Spider Trap

TWENTY-EIGHT

There was no one in when Kathy arrived at his house the next morning, although she was ten minutes later than the time they’d arranged for her to call. She listened to the bell echoing again inside, then turned at the rumble of tyres in the cobbled yard at the end of the lane. A car door slammed and Brock appeared, dressed in a windcheater and jeans.

He opened the front door, picking newspapers and mail off the mat, and followed her up the book-lined stairs to the living room on the first floor, where he took her coat and went into the kitchen to put on the kettle. There were no signs of breakfast, and Kathy wondered where he’d stayed overnight, but she didn’t ask. He brought coffee and chocolate biscuits, fetched a pad of paper and they got to work.

She went over everything again,everything Martin had told her and then other things that had occurred to her since. She recalled Tom’s comments about how he’d been encouraged by his boss to get involved with Brock’s team, and they began to draw up a time-line of events.During the night she’d almost persuaded herself,with a sick sense of betrayal and self-recrimination,that Tom had known from the very beginning what he was doing, that he had groomed her from the moment he had reappeared in her life, on instructions from his boss. But Brock disagreed. It was Tom, he pointed out, who had given them the crucial lead to the Brown Bread shootings, and it was that, Brock believed, which must have triggered alarms further up the line. She also told Brock what Tom had said about a friend in Special Branch pointing him in the direction of a ‘weak link’ in the Roach family whom he might target.

‘He was steered every inch of the way,’ Brock said.‘They knew their man, how desperate he was to make amends, even if it meant stepping outside the system and throwing his lot in with Michael Grant.’

‘That was the phrase Martin Connell used about Spider Roach-making amends.’

‘He must have plenty to trade if they were willing to give him this much protection, and sacrifice one of their own.’

‘You think the Branch was behind this?’

‘And the others. I wouldn’t be surprised if MI5 already had that stuff on Grant’s background in his security file. This would have been a JIC operation, Kathy, and only the people at the very top would know the full story.’

‘So we should leave it alone.’

‘Clearly . . . But,’ he scratched his beard, ‘I would still like to have a talk to Michael Grant.’

He gestured at the headlines on the newspapers: ‘Yardie MP Vanishes’ and ‘Accused MP fails to face inquiry’.

‘Aren’t you angry?’ Kathy asked him. ‘You’re one of their victims too. I’d be furious.’

‘Yes, I suppose I am. But I’m also intrigued. I wonder if they really know what Spider’s like to do business with. They must be worried that there may be other things he hasn’t told them.’

Kathy looked at him curiously, sensing some hidden meaning. ‘Did you find anything in the old files?’

‘Probably not. A sniff of a possible motive for the three killings perhaps.’ And he told her of his theory about Adonia and her daughter.

She thought about it, nodding. ‘Yes, that makes sense. And poetic justice to use Magdalen as the bait to trap Tom and close down the Brown Bread inquiry.’

‘That’s what I thought.’

‘Of course we could find out for sure.’

‘With her DNA? Not much chance of getting that now.’

But Kathy was thinking of the handkerchief that Tom had left at her flat, smelling of J’Adore, and trying to remember if she’d thrown it out.

After driving across town to Finchley, they made their way to Sundeep Mehta’s pathology lab, where Brock explained the nature of the tests he wanted done.

‘There are possibly three DNA sources here,’ he said, giving him the handkerchief.‘Kathy’s and two others.I want them tested against the DNA extracted from the three skeletons on the railway ground. A paternity test. Discreet, quick and in your name only, if you don’t mind, Sundeep.’

The pathologist still hadn’t forgiven Brock for failing to arrest Mr Teddy Vexx for Dana and Dee-Ann’s murders, but he was addicted to mysteries and smiled conspiratorially at the odd procedure.‘I hear you’ve been having a spot of bother,old chap.’

‘You could say that.’

‘Twenty-four hours?’

‘Make it four.’

‘Four? My dear fellow, the processing lab is out at Abingdon.’

‘That’s one of the reasons I came to you.’

Sundeep pouted.‘Leave it with me. I’ll give you a ring. Shall we take an elimination sample from Kathy, or is it her daddy we’re looking for?’

He chuckled as he took a swab from Kathy’s mouth before they left for Cockpit Lane.

Father Maguire answered their knock on the presbytery door with painful slowness. They saw the twitch of the curtain, heard the shuffle of his feet, and finally caught a narrow sighting of him through the barely opened door. He didn’t remember them at first, and Brock had to introduce them.When the old man finally hauled the heavy door open his figure seemed more than ever diminished by the overscaled Victorian architecture that surrounded him. He was wearing an old grey cardigan and faded tartan slippers, and when he turned to lead them to the main room Kathy noticed that his clerical collar was yellowed and the seat of his black trousers was shiny with age.

‘Sorry . . .’ He’d caught Kathy looking at a tray with the remains of tea and a boiled egg.‘My housekeeper isn’t with me at present. The siege, you know. It got too much for her. Gave her nervous palpitations. I had to tell her to go home.’

‘Siege?’

‘The press. They were out there for so long. I don’t know what they expected to get from me.I had to disconnect the doorbell.’He sounded exhausted and defeated. ‘The worst thing, of course, is knowing what Michael must think of me. I go over it all again and again, working out what I should have said. He’s such a good man, has achieved so much, yet I betrayed him to his enemies. They snatched the words from out of my mouth and used them to destroy him. Now he must regard me as Judas incarnate.’

‘I’m sure he doesn’t,’ Brock said gently. ‘It was quite clear to everyone that you were trying to support and defend him. That’s what made their choice of you so very effective. They were extremely cunning.’

‘But were they telling the truth? Did Michael really commit a murder in Jamaica? I’m sure Father Guzowski never told me that, only that the police would kill him if they caught him. Some of them, you know, were as bad as the people they were up against.’

‘I don’t know what the truth is.’

‘I’ve tried to find Father Guzowski’s letter among my papers, but I can’t. It’s so long ago and everything’s in such a mess. I haven’t been very good with my paperwork, I’m afraid. Michael wanted me to write an account of our work here and did help me try to organise things a little, but of course he won’t be interested in continuing now. It’s like a terrible cloud, poisoning everything we’ve done, our whole lives and work.’

‘He was helping organise your papers?’

‘Well, not Michael himself.When he could spare her he sent over the girl who runs his constituency office.’

‘Kerrie?’

‘That’s her. Very efficient young woman. Just what I needed.’

‘So has Michael not been in touch with you?’ Brock asked.

The priest shook his head sadly.‘I pray for him,but I’ve heard nothing.’

‘Apparently he and his family haven’t been seen at their home since Monday. Have you any idea where he might have gone? I really would like to talk to him.’

‘To arrest him, do you mean?’

‘No, no. I’d just like to talk to him about what happened on Monday.’

But he could see that the old man wasn’t convinced. He had betrayed Michael Grant once and he wasn’t about to do it again. ‘Could be anywhere,I suppose,’he said vaguely.‘If I were him I’d probably take my family far away, to the Outer Hebrides perhaps, until things blow over. I’m sure if he’d felt he needed your help he would have asked for it.’ This thought seemed to stiffen his resolve. ‘I’ll see you out now, if you don’t mind. I have things to do, a funeral service to prepare . . .’

They buttoned up their coats and made their way down the path to the street. A few daffodils in the lee of the presbytery were bravely heralding the end of winter. There should have been more, Kathy realised,from the number of cut stalks around them.The rest were probably on sale in the market. As they reached the end of Cockpit Lane, where it divided each side of the churchyard, she looked down to the market and saw people gathering at its far end, and the pulsing lights of an ambulance.

Across the street, large pictures of Michael Grant’s face still beamed with misplaced confidence from the windows of his constituency office. It was locked, but there was a light on at the back and eventually their persistent knocking brought Kerrie to the door. She mimed a message at them through the glass, pointing to the ‘closed’ sign, and Kathy responded by holding up her identification.

She opened the door a little and placed herself firmly in the gap.

‘Sorry, didn’t recognise you. Michael’s not here.’

‘Just a few words, Kerrie,’ Kathy said, and moved forward. The woman reluctantly stood aside.While she locked the door behind them, they moved towards the single desk lamp lit at the back of the office. A computer was switched on there, and the letter that was lying in the printer tray caught Kathy’s attention.

Dear Mr Grant, she read, I regret that I have decided to resign my position . . .

Kerrie appeared at her side and snatched the letter away.‘What is it you want?’

‘We’re looking for Michael, Kerrie.’

She snorted.‘So are a lot of people.Good luck.’

‘You don’t know where he is?’

‘No idea. He’s not been in touch since Monday and he’s not answering his mobile.’

‘You’ve decided to quit, have you?’

‘None of your business, but yes, as a matter of fact. There’s no point in staying here.’

‘What will you do?’

‘I’m moving to a staff position in Westminster, if you must know. It’s a natural step up, after the experience I’ve had in the constituency.’

‘But not with Michael? With another MP?’

‘How long do you think he’s going to have an office over there, do you reckon? He’s not the only one allowed to have ambition, you know.’

Kerrie was angry as well as defensive, and Kathy felt she was catching sight of a drama she hadn’t been aware of before.‘No,of course not. Did you resent being stuck here?’

‘I’ve done my time here, that’s all. It’s a dead end, I have to move closer to the centre if I’m going to get on. That’s the trouble, isn’t it? If you’re any good at what you do, the boss tries to keep you stuck.’

‘Michael did that, did he?’

‘There’s a big gap between those who work in the constituencies and those who work in Westminster. He promised to help me move up, but in the end you’ve got to help yourself, haven’t you?’

‘Is that what you did when you went to sort out Father Maguire’s papers? Help yourself?’

Kerrie gave an involuntary little jump, which she immediately tried to convert into a fussing gesture over her filing tray.

‘Was that how you crossed the gap?’ Kathy persisted. ‘By offering things you’d found out about Michael to his political enemies?’

‘Don’t be stupid.’ She turned away, shuffling papers.

‘Who are you going to work for, Kerrie? Mr Hadden-Vane?’

She was close, Kathy realised, but not close enough, for Kerrie relaxed and turned to face her with a show of defiance.

‘No. Now I’d like you to leave.’

As they stepped out into the street Brock murmured, ‘You were on the right track, Kathy, but it would have been more indirect. Hadden-Vane probably fixed her up with a job with one of his mates.’

‘Yes, I suppose so. So where do we go now?’ She turned up the collar of her coat against the March wind, feeling its implacable cold like a verdict on their situation. The truth was, they’d pretty well explored every option, and discovered each to have been anticipated and blocked long before they got there.

Ahead of them she recognised Adam Nightingale emerging from the market. He was with his friend Jerry, both gesticulating wildly to their heads and ears, white teeth flashing.

‘Hi, Adam,’ Kathy called, and the boys stopped dead and stared at them. Then without a word they hunched into their parkas and turned and fled.

When they reached the car Kathy said she’d try Tom again, and called his home and mobile numbers without result. His voice on both answering services sounded painfully normal and buoyant, like Michael Grant’s pictures in the shop window. She left more messages and rang off. Almost immediately her phone began to burble. The caller gave his name as McCulloch and Kathy recognised the gravelly voice.

‘If you’re still interested,’he said.‘The bloke you asked about, George Murray.’

‘George, yes.What about him?’

‘He was picked up by an ambulance not long ago, in Cockpit Lane. I’m going over to the hospital now.’

‘He’s been hurt?’

‘Yeah. Somebody drove a nail into his head.’

‘What?’

‘That’s what I’ve been told. They’ve taken him to St Thomas’.’

The same place they took Adam, Kathy thought, remembering the look of panic on the boy’s face when she’d said hello.

Brock dropped her at the A amp;E entrance to the hospital on Lambeth Palace Road. The entrance to the hospital car park was jammed with a long queue, and he continued on to join Westminster Bridge Road and cross the Thames. Ahead of him Parliament brooded darkly.

