Keep Me Alive (19 page)

‘Hah!’ Crossman straightened up. ‘You must think I’m stupid. You’re another of Inspector Lyalt’s dyke policewomen, aren’t you? He work for you?’ He jutted his chin towards Pete. ‘Too wet behind the ears to be out on his own? That it?’

Trish could see Pete longing to be up and at him. No wonder Caro had been afraid he might attack Crossman. Trish had never seen anyone wanting a fight so much.

‘No, he doesn’t,’ she said, trying to copy Andrew Stane’s
refusal to react to aggression. ‘And I am not a police officer. Why should you think I was?’

‘Because your boyfriend here is. So who are you then?’

‘Hey, mate, leave the lady alone.’ It was the barman back for another trayful of dirty glasses. ‘She’s done you no harm.’

‘That’s all you know.’ He still hadn’t stopped looking at Trish. ‘This is harassment. I’ll be making a complaint. You can depend on that.’

Trish looked at the barman and was glad to see he was older than she’d first thought, and quite as tough-looking as any of the drinkers. Maybe he’d been in the army with them. He nodded to her, then squared up to Crossman.

‘Go on. You’ve had enough. Time to go home.’

Trish watched Crossman’s hands bunch and sat very still indeed. She wished she’d never agreed to come here. She didn’t think she was in any danger, but she’d probably made life a lot harder for Caro, and she’d learned nothing she hadn’t already known or guessed. Crossman was an angry man, probably unhappy, who was prepared to pick on anyone he perceived as weaker than himself. She hated the thought of Kim in his power, but there was nothing she could do here to help keep the child out of it.

‘Go on. Leave her alone,’ said the barman, pushing his way towards them.

A bigger, older man, called out, ‘Hey, Dan! Come and settle an argument for us. John here thinks the AK47 is a brilliant weapon. I think that’s bullshit. Come on. I’ll buy you a drink.’

Crossman hesitated, then moved towards him. The barman leant over Trish’s table to grab some glasses from the other side of her.

‘This isn’t a good place for you,’ he said.

‘Why not?’

‘Can’t you see?’ He looked around the crowd, then across the table at Pete Hartland. ‘You: take her somewhere else. Whether
you meant it or not, it’s provocation. He doesn’t need that. Nor do his family. And nor do I. OK?’

Pete drained his pint, then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. Trish abandoned her Scotch. They waited just long enough to satisfy Hartland’s self-respect, then oozed as unobtrusively as possible towards the door. The men shifted to let them out. No one said anything.

The exhaust-laden air outside tasted very sweet. Trish knew the whole uncomfortable episode had been her fault. She should never have listened to Hartland. He was too young to know any better.

‘You see what he’s like?’ he said before they were more than twenty yards from the pub’s front door. ‘What did you think of him?’

‘Nothing I hadn’t expected. And nothing to give me any clues to whatever else he’s been doing or threatening to do. That barman was right: we shouldn’t have gone in there. Crossman recognized you, even if he got me wrong; my presence with you will just have complicated your job. I hate to think what Caro will say when she hears about it. And Andrew Stane.’

‘But you must have been able to see something else.’ Hartland was nearly crying with the effort of thinking the situation into something it could never be.

They had reached the river now. On the opposite side was the disciplined bulk of Tate Britain, sitting in the thin early moonlight amid its cloak of trees. Trish stopped with her back to it, leaning against the cool stone balustrade. She wanted to comfort him, but there was nothing she could say that would help.

‘What about his body language? That must’ve told you something.’

‘What do you want me to say that you don’t already know, Pete? Crossman’s body language was both aggressive and
defensive. It shows that he’s wary and on a short fuse. He’s probably paranoid, ’too. But then he’d have a right to be, wouldn’t he? We
were
there to spy on him. He looks fit and tough, but then so did ninety per cent of the rest of them.’

Hartland took a step away from her, then came back. She wanted to tell him that all evening his own body language had been expressing indecision and petulance, both of which betrayed a childish need to get his own way.

‘Caro thinks you’re brilliant,’ he said at last, his face crumpling at the unfairness of her failure.

