Tainted Ground (33 page)

Norman butted in with, ‘Are the Brandons talking?'

‘Yes, as it's difficult to explain why you were trying to kick your way into a country rectory they all admit to being involved with handling the stolen gold. That came from an underworld crony who was implicated in thefts of other antiquities and desperate to get rid of it as it was “hot” – murder had been committed in order to get hold of it. The Kadovi
ć
s say they'd been drinking, were drunk even, last night and decided to try to get it back. There's a chance they'd already rehearsed what they were going to say if they were arrested as they're all insisting they thought I was just a meddlesome villager, no connection with the law, out to steal what they'd paid good money for. That's a lie, they knew perfectly well who I was.'

Carrick looked up. ‘As of last night we have a signed statement from a man by the name of Paul Keen, who's been in trouble on more than one occasion for poaching. He saw a woman being pushed out of a car two nights ago on the main road just before the Hinton Littlemoor turn-off. The car drove off. Before he could go to her aid she had been knocked down by a car coming from the opposite direction. Another car stopped so he reckoned he was superfluous and went home. He probably had the added incentive of a sackful of dead pheasants with him. He did get half the registration number, it was a silver Audi. We have the Kadovi
ć
s' car, a silver Audi that has that same registration. There are very small bloodstains on the back seat, samples of which have been sent for DNA testing, together with a sample from Ingrid to see if they match. There was also an unlicensed shotgun that had been fired quite recently hidden in a secret compartment in the boot of the car.'

‘They're denying the murders?' Norman wanted to know.

I said, ‘Individually they are. Edward is saying he's only just back from the States and his mother and William had already carried them out. That's a lie too as he's been in prison over there and was recently deported, arriving in the UK before the murders took place. Apparently he has a record of extreme violence when under the influence of alcohol. I think it was his idea to raid the rectory either to look for me or to see if I'd hidden the gold there. I'm sure he was behind the murders, or at least, the vicious manner in which they were carried out. He gets it from her.'

‘That's just your own opinion, though,' Judd said.

‘Yes, formed after she'd punched me three times,' I said. ‘Why else d'you think I bled on the back seat of their car?'

Patrick fluttered his eyelashes at me. We have our codes. All right, I thought, I won't be too corrosive and mess this up for you. Despite what you said just now I rather had the idea it was already messed.

‘And the motives for all these murders?' Norman asked.

‘It's another of my opinions,' I admitted.

‘Go on.'

‘Last night Margo shouted at Teddy, Edward, that he'd ruined their retirement. I think he has. He's aggressive, stupid and dangerous. I have an idea that his mother and her husband had retreated to the mill, using her maiden name, with a view to waiting quietly until they could recover the gold, which as you know had been concealed in a coffin and buried in the churchyard. They recommended that their one-time employees do the same. When the gold was recovered and a fence, or even genuine private buyers, found for it they probably planned to sell up, the properties almost certainly having increased in value by then. But Teddy – and on reflection this morning I think it was him the Manleys and Davies were terrified would turn up again – came back and turned it all into a bloodbath. He wanted in. Why should all these other people have a share?'

‘And I take it it's too early to know whether wool fibres found at the scene of the barn murders are compatible with any clothing belonging to those detained,' Norman said.

‘I understand that when arrested Edward Brandon was wearing a woollen sweater with a hole torn in the sleeve,' I replied. ‘But yes, we await the results of tests on that and the fibres.'

‘The – er – counterfeit notes found in Keith Davies's flat?' Patrick floated into the room at large.

Carrick shrugged. ‘A little souvenir of the bad old days?'

‘Did the bag containing the samples of tea and sand that Ingrid found in the garage turn up?'

‘Yes, it did,' Carrick replied. ‘She must have dropped it in the garage where the Porsche was kept. That too has gone for testing. Another point I must mention is that some pieces of decorated Chinese porcelain were found at the Kadovi
ć
s' flat, in a box that had sand and tea in the bottom.'

There was a short silence.

