Taste of Blood

Chapter Twenty-Three

Jane worked the rest of the afternoon on her board, cutting and pasting the photographs and dates and the links between them. But the final piece was missing: the last link in the chain of events. She had a sandwich and coffee at six and at six fifteen called McGregor’s number again. This time it rang for even longer, and eventually she replaced the receiver. She was also starting to feel very tired, and although she had no discomfort from her surgery, she changed the dressing and went to have a lie down.

It was almost ten when she finally woke up, furious with herself. Now she’d missed McGregor again and it was too late for her to drive over to Orpington.

Making herself a hot chocolate in the kitchen, she looked out to see Gerry standing by his new fence. It was a good, neat job and would keep Wilma safe. She thought it was nice that Eddie had organised it, but she knew he had asked his dad to do the work so he wouldn’t have to see her. She cupped the hot mug of chocolate in her hands. She’d been so engrossed in her work that she had hardly thought about him. Now she contemplated how he would have reacted if she had told him about the pregnancy. The fact that she’d been unaware of it herself until the emergency meant that she had never considered how she would have felt about being pregnant.

She was still thinking about it when she got into bed. If Eddie was already having this affair, with the voice at the end of the bloody mobile phone, then what had happened was for the best. She certainly had no intention of ever telling him about it. She had to admit that there was a sense of relief it was over between them, and she had to move on. She set the alarm for six, had a cigarette and took two sleeping tablets, drained her hot chocolate and crashed out.

The next morning, Jane was up before the alarm rang. She had breakfast and double-checked her board before calling McGregor. This time it was picked up after two rings, and a gravel-voiced man answered.

‘Yes?’

‘Mr McGregor?’

‘That’s me.’

‘My name is Jane Tennison. I called yesterday but you were working. I apologise for calling this early on a Sunday, but I really need to have a conversation with you.’

There was the sound of a deep, hacking, phlegmy cough that went on for some time before his rasping voice gasped out, ‘What do you want?’

‘Firstly, to let you know this is not about anything criminal regarding your company; it’s just a personal enquiry connected to an investigation.’

‘You police, are you?’

‘Yes, sir, I am a detective inspector with the Metropolitan Police, but as I said it is a personal enquiry.’

‘Piss off.’

‘Please. I will pay you for your time, in cash. I can come to you, or meet you at any location you suggest.’

There was another round of coughing and Jane was certain he was going to cut the call off. ‘Fifty quid, you can have fifteen minutes, and me nephew comes with me.’

‘Agreed, where do you want to meet me?’

‘Nag’s Head, corner by Bishop’s Road, twelve o’clock.’

Jane was buzzing. She had a shower, washed her hair, then dressed in a clean light-grey tracksuit with a white polo shirt. She would have to go to the nearest cash point to withdraw the cash, and she still had to check the exact location of the pub, though she knew it was a rough area. For a moment, she contemplated calling Stanley to be her back-up, before deciding to leave him to his weekend.

Just as she was leaving, her phone rang. She hesitated, then snatched it up in case it was important.

It was her sister Pam.

‘Listen, you just caught me running out of the door. Can I call you back?’

There was no way Jane wanted to get into a lengthy conversation with her sister, who she knew would have been talking to their mother.

‘I was thinking of popping over to see you this afternoon,’ Pam said. ‘I think we’ve got a lot of catching up to do.’

‘Oh, what time? Only I am just going out for lunch.’

‘Say four o’clock-ish, and do you want your hair done? Mum said you might be feeling a bit below par. I’ll not bring anyone else, just me. The boys are playing a football match not far from you, so is four all right?’

‘That will be great. See you then... got to go... bye... love to everyone.’

Jane sighed; having Pam round was the last thing she wanted. She’d be in for a grilling about Eddie and the operation. She slammed the front door behind her, hurrying to her car.

Jane arrived at the Nag’s Head with the cash in her handbag just before twelve. It was a real old-fashioned boozer and judging from all the cars parked outside, it was already filling up. Jane found a seat in the snug bar with a good view of the rest of the pub and ordered a half pint of lager. Most of the drinkers were men, though a few had wives and children sitting outside with packets of crisps and lemonades.

It was already twelve fifteen, and Jane was starting to think McGregor might not show, when she spotted two burly men walking in. One grey-haired man in a black T-shirt with a leather jacket over his shoulders, and behind him a younger man with tattoos and a muscular frame, jet-black oiled hair and sideburns over a stubbled chin. They glanced around the main pub and then came and stood in the archway to the snug bar.

Jane raised her hand, and then quickly lowered it as they moved back to the main bar. She thought she’d been mistaken but then the two men reappeared with pints in their hands and made their way to her table.

‘I’m Jane Tennison,’ she said.

Both stared at her before the grey-haired one sat in the chair at her table and the other younger man gestured to another table and removed a spare chair.

‘Are you Mr McGregor?’ Jane asked.

The grey-haired man nodded, then gestured to his companion.

‘And this is my nephew.’

‘I had a hard time tracking you down as your company used to go under a different name.’

‘What do you want?’ McGregor asked, while looking around the bar.

‘It’s connected with the work that you did, or maybe someone else at your company did, at Clarendon Court.’

He gave a noncommittal shrug without answering so Jane continued. ‘As I said to you on the phone this is just a personal enquiry; it has nothing to do with any complaint against you. Did you lay the tarmac at Clarendon Court about four years ago? I know you have recently done a small job there and a Mrs Larsson, I believe, paid for the work.’

The two men showed no reaction and continued to glance around the bar, almost as if she wasn’t there. She started to feel slightly threatened by their attitude but carried on.

