Trust No One

Chapter 28

She woke in pitch darkness, with a headache, a mouth that tasted like the wet sand where she’d struggled with Joe hours before, and an unaccountable sense of unease. It took her a moment to recognize where she was. After some blind searching, she found the curved shape of the bedside lamp. It took her another few seconds to find the switch, and then the room was flooded with light.

She lay back, her dazed mind piecing together the sequence of events that had brought her here. The police. The hotel. Joe. The beach. Salter. The sense of unease was mounting as her mind tracked through the incidents of the previous day.

Shit. Her handbag. She’d left it in the sitting room. She’d been too befuddled to think about it before going to bed, but it had been sitting by the side of her chair. With the data stick still tucked away in the lining. Shit.

She dragged herself slowly out of bed, trying to get her brain back into gear. She’d stripped off her clothes before climbing into bed and donned a fairly unflattering nightdress that had been left among a neat pile of clothes on the flat-pack dressing table. Now she caught sight of herself in the dressing table mirror. Nice taste, Hugh, she thought. But it could have been worse. She could imagine him contemplating some far more revealing outfit. She pulled the towelling dressing gown on over the top and turned to the door.

She’d been relieved to discover that there was a bolt on the inside. It wasn’t exactly that she didn’t trust Salter. Whatever she might think of him, she couldn’t imagine that he would force his attentions on her against her will. But, after everything she’d been through, she needed the sense of security.

Now, she slid the bolt back, and as silently as she could, opened the door. She hadn’t been asleep for long. Across the hallway, a light was still burning in the sitting room.

She took a noiseless step along the hall and peered through the doorway. Salter was still sitting on the sofa, side on to her, head down. Her handbag was open on his knee, and he was systematically sorting through the contents.

She considered walking into the room and challenging him. Instead, she continued silently past the sitting room and into the kitchen. There, she turned on the cold water tap and began searching, deliberately noisy, through the cupboards in search of a glass.

‘You OK?’

She turned. Salter was standing in the doorway. ‘Just getting some water. Somebody filled my mouth with sawdust while I was asleep.’

‘Glasses in there.’ Salter gestured towards a cupboard in the corner. ‘There’s juice in the fridge if you want it.’

‘Water’s fine.’ She busied herself locating a glass, filling it with cold water. ‘Don’t suppose there’re any painkillers around?’

‘That drawer, I think. There’s a load of first-aid stuff.’

She pulled open the drawer. Sticking plasters. Rolls of bandages. A thermometer. An antiseptic spray. Boxes of paracetamol, ibuprofen, aspirin. She tore open a box of paracetamol and popped out two tablets.

Sipping the water, she made her way back into the sitting room, curling herself up in the corner of the sofa. Salter stood by the door, watching her.

‘How are you feeling?’

‘Oh, I’ll be OK. Just too much of that stuff on an empty stomach.’ She gestured towards the Scotch bottle on the table. Its contents hadn’t noticeably reduced while she’d been in bed, which was interesting in itself. Salter had a nearly full glass in his hand, but it could have been the same one he’d been drinking when she’d retired. She held up her own glass of water. ‘Prevention’s better than cure, and all that. If I deal with it now, hope I’ll feel less crap in the morning.’

She was still feeling pretty awful. Not just the dry mouth, the headache, the incipient nausea, but something more. An odd light-headedness, a sense that she wasn’t fully in control of her thoughts and movements. The feeling that she’d been sedated.

Was it possible? Maybe. Salter could have slipped something into the tea he’d given her earlier. Perhaps he’d hoped that it would combine with the whisky to knock her cold. Get her out of the way so he could check through her things, as he’d apparently been doing with her handbag. Or maybe his aim had just been to relax her, get her disinhibited. Encourage her to talk.

‘Jesus, I must have been out of it,’ she said.

‘How d’ you mean?’ He was still standing motionless in the doorway.

‘When I went to bed. Left my handbag out here.’

‘Did you? Well, safe enough, I should think.’

‘Yeah, but I’m a woman, Hugh, in case you hadn’t noticed. Never like to be more than two feet from my handbag. Makes me feel insecure.’ She pushed herself to her feet and picked up the bag. ‘I’d better turn in again. What time do you want me up in the morning?’

