Rainstone Fall

Chapter Thirteen

I stared at the cordless handset I had carried round the house since my arrival, waiting for the hated electronic warble that would announce the dreaded call.

‘Am I failing Jill? And Louis? Am I doing it all wrong?’ I asked Annis.

She buried her hands deep in the pockets of her jeans and shrugged heavily. ‘If he managed to intercept you before you even got to the police station then you were right, he knows what you’re doing and probably has you watched. I’m not sure we can do much about it. You can try and give your tail the slip but that doesn’t mean you can keep police involvement hidden from him. The police might cock it up just as easily as we could and he might kill the boy in revenge or to avoid detection. If Louis has seen his face he’s probably doomed anyway. He’s not going to be allowed to give the police a detailed description of his kipnapper after he’s released. And you have to consider the possibility that he’s dead already.’ She patted me on the arm in a gesture that was meant to be sympathetic but made me feel worse. There, there. ‘I’ll make us a nice pot of tea, how about that?’ she said in a creaky Miss Marple parody, but I had to admit that the British panacea for all ills and crises was just what I wanted right now. I never got it.

Just as soon as Annis had left the room the phone trilled in my hand and my stomach muscles contracted into an aching mess.

‘Honeysett.’

‘I’m disappointed in the kind of service you run, Honeysett. I expect more when I hire staff. So listen closely, shithead, and don’t interrupt, here’s how you can make good your earlier cock-up, though I’m still not completely convinced you aren’t trying to pull a fast one. But then again, I can’t believe you would jeopardize a boy’s health like that.’ His distorted, tinny voice sounded as inhuman and robotic as ever. I found it impossible to picture Louis’s kidnapper; he remained a shadow attached to a sound that emanated from this piece of plastic I held against my ear.

‘How is the boy, how is Louis?’

‘Bored and whining and annoying as fuck but he’ll be all right if you do what you’re told. So listen carefully. Write this down because I won’t tell you again: Rufus Connabear, at Restharrow, near Monkton Farleigh.’

‘Hang on, I need to find a pen.’

‘Don’t fuck about, I haven’t got time to spell it for you!’ he shouted down the phone as I scrabbled around for a biro. ‘Connabear. Retired businessman, and very comfortably retired he must be. He has to have more dosh than sense because he spent an awful lot of it on rare stamps. And I have it on good authority that he owns something very rare indeed, a Penny Black. The world’s first ever stamp. Worth an absolute fucking fortune and he keeps it at home instead of the bank where it belongs, so you can see he’s a nerd, an anorak, a stamp-collecting loser who deserves what’s coming to him. Which is you. Because you shall relieve old Rufus of the Penny Black.’

Even I had heard of the famous stamp. After all, it was from Bath that the first ever postage stamp, printed in black ink and then costing one penny, was sent in 1840, every school kid probably knew that. I wondered just how many shiny pennies it was worth now.

‘You have three days, Honeysett, and no fuck-ups this time, I won’t believe another disaster. I’ll be keeping a close eye on you, just to make sure.’

I was going to protest that three days didn’t leave me much time to plan the robbery when engine sounds made me rush to the window. I recognized Superintendent Needham’s big grey saloon barrelling self-importantly through the gate. ‘I’ll do my best. Got to hang up now, unexpected visitors.’ I cut the connection. My head was buzzing. When did I sign up for this much excitement? Perhaps retired stamp collectors had entirely the right idea. I stepped away from the window so I could spy on Needham unobserved for a minute. I could see he was using DS Sorbie as a driver. And as though a visit from Needham wasn’t bad enough, no sooner had he squeezed out of his car than DI Deeks made an appearance, driving himself and even more self-importantly blocking the exit with his big ugly Ford.

‘Shit. That’s all we needed.’ Annis joined me by the window. ‘What does the bastard want this time?’

‘Needham, he’ll — ’

‘No, Louis’s kidnapper.’

‘Another burglary. Stamp collector’s house. He wants us to steal the Penny Black.’

‘Is that all?’

Outside the three officers had a quick pow-wow, then the besuited Needham and leather-jacketed Sorbie moved towards the house while Deeks, wearing his horrible rainproof, settled on the bonnet of his car, arms folded.

