Corpse in Waiting (30 page)

‘First?' Greenway prompted.

‘They're going to have some fun . . . with them.'

‘I'll fix me a raid,' Greenway said and his clothing rustled as he stood up and rummaged for his phone.

That was when the screaming started.

I went into a kind of mental limbo, shocked by the dreadful sound, and aware that Greenway was speaking quietly on his mobile after another fleeting use of the torch, no doubt thinking, rightly as it happened, that no one indoors would hear or see him with all that racket and ‘fun' going on. Patrick got to his feet, staggered and dislodged a couple of the garden chairs but the clatter brought no reaction from the house.

‘I'm not going to wait for reinforcements, which are on their way, but get in there and arrest some of these bastards before some woman gets seriously injured or killed,' Greenway announced.

‘They'll kill
you
,' Patrick told him. ‘There's at least twenty of them in there.'

‘They wouldn't dare,' said Greenway and set off into the darkness.

I tore after him. ‘Think!' I implored him, using Patrick's time-honoured exhortation. ‘Have some kind of plan first.'

‘There's no time for plans.'

I grabbed one of his arms and hauled him to a standstill with sheer physical effort. ‘Our terms!' I said, hardly caring if anyone heard me. ‘You do as we advise.'

‘Patrick's in no fit state to do anything.'

‘Yes, he is,' Patrick's voice said from behind us. ‘Just.'

‘We ought to go in armed and you can't even hold a gun.'

‘I can do anything when necessary.'

When driven to it, speakable and . . . not so.

Without another word, Greenway handed him the Glock and I gave Greenway the Smith and Wesson.

‘Stay safely out of the way,' Greenway said to me.

‘No, I think we ought to find Ingrid some kind of protection,' Patrick said absently and headed off, weaving around a little, adding over his shoulder, ‘You're right, there's no time for plans.'

Trying to shut my mind to what was occurring indoors I paused just behind Patrick on the patio as he stood to one side of the double doors, Greenway on the other. As we had approached I had glimpsed a couple of men slumped in armchairs just inside, probably two of the three who had taunted Patrick as he had hung from the tree. The shrieking and screaming was coming from somewhere within the house – it sounded horribly as though women had been released and were now being hunted down – but it was impossible from one quick look to ascertain how many other people were in this first large room.

Patrick bent and, fumbling, picked up something from the garden that turned out to be a fairish-sized clod of earth. He handed it to me and mimed what I should do with it. Lobbed in with some verve the lump burst wonderfully on the forehead of one comatose figure, yippee, Stefan, showering the pair of them with soil. They reeled from their chairs towards us, sozzled, were grabbed as they exited and then guided into a more certain state of oblivion, Greenway providing the fairly brutal means. Relieved quickly of weapons they were then consigned, with glorious indifference, into the prickles of an adjacent holly bush.

I found myself in possession of a short-barrelled .38 Smith and Wesson, with which of course I am very familiar, and thanked my lucky stars it was not what the US police refer to as ‘A Saturday Nite Special' a cheap, badly made weapon, similar to the kind of thing inside Martino Capelli's dragons and likely to blow up in your face.

‘This is official,' Greenway said to us just before striding into the room. ‘We're here to arrest them. If they resist . . .'

Was it my imagination or could I hear sirens over the din?

‘Did you bring any handcuffs?' Patrick asked in conversational tones as we hurried through the room, bright and opulent, which was empty of people but for another inebriate in an armchair who appeared to be out cold.

‘No,' Greenway replied.

‘Pity.'

‘Yes, it means we might have to shoot them anyway,' the commander observed cold-bloodedly. ‘God, I
hate
this kind of crime!' he ended up roaring as we entered another room. ‘Armed police!' he bellowed. ‘Stand quite still or we'll shoot!'

Two men, one with his trousers down, dived for weapons in the pockets of jackets thrown over nearby chairs, were in receipt of a shot each and did not get up again.

‘You all deaf?' Greenway shouted.

