No Tears for the Lost

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The effect on the crowd was dramatic as they focussed on Palmer and Riley, no doubt trying to gauge how official the two of them might be.

But Henry was less guarded; he stepped forward and grabbed Palmer’s arm. ‘Get your grubby hands off her — and that stuff costs!’

Riley barely saw Palmer move, but suddenly Henry was lying on the floor clutching his wrist, the champagne bottle on the ground beside him, gurgling its contents away into the gravel. As Henry struggled to get up, cursing, his face red with pain and indignation, the rest of the partygoers moved back a few paces.

Riley stepped forward to place herself between the two men. As drunk and aggressive as the man was, she was counting on him not wanting to hit a woman. Some of the other men muttered between themselves, but she couldn’t tell whether it was in support of Henry or not.

‘Get her inside,’ Palmer suggested to Riley. ‘I’ll follow in a minute.’

As Riley turned to move the girl away, she heard a scrape of movement behind her. Henry was back on his feet and spoiling for a fight, urged on by one or two supporters.

‘What the fuck’s your problem?’ he spat at Palmer, his face beet-red with wounded pride. ‘Think because you’re a minder and you’ve got your little girlfriend with you, you can act all tough? Much good it’ll do you.’ Behind him, some of the other men were restless with anticipation. They seemed to notice Riley for the first time, and eyed the radio in her hand.

In the total silence that followed, a girl laughed shrilly and a glass fell to the ground and shattered.

Palmer continued to ignore Henry, and stared down at the tablets and the small bags of powder. Then he stepped forward and ground them with careful deliberation into the gravel. Someone protested, but made no move to stop him.

Henry moved towards Palmer in a crouch, hands open and flat, his fingers stiff. His eyes glittered in the reflected lights, and Riley guessed he probably wasn’t quite as soft as he seemed. Somewhere in his spare time, he’d learned how to fight — probably karate — and was big enough and sufficiently confident in front of his friends to be dangerous.

Riley almost felt sorry for him. Whatever he thought he knew about Palmer, it wasn’t enough.

A spurt of gravel signalled the attack, and Henry seemed about to land on Palmer and crush him under his considerable weight. But he didn’t quite make it. Just as they were about to collide, Palmer spun away and executed a savage back-kick into his opponent’s mid-section. Slim as he was, it was deceptively powerful, and stopped the bigger man in his tracks, eyes bulging with shock and pain.

In the background, somebody moaned softly in sympathy.

Before the big man could recover, Palmer took his wrist and spun him round to face the fountain. Putting his knee behind the man’s buttocks, he flipped him over the edge. Henry screamed shrilly and hit the water with a splash.

As Palmer turned and walked back towards the house, Henry began to be noisily sick.

Riley waited for Palmer by the front door. Annabel had been ushered inside by her friends, leaving a wet trail across the foyer towards the staircase. There was no sign of Rockface.

‘Any problems?’ she asked. ‘I’m merely being polite — I know you hate anyone making a fuss after you’ve been all heroic and hairy-chested.’

‘The fountain might need cleaning,’ he replied. ‘How’s Annabel?’

‘She’ll be fine. I suggested they get a doctor take a look, just in case.’

‘Good idea. There must be at least half a dozen members of the BMA here.’

‘Who is Henry?’

Palmer shook his head. ‘Someone with too much money and ego.’

‘Sounds like you have history.’

‘Not really. He was one of the group when I was watching Victoria’s friend. Ex-army — guards regiment, I think. He found out that I used to be RMP and made it obvious what he thought. I think he fancied his chances with Victoria. She wasn’t interested.’

Riley thought she could guess why, but let it go. ‘Annabel,’ she reminded him, ‘was carrying enough drugs to buy a small country.’

‘I know. Not surprising, though, with the crowd she moves in. I’ll deal with it.’ Palmer looked calm enough but Riley detected a storm brewing. She didn’t think she wanted to be in the same room if he decided to tell Annabel’s father.

She changed the subject. ‘Charles Clarke, the kid on the roof, claims he found the gun up there and was just letting fly at the treetops.’

‘You believe him?’

‘I think so. He was too well-oiled to be covering up. He said the key was in the door to the roof. It was in the lock when Rockface and I got up there.’ She reached into her jacket pocket and took out her hand. She was holding a collection of empty nut shells. ‘I found these. They were spread on the roof around the door. When I stepped on them, it was like tiny firecrackers going off. It was quiet up there, even with the noise from the party.’

Palmer took a moment to absorb what she was telling him. ‘I think someone left the gun there on purpose. The shells were an alarm. There are feeders all over the gardens among the trees. Whoever it was, was thinking on their feet.’

‘But why?’

‘To increase the pressure on Myburghe. Whoever it was, probably planned to fire off a couple of shots then disappear. It would be a way of demonstrating how close they could get to his family in spite of the security.’

