Guilty Pleasures (29 page)

A familiar Audi sat in my usual space.

‘I'll get armed backup. Direct number, of course. And you – you stay here.' He held me, but not tenderly, while he made his call. ‘OK. Now what are you up to?'

‘Heading for the coal hole next to Pa's kitchen. You and I secured all the other exits and entrances last time you were down, didn't we? But not this. OK?'

It took two of us to drag away the huge metal sheet covering a chute. There was still some coal at the bottom. Morris went down first, crabwise, raising a hand to help me to do the same. Both using the torches in our mobiles, we picked our way through a maze of cellars.

‘We put locks on Pa's cellar doors, remember, so I need to find a way up into the main house. Then it's easy-peasy. Unless they've got Pa and he's been forced to talk.'

We came up in the servants' corridor behind the library. ‘We have to go through that door.' I pointed. ‘The CCTV camera does a regular pan. I'll wait till it looks up there, and then hare across. You wait till it does it again and do the same – right?'

The library door opened easily. But inside I stopped dead. It was either that or have my father smash a cast-iron poker over my head.

‘But you're both black!' he said, when I told him off roundly for using the N word. ‘How was I to know it was you?'

‘All the more reason not to use it,' I said firmly. ‘Absolutely never these days – OK? So you did as Griff told you? Excellent.'

‘Except I think someone's broken in. I didn't have time to set the alarm, you see. Heavens, Morris, take your shoes off, man. And you, Lina. This carpet's three hundred years old, or near enough.'

‘Lina, what are you doing?' Morris hissed. ‘Come back here!'

‘I've not spent all that time sorting out Pa's stuff only to have someone steal it! It's his pension fund.'

‘Stay where you are,' Pa snapped. ‘Let the man do his job. Are you going to arrest him, Morris? Take care, he may be armed.'

‘Correction,' Morris said. ‘
They
may be armed. We've no idea how many we're dealing with. That's why we have to wait for back-up.' He looked at me sternly, and then glanced out of the window. ‘Hell, now someone else's arrived! Robin Levitt. And he's just the sort to dash in where angels fear to tread. Damn. No bloody coverage!' Then he saw me. ‘Stay where you bloody are, woman! What's that?'

‘Pepper spray. Don't ask. But if whoever's in there tries anything nasty with Robin, he's going to get an eyeful.
They'll
get an eyeful. Whatever. OK, Robin will too, and he won't like it. But it'll give us a chance to disarm Chummie.'

‘For us read me. Put it down.'

I'd not seen him in policeman mode for ages. To my surprise, I did as I was told, plonking it on a side table. ‘Pa, stay here and try to get mobile coverage. There'll probably be an almighty racket as we set off the alarms. That's fine. Because I can pick my way round the rooms and end up near your front door. Via the link door, of course. Coming?' I asked Morris.

He pointed at Pa. ‘Stay here. Right?' And, like me, leaving his shoes behind, followed me out to the corridor leading to Pa's wing.

TWENTY-NINE

T
here were two intruders, one male, one female, in Pa's living room, tearing it apart. Both had their backs to us. Since we were unarmed, with not so much a pair of handcuffs between us, I could think of only thing to do. All the locks in the house were the same – presumably the eighteenth-century servants were too scared even to think of stealing from their masters. So, touching my lips to keep Morris quiet, I padded from room to room till I found a key. It was the work of seconds to close the huge mahogany door on them – it swung and closed as silently as the original craftsman intended – and lock it.

With luck, no one would know till they tried to open it, which might be any moment now. There was a terrific peal on the bell, and knocking on the door as well. Peering through the spyhole I'd installed years back, I found myself eyeball to eyeball with a policeman – possibly. What if he was one of the mole's mates, ready to cart us off God knew where?

I was halfway down the corridor before I knew it, pointing in terror at the door, unable to speak a word. Morris pushed me behind him and strode the door himself, making sure the thick security chain was in place before he opened it. Whatever he said produced results. A black-clad arm appeared, pushing an ID.