Everyone had dived to the floor and the women who had already been on the carpet grabbed what clothing they could find and crawled towards the sides of the room. I knew I ought to help them but they were reasonably safe if they stayed there. My role, I decided, was the traditional one, watching Patrick and Greenway's backs.

We were by no means through yet.

Someone fired and a bullet thunked into the wall somewhere behind me. After this events became confused, some of it so weird I thought afterwards that my memory was playing tricks. Had Greenway really picked up a man and thrown him, like a large log of wood at three others who charged at him through a doorway? And when a man had come from behind us had Patrick clubbed him down with the Glock before he could fire? The room emptied and there was more sporadic shooting in other parts of the house.

Belatedly, I obeyed Patrick's swift gesture that I should go back into the first room and not long afterwards, a matter of seconds probably, it went oddly quiet. The drunk was still sprawled in his armchair and other than for him I was alone in the room. At that moment a vast noise erupted from somewhere out the front as the door was battered in. Sirens howled, vehicle tyres slewed on gravel, orders were shouted, tracker dogs barked, women started screaming again. Then a man appeared in a doorway and furtively crossed the room towards the doors into the garden.

‘Stop right there,' I ordered, standing up. Only then did I notice the gun in his hand.

‘I'm with the cops, dearie,' he said.

‘No, you're Romano Descallier.'

‘Not at all,' he said with a broad smile brimming with gold fillings and insincerity.

‘I was given your description,' I informed him, ‘Medium build, medium height, middle-aged but looking older, wishy-washy hair, pale blue eyes. Hobnobber with the rich and famous, criminal record as long as your arm but what it all boils down to is that you're just a nondescript old fart.'

‘Bitch!' he spat.

‘You're under arrest.'

His gun arm shot up but I got him first.

I loathe being called dearie.

NINETEEN

I
kicked the dropped weapon out of the way just as Mike Greenway came into my line of vision, the whole house now reverberating with the tramp of standard issue police footwear. He was triumphant but hurt, one sleeve of his sweater dark with blood which was dripping to leave a trail on the floor.

‘You're about to be tedious by saying it's only a scratch,' I scolded. ‘It isn't. Please allow me to do something about it for you.'

He caught sight of Descallier who was nursing a wounded gun arm and upon seeing the commander, fainted. ‘You got him! Brilliant! I was beginning to think he'd got away!' He then subsided abruptly on top of the drunk in the armchair.

I shoved his head between his knees, closed and locked the doors to the garden, removing the key to prevent my prisoner from getting away and went off through the mêlée to find the kitchen where I rummaged – bugger forensics – until I unearthed a couple of new tea towels. With them I endeavoured to stop the bleeding from the flesh wound in Greenway's shoulder, having ruthlessly hauled the sweater off him to get at it.

‘No one tried to arrest me just now,' I said chattily to try to mitigate the pain I was causing him as I pressed a folded tea towel on to the wound.

‘They'd be raving mad if they did,' he said through tight lips.

‘What?'

‘Well you hardly look like a trafficked woman or one of Descallier's trollops, do you?' he went on with some asperity.

‘You wouldn't know where Patrick is, by any chance?'

‘I have an idea he's gone to look for that woman.'

I had forgotten all about Alexandra.

When the place soon became teeming with paramedics as well as everyone else I was able to leave the Commander in someone's care. I presented a cop who looked as though he might be in charge with the Smith and Wesson, together with the location of its real owner, plus friend, added that I was with Greenway and left him, a trifle bemused, in the entrance hall at the bottom of the staircase.

Ascending, I found myself on a spacious landing – or at least it would have been without so many police in it – like the hallway below almost a room in its own right. All eight doors visible from this were open, a quick tour on my part revealing that the views through them suggested that at least two led into suites. One of these I knew from Alan Kilmartin's drawing was Descallier's. It was sumptuously furnished, a shower room I glanced into in passing loaded with gold taps and other fittings, used silk-embroidered towels thrown down on the floor and into the bath.

