No Tears for the Lost

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

By the time the first of Weller’s troops arrived in two blacked-out Range Rovers, the men inside scattering throughout the grounds with guns and torches, Palmer was standing with Riley at the front of the house under the porch light, hands empty and in clear view. Mitcheson had disappeared, pausing only to press the guns he and Palmer had used into the hands of Henzigger and the Colombians. When the forensics team came to match gunshot wounds with weapons on the scene, there had to be none that could not be accounted for.

Weller’s helicopter dropped in as Palmer and Riley were being searched and documented, and the body count being logged.

The man Riley had encountered up on the roof was still alive, although he’d taken a tumble off the scaffolding while trying to get away and was now nursing a broken shoulder and jaw. A member of the armed support unit had tried talking to him in broken Spanish, but he had remained sullen and defensive, claiming he was the victim of a misunderstanding.

His two fellow-countrymen were found dead among the trees. Both had died from gunshot wounds.

Riley glanced at Palmer when she heard this bit of news. He shrugged innocently. ‘I blame it on the films me dad took me to when I was a kid.’

‘Jesus, you two were lucky,’ commented Weller, after he’d been briefed by his senior man, a tall, grizzled figure in a dark jump-suit who gave Riley and Palmer a sceptical look before walking away to find someone to intimidate. ‘Especially with the rest of them managing to shoot each other so conveniently.’ His expression didn’t change as he stood over them, but it was clear he knew the scene wasn’t as clearcut as it seemed. He stared at Riley in her borrowed sweatshirt. She still had a smear of Myburghe’s blood on her cheek. ‘You look like you fought a battle on your face.’ He turned to Palmer and added knowingly, ‘Whereas you don’t. How’s that, then?’

‘I always carry a rabbit’s foot,’ explained Palmer, when the silence had lengthened to an awkward degree. ‘My mum swore by them.’

Weller almost smiled. ‘A resident in the village said he saw a vehicle leaving the scene shortly before my men arrived. Reckons it was a Toyota Land Cruiser going like the clappers.’ He took out a bag of mints and popped two together. For him, it was probably a sign of the stress he was undergoing. He didn’t offer the bag round. ‘You wouldn’t know who the driver was, I suppose?’

They shook their heads. With luck, Mitcheson would have got clear of the area before the police managed to throw up a cordon.

‘Didn’t think you would.’ Weller stuffed his sweets back in his pocket and lifted Palmer’s hands then Riley’s, sniffing at them in turn. If he had any thoughts about the unusual aroma of cleanser, a large tub of which they’d discovered in the main kitchen, he kept them to himself. ‘When we look — and we will look, believe me — are we likely to find any fingerprints where we shouldn’t?’

‘Yes,’ said Riley. ‘Mine. There’s a small machine-pistol thing somewhere by the side of the house. I threw it over the parapet because I couldn’t work out how to use it.’ She kept her face blank. ‘And I handled a shotgun the other day, but I’m not sure where it is now.’

Weller nodded sourly. ‘Regular little Annie Oakley, aren’t you?’ he murmured.

Up on the roof, a party of medics was preparing to bring down the body of Sir Kenneth Myburghe. He had died of blood-loss, which Riley thought was probably the best outcome. A trial would have served no useful purpose other than to hurt the wrong people. She felt sorry for Lady Myburghe. She really had now lost her husband for good, and his daughters their father.

The steel briefcase, which turned out to be packed with money, caused a stir when it was discovered in the stable where Henzigger had been lying in wait for Palmer. Not as much of a stir, however, as a confessional piece of paper in Sir Kenneth’s pocket listing details of where the money had come from and who else was involved in the drugs operation.

‘Looks like His Excellency decided to take a few people down with him,’ Weller commented, studying the list. He gave a carnivore’s smile. ‘There’s a Yank I know who’s going to owe me a lot of favours by the time I get through with this little lot.’

Riley knew he was talking about Portius, and felt almost sorry for State Department man. The list must have been Myburghe’s last-ditch attempt to account for his actions, and to gain some revenge for what had been done to his son. If only, she reflected sadly, he’d thought of it sooner.

‘How much of this is going public?’ she asked Weller.

He threw a pointed look at the helicopter clattering about overhead. Its searchlight beam was lighting up half the county as it checked the woods and fields for further bodies or runaways, and the noise of the rotors must have ecgoed for miles. No doubt the press corps of half the known world would soon be on its way in, opening up the sleepy area of Colebrooke to the glare of international scrutiny.

‘Bloody difficult to hide any of it at this rate,’ Weller said bluntly, and gave her a hard look. ‘But I decide what doesn’t get reported. Got it?’

‘Okay,’ said Riley. She was happy to let the tabloids and news crews fight over the stark headline details, just as long as she got to write up the full background story. She didn’t much like the idea of Weller having any kind of say in what got published, but that was a fight she’d leave to Donald Brask. The idea of a good argument with the establishment might be just the tonic he needed. ‘Can we go?’

Weller nodded. ‘Yeah, get lost. But stay available. And don’t plan any sudden long-haul flights. Otherwise we might wonder about whether you’re ever coming back.’

When they arrived at Palmer’s Saab by the maintenance workshop, he gave an exclamation of dismay and poked his finger through a neat hole in the rear window. There was a corresponding hole in one of the side windows.

‘That should entertain my insurance broker for a while,’ he grumbled, climbing behind the wheel. He winced as he did so, a hiss escaping from between compressed lips.

‘Do you want me to drive?’ Riley asked him. She had noticed he was holding himself oddly just before the police arrived, and discovered a long burn mark across his back, with a thin line of blood dots where the skin had broken. It had been a close call. After some resistance, she’d persuaded Palmer to let a police medic give him a quick check and put on some plasters to prevent his shirt sticking to his back, with a promise to go to a doctor later that day. Neither of them had mentioned how the burn had occurred.

‘I’m fine,’ he insisted, adjusting the seat until he was comfortable. ‘It’s only a flesh wound.’ He laughed, wincing as the movement brought a stab of pain. ‘Damn. I always wanted to say that without wimping out.’

They didn’t speak much on the way back to London. There didn’t seem to be much to say. In between adjusting his position to ease his back, Palmer kept an eye on Riley until she caught him doing it and told him to stop or she’d slap him. He smiled and did as he was told. Her spirited response was a good sign.

‘What happened at the stables?’ Riley asked, as they approached the end of the motorway near Chiswick. She’d been dying to ask ever since Palmer had walked back from the stable block. His mood had been clearly sombre. Mitcheson, encouraged by Palmer to leave before the police arrived, had already disappeared into the night. ‘All that shooting. You could hve been killed.’

‘I was lucky,’ he said shortly, then added, ‘If Mitcheson hadn’t been there…’ He rolled his head in place of a shrug, and she wondered what he wasn’t telling her.

‘He shot Henzigger, didn’t he?’

Palmer nodded.

‘Wasn’t there any other way?’

‘He did what he thought was right. He thought Henzigger was going to shoot me.’

Riley stared at him, trying to read his expression in the poor light. There was something in Palmer’s voice that didn’t sound right. ‘But you don’t think he was?’

‘I don’t know. He pulled the trigger but I was lucky. He missed.’

Riley knew instinctively that it was all she was going to get out of him. He wasn’t defending Mitcheson, but neither was he condemning him. She guessed it was all she could expect and was grateful for it.

After dropping her outside her flat, he drove away into the dawn with a promise to keep in touch.