Hiding the Elephant

By Mira Kolar-Brown

The year is 1992.In the (fictional) Northamptonshire village of Hallbrook, Detective Inspector Simon Grant is held hostage by the killer of three people. Police are besieging the house, and with them is the local GP, Emma Martin. During the six hours of the siege, Simon Grant and Emma Martin relive their lives, the past week of investigation into the murders and their own relationship.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mira Kolar-Brown
• Release date: Apr 22, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458052711

Mira Kolar-Brown

The author of Simon Grant Mysteries series. The first two novels, HIDING THE ELEPHANT and LOCK UP YOUR DAUGHTERS are available in e-format and paperback on Amazon. TWO SIMON GRANT MYSTERIES - DOUBLE TROUBLE - is also available on Smashwords. The third novel in the series, FOR THE LOVE OF HONEY, will be available later in the year.I have also written two stories for children, TIMBUKTU, THE PERMANENT DOG and A SOLEMN PROMISE. Both are available from Amazon Kindle.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

The only light is in the hall, seeping into the room through the half-open door. They see each other in patches of pale flesh and the threat of jerky, disembodied movements.

‘Now that you know who’s done it, I suppose I’ll have to tell you why.’ The killer, code-named Dancer not a full week ago, is the first to speak. Understandably, for this is Dancer’s territory. Dancer’s house. And Dancer is the one holding the gun with intent. Calling the shots. Literally.

‘The whys can wait. What have you done with him? Is he still alive?’ The adrenaline is still pumping but by now he is largely himself again, Detective Inspector Simon Grant of Wellingborough Police, re-cloaked in authority. Such as it is. The fear, the metallic taste coating the back of his throat, is familiar. Fear is his friend. It’s helped him, kept him safe through many an action before. ‘Is he still alive?’ he repeats. Ostensibly, that’s what he’s here for. To save a hostage kidnapped late in the afternoon. No, not just a hostage but the chief witness when the case comes to trial.

‘When’ feels a little over-optimistic at the moment, though. ‘If’ might be more appropriate. Because he panicked that Emma may have done something terribly foolish and gone to face the killer on her own, Grant has as good as ruined the entire operation. Okay, he’s solved the case, he knows who’s committed the murders, and as far as it matters he knows why, but what good is that if the killer now shoots him and takes off?

It’s Sunday night and the clock in the car was showing 9.48 when he turned the ignition off and approached the house. On his own. Professionally, he’ll never live that one down. Privately, he probably won’t live long enough to care.

Aching from the blow on the neck delivered only minutes ago and disoriented in the darkness of the room after the brightness of the hall, Grant feels his jaw muscles tighten as always when he’s threatened. He’s standing somewhere in the centre of the room where the gun has pointed him to stop. His hands are where Dancer can see them. Hardly a position of advantage.

‘Is he still alive? Don’t know, don’t care, as they say.’ Dancer’s answer is terse, the don’t care in the tone as well as the wording.

‘For heaven’s sake, drop the gun and let’s get on with it. This place will be like a fairground in a minute.’ Grant tries to believe his own words, using that fear in the pit of his stomach to help him along. He’s businesslike, rising above Dancer’s last stand. As if the backup of five cars minimum and a couple of vans are hot behind him. It would be easier if he had some saliva to swallow, but he can’t afford silence to creep in. ‘You are better off coming with me.’

‘You’ve charged into my parlour, Inspector. We play this by my rules.’ There’s a trace of gleeful triumph in Dancer’s voice.

‘You know you can’t possibly keep it up forever.’ And Grant manages to sound convincing because he’s said it many times before to other people; only then it was true and he was the one holding the trumps. ‘What have you done with him?’ What he really wants to know is if Emma has fallen into Dancer’s net but he can’t bring himself to ask.

Silence. In a few minutes it’ll be obvious that there’s no backup. And a few minutes after that, no backup will be needed. Not for Grant, at any rate. A killer of three, possibly four, is hardly going to hesitate.

‘If it’s still in your power to spare a life, that may count for something…’ Grant was going to add ‘later’, but later holds no promise for either of them.

His answer is more silence. It’s ridiculous to be sucked into this tea-party-and-doilies exchange but that’s nothing compared to the monumental, unprofessional, quixotic blunder of bursting into the killer’s den alone, with no proper backup. The fleeting thought that neither the Chief nor the Super will get a chance of having him on the carpet for it once it’s all over almost makes him chuckle. A very dubious silver lining to a big, black cloud.

‘Why make it worse now?’ Grant takes a few steps forward. In spite of the ache in the stiffening neck where he’s been hit, in spite of the knot of frustrated tension tightening inside him, there is no hesitation in the stride, no tremor in the outstretched arms. As long as he doesn’t think about Emma, he can pull it off. Somehow.

‘Stay where you are.’ Dancer says it calmly, meaning it.

