A Place Of Safety Read online

What he would do was drive to the far side of the Green. That way he would still be able to see the Rectory gates and the splendid silver car outside the glass house but Four Eyes could not see him. However, hardly had he replaced the plastic cup on his tartan Thermos when a car, very old, large and black, drove quite quickly out of the gates, turned left and set off on the road to Causton.

  DS Bennet swept his napkin, jam turnover and flask to the floor with one hand and switched on the ignition with the other. He had been briefed that, should the car emerge, it would definitely be his man as no one else in the house could drive. Eyes fixed firmly on the road ahead, he did not at first notice that, within a second of his own departure, the shining Alvis was on his tail.

  Barnaby, having been engrossed for over an hour reading and re-reading all interviews pertaining to the case, was staring at the wall when Sergeant Troy put his head round the door.

  ‘God, is it lunchtime already?’

  ‘Jackson’s making a run for it.’

  ‘Brilliant.’ Barnaby said a silent thank you as he reached for his coat. Four more hours and he’d have lost the lookout. ‘Let’s hope he’s not just popping into Causton for a bottle of something to touch up his roots.’

  ‘Bennet says he’s on the Beaconsfield road.’

  ‘Sounds promising.’ They made their way briskly to the lift. ‘Has Bennet been spotted?’

  ‘He thinks not. He’s running three, four cars behind Jackson at the minute. And Fainlight’s Alvis is also in the queue.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. Very quick off the mark. Watching from the house, apparently. His car’s even further back. Bennet gets the feeling he’s anxious not to be spotted.’

  ‘If we’re going any distance we’ll need petrol. Better stop at the Fall End service station.’

  Within half an hour it seemed almost certain that the Humber was making for London. Jackson had bypassed Causton altogether, driving straight to Beaconsfield then linking up with the M40. Keeping him in sight would be ‘a piece of piss’ according to DS Bennet.

  ‘He couldn’t overtake a five-year-old on rollerskates in that bloody hearse, sir. We’re talking sixty all the way. And that’s going flat out.’

  ‘Where’s Fainlight?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘The Alvis.’

  ‘Still behind me. Keeping a low profile. Or as low as you can driving something out of a Bond movie.’

  Bennet then broke into ‘Live and Let Die’ and Barnaby quickly switched his mobile off. The irritation barely lasted a second. Instead he began to dwell happily on how kindly Fate was treating him for a change. For, if you had to follow someone in a car, there could be few more discreet and surefire ways of keeping them in sight than trundling along on the inside lane of a motorway.

  ‘We never did get a London address for Jackson, did we, chief?’

  ‘No. He went to the Lawrences almost straight from prison. Stayed a week or two in a hostel to sort his stuff out. Before then he just drifted. No fixed abode, as they say.’

  ‘Wouldn’t fancy that much.’

  ‘Like I said, he’s not clever.’

  ‘So he could be going almost anywhere?’

  ‘He could be. But I don’t think he is.’

  Somewhere between Paddington and Regent’s Park the silver Alvis overtook Bennet’s Escort. He didn’t actually see this happen. To tell the truth, the Alvis had been several cars behind, invisible to all intents and purposes, for the last half-hour and Bennet had half forgotten it. He hadn’t even noticed it jump lanes.

  He wasn’t worried. As long as he kept the corpse and cart, as he had christened the Humber, in sight it was immaterial who else joined the party. He didn’t even have to hang back because, as the chief had pointed out during their last exchange, to Fainlight the dark blue Escort hardly stood out. Even if noticed it would be just another car on the road.

  As all three vehicles passed over Blackfriars Bridge, Troy was circling Hyde Park.

  ‘You sure you’ve got the geography right, Sergeant? And don’t tell me we’re taking the scenic route. I’ve got eyes.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Troy remembered looking forward only the other day to driving in London. Saw it as a challenge, which it certainly was. He could handle it, no question, it was just that if he didn’t get into the left-hand lane soon he’d be going round and round the Marble Arch till he was dizzy and God help him then when they finally came to a halt. He signalled, swerved out and got a trumpet blast from a foghorn up his exhaust that turned his bowels to water.

  ‘Short cut, chief. Avoiding Blackfriars. Gets dead dodgy this time of day.’

  The silence was worse than a reprimand.

  ‘Whereas this way, nip across Waterloo Bridge and, bingo, we’re in Shoreditch.’

  ‘Looks like Oxford Street to me.’

  And so it was. They crept gradually down, overtaking, at half a snail’s pace, huge red doubledeckers, several of which had a notice on their backsides thanking you for letting them pull out. Troy had a fleeting but vivid picture of what might happen if they pulled out and you didn’t let them and decided that, on balance, it might be best not to argue.

