Blood Falls (7 page)

The rain was coursing down the glass, but he wanted fresh air. He opened the window an inch or so, waiting a moment to make sure it wouldn’t let too much water in.

As he climbed into bed, an image of Danny Morton came to him: the fury and disbelief on his face as Joe had slipped from his grasp.

He won’t give up
, Joe thought.
After today he’ll be even more determined to get his revenge
.

But, for now, he was safe. Joe shut his eyes and told himself he’d been lucky today and he would be lucky again: that the next time he and Danny Morton came face to face, it would be on Joe’s terms.

Eleven

A PHONE CALL
at midnight. Diana was in bed, the mobile gently gripped in her hand, knowing that he would ring. She had nothing to say, but better this than have him come hammering on the door.

‘You in bed?’

‘Mmm.’ Her voice sleepy, hoping this would keep the conversation brief.

‘Alone?’

‘Very funny.’

‘He’s good-looking, that’s what I hear.’ And when she didn’t rise to it: ‘But not as good-looking as me?’

‘Exactly.’

‘He’s staying over?’

‘Just a couple of days.’

‘Even a couple isn’t great, Di. Not right now.’

‘It won’t make any difference.’

‘Who’s to say? It’s my livelihood at stake.’

‘It was my decision to take him in. Do you think Leon’s going to hold it against you?’

Silence. So that meant the answer was probably
yes
.

‘Come on, love, I don’t want to take the chance. If he hears about this and I’m not up to speed … well, you know how it’ll look.’

‘I can’t throw him out now, Glenn. And I won’t do it just to keep Leon sweet.’

A soft tutting in her ear. ‘You know, you should be more careful what you say.’

‘Glenn, it’s late and I’m tired.’ Diana could hear the breathlessness of panic in her voice. ‘Can we discuss this tomorrow?’

‘Oh, we’re going to. I want to know everything about him.’

‘I told you, it’s been years since Joe left the force.’

‘He’ll still have a cop’s instincts. In Leon’s eyes, that makes him trouble. Just like your Roy, eh?’

‘Stop it. You don’t have to say that.’

‘Sometimes you need reminding. Without me, you’re only a copper’s widow. And in this town that’s not a good thing to be, is it?’

Alone in the dark, Diana shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I know you are, sweetheart. And I am, too. I don’t mean to sound so harsh.’

She heard him blow a kiss and she blew one in return, trying not to feel ridiculous. Then she put the phone down and lay back on the pillow, and only then did she realise there were tears in her eyes.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered again, to the silent room. ‘I’m so sorry, Roy.’

Twelve

THE CRY OF
seagulls woke him, dissolving a dream that left no clear images. For a moment Joe was a child again, waking on the first morning of a holiday at the seaside: Paignton, or Weymouth, or Cromer. That sound represented optimism and joy: swimming and sandcastles and ice cream and, for one glorious week, his parents saying
yes
more often than they said
no
.

He opened his eyes, blinked a few times, took in his surroundings and reconsidered the optimism and joy. He was thirty-eight, living under a false identity and on the run from people who wanted to kill him. No one’s idea of a holiday.

And yet, somehow, that knowledge didn’t feel quite as oppressive as it had last night. Perhaps it was the tang of salt in the air, wafting through the open window. Just knowing he was by the coast seemed to lift his spirits.

Opening the blind, Joe was greeted by a fine view of sea and sky, framed by a patchwork quilt of rooftops and chimneys in rain-washed reds and greys. He opened the window wide and leaned out. The air was cool and delicious. He could hear the slow drip of water in gutters, the distant wash of the sea against the shore. The sky was streaked with blue and grey cloud, glowing softly as if lit from below. The departing rain was no more than a yellowy haze on the horizon.

He thought about Ryan, how he’d have welcomed the dry weather to finish the house in Clifton Village. Joe realised how much he was going to miss working with the young entrepreneur.

On the subject of work, and the lack of it, he counted his money. Just over fifty-five pounds left. That wasn’t going to last him long.

He used the bathroom, and was glad to find his underwear had dried on the radiator. He dressed in his own jeans and one of the T-shirts that Diana had loaned him, then went out on the landing. It was seven-thirty: not too early to get up.