Grant stops. It’s the training, the years of drill that say no heroics. But keep talking. Keep the eye contact. How the hell can he keep eye contact in the dark? Say something. Say what? Something like I know you regret what you’ve done, or something along the lines of how lenient our penal system tends to be?

‘What did you expect was going to happen?’ Dancer takes over.

Grant welcomes the initiative. People don’t ask questions and shoot at the same time.

‘Another game of hide and seek?’ Dancer mocks gently. ‘Another battle of wits and nerves? Haven’t we had enough of those over the past week?’

‘It doesn’t matter. Listen…’

‘No! You listen!’ The chair swings sharply, bringing the armed hand aimed point-blank with it. ‘I can still get out of this. No one’s looking for me yet. Or for you. If I shoot you now I can still get away…’

‘Where to? For how long?’ Too quick. Too open ended. Grant instantly regrets the implicit acceptance of the possibility of escape.

‘It’s a chance.’

‘No, it’s a delusion. A delay at best.’ He should stop there. Weigh and wait. But he can’t stop himself. ‘If you wanted to get away, you’d have done it by now. You’ve stayed for a reason.’ God, he’s pushing it now, prodding where it may hurt, asking for it, as DS Tully would say.

Dancer, head and shoulders deep within the wings of the armchair, doesn’t answer immediately. The silence is teeming with small sounds.

‘For a reason? Yeah, maybe I have. I must have done, mustn’t I?’

Grant waits. He can deal with reasons. Reasons are good. They lead to negotiation. And negotiation is just routine. But when the answer comes, minutes after, it’s a long way away from routine.

‘It’s all happened so quickly. You found her on Monday? Fran. You found Fran on Monday?’

Grant nods, then realises that Dancer can’t see him. ‘Yes. Monday morning.’ The reminder is hardly necessary. Dancer knows full well when the first victim was found. And how.

‘And it’s only Sunday today. Six days. Well done, Grant. I must have had the misfortune to be assigned the best policeman on the force. An honour, I suppose.’

Grant’s mind is lingering on the memory of the victim’s body which makes it hard to keep a vicious hiss out of his voice. ‘Don’t kid yourself. Anybody else could have been put on the case.’

It could have been Tibb. Grant half wishes it was, then feels uncomfortable about it.

* * *

At around half past nine last Monday morning, 19th October, Chief Inspector Carlton popped his head round the office door. ‘Tibb around?’

PC Debbie Jones was dispensing steaming hot coffee in cream-coloured plastic cups with no holders. ‘No, Sir. His day off, Sir.’ Her shapely bulk was between Grant and the door.

‘The Met finished with you, Grant?’ The Chief’s voice worked its way around Debbie to reach him.

‘Yes, Sir. Nearly. Got to give evidence in court on Wednesday. At the Old Bailey.’ Grant stood up, not quite to attention but almost. The Chief expected that.

Debbie moved on.

Carlton looked even more narrow-chested in the dark-blue pinstripe than in his usual grey flannel with curling lapel tips. The tie was probably a Christmas present. Dozens of silky white Snoopies rolling all over shiny navy-blue background. He must have been on his way to somewhere important. The blue pinstripe always meant important with lunch included.

‘Ah, yes, yes. On Wednesday. Good work that, Grant. Yes.’ With the tip of his broad, short fingers Carlton draped a strand of long greyish hair back across his protuberant shiny skull, then patted it down as if gluing it in place. ‘Showed them, didn’t it? The Met. Not as provincial as they think, are we? No chance Tibb could be popping in today?’ The fingers quickly checked again if the recalcitrant strand of hair was still spanning the space between the top of the right ear and the left temple.

Debbie’s posterior turned heart shaped as she bent over, knees straight, to pick a few sheets of closely-typed paper from the floor. ‘Doubt it, Sir.’ She might have been talking through her arse.

With a practised move, Grant hastily lined up the tips of his fingers along the base of his left palm and carefully inspected his fingernails. While he was still a student a very friendly assistant dresser in a London theatre had told him that was a sure-fire cure against corpsing. The actors used it all the time, she’d said, naked down to the waist at the time, her chocolate-coloured skin radiating warmth and youth. Grant had forgotten her name but remembered the warmth of her skin and her advice often, with equal measures of gentle fondness and deep gratitude. Like now when he badly needed to suppress an irrepressible chortle.

The fingernail trick worked wonders. How did Debbie manage to get away with that? Talking to the DCI with her buttocks sticking up in the air like two halves of a very large melon. From anyone else that would have been taken as insolence.

‘A woman’s been found in Hallbrook. Murdered. Your village, Grant? Yes?’

It wasn’t exactly an accusation, but it made Grant wonder what could have possibly happened in Hallbrook. It wasn’t a place where things happened, as Emma had always said. ‘And when they do,’ she’d add wickedly, ‘everyone pretends that they haven’t.’