‘Looking for someone?' said a businesslike, smartly-dressed woman, presumably a CID officer, coming from within and forcing me to stand aside.

‘Yes, Patrick Gillard. I'm with SOCA.'

‘Another one! I wasn't even aware you were here, but do carry on. There's a female in there I think I'm going to arrest as I suspect she's Descallier's mistress. She's talking to a SOCA man she referred to as Patrick. What's your interest?' she finished by bluntly asking.

‘He's my husband.'

‘I'm envious,' was her parting remark as she walked away.

‘I left a confiscated firearm with your man downstairs,' I called after her, having realized that
she
was in charge. ‘I fired it twice in protecting my colleagues.'

‘Thank you.'

They were in the huge master bedroom, Alexandra huddled up on the bed wearing a silky robe and her usual pout, Patrick leaning against an ornate chest of drawers that would have done Versailles proud. Gilt-framed mirrors were everywhere and the curtains were heavily draped velvet with huge gold-trimmed tie-backs. I began to see what the boss lady had meant; arms crossed, his shirt in tatters, his face marked, the welts on his wrists raw, Patrick was still the only thing in the room worth looking at.

‘Oh, not you,' said Alexandra. ‘Come to gloat?'

‘Those phone calls you made . . .' I began.

‘He's just asked me that. And I told him.'

‘To get the police going to all the wrong places,' Patrick said. ‘As we have recently suspected, with planted clothing and other stuff. But not Boyles House, that was a real prison, wasn't it, Alex?'

She improved on the pout, saying nothing.

‘You were not at all keen when Descallier first suggested a partnership so you tried to do a runner to Bath,' Patrick continued. ‘I'm guessing here, Alex, you'll have to correct me if I'm wrong. But first he waved a big stick in the shape of Stefan and then enough money and promises under your nose to make you change your mind.
And
got rid of the other bed-warmers that Alan Kilmartin saw when he came here with you that time. I reckon old Dessie actually fell for you in a big way, never mind your little business, which, let's face it, is a microdot in his empire. For after all, he'd already met you several times.'

‘I wish they'd strung you up by your bloody
neck
!' Alexandra shrieked. She slapped her hands over her mouth for a moment. ‘I – I didn't mean that.' She gazed up at him, tears welling in the beautiful eyes. ‘Please, please help me. You could, easily. You have a lot of authority. I could that see you were going to be wildly successful when we first met.'

‘I seem to remember that you colluded in trying to kill my wife,' Patrick murmured.

Authority, the boss, returned with a uniformed woman constable, and politely intimated that this really was her patch. We left the room. There was really nothing else to say but I still would have liked to ask a lot more questions.

‘Thank you for your forbearance,' Patrick said at the top of the stairs.

‘Any time,' I said with a smile.

‘No, seriously, I was expecting you to take her apart.'

‘Am I
that
stormy?'

He leaned on me a bit. ‘D'you reckon anyone's got a couple of aspirins?'

It had, Patrick admitted later, gone badly wrong. One of his main objectives, to use subversion; hoping to engage with the workforce, nurse any grievances they might have and create dissent so there was every chance they would round on those in charge, had misfired. They all, it appeared, had big stakes in the set-up and were not just hired gunmen, thugs and bruisers. Worse, Alexandra had already told Descallier about us, that we worked for SOCA and were likely be on the case so there was no getting out of that. She had said she had the idea we would go to her flat and as luck would have it we had walked right into the group Descallier had sent round there.

It came out later that Descallier had been keen to delay any police investigation, which was getting uncomfortably close, but had not been remotely interested in selling Patrick to the highest bidder. But Patrick had at least, probably by his demeanour, made the man reluctant to kill him, the years in prison, should he be convicted of all the criminal charges he had so far wriggled out of no doubt ratcheting up unpleasantly in the man's mind. So he had decided just to string him up to teach him a lesson and then dump him ignominiously somewhere. After they had disposed of the latest batch of women. Of these, although a couple were ill after their treatment, fortunately none had actually been hurt during the raid which was a relief to us.