Ash & Bone (38 page)

She took a sip of her wine.

'So,' Elder said, 'you asked him whose blood it was.'

'What I actually said was, Who the fuck does it belong to then?'

'And he said…?'

'And he said, It's Steve Kennet's blood. I could have kissed him. Probably would have if he'd been there.'

'Just as well he wasn't. You know, work colleagues, station intrigue.'

Karen leaned back in her chair, as if to focus on him more clearly. 'That what you are, Frank? A work colleague?'

'Not for much longer.'

'The business with Mallory and Repton?'

Elder nodded.

'Where are you up to with all that?'

He told her over their main course, Karen having opted for sea bass with roast mixed squash, Elder the lamb with spicy chick-pea puree and spinach.

'So what do you reckon the chances are,' Karen said, setting down her knife and fork, 'of tracking Mallory down and bringing him back?'

'Tracking him down, I'd say pretty good. But if he's joined his buddy Slater in the TRNC —'

'The what?'

'TRNC. Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. There's no extradition treaty.'

'Asil Nadir. I remember.'

'Exactly.'

'You want some more wine?'

'Have we finished this?'

'Just about.'

'Best not.'

'You fancy something else? Brandy? Whisky?'

'Maybe later.'

Karen raised an eyebrow, amused. 'Don't count too many chickens, Frank.'

Elder drank a double espresso, watching her eat her way through a largish helping of chocolate ice cream with cardamon. Despite his protestations, she paid the bill. The restaurant had ordered them a taxi.

'You're going to have to be careful,' Karen said, settling back against the seat.

'What of?'

'Getting a reputation.'

'I don't know what you mean.'

'Twice now, isn't it? That you've pulled cases out of the fire. Last year and now this.'

'Luck,' Elder said, 'that's most of it. That and the people I've been lucky enough to work with.'

Karen laughed. 'You old charmer, you!'

It made sense, she said, for the cab to drop him off first. They stood on the pavement outside the small block of flats, his home but not for much longer, the driver keeping his engine idling, the meter ticking over.

It was a surprisingly mild night, mild for the time of year.

She looked beautiful, he thought, the way the light shone in her eyes.

'Say goodnight, Frank.'

'Goodnight.'

She kissed him on the mouth.

* * *

Elder stirred, waking in the darkness, not knowing if he'd been asleep for minutes or hours. Not knowing what had woken him, other than the smell, the scent of mint and garlic clear in the room.

His eyes focused on Mallory standing just beyond the end of the bed, pistol in hand.

'Sometimes you can delegate,' Mallory said, 'offload. Sometimes there's so much shit been spread around you just have to clear it up yourself.'

His eyes narrowed marginally as he raised his arm.

'Should've stayed in Cornwall, Frank. Safer by far.'

As his finger touched the trigger, he heard a sound at his back and spun around. On her way back from the bathroom, Karen had picked up the stainless steel kettle from the work surface in the kitchen. She swung it fast and hard into Mallory's face, the hard edge striking his nose full on, the flesh splitting open like an overripe plum.

Elder jumped at Mallory from behind, doing his best to wrench the pistol from his hand.

Mallory struggled and swore and Karen swung the kettle a second time to the crack of splintering bone.

Elder forced Mallory to the ground and, one foot firm in the small of his back, brought first one arm and then the other round tight behind him.

The sound Mallory made, forced between broken teeth, was not a word at all.

'Hang on,' Karen said, stepping into a pair of knickers before fetching the handcuffs from her bag. 'Any emergency,' she said, with a grin.

Elder was still far too shaken to smile back.

'Keep an eye on him,' Karen said. 'I'll phone it in.'

Elder said okay and lowered himself to the edge of the bed. Another moment, another second and he would have been dead.
Head and heart.

As his breathing steadied, he listened to Karen's voice from the other room, concise and clear. He already knew he would never forget the sight of her, stepping stark naked into the room, preparing to swing a kettle at Mallory's head. And almost certainly save his life.

