Sins of the Fathers (23 page)

‘You need a doctor,’ Laura said. ‘Let us get you to the hospital.’

Christie ignored her and eventually found the breath to speak again.

‘Gerry’s dead?’ he asked, and Thackeray found it hard to believe he was dissembling. Somehow it seemed too late now for Gordon Christie to bother avoiding the truth. ‘Why would I want to kill Gerry? He was all right, was Gerry.’

Thackeray did not think this was the moment to inform Christie of his wife’s relationship with Gerry Foster, if Christie really did not know about it. Some vague memory about keeping hostage-takers calm rose to the surface of his mind.

‘Where did you get his mobile phone?’ he asked. Christie snorted, or it could have been a laugh.

‘It was in the house,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want to sleep in there. Couldn’t, as it goes, you know? But I went in to get some blankets and tinned food. Linda’s emergency rations from the kitchen cupboard. I found the phone in the bedroom, on the floor. God knows how it got there, and I didn’t know whose it was at first, but the battery was charged so I just hung onto it, switched it off to conserve it, in case it came in useful. Today, when I crawled back here, it came in very useful. And for once I got a signal, sent Janine a text. Could see from the stored messages that Gerry signed off with a G. She’d have driven me out of here if she’d seen the gun, no problem.’

It might have worked, Thackeray thought, if someone hadn’t already tortured Gerry Foster to death and brought the police back in force to the village. Christie’s voice was beginning to fade now, and each sentence ended with a slight gurgle in his throat. Thackeray was beginning to doubt that he would be able to pull the trigger if he made a move to take the gun from him, but the decision was taken away from him anyway when a shot rang out outside the building and the window behind them shattered, scattering glass towards them in sharp shards. Laura screamed and another shot hit the wall above them, followed by a confusion of noise and intensely bright light suddenly illuminating the inside of the workshop from the yard outside.

‘Stop firing,’ Thackeray shouted, but was unable to gain any coherent message in return from outside, although another couple of sharp reports did not seem to be aimed in their direction.

‘You asked me what I wanted,’ Thackeray and Laura heard Christie say urgently. ‘I only want one thing. I want to see Emma, and then you can do what the hell you like. I don’t care any more. But I do want to see my Emma again.’

‘You knew she was in hospital?’

‘I heard it on the radio.’ Christie said. ‘I was listening out for Scott’s name but it was hers I heard.’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Thackeray lied. But even as Laura drew a sharp breath the lights went out again and more shots came through the broken window. Christie pulled himself upright and fired several times across the room into the darkness outside. Laura, who had flung herself face down when the shooting began, heard something heavy fall beside her. For a long moment there was silence, and then the lights came on again and she saw the door open and several burly figures in uniform holding guns at the ready move cautiously into the room.

Gordon Christie lay where she had first seen him, a fresh bullet wound in his head, the weapon he had eventually used still clasped in one limp hand, sightless eyes gazing at the ceiling. But more horrifying still was the sight of Michael Thackeray sprawled face down on the dusty floor, eyes closed, blood spreading slowly across his white shirt from the wound in his back. As the armed police officers fanned out through the room she moved closer and bent her head to his, but try as she might she could not hear him breathing.

Laura stood by the tall window in her living room gazing out at the snow-covered garden and trying to control the shaking which had overtaken her since she had arrived home. She knew she was still in shock, and that now there was nothing more to do it might overwhelm her completely. Kevin Mower had bundled her into his own car and driven behind the ambulance carrying Thackeray to the infirmary, neither of them of them knowing whether he was dead or alive. At A and E they had found he had been taken straight to theatre in the hope that the doctors could successfully remove the bullet which lay dangerously close to his heart. Mower had led Laura to a quiet corner, as white faced as she was herself, sat her down, brought her a cup of sweet tea and held her hand.

‘I’ll have to get back,’ he said quietly. ‘There’ll be all hell let loose. But I need you to tell me what Christie said while you were in there. Anything you think might be significant.’ Somehow she pushed her fear to the back of her mind and repeated as much as she could remember of what Gordon Christie had willingly enough confessed while she and Thackeray had been shut in the workshop with him. Mower listened quietly until she had finished and then got to his feet.