Kathy found McCulloch sitting on a bench in a corridor talking to the stooped figure of a small dark woman, whom she recognised as Winnie Wellington when she turned her tear-streaked face towards her. Embarrassed,Winnie wiped the tears away with the back of her hand and sat a little straighter. Kathy sat beside her and put a hand on her arm.‘I’m sorry,Winnie.’

‘I knew he’d get into trouble, dat boy. But he didn’t deserve anything like this.’

McCulloch, impassive, raised an eyebrow at Kathy and nodded his head to one side. She got to her feet and followed him a little way away.

‘What happened?’ she murmured.

‘Kids coming out of school for lunchbreak saw him stagger out of the side street opposite, clutching his head. He collapsed and they went and had a look. He had blood all over his face and someone called triple nine.When the ambulance men got there they discovered he had a six-inch nail rammed in his ear.’

Kathy screwed up her face in disgust.

‘Yeah. Extremely lucky it didn’t kill him. Punctured the eardrum of course. Very painful, apparently. They’re trying to find out what other damage it’s done inside his head. He hasn’t spoken. Any ideas?’

‘I visited him again at the girl’s flat in Cove Street. Could it be punishment for talking to me?’

‘That’s what I wondered.“See and blind,hear and deaf ”,that’s the Yardie code.’

Another horrible thought came to Kathy. ‘Yes, that, and the fact that he’s a musician.’

McCulloch grimaced. ‘Some punishment. When did you visit him?’

Kathy checked her notebook. ‘The eighth, over a week ago. The girl caught me in the flat talking to him. She could have told Vexx.’

‘Long time to wait to teach him a lesson. Maybe it was something else.’

Kathy shook her head.‘No.You’ve been reading the papers? They waited till that was all over, then they cleaned up their own backyard.’

‘Well, he certainly upset somebody.’

‘It’s Vexx.We should talk to him, and Carole, the girl.’

McCulloch raised an eyebrow.

‘Sorry,’ Kathy said.‘It’s your case. Just a suggestion. Can I sit in?’

‘Be my guest.We’ll be waiting here for a while.Talk to Winnie while I fetch us all a cup of tea.’

One of nature’s great mysteries, Brock thought, along with migrating butterflies and holes in the ozone layer, was exactly what happened to fish and chips on the way home. Recalling the delicious package of hot crisp food he’d bought in the shop, he contemplated sadly the congealed mess that now lay before him on his plate. It seemed oddly personal, this transformation, like a deliberate insult. He also thought of the last plate of fish and chips he’d eaten, with Michael Grant in the Strangers’ Dining Room, and imagined how he must be feeling now, the impostor, the boy from the Dungle, summarily crushed.

The Grant affair no longer made the six o’clock news. Brock poured himself a glass of the Dragon Stout he’d picked up at his local Paramounts. There had been a big run on it, he’d been told, and they had hardly any left. He poked around morosely in the ruined meal for the least soggy chips.

Kathy had rung him from the hospital to say that the doctors were cautiously optimistic about George’s condition. The eardrum would probably be repairable, though the nail had penetrated the inner ear, damaging the cochlea. Time would tell whether a cochlear implant might be necessary, but things could have been a lot worse. George himself was sedated and saying nothing. Kathy was frustrated, both by the wait at the hospital and by McCulloch’s cautious approach. She had the feeling that her possible involvement worried him and that he was dragging his feet.

Brock switched off the TV and tried to take the fish seriously. A slice of lemon might help. Or another beer.

He rang Suzanne. She sounded pleased to hear from him, but cautious, too. She had been to see Amber that afternoon and he gathered that the visit hadn’t gone well.

‘She gets things so out of proportion, deliberately misinterpreting everything I say to put it in the worst possible light.Anyway,

one day at a time . . . How are you?’

He gave her a summary of his day and heard her sigh.

‘It just gets worse, doesn’t it?’ she said. ‘What they did to Michael Grant, and now this boy . . . I think you should let this go, David.Have a talk to your boss and then wash your hands of it.The past is over.You can’t put it all to rights.’

He thought about that. Long after they hung up he pondered if that was really what he was trying to do. He remembered the Saturday lunchtime long ago,returning home to his abandoned flat, tweaking at that old wound, and of the conversations he had had that day with Joseph Kidd, whose remains had surfaced like an old nightmare so long after the event. But he wasn’t convinced. It wasn’t restitution he wanted so much as understanding. As startling as Hadden-Vane’s disclosures had been, they hadn’t explained what had happened on the eleventh of April 1981. In fact, thinking of the MP’s performance now, it had the mesmerising quality of an illusionist show. He closed his eyes as he recalled each stage in the performance,and tried to rekindle a half-suppressed sense of something inconclusive, unexplained, behind the dazzling revelations.

He woke abruptly, two hours later, with the realisation of what had troubled him. In his presentation to the committee, Hadden-Vane had questioned whether Michael Grant had a personal reason for his campaign against Roach, a suggestion that Brock had found entirely plausible. This had been the basis on which he had called Father Maguire as a witness, yet the priest had thrown no light on that idea, and instead the MP had used him to expose Grant’s past in Jamaica. Hadden-Vane hadn’t answered his own question. Perhaps he didn’t know the answer,or didn’t want to know.Perhaps it lay in the relationship between Grant and his fellow immigrant, Joseph Kidd. Brock wondered who might know, and his thoughts returned as they had once before, to Abigail Lavender, who had taken Grant in when he first arrived in the UK, and whose influence had been so formative on his subsequent career.It seemed all the stranger now, after what Hadden-Vane had uncovered, that Grant hadn’t put her on his list of people Kathy should speak to,nor invited her to his daughter’s concert. And she was still alive, for he remembered her name cropping up in Kathy’s last report, with an address in Roehampton.

He got stiffly to his feet, picked up the empty glass and the remnants of his fish supper and headed for the kitchen. As he reached the door the phone rang.

‘Brock, my dear chap! Not woken you up, I hope?’

‘Sundeep, you’re working late.’

‘Well, not exactly, but the lab is, and I asked them to phone me at home with their result. Bingo! You win the lottery.’

‘Really?’ Brock felt a tightening in his chest, of relief really, and excitement at an idea well-formed against all the odds. ‘You’ve got a match?’

‘That’s right. Care to take a punt on which of the three was Daddy?’

‘Number two, Bravo? Joseph Kidd?’

‘Wrong! It was the mysterious number three, the man without a head. He was the father of the lady whose handkerchief you gave us.’

‘Really?’ The killers had worked through the other two to get to him. Robbie, surname unknown.

‘Does the lady know?’

‘That’s a good question, Sundeep. A very good question.’

Kathy took her morning coffee into the monitor room and watched McCulloch on the screen. On the other side of the table Mr Teddy Vexx sat with his arms folded, motionless, eyes hooded as if in meditation. Martin Connell, next to him, seemed almost diminutive alongside his bulk.

‘Resuming then, Mr Vexx, you insist that you haven’t seen Mr Murray for the last two days?’

‘We’ve been over this several times,’ Martin objected smoothly.

‘I have a witness who saw your car in the vicinity of Cockpit Lane shortly before Mr Murray was found.’

‘What witness?’ Martin asked sharply.

‘A police officer,’ McCulloch snapped back.

They both turned to look at Vexx, who slowly uncrossed his arms, put his right hand into his jacket pocket, then withdrew it and reached forward with his big fist across the table towards the detective, who, despite himself, drew back. For several seconds Vexx kept his hand cupped in front of McCulloch on the table, staring into his eyes. Then he lifted his hand away and leaned back. His chair creaked. A packet of chewing gum lay where his fist had been. He said,‘I went out to buy gum.’

Kathy sighed. This wasn’t going well.

The Alton Estate at Roehampton was one of the most heroic attempts by the London County Council architects to build the New Jerusalem in the 1950s. Overlooking the rolling green of Richmond Park, its towers and slabs ranged from Scandinavian modernism on the east to the tougher concrete Brutalism of Le Corbusier on the west. Between the two sides of this stylistic argument lay a convent and a Jesuit college, and Brock wondered, as he sat in Abigail Lavender’s living room, eyeing the brightly decorated Virgins, crucifixes and papal photographs, whether this had been an attraction for her.

‘Wonderful view,’ he said.

‘Oh yes.’ She’d put on a lot of weight since he’d seen her in 1981, and she wobbled gently as she pointed out some of the sights in the park-the Royal Ballet School, the polo field, Prince Charles’ Spinney-that he would have been able to see if it weren’t for the mist.

‘I’m so glad you came to see me, sir,’ she said. She had a quiet, gentle voice that might, he imagined, turn into a powerful soprano given a decent hymn. ‘I have been so distressed about what they been doin’ to that poor boy. They lynched him, no two ways about it, as surely as if they’d hung him from a tree. I wanted to speak out, tell people what I know, but I waited to hear from Michael first. I s’pose he didn’t need my help. Maybe it would

make no difference anyway, since everybody thinks he’s guilty.’

‘What is it that you wanted to tell people, Abigail?’

‘Why, the truth!’

‘I’m very interested in that. Maybe I could help Michael if you told it to me.’

‘I’ll do that, on one condition, that you try my home-made cream sponge and chocolate macaroons.’

‘I thought you’d never ask,’ he said, and she went off chuckling to her little kitchen to prepare the feast.

‘I grew up in Riverton City, same as Michael,’ she said, when she finally settled herself in the armchair facing Brock, cups of tea balanced on their right chair arms and plates of confectionery on their left.

‘My mother and his grandmother, Mrs Forrest, were close friends.’

‘That was his name then, wasn’t it?’

‘That’s right. He was called Billy Forrest. I remember when his mother brought him to live with his grandmother, the sweetest little pickney I ever saw,and I watched him grow up until I married Mr Lavender and came away to England. Billy was seven then, and already I could see that he was different.Well, he could read for a start, and he was quiet and you could tell from looking at him that there were things going on in his head that he wasn’t telling you about. To tell the truth, I didn’t know how long he’d survive in the Dungle. Do you know about the Dungle?’

‘Michael mentioned it to me. A rubbish tip, yes?’

‘The biggest filthiest rubbish tip you ever saw. Imagine the putrid stench under the hot sun, the smoke of fires, the seagulls wheeling overhead, the rats, the skinny dogs, the flies. And then imagine the garbage trucks roaring in and the bigger boys jumping on board so they can have the first pick of the rubbish before it gets tipped out and the smaller children and the women get to work, looking for cans and bottles, bits of material, anything you can sell or eat or make a shelter and clothes from.’

Abigail could clearly see it as she spoke, and when she paused to take breath she blinked and looked around her at the spotless little flat as if still not quite able to believe that she’d escaped.

‘And then, as if bein’ poor wasn’t bad enough, there was what people did to each other in that dreadful place, the guns, the beatin’s, and what they did to the girls . . . It was bad enough then, when I was there, but it got worse, year by year, until by the time Billy left it had all got completely out of hand. The bad boys took handouts from the big politicians, Manley and Seaga’s people, to terrorise the folk on the other side. They didn’t stop at killing the men-little children and old women were murdered in their beds to teach the others what to expect. In May of that year they set fire to the Evening Tide Home for the elderly disabled, on Slipe Pen Road. A sister of my mother was living there, my Auntie May, who wasn’t well in the head. It was a PNP area, but there was a rumour goin’ round that over a hundred of the residents had voted for the JLP in the last election, so one night the PNP boys cut the phone lines and started fires. It was a big old wooden building, with seven hundred old folks inside, and it went up in an inferno. One hundred and fifty-three of the old people died that night, Auntie May among them. No one was ever arrested for that terrible deed, but the men who did it will surely face the Judgement of His Wrath.Will you have another slice of my cream sponge, Chief Inspector?’

‘It is very good,’ Brock conceded, handing her his empty plate with only a token show of resistance.

