Secrets (3 page)

Bud nodded at him. ‘Watch yourself,' he said and then strode off towards his designated car, checking the petrol gauge as he turned on the ignition. As expected, it was full. He still wore the rubber gloves he'd put on in the van and he left them on now. Flesh-coloured, no one would notice them at a casual glance. Not that his fingerprints were in the police system. They had been, once, a very long time ago, when he'd been Ryan's age or maybe a bit younger. He saw Ryan getting into his own car as he pulled away and turned back the way they'd come and, as he drove further down the road, saw, or thought he saw a figure slip into the van.

But he shrugged his shoulders and put the whole thing out of his mind. Ten miles on and he was drinking coffee and eating a burger and making use of the free WiFi to check his designated bank account. By the time he'd drained his coffee cup, the designated account had been emptied, the money shifting out into a dozen other accounts, each one a part of a shell company with more layers to their business than the average onion. One thing he'd learnt back when he was Ryan's age was to employ a good accountant.

Bud got up, tipped the remainder of his meal into the bin, his mind already elsewhere. Scotland was lovely at this time of the year, he thought, he could pick up his gear and lose himself up there for a few weeks. After that? Well after that would take care of itself.

I
t hadn't taken long for Alec to track down DI Barnes and the sergeant called Delia. He told the desk sergeant he was a relative of Molly Chambers – an almost truth – and that he was former DI Friedman, rather than just plain Mr – a definite truth, but not necessarily a helpful one. After a half-hour wait in reception, a young woman came through the glass doors and introduced herself as Sergeant Myers.

‘You must be Delia?' Alec guessed.

She nodded, eyeing him thoughtfully as they shook hands. ‘Mrs Chambers preferred to keep things formal,' she said.

‘She would. I'm Alec Friedman. I was DI Friedman until about a month ago.'

She nodded again and Alec guessed that she'd already looked him up. She confirmed this by saying, ‘You've had an interesting time this past year. I'm not surprised you went.'

Alec wasn't sure if that was sympathy or reprimand. This woman was an embryonic Molly, he thought. He followed her through to the back office and into a side room where a man with greying hair and dark brown eyes sat behind a desk. A kettle rattled as though it was about to boil. The man half rose and reached across the desk to shake Alec's hand. ‘DI Barnes,' he said. ‘Take a seat. So you're related to Mrs Chambers?'

‘An honorary nephew,' Alec said. ‘I think my mother is a second cousin once removed or some such. You know how it is with families?'

Barnes nodded, but Alec could feel that he still wasn't sure. ‘So, what can I do for you?' he asked.

‘Do you take sugar? We've got reasonable tea or bloody awful instant coffee,' Delia Myers asked.

Alec went for the tea. ‘Any progress on identification?'

‘No. Nothing. He appeared, shot himself. That's all we knew on the night it happened and apart from a few vital statistics that's all we have now.'

‘Molly said he was a young man.'

‘Best guess, from forensic analysis is older than twenty-five and less than forty. If asked to guess I'd say late twenties, but it was hard to tell. There was almost nothing left of the face. He was fit, looked like he worked out, had broken his collar bone at some point, probably as a child and his left arm in the past year or so. He'd had a tooth filled with an amalgam that's popular in Eastern Europe, but no longer in use here, other than that … well as I say, there wasn't a lot left that could be useful to us.'

‘One small tattoo on his right arm.' Delia Myers sat down next to Alec.

‘Oh?'

‘Don't get excited. Just some sort of Celtic knotwork. It could mean anything and nothing. Oh and he had a scar on his right forearm, on the inside. Long and rather jagged, like it had needed stitching but hadn't been according to the doc.' She shrugged. ‘That's about it.'

Alec sipped at his tea. He was a little surprised at the detail they had surrendered to him. Usually investigators were a little chary of talking so openly, even if the other party did happen to be an ex-policeman. The tone of the conversation chimed with the odd tone he had noted from Molly's earlier.

‘So,' he said. ‘What's really bothering you then? Apart from the obvious violent death.'