Katherine had arranged to meet Elder in the Arboretum, near the centre of the city. He made his approach down through the park from the North Sherwood Street end, looking for signs of early spring. It was almost a month since the attempt on his life; three since the murder of Maddy Birch; a shade over three weeks since the remains of Jill and Judy Tremlett had been unearthed beneath the house in Manningtree. Ash and bone.

There were crocuses, Elder saw, yellow and white along the flower-beds and here and there haphazardly amongst the grass; snowdrops also, a few, still showed pale against the dark earth.

Rob Summers was sitting with Katherine on a bench near the corner of the rose garden and when he saw Elder he stood and walked away, giving them time to talk alone.

Katherine had allowed her hair to start growing back and there was some small colour in her cheeks, though Elder thought a good meal or two wouldn't go amiss.

'Dad.'

'Kate.'

Her skin felt like newsprint against his lips.

'Did you drive up?'

He shook his head. 'Train.'

'All the way from Cornwall?'

'Came up to London yesterday. One or two things I needed to do.'

'What's her name?' Katherine said, close to a smile. 'Karen?'

'Since when has my private life been such an interest?'

'Since you had one.'

Elder's turn to smile. Two small boys, who should certainly have been at school, went by on skateboards. A girl wearing the High School for Girls uniform stopped and asked for a light; Elder couldn't oblige, Katherine could.

'You are seeing her, though?' Katherine persisted.

Elder hesitated; he wasn't even sure. 'It's not that straightforward,' he said eventually. 'Kind of job she has, it doesn't leave a lot of time for much else.'

'Like you used to be, then.'

'I suppose so, yes.'

He reached for her hand, but she pulled it away.

'You think that's all it takes, don't you? You always did.'

'What?'

'A quick cuddle, a hug, a kiss on the cheek. As if that made it all okay.'

'I'm sorry. I was only trying —'

'It doesn't. Make up for everything, you know.'

'Everything?'

She looked away. 'All the times you weren't there.'

There were tears in her eyes neither of them wanted to see.

'Are you saying it's my fault?'

'What?'

'I don't know. Everything. This.'

She looked at him, held his gaze, then slowly turned her head away, reaching into her pocket for her cigarettes.

'Kate…'

'What now?'

'Nothing.' The admonishment frozen on his lips.

'You want to take a walk?' he said several long moments later.

'Not specially.'

They continued to sit. Summers appeared lower down the path, walking in the direction of the bandstand, circling round.

'You and Rob, you're still…?'

'We're going to back off a little. Just, you know, chill for a while. Rob needs some time to sort himself out, get his shit together.' She smiled. 'He comes out with stuff like that from time to time. Getting your shit together. Like it was the sixties or something.'

'What's happening to him?'

'With the police, you mean?'

Elder nodded.

'He'll be charged with possession. Then probation, most likely. That's what they're saying. Get a — what is it? — Community Punishment and Rehabilitation Order. A hundred hours of community service and a couple of years in a drug rehab programme.'

'He's happy with that?'

'He doesn't have a lot of choice.'

'And you?'

'What about me?'

'What are you going to do?'

Katherine held the smoke in before releasing it slowly into the air. She was going to give it up. She was. Maybe for Lent. 'I've started seeing my therapist again.'

'You have? Katherine, that's great. I'm pleased. That's really good news.'

'Okay, okay. Don't go crazy.'

He knew he shouldn't ask, but went ahead anyway. 'I don't suppose you've thought any more about college? School?'

'One thing at a time, Dad, right?'

'Okay, I'm sorry.' Something about her expression reminded him of when she had been ten or eleven, scarcely grown, and he felt his breathing change, his chest constricting close above his heart.

Katherine stubbed out her cigarette. 'I did go and talk to someone at Clarendon. There's an open-access programme for AS level that didn't look too bad.' She sprang to her feet. 'Come on. Before you get all gooey and overcome. Let's catch up with Rob.'

'All right.'

Summers was sitting in the centre of the bandstand, leaning back against the wrought-iron railings, writing in a notebook.

'Just look at him,' Katherine said. 'He's such a poseur sometimes.'

'If you did go to Clarendon,' Elder said, 'start studying again, where would you live?'

