The Stone Wife (31 page)

Then she froze. She could hear someone coming towards her.

This wasn’t one of those helpful corridors with doors on either side. It was probably the route to what had once been the servants’ quarters, a narrow passage not much wider than the telescopic corridor used for boarding an aircraft. Faced with the choice of turning and running or taking a stance, she drew the gun and took up the classic position she’d been trained for, legs astride, knees slightly bent, both hands steadying her aim.

“Hold it!” she called out, heart stuttering.

The footsteps ahead stopped.

“Stay right there. I’ve got a gun and I’m coming towards you.”

The brief, tense silence was broken by Lee Li’s shrill voice. “Ingeborg, is that you?”

“Are you alone?”

“Yes.”

Ingeborg lowered the Glock and stepped forward.

Lee, still in her white bathrobe and flip-flops, stared like a choked thrush at the pistol. “Where did you get that?”

“Never mind.” She shoved the thing back in the holster. “What’s going on outside?”

“Some trespasser broke into the grounds. The dog found him and woke people up with all the barking. They were saying he fell from a tree. I think he’s dead. Nathan told me not to look and sent me back to bed.”

If some unfortunate had come to grief, he wasn’t Ingeborg’s concern. “Do they know about me? Does Nathan know I got out?”

“He didn’t say anything. I don’t think he knows.”

She made a rapid assessment. Lee’s knowledge of the house could be useful, even though she would add to the risk of being spotted. “Do you still want to get away?”

“I’m not dressed,” Lee said.

“If you want out, it’s now or never. I’m leaving now.”

Lee bit her lip and pulled the bathrobe tighter across her chest. “All right.”

“I’ve got his keys. One looks like a car key to me.”

“That’ll be for his Aston Martin. It’s in the garage.”

“Take me there.”

Lee didn’t need convincing of the urgency. She turned and led Ingeborg briskly through two doors and down some stone steps. “In here.”

They entered a basement garage spacious enough to park a fleet of cars in addition to the two limos and the open-top sports car already in place. What the hell if the Aston Martin Roadster was an eye-catching sunburst yellow? It would go some. Ingeborg stepped over to it, opened the door and made sure the key fitted. “How do we open the garage door?”

Lee was already seated beside her. “You’ve got a remote on the dash.”

She found it and pressed the top button. A rollerglide
door started moving in the far corner. “Which way when we get out?”

“Up the ramp and right. It takes you to the front of the house and you’ll see the drive ahead.”

“Let’s go, then.” The 4.3 litre engine started with a satisfying
vroom
and they cruised out and upwards with the lights on full beam. “Where exactly is Nathan?” Ingeborg asked as they swung right.

“You’ll see them in a second. They’ve got flashlights.”

She hoped to God they had nothing more lethal. Nathan and three of his bodyguards were under some trees partly illuminated by the security lights at the front of the building, not more than thirty yards from the drive. They had a dog with them and there was a figure prone on the ground. They spun about at the sound of the car. Nathan thrust his hands up in alarm and two of the minders reached for their guns.

“Head down,” Ingeborg told Lee. “This could be ugly.”

She gave the car an injection of speed and spun the wheel to control a skidding turn in front of the house. A shot screamed over her head and another hit the bodywork somewhere, fortunately without hindering the forward movement. Ingeborg ripped through the gears on squealing tyres to get out of range of the guns. More shots were fired, but handguns are notoriously inefficient at distance, even when the target is stationary, and in seconds they had belted up the gravel drive to relative safety.

“You all right?” Ingeborg asked.

“Thanks, yes.”

“We need to get through the gate. Can he control it from the house? I’d rather not smash it down.”

“I don’t know. The remote should open it.”

“We can only try.” She squeezed the brakes as she began to run out of drive.

Those gates looked huge and impenetrable. The car would never burst through them and still be usable. She pressed the remote control and waited, her stomach clenching. Agonizing seconds passed before anything happened. The two of
them didn’t need to speak their thoughts. By now, Nathan would have collected something from the garage and started in pursuit.

The gates shuddered and started inching open.