‘You haven’t been eatin’ well lately, have you? I can see you’re lookin’ peaky. Another cuppa to go with it?’

‘Thank you.’

‘Anyway, what chance did a poor boy have of growing up straight in such a place? Some ran away to Bull Bay to become Rastas, reading the Scriptures and praising Jah and Selassie with the older dreads. Some were rescued by the likes of Father Guzowski or Monsignor Albert. Some joined the police force or the army. Some escaped overseas. But most joined the gangs and posses and got themselves a gun.’

‘Which did Billy do?’

‘Oh, he was one of Father Guzowski’s boys, no mistake about that. That’s what made it so unfair, what happened.’

There had been a spate of particularly violent murders in Jones Town during that August, Abigail said, and on this particular night the police had finally been prodded into action, sending patrols out looking for the perpetrators. They were nervous, the police, grabbing anyone they didn’t like the look of until they had a full quota to take back to the station.Billy was unlucky to be in the area that hot night, coming back from a visit to a relative in Kingston Public Hospital. He was arrested and taken in for questioning. It was chaotic at the police station, with young men being bundled into crowded cells to await their turn. Billy got talking to another prisoner, called Earl, a bit older than himself, who seemed to know the ropes and took Billy under his wing.

The police officers who questioned Billy seemed uninterested in his story of visiting the hospital, and kept trying to get him to admit that he had been in Jones Town the previous night,which he had not.Their interrogation techniques were rough,and he was returned to his cell with two thick ears and a bloody nose.There Earl went over with him what had happened and explained where he’d gonewrong,arguingwithhisquestioners.Whentheytookhim away for a second time he followed Earl’s advice and came back without much further damage. Earl, on the other hand, returned from his session badly beaten,with a missing tooth and what later turned out to be two cracked ribs. He explained that someone in their cell had recognised him as a Shower Posse soldier and therefore a JLP supporter and had told the police, who were in the PNP camp.

It was late in the night when Billy and Earl were finally released. By way of a final insult, the cops drove the two of them and a third prisoner into the heart of a Spangler-controlled area and kicked them out, confident that they would be identified as the enemy and treated accordingly. They were saved by an old woman, who, in an extraordinary act of charity, realised their danger and took them into her home.

The next morning they set off together for the relative safety of Tivoli Gardens, where Earl lived, but on the way a car overtook them and stopped in the street ahead. Two men got out holding guns and began firing at them. Their companion was hit immediately in the head, clearly a fatal wound, while Billy and Earl jumped over a fence and ran, pursued by the gunmen. Trapped in a small yard, they grabbed whatever lay to hand and waited for the men to pass by. They heard one run past, but then the second stopped and came into their hiding place. Earl hit him with the stick he’d picked up, but it was rotten and snapped across the man’s shoulder without doing any damage. The man turned to shoot and Billy, behind him, hit him on the head with the brick he’d found. The man fell, and Earl picked up his gun and fired it at the second gunman,who had heard the commotion.He ran back to his car and fled. The man on the ground was dead. When Earl emptied his wallet he found a police badge.

They knew that they wouldn’t be safe now in Tivoli Gardens, and Billy persuaded Earl to come with him to Riverton City. They caught a bus and went straight to Father Guzowski and told him their story. He hid them for several weeks until he was able to put them both on a plane to London.

‘That’s the truth,’ she said with a sigh.

Brock didn’t doubt it. Like everyone else, he had been tempted by the notion that Michael Grant’s fall had been well deserved, that someone who had been just too good to be true had been exposed as a huge fraud. All of the newspapers had accepted this line, whether guardedly or with vicious relish, but it had never squared with Brock’s own assessment of the man,despite the fact that Grant had lied to him about not knowing Joseph Kidd in Jamaica.

‘I know that’s how it happened because his grandmother got her friend to write to tell me the whole story, and to ask me to look out for him if he got to London. Then Father Maguire told me he was coming and I said we’d take him in, despite . . . well, despite experience.’

Brock gave her a quizzical smile over the rim of his teacup.

‘We’d already had dealings with the Forrest family comin’ over here that weren’t so happy, but I thought I knew my little Billy, and I wasn’t wrong.’

‘There are other Forrests here?’

‘Just the one, Billy’s older brother, or half-brother you would say-same mother, but who knows who their fathers were? Sailors passing through. He was quite a bit older than Billy, closer to my age, and he came over a couple of years after we did.’

Abigail had become reluctant and subdued in telling this part of her story, and Brock said,‘Trouble, was he?’

She nodded.‘Good-looking boy,and a great one for the ladies. He even . . . well, I was an attractive woman in those days. Mr Lavender had to tell him to get out. But it wasn’t just the flirting. He brought his bad ways over with him, the drugs, and got in with a bad crowd. It was on account of him that Mr Lavender got hurt. When he fell out with him, my husband threatened to go to the police about his drug dealing,and he told his friends,who came and beat Mr Lavender up bad.’

‘The Roaches?’

‘Mr Lavender never said a word, not even to me, but I’d seen Billy’s brother hanging around with them. I didn’t want to see Billy-Michael, as he now was-goin’ the same way. It tells you what a good man my husband was that he agreed to take him in, God bless his soul.’

‘What happened to this brother?’

‘I don’t know. He moved on, thank goodness, and Michael fulfilled all my hopes for him.’

‘What was the brother’s name?’

‘Robbie, Robbie Forrest. He was a rascal, that one.’ She shook her head, but the memory stirred something warmer than disapproval, and she smiled to herself. ‘He had one gold tooth.’ She tapped one of her front teeth.‘Lost it in a fight back home, he said, and forced the man who’d knocked it out to give him a new one, in gold. The man with the golden kiss, he used to say. I sometimes wonder what ever became of him.’

‘So where is Michael now, Abigail?’

‘I really don’t know.’

‘I can understand your reluctance, but I may be able to help him.’

‘But it’s true, I don’t know.’ She hesitated. ‘He did phone me on Monday evening. He said that things were impossible and he couldn’t go home. He said that he and Jennifer were goin’ away for a while, till things settled down. He didn’t say where . . .’

Brock nodded patiently.‘But?’

‘Well, they’ve been away before, when Michael said he couldn’t stand London any more and wanted to “go to ground”- that’s what he called it. A cottage that belongs to a friend of his. I don’t know if that’s where he’s gone, but it’s possible.’

‘Whereabouts?’

‘Somewhere in the country.’

‘Didn’t he mention where it was, or send you a postcard?’

‘No.’ She saw the frustration on Brock’s face and added,‘The friend who owned it was someone he knew from his days in the

building industry. A builder, I think.’

Kathy met them in the corridor as they were leaving the station. Martin started at seeing her, then recovered and gave a cautious smile. Vexx, at his shoulder, glowered.

‘Do you have a moment, Mr Connell?’ she asked.

He glanced at Vexx, then reached into his pocket for his keys. ‘All right. Do you want to wait for me in the car, Teddy, while I have quick word with DS Kolla here?’

Vexx took the keys and shouldered past Kathy with a casual roll to his stride. Kathy showed Martin into an unoccupied interview room. They didn’t sit down. Kathy folded her arms.

‘You’re very trusting,’ she said, ‘giving your keys to a bastard like that. He’s probably driving your car back to your home right now, to steal your Georgian silver and rape your lovely wife.’

‘Don’t be like that, Kathy.’

‘He drove a six-inch nail into a kid’s head because I tried to talk to the lad,who never told me a thing.It’s amazing the boy isn’t dead.’

Seeing how angry she was, Connell replied carefully, trying to sound calm and reasonable.‘They can’t prove that.’

‘I know, I was watching. Interesting that you put it like that, Martin. Interesting that you don’t say he’s innocent, because of course you know he’s not.’

‘He’s innocent until proven guilty.’

‘I don’t know how you can do it, how you can live with yourself.’

He seemed about to frame a response, then simply shook his head and said wearily,‘Is that all you wanted to say?’

‘Not all, no. I wondered if Tom Reeves had been in touch with you.’

Martin looked alarmed.‘Christ, no. Has he spoken to you?’

‘No. I just wondered, that’s all.’

‘Well, when you do see him make sure he understands that nothing happened between us and he must keep his trap shut. That’s the last thing I . . . either of us needs right now.’

‘Don’t worry, Martin,’ Kathy said softly. ‘We’re innocent, remember? Until proven guilty.’ She walked out of the room.

As she paced down the corridor her phone rang. She opened it and heard Brock’s voice.

‘Kathy, what can you tell me about that builder friend of Michael Grant’s?’

Kathy led the way across the mud towards the hut where she’d met Wayne Ferguson before. The site looked different now, with steel framing erected on the concrete slab. The site manager was standing talking to a man with a roll of drawings. He waved when he saw them and came over.

Kathy introduced Brock.‘Look, Mr Ferguson-’

‘Wayne, please.You’re lucky to catch me-it’s St Patrick’s Day. I should be down the pub.’

Kathy thought his joviality exaggerated. ‘Wayne, we thought you could help us get in touch with Michael Grant.’

‘Did you now? What gave you that idea, I wonder?’

‘He’s not staying at your cottage?’

His mouth dropped open, then he frowned and examined the toe of his boot while he thought. ‘Michael needs a bit of peace and quiet right now. He wouldn’t thank me for answering that question.’

‘We’re in much the same boat,’Brock said.‘I’ve been suspended, and Tom Reeves who was helping him will probably be kicked out of the force.We need to talk to each other,see what can be salvaged, if anything.’

‘I felt pretty bad changing my story about seeing those two Roach boys in the Cat that night. I felt I’d let Michael down, and offering him the cottage was the least I could do.’

‘Why not give him a ring and let me talk to him?’

‘No, I can’t do that.’ He saw Brock about to argue and raised his hand.‘I mean, it’s not possible. There’s no phone.’

‘Where is it?’

‘North Wales, in the hills above the Vale of Clwyd. I don’t even know if they got there okay. It’s probably still snowbound.’

‘Can you give me directions?’

Ferguson shrugged and reached for a pad of paper. ‘Sure, I guess it’s okay. It’s not easy to find. I’ll draw a map.’

He and Brock bent over the diagram for a while, discussing A and B road numbers, and Kathy picked up a few placenames- Mold, Ruthin and, more obscurely, Llanbedr Dyffryn Clwyd. It wasn’t a part of the country she knew. ‘When you get to the village you’ll see the church spire on the right and the shop beyond it. Take the next turn on the left, it’s easy to miss, and start to climb the hill, here . . .’

Beyond the window men were working on top of the frame, setting out the metal roof sheeting against a heavy sky.

‘All right, I think I’ve got it,Wayne, thanks.’ Brock straightened, pocketing the map.‘How long will it take to get there?’

‘Four, five hours, depending on the traffic. I wouldn’t try finding it in the dark, not if it’s been snowing.’

They returned to the car and Brock checked his watch.

‘You’re not thinking of going today?’ Kathy asked.

‘No, I don’t think so, and in any case, I think we know most of the story now.’ He told her what Abigail had told him. ‘Victim number three was Michael’s brother,that’s what made it so personal with Roach.But I’d like to hear what else Michael knows about the killing of those three men. There may be something that could still help us, which he couldn’t talk about before without revealing his own story. Maybe at the weekend, I might take a trip up there.’

‘Sounds nice, if the weather holds out.’

At eight that evening,Kathy was curled up on her sofa reading the book that Tom had given her.She was conscious of the rain spattering against the window and debating whether to put on a thicker jumper when her phone rang. It was the duty officer at Scotland Yard. A woman had rung wanting to speak to her. She had seemed distraught. She gave her name as Maureen Reeves.

Kathy rang the number and was answered straight away.‘Yes?’

‘Hello, is that Maureen?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m Kathy Kolla, Maureen. I understand you were trying to reach me.’

‘Oh, yes, thank you for ringing back.’ She spoke in a hesitant rush, veering between panic and apology.‘I wondered . . . is Tom with you?’