He saw the exchange of glances, but knew they'd made up their mind to tell him even before he'd entered the room.

‘Did Mrs Chambers give any indication that she might have known the man?'

Alec looked from one to the other. ‘What makes you think that? Did she say so?'

‘Not exactly,' DI Barnes told him, ‘but there is this.'

He reached for a digital recorder that Alec had noticed lying on the desk and pressed play. Alec listened to what he realized must have been Molly's call to the police. ‘There's a man with a gun standing in my garden,' Molly said.

Alec listened as the call unfolded, the initial disbelief of the call controller and Molly's calm voice, edged with impatience that she wasn't being listened to. The controller calling her name as Molly must have lowered the receiver, a sound of something being said on Molly's end of the phone and then a bang, followed by silence.

The call seemed to end after that, with only the controller's voice on the line.

‘She hung up?' Alec asked, puzzled.

‘She says she dropped the phone, then kicked it under the bed as she panicked and ran down the stairs. The first officer attending found it broken on the floor,' DI Barnes told him.

‘We've had the latter part of the call cleaned up,' Delia said. ‘And Molly's voice isolated.'

Barnes pressed the play button again. At first all Alec could hear was the controller's voice trying to get her back on the line and then he heard Molly, not clearly but nevertheless unmistakably.

‘Oh,' Molly said. ‘It's you.'

‘It's you,' Delia repeated, just in case Alec had missed the point. ‘She recognizes him.'

Alec sat back and frowned at the little recording device. ‘You've asked her what she meant?'

‘And she told us she just thought she recognized him for a moment. That he looked like someone she had known when she was young and that she was shaken and scared and she got mixed up.'

‘And that could be the case,' Alec said.

‘Yes it could,' DI Barnes agreed. ‘I can understand a moment of confusion when someone points a gun at you. But—' He shrugged.

Alec nodded. Molly had sounded so calm. Surprised, yes, but suddenly unafraid as though she'd been expecting something terrible to happen and was abruptly relieved. Molly had known the young man who had broken into her house and killed himself in such dramatic fashion. Alec was certain of that.

So why wouldn't she say who he was? Why the prevarication? Molly was direct to the point of bluntness; sometimes painfully honest. Why would she lie?

He was aware of the other two watching him carefully.

‘She's withholding evidence,' DI Barnes said.

Alec was momentarily nonplussed. ‘Maybe so, but this is a suicide. He killed himself, so—'

‘So he killed himself. But it occurred to us that men with guns rarely just appear in someone's garden. They usually have history and so we looked for that history. The weapon had been used before. Twice – and those two incidents are definitely not suicides. There are two open murder enquiries, Alec, both linked to the same weapon so possibly to the same man. If he was the killer then we'd like to know; that way at least we know we can stop looking. If he's not, well.'

‘And if your aunt is withholding evidence pertinent to two murder investigations, then that's a whole new ball game,' Delia said quietly. ‘Alec, if you could get her to talk to you?'

‘I don't know anyone that can get Molly to talk when she has decided not to,' Alec said. ‘But I can try.' He thought for a moment. ‘Look, I know I'm a civilian now, but if I could have access to the files, if I could know what I'm actually talking about, I might be able to put some pressure on.'

Again that exchange of glances, but again Alec knew that the decision had already been made. DI Barnes got up and indicated the now vacant chair. He produced a laptop computer from the desk drawer and set it on the desktop.

‘Help yourself to tea or coffee,' he said. ‘I'll have a sandwich sent in. Obviously, nothing can leave this office, but—'

Alec nodded his thanks and settled himself behind the desk. Oh, Molly, he thought, just what have you got yourself into?

I
t was late afternoon when Alec returned to the hotel he and Naomi had been staying in, much later than he had expected to be and long enough after his expected return to make him feel guilty. As he had reminded Molly, Naomi was extremely independent and she and her big black guide dog well able to look after one another but still, he thought, she was in a strange place and didn't know anyone.