As he descended the stairs he heard activity from below. A conversation between a man and a woman.

Last night Diana had briefly described the accommodation on the first floor. There were four guest bedrooms, two of them en suite. Diana’s own bedroom and bathroom were at the end of the corridor, separated by a glazed partition and a door marked ‘Private’.

A window on the landing looked out over the front garden. When Joe checked it he found a dark blue Toyota Hilux on the drive, slewed across three parking bays. Just beyond it, a young man in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt was idly kicking at a clump of pampas grass while he smoked a cigarette.

After a few seconds he turned and squinted at the house. His face was thin and surly, instinctively hostile. The man made eye contact with Joe, then turned and spat ostentatiously into the flower bed. Joe had no doubt it was done for his benefit.

A moment later a door closed somewhere downstairs, and Diana’s early-morning visitor strode into view from the side of the house. He was a good twenty years older than his associate: early forties, tall and stocky with a hard, chiselled face. He wore a well-cut grey suit, collarless shirt and brown leather shoes. His thick black hair was slightly unkempt, and just long enough to give him a somewhat bohemian air.

Reaching the Toyota, he opened the driver’s door and paused as the younger man tossed his cigarette away and said something, nodding
towards the house. Both turned to the landing window just as Joe stepped out of sight.

He thought of Roy Bamber as he heard the car doors slam and the big Toyota roared away. As a sergeant with eighteen years in, Roy had taken the rookie Joe under his wing. At that stage Joe still held firmly to the view that snap judgements about people were often unfair, sometimes bigoted and prone to all kinds of lazy assumptions. What he’d quickly learned was that, in Roy’s case, those initial assessments tended to be spot on.

Not the sort of people you’d welcome into the house
, Roy might have said about these two. Or to sum them up in one word:
Trouble
.

Diana was in the kitchen, putting a plate and a coffee mug into the dishwasher. In the hall Joe had found a
Daily Mail
on the mat. Now he offered it to Diana as she turned to greet him. She smiled, only vaguely flustered.

‘Morning! Oh, you can read that. I barely look at it.’

‘Don’t blame you. Isn’t it a permanent cry of “The world’s gone to hell in a hand basket”?’

‘Probably. I only keep it for the TV pages and the showbiz gossip.’

Joe crossed to the table, where Diana had set out a jug of orange juice and a couple of glasses. He considered asking after her visitor but didn’t want her to feel he was spying on her. Better to see if she volunteered the information.

‘Cooked breakfast?’ she said.

He hesitated. ‘This seems more and more like I’m imposing.’

‘You don’t know what rate I’m charging you yet,’ she shot back. ‘Are you hungry?’

‘Starving.’

‘Full Cornish it is, then.’

Over his enormous breakfast – while Diana nibbled on a wafer-thin slice of wholemeal toast – they reminisced without venturing too close
to the night of the party, preferring instead to speculate upon the fate of various dimly remembered colleagues and their spouses.

When the conversation moved on to the trials of running a business in the recession, Joe saw his chance. ‘What is your daily rate, by the way?’

‘What?’

‘I intend to pay you. This is a B&B, after all.’

‘But you’re staying here as my guest. In any case, what are you doing for funds?’

‘I have money. I just can’t lay my hands on it straight away.’ He decided to test the water. ‘Usually, wherever I land up I’m able to find myself some casual work.’

‘Really?’ If the idea of him sticking around worried Diana, she hid it well. ‘Do people still get away with working for cash?’

‘More than ever when times are hard.’ Joe gave her a flavour of his experiences over the past year: backbreaking farm work in Norfolk, Lincolnshire and Humberside, a few months as an assistant in a hardware store, which fortunately coincided with the harshest spell of a bitterly cold winter, and then, prior to Bristol, the thankless task of kitchen porter in an exclusive Manchester hotel.

‘If you keep on the move, how did Danny Morton manage to trace you?’

‘I don’t know. But I’m certain he couldn’t have tracked me here. You don’t need to worry on that score.’

Diana smiled, but it was the sort of brave smile you feel obliged to give when you’re humouring a friend. Refusing the offer of more coffee and toast, Joe said he’d get out from under her feet.