Impatient to be in motion again, Ingeborg stared into the rear-view mirror and saw headlights make the turn in front of the house. She drew a sharp breath and exhaled at once, switching her attention back to the slowly widening space between the gates. Judging the gap to a centimetre, she engaged the gear, jammed her foot down and swung on to the road.

24

Diamond’s speech was slurred when Ingeborg phoned him from her Bath flat. He must have been asleep. She hadn’t appreciated how early it still was. But he soon grasped what had happened and was touchingly anxious to know if she was unhurt. He told her not even to think about coming into work before she’d got some rest. Was this really Peter Diamond talking? At this end of her mission she didn’t object to the paternal treatment. She rather enjoyed it.

She cooked an early breakfast. Lee, still in the white bathrobe, was on the sofa with her arms folded around her knees. The chase through Leigh Woods was a pleasing memory now. The Aston Martin had easily outpaced Nathan’s limo and lost it on the empty roads before crossing the suspension bridge, courtesy of Nathan’s crossing card. Ingeborg had felt a pang of regret at having to abandon the magnificent beast at the dockside near the
Great Britain
, where her little Ford Ka still stood in isolation. She was sorrier still to have to smash the window of her own vehicle and start it with the spare key she kept taped under the dashboard, but the minder had taken hers when he searched her the first time.

“We’ll get some sleep after this,” she called from the kitchen. “I need to go into work after a couple of hours, but you’re welcome to stay on as long as you want.”

“You’re so kind,” Lee said.

“Nonsense. I wouldn’t have got away without your help.”

“You’re not really a journalist, are you? I saw the mail waiting on your doormat … Detective Sergeant Smith.”

“Sorry,” Ingeborg said. “Really sorry. Let me explain.”

“You don’t need to. I could tell you were more interested in Nathan than my singing, and when I saw how you handled the gun, I guessed.”

“You’re quite a detective yourself.” And she might have added,
But thank God you seem to trust me
.

“What will happen now?” Lee asked.

“To Nathan?” Ingeborg scooped the fried egg from the pan and transferred it to the plate with the strips of crisp bacon and the mushrooms and tomatoes. “I expect we’ll raid his house before he moves the firearms to some other place. He’s not stupid. He’s probably started shifting them already.”

“You knew he was dealing in arms?”

“It’s well known. Proving it is altogether different. If we can nail him this time, he’ll get a long sentence. You could be called as a witness.”

Lee thought about that and frowned. “I don’t know if I’d want to testify. He’s bad, I know, but he was kind to me. And he definitely helped my career. Even the devil isn’t as black as he’s painted.”

Ingeborg smiled at yet another axiom, a debatable one. “In my scale of things, Nathan is among the worst. I don’t know how many serious crimes could be traced back to him and his guns. Probably dozens.” She brought the laden tray over to Lee. “With that new album to launch, you’ll find another sponsor, no problem.”

“Will he come after me, do you think?”

“Right now, he has too much other stuff to deal with. The dead man in the grounds, for a start. Even if the death was accidental—and I have my doubts—he’ll want to dispose of the body somewhere else. He won’t want an investigation on his home patch.”

“Who do you think it was?”

“No idea. Not one of ours, for sure. I was on a solo mission. Just some chancer who needed a gun for a job and heard the rumours about Nathan, I guess.” She took her own breakfast from the oven and brought it to a chair opposite
Lee. “Do you have friends you can stay with until you sort yourself out?”

“I’ll have to think.”

“I could call my friend Sylvie, the one who interviewed you. She has plenty of contacts.”

“Thanks. She was nice.”

This was as good a moment as any to ask the key question. “Did Nathan ever speak about the shooting at the Bath auction house a week or so ago?”

Lee frowned and shook her head. “What was that?” She truly didn’t appear to know.

“A man called Gildersleeve, a university professor, was gunned down. We’re trying to find out if Nathan supplied the murder weapon.”

“He wouldn’t have told me, anyway. I wasn’t supposed to know that side of his business.”

“Is there another side?”

“Import-export, he calls it.”

Ingeborg laughed. “Helping the country’s balance of payments? Let me ask you about his customers. Was one of them by any chance a university lecturer by the name of Dr. Poke?”