Norman said, ‘Am I to understand that a search of the garages was carried out
before
Superintendent Gillard conducted one himself without a warrant?'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘Just before I found the gold in the river. Did you miss that bit in the report?'

He obviously had. Neither, for a moment, did he know how to react. Then, to me, he said, ‘We shall have to wait until after further questioning and enquiries to know whether your theories bear fruit.' He would have continued but there was a knock at the door and before anyone could say anything it opened and Commander John Brinkley came in.

‘Sorry I'm late. The trains are all to hell this morning.' His gaze came to rest on me. ‘Ingrid! What's the world been doing to you?'

‘Most unfortunate,' Norman put in quickly. ‘But at least it would appear we have the perpetrator.'

Then, for several minutes, the three ‘resident' police officers briefed Brinkley on the cases we had been working on. He had changed. It was not just that he had put on a little weight: here was a man who exuded self-confidence and fulfilment and dressed accordingly, with style and at considerable expense. Obviously, the world was good to him. He smelt like a gigolo.

The briefing reached the point at which Patrick had been suspended and four pairs of eyes fastened on him.

‘Well, frankly,' Brinkley said, ‘I would have been disappointed if you hadn't got into hot water.'

‘Would you be less or more disappointed if I now walked out?' Patrick enquired. ‘My question after that is how much longer is this pettifogging charade going to continue?'

‘Patrick,' Carrick said earnestly, ‘I agree. It's gone on for too long and personally I want to apologize. But you must have realized that everyone on the scheme has been tried and tested – in your case to see how you behaved when placed under stress and treated with less deference that you were used to in the army.'

He had risked getting into trouble for saying this and I waited for Judd to explode. I was looking in the wrong direction.

‘Was that the sole reason for my request for a search warrant being refused?' Patrick asked in a dead kind of tone.

Judd nodded slowly.

‘You don't seem to have hoisted in exactly the kind of people we've been dealing with,' Patrick told him. ‘I'll jump through hoops in role-play sessions until the end of the world but had I known you'd extend silly-bugger tactics into the real job I'd never have agreed to take part. And, for the record, I was not used to being shown much deference except when actually in uniform and junior ranks were required to salute. I suggest you research your subject next time. You could have even come along to the dinner where all the senior officers serve everyone else if the bloody government hadn't binned the regiment.' He added a couple more sentences which I will not repeat, grabbed my hand and we left the room.

Outside in the long corridor I finally succeeded in slowing the pace at which he was going and then brought him to a halt. He was breathing hard and then turned, unseeing, tears of anger in his eyes.

On tiptoe, I kissed his cheek. ‘I'm really sorry. This is all my fault – I've wrecked it for you. I kept telling you to do things by the book and then went off and did exactly the opposite.'

Brinkley was hurrying to catch up with us. ‘That man Judd has handled everything appalling badly,' he said. ‘Look, Patrick, I really do need you. The Met are giving me a small branch of my own. I want you for a department of it. Undercover stuff, just your line of business. You'd practically be your own boss.' He chuckled in a phoney kind of way. ‘Sort of a branch of a branch.'

‘That sounds more like a bloody twig to me,' Patrick said. ‘No, sorry, John. I'll fill in the questionnaire and post it off to you.'

‘But, man, you're not even at the end of your probationary period!'

‘No, but you're at the end of mine.'

We left him standing open-mouthed, trying to think of something to say.

‘They'll make James a scapegoat,' I said when we were driving away.

‘They might try. I have every intention of writing a letter to the bod who contacted me in the first place and copying it to quite a few other people.' Patrick glanced at me quickly. ‘Are you feeling bad?'

‘About the job? Yes, I've just said so – for your sake.'

‘No, you, yourself.'

‘I could do with the rest of the day in bed.'

‘Then home, eh?'

‘Heaven.'

I had my rest, sleeping for most of the time, and when I finally decided it was time I showed my face downstairs at just after eight the following morning I found everyone having breakfast. Tea and loving kindness flowed, followed by bacon and eggs, and I soon felt almost restored to normal.

