The Third Sin (26 page)

‘I know. But listen, Tam. Jen Wilson told us Randall was in a bad mood the night Julia died. He probably knew she was probably going to get him sacked. And he and his mother had been having a row – had he confessed to her, and she had been furious with him?

‘Now don’t tell me there isn’t much love lost between them because I agree with you. But I’ll tell you what Philippa does love – she loves her lifestyle, being lady of the manor, and I don’t think she could keep that going on. Since the recession hit the business was struggling. Randall was earning a fat-cat salary; she’d be reckoning that he’d keep the business afloat, if not for love then for the sake of inheriting a going concern.’

MacNee, whose attitude had definitely been sceptical, was starting to look interested.

‘OK, I’ll go along with that so far. And …?’

‘She sees her chance when she’s having drinks with the Cyrenaics before they went out to the forest – Jen told us that. She’s a hanger-on, wants to be down with the kids because of Will. We know she got stuff from him from time to time – and she spotted her chance when Julia was obviously well away already.’

‘Slipped it in her drink, do you mean?’

Fleming nodded. ‘Or maybe even just offered it to her. From what I can make out the woman was at the stage when she’d take anything. Kane was probably keeping her as short as he could for her own safety.

‘And then everything’s fine until Eleanor Margrave phones. Suddenly, it’s all falling apart. An enquiry is the last thing Philippa can afford. So …?’

‘She’d an alibi, though, didn’t she?’

‘I checked that this evening. It’s porous, hard to pin down for times. Same with the one for Stewart’s murder.’

‘She kills Stewart too? When she’s so daft about him that she stirs everything up again, arranges the whole Homecoming stuff to get him back, according to the husband?’ MacNee was frankly incredulous.

‘She thought she was safe by then. But when all this happened, Stewart started putting two and two together – he wasn’t a stupid man. Kane has accused him of giving E to Julia.

He knows he didn’t, but—’ ‘He knows who he did give it to?’ Suddenly MacNee was with her. ‘He asks her about it at the party – the conversation Louise couldn’t quite hear. But maybe he thought she had, and that we were going to throw the book at him—Here! You could be on to something there, you know that?’

‘Tam, it’s all speculative, like I said. But it works, and it gives her the commonest motive of all. Money. If I’m right about this, when it comes right down to it love means nothing by comparison. She’s totally ruthless.

‘And I tell you what’s worrying me – Louise.’ She told him about the conversation she’d had with her about Randall. ‘And I couldn’t get hold of her tonight, Tam – her mobile’s switched off.’

He shook his head. ‘Naw! How’s she going to find him anyway, when Britain’s finest have failed? And even supposing she did, it’s his mother that’s the problem, not him.’

‘Oh, you’re probably right. And if we bring Philippa in for questioning it would solve the problem anyway.’

‘Just ignore it,’ Randall Lindsay called. ‘The building creaks all the time!’

But his face was pale and sweaty, Hepburn saw, as she sprang to the door after her sergeant.

Below, the warehouse was a pit of darkness beyond the pool of light coming from the open door behind her. She saw Macdonald standing at the foot of the staircase, facing towards the warehouse door. She saw, in the darkness, a dark shape moving silently towards him, a shape holding something above its head, something it brought down on his head. He crumpled, falling to the floor with a groan.

The shadow’s arm was raised again. ‘Police – freeze!’ Hepburn screamed at the top of her voice, launching herself down the stairs, throwing herself at the weapon and deflecting the blow with her shoulder.

She didn’t even notice the pain. The force of her attack had knocked his assailant over and Hepburn threw herself on top. Scrabbling for purchase, she found hair under her hand and she grabbed it, pulling with all her might.

There was a scream, high-pitched – a woman’s scream. Hepburn levered herself up, trying to smash the other’s head down against the concrete floor, but the woman was tall and strong, fighting back. And now in the dim light she could make out her face – Philippa Lindsay. Who else?

‘Andy!’ Hepburn yelled, but there was only a sickening silence in response. She was still winning the struggle, but only just.

Lindsay had come down the stairs and was standing watching. He wasn’t leaping to her aid, was he?