‘No.’

‘Only, he was supposed to collect Amy over two hours ago, and he hasn’t appeared. He’s not answering his phone. It isn’t like him, you see, to forget Amy. He’d have let me know. I was due to go out an hour ago …’

‘I haven’t seen him at all this week, Maureen, or even spoken to him.’

‘Oh …I thought …He’s been so down,you see.What happened, well, it was devastating, wasn’t it? So public and humiliating. I know things haven’t been going well for him during the last couple of years, but I’ve never heard him sound so, well, shell-shocked. I’ve tried the obvious people, but nobody’s heard from him. I’m worried.’

‘Yes.’ Kathy was becoming concerned as she listened. ‘When did you last hear from him?’

‘Yesterday lunchtime, on the phone. He sounded very flat, but he confirmed about tonight. I’d been worried that I couldn’t reach him and he explained he wasn’t answering the phone because the press had his numbers. He wanted to make sure they weren’t hanging around my house. He said he was looking forward to seeing Amy. He’d called once before this week to speak to her. He was worried about what people might be saying to her at school.’

‘All right. Something probably delayed him, Maureen, but I’ll start looking. Tell me who you’ve contacted.’ She jotted down the list of names-mutual friends,several workmates,a doctor.‘Okay, now I’ll give you my mobile number so you can reach me as soon as you hear anything.’

She rang off, pushing down her anxiety, trying to clear her head. She began with the accident and emergency number, and while she waited for a result used her mobile to make calls to everyone she could think of-Nicole, Bren, Dot. By the time she rang Brock she’d had a negative result from A amp;E as well as all the others.

He listened in silence,then said,‘Do you know where he lives?’

‘Kentish Town.’ She told him the address.

‘I think we’d better take a look.’

‘Yes, that’s what I thought.’

‘See you there.’

She was the first to arrive, checking that there were no lights on in the basement flat before she rang the bells of the other flats above and on each side of Tom’s. No one had seen him that day. Brock arrived and they went down into the well, knocked a pane of glass out of the front door and opened it. There was no sign of him, and they began a rapid search, quickly coming up with a string of negatives-the mail unopened,the bed unmade,breakfast plates unwashed,a message pad blank,the absence of a diary or notebook,the answering machine switched off, and no response to dialling 1471 for the number of the last caller. There was no indication that anyone else had been in the flat recently. Then Kathy found the laptop.

She switched it on and checked his email, nothing but junk for two days. Then she tried Recent Applications, and found that the photo album was top of the list. She opened it, then called Brock over. The most recent picture had been taken at one thirty-five p.m. that day, of a smartly dressed young woman hailing a cab. She had jet-black hair and a warm tan complexion.

‘Magdalen Roach,’ Brock murmured.

Kathy clicked back through the album, pictures of Magdalen coming out of the office where she worked, in a bus queue, stepping out of her aunt’s red BMW.

‘He’s been stalking her,’ Kathy said. She felt shocked, catching sight of something private and obsessive, and also sad. It was as if she were being allowed a glimpse into the depth of Tom’s anger and despair at what had been done to him.

Brock asked, ‘Do you think he wants to hurt her, pay her back?’ Kathy found she couldn’t give an answer.

Then she was staring at the next image on the screen, a stream disappearing into the mouth of a concrete tunnel set into a grassy bank.‘Oh no.’

‘What is that?’

‘I think it’s the culvert that runs under the Roach place. Tom found some information on it.’ She told him about the helicopter flight and their conversation afterwards.‘I told him it was a ridiculous idea, and he turned it into a joke.’

The picture had been taken two days earlier, the day after his mauling in the parliamentary committee meeting.

‘Surely he wouldn’t try to go back in there?’ Kathy whispered.

‘To justify himself,’ Brock said. ‘To prove he was right and everyone else was wrong. To make amends to Michael Grant. Yes, I think he would. But how is Magdalen involved?’

‘Perhaps we should ask her,’ Kathy said. She closed the photo album and opened his computer address book. Magdalen’s email address and phone numbers were listed. Kathy raised her eyebrow at Brock and he nodded. She took out her phone and tapped in the mobile number. Brock watched her listen for a moment, then quickly switch off.

‘Not there?’

‘Yes, she answered, and I think I know where she is. There was the sound of a crowd in the background, and a heavy ragga number playing.’

‘What’s ragga?’

‘Dancehall reggae. I think she’s at the JOS club.’

They heard the music from a block away. Kathy cruised slowly past the club entrance and parked on a double yellow line near the

street corner. Brock stared at the old building, thinking of a night

in April, twenty-four years before.

‘I’d better do this,’ she said.

‘What if Vexx’s in there? He knows you, doesn’t he? I’ll go.’

‘He knows us both.’

‘Then we’ll both go. Come on.’ Brock got out of the car and she followed.Clusters of people were standing around the entrance, smoking and appearing to be cooling off, sweat gleaming on their faces. They eyed them curiously as they walked up to two large men in suits and shaved heads at the door. Kathy was waved through but Brock was stopped with a hand on his chest.

‘Hey!’ Kathy laughed and slipped her arm around Brock and pressed herself against him.‘He’s mine.’

Several watchers laughed and the men gave bleak smiles and stepped back. Brock handed over some money, and they climbed stairs towards the booming sound. At the top they were plunged into a dark space vibrating with dancing lights and figures and heat. It seemed impossible to identify anyone in here, let alone talk to them. They hesitated at the edge, trying to adjust their senses, then began to make their way slowly around the edge of the writhing crowd, Kathy half a dozen paces in front of Brock. Eventually he saw her stop and turn back to him, signalling to stay where he was. He watched her approach a couple against the wall, standing very close together, holding drinks, their faces almost touching so they could talk.

They separated when Kathy reached them, and after a moment the man moved away. Brock watched the two women trying to communicate,with hand and body gestures supplementing shouted words, but this seemed to prove impossible, and they began to thread their way through the crowd towards the entrance, Brock following them down the crowded stairway. They stepped through the doors and stopped as Magdalen fumbled in her bag for a cigarette. She was swaying slightly and seemed clumsy in her movements. Kathy was talking to her and trying to guide her away towards the car. Suddenly the girl’s mood changed and she pulled away from Kathy and said something angry, flapping her hand in the air. Some of the people standing around were watching them now. Brock hurried forward and she tottered as she turned to him. He caught her arm.

‘Easy now, Magdalen,’ he murmured.

‘Who are you?’

‘He’s another friend of Tom’s,’ Kathy said.‘It’s okay.’

‘Yeah, well don’t hassle me. I just want a fag.’ She fumbled with the lighter and got it going.

One of the bouncers at the door called out, ‘You okay, Magda?’

‘Yeah.’ She waved to him.‘It’s all right, Troy.’

‘She saw Tom here last night,’ Kathy said.

‘That’s right.’ A gleam of perspiration lit Magdalen’s face beneath the streetlights as she tilted her chin and blew out smoke. ‘Look, I’m sorry about what happened to him, but he tried to use me too, right?’

Kathy nodded.

‘Yeah. He told me he’s goin’ to lose his job, is that right?’

‘Looks that way.’

‘Well, who wants a job like that anyway?’

‘Was he angry with you, last night?’

‘No, no. He was sweet, really. Just kinda sad. He said he still liked me.’

‘He does like you,’ Kathy said,‘in spite of what he had to do. He likes you a lot.’

‘Yeah?’ She shivered suddenly and clutched her arms across her chest. In the cold wind of the street her short glittery dress looked like no protection at all.

‘You’ll catch a chill,’ Kathy said.‘Let’s talk in the car,’ and before the girl could object they both steered her to the parked car and eased her in. Brock got behind the wheel and started the engine, turning up the heater.

‘Did he say why he came to the club last night?’

‘To see me, he said.’

‘Did he talk about his plans?’

‘No, I just assumed he’d be around.We talked about tonight, and I thought I might have seen him here again, but he never showed up.’

‘How do you mean you talked about tonight?’

‘Oh, about family and that. It’s St Patrick’s Day, right? The Roach family throws a big dinner-dance for all their friends. It’s traditional, year after bloody year. I hate it. I told him I’d be the only one not there.’

‘They hold this at home?’

‘No, at a hotel on the river.’

‘So there’s no one at home tonight?’

She shook her head and Brock and Kathy exchanged a glance.

Magdalen caught their look. ‘Hang on,’ she said, ‘you don’t think-Oh, Christ, no. I can’t believe-’

‘Did you tell anyone else about your conversation with Tom?’

‘No . . . Wait, yes. Teddy Vexx saw us together at the bar downstairs last night, and he asked me later what we were talking about.’

‘Where’s Vexx tonight?’

‘I dunno. Troy said he had a job on. I’d better ring my dad. If that stupid bastard-’

‘Better still,’ Brock said, putting the car into gear,‘let’s pay him a visit.’

As he drove, Kathy called for back-up, and a patrol car joined them on Blackheath, leading them fast under lights and siren as far as the turn-off into Shooters Hill, where Brock overtook and led the way to the gates of The Glebe, which were open. They drove into the central courtyard where they saw a car parked askew outside Magdalen’s parents’ house, whose front door was standing open.

‘That’s Mum’s car,’ Magdalen said, and jumped out and ran to the house, the others following. Inside they found Magdalen’s mother Adonia kneeling beside a chair on which Spider Roach was sprawled.She was holding a glass of water and a bottle of pills.Every light in the room was on, including the garish central chandelier, and the old man looked pale and sick in the dazzling illumination. Adonia rose to her feet as they ran in, saw the uniformed men and said,‘You took your time.’

As Magdalen ran to her mother, Brock said,‘What happened?’

‘We had a robbery, that’s what. Some bastard broke in here and started going through the place.’ She gestured at a cabinet with drawers hanging open.

‘Shut it,’ Roach croaked from his seat.

Adonia misunderstood.‘I’ll tidy up later, Dad.’

Kathy was sniffing the air.‘Someone’s fired a gun in here.’

‘I noticed a smell when I came in,’ Adonia agreed.‘I know the man was hurt. Ivor got a call from his security men and came first, then Dad wasn’t well and I brought him home.’

‘So where are they now?’ Brock said.

‘Hospital, I suppose . . .’

‘Shut it, you stupid cow!’ Roach’s voice lashed her like a slap, and she blinked in surprise. He had hauled himself upright and was beating the air with a claw-like hand.‘My daughter-in-law is confused. There was no burglar. Nobody’s been hurt.’

‘But Dad . . .’ Her voice faded as he glared at her.

‘You seemed to be expecting us,’Brock said.‘Did you ring for the police?’

‘Well, no. I assumed Ivor would have . . .’ The expression froze on Adonia’s face as she finally understood what was going on. ‘Dad’s right. I must have got it all wrong.’

‘Did you see him,Mum?’Magdalen cried.‘Did you see the man?’

Her mother frowned,shook her head.‘I got it wrong.’

‘No you didn’t,’ Brock said. ‘Where did they go, Spider? Where did they take him?’

Roach turned to Brock with a sneer on his mouth. Brock recognised the expression, the curl of the lip, full-blooded and terrifying once, still with the power to chill.

Brock turned to Adonia.‘What car was Ivor driving?’

She shrugged and turned away.

‘Adonia, tell me.You have to stop this.’ Getting no response, he hesitated then said,‘We found Robbie Forrest’s body.’

She turned slowly back to him, her eyes huge with surprise. ‘Robbie?’

‘Yes. He was one of the three bodies we found recently, buried on the railway land behind Cockpit Lane. He died in 1981. Didn’t you know?’

She shook her head in slow motion.

‘No, well, Ivor didn’t want you to know, of course.’

‘Shut up!’ Spider barked again.‘You keep your evil-’

‘Where are they?’ Brock repeated, and the old man’s mouth snapped closed.

‘What do you mean, about Ivor?’ Adonia said.

‘He murdered Robbie, shot him in the head, him and his two friends. I think you know why.’