‘Lorna Church rang,' Patrick said. ‘She'd tried to get hold of me at the nick but was told I wasn't there so tried here. She was worried because she'd forgotten to tell me something. Apparently Janet Manley had given her a small porcelain bowl as a present when they were invited up for drinks one night. Janet said it had been in her family for a long time but I reckon it had been one of those the gang grabbed along with the ingots and she'd kept it in that box.'

‘And that's how the tea got in there,' I said. ‘I had wondered if there were a few more ingots on the loose. Will she be allowed to keep it?'

‘I've no intention of telling her or anyone else it might be stolen property. Anyway, as far as I'm concerned it's all purely academic now.'

‘You've really decided to give up?' Elspeth said.

‘I've not given up,' Patrick told her. ‘Just decided I can't work the way the law does.'

Could not stomach working for the plumped-up and fragrant Brinkley either, I had already surmised. Ironically, Carrick had been perfectly correct in his original judgement.

‘We must contact James,' I said.

‘I already have. As we'd suspected, he's been under huge pressure to act unfriendly – the powers that be thought he might carry me in the job and give an undeserved glowing report. It was the reason he didn't initially want to have anything to do with it. I got the impression that after we left he virtually told Judd and Norman to sod off back to HQ and let him and Bromsgrove get on with the work in hand. It looks as though Bromsgrove might stay though, he'd asked for a move to Bath as he lives in Oldfield Park.'

John looked up from the crossword. ‘Vernon Latimer's resigned from the PCC,' he said. ‘He told me he found your questioning of him quite unwarranted. The fellow seemed to think I'd set you on him in future if he put a foot wrong.'

Had he actually written that letter to the bishop complaining that John was no longer fit enough for the job, I wondered, then received a less than sympathetic reply? We would probably never know.

‘Good,' Elspeth said. ‘I never liked him.'

‘His wife's left him,' John went on. ‘And he's having to sell up – leaving the district by all accounts.' His gaze rested briefly on Patrick and me. ‘You two do make waves, you know.'

‘I want to know if you really must rush home,' Elspeth said to us, hands clasped at her bosom.

‘Why?' Patrick asked.

‘I'd love a few days on Sark. You know, we stay with our old friends the Framleys who used to live at the grange next door. They've a massive garden and a while ago decided to sell part of it to someone to build a house. Your father and I used some of our savings to buy the plot – I have to say they let us have it very cheaply – and it seems such a lovely thing to do at such a miserable time of the year to go over there and talk about plans and architects—' She broke off, eyes shining, hugging herself.

‘Do go,' I said. ‘Go for as long as you like. Patrick and I can take it in turns to house-sit.'

‘There's the dog too, but only for a week or so.'

‘Which dog?' Patrick said.

‘Whisky. The RSPCA phoned and asked, as you'd expressed an interest in him, whether we'd have him here for a short while. In fact, they sent an inspector round to make sure the place was suitable.' In response to our blank looks she went on, ‘Sorry, I must have forgotten to tell you but it only happened the day before yesterday. Vera Stonelake is going to live with one of her daughters and wants to take the dog with her. It's hers, after all. The daughter's got to have the garden fenced or something first. I was told Vera's a lot better since being looked after in the nursing home and with her daughter's help is contacting her solicitor to check up on her will. Isn't that good news?'

‘Wonderful,' Patrick said warmly.

It was not until a fortnight later to the day that Patrick and I would be at home together and when he came in the front door he had a smile on his lips.

‘Remember the blue car?' he said.

‘The one I saw in the garage that disappeared?'

‘Yup. You were right, it almost certainly had been booby-trapped when you found it. Traffic police became suspicious yesterday about a vehicle that had been parked in a side road for a while, and even more so when they saw liquid of some kind dripping from it that seemed to have killed all the grass nearby on a verge. They ended up calling in the bomb squad. It was acid. It wasn't actually set to go off but was a crude device that would have squirted anyone who opened up the car unless something was disconnected first.'