‘Hard to pull off?’ Annis asked.

‘Won’t know until we’ve taken a look but he’s only given us three days. Do you see what I see?’

‘The new boy is carrying what will no doubt be Needham’s search warrant.’

‘Yup, with the ink still wet.’

The doorbell jingled loudly and the door was being rapped in typical police fashion. I opened it before someone decided to kick it in again.

‘Honeysett, this is DS Sorbie and he has a search warrant. Show the man,’ he encouraged him as he hefted past me. I barely glanced at the paper, looking instead over Sorbie’s shoulder to check on Deeks, but he no longer adorned the bonnet of his car and was nowhere to be seen, which was a bit worrying.

‘After you.’ Sorbie made an inviting gesture down the hall with his warrant.

I had little choice. Needham had already disappeared right towards the kitchen. I hurried after him. ‘Keep an eye on Sorbie, there’s something weird about this,’ I managed to murmur to Annis as I passed her. Needham was already half-heartedly furtling about in the kitchen, opening cupboards without bothering to search them, letting his left hand trail over objects as though he was thinking with his fleshy fingers. I decided to play it by ear. The kettle was already quietly singing on the back of the stove.

‘Coffee?’ I knew Needham loved real coffee while his life was plagued by the ersatz brew his underlings invariably brought him, mostly in plastic cups.

‘And why not,’ he conceded without hesitation and disappeared into the pantry, where he inspected the shelves with his head gently cocked to one side and his hands behind his back. I had the distinct feeling that, perhaps unlike Deeks and Sorbie, he was here on a culinary search but I didn’t think this was the time to ask him how his diet was going. I could hear Sorbie rummaging in the cupboard under the stairs. I suddenly broke into a sweat. If Sorbie demanded the key for the gun locker and found my shotgun missing some awkward questions might be asked, since I had never reported the thing stolen. I knew who had it and still harboured hopes of retrieving it. But the question never came and I could soon hear him moving upstairs, shadowed by a vigilant Annis.

Watched by an appreciative Superintendent I spun out the ritual of coffee making, ground the beans finely in the noisy little mill, transferred the fragrant grounds to a cafetière, splashed recently boiled water on it, depressed the plunger and decanted the resulting brew into a warmed coffee pot. The cat appeared as if from nowhere, swished around Needham’s legs and gave his polished shoes a deep sniffing.

‘Didn’t know you had a cat.’

‘He’s just passing through.’

‘What’s his name?’ He bent down and scratched the cat’s ears.

‘He hasn’t got one.’

‘You could call him Mackerel.’

‘Not a chance.’ Eventually I poured two cups and handed one to Needham, who accepted it with only the faintest hint of a smile and let himself sink on to a chair with a little grunt. ‘You’re a damn nuisance, Chris, but at least you’re a civilized nuisance. You wouldn’t have any sweetener of course?’ he asked while tumbling sugar cubes into his cup.

‘What are you after, Mike?’ Something about this visit was decidedly odd. ‘You’re not looking for blunt instruments, are you? What’s the latest on Barrington’s death? You must know by now it wasn’t me, so why keep harassing me?’

‘Harassing? You feel harassed? You really shouldn’t. Relax,’ he said with an expansive sweep of his arms. ‘It’s all routine. You know the drill.’

I patted my pockets in search of cigarettes and came up with nothing. I made to get some but he was well ahead of me.

‘Sit down, Honeypot, have one of mine.’ He slithered a packet of Camel across the table.

‘But you don’t smoke,’ I protested while I peeled the cellophane off the brand new pack.

‘Took them off an underage kid earlier.’

‘Who happened to smoke my brand.’ Why did I get the feeling he didn’t want me to leave the kitchen while his minions rummaged around my place?

‘You don’t smoke anything else, do you?’ he asked casually.

‘You know I don’t. It bores me.’

