibly. Hold tight.’

Romney was only thinking of himself. He called down to his opposite number in uniform, Inspector Blanchett. There was an emergency. Could he spare a fast car and a good driver? It was potentially a matter of life and death. He didn’t add that it was his life and death.

Superintendent Vine stood at her office window sipping from her mug of green, herbal tea. She looked out over the dismal little compound at the rear of the station. The high brick wall was topped with barbed wire. A rather ironic and depressing reality of modern society – they had to stop people breaking
in
to the police station now. Beyond that she could see the well-cared-for small patch of lawn that represented the site of a long-gone historic landmark or monument. Next to a bench, on which sat two men, advanced in years, drinking alcohol from cans, there was an information board she felt she should make time to go and read soon.

She became aware of activity below. A uniformed officer jogged out to one of the station’s new pursuit vehicles. The flashing lights began to twirl. The engine was gunned. And then DI Romney was running across the concrete and getting in. The car accelerated away quickly and out of her sight.

Superintendent Vine frowned. She crossed to her desk and put down her hot drink. She checked herself quickly in the mirror and went for a walk down to CID to find out what all the fuss was about.

The police car quickly joined Maison Dieu Road. Traffic was not light. Romney told him to put his sirens on and his foot down. The shaven-headed sergeant at the wheel grinned and seemed only too happy to oblige.

The car ran the light at the junction with Castle Hill Road and they began the steep winding ascent up past Dover’s finest monument, standing proud and sentinel over the town. Neither Romney nor the driver had even a glance for it. They went through the sets of temporary traffic lights that punctuated the recent roadworks without delay or incident, then past the Duke of York Royal Military School and hard into the bend. They were soon leaving traces of rubber at the roundabout at the top of Jubilee Way before moving into top gear to tear up the A2 to Whitfield. With a bit of straight dual carriageway in front of them, Romney could ease off the tension in his legs. He still had things to organise.

He called Maurice Wendell’s office and was told the pathologist was engaged in a procedure and could he phone back at a more convenient time. Romney said that he didn’t care if Maurice was trepanning himself, he needed to speak to him urgently. He said he wouldn’t hold. But he insisted that his call be returned in the next five minutes. If his phone was engaged the pathologist should keep trying.

The squad car made easy work of the busy Whitfield roundabout and they went flying up the rest of the A2 towards Canterbury. Under different circumstances Romney would have been able to admire the driver’s skill and enjoy the buzz as they negotiated the other traffic on the inferior road with a seeming effortlessness at such high speeds. Ordinarily Romney revelled in the high-speed pursuit experience. He saw it as a perk of the job – a licence to thrill. As it was, he was barely aware of any of it as he turned his mind to what must be done and done quickly.

He’d left the station without speaking to anyone other than Inspector Blanchett  – the officer who had organised his transport. They would probably be wondering where he was and – if any of them had seen him hurrying out of the station  – what the hell was going on. He called Marsh. No answer. He called Grimes. No answer. He called CID. The phone was answered by DC Harmer. He sounded bored.

‘Seen DS Marsh?’ said Romney.

‘No, gov.’

‘When she comes in get her to call me urgently. Got that?’

‘Yes, gov. Anything else?’

‘No.’

‘Superintendent Vine would like a word, gov,’ said Harmer.

Romney had opened his mouth with his natural retort to that when the unmistakeable voice of the station matriarch crackled down the line. ‘Good timing, Inspector. I’ve just come down to see what all the fuss is about. Where have you gone off to in such a hurry in one of my new pursuit vehicles? Something to do with our unsolved murder from Saturday, I hope?’

‘Could be, ma’am,’ said Romney.  He’d take whatever flak he was due when he’d sorted out his personal problems – maybe saved his own life – assuming that he would still be around to take it. And then a thought occurred to him. ‘I need your help again, ma’am.’

‘Go on.’

‘I have an emergency and if you could flex some connections you could save me a lot of valuable time and trouble.’

‘What is it?’ To Romney, Boudicca sounded cautious but not unwilling – intrigued, perhaps.

Romney explained what he needed doing and where. He was aware of his driver taking his eyes off the road to check Romney wasn’t winding him up. Romney jabbed a finger in the direction they were heading.

‘I don’t understand what this can possibly have to do with the murder in the Dover Marina Hotel, Inspector.’ And Romney thought she wasn’t going to come through for him. For one horrible moment he thought she was going to order him to turn around and come back to explain himself.

‘I really need your help, ma’am,’ said Romney. ‘It could literally be a matter of life and death. I can explain when there’s more time but right now I have to ask you to trust me and I need to make some other important calls. Can you help or not?’

Put on the spot, Boudicca huffed down the line but said she’d do her best. She asked after his ETA. He covered the phone and asked the driver. The driver thought about it and gave his best guess, providing there were no traffic issues. Romney relayed this to Boudicca and terminated the call.

Romney breathed out with some relief. His forward thinking was interrupted by his phone ringing.

‘Maurice?’

‘What’s up, Tom? Jane said it was urgent. Has something happened?’

‘I need a favour, Maurice. A big and urgent one.’

‘Go on.’

‘I need you to do a post-mortem for me.’

‘Is that all?’ Maurice sounded disappointed.

Romney shifted in his seat so that he was facing out of the side window. He lowered his voice and, half covering the phone with his bandaged hand, said, ‘On a dog.’

***

15

The next two hours passed without a hitch and therefore, to Romney’s great relief, without delay. The traffic gods smiled on their progress. Boudicca had once again come through for him and he was beginning to appreciate her usefulness and willingness to assist.

