Cobweb (20 page)

‘One of those piece-of-cake results that Hicks no doubt goes in for,' Patrick commented crisply. ‘Still, it's nothing to do with me – the jury'll have to decide.'

‘He told me he was convinced a drop-out had killed Giddings,' I said.

‘Special Branch, or whatever-the-hell category Brinkley's outfit falls into, isn't supposed to be
primarily
tuned in to drop-outs – they're called in to examine any possible hanky-panky in the higher tiers of society. I shall send John a congratulatory text message.'

This, I could see, was going to run and run.

I said, ‘I didn't know Giddings's wedding ring was missing.'

‘Nor did I. Still, I suppose something so small is easily overlooked in such a bloodbath.' Patrick looked up from searching for some paperwork in his briefcase. ‘What will you do?'

‘As I told Greenway, go home – today,' I replied. ‘Just for a short while to make sure everything's as it should be and the children are all right.'

‘Good, that'll put my mind at rest too.'

‘And then I'll have heard from you and we'll go from there.'

‘That suits me fine.'

But when Patrick rang me at Lydtor during the evening of the following day and I had told him that all was well at home, he said, ‘I've been thinking about what Greenway said. Look, neither of us is getting any younger and if something happened and we were badly injured, or even killed, it would be appalling for the kids and even worse for Mum and Dad, because they'd have to cope with the aftermath. I really think you should stay out of this one – I'm going to get myself into some pretty nasty places to look for this character and not going to carry a mobile, as it gives the game away if you're searched. I do promise, though, to get in contact should I need help of the kind that the police can't provide. Is that all right?'

I told him it was. He sounded stressed so, right now, what else could I do?

I had already decided on the line of enquiry I would undertake and saw no reason to deviate from it just because we weren't going in like elephants two by two. But, first of all, I had to put my mind at rest on another matter: Erin Melrose.

My difficulty was that I had to stay away from Woodhill police station in order to avoid bumping into anyone who might mention seeing me to Michael Greenway. My conscience was not bothering me as far as he was concerned, for I had indeed gone home to check on the domestic state of affairs. The problem was that I was not sure, even now, where his base was situated and had rather got the impression that senior SOCA people cruised the policing scene a bit like surfing the Net, preferring a fluid style of working. All this meant that, in order to speak to Erin, I would have to lurk near the nick and not look remotely like Ingrid Langley.

I was quite sure of one thing, though: the customized Range Rover would go back to Essex with me, even if I had to leave it in the leafy drive at our digs and walk and use public transport everywhere. The expediency of it plus the emergency equipment that it carries far outweighed any risk that Greenway might spot it among the lime trees, should he even venture into that part of Woodhill, causing him to pull the plug on Patrick's assignment immediately.

My concerns about Erin if she was disobeying orders and investigating John Gray's list were twofold: first, that she would be injured should she succeed in finding Clem Brocklebank and endeavour to arrest him herself; and second, that she might inadvertently cause havoc by waltzing into whatever Patrick was doing, putting the pair of them at risk. At least I had the woman's mobile number, gleaned from his official phone. This had been placed in his briefcase for me to take home for safe keeping, together with the Glock pistol in its shoulder holster. I thought separating himself from the latter sheer madness and had no intention of leaving these items behind either.

Erin was still in the land of the living and in the Woodhill area, agreeing to meet ‘someone with information about Harmsworth's killer' in a coffee bar opposite the nick. This was a sticky, grubby sort of place, the kind of establishment that the well-dressed and somewhat fastidious Greenway would not have been seen dead in. I did not want her to spread it around that I had contacted her before we could speak in private so had not phoned her mobile but called the main desk, and she had phoned me back.

‘Good God, it's you! I hardly recognized you in that get-up!' she exclaimed when she saw me.

‘Perhaps you'd like to sit down and cease trumpeting,' I suggested, probably too coldly.

She sat. ‘What's all this about then?'