‘Well, Albert Barrington didn’t find it boring, that’s for sure. And at his age. Pot-head pensioners, that’s all we need now. Where do our senior citizens go to score these days, what do you reckon? Do dealers hang around their minibuses outside the bingo halls? Or do they grow the stuff down the allotment? A new category for the show bench, I dare say. .’ Needham appeared to be talking to himself and between occasional sips of coffee kept up a leisurely stream of whimsical observations about the changing nature of drug crime on his patch. There didn’t seem to be anything he wanted from me. Though if he really didn’t know who Barrington used to buy his blow from then he and Deeks had to have had a complete communication breakdown. I began to wonder just how good a deal Gem Stone had struck with him that he managed to keep her out of a murder inquiry. The longer we sat around the more fidgety I became, with Deeks and Sorbie crawling all over my place. I lit another cigarette with the stub of the first and poured more coffee. Through the half-glazed kitchen door I saw Deeks trundling past across the meadow, returning from the studio no doubt. I trusted Needham, as a due-process-by-the-book-god-honest copper, but Sorbie was still an unknown quantity and I did now know that Deeks was bent, which made his traipsing round the property without an escort rather nerve-racking. My skin tingled with sweat. Needham didn’t comment but probably hadn’t made Detective Superintendent without having a nose for other people’s fear. At the same time as luxuriating in his coffee break and wittering on about Policing the City of Bath (you could hear the capital letters) as though he was addressing a committee of concerned citizens he seemed to be listening not to my answers but to the house around him.

‘This is just a formality, Honeysett, we must be seen never to leave a tern unstoned, as they say.’ He chuckled to himself. I just hate it when he chuckles. ‘A pensioner getting murdered excites the press for some reason and then the press go and excite the pensioners. Old people feel the most vulnerable to violent crime, even though in reality they’re the least likely to suffer from it. Or any other crime, for that matter. The group most likely to be victims of crime are the fifteen to twenty-five-year-olds, which is the very group that scares the pensioners. But statistics mean nothing and perception is everything.’

‘Oh, quite.’ I didn’t find it easy to join in with this drivel, whether it was true or not. ‘Did you ever find a weapon?’

‘The Good Old Blunt Instrument? No. But we have a notion it might have been a cricket bat that rendered him senseless. Your car then finished him off. Shame you didn’t report it missing earlier, you’d be completely in the clear now.’ He shrugged it off as though it was of little real importance.

‘Cricket bat, how very British,’ I observed.

‘Well, believe it or not our hoodlum fraternity have started trading in their American ash for English willow recently. Ever since prosecutors started asking defendants — who just happened to have baseball bats in their cars at the time of their arrest — to explain the finer details of the game for the benefit of the court. Long faces all round of course, it’s like asking a kid from the Bronx to explain the rules of cricket. Personally I believe as a weapon the cricket bat has the edge. You play at all? Ah, here comes the faithful Sorbie,’ he said, drained his cup and rose. ‘Thanks for the coffee, Honeysett, we shan’t bother you any longer. For now.’ He silently directed DI Sorbie out of the house. ‘Miss Jordan,’ Sorbie said flatly in farewell to Annis. Deeks already stood by his car. We watched as doors slammed and the drivers sorted themselves out, turning their ugly big saloons around in my potholed yard. I was so relieved I barely managed to suppress the impulse to give them a cheery wave as they surged out of the gate.

‘Phew,’ I observed eloquently.

Annis let out a deep breath with puffed-out cheeks. ‘What did they want?’

I shrugged. ‘What could they have been looking for?’

‘Sorbie didn’t say. He didn’t answer any of my questions and never volunteered a word. I annoyed the shit out of him for sure.’

‘Did you see at all what Deeks was up to outside?’

‘No, I couldn’t keep an eye on both. Nothing much to find, though, is there?’

‘That’s not necessarily what I’m worried about.’

‘You don’t think Deeks would plant stuff on us? You’re getting paranoid, Chris.’

‘You’re right. Nevertheless, I’ll have a wander about, see what Deeks saw.’

I pulled on my jacket and made myself walk slowly all over my little realm; I kicked at things rusting and mouldering in the outbuildings, got my trouser legs damp crossing the meadow, stood by the mill pond reflecting the dull lead of the sky. The feeling of being watched was growing all the time and I began to imagine eyes and ears in every shadow. Indeed, if Needham was half as clever as I suspected him to be then he had come here to stir things up so he could watch what happened next.