She tried, though. ‘Randall, help me! I’ll speak for you—’

A flailing arm caught her painfully on the face and a sharp, commanding voice said, ‘Randall, get on with it! She’s hurting me.’

And she could hear the smirk in Lindsay’s voice as he said, ‘Doubt if you’ll be in a position to say very much, in my favour or otherwise,’ and pulled Hepburn roughly off his mother up on to her feet, twisting her arms cruelly up behind her back.

Philippa stood up, dusting herself down and patting her hair back into place in a pantomime of calm, though Hepburn could see her shaking.

‘Thank you,
sweetie
!’ Her voice was icily sarcastic ‘You took your time about it.’

Hepburn, her own voice unsteady, said, ‘Philippa Lindsay, Randall Lindsay, you are both under arrest. Release me immediately.’ She felt stupid even as she said it.

‘Oooh, I’m scared,’ Lindsay sneered.

‘Well, it’s a pretty thought,’ Philippa said. ‘Pretty, but pointless.’

Stepping round Macdonald, she walked across to the wall by the door, a wall hung with sample curtains, and stopped about halfway along, stooping to check something on the floor.

Hepburn couldn’t see what it was. A sense of unreality had come over her; she was fighting against Lindsay – kicking, trying to lean far enough forward to bite, but he was six inches taller and far stronger. He only jerked her arms up more painfully and held her off, laughing. No matter what she did, she couldn’t break his grip.

And there was Macdonald, still not moving. She couldn’t see whether he was breathing or not. He could be dead, and desolation engulfed her.

Philippa had moved now to the curtain nearest the door. She took a cigarette lighter out of her pocket and lit the edge. It flared immediately.

Some sort of accelerant,
Hepburn thought numbly.
She’s soaked them in it, planned to set the place on fire and burn us to death. And I’ve brought Andy into this.

Philippa had opened the door, stepping quickly outside. Lindsay hurled Hepburn to the floor and, leaving her struggling to her feet, ran to the door after his mother.

It slammed in his face and Hepburn heard the click of a key turning. A second curtain was blazing now.

‘Mother!’ Randall screamed. ‘Let me out! Mum! Mum!’

There were two cars parked outside Ballinbreck House and there were lights on, but it took three rings on the doorbell before Charles Lindsay appeared, apologetic.

‘I’m so sorry, I was upstairs in my study with the TV on. I thought my wife would go – it’s always more likely to be for her than it is for me. What can I do for you?’

‘It is your wife we wanted, in fact,’ Fleming said. ‘Could we have a word with her?’

He didn’t ask why. He gave them a level look then said only, ‘She’s upstairs. I’ll go and dig her out. Just go and sit down.’

He waved them into the sitting room and disappeared upstairs, calling, ‘Philippa! Philippa! That’s the police, wanting to speak to you.’

MacNee looked doubtfully at the cream and turquoise linen chairs they had been invited to sit on. ‘Places like this always make me feel I’m wearing my old tacketty boots,’ he complained. ‘You couldn’t just relax in your socks with a beer in here, could you?’

‘It’s not meant for that. This is where you take people to impress
them – or to sit admiring your own exquisite taste with a glass of chilled Pinot Grigio. But where is she?’

They could still hear Charles going round the house, calling her name. After a few minutes he reappeared, looking puzzled. ‘I can’t find her. She told me specifically that she was going to have a bath and an early night, but she seems to have gone out.’

‘Her car’s there,’ Fleming said. ‘Where would she have gone without it?’

‘If there was a meeting or something in the village or she was going to see a neighbour, she’d probably walk, but she didn’t mention that to me. She’s probably at the shop – she seems to spend most of her time there these days. Not that it’s doing any good. It’s going to go under and she might as well face up to it.’

‘You’re not sounding much bothered, Mr Lindsay,’ MacNee said.

Charles shrugged. ‘Swings and roundabouts,’ he said. ‘It’ll be the end of more than the business.’

He didn’t expand on that. He bade them a polite good evening and went back, no doubt to his study and his TV programme.

‘If he’d had a basin handy, you’d have seen him washing his hands. Nothing to do with him, whatever she’s done, eh?’ MacNee said.

‘A seriously dysfunctional family. I suppose we try the warehouse. She’s maybe preparing the books for the receiver.’