Katherine grimaced. 'Mum's threatening to redecorate my room.'

'Maybe come summer you might even feel like running again.'

She shot him a quick sideways look. 'Not before I can walk, okay?'

* * *

Elder called in on Resnick before catching his train back down to London. Both Bland and Eaglin were trying to outdo the other in apportioning blame, offering information in exchange for a better deal.

Framlingham had asked him to attend a meeting with the Chief Crown Prosecutor about the case against Mallory, which was under continuous review. While the circumstances of Maurice Repton's death were straightforward, at least as far as the Crown was concerned, those surrounding what had happened to the Tremlett twins were less so.

The bodies of two young females had been found beneath one of the cellars, covered by quick-setting concrete. Both corpses were badly burned. It looked as if they had been placed down there and then set fire to, using petrol, presumably in an effort to destroy them beyond recognition. But even as the fire had blackened and torn apart some of their skin, other parts it had preserved. Several fingerprints were still partially clear. Moreover, a comparison of their teeth with their dental charts made identification certain.

Pinpoint haemorrhages behind Judy Tremlett's eyes suggested that she had died from strangulation; a subdural haemorrhage around her sister's brain led the pathologist to conclude that she had died from a fractured skull. In neither girl was carbon monoxide present: they had been dead when the fire had been started. Small, small mercy.

Mallory was still denying responsibility for both deaths or any knowledge of how they had occurred.

Officers from CIB were continuing to question him about a number of investigations in which he had been involved, prosecutions which, for various reasons, had failed; also several robberies which had so far remained unsolved. And Mallory, of course, was happy to string things out, feeding a little information here, a little disinformation there, all the while playing the system, delaying what was still, in all probability, inevitable.

When the meeting with the Crown Prosecutor was over, Framlingham insisted on buying Elder a drink and he was happy to accede. He was catching the sleeper back down to Cornwall later that evening and a call to Karen's mobile had been diverted to her office phone, where he had failed to leave a message.

'I'm not asking you,' Framlingham said, 'to move back lock, stock and barrel. Start another career. You're through with that, I understand. But what I'm saying is, be flexible. Give us four months of the year.'

'No way.'

'Come on, Frank. The winter, for God's sake. You don't want to spend that down there, surely?'

'Don't I?'

'Frank…'

Elder smiled and shook his head. 'Look, no promises, okay? Nothing definite, nothing set. We'll stay in touch. If there's anything you think I might be really interested in, suitable for, give me a call. I'll say yes or no.'

Framlingham held out his hand. 'Can't say fairer than that, I suppose.'

On the kerb, he fished into his pocket and took out an envelope with Elder's name on it. 'Had a call from that Shields woman this morning. Heard I was seeing you. Biked this over. Asked me to be delivery boy.'

Elder stuffed the envelope out of sight.

'Safe journey, Frank. Take care.'

There were still a good twenty minutes to go before boarding and Elder bought a coffee from the Costa by platform 1, sat down at one of the tables outside and took out the envelope. When he opened it, a ticket slipped loose on to the table top. Dee Dee Bridgwater at the Jazz Cafe. A Saturday in March. Karen had written on the back:
A bit of a long shot, but if you happen to be in town…

Elder drank some coffee, stuffed the ticket back inside the envelope and tore them both in half, regretting it the instant it was done.

'Idiot,' he said and an elderly woman, going past with a suitcase on wheels, turned her head and smiled.

The ticket was in two pieces but taped together it would probably be okay. He pushed the halves down into his top pocket, just in case.

There were still ten minutes before his train.

Special thanks are due to my editor, Susan Sandon, for reading the manuscript with her usual sagacity and for suggestions without which the finished book would be a lesser thing. My thanks go also to my agent, Sarah Lutyens; to Justine Taylor at Random House (UK) for holding a more than steady fort; to Mary Chamberlain for precise and sympathetic copy editing; to Mark Billingham for providing the answers to certain crucial questions at crucial times; to Sherma Batson and Sarah Boiling for reading earlier versions of the manuscript; and finally to everyone at Random House for their friendship and support.