‘Yes, Sir. I live in Hallbrook,’ Grant nodded, keeping his fingers folded, just in case. He should have said ‘We live in Hallbrook’, meaning him and Pippa, but that wasn’t true any longer. The Wednesday before Pippa had moved into a flat in London. Didn’t come home for the weekend, either.

‘Well, go and check it out, man. Check it out! Can’t expect a young constable to handle something like that on his own.’ Carlton turned on his heel and marched off down the corridor. His steps echoed on the lino-covered floor.

* * *

If last Monday hadn’t been Tibb’s day off, Grant wouldn’t be here now. Nor would Tibb be standing here, stranded. Tibb would have taken his time and his backup. It would have been all floodlights and flashing blues out there if Tibb hadn’t chosen to have a day off last Monday.

Grant’s muscles ache, and his mouth is arid. The need to rub his neck is intense, but that would be an admission of weakness. So he keeps his mind off it by thinking of water. Of a shiny, thick stem of cold, beautifully tasteless liquid washing down the fear-scorched soft tissue in his mouth. He’s got to speak. It’ll all go stale on him if he doesn’t say something to move it on.

‘Look here, I’m getting tired of this. Take me to wherever you are hiding him and let us save a life if there’s still a life to be saved.’ Then, obliquely, because he can’t help himself, ‘You haven’t taken anyone else, have you? You haven’t got an army of kidnapped people hidden about this place, have you?’

‘You know I don’t. What’s this?’

Dancer’s surprise and indignation are genuine. Emma isn’t here. Emma has probably never been here. It was just bravado on her part. Or a mistake on Pippa’s. Pippa had put quite a bit away by the end of the evening.

Bless you, Dancer. Grant can be expansive now, generous to a fault. ‘There you are, then. You must have had enough of this. Must be tired of it yourself. There will be people to listen to you at the Station, people who’ll want to know why you did what you did. I’ll want to know, only not here. Not while you are aiming that thing at me. You understand that, don’t you?

There is a nod or maybe just a turn of the head. ‘Tired. Yes, we are both tired. Of each other, as much as anything else. You are a disappointment to me, Grant. I’ve spent hours imagining us meeting like this. I expected you to be exhilarated, thrilled. I’ve been preparing clever answers to your impatient questions. Instead…’ The voice ends in defeat.

‘You wanted me to find you tonight?’ Grant nearly obliges, almost lets the excitement show. Almost, but not quite. Even if it hasn’t been a battle of wits and words, as Dancer put it before, it is now. And a damn sight more than that.

‘Oh, no. Not wanted. I meant if… if you got there before me.’ Dancer’s voice falters, then picks up again with a faint note of amusement. ‘It was lonely at times, putting on a show and hoping that no audience was going to show up.’

Grant frowns. ‘If I… if we got where before you?’

He can actually hear his question hit the target with a bang. It’s too dark to see Dancer’s expression but the quality of the silence is suddenly different. Like an intake of breath. Like a vacuum, sucking him in.

‘Never mind,’ Dancer says evenly after a while. ‘It’s nothing. Forget it.’

Some air returns into the room with the reply and Dancer seems to breathe it in lungfuls.

Grant makes a mental note of that curious, extraordinary utterance but lets it pass for the moment. Whatever it means, Dancer isn’t ready to expand on it.

‘Well, let me take you in and you’ll have all the audience you want. You can tell everyone how clever you’ve been.’ His thick tongue flaps about in his mouth, but outwardly he is cheerful, light-hearted, offering the opportunity of a lifetime. ‘You can tell us how you led us the merry dance, gave us a run for our money.’ With the banter his arm stretches out in a smooth, careful glide, fingers extended invitingly to take over the deadly weight. He isn’t mistaken. In the softness of the dark, the hand opposite his is moving upwards, fingers curled over their cargo like a mesmerised octopus floating imperceptibly closer.

Gently now. ‘C’mon. Let’s go. There’s nothing for us here.’ The ‘us’ will tie them together, clasp their hands and their hearts closely while they walk out into a shared sunset. ‘C’mon.’

The weighted octopus moves still higher, still further out, longing to be caught and unburdened. ‘C’mon.’ Patience cuts sharply through Grant’s middle and hardens his calves and shins into knots. But his warm, friendly hand is a steady, welcoming beacon.

‘I’m not ready.’ Checked by the whisper the movement stops in mid-air.

‘You are. We both are. You’ve said so.’

‘I’m not ready!’ The cry thrusts the arm sharply forward into a blast of noise and sparks.

Grant steps back, quickly and sideways from habit. There is no pain. In the eye-watering acrid silence, worryingly, there is no pain and no sensation. He should have been hit. He was too close not to be hit.