‘Up to you. I’ve some business first thing.’

‘What sort of business?’

‘Shaking the cage. I reckon Kerridge is getting a bit rattled. He thought he’d got Boyle out of the way, but Boyle’s been more resourceful than he expected. Now Boyle’s slipping out of our net, and Morton might’ve had something up his sleeve that puts Kerridge in the frame. Squeaky bum time.’

‘So what are you going to do?’

‘Just have a chat with a couple of people. Set some hares running. Increase Kerridge’s jitters a bit. If he’s rattled, he might start to make mistakes. He might also put a bit of pressure on Welsby to help him out. Maybe they’ll get careless and give us some of the harder evidence we need.’

‘Sounds a long shot.’

‘You know the game, sis. It’s all long shots. But you keep going, and once in a while something comes good.’

‘If you say so, Hugh. OK, I’ll see you when I see you in the morning. Then we can talk.’

‘A pleasure in store.’ For a moment, he remained unmoving in the doorway, and she thought that he might block her way. Then he eased himself back and gestured her past, with the air of someone holding open an imaginary door. But he remained half across the doorway, close enough to cause her some unease as she passed. Game-playing, she thought. Macho fucking game-playing.

‘Sleep well, sis.’

‘I plan to.’ She didn’t look back. ‘You do the same, Hugh.’ She closed and bolted the bedroom door behind her, then took the hard-backed chair from the dressing table and wedged it under the door handle. Hardly Fort Knox, but the best she could do.

She climbed back under the duvet and switched off the bedside lamp. The curtains on the bedroom window were cheap and flimsy, but there were no street lights on this side of the house and the darkness was complete. She lay listening to the tiny noises of the night – the click of a contracting radiator, settling woodwork, the faint skittering and cry of some animal outside. She had a sense, probably unfounded, that Salter was still out in the hallway, perhaps even listening at her door.

A word had lodged in her mind during her last exchange with Salter, and now it refused to be dispelled. Bait, she thought. That’s what I feel like. Bait in a fucking trap.

She lay staring blankly into the darkness, and it was a long time before sleep finally overtook her.

In the end, she slept fitfully, disturbed by fragments of dreams that melted into one another without ever gaining coherence – somebody pursuing her, something she had to do, something she’d left undone. Jake in the background, never quite glimpsed. She stirred two or three times in the darkness, each time half-convinced that someone else was in the room. She woke finally as the first grey light began to filter through the thin curtains.

She felt better than she had the previous night, but her body was still telling her it had consumed something more potent than a few glasses of Scotch. There was a dull ache behind her eyes, a sense of dislocation from the world.

She checked the plastic alarm clock on the bedside table. Seven twenty. Outside, there was a flurry of birdsong, somewhere the burr of a passing car. She pulled herself upright and listened.

There was movement inside the house, easily audible through the flimsy internal walls. Someone moving about in the kitchen. The thump of a cupboard door, the rumble of a boiling kettle, the metallic twang of a pop-up toaster. Salter preparing for the day, getting ready for whatever business he had planned.

She considered whether to go out and speak to him, but thought it best to wait. She wasn’t clear whether he was intending to conduct his business, whatever it might be, from the house or whether he’d be going out. If he went out, she’d have the opportunity to look round the place, look for any clues as to what his game might be. Try to get some idea what the hell was going on.

Her first question was soon answered. She heard the sounds of Salter rinsing a plate in the kitchen sink, footsteps padding along the hallway. She moved quietly across the room and slipped back beneath the duvet.

Salter had paused outside her door, and she heard him gently pressing down on the door handle. She held her breath, wondering if he would try to force his way in but, having silently tried the door, he released the handle. She heard his footsteps retreating down the hall, a brief pause, and then the dull thud as the front door closed. Some distance away, she heard the gentle roar of a car engine starting.

Grabbing a selection of the clothes Salter had provided, she removed the chair and unbolted the bedroom door. As she stepped into the hallway she froze, startled by a murmur of voices from the living room. It took her a moment to realize that it was nothing more than the television news. Did that mean Salter would be returning soon?

There was no way of knowing, and she was pretty much past caring. She took a rapid and tepid shower in the poky bathroom and dressed quickly. The clothes were not a bad fit – testament either to Salter’s precision or his over-intent observation of her figure. She ended up in a pair of jeans and a baggy T-shirt that were hardly flattering, but suitably functional.