‘I can’t help that. Nothing about Daniel Crossman’s behaviour gave me any new information. I must go.’

‘Yeah.’ He walked away.

Now it was her turn for indecision. Should she let him go without trying to help? Or should she pass on what she’d taken such an unforgivably long time to learn for herself? She hurried after him. ‘Pete.’ He paused but didn’t turn. ‘Pete, it’s good to be personally involved with what you’re doing,’ she said, ‘but you’ll only fog your own perceptions if you can’t learn to keep your distance.’

He did turn then. The street light turned his pink face orange, but it didn’t disguise the cold anger, which showed a lot more in common with the drinkers than he’d probably guessed. ‘Keeping your distance didn’t do much for your perceptions just now, did it?’

He was as tense and watchful as the battle-stressed men in the pub. Was it his work that had done that to him?

‘That’s true,’ Trish said. ‘But don’t take it as a reason to go after Crossman yourself. Please.’

‘Nothing else is going to stop him torturing little children.’

‘Pete, think of what Caro would say. She’s been terrified of what you might do because anything outside the law is going to screw up any chance there is of nailing Crossman one day.’

His face set in concrete obstinacy.

‘Think about it. If you go after him, you’ll ruin your own career, probably Caro’s as well, and whatever satisfaction you get will be at the cost of never having Crossman properly punished and his family made safe.’

Still he didn’t respond. But he hadn’t moved away either. Trish felt like Sisyphus all over again.

‘Pete! Come on. Concentrate.’

‘I’ll try. But I can’t wait for ever. If nothing’s done, I’d rather get him and be sacked than know he’s never going to pay for his crimes.’

 

Will turned his face this way and that to work out where the wind was coming from. The gusts made it harder than ever. His father would have been able to tell without a moment’s thought. He’d have forecast tomorrow’s weather too, more accurately than any computer-assisted weather man.

Forget him, Will told himself. You don’t have to measure yourself against him. And even if you did, now wouldn’t be the time.

Tonight’s wind was coming from the south, he decided. He worked his way back round the farm buildings, pausing now and then to make sure he could feel the gusts blowing straight against his face. Now he came to think about it, it wasn’t that difficult. All he had to do was make sure he was breathing in the stink from the buildings.

In the distance he could hear the faint chink of chains. The dogs must still be there, but so far they hadn’t noticed him. He crept closer, bending at the knees as though that would make him less obvious to them.

His eyes were well adjusted now and in the faint blue-grey starlight he could make out the bulk of the buildings and see the gleam of unshuttered windows here and there in the long low facade. He’d go for one of those. Speeding up, he stopped crouching and ran upright and fast towards the gleam. Only
when he was within about ten feet of it did he drop again and crawl forwards. No lights showed inside the windows.

At last he was right up against the sides of the building. He could feel the roughness of the wood against his cheek and smell the creosote with which it had been treated. A much better smell than the rest; cleaner, even if it was chemical. There was no sound nearer than the wind in the trees now.

He craned his neck forwards, then turned his head. With his neck at full stretch, he lifted his lids just a little.

At first he could see nothing but vague heaps in the greater darkness inside. Soon he made out windows on the opposite side of the long room into which he was looking. The building formed one side of a courtyard. Through the further windows he could see the dark slinking shapes of the dogs. They were restless, but maybe that was no surprise with the smell of old raw meat all around them.

Will had a torch in his pocket, a slim pencil-like thing. When he was sure that there were no men awake with the dogs, he switched it on, cupping it in his hand, then directed it through the dusty window. At first all he could see clearly were the cobwebs that had been spun from frame to frame. Then, moving the narrow beam systematically, he made out a heap of carcasses, some still in their black wrappings; others ripped open. There was a series of metal baths, leading to a bigger table with great butcher’s boards on it and rows of knives. Sliding the beam around, peering to get a view of the nearest side of the room, he thought he could see piles of polystyrene trays and there was definitely an industrial-sized shrink-wrapping machine.