‘I’m not ready. There are still things to be done, places to visit,’ comes ghostlike from the chair. ‘And neither are you, Inspector. You don’t deserve me yet. You’ll have to earn me first.’

Unbelievably, the miss was deliberate. Delivered to warn, to grab and assert. There is nothing Grant can do about the beads of sweat along the hairline, trickling down past his ear. Who cares! Now that he is certain that the gun is real, his heart is jumping from joy, from relief that Emma is somewhere else and not as clever as she thought.

‘Calm down,’ he says peaceably with some misdirected gratitude. In answer, the time comes rushing in, chiming off the wall, and he counts it with thirsty relish. Ten o’clock. She would be home by now. Waiting for Philip to come home, chilling the wine to be drunk with a hasty snack. Trying to phone Philip at the hospital to tell him how close she’s been to catching the murderer. For Emma is the loving wife of Philip and her gifts are for him.

‘Don’t shoot before you’re certain there’s something in it for you,’ Grant adds, more to hear himself speak, to check out his moving parts, than to advise. ‘Calm down,’ he repeats.

‘Oh, I’m calm enough. It’s you who seems distracted. I’m not surprised. I bet last Monday you didn’t expect to end up like this.’

Grant doesn’t answer. He hasn’t arrived here in such haste on account of the dead body discovered last Monday. He wishes he was. If only it were that simple.

.

CHAPTER 2

However, it’s easier to let Dancer take him back to that bloody Monday five days ago. A body dead from anything other than perfectly natural causes was never going to be a matter of routine in Hallbrook. Even Wellingborough, which was increasingly becoming a London overspill with all the usual associated problems, wasn’t seeing very many cases of violent death. Those that did occur were mostly the result of inter-gang fighting, a couple of domestics or one or two badly mishandled robberies, all requiring a minimum of detection and the maximum of swift and decisive action.

A body in the proverbial library by person or persons unknown caused excitement at the Station. DS Cunningham immediately went directly to the Chief and requested to be taken off her present brief and attached to DI Grant’s team. Her request was turned down on the grounds that repeated thefts of benefit books from the post office were far more serious a task than the murder in a small village which, however sensational, should be simplicity itself. DC Lynn Cooper, who’d heard it from Monica, Superintendent Darwen’s secretary, later reported that Carlton also told Cunningham in so many words to grow up and watch less TV.

Indeed, the Chief may have just as well been dispensing alms instead of putting an investigation team together.

‘In a place like Hallbrook something’s bound to turn up pretty quickly. Everybody knows everybody else’s business and all that. Yes. Bound to. Ten uniforms is plenty for door to door and what have you. You can have Sergeant Tully with you. Yes. Tully’s a good man to have about. Knows everybody.’

The pause made room for expressions of gratitude and appreciation, Grant thought, and let it pass. He didn’t say that Detective Sergeant Tully was two years from retirement and had a huge chip on his shoulder so the Chief continued.

‘And don’t forget the young Constable that’s at the scene now… whatshisname…’

‘Warner, Sir. William Warner.’ That Bill Warner was uniform with no CID experience was another thing Grant thought better not to mention. Now, Debbie Jones, a unformed Constable or not, she was another matter. He’d have Debbie anywhere.

‘Yes. Warner, yes. Have him along. We operate a policy of inclusion in this Station, Grant. We need to be seen to operate a policy of inclusion. Motivates the young.’

For heaven’s sake, Carlton, get on with it. This is not one of your steering committees. There’s a dead woman in Hallbrook, don’t you know.

‘Chief Inspector Procter is complaining that we’re using too many uniforms for CID jobs as it is, Sir,’ Grant tried. Perhaps not the best argument if he was hoping to draft Jones into the team.

‘Don’t know what Procter’s got to complain about.’ Carlton snorted, wiped off his moustache with the back of his hand and looked pointedly at his watch. ‘He charges us a pretty penny every time any of his men as much as walk across one of our offices…’

‘And women.’

‘What?’ Carlton looked up sharply.

‘Nothing, Sir. It doesn’t matter.’ It didn’t. A waste of breath.

Carlton squinted suspiciously. ‘The forensics out there yet?’

What do you think? ‘Yes, Sir. In full swing.’ That should do it. Carlton loved action words. ‘I thought I’d keep the media out for the time being, Sir. Till we know what we are dealing with.’

Dangerous, that. Carlton loved the media. Only ever got on the local radio and into the Evening Echo so far. Some qualities had reported the drugs ring round-up in a joint operation with the Met, all inside-page stuff, but only Grant’s name was mentioned. Move quickly on.

‘The doc hasn’t come out yet, I’m afraid, Sir. Tully’s been having some difficulty locating Dr. Stirling, and Pinder’s refused to come out point-blank.’