  He couldn’t help noticing the extremely hostile attitude shown by the drivers of black cabs, of which there were many. They hooted, they stopped him overtaking, they tried to cut him up. One man screwed his finger into his forehead and yelled, ‘Wanker!’

  ‘I’ve heard about London taxis,’ said Troy. ‘I didn’t know they were as bad as this.’

  ‘You’re not supposed to be here.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Buses and cabs only.’

  ‘Why don’t they tell you?’

  ‘We’ve just passed a sign.’

  They crawled round Piccadilly Circus where the steps circling Eros were invisible under a crowd of young people eating, drinking and lolling about. Two appeared to be wholeheartedly trying out the god’s first principle for size.

  They edged down the Haymarket and round Trafalgar Square, jam packed with tourists, most of whom were generously feeding the pigeons. The pigeons also gave without counting the cost and Barnaby regarded his car’s spattered bonnet sourly as they finally made their way over into Shoreditch. DS Bennet came through on Barnaby’s mobile and described his position. Just outside Whitechapel Tube.

  ‘He’ll probably be turning left any minute, Bennet. Heading for Lomax Road, number seventeen. If he enters the house, fine. Just stay close. If he tries to leave, detain him. We’re only five minutes or so behind you.’

  ‘Right, sir.’

  As DS Bennet switched off, the Humber moved away from the traffic lights, followed by about a dozen cars, including the Alvis. The Escort was held up by a red light but catching up wasn’t a problem. The flow of the traffic was pretty smooth and Bennet could see well ahead. He watched the Humber turn left and, a few moments later, the Alvis did the same.

  Turning himself, Bennet discovered that they were indeed at the top end of Lomax Road. But then something went wrong. Traffic moved more and more slowly and finally stopped. Car horns started to blare. Motorists were putting their heads out of the windows of their vehicles and abusing no one and nothing in particular. DS Bennet got out of his car, walked a little way looking ahead, trying to find the source of the hold up. Located it. And started to run.

  The Alvis was in the middle of the road. The driver had simply come to a halt, got out and walked away. A little further down, Bennet saw the Humber awkwardly jammed into a too small parking space, the rear end sticking out.

  He hurried along the pavement. The DCI had suggested number seventeen. He could hear shouting inside the house from several doors away. On his home patch an excited clutch of neighbours would already be gathering. Here passersby just passed indifferently by.

  The front door was ajar. Bennet hesitated. He had been told simply to watch the house but a disturbance was a disturbance. And with the Alvis holding the traffic up, who knew how long it would take
the DCI to get here? The volume of sound from the voices, both male, escalated. One was cracking with violence, the other let forth anguished screams of pain which became transmuted into grunts and snarls and panting.

  Once the verbals became physical, Bennet decided to act. He wondered whether to call the DCI before going in then decided against it. This half-second hesitation was to prove fatal. As he opened the front door he looked upwards and saw two figures struggling on the landing. One fell backwards against a wooden stair rail. It splintered under his weight then gave way entirely. Bennet watched in horror as a man tumbled through the air, landing with tremendous force on the stone floor directly in front of him.

  It was some considerable time before Barnaby was able to interview the survivor of this terrible confrontation. The local police were on the spot a good half-hour before the chief inspector who left his sergeant stuck opposite the White Hart and half walked, half ran to the house in Lomax Road. They had already called out their medical officer, driven the Alvis away, and were now trying to clear the still honking traffic jam.

  Arrangements had been made to remove the man on the hall floor, whose skull had been crushed as a result of his fall, to the morgue of the London Hospital as soon as some transport could get through. Meanwhile he was invisible underneath a bedcover removed from the flat upstairs where the argument had started.

  DS Bennet sat on the stairs, devastated with shame. When the DCI arrived he sprang up.

  ‘Sir, Christ, I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say. I heard them - how violent it was getting. I should have gone in before. I just didn’t know whether - what . . . I’m so sorry.’

  Barnaby crouched down, lifted a corner of the bedcover and carefully replaced it. He touched Bennet lightly on the shoulder as he went by.

  ‘No need to be sorry, Sergeant.’

  Several hours later, extensive liaising having taken place between the Thames Valley and the Metropolitan police forces, Valentine Fainlight, having been formally charged, was released into the custody of two officers from Causton CID.

  At the station he washed and changed his clothes for a clean shirt and jeans his sister had brought along. She had refused to go home and had been waiting in reception now for almost two hours.