There was instant coffee in the kitchen cupboard and milk in the fridge. She prepared herself a drink to help clear her head and then, with the steaming mug in her hands, began to explore the bungalow more thoroughly.

It didn’t take long. The bungalow comprised nothing more than the five rooms she’d noted the previous evening. The place looked as if it had been recently but cheaply redecorated and refurnished. There was a free-standing cupboard in the sitting room, but it contained only a pile of old newspapers – from about six months before, she noted – and a couple of board games. There was a second cupboard under the television containing a handful of DVDs, most of them freebies from some Sunday newspaper or other.

The kitchen was no more fruitful. There were plenty of cupboards in the kitchen units, but they contained nothing more interesting than the usual range of kitchen utensils, crockery and glasses. Everything bought as a job lot from some discount homeware store. The fridge, freezer and cupboards were well-stocked with food. As Salter had implied, it was all instant meals and staples, most of it tinned, dried or frozen. Stuff designed to have a long shelf life.

Salter had left her a scribbled note on the kitchen table. Help yourself to whatever you want. Back mid-morning. Stay in the house.

She soon discovered that the last instruction was un necessary. She tried the back door, hoping for a breath of air. It was firmly deadlocked, with no sign of a key. She made her way through the hall and tried the front door. Deadlocked too.

It had already begun to occur to her that the building was remarkably secure. Heavy-duty deadlocks on the front and back doors, all the windows similarly secured. As far as she could judge, the windows themselves were toughened glass.

Not so much a safe house, then. More a sodding prison. Superficially, the bungalow resembled a badly appointed holiday home. Below the surface, it was something odder. It wasn’t just the locks that were seriously solid. The front and back doors themselves had apparently been reinforced, with metal plating and strengthened hinges.

The Agency’s safe houses were anonymous places, normally tucked quietly away in some suburban estate. They had a degree of electronic protection – high quality but discreet alarms, CCTV, links to local police – and reasonable domestic-style security. But not stuff like this – industrial locks, reinforced panels. Nothing that would attract attention.

This felt more like private enterprise. The centre of operations for a big-time dealer, maybe. The sort of place you might need to keep safe, not just from the police, but from your immediate competitors. She couldn’t imagine this house being run by the officious busies who populated Professional Standards. Was Salter telling the truth about Welsby? Could she trust Salter at all? The truth was that there was no one she could rely on. Not down here. Not away from Liam.

God. Liam. True to form, she’d managed again to forget all about him. He’d still be wondering what the hell had happened to her. She glanced around, but there was no phone in the bungalow. Her own mobiles were inoperable after she’d destroyed the SIM cards. She couldn’t imagine that Salter would have left a mobile handily hanging around for her use.

Shit. There was nothing she could do right now. All she could do was get in touch with him as soon as she got out of this – whatever that might mean. She’d have a lifetime of apologies ahead of her.

Her frustration growing, she returned to the front door, wondering if there was any possibility that the key might be concealed somewhere in its vicinity. Her eyes wandered upwards and she noticed, for the first time, a small trapdoor set into the ceiling, positioned to provide access to the loft space above.

What would be up there? Probably not much. Some dust and a few spiders. The usual detritus that accumulates in an old house over the years. Bits of discarded junk, old papers, forgotten toys.

There was no rational reason for her to explore it. Except that she had nothing else to do and was being driven slowly crazy by the well-secured walls around her. She hesitated for only a moment longer, and then fetched one of the high-backed chairs from the kitchen.

Standing on the chair, she was able to pull open the trap-door. Like the rest of the bungalow, its initial appearance was deceptive. It was a much more sophisticated affair than it looked, the trapdoor counter-weighted so that it opened smoothly, an aluminium folding ladder tucked neatly behind it. She pulled down the ladder, noting that it seemed well-maintained and lubricated. This was a space that had been used relatively recently.

Intrigued now, she returned the chair to the kitchen and made her way cautiously up the ladder until she was able to peer into the space above. At first sight, it looked unremarkable – just a small area of unused space below the pitch of the roof. Given the quality of the trapdoor, she had half-expected that the loft would have been adapted for regular use. But there was no real floor – just the usual joists with the plasterboard ceiling nailed beneath them. She would have to be careful. If she slipped off the joists, she would most likely just crash through the plasterboard.

