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Authors: Jo Bannister

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BOOK: Changelings
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‘Bloody forever,' admitted Donovan.
The ambulance arrived. Elphie just about stirred as Donovan handed her to the paramedics.
‘Go with her, Sergeant,' said Shapiro. ‘If she wakes up surrounded by strange faces she'll be afraid. Plus, somebody ought to look at you too.'
‘No way,' grunted Donovan, obstinacy in every line of his body. ‘She'll be all right – she likes strange faces. And I'm going back to East Beckham. You want me to see a doctor? That's what I want too.'
 
 
East Beckham was deserted. Not a soul was visible on the street, in the gardens or as the twitch of a drawn curtain. It was dark now so they weren't making up for lost time out in the bulb fields, nor were they still gathered at The Flower Mill. Only a pitchfork lying in the drive told Donovan he hadn't imagined the events of two hours ago.
He wasn't sure what he'd find at the house, was relieved when Jonathan Payne opened the door. Sarah Turner was in the living room, on the sofa, her hands across her mouth as if she was afraid what would happen if she tried to speak. Her eyes, desperately anxious, watched him over the top of them.
‘Elphie's safe,' he said briefly.
‘Thank God,' whispered Payne. ‘Oh, thank God.'
Behind her hands Sarah began to cry.
‘Chapel?' asked Donovan.
He was speaking in monosyllables, Liz realized, because his feelings about these people were confused. They saved his life, twice. But they were also part of a conspiracy that robbed a man of his life and his inheritance, and would have killed again to protect the secret.
They'd also killed his dog. On the scale of criminal enterprises it came pretty low, but it was personal in a way that the murder of Simon Turner was not. When she told him about Brian Boru his reaction had been so slow in coming she wondered if he'd understood and was about to repeat it. But he understood well enough. He just didn't know how to feel. He was alive, the dog was dead. It seemed a good trade. He wasn't a very nice dog – now he was dead it was safe to admit he was a pit bull terrier, an animal with as much charm as a chainsaw. But the dog too had saved his life once. He couldn't just bin the DoggyNosh and forget.
Liz cleared her throat and translated. ‘You have to tell us where we can find Dr Chapel.'
‘He left here half an hour ago,' said Payne. ‘I suppose he went home.'
‘Everyone else?' asked Donovan, his voice gritty.
‘The same. We knew you'd come back. People thought they'd wait at home.'
‘Everybody? Nobody thought of running away?'
‘Run where?' asked Payne. ‘This is the only place they know. Where could they possibly run to?'
‘Where does Dr Chapel live?' asked Liz.
The house reminded Shapiro of his own, stone-built, hunched low against the weather, thick-walled to endure. If the village died now, that little house could stand empty for a hundred years and still be habitable for the cost of a new roof. Stone flags led to the front door, painted a magisterial black and flanked by a pair of dark shrubs trimmed into clever spirals.
‘I want to see him alone,' said Donovan.
Liz's eyes widened. Shapiro shook his head once, crisply. ‘No.'
Donovan's sharp jaw came up, thin and bloodless lips curling with the same scorn that sparked in his dark hooded eyes. ‘Why not? What do you think I'm going to do in there?'
‘I don't know, Sergeant,' said Shapiro plainly. ‘What do
you
think you're going to do in there?'
Now he was safe and so was the child, and even the less pressing task of getting justice for Simon Turner was all but accomplished, only anger was keeping Donovan on his feet. When it dissipated he'd sleep for twenty-four hours. Liz thought he was stoking the anger as other men might swig coffee.
‘He tried to kill me,' he grated. ‘If things panned out differently he'd have done it. I want to arrest him. That's all. But I want to do it myself, and alone. I've earned it.'
Though it didn't quite work like that both of them felt churlish arguing. Liz looked at Shapiro and shrugged. ‘It's your decision.'
Shapiro breathed heavily. He knew he was beaten, the only issue now was terms. ‘All right. But Donovan, don't make me regret this.'
‘I won't,' said Donovan, terse with satisfaction. He raised one bony hand to the knocker.
Unlatched, the door swung inward.
‘I think he's expecting you,' said Liz.
Donovan set his jaw and stepped inside. He half-expected to be followed but when he glanced back, true to their word his inspector and superintendent were waiting on the doorstep. He proceeded alone.
Dr Chapel was waiting for him in the little kitchen at the back. Somehow he'd guessed it would be Donovan. There was a teapot on the hob, two cups and saucers on the table.
Donovan stood in the doorway, his eyes disbelieving. Chapel beckoned him inside. ‘Sit down, sit down. We might as well do this like gentlemen.'
Even after all that had happened, all that would have happened if Chapel had had his way, Donovan had to admire the old man's gall. He was going to spend the rest of his life in prison. But he wasn't behaving like a man who'd been defeated, more like someone who'd taken a gamble and lost. Never mind, old chap, can't win them all; shake hands; it isn't whether you win or lose but how you play the game …
Donovan couldn't think of it as a game. It had cost one man his life; if it had gone on much longer it would have cost Elphie hers. He found that harder to forgive than his own close call. It's the nature of the job that criminals daydream about murdering policemen. But Elphie was a child, an innocent in every sense of the word, and they'd have killed her because she hadn't the wit to keep their secret.
