Blood Substitute (5 page)

We went into the living room and there it was, on the floor by the overturned table. It was exactly what he had said it was, complete with all the usual buttons, not a wireless mouse from a computer or anything similar. Patrick picked it up, very carefully, looked at it for a few seconds and then replaced it on the floor.

‘You think this could be used to detonate something in that suitcase?' I asked. ‘But, surely, whoever was doing it would blow themselves up as well!'

‘No, it's more likely it's used to render it operable or safe. It might detonate when operable if the case is moved.' He gave me a crazy sort of smile. ‘Or is this bloke overdue for his zimmer frame and bus pass? There's only one way to find out.'

For one ghastly moment I thought he meant to pick up the case himself but he merely took his mobile from his pocket and went outside to use it, the signal indoors being weak. I went with him as I felt the suitcase was sort of staring at me.

Within virtual sight of three army firing ranges, and if you have the right connections – in other words have been a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Devon and Dorset Regiment (now absorbed into the Rifles) – and know the right people, it is child's play to find an explosives expert. This person arrived three-quarters of an hour later, with two colleagues, during which time we closely examined the outbuildings. They yielded nothing of interest except a baby swallow that had fallen out of its nest, which Patrick, using a rickety ladder with some of the rungs missing, put back.

The experts sent us away to a safe distance and there was nothing for it but to sit on a grassy bank in the sun and wait. I do not bite my nails but almost wanted to, expecting the whole place to go to Kingdom Come at any moment.

‘They know what they're doing,' Patrick told me, sensing my apprehension.

Finally, while I was thinking morbidly that all three probably had young children, someone came to the farmhouse door and waved. We went back, finding on the kitchen floor a maze of wiring, several small packages of explosives and what looked to my fairly untrained eye like tiny detonators and circuit boards. But I need not have worried; after examining the suitcase and the remote control with their electronic detectors they had taken the batteries out of the latter before touching anything else.

Sophisticated was the verdict, put together by a professional. It contained enough explosive, should it have gone off, to have made a sizable hole in Devon.

Again the police were called, we gave our account of affairs, to an inspector this time, and finally the various vehicles bearing those representing national security and law and order departed, taking with them the evidence.

‘I'm really glad we were able to rescue that baby swallow,' I said as we drove through the open gateway on to the moor.

It was immediately obvious that it would be impossible to follow the tracks of the vehicle in which we were interested as others clearly frequently used the same route. There were tyre tracks of quad bikes, older Land Rovers with smaller, narrower wheels, even mountain bikes. Some were very recent, made that morning as people went out to check their cattle and sheep, and also footprints made by hikers wearing walking boots. After a mile or so of bouncing over the rough track Patrick pulled up and turned off the ignition.

‘Sometimes I wish I still smoked small cigars,' he murmured. ‘I'd light one now and have a good think.'

‘Have a mint instead and think,' I said, offering the packet.

He pulled a face but took one anyway and sucked it gloomily. ‘So, what the bloody hell do we have?' he said after a minute or so. ‘A house in the middle of nowhere, lived in by a bloke who's supposed to be dead, but isn't? Or is he really dead and the place is inhabited by the bloke you spoke to? Is the bloke you spoke to Archie Kennedy and he's lying about being dead? Someone comes calling with what we assume is malice aforethought and someone else does a runner, leaving behind what can only be described as a large bomb. Later, persons unknown return for a Land Rover. The house is left unlocked, a real booby-trap, the set-up to professional standards. And by that, you must understand my old friend Peter did not mean professional criminal standards but military or mining engineer ones.'

‘It's criminal as well since any nosy passer-by could have been killed if they'd gone in.'

‘Or anyone looking for Kennedy,' Patrick said. ‘You could have been blown up had you gone there this morning instead of a couple of days ago and shifted that case out of your way.' He restarted the car. ‘I suppose we ought to carry on and look for bodies in ditches but I don't think we'll find one or any answers up here.'