She noticed that, although there was no floor, a number of doubled planks had been positioned across the joists to provide a safer route across the loft. Not just a temporary measure, either. The planks were neatly nailed into place.

There was some light up here – lines of sunlight creeping through gaps below the roofline – but it remained gloomy. She looked around and found a light switch. As she pressed it, the space was flooded with light from two large spots set in the corners of the roof. Again, she thought, not what you’d expect from your average loft. Looking around, she saw that, otherwise, her earlier expectations had been largely fulfilled. There were various items scattered about the attic, most of them nothing more than discarded junk. A rusting child’s tricycle, a discarded toaster, an old television. Beyond that, there were a number of cardboard shoe boxes filled with papers. She made her way carefully along the planks towards these, hoping that their contents might be of interest.

But they were simply more rubbish, sheet after sheet of old domestic bank statements, all at least ten years old. She scanned a handful briefly, but the name of the account holder meant nothing to her and the amounts in the account were small. She flicked quickly through the rest of the boxes, but the papers were of a similar type and vintage – old utilities bills, tax returns, bits and pieces of formal correspondence. All of it unremarkable, the kind of thing you might find in any household. Stored up here by some previous occupant in the hope that it might come in useful someday. It clearly never had.

She straightened up, careful to keep her balance on the narrow planks. There didn’t seem to be much else. This was another wild goose chase, of no value except to waste another half-hour of the endless morning. If nothing else, she’d enjoy Salter’s reaction to the mess she’d made of these new clothes in the small time he’d been out of the house.

There remained one interesting question, though. Why had someone installed that expensive-looking entrance and then taken the trouble to put the planks down? Her eyes followed the path of the planks across the attic. They led to an area at the far gable end, lost in the gloom. Her immediate guess was that the planks led to the house’s water tank, although she couldn’t see it in the dim light. Still, while she was here, there was no harm in looking.

As she drew closer, she realized that the arrangement was more professionally constructed than was at first apparent. The planks broadened to a reinforced platform. What she had taken to be the gable wall was a neatly made plasterboard screen, painted a dark colour so as to be invisible to anyone taking a casual look into the attic.

Examining the panelling more closely, she saw it was designed to slide back on stainless-steel runners set at ground level and head height. Like the loft entrance, the structure had been well maintained and drew back easily. She opened it to its full extent, and peered to see what lay behind.

At first, she was disappointed. Immediately behind the panel was a steel water tank, pipes leading off to the bungalow’s plumbing and central heating. She craned her head to look further around the panel. Behind the tank was something much more interesting.

It was a large industrial safe, a squat cast-iron monstrosity that lurked almost threateningly in the semi-darkness. The platform beneath it had been reinforced to ensure that it would take the weight. Christ knew how it had been brought up there. She could imagine only that it had been lifted by crane and brought in through the roof. Hardly an inconspicuous activity, although maybe the kind of thing you could disguise as part of a rebuilding or renovation exercise.

Why in God’s name was it here? Whatever else it might be, it clearly wasn’t a repository for superannuated utilities bills and bank statements. She climbed past the screen and examined the safe more closely. It was the kind of object you might find in a large retail store. Somewhere to keep the day’s cash takings.

She tried the handle, with no expectation that it would move. Sure enough, the safe was firmly locked, requiring both keys and a combination number to open. Not much else was likely to provide access, short of maybe a piledriver. So what was in there? It could be anything. Cash. Drugs. Arms. Perhaps all three. Certainly nothing that you’d expect to find in a domestic setting. Or, for that matter, in one of the Agency’s safe houses. Which raised the question of what this place really was. And what Salter was up to.

She spent a few more minutes searching the area around the safe for any clues to its contents, but found nothing. But then, her eyes now accustomed to the darkness, she noticed something else. There were wires running alongside the safe, just below the bottom of the roof. In itself, there was nothing remarkable about that. The attic space was strewn with domestic wiring, grey cables snaking across the plasterboard, tacked to the rafters, powering the ceiling lights and electrical points in the rooms below.