‘Would you like some tea?' I asked to make amends for snapping at her.

‘Yes, thanks.'

‘Milk?'

‘Please.'

‘Something to eat?'

‘No, thanks.'

I went to the counter to fetch it for her.

‘What on earth are you dressed like that for?' she wanted to know when I got back, wrinkling her nose.

‘I'm disobeying orders.'

‘And where's Patrick?'

‘That's why I want to talk to you. He's gone after Clem Brocklebank and we're worried that you're doing exactly the same.'

She coloured. ‘I'm not working on anything in connection with that.'

‘I'm sorry but I think you are. You have a copy of John Gray's list and I saw you at the estate in Romford where Brocklebank lives on and off. Erin, you must have heard how Patrick and I were involved when an explosive device went off at the flat. He's a very dangerous man and Michael Greenway has given Patrick just a week to find him.'

‘Us plods aren't too stupid to be able to do the same, you know,' she said furiously.

I was determined to keep calm and said, ‘It's nothing to do with cleverness or stupidity or anything like that. Patrick volunteered to look for him because of his special-forces training. He's planning on going to such low-life places he's asked me to stay out of it and Greenway has forbidden my involvement completely. I just don't want you getting hurt.'

Erin appeared to go into a deep sulk, head down, her face hidden, stirring her tea so that all I could see was her wonderful long, red hair. But she was not sulking.

‘I have been doing some poking around, going through the list,' she admitted all at once, looking up and staring at me with her slightly prominent green eyes. ‘I really suspected Kevin Beardshaw for a while, as he's a devious bastard and was heard to say to someone in a pub that he hated Derek Harmsworth's guts. But that booby trap clinched it – that's Brocklebank. I'd already done quite a lot of work on him. He's not what you think he is.'

‘In what way?'

‘He lives on more than one level.'

‘Please tell me what you've learned.'

She went back to her thoughtful stirring.

‘Please, Erin – a hell of a lot depends on this.'

‘I know – and I'm getting really close to him.'

‘Look, I'm not the kind of sanctimonious cow to tell you it's your duty to—'

‘I should think not!' she exclaimed. ‘Because it isn't – it's none of your business. This is my case and I'm doing it for Derek and John. Just because the Home Secretary's latest fantastic initiative SOCA's been brought in—'

‘I don't care a monkey's about SOCA.' I hissed, for we were, of necessity, speaking quietly. ‘All I know is that my husband's somewhere out there on the streets armed with only his wits and, possibly, a knife. He's doing it to try to prevent people like you ending up as just commemorative plaques on street corners. Erin, you can't go after this man on your own!'

‘No, I'll call in other people before I arrest him,' she said after an alarming hesitation.

‘And if he finds you first?'

‘Are you doing this to give you ideas for your bloody books?' she snapped.

‘God, I should hope not!' I retorted angrily.

Erin drank up her tea and then grabbed her bag. ‘I've got this far …' she said as she rose to go.

‘Look, you give me no choice but to tell Michael Greenway what's going on. I don't want to have to do that.'

‘It doesn't matter if you do. I shall stay out of everyone's reach.'

‘Erin, that's stupid!'

But she was on her way out. Then she turned and said, ‘Patrick won't come to harm. Brocklebank's not living on the streets – he never has been.'

I must have sat there, staring at nothing for a couple of minutes, aware only that I had failed.

I
t was no use trying to follow her, Erin was too canny a woman not to notice. It was just about the only thing that gave me a little comfort in this ghastly mess – the fact that Patrick had told me she was streetwise. Therefore she would not be easily outwitted.

I was torn between contacting Greenway – by doing what I was doing I was going against his orders anyway – thus getting Erin into career-threatening trouble, and going to find Patrick. I did not really care what the SOCA man would think of me, other than that it reflected badly on the other side of the partnership, but hesitated to blow the whistle on what was obviously a very promising young CID officer who could probably well take care of herself.