The Chief’s moustache jumped sideways, making way for two protruding front teeth. ‘Not exactly your scene-of-the-crime man, Pinder. Best left to his wet slab. Yes. Better left to his slab. Tully ought to try the Martins. We’ve got a contract with the Martins as well. Your in-laws, I believe.’

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘Which of the Martin girls have you got? The pretty one?’

Grant wished someone would answer the phone in the outer office. ‘Philippa, Sir. The elder of the two. I’d like Debbie Jones as well.’

‘Wouldn’t we all?’ The moustache took another leap in a burst of short-lived camaraderie. A frown quickly creased the narrow brow. ‘Over-resourcing it a bit, yes? PC Jones is with Tibb.’

The Chief didn’t even mean it the way everyone else in the Station knew it was. Debbie Jones was with the local-boy-wonder-can’t-put-a-foot-wrong-DI Tibb in every way. Except when she was with the invisible Matthew, the cyber-sandpit-kid, at times when Tibb remembered he was married with three children.

And not forgetting that one-off a year ago. Grant briefly wondered if Debbie Jones still remembered the one-off. They were not even drunk. Not to speak of.

Someone mercifully stopped the insistent ringing on the other side of the frosted glass.

‘I’m running late.’ Carlton looked at his watch again, then leaned forward a little to look trough the window and check its accuracy against the clock on the Town Hall spire across the square. ‘Pull them in as you need them…’ Something of the once-operational man crept back before the multi-buttoned apparatus on the fake rosewood desk screamed for attention. ‘Maybe Tibb could spare Jones for a few days if you think she’s that useful. This one will be down to forensics, anyway. Mark my words.’ Then he lifted the receiver and barked into it. ‘Yes?’

Grant felt free to go.

‘I’ll drive,’ he told Debbie ten minutes later. ‘I know the way.’

There was really no simple way to get to Hallbrook from the Station. He could have gone down Northampton Road, turned right onto the A508 in the centre of Northampton, then after about five miles turn right again into Wood Lane. Kettering Road, on the other hand, only two miles longer but faster once the work in the fields was over and one didn’t have to crawl behind tractors, was twisting and turning in-between the fields and isolated homesteads, but eventually led through Hallbrook Market Street and past Emma’s surgery. Her car was parked by the side of the bungalow, as usual. A woman with a teenager in jeans slouching beside her was just leaving the surgery.

In the passenger seat, Debbie was busy on Grant’s mobile, talking mostly to her trusted Matthew. ‘It doesn’t matter if there’s no Mercedes registered in her name. How do we know she hasn’t bought it recently? Over the past week or so. DVLA wouldn’t know that yet if she bought it recently. Yeah, yeah, check the bank account. No, I don’t know which bank… give me a chance, Matt. I’ve only been drafted into this two minutes ago. How many banks are there around here?’ She flipped the flap back in place and turned to Grant. ‘Who’s looking after the warrants?’

As Grant turned the wheel sharply to the left, the small surgery building swung out of the rear view mirror.

‘You are.’ With the counter turn of the wheel Grant pushed away her hefty upper arm that had pressed itself against him on the outside bend. ‘What have we got? Who is she?’

‘Who was she,’ corrected Debbie, pushing back her seat as far as it would go and wedging her black-clad feet onto the dashboard. The thighs, two substantial rolls of tight muscle stretching the thick black fabric of her tights under the navy-blue skirt, made a slanting table for her clipboard. ‘Frances Alberta Swan. Twenty four. Born in Wellingborough of Albert and Sarah Swan. Both parents deceased. No previous. Worked for the Efficiency Secretarial Agency as an assistant manager. Claim to fame – her mother won the football pools some years ago. The sale of the ironmonger business after the father’s death and a few shrewd investments also brought in a pretty penny or two. Cunningham says the father died of pure chagrin that it was his wife who won the pools and not him.’ She laughed quietly at the eternal and predictable stupidity of men. ‘Anyway, when the mother died of cancer a few years later, the daughter inherited the money and the house. Haven’t you met her? With all that money she must have been one of your rural elite.’

‘I don’t get to meet the elite.’ The sails of the Old Mill, nailed and painted into brilliant white immobility, sprang into view through the treetops. ‘I only get to meet the scum.’

‘You’re practically married into local aristocracy.’ There was a start of a ladder in Debbie’s tights on the inside of her left knee. ‘Local gossip has it the Martins only marry each other. Your sister-in-law, the Hallbrook GP… Emma, isn’t it… she’s married to her cousin. Another Martin.’

‘A distant cousin, Debs. A very distant cousin. You’d expect a family of doctors to be careful about that sort of thing. What else have we got about the victim?’

‘Just wondered how you managed to slip in, that’s all. Keep your boxer shorts on.’ Debbie was shuffling through her papers, not quite intimate, not cheeky, just pleasing herself, untouched by the drill and hierarchy.

