Dark Side (9 page)

Parked across the end of the drive was a red sports car.

My first reaction was to stand and stare but I did not, following the advice given to Carrick by ignoring its presence after the first glance and wandering away. I told myself that it could easily be another vehicle, not Cooper's – someone might have stopped to answer their mobile or to look at a map. Not everyone uses a satnav. But why had I got the impression that someone was taking photographs of me?

It goes without saying that writing inspiration, or that of any other kind, failed to arrive and shortly afterwards I returned to the house, using the back way through the conservatory. Going upstairs, I was about to go into Patrick's and my bedroom as it is at the front and overlooks the drive, when it occurred to me that I would still be visible to whoever was in the car if I looked out of the window. If it was still there. I peeped around the edge of the curtain.

It was.

My mobile rang and for a moment I looked wildly around the room for it before realizing that I had put it in my pocket. It was Patrick.

‘Wildly bored here,' he reported briskly. ‘Just completed the job, Mike's out somewhere, just about everyone else in this department seems to be on hols and I've tackled every crozzy I can lay my hands on – without a lot of success.'

‘How much leave do
you
have left?' I asked him. I don't get paid leave, the understanding being that my role is part time and I do not work while Patrick is on leave except in exceptional circumstances.

‘Oh … dunno. Some of that last lot was sick leave after we were chucked out of the van on the last case. Why, d'you fancy jetting off somewhere?'

‘I think we ought to get on with this Cooper and Mallory thing.'

‘I'm not sure I want to use up leave for that.'

I told him about the car, adding, ‘But it's bound to be somebody else.'

‘Please don't go out to check or challenge whoever it is,' was the immediate reply. ‘If it is Cooper, Mallory could have taken our car registration the other night, given it to him and he's asked a dodgy cop friend who's looked up the ownership details for him. I'll come straight home and have the rest of the week off anyway.'

I then remembered that the two eldest children would be home very shortly from school. I decided that to avoid them approaching the car I would meet them off the bus and bring them through the lychgate into the churchyard, and from there through a side way into the garden. This was a most natural thing to do on a sunny afternoon, even though they are old enough to walk across the village green and cross the road on their own, and usually do.

As I approached it began to look as though the car was parked so tightly across the width of the drive entrance that there would be barely room for anyone on foot to squeeze by at either end. This, I felt, was deliberate provocation, as though the driver intended to force some kind of argument, and I suddenly remembered that John was out, visiting a couple of parishioners. To retrace my footsteps would not appear natural and the action of a coward. I began to see the wisdom of Patrick's words and wished I had taken the side gate into the churchyard from the garden in the first place.

I reached the end of the drive and indeed there was only a matter of two or three inches gap both front and back. The driver's window hummed down and Mr Sort-of-Smarmy gazed at me through his dark sunglasses, a smile twisting his thin mouth.

‘You're Ingrid Clyde,' he said.

‘No, I'm not,' I replied. ‘Kindly let me through.'

‘Oh, sorry, you
were
Ingrid Clyde. Married a cop by the name of Peter after chucking out and divorcing squaddie husband Patrick Gillard. Peter was shot in dodgy circumstances one night in a flat in Plymouth being rented by – guess who? – squaddie Patrick, who had somehow got himself blown up while supposedly serving his country. And before anyone could say can of worms he's back in your life and you've got his brother Laurence's kids as well as three of your own! I call that downright greedy, especially as poor old Larry was killed in dodgy circumstances as well. I've done a bit of poking around but everyone's clamming up on exactly how
that
happened. Never mind, all's very cosy again for you in deepest Somerset with the squaddie neatly invalided out. True?'

‘Bald facts distorted into gutter journalism,' I said, determined to keep my cool.

‘But that's what I do!' he crowed. ‘As well as my detective agency I have a brand-new job with a local rag exposing all the phonies and tossers around here. The punters'll drink in every word. No actual names mentioned, of course. Just a few hints.'

‘Move your car,' I said grittily.