‘I’ll need to go back,’ he said. ‘They need to know all this stuff about Weldon. The gunman we arrested at Moor Edge has apparently refused to say anything about where he came from or who sent him. This is all hearsay and Christie’s dead, but it should give us enough to organise a raid on Weldon’s place. I need to let the super know. Will you be all right?’

Laura had glanced at her watch. It was still only
five-thirty
, only four hours since she had gone up the hill to
Staveley to see Janine Foster, starting the whole horrific chain of events.

‘They said he would be in theatre for at least two hours,’ she said. ‘I’ll go into the office and write something for tomorrow. I’ll get them to call me if there’s any news.’

‘Are you sure?’ Mower said, doubtfully. ‘Can you cope with that?’

‘I’ll go mad if I sit here with nothing to do,’ Laura said helplessly. ‘I went up to Staveley looking for a story, didn’t I? And I got one. I’ll be better if I keep my mind occupied.’

Kevin Mower looked at her anxiously, taking in the flushed cheeks and too bright eyes, and knew she was close to hysteria.

‘Are you sure?’ he asked again, but she insisted and he saw her across the town centre to the
Gazette
office before walking through the slushy streets to police headquarters.

The revelation that the body in the burnt out Land Rover in Manchester was Stuart Weldon’s was niggling him as he took the stairs up to Jack Longley’s office two at a time, but it was not until he knocked and was asked to go in that the stray fact he sought came back to him. Longley, flanked by Smith from the security services and the ACC all looked up from the conference table as he came in.

‘Which bastards opened fire?’ he asked the senior officers without preamble.

‘Weldon’s men, just as the armed response unit arrived,’ Longley said. ‘They were obviously determined to finish Christie off.’

‘Well, they did that all right,’ Mower said bitterly. ‘And it looks as if they may have finished the DCI off too.’

‘What’s the latest?’ Longley asked, his voice barely audible.

‘He’s in theatre,’ Mower snapped. ‘It’s not looking good.’

The three men nodded but said nothing.

‘I’ve got a note of everything Christie said from Laura Ackroyd, but I remembered something else important,’ Mower said, wrenching his mind back to the still on-going investigation. ‘Insulin. It’s not just guns we need to look for at Weldon’s place. It’s insulin, as well. That’s what killed Emma Christie, and Weldon’s son was a diabetic. Old Major Wright knew that. Somewhere in that house there’ll be a supply of insulin. Presumably he arranged for someone to give her an overdose. I just hope it was one of his goons and not a member of the hospital staff.’

In the familiar surroundings of the office, Laura immersed herself in an adrenaline fuelled assault on her keyboard, tapping out a vivid version of the events she had just recounted more soberly to Kevin Mower, and trying to drive out the fear which threatened to overwhelm her. Within half an hour she had finished, and still there had been no call from the hospital. She glanced behind her and noticed to her surprise the light in Ted Grant’s office was still on and the door ajar.

‘First person, exclusive,’ she said, her voice dull now as the adrenaline rush subsided, dropping a printout of what she had written onto his desk. ‘And where was your crime reporter when all that was going on?’

‘Stuck in a bloody snowdrift up beyond Arnedale, apparently,’ Grant said angrily. ‘I’ve just had Vince Newsom’s newsdesk on asking if I’ve any idea where he is, an’ all. He’s not answering his mobile. I don’t suppose you know the answer to that do you?’

‘I saw them go out together at lunchtime,’ Laura said, with a ghastly attempt at a smile. ‘But I’ve no idea where they were going.’

‘Aye, well, it was a good thing you were in the right place at the right time.’ He picked up her printout. ‘This’ll take the smile of the
Globe
’s front-page tomorrow, won’t it.’