I made doubly sure that no one was hanging around among the hedgerows. The more I thought about it the less sense the last twenty minutes made. I had seen police searches before and they’d been protracted, painstaking affairs involving many officers and technicians, not a couple of CID types wandering about the place with their hands in their pockets while their superior officer took coffee in the kitchen. But when I found no sign of them anywhere I was just too relieved to worry about it for long.

‘It’s out near Monkton Farleigh,’ I explained to Annis while I topped up the Norton’s tank from a jerry can. ‘Rufus Connabear, at Restharrow.’

‘Hairy, evil-smelling dwarf — ’

‘You know him?’ I interrupted in astonishment.

‘No, restharrow, you twit! It’s a dwarf shrub, grows like a weed all over the place near my parents’ house in Devon, and it stinks. Strange name to give your house but I guess it takes all sorts.’

‘I’ve come to that conclusion myself recently.’

Monkton Farleigh was a pretty one-eyed village roughly halfway between Bath and Bradford-on-Avon. As soon as I’d reached the top of Bathford Hill and the road emerged from the woodland I turned left. After barely a mile I came to a row of three cottages on my left where a tall blonde woman cheerfully herded a clutch of kids into her front garden. I resisted the temptation to ask directions to Restharrow. People would surely remember a man on a vintage motorcycle asking questions once the famous Penny Black had disappeared. Instead I simply rattled along, past church, high street, pub and manor, and before I knew it I was out the other side, leaving the village behind. It took me a while, pottering along various narrow lanes bound by hedgerows, until I found what I was looking for. I was lucky that the place announced itself as Restharrow in faded gilt lettering on a rustic wooden sign stuck to the stone wall that faced the lane. It was not what I had expected. I had been certain a wealthy — even if retired — stamp collector would live in a grander place but quickly reminded myself that any period cottage within a certain radius of Bath was now considered to be worth a small fortune. It was a substantial enough place though and somehow dark, almost sinister, standing alone at a fork in the tree-shaded lane, surrounded by a stone wall just high enough to keep livestock out and sheltered by hedges to the north and west at the back. Two enormous walnut trees teeming with squirrels overshadowed house and garden. There was no garage but a covered car port containing a gleaming blue Jaguar.

Apparently all we had was three days. That didn’t leave much time to establish what the man’s routines were, who else might be living here or coming and going on a regular basis. I allowed myself less than a minute in front of the house with the engine idling, pretending to be answering a text message while snapping pictures of the place with my phone. The front garden was lushly overgrown in the kind of extreme laissez-faire style of horticulture I approved of. I was just about to pull away when a man appeared from the passage between the house and the car port. He was a lean man in his late sixties, had sparse silver hair and wore mustard-coloured trousers, a collarless white shirt and bright yellow Marigolds. He was dragging a bulging green refuse bag behind him.

I put away my mobile. It was that movement rather than the sound of the engine which made him look across. Perhaps I could still have ridden off but the way he adjusted his thin gold spectacles on his nose to scrutinize me made me decide it might look suspicious. Instead I pulled in closer to the open double gate on the drive and parked the bike. He let his bag drop now and surveyed my appearance and the motorbike, screwing up his face with the intensity of a man who has missed several eye-tests. The iron gate was the same height as the wall, about four feet and therefore largely symbolic.

‘I’m a bit lost, I’m afraid,’ I ventured.

He didn’t immediately answer, instead he came towards me and after nodding at my tattered jacket rather than me began inspecting the bike. ‘Norton, thought so,’ he said with the croaky voice of someone who hasn’t spoken a word all day. He elaborately cleared his throat.

‘Yes, she’s recently been restored after a crash. They did a beautiful job,’ I explained.

‘Sorry, you have to speak up, I’m afraid I didn’t put my deaf-aids in this morning.’ He tapped both his ears in explanation.

‘Recently restored,’ I repeated loudly.

‘I remember when they first started making this model. I had an Ariel at the time, the 600 cc side-valve.’