By the time the squad car had braked hard to a halt outside Mrs Allen’s semi-detached home in a quiet residential street of North Kent, the body had already been exhumed from its shallow grave. A body bag had been rustled up and the bin liner, containing the now-stiff corpse of the toy dog had been put into it.

Mrs Allen was a furious observer. She was demanding to know under whose authority her loved one had been ripped from her final resting place.

A few passers-by and neighbours had gathered in the street to see what all the commotion was about. They stared at the body bag coming through the garden gate as though it might have contained the hurriedly-concealed dead body of a small child. The bemused officer in muddy wellington boots and soiled overalls handed the lot over to Romney with a show of ironic ceremony. Those gathered stopped their talking and looked on with anxious and concerned expressions. One elderly gentleman removed his cap.

Romney accepted the bag and expressed his brief thanks for the local team’s efforts. He went to the back of the car, opened the boot, tossed the bag in and slammed it shut. The driver hadn’t been allowed to turn off the engine. Romney got back in the car and they were off again. They had been there less than five minutes. The small group of bystanders resumed their conversations, the main topic of which was the callous disrespectful manner in which that officer had dealt with the poor soul of a victim. One of them expressed an intention to write to her MP about it.

When they finally pulled up in front of the building next to the police station where the area pathology lab was housed the driver killed the engine and slumped over the wheel, physically and mentally exhausted. He had been at the top of his game for almost an unbroken two hours and he was wrung out. Romney removed the bag from the boot and took the steps to the building’s elevated entrance two at a time.

Maurice was waiting for him in the bowels of the building, prepped and ready to go. He had understood all too clearly the concern in Romney’s phone conversation. At the mention of a possible case of rabies he had taken all precautions available.

Romney was firmly instructed to take himself off somewhere and get a coffee and a smoke. Maurice Wendell didn’t want him under his feet or looking over his shoulder no matter how much of a right he felt to either. As it happened, Romney didn’t need telling twice; he was in dire need of the staples of his life: caffeine and nicotine.

‘Call me as soon as you have news,’ he said, then left.

Blood samples were taken immediately and sent to toxicology for analysis of the threat they carried with bright red priority stickers all over them. With that done, Maurice set about opening up the rigid body of Chloe the shih-tzu.

Back in the harsh sunlight of the early afternoon, Romney saw that the pursuit vehicle was gone. He hadn’t thanked the driver. He’d catch up with him later, buy him a drink. Romney felt a wave of energy-sapping exhaustion wash over him and he’d only been a passenger. But it was more than the white-knuckle ride. He now firmly believed he could have been infected. His hand was hot, still swollen and stiff in the joints.  He took a long moment to stare at a nearby shallow puddle to see if it bothered him. When nothing happened, he went around the corner to the little coffee shop to do his waiting. If he were in danger of becoming a foaming basket case scampering around on all fours and howling at the moon he didn’t want to be at work. He bought himself a large black coffee, took a table outside and savoured the drugs he craved as they coursed through and calmed his system.

At the end of the second cigarette, he called Marsh. They’d spoken while he was in transit. He’d remembered that Rachael Sparrow’s husband was coming in to confirm what they all knew and he needed his DS to ask him some questions.

Romney had shared honestly with her the reasons for his dash to Beckenham. She had listened with incredulity and then alarm at what he was doing. She knew that Superintendent Vine was going to take an extremely dim view of Romney using and abusing the company car and manpower paid for with taxpayers’ money, especially as she was on a personal crusade to reduce the station budget. She had to consider briefly whether he might have just pushed his luck too far, especially by making the station chief an unwitting accessory to it all. Bob Falkner would have overlooked it but this was going to be manna from heaven for Superintendent Vine. If Romney hadn’t contracted rabies from Mrs Allen’s dog – and the notion seemed entirely ridiculous to her; a manifestation of a knee-jerk overreaction on the back of Romney putting two and two together and making seven – he might end up wishing he had. 

‘Is she still there?’ said Romney.

‘No, sir. A meeting, I think. But she left word that you were to call her as soon as you were back.’

‘Well, I’m not back yet, am I? Where’s Grimes?’

‘Here.’

‘I’m round the corner having a coffee. You want to come and join me?’

It was a rare invitation. Given the circumstances, Marsh felt she should go and offer her DI the support he was probably fishing for. She said she’d be there in five minutes.

*

Marsh noticed three short butts of Romney’s brand of cigarette in the ashtray on the table. Romney saw with a sinking heart that she’d brought Grimes with her. Grimes went in to buy himself and Marsh drinks and probably cakes. Romney declined. Marsh plonked down opposite him. Her side still hurt from her kicking and she was tired. She smiled with what she hoped was a sorry-but-he-asked-me-where-I-was-going-and-he-said-he’d-join-me sort of smile. Romney accepted with a look of resignation. He clearly had bigger worries to contend with.

She saw that the strain was infecting Romney even if the incurable disease was not. She wondered whether to voice her concerns regarding Vine’s likely reaction to Romney’s afternoon antics but decided it was none of her business. Besides, he had to be aware of the trouble he was making for himself and he wouldn’t thank her for dragging it up. Not now. And right now he probably didn’t care.

But she couldn’t avoid completely the subject that was the elephant at the table. ‘If you think the dog had rabies, sir, why don’t you just go and have the course of injections? Be sure.’

‘Who’s got rabies?’ said Grimes behind her.