‘You’re lying.’ She turned away, her hand on the gold pendant at her throat.

‘What car is Ivor driving?’he demanded,and when she still said nothing, he said, this time with a sigh of regret, ‘Does Magdalen know, Adonia?’

‘Know what?’Magdalen said.‘What is all this? Who’s Robbie Forrest?’

‘Nothing,’ her mother said.‘Nobody.’

‘Your father, Magdalen,’ Brock said, and as Adonia shook her head and began to speak he went on, ‘Six foot tall, left-handed, Jamaican.We believe he had a gold tooth.’

Adonia looked stunned.‘What do you mean, believe?’

‘Part of his remains were missing. But we’ve done tests on his DNA and Magdalen’s. He was her father.’

‘Mum?’ Magdalen was staring in horror at her mother, whose eyes were filling with tears.

Adonia turned to her father-in-law.‘You knew?’

Roach glared back at her defiantly.‘You stupid bitch. A nigger! A man as black as your sin.You Greek whore!’

‘What are you saying?’ Magdalen cried. She grabbed Brock’s arm.‘What are you saying?’

‘Ivor Roach murdered your father, who was having an affair with your mother, and now he’s murdering your boyfriend Tom.’

Magdalen gazed at him, then whispered,‘A black guy?’

Brock nodded.

‘I knew. I think I’ve always known.’ She stared in horror at her mother, who was frantically turning over in her fingers the golden heart on its chain around her throat. ‘You told me he gave it to you when I was born . . .’ She blinked as if shaking herself awake from a dream.Then she turned to Brock and said,‘I think I know where they’ve taken Tom.’

‘No!’ Spider roared, his rage lifting him out of his chair, but he couldn’t stop Magdalen, who went on.

‘There’s an old car yard . . . in Tallow Square.’

‘I know it,’Kathy said.‘You’ve been inside,haven’t you? You’d better come with us.You might be able to help.’

‘I’m coming too,’ Adonia said, and to her daughter, ‘You’ll need a coat, come on.’

Brock gave hurried instructions to the two patrol officers to secure the house and make sure Spider didn’t use a phone, and to call for an armed response vehicle to meet them at Tallow Square. While he was talking,Kathy went after the two women.She heard them in a back room, voices raised, then they were hurrying out, pulling on their coats, and they ran to the car.

There was no sign of the ARV when they turned into the mean little square. Magdalen pointed out Vexx’s Peugeot, and described the layout of the place.‘The entrance is down the laneway there. There’s a big old shed on this side, and beyond it what used to be the workshop.They …’she hesitated,‘store stuff there.’

‘Drugs?’

‘Yeah. There’s a regular little laboratory at the back. And they have two bloody great pitbulls. Savage, they are.’

‘We’ll wait till help gets here,’ Brock said.

‘No,’ Magdalen said. ‘They’re murdering Tom in there. I’m going in.They won’t hurt me.’She pulled open the car door,ignoring their cries.Then Adonia,too,was tumbling out of the door and chasing after her daughter.

Kathy said,‘I’ll stop them,’ and followed, running towards the mouth of the lane. She heard the ARV skidding into the square behind her as the two women disappeared into the shadows.

There was a huge old battered metal sliding door with a small wicket-gate set into the side of the shed, and a speaker and keypad hidden inside an old fuse box bolted to the wall beside it. As Kathy caught up with them Magdalen pressed the button. From inside the building they heard the muffled scream of an electric motor, like a drill or a circular saw, which was abruptly cut as Magdalen began to speak.

‘Dad? Dad, it’s me, Magdalen. Open the door, will you? It’s important. I need to talk to you.’

There was a moment’s silence, then the small door clicked. Magdalen pushed and it swung open and she stepped inside, followed by her mother and Kathy. They waited, their eyes adjusting to the dim light reflected off the high cobwebby ceiling from striplights beyond a low partition.

Magdalen called out,‘Dad? Are you there?’

A door opened in the partition and Ivor Roach stood silhouetted against the light.‘Magdalen? What are you doing here? Who’s that with you?’

He came towards them. He was in his shirtsleeves and wearing a bloodstained apron, a gun hanging in his right hand at his side. Behind him, Kathy made out the bulky figure of Teddy Vexx in the doorway, and beyond him, in a pool of brilliant light, a white foot on a table.

‘It’s me, Ivor,’ Adonia said. ‘And this is someone from the police. I brought her here.’

‘You what?’ Ivor Roach advanced closer, peering at them in disbelief. ‘You brought a copper here? You stupid bitch . . .’ He raised his gun to Kathy.

‘It’s all right. She’s got something she wants to tell you.’

Kathy’s mouth was dry. She swallowed, took a breath.

‘Go on.’Adonia urged her.‘What your boss said to us.Tell him.’

Roach looked puzzled.

‘I …’Kathy cleared her throat with a cough.‘We were telling them that we’ve been running tests on the three bodies we found buried behind Cockpit Lane.We’ve established that one of them was Magdalen’s natural father. His name was Robbie Forrest.’

Roach’s mouth opened, but he didn’t speak.

Magdalen said,‘They say you killed my real dad.Is that true?’

Roach slowly shook his head, looking from his daughter to his wife.‘Of course not. How could she know that?’

‘The bullets were fired by a pistol, a nine-millimetre Browning,’Kathy said.‘It was used again a couple of years later in a car hijack, fired by your brother Ricky.’

‘It is true, isn’t it?’ Adonia said. ‘Your dad confirmed it. He knew all about it.’

‘Hey, darling . . .’ Ivor began to step forward, lifting his free hand in a supplicating gesture.

Out of the corner of her eye Kathy saw Adonia pull something from her coat pocket and point it at her husband. It was a gun, she saw,swaying precariously in the woman’s hands.Ivor saw it too,and an incredulous look came over his face.‘Adonia . . .’he said,and was abruptly silenced by a tremendous bang that reverberated through the metal shed, then a second. For a moment Ivor stared at Adonia in astonishment, then his knees buckled and he fell flat on his face.

Now there was the crash of boots and shouts as men burst in through the door behind them. Kathy took the pistol from Adonia’s hand, and the woman reached to her throat, unfastened her pendant and threw it at her husband’s body.

They sent two people to the meeting, the smooth and the rough. The smooth was MI5, Brock was fairly sure, and the rough a copper, a senior figure from Special Branch. They were there representing the Organised Crime Liaison Group. Facing them were Commander Sharpe and Brock, and the meeting was held in the Scotland Yard headquarters at 10 Broadway and chaired by an Assistant Commissioner.

Brock and Sharpe had been up all night, managing the aftermath of the Tallow Square incident.There had been the hunt across South London for Vexx and Crocker, who had escaped from the rear of the building while the three armed police were being tackled by the pitbulls.There had also been the first interviews with Adonia Roach, who appeared to have been liberated from years of intimidation and fear by her act of murder, and had begun talking about the activities of her husband and his brothers in an adrenaline rush. Like Magdalen, she was convinced that Ivor had had her pendant made from her lover’s golden tooth, and had made her wear it all those years as a vindictive act of revenge. Then there was the forensic information coming in from the crime scenes, not to mention the search of Ivor and Adonia Roach’s house and of the crack factory they found at Tallow Square. And there was Tom Reeves, on the critical list after three hours of emergency surgery.

Despite their lack of sleep, Sharpe was in good form, as if wading through murder scenes in the middle of the night had reawakened some long-dormant feeling for a life of action. Now he ignored the barbed inquiry from the pair from OCLG as to Brock’s status and launched into a spirited description of the night’s activities that left them momentarily speechless. Finally, Smooth conceded that there had been a JIC-sanctioned operation involving the Roach family, but refused to go into details. Sharpe responded that in that case he would feel free to instruct Brock to pursue his investigations which, in the light of Adonia Roach’s revelations and material found in her home, would undoubtedly embroil the whole family. Rough broke his silence at that point, bursting with fury at what had happened.

‘They were giving us everything,’ he protested.‘Every drug lab in London, every dealer, every importer. They had it all, and they were giving it to us! This is a total disaster.’

‘Then you shouldn’t have tried to use us as puppets,’Sharpe said coldly.‘I’ve got one officer at death’s door, another . . .’ he indicated Brock,‘…with his reputation in tatters,and a missing Member of Parliament whose life has been ruined.’

‘Oh,come now,’Smooth said with a pained air,‘nobody asked Reeves to try to burgle the Roach house, and I really don’t think that anyone questions DCI Brock’s reputation. As for Michael Grant, well, that was Roach’s price, in the end. And let’s face it, Grant was a troublemaker, out of control. He was regarded as a menace in the House, and he was never going to leave Roach alone. He was simply beyond reason.’

Brock spoke for the first time. ‘They had murdered his brother,’ he said quietly.

‘So you say. But you have no proof, have you?’

‘We’ll see.’

The Assistant Commissioner stepped in. Perhaps, now that everything was out in the open, some way forward might be considered? Might it not still be possible to gain the information from the Roaches, who, after all, must be even more anxious than before to do a deal? Smooth thought this a constructive approach, although Rough was obviously still seething. After considerable discussion, it was agreed to share operational information daily and include Sharpe in the OCLG control group.The meeting broke up with handshakes and in a mood, at least to outward appearances, of conciliation and cooperation.

The following morning, Saturday, Kathy was wrenched from sleep by the phone ringing. She stumbled through the dark and fumbled the receiver. It was Brock, calling from the hospital where he had been with Tom.

‘Oh . . .’ The curtains were drawn and she had no idea if it was night or day. It seemed only minutes since she had been there herself at Tom’s bedside,and she could still smell the hospital.‘Any change?’

Still critical but stable, Brock said, and really as good as could be hoped for, given the terrible injuries compounded by loss of blood. Even if he survived the next few days, they still weren’t sure if they could save his legs.

Kathy groaned. They hadn’t mentioned that to her. A wave of nausea rose inside her and she sat down heavily. She felt exhausted, unwilling to face it all again.Her eyes,adjusting to the gloom,made out pale light around the shape of the curtain.‘What time is it?’

‘Eight-twenty. Sorry, did I wake you? The reason I’m ringing is to tell you that I’m going to drive up to see Michael Grant today, and tell him what’s happened. So if there are any developments you’ll phone me on my mobile, will you?’

‘Yes, yes, of course. I’ll come back over to the hospital soon.’

‘Tom’s daughter and her mother are here at the moment. They seem a little better today. The forecast is fair. Should be a nice day for a drive into the country. I expect I’ll be home later tonight.’

‘Right. Have a nice trip.’

‘Thanks. Oh, one bit of news should appeal to you. I’ve just had the result of the tests on the gun Adonia used. It is Brown Bread.’

She opened the curtains and looked out on a dark morning sky, heavy with cloud.Ivor Roach,Brown Bread’s last victim.Brock was implying that there was justice in that, a kind of resolution, but she couldn’t really feel it. To her it just seemed as if all their digging around had brought some nasty dormant thing wriggling to the surface to create more pain and misery. What was the point of avenging those ancient deaths if it just caused more death, more anguish, more broken lives? She felt tired, so tired, and had to force herself under the shower to face the day.

She also didn’t fancy meeting Tom’s family at the hospital, and left her visit until mid-morning, by which time they’d gone. After an hour staring at his motionless, mummified form she felt restless and decided to get some fresh air with a walk along the river. She made her way down to the ground floor and had barely cleared the entrance doors when she was stopped by a cry.

‘Kathy!’

She turned and saw Martin Connell running towards her, his coat flapping, hair flying in the wind. He looked pale, eyes pouchy, and she guessed he hadn’t had much sleep either in the past forty-eight hours.

‘Thank God,’ he gasped.‘Where’s Brock?’

His abruptness startled her. ‘Hi, good morning to you too, Martin.’