It took us all day but we covered most of the tracks marked on the map that were passable to vehicles, plus a couple that were distinctly borderline, scanning the moor through binoculars and ending up in Ivybridge having found only three dead – very dead – sheep and a pair of run-over binoculars.

Commander Michael Greenway, Patrick's boss, did not appear to work from an actual base, borrowing an office at various police establishments when he needed to or, like this morning, meeting people in a café or restaurant. He seemed just to need a laptop and mobile phone in order to accomplish everything he wanted to, the former of which he carried in one of those flat as a pancake briefcases that come from Harrods, can accommodate sufficient possessions for a skiing weekend and cost well into three figures. We discovered at a much later date that this method of working not only suited his restless character and low boredom threshold but ensured that the underworld bosses who had put a price on his head were never able to find him.

We had received the phone call the previous evening, Greenway merely saying that there had been a change of plan as far as Patrick's next assignment was concerned – so far, as a ‘rookie', he had been given fairly straightforward short-term jobs – and requesting that we meet him in Roberto's, a café near West End Central police station, at nine thirty the following morning. It must be said that Greenway seemed to imagine that Dartmoor lay a half-hour drive down the M6: we had set off from home at just after four. He had finished by saying, apparently as an afterthought, that I might like to accompany Patrick as there was a possibility that the meeting would interest me.

‘He's devious,' I commented sourly as we waited for him to arrive. ‘Men usually say things like that when they want to pick women's brains.'

Patrick had just organized coffee for us and went away again to add, I shortly discovered, a large Danish pastry to the order, for me, as he had immediately recognized a severe case of going-without-breakfast grumps. I had eaten it and dealt with sticky fingers, thankfully, a matter of moments before Greenway arrived. Everyone shook hands.

‘Do you know anyone in Bristol CID?' was Greenway's opening query to Patrick after an exchange of pleasantries.

Patrick shook his head. ‘No.'

‘Only someone by the name of Reece, Superintendent Paul Reece, has specifically requested SOCA's assistance –
your
assistance – on a case.'

‘I don't know him,' Patrick said.

‘Could this be anything to do with your friend at Bath, Chief Inspector James Carrick?'

‘If it is he hasn't mentioned it to me.'

Greenway sat back in his seat, looking thoughtful. He was a big man, tall and broad without being overweight, fair-haired and with good-natured, if somewhat battered features. Always formally dressed in a suit he looked just like a city banker, possibly a deliberate decision. His hands though were not smooth like those of someone who sat at a desk all day and I had an idea he had a large hairy garden in the countryside somewhere.

‘No matter,' he went on. ‘And no doubt the mystery will eventually be explained. It was a fairly urgent request and I've a mind to let you get on with it right away as it involves the murder of one of Reece's team, DS Clifford Morley. You might have heard about the finding of his body in woodland near the city.'

‘Yes, we did,' Patrick replied. ‘Carrick did contact me about that. He and Morley played in the same police rugger team. Ingrid and I were actually at the match where Morley was Carrick's blood substitute. He was quite upset about his murder. I understand he was tortured before being shot.'

‘It was very nasty,' Greenway said quietly. ‘It included some bastard carving his initials on the poor guy's chest.'

We absorbed this in silence for a few seconds and then Patrick said, ‘Readable initials?'

‘It looked like RK apparently.'

Neither Patrick nor I made any comment on this revelation, did not even exchange glances.

‘Along with quite a few other people Morley was trying to track down one of several gangs that have moved out of London and taken themselves off to the provinces,' Greenway continued. ‘Probably because we've made life too hot for them here. All the nice little earners: extortion, drugs trafficking and so forth. As you probably already know they nearly always shift out the local boys, mainly by killing those who don't take the hint and head for the hills. As far as Bristol's concerned it would appear that the hood in charge might be the brother-in-law of a mobster who runs his empire from somewhere in the Walthamsden area of east London. The real worry is that Morley was working undercover. They rumbled him. Reece wants to know how, who they really are and then would like their heads parboiled on a plate. I know that you worked undercover for MI5 and this is not work I'm familiar with. Any theories as to what can go wrong?'