Shit.

Before this latest development I had planned to try to find out more about Brocklebank's background, perhaps contact the police in the North-East and establish some kind of starting point from where to begin looking for him. Now I had to give priority to what Erin had told me.

No, the only person I could ask about all this was Patrick.

And the only way I could find him was to search and, if necessary, raise every kind of hell in squats, on waste ground, under railway arches and motorway flyovers – anywhere where the homeless and dregs of society tried to stay warm and alive. I was haunted by the possibility that Erin was quite wrong about Brocklebank and that he would indeed be located in places like that. In this case driving around in the car sounding the horn, not to mention being myself, was right off the agenda, as it would bust Patrick's cover wide open.

I was pleased with Erin's reaction to my appearance, for I had bought wisely at Oxfam, purchasing a gruesome collection of non-matching garments: red cotton trousers too short in the leg for me, a man's purple sweatshirt far too large, a green anorak, black socks and a pair of scuffed trainers. I had donned this lot back at the digs, removed all my make-up, back-combed my hair until it was full of tangles and stuck up as though I was undergoing a severe electric shock and left, assuring the aghast landlady on the way out that I'd been roped in to help at a charity stunt. Fearing that her nerve would go completely and she would ask us to depart altogether, I had left further embellishments until I was in a small park – not the one where Jason Giddings had been murdered – where I had rubbed soil into my hands and face and anointed myself liberally with the squidginess from a rotting onion I had rummaged through rubbish for in an alleyway by a greengrocer's shop, hence Erin's wrinkled nose. It is no good pretending to be down and out and at the same time smelling of toothpaste or the body spray you used that morning. Unlike Patrick in our working-undercover days, I have always drawn the line at decomposing potatoes, which smell utterly, retchingly, disgusting but keep other people at a distance.

No, Erin, I do not do this kind of thing to get ideas for my bloody books.

Another difference between me and never-do-anything-by-halves Gillard was that I had my mobile phone – switched off – and some cash in a body belt strapped next to my skin around my waist and the Glock in its shoulder harness. This latter addition might have been unwise, but I had no intention of prolonging the search after twenty-four hours. When that period of time had expired and nothing had been achieved, I would contact Greenway. But was that too long a time and by my actions was I putting Erin in danger? In the end there was nothing I could do but push all reservations to the back of my mind and just get on with it.

I had no problem in encountering the socially disadvantaged and started off by calling at a row of ‘homes' constructed out of large cardboard boxes situated deep beneath a motorway flyover. Where sun and rain still meant something, at the edges of this vast and complicated structure, a Dali-style hell-hole with traffic thundering and thumping above, there were actually small paddocks with ponies in them. I turned my back on these, reluctantly, and penetrated further into the dry gloom where weather never reached, carefully picking my way through and around litter, used needles, dead rats and other things that I did not care to examine too closely. Then I came to the boxes, which had just been visible from afar. At least I knew that the man I sought would not be actually living in one; he would be mobile, man-hunting.

During the next ten minutes or so I was threatened with violence, shouted at, spat at and offered a sandwich that had only had one bite taken out of it. No one had seen a tall stranger, dark-haired but going grey, who might or might not be calling himself Paddy. The sandwich man, to whom I managed to slip a five-pound note when no one else was looking, told me where the squat was that Hicks and co. had raided, looking for Giddings's killer, and I headed for that next.

It turned out to be a once-imposing, large, detached Victorian house due for redevelopment into flats on the opposite side of Woodhill. By this time it was early evening, the sky heavily overcast and beginning to drizzle with rain, but there was sufficient light for me to see that the windows were freshly boarded up, fences mended, new padlocks put on the repaired doors and that no squatter could now get in. I walked right around the perimeter to make sure – there were high brick boundary walls at the rear and sides with narrow access lanes at the foot of them which presumably at one time had led to other parts of the property – but the entire premises was now securely sealed.