Meanwhile, Pa's uninvited guests must have realized what was happening to them: the noise they made possibly exceeded that made by the police as they thundered in, all yelling what seemed to be quite contradictory orders. It was only Morris's firm clasp on my hand that stopped me bolting.

Trying not to scream and make things even worse, I pointed. Outside Robin was flat on the gravel, two policemen pointing guns at his head.

Morris didn't yell, but he got silence, at least from the officers inside. Those pinning down Robin continued to yell, God knows why. Perhaps just because they could. Before Morris could act, more vehicles arrived, including one I recognized. If ever there was a good time for Freya to turn up, at least this was it. Here she came, doing a very good impression of leading a cavalry charge.

And then, just to add to the chaos, no doubt in response to the alarm still ringing through the main house, the fire brigade turned up too.

The police, in their wisdom, wanted to make the whole of Pa's wing a crime scene. That was standard procedure, according to Mandy, the crime scene investigator I'd met before.

‘After all,' she said, waving me away, ‘all the rooms are sufficiently messy to suggest they've had a good going over.' She blinked behind those killer spectacles, as if she was weighing up the next salmon leap. Or was it seals polar bears hunted?

‘Give me a suit,' I sighed wearily, ‘and the moment I've phoned home to say I'm all right I'll tell you which have been trashed and which are just in their usual state. Lord Elham doesn't do spring-cleaning . . .'

‘So you're sure it's just the hall and that room they were locked in that I need to examine,' Mandy said at last, sounding relieved.

‘Positive. Now, have you seen DCI Webb or DI Morris anywhere? 'Cos I need a few answers. Not least for my father.' I pointed, as he wandered round haphazardly, denied the security of his den. At last, raising his clenched fists to the heavens, as if he were Griff playing King Lear, he suddenly yelled, ‘For God's sake, can't someone turn off that damned alarm?'

It seemed the fire service had procedures too. The alarm must be allowed to ring on.

Poor Pa probably wouldn't have recognized a procedure if it bit him. Never having seen him as distressed as that, I did the obvious thing. I nipped illicitly into the main house and flicked the switch myself.

By the time I got back, a policewoman had settled him into the kitchen and was looking bemusedly in all the cupboards. Every time he got to his feet, he was pushed gently down again, as if he was a child.

I hugged him. ‘It's OK, Pa. I'm here now. Cup of tea?'

‘Shampoo, Lina. The good stuff. That's the thing for the shakes.' He lifted a trembling hand.

‘That's what I'm looking for,' the harassed policewoman said. ‘But why does he want to wash his hair?'

‘I'll sort him out,' I said. ‘But I really, really need to talk to DI Morris. As does Lord Elham here.'

‘Lord Elham?' She embarked on a horribly predictable kowtowing and gibbering apology that my father waved away, not very graciously; after all, he was still waiting for his champagne.

One good swig, and he was ready to be charming to Morris, still without his shoes, who appeared almost at once.

‘Pa,' he said, really disconcerting me with its intimate tone until it occurred to me that the police probably had procedures for speaking to the old and doddery, ‘this isn't going to be very comfortable for you. When we've taken you to the police station to make a statement, would you like us to book you into a hotel?'

‘Statement? I've nothing to say. You and my daughter seemed to be in control, until all those heavies turned up. What were those Hell's Angels doing in my house?'

Hell's Angels?

‘Ah, the black gear,' Morris said. ‘Actually, sir, they were the armed response unit, come to deal with the intruders.'

‘And did you get them?'

‘Too right we did. Thanks to your phone call about the snuffbox.'

‘So it was that man who used to take snuff? No, dead years back, surely.' He looked totally confused.

‘His son, actually. He had a son who became an actor. This son and his daughter Marietta, otherwise known as Mrs Burgess Rushton.'

I sat down hard next to my father. ‘So if the box was his father's why didn't he simply ask for it back? Doesn't make sense.'

‘It does if it was left to the Victoria and Albert Museum in your father's will and you nicked it. And if you used it to make very high quality copies which you discreetly sell to enthusiasts, all of whom want to lay their sticky mitts on what they think is a priceless item going cheap – like the one your friend Harvey bought for us.'