But this was different – lighter than domestic wiring, with the air of having been hastily installed. It trailed back to some sort of unit in the far corner. It took her a few moments to work out what she was seeing. Covert recording equipment. Voice activated. One of the Agency’s machines. So the question was even more pertinent.

What the fuck was Salter’s game?

She was on the point of making her way back towards the entrance to the attic, when she heard a sound from outside.

A car.

She stepped rapidly back along the planks, wondering whether she would have time to make her descent into the hallway before Salter came through the door. She would rather keep Salter in the dark about her discoveries up here. Though, looking down at her dust-covered clothes, she had to admit that this was probably an optimistic goal.

In any case, the question was academic. Already, she could hear a murmur of voices from outside the front of the house. Salter was not alone. Whatever his game might be, it was becoming more convoluted by the minute.

Moving quickly, she leaned down to pull up the ladder and drag the trapdoor back into place. She had expected that the weight might be too much for her, but the counter-weighted design was as easy to operate from above as from below. Even so, she was only just in time. As the trapdoor clicked into place, she heard the fumbling of a key in the front door below.

She quietly straightened up and looked around. On her way into the loft, she’d noticed a small pile of rusting tools left, presumably forgotten, just inside the entrance. She flicked through them and selected an old screwdriver, its shaft rusting, its handle thick with dried paint.

She laid herself carefully down along the length of the planking, her face close to the ceiling boards. Then, as silently as she could, she used the screwdriver to bore a small hole in the plasterboard. She worked away at it for a few moments until it was large enough for her to gain a clear view of the hallway below.

Salter himself entered first, still talking to someone behind him. He sounded nervous, she thought, his voice a little too high, words a little too fast. Well, she knew how he felt. She was already wondering about options for escape. Would it be feasible to break out through the roof itself, push through the tiles? It would still leave her with the problem of how to reach the ground, but that shouldn’t be impossible. Not ideal, but better than nothing, if it came to that.

As the second figure came into sight below, she caught her breath.

Kerridge. Jeff fucking Kerridge.

There was no question. She had seen that figure too often – the body running to fat, the greying slicked-back hair, the clothes slightly too expensive for the circles he usually mixed with.

So much for keeping her secure. So much for Professional Standards. So much for this sodding safe house. Her instinct had been right again. She’d walked straight into it. From frying pan to fucking fire, in one not-so-smart move.

Salter had snatched her from Boyle’s clutches just to hand her straight over to Kerridge. Now she understood why Salter had been pumping her about what evidence Morton might have against Kerridge. They knew – or thought – she had something. Morton’s ‘insurance policy’, as Salter had called it. They’d probably been afraid that if she’d ended up in the frame for Jones’ death or even dead herself, the material might still leak out. So they wanted to get their hands on it. She’d given nothing away to Salter last night. Now they’d come to get the information out of her, no doubt using the same techniques that Boyle’s people had used on Jake.

She’d kept her eye fixed on the hallway as the third figure entered. Welsby. So Salter had been telling the truth about that at least. Welsby really was on Kerridge’s payroll. Salter had just omitted to mention that Welsby wasn’t the only one.

She heard the three men move into the sitting room. Moving as silently as she could, she edged her body slowly forwards along the planks, until she judged that she was above them. Conscious of every creak in the wooden joists, she pressed her ear to the plasterboard ceiling, hoping to hear something of the conversation below.

Their voices carried clearly through the thin boarding, and apart from a few mumbled words, she had no difficulty following their discussion.

‘Of course it was Boyle,’ Salter was saying. ‘Who else would it have been?’

‘So how the fuck did he work out who she was?’ Kerridge’s voice was low and growling, the voice of someone used to getting his own way. She’d never seen this side of him. In his few dealings with her, he’d always displayed an old-fashioned courtesy that, she’d thought, was only just the right side of patronizing sexism. Outside of that, she’d seen him only in unctuous mode, glad-handing the great and good at business and charity events.

‘How the hell would I know?’ Salter said. ‘Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he just worked out that she was close to Morton. Maybe he’s just flailing in the dark like we all are.’

‘Bollocks. Boyle does nothing without thinking. If he thought Donovan was worth putting down, he must have had a good idea who she was.’

Marie felt a chill down her spine. Putting down. Like a fucking dog.