‘And now squaddie hubby's big chums with Jimmy Carrick who heads up our excellent city cop shop. Bet his newly-delivered-of-baby-daughter ex-sergeant doesn't know he's screwing a juicy little tart describing herself as an escort. Think I should tell her?'

I took a very deep breath. ‘If you don't move this poser's rust-bucket – you hadn't noticed all those brown frilly bits on the wheel arches that happened while you were inside, had you? – I shall call the police. You're deliberately causing an obstruction to private property.'

‘You don't really know who I am, do you?' he sneered.

‘Oh, yes,' I hissed at him. ‘Your name's
filth
.'

This struck home for some reason and he started the car, deafeningly revved the engine for far too long, choking me with fumes, and then roared away, scraping a wing, I was delighted to notice, on a corner stone of the outer wall.

I went to meet the children, finding myself a little shaky.

P
atrick made no mention of my failing to take his advice as he must have realized that I could not have allowed Matthew and Katie to come face-to-face with Cooper blocking the drive and risk him frightening them. His mind was fully occupied with what had occurred and, if I'm honest, was probably working out how he could make Cooper disappear without leaving a trace of evidence. I know he is fully capable of it, as his time in Northern Ireland and other countries proved, and it was probably only the existence of his family now that would prevent him from doing it again, words of wisdom to Carrick notwithstanding.

‘We mustn't mention this to James,' I cautioned.

‘Especially the bit about him having it away with some female,' Patrick grunted.

‘Everything else Cooper said had an atom of truth in it.'

I was subjected to one of my partner's penetrating stares. ‘You don't think this has, do you? Surely not!'

‘Judging by their past behaviour the pair of them are perfectly capable of cooking up anything that would put him in a bad light.'

‘What
is
Cooper's purpose in all this?' Patrick asked himself. ‘Is it retaliation for James getting him banged up? A warning to the police to leave him alone? I did ring Carrick and ask if he had seen either of them since that night we went round, and he hasn't.'

‘I'm worried that even if he might not be aware that you now work for the law he knows you and Carrick are friends.'

‘I don't need to tell you how I hate people like that knowing
anything
about me.' The unsettling glint of murder was still in his eyes.

‘Please don't do anything,' I was driven to say.

‘As in?' he coldly queried.

‘You know what I mean.'

He did not reply, back in his mental ops room.

Michael Greenway phoned Patrick just as I was preparing to serve dinner. Eavesdropping, I heard the commander saying that he would have preferred to be consulted before any leave was taken and that he had a small but urgent job for Patrick to do. Patrick told him the truth: that he had been unable to contact him but had left a note on his desk and that Cooper had been making a nuisance of himself outside our home. Whereupon the commander told him that we should have informed the local police and asked them to sort it out.

‘Why couldn't you contact him?' I asked at the end of the call, having told the children that their meal was ready.

‘He must have gone out in a hell of a rush as he'd left his mobile on his desk,' Patrick answered. ‘I used it as a paperweight for my note. No doubt that's why he's in a strop.'

‘Mike doesn't usually get in moods.'

‘He's well overdue for a break.'

‘Are you going back?'

‘No, I told him I'll deal with it next week. I shall take two days off and try to track down this Raptor moron by asking low-life who might know.'

With this in mind Patrick turned himself into a fairly – no, fully – repulsive, down-and-out: hair tangled, some gel then smeared on it to make it look greasy, oldest gardening jeans and a holey plaid shirt with mower oil on it that had somehow escaped my eagle eye and been binned. Garden soil had then been rubbed into his face, hands and under his nails. The ensemble was completed with instant, if not very authentic, BO in the form of a bad onion from the compost heap which, Guides' Honour, he rubbed into his armpits. On that same night, quite late, I took the car about a quarter of a mile away and waited. Shortly afterwards he emerged from one of the many footpaths that interlace the village – having started off by entering the churchyard from the gate in our garden wall. I then drove him to one of the less salubrious outskirts of Bath where he slouched off into the gloom. You do not openly leave your own front door in disguise in case anyone is watching.

I had the windows of the car wide open and the fans on full blast all the way home.