‘Sorry.’ He took a deep breath, pulling himself up with a visible effort, and put on an unconvincing smile. He was agitated, blinking rapidly and she noticed a tremor in his cheek.‘Kathy, this is terribly important.’ He took hold of her arm, gulping for air as if he were drowning.‘Do you know where he is? Is he inside? I haven’t been able to find him.’

‘No, he’s not here.What on earth is wrong?’

‘I have to see him, Kathy. It’s very urgent!’

‘Well, I’m afraid you can’t, not until tonight anyway, or maybe tomorrow.’

Martin’s face looked so racked that she added, ‘He’s gone to North Wales to speak to Michael Grant. But you can reach him on his mobile. Here’s the number-’

‘No, that’s no good! I have to speak to him in person. North Wales?’He shook his head as if this were impossible.‘Where? Do you know where?’

Kathy hesitated, thrown by Martin’s obvious alarm. ‘Grant’s staying in a cottage out in the country somewhere, I don’t know exactly where.’

‘You must!’

‘Martin,’ she said, exasperated now, ‘Brock got the directions himself from the friend of Michael’s who owns the place. I wasn’t really paying attention. Surely someone else can help?’

He shook his head desperately.‘How long ago did he leave?’

‘Oh, three hours, but-’ ‘Maybe I can go after him.Who is this friend?’

‘He’s a builder. But why-’

‘Can you get hold of him?’

‘I do have his phone number, but-’

‘Ring him, please. Get the directions from him.’

‘Not until you tell me what this is all about.What’s going on?’

‘Kathy, please. I just have to get to Brock, now, today, as soon as possible. It’s a matter of life and death. Believe me, please.’

She’d never seen him like this, panicky and wild, clutching his coat about him, looking more like a beggar or a mugging victim than a top criminal lawyer. She took out her phone and notebook, checked Wayne Ferguson’s home number and made the call. His wife answered. There had been an emergency of some kind at the building site and Wayne had had to go in.She gave Kathy his mobile number, but when she tried it she got his message service.

‘He’s gone to a building site,’she said.‘A supermarket.There’s been-’

She caught a look of alarm on Martin’s face, his eyes on something over her shoulder, and when she turned she found herself staring into the faces of the two remaining Roach brothers, Mark and Ricky. Close up, in the flesh, they were nothing like the remote images on the walls at Queen Anne’s Gate. Beefy men with heavy bodies and florid meaty faces, their father’s thin gene had bypassed them or been gorged out of existence.

‘You two having a cosy chat, or what?’ Mark said menacingly. ‘Who was she phoning, Martin?’

‘It’s all right,’Martin gabbled.‘I’ve found out where he is.She was trying to get directions . . .’

‘Where is he then?’

Kathy stared at Martin. He forced his eyes away, to the two men. ‘He’s gone to North Wales, to see Grant. He’s hiding up there.’

‘Oh yeah?’ The brothers exchanged a calculating look, then one glanced back over his shoulder at a group coming down the footpath towards them, and said, ‘Let’s go into the car park.’ He took hold of Kathy’s arm and gripped tight. She tried to wrench free and he said, ‘Don’t be stupid or we’ll have to hurt you.’ His brother took the other arm and they frogmarched her towards the parking building, Martin tagging along behind.

They walked up ramps and along aisles lined with deserted vehicles until they came to a black Mercedes luxury off-roader. Inside, Kathy made out the profile of Spider Roach, and saw him turn his cadaverous pale face towards them as they approached.

‘Now,’ Mark said as his brother pushed Kathy hard up against a concrete column.‘What’s the story?’

Kathy said nothing,and Martin immediately responded.‘He left about three hours ago.The place is a cottage in the countryside.She doesn’t know the address, so I got her to phone the owner, a friend of Grant’s,but we couldn’t get through.He’s a builder and he’s been called out to a site. A supermarket, right, Kathy?’

He looked at her, appealing with his eyes.

‘What are you doing, Martin?’ she said.

‘They’ve got Lynne, Kathy, my wife. I spoke to her, she’s hysterical. Vexx and Crocker have got her.’

‘We’re not too impressed with old Martin here at the moment,’ Mark said, and gave the solicitor a playful punch on the upper arm that made him shudder.‘Sleeping with the enemy is what we hear.’ He pointed an accusing finger at Kathy.‘That right,darling?’

Kathy just stared back. She wondered if it was Tom who’d planted that little seed in their minds.

‘Tell them, Kathy!’ Martin begged.‘Tell them it isn’t true!’

‘It isn’t true.’

Mark gave a chuckle.

‘What do you want?’ Kathy asked.

‘Dad wants to talk to Brock, about what happened to our brother.You too.’

‘You didn’t say anything about her,’ Martin protested.‘You said it was Brock you wanted.’

‘A supermarket, did you say?’ Mark mused.

‘That’ll be Ferguson,’ Ricky said. ‘The one we spoke to before. In Walworth.’

Mark nodded and opened the vehicle door and got in beside his father. Kathy watched them talking, then turned back to Martin.

‘When did this happen, with Lynne?’

‘I was playing golf, not much more than an hour ago. I got this phone call. I had to drive over here. They . . .’ he glanced at Ricky, still gripping Kathy’s arm, so close to her that she could smell the fried onions on his breath and feel the hard lump of the gun under his jacket when he turned,‘. . . they’d tried Brock’s house, but he wasn’t there. They wanted me to find him, and persuade him to come out to the car. They say they just want to talk . . .’

Kathy stared at him and the words died in his throat.

She turned to Ricky. ‘What happened to Ivor wasn’t Brock’s doing.We just wanted Tom Reeves back.’

Ricky gave her a bleak look and said,‘If you say another word I’ll smash your face in.’

Mark got out of the car and came over. He took Kathy’s shoulder bag and searched her pockets, taking her mobile phone, which he switched off before throwing the lot into the boot of the Merc.

‘Okay,’ he said,‘get in.’

‘Hey,Mark,’Martin protested,without much conviction.‘You don’t need her. Let her go, eh?’

They shouldered past him without replying, pushing Kathy into the back alongside Spider, with Ricky close behind. Mark turned back to Martin and pointed at his chest. ‘You-go home now and wait. Don’t do anything stupid and maybe, just maybe, our black brothers won’t be too rough with your missus, right?’

Kathy caught a glimpse of him as the car reversed out and roared away, standing in the roadway, clutching his coat around him as if he were freezing to death.

They drove through Saturday morning shopping streets, past mean brick terraces and concrete tower blocks. After a while, Spider spoke to Kathy for the first time. He didn’t change his posture, staring stiffly ahead, but growled, ‘Vexx told me what happened Thursday night. Now I want to hear your version.’

Kathy told him, briefly, without elaboration.

He nodded and said, ‘Now tell me what Adonia’s been telling you.’

She told him some of it, omitting things that they hadn’t yet been able to follow up. The old man said no more.

An ambulance was leaving as they swung into the lane leading to the building site. They spotted Wayne Ferguson climbing the steps into his site hut and Mark parked the car and got out. Ricky followed,pulling Kathy out.As she straightened,she found the nose of a gun in her face, Mark’s index finger curled around the trigger.

‘Behave,’he said,‘or people will get hurt.’He pushed the gun hard into her side and together the two men steered her through the site gates and up to the foreman’s hut. As she stepped inside Wayne Ferguson turned and began a smile that froze as he took in the others at her back.

‘What do you want?’

Ricky stayed with Kathy while Mark advanced on Ferguson, pointing the gun at his chest.

‘Jesus!’ The builder’s eyes widened.

‘You’re going to take us to your cottage,Wayne. Give me your mobile.’

As Wayne reached into his pocket,Kathy said,‘You don’t need him. Just get him to draw you a map.’

‘Don’t be soft.’Mark kept his eyes on Wayne as he handed over the phone.‘We might take a wrong turning,and anyway,we don’t want him talking to anybody once we’re gone, do we?’

They made their way out of the hut, Mark taking up the rear. As they walked towards the gate a man in a hard hat and boots came hurrying up.

‘Oh, Mick,’ Wayne said, and Kathy felt herself and the two Roach brothers stiffen.‘Will you be all right now? I have to go.’

‘That’s fine,Wayne.Everything’s sorted.See you tomorrow.’

The man marched away and they continued to the Merc. Wayne was prodded into the front with Mark, Kathy as before in the back between Spider and Ricky.

‘So,’Mark said,‘M6 is it?’

‘Yeah.’Wayne was chewing his lip, face taut.

‘Just relax,Wayne,’ Mark said soothingly.‘Put your seatbelt on and relax. Everything’s going to be fine, as long as you two behave yourselves, okay?’

‘Yeah, sure.’

‘Lovely day for a trip to the country, eh?’

As they cleared London and headed north on the motorway, Mark switched on the radio, occasionally tapping his fingers on the wheel in time to the music. He showed no signs of being unduly distressed at having lost a brother, unlike Ricky, who seemed dangerously angry and morose. Mark made several calls on his mobile phone as he was driving, though Kathy couldn’t hear much of what was said. From time to time he would light a cigarette, and Kathy was reminded of family outings when she was small. Her father was a heavy smoker, and as soon as he lit up she would feel the nausea rise in her throat, as automatically as if someone had thrown a switch.

Apart from Mark, hardly anyone spoke.

‘So what’s this place of yours like then, Wayne? Give us the picture.’

Wayne had sunk into himself, and took a moment to answer.

‘It’s small-living room, kitchen, two bedrooms. Stone walls, with a slate roof, couple of hundred years old.’

‘Nice. Got a view, has it?’

‘Yes. It looks out to Moel Fammau.’

‘What’s that then?’

‘It’s a mountain, the highest point in the Clwydian Range. From the top you can see Snowdon.’

‘So it’s wild country? Neighbours?’

‘Not really. A couple of farms about a quarter mile in each direction along the lane. The village is half a mile away, down in the valley.’

‘Much traffic on the lane?’

‘None. It isn’t made up and doesn’t lead anywhere. It stops at the last farm, at the top of the hill.’

‘Sounds ideal,’ Mark said, but didn’t say what for.

Wayne glanced back over his shoulder at Kathy and she understood the message in his eyes. She was the professional, wasn’t she? This was what she had been trained for. Why didn’t she do something? But she knew there was little she could do. The Roaches were watchful, and they had done this sort of thing before. Wayne and Kathy were following in the footsteps of the Brown Bread victims.

The traffic grew heavy around Birmingham, and several times the motorway came to a total stop. Mark began to drum his fingers impatiently, and Kathy recalled Wayne’s comment to Brock about getting there before dark. With any luck, Brock would have left before they arrived.

‘How long’s this going to take?’ Ricky said. It was the first time anyone had asked, and when Wayne said, ‘Another two or three hours,’ Ricky said,‘Fuck!’ with disgusted surprise, as if he’d imagined the rest of the UK as a narrow fringe just beyond the London boundary. Maybe they flew everywhere.

‘I’m hungry,’ Ricky said.‘When are we getting lunch?’

Another echo of childhood, her final car journey doomed to be a dark reflection of her first.

‘Let’s stop at the next service station for a burger,’ Ricky said.

Good idea, Kathy thought. She saw Wayne stir hopefully.

‘No way. We keep going,’ Mark said, but he was wrong, for his father made a rare sound. ‘I’ll need to pay a visit, son, and get a drink for my pills.’

Mark grunted reluctantly.‘Okay, Dad. There’s a place coming up soon, if this fucking traffic would get a move on.’

They turned into the Birmingham North service area, and as soon as the car slowed to a crawl in the car park,Wayne Ferguson slipped his seatbelt, yanked at the door handle and threw himself against the door. Nothing happened. Mark laughed. He pulled to a stop.

‘Child-proof locks, old chum.’ He pulled the gun out of his pocket and pressed it into the other man’s side. Ricky did the same with Kathy.

‘Okay, Dad?’ Mark said, and released the locks. The old man got out stiffly and hobbled off, and the locks clicked again.