‘Someone tipped Boyle off, then.’ Welsby’s voice.

‘Well, what the fuck do you think? Boyle’s smart, but he’s not a fucking clairvoyant. How the hell else does he know that Donovan’s one of yours?’ There was silence for a few moments, then Kerridge went on. ‘OK, tell your story again and let’s see if it sounds any more convincing this time.’

This was clearly addressed to Salter. After another pause, Salter said, ‘I don’t know what you’re trying to insinuate—’

‘Oh, fuck off,’ Kerridge said. His voice had dropped, and Marie could hardly made out the expletive. He sounded even more intimidating when speaking quietly. ‘I’m not insinuating. I’m telling you to your fucking face that I don’t fucking trust you. Little Boy Scout who’s suddenly decided to join the bad guys. That clear enough?’

‘Crystal,’ Salter said. His voice was icy, but to Marie’s ears he still sounded the most nervous of the three of them. Out of his depth, she thought. Well out of his depth. ‘I just thought I was doing you a fucking favour.’

‘Very generous of you. So tell me again.’

‘I’ve been keeping tabs on her,’ Salter said. ‘Like we agreed.’

‘You didn’t tell us she’d been to see Jones.’ Welsby’s voice again. ‘Not till after he was dead.’

‘I didn’t get the chance,’ Salter said. ‘I didn’t think Jones was significant. I thought he was small fry.’

‘He is fucking small fry,’ Kerridge said. ‘But he’s small fry who works for Boyle.’

‘Christ, I didn’t know—’

‘That’s your trouble, Hugh. There’s a lot you don’t know. And you don’t even know how much you don’t know.’ Welsby sounded dismissive, as though he was wearily trying to deal with a student who’d failed to live up to his initial promise.

‘I don’t know why I fucking bother, that’s what I don’t know,’ Salter said. He was trying to match their aggression, Marie thought, but he succeeded only in sounding petulant. ‘I’m not a fucking clairvoyant either, you know.’

‘So you kept tabs on her after she slipped out of brother Blackwell’s clutches,’ Welsby said. ‘Why didn’t you tell us where she’d hidden herself away? Why wait till now?’

There was another pause. ‘I don’t know,’ Salter said after a moment. ‘Just being a bit too smart, like you say. Maybe I just felt a bit sorry for her. I thought I could get whatever she’s got without things coming to this. I thought she’d trip up and I’d get it out of her. Then things moved a bit quicker than I expected.’

‘Story of your life, Hugh,’ Welsby said.

‘Don’t notice you doing all that much better. Don’t notice you having much success in keeping a lid on all this,’ Salter said. ‘Don’t notice you doing much at all. Seems to me that we could all be up shit creek if Boyle gets hold of this stuff and uses it against Kerridge.’

‘We don’t even know that there is any stuff.’ Kerridge. ‘Unless you’ve got your hands on something you’ve not told us about.’

‘Not yet,’ Salter admitted. ‘But she’s got it. Or knows where it is.’

‘And you think Morrissey was after the same thing?’

‘Sure of it. I stood there listening for a bit. She’d said she’d got something in her handbag. That could have been a bluff, though. She threw it at him. Tried to distract him.’

‘Resourceful lady,’ Kerridge said. ‘Maybe you should have let Morrissey finish the job.’

‘Then we’d be even deeper in the shit, wouldn’t we? Wouldn’t have had any way of getting hold of it.’

‘Might have stayed buried,’ Welsby pointed out.

‘Not if Morrissey had found it. Anyway, Donovan’s not stupid. She’d have made some insurance arrangement of her own. She’s probably got someone lined up to release the material to the authorities if anything happened to her. That boyfriend of hers, for example.’

If only, Marie thought. She’d had no time to organize any backup arrangement. And, for that matter, no one to arrange it with. Even if things had been different, she wouldn’t get Liam involved in something like this. Still, she was happy to let them carry on thinking it. She’d also noted what Salter had said about listening to her and Morrissey. So the lateness of his intervention hadn’t been entirely accidental.

‘Whichever, you went in like some fucking white knight and saved her neck. Hope she was suitably grateful.’ Kerridge let out a salacious snort.

‘Not grateful enough to hand over the fucking evidence, it seems,’ Welsby said. ‘So where is she?’

