Stealth (29 page)

In an undertone I said, ‘The whole place is on a much bigger scale than I had imagined. It was fairly dark then but I could just make out the roofs of the buildings.'

The yard was huge and remained cluttered with derelict farm machinery. The range of cowsheds and similar buildings plus one large barn and a smaller one were even more dilapidated by this time, the bare roof beams of the latter silhouetted against the sky reminding me again of the broken ribs of some large animal carcass. The large barn's roof had an even bigger and more ominous sag in it now.

‘Someone was smoking,' I said. ‘Outside here. I could smell cigarette smoke. Then I saw the tiny red glow as he inhaled. The glow moved jerkily, as if he was nervous. Then he suddenly bolted for the house. I heard shouting in the distance and very shortly afterwards he returned – at least I thought it was the same man – and he had a bottle with him this time. I climbed over the gate.'

The three of us climbed over the gate, very warily as it was wooden and rotting and then walked a short distance into the farmyard, the house not visible from here. Patrick had gone very pale.

I went on: ‘There was deep shadow here on the other side of the hedge which, as you can see, has a ditch at its base and I sensed, rather than saw, that there was something in it, almost at my feet.'

‘It was one of the bodies, wasn't it?' Sturrock said. ‘I don't understand how you could have known it was there if it was as dark as you say.'

‘I can't explain it either but it might have been because it was still warm.'

Patrick walked quickly in the opposite direction for a few yards and vomited under the hedge. Then remained where he was, his back to us. I wanted to go to him but did not.

‘My first thought was that it was Patrick,' I continued. ‘And when I discovered that the corpse was that of a bald man I could only think for a moment that Murphy had pulled out all his hair. Then I found that it couldn't possibly be him as the body had a real right foot.'

‘I beg your pardon?' said the DI.

‘Patrick was blown up on Special Operations and eventually lost the lower part of his right leg.' When, understandably, the DI remained silent I resumed with: ‘Then I found another body and that wasn't Patrick either. The man who was smoking took a drink from his bottle and belched and from that I knew I was very close to him now. I think there must have been a glimmer of moonlight then as I noticed for the first time the stairs on the barn that gave access to the loft. Someone was coming down them, very slowly. Then whoever it was disappeared, or seemed to, but the water barrel at the bottom of the stairs might have been a little wider. Sometimes when you're trying to see something in the dark your eyes play tricks with you.'

Patrick was still throwing up.

‘The man with the bottle now seemed to be facing me. He put it on the ground and reached into his pocket. My eyes must have become more used to the dark as I could easily make him out now. He must have seen me. Then Patrick knifed him and the gun the man had been holding fell to the ground. He was put into the ditch with the other two. It was then that I spoke to him.'

‘How did you know it was him?'

‘I know my husband in the dark.'

Sturrock gazed at me disbelievingly. I left her where she was and went over to the barrel.

‘It still stinks to high heaven,' I called across to her.

She came over.

I said, ‘We went up into the loft – I took some of the water up with me in a fold-up drinking container I had with me and gave it to Patrick in small amounts plus some Kendal Mint Cake and chocolate and he quite quickly started to revive. You know the rest of what happened, before I arrived and afterwards.'

Sturrock wrinkled her nose and moved away a little. ‘Do the tablets take away the smell?'

‘Oh, no, just prevent the stuff from making you ill, probably.'

‘He said these men were attacking this building in twos, threes and even fours.'

‘They were. Come up. Be careful, the handrail's missing where he chucked a couple of them through it.'

This was the first time I had seen the interior of the loft properly as before I had only risked using the torch for a couple of seconds at a time to conserve the batteries. The mental picture I had created matched almost exactly what was before me now; the low beam towards the far end that one of the mobsters had practically brained himself on, the trap door in the floor that would once have been used to throw fodder down to the animals below and through which a couple of invaders had succeeded in climbing, the pile of logs and larger chunks of wood to one side of the doorway. The door itself was still missing.

‘What are you looking at?' the DI asked as I peered over the pile of wood.

‘The bloodstains from where he was knifed in the arm. You can still see them. We hid down here when the gun battle started and I phoned for help.'