I always worry but consoled myself with the thought that if everything went wrong and he found himself hunted down he could head for the Manvers Street nick, where if they failed to recognize him all he had to do was make such a thundering nuisance of himself they would lock him up.

The next morning at breakfast the children naturally asked where their father was, thinking his coming home the previous evening meant time off work. I explained that he was doing a job for James Carrick, which was perfectly true. We both felt that this Raptor character might be the key to finding out what was going on.

Patrick had no phone with him – nor, of course, credit cards or ID of any kind, just a small amount of cash, plus his knife, so I did not expect progress reports. It was unreasonable to expect much in the way of success either, as this would only be a hanging around in doorways near pubs, clubs and similar premises exercise, keeping his eyes and ears open and asking a few questions. But during his time away he also hoped to keep watch on Mallory and Cooper. To my knowledge neither had returned to the village.

Thursday came and went. By Friday afternoon I was restless again, feeling superfluous, moping around the garden. Mark was peacefully asleep in his pram just outside the conservatory, the three eldest children were at school and Vicky was at a toddlers' club held at a church hall down the road, and would be shortly collected by Carrie. She would take Mark with her. Elspeth and John were out for the day somewhere, in Bath, I thought, having time off from parish duties. Even the kittens, rescued and given a home after our old tortoisehell cat, Pirate, died, were asleep in their bed.

‘All this splendid domestic organization and the wretched author can't write,' I said aloud to an apple tree, the newly-forming tiny fruit just visible between the leaves. Even that was engaged in a useful activity.

What was Patrick doing? For the first time I actually found myself wishing that he had retired.

The day's routines ground inexorably on. The family returned, John and Elspeth arriving shortly afterwards, and I went out to help them unload shopping from their car. Child care, cooking dinner, eating it, bedtime stories for Justin and Vicky, a little TV and a little reading followed, then bed.

Saturday. I went with Matthew and Katie to the livery stable and, with the former on George on a leading rein and Katie on her pony Fudge, took them around the perimeters of several nearby large fields that had just been harvested for hay. The children trotted their mounts, Katie venturing off on her own for a canter, only showing off to her brother a little, which meant I had to run with George. I almost forgot my worries: the sunshine was warm, the hedge bottoms full of wild flowers, and skylarks were singing high overhead. A full hour passed and by this time we were in the highest of the three fields. I paused; a superb view of Somerset spread out before us. The horses grazed but were increasingly troubled by flies so we moved off again, homewards.

My mobile rang.

‘Hi, nothing to worry about but James and I have been in a spot of bother,' Patrick's voice said. ‘Can you come to the nick and pick me up?' He sounded a bit strange. ‘Please bring some of my clothes – I've chucked the others away.'

I told him that I was in the middle of the countryside with the children.

‘When you can – no rush.'

‘Right,' I said to Matthew, shoving my phone back in my pocket and seeing every reason to rush. ‘Please hop off a minute.'

I mounted, altered the stirrups slightly, gave one to Matthew to enable him to get on again and told him that he was to hang on to me around my waist and NOT LET GO. If he thought he was about to fall off he was to SHOUT.

We set off, at quite a rush, George suddenly seeming to remember that he was a middle-weight hunter. I had no concerns about Katie; she has competed in pony club events and is a competent rider. We had to slow down through the open gateways but on the last slightly uphill field I leaned forward and stood in the stirrups so Matthew could have the saddle, letting George have his head. If I had not been agonizing over what might have happened in Bath I would have really enjoyed myself. The children and the horse did.

Their cover had been well and truly busted. Patrick had decided, after a second abortive night of trailing around the pubs and alleyways followed by watching Cooper's house, to make for Beckford Square to look out for Paul Mallory. There, as had I, he had come upon James Carrick engaged on the same mission. Staying well in character, they had shared a can of beer, behaved in rough but muted fashion and not seen a soul other than a few residents of the square, one of whom had finally ordered them to move, threatening to call the police if they did not. So they had, hanging around some time later in the car park to the rear of North Terrace. There they had suddenly been set upon by seven, or even eight, men.