‘Except they didn’t check if the door was locked. They probably figured nobody ever went up there.’ Riley pointed towards the scaffolding on the far end of the roof. ‘I took a walk down the other end. I think they might have used the scaffolding to climb up and down. It would have been safer than the risk of being caught using the stairs, which are close to the kitchen.’

Palmer nodded. ‘Makes sense.’

‘Did you see the shotgun?’

‘Not yet.’

They went in search of Rockface, who unlocked a steel cabinet in a storeroom behind the kitchen and showed them the gun. A box of cartridges lay alongside.

‘I found them in the run-off against the parapet,’ he explained. He was referring to the recessed channel that ran round the roof and took rainfall to the down-pipes.

Palmer examined the shotgun. It was well used, with signs of rough wear around the butt, but was otherwise clean and well oiled. There was no dust residue or moisture, indicating that it hadn’t been out on the roof long enough to gather condensation inside or along the barrel. There were no manufacturer’s marks.

‘Does it belong to Sir Kenneth?’ Palmer asked.

‘No. I checked. It’s a cheap-jack piece of crap.’

‘That kid really was lucky,’ said Palmer, echoing Riley’s comment, only for different reasons. ‘If the person who left this had been up there with it, he’d be as dead as mutton.’

They replaced the gun and cartridges and borrowed a flashlight, then walked round the house to where the scaffolding was rooted into the flowerbeds against the building.

In films, Riley mused, it would have been full of useful clues, like footprints with unique sole-patterns sold only in one small shop in Plymouth. But the ground around the base of the framework was a mass of powdered rubble and other builders’ mess, and if anyone had come down at that point, there were no chance useable signs of their passing.

It was nearly three in the morning before the last of the guests departed. After ensuring a stand-in security man was in place for the remainder of the night, Riley and Palmer were able to leave. They both felt wrung out, but spent part of the drive back to London tossing the accumulation of events back and forth, trying to tease out a pattern.

‘The gun on the roof was a red herring,’ Palmer concluded, building on his earlier assessment. ‘As a sniper’s weapon it’s a non-starter. Okay for bringing down birds or rabbits, and in military terms useful at close quarters for clearing houses. But for long-range accuracy they’re as much use as a box of eggs. Anyone hoping to hit a person on the ground from the roof would have sprayed too many other people as well.’

When Riley told him about her exploration of the stable block, and Rockface’s explanation about the use of the building, he seemed unsurprised.

‘It could be true,’ he commented reasonably. ‘Lads’ quarters aren’t exactly the height of luxury. They spend most of their time with the horses, so why splash out on soft furnishings?’

‘That place wasn’t just austere — it was grim,’ Riley murmured. ‘Whoever was sleeping there had time to heat some food and smoke a lot of cigarettes, but that was it. No pictures on the walls, no calendar glossies, no graffiti, no sense of who they were.’

‘Sounds like a field camp.’ Palmer changed down and powered through a long bend.

‘Meaning?’

‘Field camps are functional. You arrive, you eat, you sleep, you get up again when called, and you leave. Personalising your surroundings isn’t part of the deal. It leaves too much information.’

‘So what does that tell us?’

‘Either Sir Kenneth is mean to his employees, or whoever was in there had moved in without his knowledge or permission.’

Riley leaned her head against the window, finding the darkness outside soothing and almost restful. The thought worrying her, however, was how Rockface had turned up at the stable block so conveniently. The only way he could have known her location was if he’d been watching her. It was an unsettling thought.

Palmer dropped Riley off outside her flat, but declined her offer of coffee and a shower.

‘I’ll go back to my place for a shower and some kip,’ he said. ‘Then I’d better get back to Colebrooke and see how they’re holding up.’

Riley waved him off, then went inside to be met by the bulky, grinning figure of Mr Grobowski in the hallway.

‘Good mornings, Miss Riley,’ he boomed, in what he probably thought was a considerate whisper. His accent was as heavy as a tank trundling over scrap iron. ‘I just getting backs, too. We have a party at the community centre. I feed Lipinski, by the way. He like my dumplings, you bet.’ His eyes twinkled wickedly as he nodded towards the street. ‘Was your friend Mr Frank, huh? He’s a nice mans.’

Riley smiled. For some reason, the elderly Pole was convinced Palmer was her boyfriend. It hadn’t occurred to him yet that John Mitcheson had been up and down these stairs more often than a mere friend. ‘You’re right, Mr G,’ she said. ‘He’s nice.’

She bid him goodnight and went upstairs, where she kicked off her shoes with a sigh if relief. The cat was asleep on the sofa, no doubt too full to move, so Riley left him to his dreams and checked her email before going to bed. There was one message. It was from Tristram.

Tomorrow. 34a, Almondbury Street, Barnston, nr Huddersfield. I hope I can trust you.

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