‘Actually,I need the toilet too,’Kathy said.‘Urgently.’

‘Shut up,’ Ricky hissed, as if he was desperate for an excuse to do something violent. Kathy shut up.

Spider returned, got back into the car and handed chocolate bars and bottles of juice to his sons. They set off again, and as they moved north of the Black Country they came upon the first dustings of white over the fields on either side. By Newcastleunder-Lyme it was thick all around, great banks of brown snow piled on the motorway verges, and in the fields beyond black tree skeletons stood stark against dazzling white beneath a dull grey shroud of sky. It looked as if the falls had been very recent, and slush and grit was sprayed over them by the traffic they overtook as they sped up the outside lane.

‘When do we turn off?’ Mark demanded, and Wayne said, ‘Best to keep going until we reach the M56. That’s the quickest way.’

Slowly, imperceptibly, the sky was getting darker, though whether this was due to bad weather ahead or the approach of evening was hard to tell. Everyone had headlights on.

They reached the complicated spaghetti of the M56 junction at last, and turned westward, across the lowlands of the Mersey and Dee estuaries, skirting Chester, and then leaving the dual highways for a quieter country of bilingual signs and odd-sounding places- Gwernymynydd, Nercwys and Pant-y-mwyn. An ambulance coming the other way carried the slogan AMBIWLANS, and Mark snorted,‘Can’t they fucking spell up here?’ Nobody laughed. He lit another cigarette, cracking his window open a fraction to let out the smoke.

Wayne directed them onto ever-narrower roads, until at last they saw the dark spike of a church spire up ahead, and beyond it a tiny pub and a corner store.

‘This is the village,’ he said. He was looking anxiously at the heavily laden white roofs and hedgerows.‘They’ve had fresh snow. Lots, by the look of it.’

They slowed to a crawl until Wayne pointed to a break in the bank on the left.‘That’s the lane.’

‘Blimey, just as well we got four-wheel drive.’

Which Brock didn’t, Kathy thought in despair. In their headlights the lane climbed steeply up the hillside,hard to make out among the rolling white mounds of undisturbed snow. Nothing had been up or down this way since the last snowfall. Mark was swearing as he pushed the pitching vehicle through the drifts, trying to keep the momentum, speeding up over a sheltered stretch in the lee of a tall bank, then plunging into deep snow on the far side. They came upon a car abandoned beneath a tree, roof covered with snow,and Kathy recognised it as Brock’s.The lane got steeper, the snow deeper, and finally the front of the Merc lurched alarmingly up into space and came crashing down into a deep drift and stalled. Ahead of them, through the frantically thumping wipers, they could see a cottage, snuggling into the white folds of the hillside, flickering orange lights glowing from its two front windows like eyes,a pale column of smoke rising from its chimney. Beyond it,a dark ridge of woods was almost indistinguishable in the gloom of twilight.

‘There it is,’Wayne said, in a flat voice.

‘Right. In we go then.You two lead the way, and don’t try anything ’cos we’re right behind you.You want to stay here, Dad?’

‘No way,’ Spider growled.‘I’ve got to be there.’

The sudden shock of cold air stung their faces as they heaved the doors open against the snow. As she slid across the seat, Kathy reached into her pocket for her wallet, which she tucked into a corner of the upholstery. Then they were out in the snow, struggling in it up to their hips.Wayne, still in his site boots, was the only one remotely dressed for this,and they heaved and swore until they managed to clamber through to the shallower snow beyond the drift. The path to the front door gradually became easier, and they could make out signs of snow having been cleared around the cottage, and of human tracks leading to the back. There was some kind of outbuilding, and a mound of snow beneath which the wheel of another vehicle was visible.

They trudged forward, the smell of wood smoke in their lungs, their panting breath forming clouds. As they approached the door, solid braced timber with iron bolts, it swung open, and for a moment the scene froze in the light spilling out of the room as Michael Grant took in the group in front of him. Then Wayne started forward at a run, as if to get into the shelter of the cottage. There was a sharp bang, and he staggered and fell forward into his friend’s arms. Mark shoved his way in after them, pushing them aside, while Ricky jabbed Kathy forward into the doorway. Ahead of her she could see Mark peering through a door on the far side of the room, waving his gun.

‘Where’s Brock?’ he was yelling.‘Where the fuck is Brock?’

Michael Grant was kneeling on the floor, Wayne prone in his arms, while Jennifer Grant sat stunned in an armchair beside the fire, eyes wide with fright. Mark marched across to her and pointed the gun at her head and bellowed at her husband.

‘Pay attention! Where is Brock? Tell me or I’ll blow her fucking head off!’

Michael looked confused. He seemed transfixed by the blood on his hands, oozing over his jeans. He blinked rapidly, looking up and seeing the terror in his wife’s eyes.

Kathy spoke,trying to sound calm.‘Michael,is Brock not here?’

He gulped at her, then stared at the empty door beyond Mark Roach, and said,‘Er, no. He . . . went out.’

‘Out?’ Mark screamed.‘Where?’

‘To . . . to the village. The electricity failed.’

Mark stared at him in disbelief, then turned to his father, who was shuffling towards the other armchair by the fire. The old man didn’t look well after his struggle through the snow, with Ricky half-carrying him much of the way. He slumped into the seat and swore under his breath.

Mark pointed his gun at Kathy. ‘Close the door. Now, sit on the floor, over there.’ He pointed towards Michael and Wayne,

who was feebly coughing up blood.

Kathy did as he said.

‘Now,’ Mark went on, turning to his brother. ‘Have another look back there and make sure I didn’t miss anything. And get Dad some water.’

Ricky nodded and went off, gun in hand.

‘Wayne . . .’ Michael said.‘He needs help.’

‘Shut up!’ Mark’s scream, its message of violence barely contained, shocked Michael into silence. ‘Brock can’t have gone. We didn’t see any tracks in the lane coming up here.Where is he?’

‘There’s a path across the fields. It’s easier for walking, you don’t get the drifts like you do in the lane.’

Mark narrowed his eyes at Michael, unsure whether to believe him.‘When did he leave?’

‘About half an hour ago. He should be back soon.’

‘With people?’

‘No, alone. He went for more paraffin-for the lamps-and some wine for dinner.’

Kathy reached across to get a better look at Wayne, but Mark yelled at her to stay still.As she straightened,her eyes met Michael’s, and for a moment his confused, frightened air was gone, and she thought she saw some message in the hard look he gave her.

Ricky returned with a glass of water.‘There’s no sign of him.’

‘Right. Then we wait.Which direction is the path?’

Michael pointed to the side.

‘We’ll need someone out there to watch for him,’ Mark said. ‘That’s you, Ricky.’

‘You’re kidding. My feet are soaking wet.’ He stared down at his trainers and the damp legs of his jeans below the knees. ‘I’m freezing,’ he muttered.

‘Yeah, well, we’re all like that. There’s some boots by the back door, and you’ll probably find dry socks in the bedroom. Get some for Dad and me as well.’

Ricky went out again, looking meaner and angrier with each passing minute.

‘See if you can find something to tie them up with while you’re at it,’ Mark called after him.

Brock was regretting the whole thing, the long drive up north, the skid into the ditch, and now this ridiculous expedition on foot down to the deserted village. He’d arrived at lunchtime, and after the accident in the lane had trudged up to the cottage carrying the bag of food he’d bought at the supermarket deli outside Chester.As soon as Michael opened the door he sensed the mood of dark gloom inside. The escape to the country clearly hadn’t restored their spirits,and both Michael and Jennifer looked worn and deeply depressed, as if the isolation had only compressed and intensified their misery.

While Jennifer set about preparing lunch, Michael explained that they’d have to wait to ask one of the neighbouring farmers for a tractor to pull Brock’s car out of the ditch. One was in Liverpool for the day, the other in Wrexham. Then the snow started again, light and picturesque at first, then unbelievably dense. Not long after, the electricity failed. This apparently was not uncommon. The truck with heating oil had been unable to negotiate the ice-bound lane earlier in the week, and the tank was empty, so they hauled logs in from the pile in the backyard and stoked up the fire and made themselves as comfortable as they could. The air of mild emergency actually seemed to lift their spirits a little.

Brock told them about the events in London, which they hadn’t heard about. Michael confirmed Brock’s suspicion, that his brother Robbie had warned him before he disappeared that the Roaches were after him, though he hadn’t said why, and Michael had always believed they had killed him. Michael gave a bitter laugh at the idea that he and the Roaches could be said to be related, and that he was the uncle of Spider’s granddaughter, and although he drew some grim satisfaction from the twist that had led to Ivor Roach’s death, the story of violence, especially in relation to Tom Reeves, only deepened their despairing mood again.When Brock told him that he had seen Abigail Lavender, who had told him the truth about the killing of the policeman in Kingston, Michael shook his head sadly.

‘That would be the authorised version,’ he said, ‘put about by my grandmother. I’m afraid the real truth was less palatable. The two cops came after us, as Abigail told you, and when the second one cornered us I was paralysed with fear. Earl’s blow only made him stumble, but he did drop his gun. I picked it up and pointed it at him. He put up his hands in surrender. He was barely older than me, and now he was the terrified one. His fear changed me. Suddenly my hands, which had been shaking so violently that I could hardly hold the pistol, became steady. I shot him three times, quite deliberately, as if at a tree stump. It was cold-blooded murder, and I have relived that moment every day since. I have tried to atone for it, but nothing can.’

When the snow stopped, Brock had an overwhelming urge to get out into the fresh air and walk. Their stock of paraffin for the lamps was running low, and he suggested going down to the village for that and a bottle of wine, since it seemed he was going to have to spend the night there with them. Michael was reluctant to leave Jennifer alone without electricity, and described the easier trail down to the valley. At first, the walk across the pristine fields was exactly what Brock needed. He tried to phone Suzanne to describe the scene as he tramped through the snow, but there was no signal. Then the path moved into the woods, and the going became more uneven, and the route slower and harder to make out among the mounds of dead bracken and leaves, the fallen branches and the drifts of snow. The light filtering down through the tangle of branches overhead was becoming dimmer, and it occurred to him that he had left his walk rather late in the afternoon. By the time he finally emerged onto the road at the edge of the village, he was wondering if he would be able to find the route back up the way he’d come.

There seemed to be no one around. The lack of electric lights reinforced the impression of abandonment. The pub was closed and Brock had almost given up when he spied lamplight through the window of the general store. The door was locked, but his knock brought out Mrs Hughes. She told him apologetically that there had been a run on paraffin and all she had left was a single half-gallon can. He bought that, and some candles and matches. There was no wine.

As he made to return he happened to glance at the entrance to the lane further down across the road, and noticed what looked like wide vehicle tracks sweeping into it. When he went to investigate he saw two clear paths of hard-packed snow leading up the hill. With relief he began a quick march up one of them, hoping to get back before the darkness was total.

He came to his car but didn’t stop, pressing on along the line cleared by the Roaches’two-tonne vehicle,which he assumed must have been made by one of the farmers. Then, as he approached the turn into the cottage yard, he saw it, lurched at an angle in the deepest drift, and his heart thumped as he remembered the same model in the shadows of the courtyard by his house, the night that Spider and Mark Roach came to call.

He carefully placed the rustling plastic bag with his purchases on the snow, and approached the car as silently as he could, ears straining for sounds. When he reached it, he brushed the snow from the back window and saw the name Roach Motors on a small sticker in the corner. He could see from the disturbed snow around it that all four doors had been opened. The two Roach sons, he thought, and Spider. Who else? Hired help? Vexx? He moved cautiously around, peering into the dim interior. Something, a small dark rectangle, was lying on the back seat. The driver’s door wasn’t shut properly, and its window was open half an inch. He gripped the door handle and began to pull, then stopped, realising the interior light would come on and alert anyone watching.