I then saw that were drips and smears of blood all over this area of the dusty and straw covered floor. The oil drum with which we had weighted down the trap door was still up here, the pickaxe handle I had helped to drive off the mobsters by the side of it. Rain dripped and trickled though the roof in a far corner where an attempt had been made to gain entry by ripping off the tiles.

‘Then,' the DI was saying, ‘After hospital treatment for him, you drove home as you feared the gang leader and his girlfriend—'

‘Minder,' I corrected. ‘She killed for fun.'

‘—had gone to Hinton Littlemoor, where you live, to hide in a closed-down pub one of the gang had run as manager. Which they had and you arrested them.'

‘Detective Chief Inspector James Carrick officially arrested them. Patrick was at the point of collapse by then.' He had delivered a haymaker to Northwood and dragged him into the pub's office, locking the door. Murphy had fainted when he had sprung the blade of his Italian throwing knife right under her nose, the same knife with which he had killed her two henchmen in the house.

‘I see. I think I have it all straight in my mind now.' Sturrock added wryly, ‘It must have been the crime scene to end all crime scenes. But the deaths of the three men out there in the yard was still murder. He could have simply rendered them unconscious.'

‘And he also stole a pint of milk and a packet of biscuits for us from the house when he went in to look for his Glock before the police arrived,' I said stonily.

We stared at one another and Sturrock dropped her gaze, murmuring, ‘I assure you, there's nothing personal in this.'

There were footsteps and Patrick came into view at the top of the stairs. I was instantly brought to mind of the way he had stood exactly in that place at the end of it all; bloodied, almost out on his feet, and yet still exuding the kind of authority that had caused Mick the Kick to accord him a grudging respect and then leave, taking his followers with him.

‘I'm going to have a look at the house,' he said and went away again.

We followed, the rain pattering on the hoods of our anoraks.

There was another gate on the far side of the farmyard, newly erected – it had not been there before – fitted with a chain and padlock. It had a large sign affixed to it that intimated that the Keys Estate was private property and trespassers would be prosecuted. Guard dogs were loose, it warned. As a final deterrent barbed wire had been wound around the top bar of the gate, twice.

‘That's that then,' Sturrock said.

Patrick said nothing but went back into the yard and, in the dusk, rummaged. He went behind an ancient tractor and I think was sick again. Returning a few minutes later with half a dozen filthy old plastic feed sacks, he slammed them on to the top of the gate and, with all due care, then pushed them on to the front barbs of the wire, stuffing the ends between the wooden bars. Rinsing his hands in a nearby drinking trough he wiped them on his handkerchief.

‘If you climb over carefully without dislodging it on the other side you won't get hurt,' he said, gesturing towards his handiwork.

‘No,' Sturrock said. ‘We need a search warrant.'

‘I've no intention of searching the house,' Patrick informed her. ‘And bear in mind that this is only a gate to the yard. If you want to leave and not have to go back over the field you'll have to come this way – the main drive's just over there.'

‘But the dogs!'

‘There aren't any. If there were they would have found us by now.'

Still Sturrock stood there. ‘Sorry, I don't like dogs. I've been bitten before.'

Patrick got really impatient with her. ‘Look, if there
are
any I'll shoot them for you!'

She threw up her hands in a gesture of despair and successfully managed the gate. Patrick and I followed and he was the only one to encounter the wire, spiking a finger. He swore, sucking it.

‘Tetanus jabs up to date?' I asked, giving him a tissue to wrap around it.

‘Too right.'

‘Are you OK now?'

‘I don't know.'

He wasn't but I desisted with the wifely concerns stuff.

We walked along an overgrown path, a wide strip of rough grass that had probably once been a lawn on either side of it, dense shrubs and trees encircling them. Rubbish lay everywhere, bits of which Patrick and I had stumbled on as we had blundered our way towards the house those months ago. A matter of twenty yards farther on we emerged through a thicket of wild willows and self-sown ash trees into a wider area, once a garden, the house now in full view. It looked smaller than I recollected but my memories of it were vague, just a darker shape against the night sky. Those windows I could see were boarded up.