He and Naomi – and Napoleon, her big black guide dog – had been essentially nomadic for the past couple of months. Their house had attracted a few viewings and did have someone willing to make a cash offer – for somewhat less than they wanted. Alec was pretty sure they would agree to take it in the end; a house with the history theirs now had wasn't the easiest to sell at any time and the market wasn't exactly buoyant at the moment. They had stayed at a friend's place for a while and then decided to travel, without any clear aim in mind. The past six weeks had been a slow meander west, then south, then north again, visiting stately homes and antique shops – Naomi had a love of small silver, tactile pieces – and visiting friends and even acquaintances they'd not seen in years. House hunting too, in a random sort of way. If Alec spotted something interesting in an estate agent's window, they had gone to view it, but nothing had really felt right yet. The truth was, he thought, they didn't really know where they wanted to be. Apart from friends and family, they had nothing tying them to any specific place.

He parked his car in the awkward little space at the end of the hotel drive and made his way inside. They had chosen places to stay that were dog friendly, small enough for Naomi to find her way around very quickly, but large enough so that she didn't feel too exposed and could escape back to their room without anyone really taking notice. Their specific requirements had been the one thing that had directed their journeying. If they found an appropriate hotel, they went there, regardless of the location.

They would have to make some solid decisions soon, Alec supposed, but he wasn't sure when either of them would be ready to do that and he blessed the bequest of a beloved uncle that had left them with sufficient resources to ease any immediate pressure.

He ran up the short flight of steps outside the Edwardian hotel, once an impressive home for a mill owner called Fredericks they had been told, and was surprised to have Napoleon come to greet him in the hall.

‘Hello, old man, where is she then?' He bent and stroked the dog's silky ears. The dog wasn't wearing his harness, which meant he was off duty; had it been otherwise he would not have left Naomi's side. Alec took this as a good sign. Naomi was obviously comfortable here.

‘In here,' she called and he followed the big black dog back into the hotel bar. Naomi sat on a high stool, a cafetière and two cups on the bar top. A woman Alec didn't recognize sat on another bar stool and the hotel owner leaned against the rear wall, slowly polishing the already sparkling glasses. From the look of them, they'd all been there chatting for some time. Naomi was evidently relaxed and happy and so Alec relaxed too and shed the guilt that had been building as he drove back.

He took his wife's hand and kissed her. ‘Sorry I was so long.'

‘That's OK, I know what it's like when relatives get to reminiscing. This is Liz Trent, she's a local historian, writes books and also makes pots. We've had a lovely hour or two.'

Alec looked with interest at the other woman. She was tall, he guessed. She looked tall even sitting down. Her hair was defiantly white, as though it had skipped both the grey and silver stages. It was swept back into a silver clip at the nape of her neck. Her skin, pale and very English Rose, was still smooth, apart from the deep laughter lines around her grey green eyes. He guessed she must be in her mid-fifties and Alec found himself thinking that she must have been quite a beauty in her younger days. He extended a hand.

‘Pleased to meet you. What sort of things do you write about?'

The woman called Liz smiled broadly. ‘Whatever interests me,' she said. ‘And when I can't think what to write I go and fire a few more pots. I like experimental glazes. The crystalline sort that have a massive failure rate and give me about one pot in four that actually does what I want it to.'

Alec laughed, a little bewildered. ‘And how does that fit in with the history writing?'

She positively beamed at him now and Alec realized he had inadvertently hit on just the right question.

‘Liz tries to recreate historically accurate glazes,' Naomi said. ‘A great many recipes are completely lost, apparently.'

‘You'd be amazed what went into them,' Liz said. ‘But I think I've bored your wife long enough. Time to be off and I'll drop a copy of my book in. Alec can read it to you.' She laughed and hopped off the bar stool, then shook Alec's hand again.

He'd been right, she was tall, matching his own six feet two. She took Naomi's hand and patted it. ‘Lovely to chat,' she said. ‘I hope we'll meet again while you're still here.'

‘And do we hope that too?' Alec asked quietly as Liz strode out of the door.