She hesitated. “I didn’t find out who they were. Only a few I happened to meet, and he wasn’t one of them. I’d remember a name like that.”

“A woman called Monica?”

“I’d certainly remember a woman. No.”

“A property developer, Bernie Wefers?”

Lee sat forward in surprise. “He came to the house, yes.”

“Are you sure?”

“But not to buy guns. Bernie built my studio and fitness centre. Didn’t personally build it, I mean, but did all the planning with Nathan and me and brought the contractors in to do the job. He’s a large man, a bit rough at the edges, as they say, but I don’t think he’s a crook.”

Ingeborg smiled. “You can’t tell a book by its cover.”

“Very true, but I rather liked him.”

“He was married to Monica, the woman I mentioned.”

Lee shook her head. “I wouldn’t know about that.”

A new thought formed. “Did you get the impression Bernie had done work for Nathan before?”

“They seemed to know each other, certainly.”

“I was thinking he may have built the secret bathroom and the gunroom. It must have been one large bedroom originally.”

“If he did, it was before I arrived.”

The need for sleep was becoming irresistible. Ingeborg returned the trays to the kitchen and found some bedding for Lee, who was happy to stretch out on the sofa. Two and a half hours would have to do. Ingeborg set the alarm for nine and sank exhausted into her own bed.

Diamond was at work early that morning feeling as if he’d hardly been away. Actually he’d been home a few hours and not slept well for fretting over Paul Gilbert. Nothing more had been heard from the young DC since the phone call of the evening before. Diamond’s irritation with Gilbert had long gone. The lad had gathered valuable information about what was happening at the Hazael mansion. Thanks to his good work, it was clear that Ingeborg had successfully infiltrated the place after befriending the pop singer who was Nathan Hazael’s girlfriend. Relief all round.

But now there was deep concern over Gilbert. Diamond was unburdening himself to Halliwell. “You heard what I said to him on the phone and I’m not proud of it now. The whole situation was a farce, him up the tree with the guard dog waiting underneath. I was sure he’d be humiliated if we sent a rescue party. He wasn’t supposed to be there, anyway. That’s why I told him to fend for himself. You heard me, Keith. Were those my words?”

“You told him to use his initiative.”

“Exactly.”

“And you called him a pillock.”

Almost the last word he’d spoken. He winced. “Okay. I was rattled. He put Ingeborg’s undercover mission at risk.”

“He didn’t know about that.”

“He wasn’t supposed to know.” Diamond ran a hand over
his head and scraped back hair that was no longer there. “What do you think happened, Keith? Is he still up the bloody tree? Is he a prisoner inside the place now?”

“Looking on the bright side, he could have done what you said and escaped. He may have thought it was too late to call in and let us know.”

“He hasn’t been in and he hasn’t called us. I’m getting jack shit from his mobile.”

“Try calling him at home. There’s a landline.”

“I already did. All I got was the recorded message.”

“Give him more time, guv.”

Muttering to himself, Diamond crossed the room and opened his office door. “And another thing: the
Wife of Bath
is missing.”

“That’s all right,” Halliwell said. “John Wigfull wanted her for a photocall.”

“For crying out loud.”

“He came up with a trolley and six burly constables some time yesterday.”

“Where is it now?”

“Still outside the main entrance where they took the pictures. It was when I came in, at any rate. I think Mr. Wigfull had trouble getting anyone to hump it back here.”

“So it sat in front of the building all night? It’s worth a fortune. What if someone nicked it? Doesn’t Wigfull realise a man was shot in a hijack attempt to snatch the thing?”

“I’ll get onto him.”

“I’ve been here long enough to remember a member of the public coming in and informing us that we had cannabis growing in the concrete planters outside the front. It took years to live that down.”

When Ingeborg walked into the CID room in the middle of the morning and went straight to her desk and checked the computer, there was no sense of surprise, no applause. Almost nobody noticed—which, perhaps, is what an undercover officer should aim for.

Some minutes after, she knocked on Diamond’s door and got a more satisfying reaction.

“You’re back. Thank God for that.”

“And I’ve got some juicy things to report. Is this a good time?”

“As good as any. Let me call in some of the others first. They didn’t all know you were undercover, but they should now.”