Randall was shaking the inner door, screaming obscenities. ‘You can’t do this! Come back!’ The outer door shutting with a bang was the only response.

The fire was running right up the curtains, burning with a dense, choking smoke.

‘Shut up!’ Hepburn yelled at him. ‘Fire exit?’

‘Isn’t one. What are we going to do? She wants to burn me alive – her own son!’

And two other people. Hepburn had her mobile out, ready to dial emergency but there was no signal inside the metal shell of the building. And by the time someone noticed and called the fire brigade they might be dead anyway from smoke inhalation. If they were lucky.

‘Extinguishers?’ There had to be, surely.

He looked around helplessly. She couldn’t see any either; Philippa had thought of that, probably.

Terror was stopping her thinking straight. She needed to get a grip. ‘Find something to batter down the door,’ she screamed at him. ‘Take this!’

She bent to pick up the weapon Philippa had used on Andy: a twofoot polished stone sculpture – an otter on its hind legs, she registered automatically. Randall snatched it from her and went to the door. The smoke was thicker there: he began to cough as he swung it at the lock.

Hepburn looked wildly about her. One of the curtains fell and a rug on the floor began to smoulder – smoulder, not burn. There were any number of rugs around the place, flameproof, even, perhaps.

She seized one, ran to the farther edge of the fire, pulled down the drapes nearest it to create a firebreak, then used the rug to beat at the licking flames.

‘It’s no use! She’s shut the outer door!’ Randall was panicking now.

‘Leave it,’ she ordered. ‘Get a rug! Beat them down.’

But some flimsy drapes had caught now and in the draught from the spreading flames scraps were floating, alight like Chinese lanterns, across the room. The cover on one of the beds flared up as one landed and the ring of fire grew faster and faster about them. A floating rag fell on her arm and she brushed it off, barely registering the pain.

It was getting hotter now. Sweat pouring down her face, Hepburn raced round, swatting frantically at each new outburst, trying to keep ahead of the blaze as Randall stood uselessly by, paralysed by his terror.

She was losing the battle. The acrid smoke was getting thicker and Hepburn began to cough, tears pouring from her smarting eyes. She could feel her lips cracking, her skin drying out. It was so hot, so hot! There were burns on her hands now too and the pain was excruciating.

The floor – she remembered from her training; the air would be clearer nearer the floor. But you couldn’t go on fighting if you lay down. She wasn’t going to give up, not until she had to. She redoubled her efforts, snatching up another rug as the one she had been using began to smoulder, but with the pain, the lack of oxygen and the terrible heat her breathing was laboured and she was losing strength.

‘You might – you might as well face it.’ Lindsay was crouching halfway up the staircase, huddled now, crying hysterically, his arms wrapped round himself. ‘We’re finished. Damn her to hell! We’re going to die!’

She ignored him. Coughing, retching, her throat raw as if it was bleeding, she struggled on.

Then, from the floor she heard Macdonald’s voice. ‘Louise …?’

He sounded groggy but he was alive and for a fraction of a second her heart lifted. Then it hit her. He had come round, only to face the horror of choking to death or burning alive in the inferno of smoke and flame that surrounded them.

She went over to crouch down beside Macdonald, taking his hand. Randall was right. There was nothing more she could do.

‘No one here,’ MacNee said as Fleming drove into the car park of Etcetera. ‘The outer door’s shut.’

‘Damn,’ Fleming said. ‘I was sure this was where she was going to be. So, what now? Do we go back to the house and wait until she comes home?’

‘Do you think it’s worth it?’ It was all very well to indulge the boss
in her fancy theories but MacNee was beginning to think longingly of his bed. ‘Nothing’s going to happen if we wait till the morning.’

Fleming sighed. ‘You’re probably right. OK.’ She swung the car round to drive back out, then stopped. ‘Look, Tam – there’s a light up there.’

High on the side of the building, a small square window was outlined by light spilling round the edges of a curtain.

‘That’s her office,’ Fleming said. ‘She’s here after all. Let’s go and knock on the door.’

She parked the car. As they got out, they smelt smoke. Looking closer, they could see it seeping through the gaps around the door.