One of the dogs barked, then the others took it up. Will snapped off his torch and ran. He hadn’t seen everything he needed, but there’d been enough to confirm the suspicion that had been with him for days now. Whether or not this place had anything to do with the infected sausages, it was definitely an illicit meat factory. And it dealt with far more carcasses than
could be brought here in one small plane once a week. Like he’d said to Trish, this was a major scam.

His only concern though was with the meat the plane did bring in. All he had to find out now was where it had come from. It could be anywhere. But he was convinced some at least originated at Smarden Meats. Why else would the furious slaughterman who worked there be starring in Jamie’s film?

Through the ragged, furious barking of the dogs, Will could hear men’s voices. He didn’t stop to listen to what they were shouting. It was only a few more yards to the road and therefore the car. Would it still be there?

He was at the hedge. The gate had to be somewhere here. He couldn’t use the torch now without bringing the men straight to him. They probably had guns too. His only hope was to keep himself as dark as the hedge and find a way through it. Running his hands along the bushes, ripping his skin on their vicious thorns, he felt for an opening. More shouts sounded as though the men were closing in on him. He couldn’t breathe properly. Fighting to get oxygen further into his body than the base of his throat, he fumbled on.

Clanking chains, then running feet and panting told him they’d loosed the dogs. He gave up all thought of the gate and flung himself up the hedge, clawing at the sharpest of the branches until he was perched on top, then over it and dropping on to the road. His ankle slipped under him, sending pain shooting up his leg. He put his weight on it as an experiment. Thank God, it wasn’t a sprain or a torn tendon. He could cope with the pain so long as he knew the joint would hold him up. Blood was making his hands sticky. He raised his palms one after the other to lick them before wiping them on the back of his combats.

They weren’t too bad. They wouldn’t slip on the steering wheel. But the key. Where was the car key? He felt in both main pockets. Nothing. He bent further down as he ran towards the
dusty little Deux Chevaux, feeling in the knee pockets of the combats. Still nothing. Only when he put one sore hand to his chest to hold down the leaping of his heart did he feel the comforting hardness of metal.

Of course. He’d hung the key on a thong around his neck.

The dogs were at the hedge now. He could hear them snuffling and tearing at the lower branches. They must have found his blood.

He had the key in the lock and turned it. However pathetic the car, he thought absurdly, at least they’d kept the locks oiled. Then he was in, crunching the back of his thighs on the exposed metal edge of the seat. What did that matter? The engine fired straight away. He stalled, trying to move the car on. But a second later he was away.

When he reached the crossroads that would take him back to Sainte Marie-le-Vair he began to laugh. Who’d have thought anyone could make a getaway in a car like this?

By the time he was the other side of the village, he was singing, belting out all the old songs his mother had liked: sea chanties, ancient British marching songs, and a few plaintive folk tunes like ‘Oh Waley, Waley’. When he couldn’t remember the words, he added his own and pressed down harder on the accelerator.

A vast meat lorry thundered past him, bringing back all the memories he’d managed to forget and cutting off any urge to sing. Resentment ate into him like acid, as he thought of all the trouble he’d taken to source his meat properly, rejecting anything that didn’t have a clear traceable line from farm to abattoir to his factory, or via a wholesaler, sometimes paying far more than he’d had to. They’d come to respect him in the end, those meat traders. His own customers had liked him, too. And sodding Furbishers had taken it all away.

The last of the songs died in his head as he asked himself what on earth he thought he’d been doing, running about the French
countryside, like a schoolboy playing escaped prisoners, when his life was still up for grabs. And it wasn’t really an escape in any case. If they’d wanted to catch him, they’d have driven after him. Pretty much anything could have caught a Deux Chevaux. Maybe that’s why they hadn’t even tried to come after him. Once they’d seen his car, they’d probably half-killed themselves laughing at it. They must have decided he was a harmless local, brought by curiosity and running away because he’d been frightened by the dogs.

He drove on more slowly. Would Trish and the terrifying Antony Shelley ever manage to swing the case and get him enough damages to make any difference?

The car lurched under him, as though it had suddenly gone lame. A bloody puncture, he thought.