‘Must be still in bed,’ Salter said. ‘I slipped her a couple of pills last night to give myself a chance to go through her stuff.’

‘But you didn’t find anything?’ Kerridge.

‘Not yet.’

‘I’m ever the optimist,’ Welsby said. ‘I’d expected a bit better of you. Thought you were a smart lad. One of life’s high-flyers even. Imagined you’d be a bit cleverer than this.’

‘I don’t—’

‘You really must think we’re a right pair of fuckwits, Hughie. That’s what really disappoints me. I expected a bit more respect.’ Marie could hear movement from the room below but couldn’t work out what was happening. ‘Where are they, lad? Where are the fucking microphones? Or is it cameras? Smile, Jeffrey, you’re on candid sodding camera.’

‘That’s not—’

There was a crash.

‘Stop fucking us about, lad. This crap about coming across. Doing us a favour. Bit late in the day to change sides, I’d say. We got you sussed, Hughie boy, well and truly sussed.’

There was more noise. The sound of a struggle. Something breaking. Whatever was happening, it was clear that Salter was getting the worst of it.

Short of breath, Welsby said, ‘Don’t you try it, son. Just don’t you fucking try it.’

She could hear some response from Salter but the words were too muffled to make out. Then she heard Kerridge’s voice, slightly softer than Welsby’s. He sounded relaxed, untroubled.

‘Take it easy, Keith. We need to think this through.’

‘If you think I’m letting this bastard—’

‘We’ll deal with him. But we need to get some things straight first. Like who the bastard’s working for.’

She heard another sound. The crunching, brutal sound of a boot hitting flesh. An agonized groan from Salter.

‘So who is it, Hughie boy? For a bit I thought you were working for those buggers in Standards. That right, Hughie? Those bastards put you up to this?’

Another crunch. More muttered words from Salter. Jesus, she thought, this was almost worse than witnessing it. Her hands were clutched tight to the joists, her head pressed against the ceiling below. Her great fear was that, at any moment, the dust would get into her lungs and she’d explode in a fit of coughing.

‘Yeah, and they’ve got us fucking surrounded. You know what, Hughie? I don’t think I believe you. I don’t think you’re working for fucking Standards at all. Which, the way I see it, leaves only two possibilities.’ There was the sound of another blow, another pained yelp from Salter. ‘Christ, you’re pathetic, Salter. Look at you. At least try to show a bit of dignity.’ Welsby laughed. ‘So which is it? Either you’re on some frolic of your own, or you’re working for our friend Peter Boyle. I wonder which you’d rather we believed. Interesting dilemma, that one, Hughie.’

Another blow, seemingly even harder than before. Another cry, shrill now. The sound of someone with not much more to offer.

‘Not sure it matters all that much, Hughie. If you’re working for Boyle, this should send him a clear enough message, I’d have thought. And if you’re not – well, more fool you, boyo. Shouldn’t go playing with the big boys.’

Another scream from Salter.

‘OK, Keith, he’s got the message.’ Kerridge again. ‘Let him stew for a minute. You reckon Donovan’s even here?’

Marie tensed at her own name. She could hear no sound from Salter now.

‘I doubt it,’ Welsby said. ‘Don’t know whether our friend here’s just lying through his teeth, or whether he’s got Donovan tucked away somewhere else. Either way, he wouldn’t just leave her here for us to find.’ There was a pause and some exchange she couldn’t make out. Then Welsby said, ‘Yeah, yeah. I’ll go check if it’ll keep you happy.’ More movement. The sound of Welsby tramping through the hall, her bedroom door opening. Some scuffling, more doors being opened. Welsby returning.

‘Who’d have thought it? She’s been here all right. Look at this.’ She heard the sound of something being thrown clatteringly to the ground. Her handbag, she guessed. Her handbag with the data stick still in it. ‘All right, Hughie boy. So if she’s not here now, then where the fuck is she?’

She could hear Salter saying something, but could make out none of the words. Welsby’s response was clear enough, though. ‘Don’t fuck with me, Hughie. I’m not a happy bunny as it is. You really don’t want to antagonize me.’ Another blow, louder this time, again the awful sound of a boot on flesh. ‘Tit for tat, I’d say, if you really are working for Boyle. I saw what you bastards did to Morton. I’ve got no problem in doing the same to you. What goes around comes around. You got some bad karma, Hughie.’ Another louder sound. Then something falling over.