He shook his head. ‘I'm not a gentleman, Dr Chapel; neither are you. You're the man who organized the murder of Simon Turner, and I'm the policeman arresting you for it. You do not have to say anything, but I must caution you – '
Chapel waved a hand dismissively. ‘I know; I know. God, you're a humourless fellow! Aren't you even going to have a little gloat? You won, I lost. Come
on, Sergeant Donovan, enjoy your victory.' He poured the tea, raised a cup to his lips. ‘If I can toast it, I'm sure you can.'
Donovan stared at the other cup but made no move towards it. ‘I don't understand you.' Always when he was tired or under pressure, the accent thickened until he sounded as if he'd just stepped off a potato boat. ‘It mattered enough to kill people for. Now it's more important that we part as friends? I have news for you, Dr Chapel. We're not going to part friends.'
Chapel sniffed and arched an eyebrow before finishing his tea. ‘Perhaps it's a matter of breeding,' he observed snidely. ‘Go on then – caution away.'
Donovan made no pretence about his background. His family hadn't been out of the top drawer even in Glencurran: everywhere he'd travelled since his accent had earned him the scorn of those who put store in these matters. So it didn't worry him if people thought him rough. He just didn't understand why a man who'd spent most of his life in a village you could fit on a football pitch and talked as if through a mouthful of peat considered himself better.
But he wasn't going to bicker with a man he was arresting for conspiracy to murder. ‘I must caution you that if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court, it may harm your defence. If you do say anything it may be given in evidence.'
When he'd finished Dr Chapel nodded. An expression almost like pain flickered across his face.
‘If that's the formalities complete, you might want to call a senior officer about now.'
Donovan frowned. ‘Detective Superintendent Shapiro's outside. Don't worry, he'll be – interested – to make your acquaintance.'
‘Only if he hurries,' said Dr Chapel faintly. Then he bent suddenly forward in his chair, and then he fell off it.
‘The shrubs at the front door are yew trees,' said Liz. ‘He made the tea with the berries. He'd no intention of going to prison. He'd have killed you too if he could have done.'
Donovan was sitting in the back of her car. Shock had finally overwhelmed him: even with the blanket around him he was shaking like an aspen.
She turned to Shapiro. ‘Look, I've got to get him to hospital.'
Shapiro nodded. ‘I'll tidy up here. It's mostly a matter of paperwork; that, and finding enough cells to bang up all the people I'm going to arrest.'
He watched the car leave. A minute later another arrived with the Forensic Medical Examiner. ‘What have you got for me?'
‘Suicide by yew berry,' said Shapiro succinctly.
Dr Crowe raised an eyebrow. ‘If you people keep doing my job like this I'm going to try my hand at traffic control.'
They went inside.
In fact the signs were pretty clear, right down to the yew berries steeping in the teapot. But Dr Crowe
was on his dignity and wouldn't admit it until he'd made a thorough assessment of the scene.
Constable Stark came over to Shapiro with an odd expression on his face. ‘Letter for you, sir.'
Stark was holding it through rubber gloves so Shapiro took the same precaution. ‘You found that here?'
‘On top of the desk in the parlour.'
When he'd read it he put it carefully back in its envelope and then in an evidence bag. He sucked his front teeth. ‘You sneaky sod.'
‘Sir?'
‘It's a suicide note.'
It wasn't just a suicide note. It was partly an explanation, partly a justification, substantially a shifting of the blame to where, now, it could do no harm.
‘I don't know how much Detective Sergeant Donovan will have told you of events here,' Dr Chapel had written in the last hour of his life. ‘I also don't know whether he'll be able to elucidate further. Either way you should know that his understanding of what happened may be unreliable. For much of his time here he was ill; which may explain his willingness to believe what he was told by a mentally retarded child. It was clear to me that he suspected a conspiracy where none existed.
‘I was wholly and solely responsible for the death of Simon Turner. He was brought to me with minor injuries from a fight, and I took the opportunity to end his life. No one in East Beckham knew what I intended until it was done, although other people then assisted me in passing off the corpse as Jonathan
Payne. In particular, this could not have been achieved without the co-operation of Payne himself and his mother.
‘My motive was the preservation of a community and a way of life which would have been destroyed had Simon Turner lived. I regret his death but it was the lesser of two evils. In a very real sense he paid the price for his own greed. If he'd been prepared to sell to us he'd be alive today.
‘If I did not persuade him to share a last drink with me, tell Detective Sergeant Donovan that he is a deeply suspicious young man. I don't mean that as an insult: in his line of work it's probably a good thing. I don't think he'll accept my best wishes; but tell him I'm sorry about his dog.'
 
 
When Liz phoned later from the hospital Shapiro told her about the note. The contents were burned into his memory.
There was a long silence while she absorbed what he was saying. ‘He thought he could give them a way out. So what can we actually prove?'
‘That Elphie's father is Sarah Turner's son and not the man he's been impersonating for fourteen years. And that Simon Turner was murdered. We have Chapel's confession; we can't prove he had any accomplices.'
