Corpse in Waiting (15 page)

Pathetically, I was shaking and wanted to cry again. ‘Carrie's fine,' I said. ‘It was a hoax.'

‘And?' he demanded to know, aware that there was more to tell.

‘I've pranged the car,' I managed to get out.

‘Are you all right?'

‘Just a bit bruised.'

‘What happened?'

‘I don't know. I can't remember. It left the road near Limpley Stoke. I must have dozed off.'

‘Is is badly damaged?'

‘I only know for sure that the windscreen's broken but it must be. James had it taken away for examination.'

‘Why, for God's sake?'

‘You're shouting at me.'

‘No, I'm not. It's only just been serviced.'

Well, yes, I wanted to say, James knows we look after it and we're careful drivers and have been on all kinds of off-road and handling courses as the vehicle could save our lives in a tight corner. I could have reminded him that I must be the only woman in the world who has driven across a field as fast as a horse gallops and then jumped a three-foot high stone wall, albeit a broken down one, in a Discovery and everything survived. I wanted to say all these things and that Carrick was taking the matter seriously but could not, helplessly weeping instead and quietly putting down the phone.

I was not hungry after all, apologized to Elspeth and went to bed, not to sleep but to torture myself with the thought that Patrick and Alexandra were in a bar somewhere – he had not come home – she commiserating with him over the damage done to his beloved motor by his silly wife, giving him go-to-bed-eyes, turning him into any man in the street.

At nine thirty the phone rang. It was James Carrick.

‘You had no brake fluid,' was his opening remark.

‘But it's only just been serviced.'

‘No, I mean there was none left. The brake pipes had all been holed so it leaked slowly away. And when you got to that steep stretch of road . . . I'm surprised they lasted as long as they did.'

‘I tend to use the gears to slow vehicles down.'

‘That might be why then. You didn't see an oily-looking patch under the vehicle when you got back in it?'

‘It was raining buckets. Oh, and there was a drain. I noticed it as I have a horror of dropping my car keys down one.'

‘Anyway, we have a crime on our hands. I did look up that female in records, by the way. Nothing.'

‘She's probably never actually broken the law then.'

‘Except for a drink-driving charge from the time we first met when it hits court,' he recollected succinctly. ‘There's nothing to connect her with what happened to you but bear with me – I'm working on it. Be careful and stick closely with that man of yours. I'll have a word with him if he's handy.'

‘Sorry, he isn't.'

‘He didn't come home?'

‘No.'

He said something vivid-sounding in Gaelic – James nearly always swears in Gaelic – told me to rest and rang off.

I lay there trying to remember what had happened. Although fully aware that it was not unusual for those involved in accidents to suffer from temporary amnesia it made the whole episode all the more upsetting. And all I seemed to have done recently was to get upset.

‘No, as I suspected, it's me who's lost their edge,' I whispered into the night. ‘I've been raging around, crying all over him and generally behaving like an idiot. Come to think of it, I've almost driven him into her arms.'

OK, I asked myself, what would a newly honed and reborn Ingrid Langley do now then?

Make like Lara Croft and go and blow Alexandra's bloody head off, that's what.

‘No, no,' I keened. ‘Something
intelligent.
'

At which point I must have fallen asleep for the next thing I knew was someone coming into the bedroom.

‘Stop right there!' I ordered.

‘It's me,' Patrick's voice said.

I switched on the bedside lamp.

‘Please calm down,' he said, eyeing the Glock.

‘Sorry, I'm a bit twitched right now.' I shoved it back under the pillow.

He was still gazing at me, appalled, and then remembered to close the door.

‘I didn't want to leave it in the vehicle so asked James to fetch it from the cubby box before it was taken away. I had to give him the security code.'

‘You look terrible,' he blurted out.

‘It's only superficial.'

‘But the dressing on the side of your face . . .'

‘Just where a biggish smallish splinter went into my cheek.'

He came to sit on the other side of the bed and in the brighter light I saw that his face was pale and drawn and he was very tired.

‘James told me exactly what he thought of me.'

‘Oh?'

‘Some of it was Gaelic so I guessed there weren't any suitably filthy English equivalents. But I got the general drift.'

This from someone with a Master's degree in Creative Swearing.

‘He was right. I should have come home as soon as you'd told me what had happened.'

‘Someone had holed the brake pipes. James told me since we spoke.'

He took my right hand, raised it to his lips and kissed it. ‘Yes, he told me too. Thank God the vehicle hit the trees.'

‘We shall have to go and see the woman who's garden they're in.'

‘Yes.' Then, ‘I saw Alexandra earlier on tonight.'

I made no comment.

‘She rang me to say she was back in London and how about a drink. I told her you'd gone home as the nanny was ill and she said what a shame and we could make it dinner. I played along but suggested something in a pub instead as I was pushed for time. When you and I discussed this before, you remember, I did say I'd have to stay friendly with her if I was to find out anything. We met, had a snack and over coffee I told her about your threatening phone call and she said it must have been Alan Kilmartin who was still madly in love with her after all and was jealous. I got his mobile number from her before I asked her how the hell he knew yours. I knew the answer of course because you'd already told me but wanted to make her admit it. She did and I told her exactly what I thought of her and walked out – leaving her to pay the bill.'

‘He loathes her,' I said, inwardly whooping with joy.

‘I know. I rang him and said I was checking up on Alex and he told me you'd been to see him. He felt guilty that he hadn't warned you that she could be dangerous if crossed. He sounds a very nice bloke.'

‘Plus being the most glorious-looking man imaginable.'

Predictably, this rolled over Patrick's head. ‘Then James phoned and gave me an earful, plus the news of the car having been meddled with. I've come home to apologize for being a shit.'