‘You get very tired, exhausted actually, and then it's easy to allow your guard to drop,' Patrick said. ‘Success depends on what kind of person you are: sometimes you're expected to do things that go against your own moral grain and that can be extremely difficult.'

‘Behave really yobbishly, you mean?'

Patrick shook his head. ‘We're beyond talking with your mouth full, or even drinking until you pass out or throw up. No, beat people up or help kill them – with a snarl on your face. Was he right inside the gang?'

‘You'll need to talk to Reece about that but from what he said probably not,' Greenway answered, but was not to be sidetracked. ‘This might be naive of me, but
you've
done that?'

Patrick finished his second cup of coffee. ‘I've given downright thugs a going over, and I'm not proud of the fact that, following orders – MI5 orders, I mean – I killed one, but to answer your question properly, no.'

‘How, and not give yourself away?'

‘I did say one might be
expected
to do things. You can fake a lot of stuff but I never allow the situation to develop where people, those in charge that is, expect me to do anything that I don't want to.'

‘That's a huge risk, surely.
How
?'

‘I tend to make myself indispensible – and what someone recently described as daunting.'

Greenway was about to say something further but the words froze on his lips as the man to whom he was talking became very daunting indeed. I have never been able to explain it: I am Patrick's wife but when he is like this he is too big, too close and too damned dangerous. I have wondered if hypnotism is involved for when he somehow cranks the intimidation up a notch, which he did now, he trapped Greenway in a stare, his eyes resembling crazed living pebbles, from which the other man was unable to tear away his gaze. You find yourself thinking of animals paralysed with fear in the headlights of the vehicles just about to kill them. Then Patrick chuckled, breaking the spell.

‘You insisted on knowing,' he said.

Chin jutting out, Greenway said, ‘As I said just now, Reece'll give you all the details. I told him you'd get there around lunchtime.'

It was just after ten thirty now – Greenway had been somewhat late – and Avon and Somerset Police HQ is at Portishead, which is about as far as you can go in that part of the world without ending up in the Bristol Channel. It is a four-hour drive and we had just completed a five-hour one.

‘Hinton Littlemoor for dinner tonight then,' Patrick said to me, getting to his feet. ‘Fantastic to have met you again, sir,' he said with a winsome smile to Greenway, whereupon everyone shook hands again and we left, the SOCA man looking a trifle bemused.

‘Sod that for a game of soldiers,' Patrick muttered when we were outside in the street, reaching for his mobile. He punched buttons. ‘James, it's Patrick … Yes, I can hear that you're in a debriefing. Just a quickie. I take it Paul Reece is an oppo of yours? … Sort of an oppo. Good. Can I have his number? … Yes, we're on the job as of tomorrow morning …' He waited. ‘Thanks. I'll be in touch soon.'

I had just come to the conclusion that Greenway knew perfectly well how far Lydtor and Portishead are from London.

‘So, leaving aside the sadism bit for now, why carve your initials on someone?' Patrick said when we had rearranged our time of arrival to the next day with Superintendent Reece. ‘And is it a coincidence or not? Robert Kennedy or someone completely different? Is that why Carrick wants us on the job and has persuaded his sort-of chum in Bristol to pull strings? Is he hoping that we'll be able to handle any involvement of his father in this with more sensitivity that anyone else?'

‘No to the last question,' I said. ‘He's hoping we'll get the right results.'

‘We have some fairly interesting stuff to tell him already.'

I thought that, with bombs involved, this was an understatement.

James Carrick lives quite close to Hinton Littlemoor, where, as previously mentioned, Patrick's father is rector and where we were staying the night, so we arranged to meet him in the Ring o' Bells which fronts on to the green in the village and is, as Patrick once put it, ‘only a short staggersworth from the rectory'. Carrick brought his wife Joanna with him.