‘I believe you worked there about four years ago, perhaps you didn’t do the work personally, but it was to tarmac the entire drive and courtyard. There was a funeral. The deceased was taken from Mrs Larsson’s property and the work was stopped to allow the hearse and the mourners to go past.’

‘I was on that, but he wasn’t,’ McGregor said, nodding to his nephew.

‘Can you describe the condition of the courtyard when you were told to halt the work?’

‘Listen, we were told to stop and that we’d be contacted as soon as it was all right to finish the job. It was nothing to do with us that we never finished what we was paid to do on time.’

‘I know that,’ Jane said quickly. ‘I just need to know what condition the remainder of the courtyard was in after you were told to stop work.’

McGregor drained his pint and handed it to his nephew for a refill.

‘You know, it was a very tough job because we come across big cobblestones under all the mud. It was full of potholes, too, and great ridges like ditches.’

His nephew returned with a fresh pint, and one for himself, and he sat down.

Jane sipped her drink, finding the nephew sitting too close for comfort, his knees almost touching hers. She eased a fraction away. ‘OK, can you tell me how long it was after the funeral that work recommenced?’

McGregor puffed out his cheeks, wiping the froth from his mouth with the back of his hand.

‘Maybe couple of days or so, but we’d started on another job so one of the guys couldn’t do it. The woman who owned the courtyard, she was a right pain in the arse. We had to put up the cones to stop anyone using the courtyard while we finished it.’

‘Why do you want to know all this?’ his nephew asked, leaning in close.

McGregor picked up a dirty, stained beermat from the table, searched in his pocket and brought out a stubby pencil.

‘Right, this is the courtyard. We did the main area in the centre, then worked our way over to the new properties, and lastly in front of her house and her neighbours, working our way to the area where we just done the filling in around the gate posts. That’s all I can tell you.’

‘Thank you. And when you did this work, can you describe the state of the ground close to the owner’s property and the other area you finished doing recently?’

McGregor drained his pint and put the glass down on the table. ‘Listen, I don’t know what you’re fucking asking me all this for, but all I know is we lost money on that fucking deal. It was a lot of aggravation and we was then just a small company and had to hire extra men to do it.’

His nephew leaned forwards. ‘Is it you’re after him for it being a cash deal, is that what this is about? You agreed fifty quid, so put that down on the table.’

Jane could feel him edging even closer, and her heart rate was climbing, so she clenched her hands and swallowed. ‘All right, I’ll come clean, but only if you move away from me. You are making me feel uncomfortable.’

‘Am I?’ he sneered, and then his right hand grabbed her knee beneath the table.

‘Get your hand off me!’ she snarled. ‘I mean it.’

McGregor pushed his nephew in the shoulder then leaned forwards.

‘I’m listening, sweetheart.’

‘OK, we had a tip-off. He might just be lying because we’ve arrested him, but he’s not identified who was with him. He claims that they stashed some very valuable silver on the night after the funeral. He said the courtyard was full of big potholes and he buried a Georgian silver tea service, and some valuable jewellery he’d nicked from the big house.’

McGregor let out a hoarse laugh, shaking his head. Jane licked her lips as her mouth felt bone-dry. ‘When you returned to do the tarmac, he never got the opportunity to reclaim it. So, you tell me: would it have been easy to bury that big a haul?’

Again, McGregor seemed to find it funny, shaking his head.

‘Why didn’t you just tell us straightaway; bit devious, aren’t you, love?’

‘I didn’t want you to think that I believed you were involved.’

McGregor drew the beermat closer, licked the lead of the pencil, then jabbed it in two places, before turning the mat around for Jane to see.

‘Right, there was two areas, we had to use sacks full of chips to fill them up. So, before the tarmac could cover them, we had a big iron roller to flatten them. I would say that’d be where your swag could have been hidden because it looked like it had been dug up.’

Jane nodded. ‘One more thing, just to be certain. These two areas: had you filled them in when you stopped work?’

‘To be honest with you, I can’t remember. I mean they was the biggest, maybe for the funeral they’d been filled in. Whoever done it wouldn’t have had access to our iron roller. We also have a heavy-duty plunger to flatten out the ground.’

Jane picked up her handbag and stood up abruptly. She already had her car keys hidden in her clenched fist. ‘Thank you very much, and if you accompany me to the car park I’ll give you the money. I would also appreciate it if you kept this to yourselves.’

McGregor pushed his chair back and gave another of his guttural laughs.

Jane had to squeeze past his nephew, who was draining his pint. She felt uneasy as the big man’s hand rested in the small of her back as they walked out of the snug bar, through the main bar and out to the car park.

By the time Jane had opened her driver’s door, McGregor’s nephew had joined him, and they both stood watching her. Leaning over to the glove compartment, she took out the envelope and put it into his outstretched hand. She had the ignition key in, reaching out to close the car door as McGregor checked the cash, but his nephew still had one hand on the top of the door.

‘Just a word of warning, guys. After your information we’ll be over at the courtyard, so I wouldn’t try getting there before us.’ She laughed uneasily, and then relaxed a little as McGregor’s nephew started to close the driver’s door.

‘Is there any reward?’ he asked, grinning.

‘I’ll let you know.’

McGregor pushed his nephew aside, leaning in towards her.

‘If you have to dig it up, let them know we’d be the best men for the job.’

He shut the door, stepping back as Jane turned on the ignition and reversed out of the parking slot. He gave her an all-clear gesture to drive out. Jane raised her hand to wave her thanks, relief washing over her that she’d managed to get away from the pair of them unscathed.

Now she just had to hope the rest of her plan would work.