‘Pete Bailey, the plumber, found the body this morning,’ she continued. ‘Came by appointment to fix the bathroom tap. The front door was unlocked. He first puked all over the carpet, then phoned the Station. Warner went out first, then the Chief sent Tully after him. Tully says that as well as Frances Swan’s own Mini Metro, there is a car in her garage that doesn’t belong to her. The old fart thinks he still knows everything that’s going on in Hallbrook. Hallbrook was his beat when he was a baby PC. I’ve just asked Matt to put a trace on it, but if she’s bought it recently it may not show anywhere yet, so don’t hold your breath.’

‘I won’t.’ Another left bend, the last big one before the Old Mill, launched her shoulder back into his arm, her not trying to stop it but not lingering when the car straightened out, either.

* * *

Grant now catches himself thinking that if anyone does something to get him out of this trap tonight, it’ll be Debs. Pray God, if Warner has taken the time to radio for backup before getting on with his grim task, let Debbie Jones be among them. If. With the threat of unrest at a housing estate in Wellingborough and the possible relegation match in Northampton, the police resources are stretched to the limit. Of course, there’s the Armed Response, but they’re a completely different animal. What he needs here and now is someone who understands.

Tully and Jones could have been detailed either to the match or the Branton Estate. Grant hadn’t expected to need either of them tonight. He was only going to attend a wake at an amateur dramatics theatre, for heaven’s sake. Out of respect for Frances Swan. Out of curiosity. Just in case there was something still left to be learned. Because it was easier to handle the situation with a lot of other people around than to be alone with Pippa. Because he knew Emma was going to be there. All the wrong reasons, as usual. Then Warner turned up with the news of kidnapping and everything started happening at the same time. The bloody mobile wasn’t working, as usual, and the Riverside’s phone could only take incoming calls. There was the 999 option, of course, only it felt absurd at the time. Not now, though. Nothing felt as absurd now as falling into Dancer’s trap like a rabbit.

Grant tries the what’s-done-is-done philosophy again, only it’s less effective the second time around. Even if Dancer already used one bullet on the man kidnapped this afternoon, and counting the other spent only minutes ago – or was that half an hour ago, it’s only too easy to lose sense of time in this muffled up room – that still left four bullets in Dancer’s arsenal. At this distance, which is no distance at all even for a bungling amateur, his chances of survival are exceedingly low. Too low to dwell on.

Instead, he reminds himself over and over again, that before darting off after Emma he had asked Warner to put out the alert. Did Warner hear him? Did he understand what was required? The Superintendent if not even the Chief Superintendent, not just that crap Carlton, the armed response unit, the works? Grant smiles ruefully. The boy looked worried enough about his own grim task to listen much.

Something akin to compassion shoots through Grant at the thought of the young Constable working his way through a mountain of decomposing flesh.

‘Don’t move.’ Dancer’s chair slides silently backwards, there is a click and the light from a bronze mounted table lamp comes on softly, reluctantly, powdering the top and the wings of the chair motley pink. Two fine fingers linger on the switch pad for a few seconds, unnaturally pale.

‘That’s better. Days have gone remarkably shorter, don’t you think?’

A small talk pleasantry unaware of itself.

The chair is back in place with annoying precision and so is the glint of metal in the right hand. Just that little bit too far for action, just that little bit too near for evasion. The well-proportioned room is working against Grant and knowingly or not Dancer is making the most of it. The double-glazed bay windows are covered with dark-green, floor to ceiling, velvet curtains, and the only door out into the hall is in a straight line behind Grant with nothing in-between to offer a hideout or protection.

No heroics.

The small talk continues. ‘Why were you shouting for Emma when you came in? Did you think she was here?’

Of course Grant thought she was here. Why else would he have made such a bloody fool of himself? ‘Tell Simon I’ll get to the killer before he does,’ Emma had tossed at her sister in passing, and Pippa, doing her dutiful wife bit, told him word for word. By that time Emma had been gone from Riverside for almost an hour. Walked off into the night while he looked the other way. He couldn’t let it happen again. Not to Emma. He ran out, as he should have done fourteen years ago.

When he arrived here the first thing he noticed was the absence of her car. And yet, he entered. Emma! he shouted. Eeemma!

Somewhere about this place there’s a hostage, another victim, possibly dead already. The murder Grant was meant to prevent. But, infuriatingly, Dancer is right. It was Emma’s saviour who, hell-bent on his crusade, catapulted the Sierra the wrong way down one-way streets and skidded over jutting pavements without a thought for the kidnapped, with no heed for the killer.

And just how delightfully wrong he was. Grant had never wanted her involved in this in the first place. It was Tully’s fault that she was. His and Stirling’s. Stirling should have been there to examine Frances Swan’s body. He’s the principal medical examiner. He should have been there.