‘Just two people! I thought we were fighting a whole gang.'

‘I'm sure they weren't acting alone. Lina, love, I'm going to have to go now to begin interviewing them, or the MIT will muscle in and claim the collar as theirs. After all, it very much looks as if they were the ones who at very least instigated the killing of our friend X.'

‘And the murder of Cashmere Roll-Neck? Simon Thingy?'

He kissed my hair. ‘Simon Bonnaventure. That may tie in with the CCTV photos,' he said cautiously, raising an eyebrow to shut me up. In other words, now wasn't the best time to break it to Pa that one of his offspring might be a killer. ‘Or it might not. I dare say we'll be questioning them till late, Lina, and the forensic team will be poking round here – so you might want to take your father home to Griff's.'

Pa, outside his third glass of bubbly, got to his feet. ‘Morris, my dear chap, this is my home. These meagre quarters may be uninhabitable, but there are plenty of bedrooms at my disposal. Sleeping under a tester again will no doubt revive a few happy memories.' He smiled. Correction: he leered. ‘I don't suppose that that lovely redhead is anywhere around?'

Morris walked me to the front door, so that I could be registered as having been in and having left – another procedure.

‘So where is Freya?' I asked, once we were out of range of interested ears. ‘It must have been quite a shock for her to see Robin pinned down like that.'

‘Enough to make her go bright green? Police officers are usually stronger stomached than that.'

‘I don't doubt it. Usually. Did someone tell him how upset she was?'

He grimaced. ‘We've all been a bit busy.'

‘Someone's got to. And someone's got to make him ask her. All this stuff about being a celibate priest – huh, and double huh!'

Before he could ask me what I was on about, his phone played Beethoven again. He took the call, his eyes rounding and his mouth desperate not to quiver with the sort of hysterical giggles he'd been struck with earlier. I turned away so as not to distract him. At last he cut the call and collapsed shaking into my arms.

‘Bugger Bridger. Wanted to know . . . Wanted to tell me the farm next door was swarming with people. He liked their boots. Wanted to know where he could get some. Oh, Lina.'

At last he said, ‘I should have left ten minutes ago. Are you going back to Griff's?'

‘Wouldn't want to spoil my father's chances of filling his tester bed,' I said. ‘If not with Freya, obviously. And Griff'll be waiting for all the news. What about you? Do you have to drive back to London tonight?'

He shook his head. ‘Not necessarily. But don't wait up.'

‘Why not? I'll want to hear the latest news. And you deserve some shampoo too. Especially if you wear some of those sexy black boots.'

If Griff was disconcerted by two people descending for a very late breakfast in the garden, he didn't say so. However, he was just as keen to hear what Morris said as I – well, nearly – as we all tucked in to croissants and apricot preserve.

‘So you have a husband and wife team working on these fake snuffboxes?' Griff asked.

‘More of a family venture, actually. They have a son who does some of what you might call the heavy work, such as forcing his way into your house, and a daughter who took a course in film make-up but did a bit of lucrative part-time work while she was waiting for her media breakthrough. This is the scary part, Lina: in her workroom – oh, yes, there was plenty of space for everyone to have their little area in the farm buildings, in addition to the silversmith's workshop, of course – on her wall were a couple of dozen photos of you. The real you, as opposed to the one she faked. Herself. When you'd foiled their attempt to nick the proper snuffbox, they decided to wreak their revenge and set you up for things. So your sister isn't involved at all. Just another unfortunate lookalike. Half-sister,' he corrected himself. ‘Are you going to get in touch with either of them? Florence, at least?'

‘I might. But I can't just turn up and introduce myself. There must be agencies . . . and it might be something to talk to Robin about, or even Tom. My father's not keen on waking sleeping dogs. Looks as if I might have to let the whole thing go.' I straightened my shoulders and made a rewinding gesture. ‘This here snuffbox. Why should it appear in Bridger's box?'