Patrick manoeuvred the pair of us back into the vegetation and we all paused for a moment as we heard the whoosh of tyres on the nearby wet road as several cars went by.

‘That's just an ordinary farm house,' I said. ‘To be called an estate the property must have originally been much larger with a big house, a mansion. I'm guessing that it was sold off separately.'

‘And the mobsters must have been, or are, hoping to demolish everything here for their hotel complex,' Patrick muttered. ‘It must cover at least twenty acres.' And to Sturrock, ‘It goes without saying that this place was sealed off as a crime scene for quite a while. What actually was removed, other than obvious things like weapons?'

‘Class A and Class B drugs plus bloodstained clothing and other similar potential evidence items,' she answered. ‘That's all.'

‘No computers or mobile phones?'

‘They found one mobile phone, smashed, probably by having been trodden on. I can only guess that the few gang members who got away took any laptops with them. There was a lot of drink but that's not illegal so we couldn't touch it.'

‘There were only personal possessions and two hands guns in Northwood and Murphy's car at Hinton Littlemoor.'

I said, ‘Could Clement Hamlyn have been here that night or beforehand or even in Bath at the party?'

Patrick stared at me. ‘God, what a thought. I didn't see him.'

‘If he was, is, part of this empire he could have rolled up here at some stage, drunk himself senseless and was comatose that night somewhere in the house.'

‘It's perfectly possible as I was only in a large room at the front for a matter of minutes.' Patrick brooded for a moment and then said, ‘Stay right where you are for a moment.' Cautiously, he disappeared into the thicket.

From where I was standing it was possible to peep through the branches to see that no vehicles were parked at the front of the building. Some work appeared to have been begun as a large stack of tree trunks and foliage was just visible in the dim light beyond one corner of the house. Nearer, there were also piles of rubble, timber, and sheets of rusting corrugated iron that suggested outbuildings had been demolished. Perhaps it was those I remembered. The overall effect was of utter desolation.

‘I think I should go back,' Sturrock said. ‘It'll be quite a long walk down that other road in the dark. I might phone and ask a friend to pick me up.'

‘Just wait here until Patrick comes back,' I said.

‘There's no need, surely. The drive must start from just over there.'

‘Please wait. Now we're here you're our responsibility.'

‘As you wish,' she responded stonily.

We stood there for what seemed to be quite a long time and the DI became more restless. Finally, when she appeared to be on the point of leaving, Patrick reappeared and spoke quietly.

‘There's a very interesting development on the far side of the house.'

He was still a pale shade of grey.

‘Does this concern me at all?' the DI enquired tartly.

‘It might. When were the windows boarded up?'

‘I believe it was around a month ago.'

‘In view of who still appears to own this place I think you ought to remain with us for your own safety. You interrupted me before when I was about to remind you that this house is a criminal bolt-hole. Daniel Coates, wanted by the Met and in connection with Operation Captura, has a boat registered as being owned by the same company, Jones Enterprises. Is that enough evidence to keep you here?'

Sturrock nodded. ‘All right.'

He turned. ‘Move as quietly as possible.'

‘Why, is someone here?'

‘There's a car parked at the back.'

‘Perhaps I ought to call up help.'

‘No, this is going to be done properly.'

Thunderstuck, she turned to look at me. I shrugged. She wouldn't understand.

It was comparatively easy to reach the other side of the house as, after getting through the various thickets of self-sown trees and long grass we were able to drop down into a sunken lane. It was inches deep in a mixture of mud and ancient manure in places but even in the gloom we made quick progress and soon arrived, having climbed a bank, at the entrance to the drive. With all due care, we crossed it, finding ourselves in what was quite likely a continuation of the same historic way but it was not so deep and muddy here. It met another track rutted by vehicles which both petered out at a farm gate, this a sturdy metal one clearly in fairly constant use. Patrick opened it and led the way. The farm's boundary, an old brick wall here, was on our left. At a section that was broken down we climbed over it at the rear of a very large new-looking wooden shed. From my limited view – there was very little room to move here – it appeared to be at least three-and-a-half times longer than it was wide. There were no windows on this side.