Marie could sense that, whatever might be in store for Salter, it would be worse even than the kicking he’d received so far. He might be a duplicitous bastard – Christ, they were all duplicitous bastards – but he didn’t deserve that. She thought back to Jake and what he must have been through. No human being deserved that.

‘Now, if you tell us where Donovan is, we can get this sorted nice and gentle, just like my friend here would prefer,’ Welsby went on. ‘If you don’t – well, then we’ll just work on you till you do. Nice and slowly.’

Finally, she heard Salter’s voice. ‘I’m telling you, Welsby. I don’t fucking know. If I knew I’d fucking tell you. She was here. I left her here . . .’ His voice sounded cracked, as if they’d done something to his throat.

‘And you left her the key to that door, did you?’

‘The whole place was fucking secured. There’s no way she could have got out. Have you checked . . .?’

‘I’ve checked every inch of this sodding place,’ Welsby said. ‘She’s not here.’

‘But that’s not . . .’ Salter’s words collapsed into an incoherent gurgle as there was yet another crunch. Something harder than a boot this time, Marie thought.

‘Where is she, Salter?’

‘I don’t . . .’ That sound again, cutting his words short.

Marie had been hesitating. The smart move, she thought, would be just to lie low. Hang on until they’d finished with Salter, wait till they left, then just get out. Through the bloody roof if necessary. She told herself she owed Salter nothing. He’d lied to her, used her as a pawn in whatever game he’d been trying to play, even risked leaving her to die at Joe Morrissey’s hands. She had no doubt that, if he had known where she was, he’d have betrayed her already.

But another thought had already struck her. Whatever they were planning to do with Salter, they wouldn’t want any witnesses. They’d already worked out that Salter must have the place wired up with surveillance equipment. They’d assumed Salter was acting alone – it sounded as if his claim to be working for Professional Standards was just so much bullshit – so the equipment would be for recording rather than providing any live feed. But they wouldn’t want to leave any possibility of evidence at the end of this. Which would mean they’d scour the house for any recording or intercept devices.

Which in turn would mean they’d find her.

She knew that, if it came to it, they’d treat her the same way they were treating Salter. Sentiment wouldn’t count for very much in Welsby’s world. And I thought he was a fucking father figure, she thought. The sort of father they wrote misery porn about.

There was another dull thud and a scream from below. Christ, she couldn’t just stay here and allow this to happen. Allow them to complete their work on Salter, and then, in due course, start on her. It would suit them to leave Salter and her here, dead or close to death. They’d probably torch the place. Leave not much but a dealing house – this place must be one of Kerridge’s after all, a fitting location for Salter’s intended double-cross – and two charred corpses. When the corpses had been identified, they’d leave behind only the kind of mystery that doesn’t demand much police time. She was already on the run, suspected of murder. Salter would be denounced as corrupt – maybe even as the suspected leaker. No one would know what had brought them up to this neck of the woods, or what their connections were with whoever had run this place, or even whether their deaths were accidental or deliberate. And no one would care. Whatever the story, they’d just be two bent coppers getting their desserts. Worth no one’s time of day.

She looked around her for something she might use as a weapon. There was the screwdriver, which might do as a last resort, but the pile of old tools might yield something better. There were a couple of spanners, an old hammer, and, lying beyond the next joist, a rusting Stanley knife. That looked the most promising.

Her body was pressed flat against the planking, her left ear still resting on the ceiling. She reached out carefully to pick up the knife, which was just at the limit of her reach. Gently now, she thought, gently.

But as she stretched out for the knife, her body shifted slightly, her foot brushing softly against one of the joists behind her. She looked back but it was already too late. An old yoghurt pot, filled with rusting screws and nails, tottered momentarily on the edge of the joist and then tipped sideways, scattering its contents noisily across the ceiling.

Marie held her breath, realizing that the men below had fallen silent. A moment later, she heard Welsby’s voice moving beneath her as he made his way into the hall.

‘What the fuck . . .?’ he was shouting eloquently. ‘What the fuck was that?’