‘There were a dozen of them,' said Liz. ‘Chapel told Donovan as much.'
‘Of course he did, and of course that's what happened. But Chapel's dead now, and has said his last
word on the subject. And Donovan was sick: a good brief will cast huge doubts on the accuracy of his recollection.'
‘He said it in front of the Turners. And the Turners weren't involved in the murder: they'll tell the truth.'
‘I dare say they will,' nodded Shapiro, ‘but can we prove it's the truth? If they
were
involved in the murder, it's in their interests to lie. They had as much as anyone to lose if the business was sold, and they were the only people whose co-operation was vital. Quite a moderate brief would make it look as if they were lying to hide the extent of their own involvement.'
‘But they did it again. The villagers. When they were threatened with discovery, they took up arms again. They went after Donovan with farm implements!'
‘Did they? Or were these honest country-folk on their way home at the end of the day when they heard a disturbance at the big house? – in which case what more natural than that they should gather in the front yard to see what it was all about. When a man they hardly knew appeared to have kidnapped a village child, of course they gave chase. It was only later they learned her father had asked Donovan to take Elphie with him. At the time they thought she was being abducted.
‘There have certainly been some unfortunate misunderstandings, M'lud,' he went on, poker-faced, ‘but all the people before you today are guilty of was failing to blow the whistle on a deception which preserved their way of life fourteen years ago. They didn't know
Simon Turner was murdered – Dr Chapel's dying confession accepts the blame for that. Your Honour may take the view that Sarah Turner and her son have more to answer for, but as far as my clients are concerned, the interests of justice might best be served by binding them over to keep the peace …'
Liz stared at her phone in horror. She was on the hospital steps, had wanted an update without going back to Queen's Street. She knew if she put her head through the door she'd be there until the early hours, and she desperately needed some sleep.
‘You mean, that's it? The people who killed Simon Turner, who tried to kill Donovan, are going to get away with it? Get their wrists slapped, and then go home?'
‘It looks that way.'
‘Is it me,' she asked after a moment, ‘or has the justice system gone quite mad?'
‘It's you,' Shapiro said without hesitation. ‘The justice system has always been three clauses short of a Traffic Act. It's trying to perform two conflicting functions: to punish the guilty and protect the innocent. Sometimes it has to compromise. Stick with the essentials: the truth, or at least the greater part of it, is known now. Elphie's safe, and no one else is going to stumble on to East Beckham's murky secret and pay for it with his life. If that's not a total success, at least it's worth something.'
‘You'd better explain it to Donovan,' said Liz. ‘You make it sound quite reasonable. Whereas if I try and tell him, he'll think he went through all that for nothing.'
‘How is he?'
‘Asleep. They put him on a drip and he went out like a light. They say they'll probably hold on to him for two or three days but there's nothing to worry about.'
‘What about Tyler?'
‘A bad enough injury. He lost a lot of blood before they got him stitched up. If it doesn't sound too mean, I was quite pleased about that. If I hadn't dropped Wingrave when I did, Tyler'd have bled to death.'
‘And Brian?' Shapiro was ticking off the casualties on mental fingers.
‘Also on the mend. He'll be home tomorrow. He's going to need some expensive dentistry but everything else'll heal itself.'
‘Was he able to describe his attackers?'
‘Not yet. But he's been on painkillers since it happened: I think if I showed him a publicity shot from
The Wizard of Oz
he'd finger Judy Garland.' She sniffed and her voice dropped and hardened. ‘But I saw them too. I didn't recognize any of them, but that doesn't mean they're not in the files somewhere. Tomorrow I'll start looking. And if I don't find them there, sooner or later I'll see one of them on the street. It may take time, but they're not going anywhere and neither am I.'
‘Go home, Liz,' said Shapiro wearily. ‘Go home and go to bed. Tomorrow is another day.'
‘There'll be loads to get organized. We'd better make an early start.'
‘I'll
make an early start,' he said sternly. ‘You will have breakfast in bed, then visit Brian. Then you can
go see Donovan, and after that you can take some flowers to Mr Tyler. And any of the day that's left after
that
you can take off. Put your feet up, get your head straight. I don't want to see you in the office before Monday.'
There was a lengthy silence at her end. Then: ‘Isn't tomorrow Monday?'
‘Tomorrow is Sunday,' Shapiro said heavily. ‘Liz, for heaven's sake go to bed. What earthly use is a detective who doesn't even know what day of the week it is?'
She murmured apologies and rang off.
Shapiro sat alone in his office, alone in fact on the top floor, listening. But there was nothing to hear. No trouble on the street, no querulous voices rising up the stairwell, no running feet in the corridors. He smiled gently to himself. It was over. Peace was restored.
Though not for long. Soon enough they'd all be back in the old routine. A couple of days from now Castlemere would have caught its breath and be back in business, and thieves and thief-takers would once again be trying to out-smart each other against the looming backdrop of Castle Mount. But for today at least they could all relax.
His eye narrowed and after a moment he opened a drawer, took out his diary and traced down the pages with a stubby fingernail. Then he leaned back, satisfied. ‘Sunday. I knew that.'
BOOK: Changelings
11.85Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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