‘You’re welcome to borrow my car if you need it.’

‘Not at the moment, but thanks for the offer.’ At the kitchen door he paused. ‘Anything I should know about Trelennan before I go out and explore?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘But it’s a nice place to live? You like it here?’

Diana nodded. But she seemed uncertain, as though he might have been teasing her.

Or maybe, Joe realised later, it was because he’d asked two distinct questions, and each one had a different answer.

Thirteen

JOE DIDN’T GO
looking for trouble, but sometimes trouble found him. Something in his character seemed to attract it.

He’d exchanged mobile numbers with Diana, although she warned him that the coverage was patchy at best. From a display of tourist brochures in the hall, she selected a leaflet that included a street map. She also gave him a spare door key, which led him to comment on the lack of a burglar alarm.

She chuckled. ‘This isn’t London, Joe. It’s very safe down here.’

Sure enough, when he descended the hill the quad bike he’d noticed last night was sitting undisturbed just inside the open gates. Even more noteworthy was that only a handful of properties appeared to have alarm systems. Those that did had identical diamond-shaped boxes, navy blue, bearing the letters
LRS
.

The logo seemed vaguely familiar. After puzzling over it for a minute, Joe realised it might have been on the van that had scoped him out.

It was a little after nine o’clock when he reached the seafront. Beneath the veil of grey cloud the town looked muted, still half-asleep. The air was cool, with a blustery wind that made him grateful for his unfashionable beige jacket. Apart from the occasional passing vehicle, it was very quiet: none of the bustle and activity of Bristol.

He unfolded the map and compared it with the sight before him. On the western side of the harbour, where he was standing, the promenade ran for about half a mile and terminated at the point where the land rose sharply away from the shore. To the east, beyond the harbour, lay a wide expanse of untamed sandy beach: no breakwaters, no promenade or sea wall.

Looming above the beach was an almost sheer granite cliff, and above that a steep hillside which put Joe in mind of the German alps, the slopes thickly wooded with patches of dark rock gleaming wetly through gaps in the trees. Here and there he glimpsed imposing-looking homes or hotels, some of traditional Cornish stone and slate; others were in a Victorian Gothic style, with towers and spires and high narrow gables.

He decided to head west, away from the harbour, and see if he could circumnavigate the town in the space of a few hours. The sea air tasted exhilarating, and his muscles yearned for a chance to burn off that magnificent breakfast.

At the spot where the promenade ended with a pay-and-display car park there were signs advertising a coastal path around the headland and into the neighbouring bay. Walkers were cautioned that sections of the path were treacherous at high tide. An exploration for another day, Joe decided.

He turned inland, into Crabtree Lane. The road commenced on a gentle incline, with a series of modest bungalows on his left and agricultural land to his right. The fields were enclosed by low-slung electric fences; water troughs and feeders indicated that some sort of livestock was kept here.

The road began to twist and turn as the gradient steepened abruptly. Joe judged that he had climbed for nearly a mile before it began to level off. The farmland gave way to a golf course, laid out over the hilltop and dotted with dark, mysterious copses, the trees deformed by the westerly winds.

Nearer to the summit, the houses became increasingly more
imposing, new-builds intended to look like traditional Cornish dwellings, albeit three or four times the size. Some advertised holiday lets; many had shutters on the windows. Almost every one had a security system: the blue diamond boxes of LRS.

A successful local firm, he guessed. And then he turned the corner and found trouble waiting.

Joe took in the scene in an instant. A Daimler hearse was parked on the road outside the gates of a large modern home. The engine was running, white smoke pumping from the exhaust and being sucked away by the wind.

There was a man in the driver’s seat, his head turned towards the pavement where two figures grappled in an uneven conflict. One was the very tall, pink-skinned man that Joe had seen emerging from the pub with his acolytes. Now the formal attire made sense: he was a funeral director.

Battering ineffectually at him was a young woman, not much more than five feet tall, with a body that was compact rather than slim. She wore black jeans and a denim jacket. Her shoulder-length hair was straight and dark with reddish highlights. Her face might have been pretty, had it not been contorted with painful emotions.