‘The side-valve, right. .’ Fortunately nothing more seemed to be required of me. Otherwise I’d have been forced to admit that where you stuck your valves on a bike was a matter of supreme indifference to me.

After spending a few minutes in the golden age of motorcycling he eventually came back to the present. ‘Was there something you wanted?’

‘Just directions, really. I was looking for a scenic route to Melksham and got lost.’

‘Ah, well, you’re not so very lost. I have a map of the area, I’ll show you.’

I followed him to his front door. He snapped off the Marigolds. ‘I try and keep the garden going but I find it a bit of a struggle. My wife used to look after that side of things of course. I’m not green-fingered at all, I’m afraid.’

‘You could perhaps get a gardener to look after it for you. .?’

‘I suppose I could at that,’ he said as though the thought had never occurred to him before. ‘Right, if you wait a minute I’ll get the map.’ He slapped the Marigolds on to the newel post and left me standing by a painted milk urn full of walking sticks while he went upstairs, one hand firmly on the banister. I looked around the gloomy hall. I thought I could detect the so-called female touch in the choice of coloured wallpaper and framed botanical drawings but also sensed a certain edge of neglect in the dirt trodden into the expensive carpet, the layer of dust on everything and even of time slowly running down in the sedate ticking of the longcase clock at the foot of the stairs. Rufus Connabear lived alone and didn’t employ a cleaner or a gardener, I concluded. I tiptoed into the kitchen. This was quite clean and tidy with a simple wooden table playing host to neat piles of letters and other papers, weighted down with clean coffee mugs. Through the window above the sink I could see into the shady garden with its overcrowded beds and overgrown hedge. The old-fashioned back door, I noted with satisfaction, had no security features beyond a simple lock and key.

Back in the hall, while listening for footsteps from above, I peered through the open door into the sitting room. Too many pieces of furniture had been crammed in here; an olive-green three-piece suite, a separate large armchair in a similar colour that nevertheless didn’t quite match. There were underemployed bookshelves on two walls. A sideboard, a small table and several plant stands featuring pots minus the plants completed the clutter. The room had windows back and front, though the back windows were almost completely blocked against the light by the dense foliage of some kind of evergreen outside, making the overstuffed room more gloomy than necessary. Still no sound of footsteps. Now or never. I took a deep breath, crossed the room to the back windows and unlatched the nearest one without actually opening it. Just then I could hear movement above and gained the hall in a hectic bit of tiptoe work around the plant stands as Connabear’s legs appeared on the stairs.

‘Sorry it took so long,’ he said as he descended in a careful fashion. ‘I was sure I could lay my hands on it easily but it proved not to be where I thought it was. I found it in the end, though. Come through,’ he added. In the kitchen he spread out his Ordnance Survey map of the area and pointed out where we were and my best route to Melksham from his front door. It was quite ludicrously simple which made me suspect he had fetched the map simply for something to do, or for a moment of company. Soon he was back on our first subject, telling me more about the development of Ariel and Norton motorcycles than I could possibly hope to remember and laying a papery hand on my arm whenever I made a move towards the door. It was another fifteen minutes until I was allowed outside to mount the Norton again and even then one of his hands remained firmly on the handlebar while he lamented the number of cars on the roads and the discourtesy of today’s drivers. Even though I vigorously agreed with him on this last point I could hardly wait to get out there amongst them once more.

Eventually he let me go and I gave him a cheery wave as I rumbled away down the lane. I would report what little I had found out to Tim and trust to his expertise to get at the stamp, though I hoped I had made things easier for us by opening the latch on the downstairs window. Thanks to Connabear’s directions I was soon back on the A363, returning to Bath. When I drew into the yard at Mill House, however, I could see from Annis’s face as she stood in the door, nodding at what was being said to her on the cordless phone, that we had fresh problems. She handed me the phone.

Tim was at the other end of the line, sounding unusually troubled. ‘I’m being followed. Absolutely everywhere. Go turn your confuser on, I’ll mail the guys to you.’