How had they found him? He tried to think of the possibilities, but could only come up with Wayne Ferguson. No one else knew both that he’d be here and how to find the place.Was Ferguson the fourth man? And willingly or not? He crouched and moved carefully forward into sight of the cottage, and was alarmed to see no lights at the windows. Perhaps they’d closed the shutters, or put out the lamps. He kept absolutely still, taking shallow breaths, and finally heard the crump of a boot on snow.To the left of the cottage, he thought,and stared into the darkness until his eyes seemed to see movement everywhere. He blinked, turned away then back, and made out the shape of a dark figure against the stone corner of the building.

He badly wanted to get up to the cottage to see what was going on, and tried to picture its layout. The back door was a possibility, but then an image came into his mind of Michael sliding a bolt after they’d brought in the last armful of wood for the fire. The direct route to the cottage, by way of the drive curving around on the right, provided no cover, and he doubted that he could reach it without being seen or heard by the man on the outside.He needed an edge, some help. He assumed they wouldn’t have been stupid enough to leave any weapons in the car, but it was worth a look.

He noticed a hazel tree forming part of the hedge alongside the car. Its shoots grew long and straight from the stumps of earlier prunings, and he selected one and very slowly and carefully bent it until it split off with barely a whisper.At the driver’s door he fed the thin branch through the window and manoeuvred its end towards the light switch.He knew he had to get it just right-too big a push and the switch would go to the on position and light up the car even with the door closed. He was sweating despite the cold, and when the trembling sapling stick failed for the third time to connect with its target he wondered whether this was going to be possible. Then there was a click. He froze, but nothing happened. He eased the door open. No light came on and he slid inside.

He reached to the back and his hand connected with the dark rectangle he’d spotted on the seat, and he held the wallet up to his face. Careless, he thought, then opened it and stiffened as he recognised the familiar outline of the Metropolitan Police card and, even in the dim light reflected from the snow, Kathy’s picture.

He thought he understood now. Spider Roach had lost a son, and now he was going to wipe the slate clean. He only hoped that Kathy and Ferguson had made the journey alive.

Brock felt beneath the seats and in the side pockets, but came up with nothing. He reached for the glove compartment handle and opened it, then shut it sharply again as its light came on, but not before he’d seen a small box inside with the symbol of a bullet printed on it. He thought, then eased his coat off, draped it over the dash and glove box and opened the door, feeling inside. No gun, only books and the heavy little box, which he pulled out and pocketed.

He hauled his coat back on and tried his mobile again-still no signal. This was a time for cool, rational thought, but he didn’t feel cool or rational. Perhaps the sensible thing would be to run back down the lane and rouse Mrs Hughes, and use her phone to call for help. But where would help come from-Chester? Ruthin? It might take an hour, more. And what might happen in the meantime? No, their help was here. He was it. He got out of the car and recovered the plastic bag, pulling out the can of paraffin and the matches. He took them back to the car and began sprinkling the fluid over the beautiful leather seats, the dashboard, the thick carpets, ending with a trickle over the door ledge. He lit a match in his cupped hands and touched it to the sill, and a blue flame caught, then rippled brightly across the floor. Brock turned and started plunging through the thick snow to the left, partly screened from the cottage by the mounds of snow-covered bushes that surrounded a wide circular patch of clear flat snow, like a lawn, lying directly before the front door. His heart was pounding from the exertion as he strained to hear the reaction.

It didn’t take long. There was a shout-‘Hey, who’s there?’- and then a muffled exclamation and a hammering at the front door.Another yell:‘Mark,the car,the fucking car’s on fire!’Brock dropped to his knees behind a snow-mound.

The front door was thrown open, and he saw that the lights inside the cottage had been doused, although there was still the flicker of firelight. Mark said something in an angry rush and started running down the drive to the right, towards the car, gun in hand, leaving Ricky hovering around the open front door. Brock waited a moment, then rose to his feet and stepped though a patch of bracken with a loud crunch. Ricky saw him, and stepped forward, peering at his shape in the gloom.

‘You-stay where you are!’ Ricky was hurrying forward, brandishing his pistol at Brock who stood quite still. About a third of the way across the clear space between them there was a dull splintering sound as Ricky’s boot crunched down into the snow.

His next step produced a louder crack, and then he abruptly dropped, disappearing up to his chest through the snow. He gave a loud shriek as freezing water hit his skin. Ricky had discovered the pond.

Brock turned and plunged on around the perimeter of the pond towards the open front door while the Roach brothers bellowed at each other behind him.He reached it and was inside as the first shot banged into the stone wall beside his shoulder. He slammed the heavy door shut and a second shot thumped into it, but didn’t penetrate through. He slid the bolts home on the door and turned,gasping for breath,to scan the room.He saw four figures huddled on the floor to the left, a fifth rising out of a chair by the fire to the right. He recognised Spider, angular and gaunt, waving a fist at him and spluttering,‘You! . . .You!’, but apparently unarmed.

He ran across to the other group,against the wall in the shadow of the sideboard, and felt a jolt of relief to see movement and hear muffled sounds. He recognised Kathy’s blonde hair and as he bent closer saw a patch of brown adhesive bandage across her mouth.He stripped it off and she gulped air.

‘Spider . . .’ she gasped, and he turned to see the old man at the door, struggling to release the bolts. He ran back and tussled with him, dragging him bodily back to the other group.

Ricky had had trouble finding anything to tie up their prisoners with, and had made do with a length of electrical cable and some bandages and tape from a first-aid kit. Kathy and Michael were already untangling themselves and helping Jennifer. Brock was feeling for a pulse at Wayne Ferguson’s throat. He shook his head.‘Dead.’

‘That’s what you’ll be, Brock!’ Spider rasped, chest heaving.

Brock got up from Wayne’s body and went to search Spider’s pockets. He found nothing of use. ‘Kathy, see if you can tie him up before he does any more mischief.’ He started searching through the drawers of the sideboard, pulling out a carving set,

some glasses, a wooden breadboard.

‘What else have we got in here?’ he urged Michael Grant.

‘There are more knives in the kitchen, and some tools. Not much else. The axe is in the shed. There’s no gun.’

‘All I have is what I found in their car.’ Brock pulled out the box of ammunition.

Kathy had taken Spider to a chair and tied his hands behind him, then gone to one of the shuttered windows.‘Ricky’s on his hands and knees. Mark’s with him.What’s wrong with him?’

‘Soaking wet and frozen,’ Brock replied from the kitchen, where he and Michael were frantically searching cupboards. ‘He went through the ice on the pond, like I almost did this afternoon. It won’t be long before they come for us.’

He and Michael returned from the kitchen, carrying a box of tools.

‘They won’t save you,’ Spider said.

Kathy slammed the shutter closed. ‘Mark and Ricky are coming.’

There was a hammering at the door, a shout to open up.

‘Better do as they say,’ Spider went on. ‘It’s you we came for, Brock.You can save your friends. Do what the boys tell you.’

‘The way you saved Wayne Ferguson?’

‘You’ll burn in hell for what you did to my Ivor,’ Spider spat at him furiously. ‘I should have done for you years ago, when I chased that wife of yours away.’

Brock broke off his search of the toolbox and turned to stare at the old man.

‘That’s right,’Spider sneered at him,‘chased her out of town I did. Scared the living daylights out of her.’ He put on a pathetic whimper,‘ “Don’t touch me.You mustn’t hurt my baby.”Did you know she was pregnant, Brock? Eh? Eh?’

Michael Grant broke in, ‘Perhaps I can negotiate with them. After all, we’ve got a stalemate here.’

Spider cackled.‘Not for long.You can’t keep my boys out of here. Open the door now and beg for mercy. I’ll put in a good word for you . . . For some of you.’

Brock turned to Michael. ‘I think right now we need less of the MP and more of the boy from the Dungle.’

Michael stared at him, then nodded. ‘You’re right.’ His eyes dropped to the open toolbox.‘I remember a story my brother told me when I was a kid, about the boy who didn’t have a gun.’

There was renewed hammering on the door and angry shouts.

Kathy, peering through the crack in the window shutter to the left,said,‘I can see headlights.Someone else is coming.’

Brock hurried over to Kathy’s side and peered out. ‘You’re right. There’s another vehicle out there, turning into the drive.’

‘It’ll be the farmer up the hill,’ Michael said. He had pulled a cordless drill out of the toolbox and was groping through a case of drill bits, his fingers fumbling in his haste.

‘What’s he like?’

‘Almost seventy, about five foot six.’

‘Will he have a shotgun?’

‘They’ve just been to Liverpool, shopping,’ Michael said.

Brock groaned.‘My God, it’ll be a massacre.’

He heard the whine of the electric motor and turned to see Michael drilling a hole in the wooden breadboard, cursing under his breath about the battery not being charged. Brock hadn’t the faintest idea what he was trying to do, and the image was so bizarre that he called out,‘Michael,for God’s sake,this is no time for woodwork.’

Grant glanced at him with a tight smile, withdrew the drill, and reached for one of the bullets from the box. He lifted the board onto its edge and slid the bullet into the nine-millimetre

hole he’d drilled.

‘Ah.’ Brock looked doubtful.‘Was it a true story?’

Michael met his eye and said,‘I have no idea.’

Just then there was an explosion of shattering glass and splintering timber. They must have found tools, Brock thought- a tyre lever, the axe, a length of wood-whatever it was, they were using it to demolish the other window. Its wooden shutters were shivering and bulging as they worked outside. Brock and Kathy grabbed knives and a monkey wrench and stood each side of it, while Michael called his wife over to hold the breadboard upright on the table while he selected a hammer and a screwdriver from the toolbox.

The shutters burst open with a crash, and the figure of Mark Roach reared up into the void where the window had been. His feet were on the sill,one hand groping the side frame and the other waving his silver pistol. Behind him his brother was pushing him forward, screaming furiously. Brock and Kathy had been forced back by the swinging shutters, and Mark’s blazing eyes focused on Michael Grant and his wife directly in front of him. He gave a roar and lifted his gun. Brock watched helplessly as Michael held the point of the screwdriver against the back of the bullet in the board and smacked it with the hammer,like the firing pin of a gun.There was a loud explosion, but not from Mark Roach’s gun, which wavered for moment, then dropped as Mark toppled forward into the room. Michael gave a loud whoop, scrambled over him and launched himself through the window at Ricky,the hammer still in his hand.

Brock threw himself at the front door, heaved back the bolts, and ran outside.Michael and Ricky were struggling on the ground, and Brock jumped on Roach, pinning down his right arm while Michael held his left. Ricky squirmed under them, twisting his head from side to side. Then he suddenly stopped struggling. ‘Teddy,’ he said.

Brock and Michael both looked up to the figure standing silhouetted in the headlights of the newly arrived car, the bulky outline unmistakably that of Mr Teddy Vexx. From his right hand dangled the strap of the machine pistol he was carrying.

‘About bloody time,’ Ricky gasped.‘Kill these bastards for me, will you, please?’

‘My pleasure, Ricky,’ Vexx growled. He stepped forward and raised the gun.

There was a single loud report, and Vexx hesitated, then slowly turned. He looked blankly around him for a moment, then toppled backwards into the snow.

In the open doorway of the cottage Kathy lay prone upon the floor, Mark Roach’s silver pistol gripped in her hands. She got slowly to her feet,keeping the gun trained on the motionless figure of Vexx. As she came close, she saw his startled expression, eyes open, but moving not a muscle. She thought of the final scene of Breathless, Jean-Paul Belmondo lying just like that, flat out on his back in the street after being shot by the cops. Jean Seberg looks down at him and he opens his mouth and a curl of cigarette smoke rises into the air and he says . . .

‘Bitch,’ Vexx murmured.

Startled,Kathy stared down at him.Had he seen the movie too?

She put her mouth closer to his ear and said,‘That’s for Dana and Dee-Ann.’

Vexx’s glazed eyes focused momentarily on Kathy and he whispered,‘…still don’t get it.’Then he closed his eyes and died.