Grant needs to clear his throat before the words come out the way they should. Cheery and light-hearted. ‘Good job it wasn’t Emma, isn’t it. Lucky old her. That trap you’ve set. That was clever of you.’ Let’s get back on track, Dancer. Let’s see what your immediate plans are. ‘A veritable portcullis. Very clever.’ Grant rubs his neck as a proof how clever the trap was.

The trap was more unexpected than clever. If he’d stopped to think about the place he was about to enter, the blasted portcullis wouldn’t have come as such a surprise. As it was, it was just another price of his haste. Somehow, it seemed deserved. As if it’s been waiting for him for all of the past fourteen years.

The front door was open and the lights in the hall were on. He entered, looking for Emma, shouting to let her know he was around, that she was safe, but cautiously nevertheless, his gun at the ready. Quietly and with great speed it hit him from above across the neck and shoulders as he put his foot over the doorstep. A steel roller shutter. In mid-fall he could see Dancer’s hand on the control panel further down the hall. Grant’s gun clattered loudly as it skidded across the floor tiles and slid into the shadows. And he thought – she’s got to me. After fourteen years, the bloody woman’s finally got to me. Through Emma. She’s sent Emma into Dancer’s hands.

Self-indulgence, that’s all it was. Wallowing in it he was.

All over, now. Let’s get back to good, sound reasoning. To survival and its simple rules. ‘You were going to tell me why you stayed. Why you didn’t simply clear out.’

‘Don’t pretend. No need to humour me,’ Dancer snaps angrily, recognising the ambush and resenting it as unworthy.

Grant doesn’t answer. Anything he says now might only aggravate the situation.

‘I disgust you, don’t I?’ Dancer is not asking a question. It’s more like a start of a monologue that’s welling up, waiting for its chance to overspill. Dancer isn’t going to make demands, negotiate, ask for a helicopter and a million pounds. It isn’t going to be that simple.

Grant recognises the signs; the upper body bent forward, the fingers meeting at the points, cradling the gun in-between the palms. No prizes for guessing. The words will be chasing each other, rolling over each other, doing little and changing nothing. And when they are all used up, and all the tears have been shed, it’ll happen. The little gun, peeping innocuously now from between a pair of thumbs and forefingers, will speak last to make up for the weakness of the narration. Only, this time it won’t miss.

Dancer’s staring somewhere to the side of Grant, staring into the past and into the future at the same time, it seems. ‘I can just see, the lot of you, shaking your collective self-righteous little heads, rolling your eyes up to heaven. What monster could have done that to such a pretty young woman?’

* * *

Dancer’s nearly right. On Monday only Tully was able to remember someone killed in a similar fashion in their home, a man, years ago and on the other side of Wellingborough, but even that hadn’t been such a fancy job and the man himself turned out to be involved in some dodgy dealings, asking for it like, if you know what I mean, said Tully. But the Old Mill was an expensive house and the victim was a respectable young woman, quite wealthy and yet nothing taken that anyone could see and no signs of forced entry so it had to be someone she knew. In Tully’s opinion.

‘Or left the front door open,’ continued Sergeant Tully who used to do the beat in Hallbrook years ago, before joining the CID which was probably a mistake, DS Tully was the first to admit that, he’d been very happy in uniform, never happier, but too late to do anything about it now. ‘People still leave their front doors open, no matter what we tell them. Bailey found it open this morning.’ It was as if the Sergeant was finding some satisfaction in the grim proof of his warnings. He had loosened his collar and was walking about, shaking his head in disapproval. ‘Fran was a nice girl. Good family. Her father used to own the ironmongers, just opposite the Wellingborough market, prime spot. Who would have thought…’

Grant immediately refused to be drawn into that line of thinking. Nice girls got killed every day.

SOCO was still at it, there was dusting and sampling going on in every nook and cranny of the converted windmill. And the doctor hadn’t turned up yet.

‘Martin’s coming out,’ said Tully after a few calls from the Old Mill phone. ‘Setting off as we speak.’

He would have turned heaven and earth to find Stirling for Tibb, Grant frowned to himself. But Philip Martin was a good scene of crime ME. Thorough and not given to flippancies like Stirling.

‘Good. Thanks.’ Grant averted his eyes from Tully’s undone shirt button, just above the black trouser belt where the shirt fronts failed to meet and grey and black hairs curled their way out. ‘Can you and Warner make sure that no press come anywhere near? And I don’t want anyone shooting their mouth off to them, either.’

‘The boy’s in shock,’ Tully protested.

‘I’m all right, Sir. Really.’ It wasn’t quite clear whether Warner was addressing Grant or the Sergeant. He was sweating, possibly from heat, probably from the overpowering stench of blood. ‘I sent Bailey for a check-up. He took it bad. Hope that’s okay with you, Sir?’