Up in my attic office I cranked up my computer, then checked my mail. He had sent me three pictures he had taken that day; one, a grainy image probably taken on his mobile of two men, casually dressed, late twenties, early thirties. The location looked like the university car park. The other two pictures were taken with a better camera from Tim’s sitting-room window. They showed the same men on the other side of Tim’s street, about fifty yards to the left. In the first they were sitting in a blue Vauxhall, the passenger with his arm out of the window, adjusting the wing mirror. Both had sharp haircuts and looked wide awake. In the second picture one of them was just returning to the car with a shopping bag from the nearby Co-op.

‘I don’t recognize them,’ said Annis, looking over my shoulder.

I called Tim back. ‘Yeah, I got them but we don’t know them. When did you pick them up?’

‘Oh, they were here when I drove to work but of course I didn’t suspect anything then. When I spotted them again at my lunch break I started to take notice, and when I had to cross the campus in the middle of the afternoon and they were there, waiting, I got suspicious. Took a picture of them on the phone. They followed me home, though to give them their dues I didn’t spot their car behind me, so they know how to follow people. They’re still down there, still sitting in the car, eating. Man, you know you’ve landed a shit job when all your food is triangular and your drinks come in plastic bottles.’

‘Don’t tell them that. Did you see them talking into phones or radios?’

‘No. And they seem to have run out of things to say to each other. Most of the time they’re just sitting there.’

‘Are they trying to be discreet or do they want you to know they are there?’

‘Oh no, they’re pretending not to be there.’

‘They’re probably fuzz-balls then,’ I concluded rashly. ‘There’s two ways to go about it. You can pretend you haven’t noticed and then give them the slip or you go out there and confront them.’ I couldn’t see any other possibilities because right now I wanted Tim here at Mill House so we could make a move towards getting at the Penny Black.

‘I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Chris.’ Tim spoke slowly, still thinking. ‘If they’re fuzz then they could only be here for two things, the break-in at Telfer’s house or something I pulled off a very long time ago. The best thing is to pretend I haven’t noticed them and do nothing suspicious at all. I’m just an IT guy at Bath Uni, doing my normal day-to-day stuff and I’ve got nothing to hide.’

‘Did Annis tell you about the new job the bastard has lined up for us?’

‘She did.’

‘Well, then you know I need you here right now. There’s not much time. Try and give them the slip.’

‘I don’t like it, Chris. I thought I’d lost them on the way home and yet they reappeared.’

‘That’s because they know where you live, dummy.’

‘And do you think they don’t know we’re mates and where you live? If we go breaking into the stamp-man’s place together it’ll be like bringing my own arresting officers with me. We can’t risk that. You’ll have to do it yourself.’

‘But I’m rubbish at that kind of thing.’ Eloquent silence at Tim’s end. ‘Feel free to contradict me at any point. And he’s bound to have the thing in a safe.’

‘You won’t know that until you’ve been looking. But even if he has. .’ He hesitated. ‘I could perhaps lend you my gear, show you how to work it. . but I think it’s best we don’t have direct contact at the moment. You had a look at the house, did he seem to have lots of security?’

‘None, as far as I could see,’ I admitted. Rufus Connabear didn’t even have double glazing to shut the draught out, let alone locks on the windows to keep out burglars.

‘There you go. You can have a stab at it then. A kid could do the place over. Only be careful, just because you can’t see security doesn’t always mean there isn’t any, though most people make it obvious to discourage you from even trying. How many people live in the house?’

‘I think the guy lives alone. He’s retirement age and a bit deaf.’

‘There you go, if it’s in a safe you can use dynamite. Just kidding. You’ll have no problems, mate, it’ll be a doddle. .’

Tim was right of course but breaking into people’s houses, even though I’d done it before, all in a good cause, you understand, wasn’t a task I relished.

‘I’ll come with you if you like,’ Annis offered. ‘As long as we don’t have to climb up ladders or go up drainpipes.’ Annis was fearless at sea level but couldn’t stand heights.

‘No, there’s no point. The fewer bodies on this journey the better.’ Especially with someone as accident prone as me at the helm. ‘I’ll do it by myself and I’ll do it tonight.’