‘I hope so,’ Laura said. ‘And off Vince Newsom’s too.’ But her satisfaction at that prospect had turned to ashes and reality quickly closed in again as she closed down her computer and she was seized by a sudden terrible panic as she hurried back to the hospital. Thankfully, she quickly found the A and E nurse who had attended Thackeray, and who already knew that he had survived his surgery and was now in intensive care. She walked up to the top floor ward feeling sick with anxiety, to be met by the nurse who had expelled her from that very ward when she had first tried to see Emma Christie what seemed like a lifetime ago.

‘You again?’ the nurse said sharply.

‘Michael Thackeray,’ Laura whispered. ‘He’s my…partner.’ The woman’s face softened slightly and she waved her towards a bed at the far end of the ward.

‘He’s comfortable,’ she said. ‘But critical. He’s not conscious yet but if you want to see him, do.’

Laura had no idea how long she sat beside Thackeray’s immobile form before someone put a hand on her shoulder and she turned round to find Kevin Mower behind her again.

‘You need to go home,’ Mower said. ‘We’ll ask them to call you if there’s any change. You must get some sleep.’

‘How will I sleep?’ Laura asked, helplessly. But she let herself be led downstairs to Mower’s car.

‘Did you arrest Weldon?’ she asked half-heartedly on the drive out to her flat.

‘We did,’ Mower said. ‘His cellar was stuffed full of armaments of one sort and another, and his son’s room had
enough phials of insulin to kill an entire ward of patients. One of his goons admitted that they’d made two attempts to get to Emma in case she could identify Stuart. The second one succeeded. I don’t think Bruce Weldon will be troubling anyone again for a very long time.’

‘Christie said the only skill he had was killing people,’ Laura said. ‘Is that what the army does to people?’

‘Yes, to some people,’ Mower said. ‘He was pretty efficient as a killer and was never taught how to stop. But Weldon was the real psycho. One of his gunmen has decided its in his interests to tell us everything, including how Weldon personally tortured Gerry Foster to death because he thought he knew where Christie was hiding.’

‘Poor Gerry,’ Laura said. ‘I got to quite like him in the end. He was really in love with Linda Christie, you know. He went back to the cottage to find something to remember her by.’

Mower looked at her for a moment.

‘I won’t ask how you know that,’ he said dryly. ‘But I guess that’s how he dropped his phone.’ He parked the car gingerly in deep snow that would not be cleared before morning and saw her into the flat.

‘Will you be okay by yourself?’ he asked. ‘I have to get back to HQ. We’ll be at it all night down there. I just took five to find out how the boss was doing.’

‘I’ll be all right,’ Laura had said with far more confidence than she felt. And she let him go. But she did not sleep that night, sitting in the chair by the fireplace watching the hands of the clock snail around the dial until at seven the first glimmer of daylight stole through the curtains. She showered quickly and persuaded a taxi to pick her up on the main road to avoid the treacherous packed snow in the street outside. By seven-thirty she was back in
intensive care where, to her indescribably relief, she saw that Michael Thackeray’s eyes, sunk in dark sockets, were open.

Her knees almost gave way as she sank into the chair beside the bed to be greeted by the glimmer of a smile.

‘You weren’t hurt?’ he whispered.

‘No,’ she said. ‘How do you feel?’

‘Very tired,’ he said. She took his hand and bent her head over it to hide her tears.

‘There are things I need to tell you,’ she said.

‘I know, but not now,’ Thackeray said faintly and closed his eyes. She stayed beside him for a long time, clasping his hand in hers as if her life and his depended on it.

P
ATRICIA
H
ALL
is the pen-name of journalist Maureen O’Connor. She was born and brought up in West Yorkshire, which is where she chose to set her acclaimed series of novels featuring reporter Laura Ackroyd and DCI Michael Thackeray. She is married, with two grown-up sons, and now lives in Oxford.

Ackroyd & Thackeray series

Skeleton at the Feast

Deep Freeze

Death in Dark Waters

Dead Reckoning

False Witness

Death in a Far Country

By Death Divided

Devil’s Game

Other novels

The Masks of Darkness