‘I’m sure it’s okay, Warner.’ Grant refrained from actually patting the young man on the proverbial shoulder. The short light-brown hair was darker in places where sweat dampened it through. ‘No reason to think Bailey had anything to do with it, is there?’

‘No, Sir. No blood on him anywhere.’ Warner cast an I-kept-my-head glance at his boss. ‘He’s just a plumber. Came to fix the bathroom tap,’ he added unnecessarily. Bailey was virtually the only plumber between Wellingborough and Kettering.

‘I’m putting a trace on both cars.’ Debbie Jones had detached herself momentarily from Grant’s mobile.

‘Good. Good.’ He watched Warner make a run for fresh air, closely followed by Tully’s disapproving back.

‘About the Incident Room… the mobile unit will be here by tonight. It can go on the council land, right next door.’ Debbie moved aside to let two white-masked figures squeeze past on the narrow landing. ‘Matthew will see to it that it’s rigged up straight off.’

‘Oh, good.’ Grant assumed rigging had something to do with telephones.

She returned into the living room, tapping more numbers into the mobile phone. There was plenty of space elsewhere in that house. She didn’t need to go back there.

There was a body in that room behind him, a bloody mess of what had once been a woman. But now, in this prison of a sitting room, shifting his weight from one foot to another and with a Smith & Wesson following even the slightest of his moves, Grant only recalls Emma coming up the spiral stony stairs of the Old Mill, her doctor’s bag bulging awkwardly at her side. He could not see her face because the doorway behind her opening into the front yard caramelised by October sun was too bright. It shouldn’t have been her. What was Tully thinking of? ‘Martin’s coming out,’ Tully had said. Philip Martin, Grant had thought. Not Emma. Emma was his self-appointed mother, his friend, his saviour. Emma was Pippa’s sister and Philip’s wife and was never going to be his, Grant’s, lover.

There’s no denying that those were the thoughts at the back of his mind as she was coming up the stairs to examine the body in the room behind him and he was standing on the landing, his spine pressing against the door frame, his thick, heavy arm stretched across, barring her entrance.

‘In here?’ she asked, and he nodded because there was nothing else he could do, his arm still protectively wedged between her and the world inside. Then, grudgingly, he motioned her in.

Emma entered, smiled greetings to the police photographer and Debbie Jones. No one spoke. She looked around, focusing her gaze on the bed in the centre of the room. In an instant her face turned bluish more than pale and she sagged in the middle a little, her free hand instinctively rising to her stomach.

Debbie quickly opened the bathroom door and pushed her gently inside. Grant wondered about the state of the sink or the toilet bowl in there after the photographer’s last visit.

‘We’ve all taken a turn in here,’ muttered the red-haired policewoman before closing the bathroom door behind her.

When she re-emerged a few minutes later Emma’s mouth was set in a thin line and the ends of her curls were hanging wet, stretching all the way to her eyes.

‘So much unhappiness,’ she whispered. ‘So much misery.’

For a minute she looked as if she was about to be sick again, but she only took a couple of deep breaths and straightened up her shoulders.

‘Do you want to proceed?’ Grant hoped she would refuse to go on, turn back, leave.

She nodded and opened her case.

It was eleven o’clock or thereabouts on the morning of Monday, 19 October 1992. Detective Inspector Simon Grant, thirty-six years of age, a man in the wrong job for a wrong reason, was about to embark on his first-ever murder inquiry.

CHAPTER 3

If there’s ever a time when he’ll be able to look back on this, Grant thinks with hazy detachment, this will be the moment he’ll remember as when he lost it. He’s rushed the situation and lost. He knows that and Dancer knows it. If he’d waited ten minutes, half an hour perhaps, led Dancer gently to give up the weapon voluntarily, it would have been all over by now. As it is, he’s only made Dancer more determined to follow some preconceived, mysterious path. Leading where? Into what? Even if he wanted to, which he doesn’t, Grant can’t give in, give up. There’s nothing to give in to. There are no demands, no expectations, except possibly the meagre delay earned by listening.

‘I’ve read the papers. I watched the telly. I’ve heard every word about that particularly cowardly and callous crime. They say that every time, don’t they? A particularly cowardly and callous crime. They don’t ask themselves why.’ Dancer is obviously skirting around the subject, setting the scene for the big act.

What act?

‘On the contrary. We’re big on motives,’ Dancer’s audience of one counters dutifully. So far it’s all been predictable crap, the poor-little-me lament mixed with flashes of gun-fuelled clout. He shrugs mentally. Keep it coming, Dancer, just keep going until something turns up. Something’s bound to turn up, as Carlton said on Monday with more obduracy than reason.

Planting his feet deeper into the floral rug, a modern beige and pale-blue Chinese creation for the mass market, Grant folds his arms at his back and is looking around, trying to look as if he’s not looking. There must be a way. Something he’s overlooked. Something Dancer’s overlooked.