MacNee had his phone out of his pocket, dialling emergency and speaking urgently as they both sprinted across.

Fleming tugged at the door. ‘It’s locked. She must be inside. We need to break this down.’

‘Ram it,’ MacNee said, and she nodded, running back to start the car.

He stood waiting, poised for action He was worried; there could be a fireball ready to explode and his first priority would be to rescue Marjory – Philippa Lindsay could take her chances.

It was only the slightest of sounds – the faint rustle of leaves underfoot, a tiny twig snapping. He spun round. A dark figure emerged from the shadows under the trees, moving fast and low across the car park.

At the same moment, Fleming’s car hit the warehouse door. There was no fireball; the door, though it splintered, still held. Fleming reversed, ready to try again.

MacNee took off. As the figure ahead of him sped across the side road, he saw in the light from the lamps in the main street that it was unmistakably Philippa Lindsay.

There was no need to go in hot pursuit. He knew where to find her.

This was the oldest trick in the book – setting your failing business on fire so that you could claim the insurance money. He’d better stop the boss from dashing in to rescue someone who wasn’t there and endangering her own life in the process.

The sound of the impact of Fleming’s car on the door galvanised Hepburn. Screaming, ‘Help! Help!’ at the top of her voice, she rushed to it, pulling her jacket across her face to give some sort of protection.

There were no drapes to the right of the door, and the curtains where the blaze had been started had burnt out so the smoke was, at least for the moment, thinner here, though behind her the ring of flame was growing faster and faster, right along the back wall now, engulfing sofas and chairs, beds and tables in its rage.

Whatever that noise had been, the inner door was still solidly in place; Hepburn had no idea what was happening. The flames were roaring like a stormy sea – would anyone hear her screams?

Behind her, Macdonald had staggered to the door beside her. Flat on the floor, he’d suffered less from smoke but he looked groggy; in the livid light of the flames she could see a great gash on his temple and he still didn’t look as if he was focusing. But when she tried to pick up the sculpture again she hadn’t the strength to lift it and he took it from her to swing it at the door.

A panel splintered. Now they could see that someone had battered the outer door – battered it, but not broken it down.

‘Go on, go on!’ she urged.

As air came in through the opening they gasped in its freshness greedily. If Macdonald took out another panel, if the door was hit again …

But the fire had been refreshed by the air too. It was raging even more fiercely now; the centre of the building was a sea of flame and
only the farther wall by the staircase, where there were no drapes, had not yet caught.

Macdonald, too, was losing strength now. They were both coughing their lungs out.

Hepburn glanced over her shoulder. Randall had passed out and was lying on the floor a few feet away, overcome.

And in another moment, Hepburn realised bleakly, they would be too.

Running back to the car park, MacNee saw that Fleming had backed the car into position for a second attempt at the door. Waving his arms, he signalled to her to stop, came across and opened the car door.

‘That was Philippa, running away. It’s just good, old-fashioned arson,’ he said. ‘We might as well wait for the fire brigade.’

The second impact hadn’t come. Even with their faces pressed to the gap in the inner door, breathing was getting more difficult and the heat was all but unbearable. Hepburn could smell her hair singeing

‘One … last … try,’ Macdonald wheezed. He took her hand and squeezed it. ‘Scream – now!’

‘Fine,’ Fleming said. ‘Wonder how long they’ll be?’

When she switched off the engine, the noise of the raging flames filled the silence. MacNee, by the open car door, stood listening to it.

‘Amazing, the racket it makes,’ he said. ‘I can feel the heat from here.’

‘We’d better get out of the way, anyway – clear the space for the experts. Hop in, Tam.’

He hesitated. ‘Hang on,’ he said, taking a couple of paces nearer the building. He turned, his eyes wide in shock. ‘There’s someone in there! Hit it again!’

He leapt back from the car as Fleming slammed it into gear and accelerated. Someone in there – if they were close by, the falling door might kill them anyway. But anything was better than burning alive.

This time, they heard it coming. They were able to dodge to the left where the fire had already done its worst, and the inner door came in with the outer, crashing harmlessly to the floor.

Tongues of flame surged forward. The car backed up, out of reach, and Macdonald and Hepburn stumbled through the opening, out into the blessed fresh air.