‘You're not really a shit.'

‘I am.' He kissed my cheek, gingerly, in case everything hurt and then said, ‘I've got to go back in the morning as this Capelli thing's really hotting up.'

‘What time is it?'

‘Just after one thirty. I caught the last train.'

‘Are you hungry?'

‘Starving.'

‘So am I. If you hold my hand as we go down the stairs I'll raid the fridge for something.'

‘
I'll
raid the fridge. You stay here in the warm.'

‘I quite fancy a glass of wine.'

‘Do you reckon it would kill me to have a taste?'

‘Hardly.'

‘I admit I got a bit besotted with her when she turned up again,' Patrick said when we had mostly finished an already opened bottle of Chablis with our cold roast chicken and salad. ‘Male pride. She made me feel good when I was as good as crippled.'

‘That's not pride,' I told him. ‘It's perfectly normal human nature.'

‘I simply couldn't see what you were on about. All I could think of was how she'd cheered me up when everything was black, made me feel there was a future for me after all.' He pulled a wry face. ‘She didn't used to be a bitch.'

‘Why did you break up?'

‘Mostly because I hadn't got my confidence back and kept chickening out of sleeping with her. Also, I found out she was seeing a married man.'

I cleared my throat in exaggerated fashion.

‘OK, she was a bitch then too.'

‘You were on your own though as I'd chucked you out, hadn't I?'

‘But that was before I was blown up. You took me back when I was still as good as crippled. Did you feel sorry for me?'

I had, deeply. But that was not the entire reason prior to falling in love with him again. ‘No,' I said. ‘You were still dead sexy even with a bad limp.'

He poured the rest of the wine into my glass.

TEN

M
ichael Greenway called at six forty-five the next morning and asked me how I was.

‘Slightly dented in places,' I told him, dying to say that a little more sleep would have been nice.

‘Only I was wondering if you were well enough to come up with Patrick and give us the benefit of your expertise. No rushing about,' he added hastily. ‘Nothing energetic.'

‘Will it be all right if we catch an afternoon train?' I queried, eyeing the normally light-sleeping man at my side who was dead to the world. ‘I shall feel stronger by then.'

‘Of course. Travel first class if it'll make it easier for you. Have you found out what caused you to leave the road?'

‘Yes, someone had messed around with the brakes.'

There was a shocked silence. Then Greenway said, ‘That's serious. We must talk about it. Oh, I double-checked that name you gave me. Nothing showed up.'

I thanked him. The sooner someone had a good poke around in that architectural monstrosity in Boyles Road, Kensington, the better.

An hour or so later, when I was dozing, there was a light knock at the door.

‘We thought you'd like this,' Katie said, deeply concentrating on a mug of tea.

‘If you watch where you're going instead of the mug you won't spill it,' I whispered. ‘I hope someone else poured the boiling water into the pot for you.'

She passed it over and then caught sight of Patrick. ‘Oh! I didn't know . . . Yes, Matthew did. I told him how to.'

Quite right too.

‘Shall I get some for . . . Uncle as well?'

There were two questions here and one of them was sufficiently important to warrant waking him as Katie would be off to school very shortly and we were returning to London.

I prodded Patrick gently.

‘I'm awake,' he said, muffled. ‘Yes, please.'

She came straight out with it. ‘Can Matthew and I call you Dad? Auntie's said we can call her Mum.'

Patrick surfaced. ‘That's a shatteringly splendid kind of present to give someone when they've just woken up,' he said. ‘Of course. Thank you.'

Katie wriggled gleefully, was hugged and kissed and went away to fetch the tea. She was yelling the news to her brother before she reached the bottom of the stairs.

Patrick grinned at me. ‘I still have to remind myself sometimes that I've
five
children. I really hope you're still on the pill.'

‘Absolutely.'

‘It might be deliberate smoke and mirrors tactics but it
looks
as though they're aiming to raid a jeweller's in an arcade in Regent Street followed by a lightning strike at West End Central nick on the way out,' Mike Greenway said, before we had even seated ourselves in his office, having caught a train just after midday. And then to me, ‘I'm worried about your prang. Is it in connection with this woman you mentioned, do you think?'

‘There's a good chance it is,' I replied. ‘She has a man called Stefan working for her. I don't know his surname.'

‘We're talking about a one-yob female here, I think,' Patrick said.

‘What the hell's she after?'

‘Me.'

A meaningful forefinger was pointed at Patrick. ‘
You
sort this out. It's private and the department can't get involved.'

‘Yes, sir,' Patrick said. ‘Besides which, DCI Carrick is investigating as it happened on his patch. I'll liaise closely with him.'

Which was a neat and tactful way of reminding his boss that a crime had actually been committed.

‘Good,' Greenway grunted.

I gathered that there had been some kind of conciliatory phone call between Patrick and James, instigated by the latter, but had not asked for details and the episode was not openly talked about again.

‘Now then,' the Commander said, dropping into the leather revolving chair behind his desk, setting it creaking alarmingly. ‘As Baldrick says, I have a cunning plan. There are other departments on board as well so I can't take all the credit even though it was my idea. We're going to release Martino Capelli from prison – late this afternoon.'

Patrick whistled softly.

‘He was due out soon anyway and I'm delighted to bounce him into it. I'm hoping it'll have the effect of a cat among the pigeons as I'm banking on him not knowing that his dear cousin's arrived in the UK.'

‘And who would know the man's real identity anyway?' Patrick commented.

‘It might just mean that this plan of theirs is aborted, temporarily anyway.'

I said, ‘There's every chance that Martino's stationed someone to keep an eye on Irma though – to see what she gets up to. The rear stairs up to the flat are in full view. Even the man in the chippy below was able to watch her movements.'