  Barnaby and Troy had been sitting in a room on the ground floor at the back of the CID building for roughly half that time, attempting to get some sense out of Fainlight, with no success whatsoever. In London he had been seen by a doctor, examined, his cuts and bruises attended to and declared fit to be interviewed. He had not spoken there either.

  Physically fit, that meant. As for the rest of him, Barnaby was not so sure. Grievous bodily harm was a term well understood in police circles. But where was the definition to cover grievous mental harm? For that was surely what the end of Fainlight’s searingly destructive relationship had brought about.

  He sat with his head in his hands, his shoulders bowed. He had been offered food, tea, water and had refused all, shaking his head without speaking. Barnaby had given up switching the tape on and off. Now he tried again.

  ‘Mr Fainlight—?’ Barnaby could see the man was not being obdurate. He suspected that Sergeant Troy’s presence and his own had hardly registered in spite of the time that had passed. Fainlight was simply consumed by quiet, impenetrable grief.

  Barnaby got up, gestured to Troy to stay put and left the room. Their prisoner was not the sort of man who would refuse to talk to the police out of principle. When he had recovered from the shock, he would tell them what had happened. But when might that be?

  As far as the chief inspector had been able to ascertain, until the moment Jackson fell there were no witnesses to the fight which meant only Fainlight could tell them what had actually occurred. And it was in his own interests as well as Barnaby’s that the sooner he talked, the better. Presumably he would not wish to remain in a cell until his trial which could well be months away.

  All of this Barnaby explained to Louise Fainlight in the reception area. She had sprung up on recognising him. She was much changed. He had never seen her without make-up and her naked face, stamped with the most wretched anxiety, was grey and lined. Asked her age now, he would have guessed around fifty.

  ‘When can I see my brother?’

  ‘I was hoping—’

  ‘Has he got someone with him? What about a solicitor? That’s his right, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. Do you have a family solicitor?’

  ‘She’s in London. When can I see Val?’

  ‘Come and sit down, Miss Fainlight.’

  Barnaby took her arm and they made for an unwelcoming wooden slatted bench. Louise sat reluctantly and on the very edge, plucking at the fringe of her jersey.

  ‘I’m sure you want to help your brother—’

  ‘Of course I do!’

  ‘And we’re hoping you can persuade him to talk to us.’

  ‘What, now?’

  ‘The sooner he answers—’

  ‘You’ve been at him at that other place for hours. He should be resting.’

  ‘He can’t be released—’

  ‘Is it true, about Jax?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh, poor Val!’ And she began soundlessly to cry.

  There was no question of leaving Louise and her brother alone together. But Barnaby arranged the most discreet and unthreatening police presence possible. Sergeant Brierley sat, not at the table but on a chair by the far wall. Barnaby was sure that within minutes Fainlight and his sister would forget she was there and so it proved to be. An assurance had been demanded by Louise that no recordings would be made of any conversation with her brother. Though longing to be with him, she was determined to make no contribution that might reinforce, even inadvertently, the prosecution’s case.

  Barnaby was sitting in the next room along the corridor. There was a small, wire-meshed window set into the wall and through this he could see and hear Louise and her brother. They sat on hard metal chairs side by side. Louise held Valentine clumsily and at an awkward angle in her arms, rocking him back and forth like a baby. This went on for almost twenty minutes and Barnaby was just about to give up when Fainlight threw back his head and let out a terrible howl followed by a series of harsh, ratching sobs.

  ‘We’re off,’ said Sergeant Troy who had only just come in. ‘I’ve asked them to bring some tea. Do you want a Mars while they’re at it?’

  ‘So when I saw the door standing open I thought it was our signal. You can imagine, Lou, how I felt.’ Tears of pain flowed down Valentine’s face. He wiped them with the back of his sleeve. The table top and floor were littered with screwed-up tissues. Louise took her brother’s hand and pressed it to her lips.

  ‘I ran over - I nearly fell on the stairs I climbed so fast - but there was no one there. And I realised it must have been left open by accident.’

  He gripped her fingers so tightly she almost cried out.

  ‘God, Lou, if only I’d left then. Why didn’t I just walk away? If I’d done that he’d still be alive.’

  Louise closed her face against joy. Shuttered the light in her eyes. ‘I know, love, I know.’

  ‘Then there was that click on the phone you get when someone picks up an extension, and I thought it might be him. And that he might be ringing me. I swear that was it, Lou. I wasn’t spying or anything. And when I heard his voice, I couldn’t believe it! So tender, so loving and gentle . . . saying things I’d never dared to even dream of hearing. That she was the only one who had ever mattered, first in his heart now and always, not to worry about anything, he would be with her as soon as he could get away, everything would be all right . . .’

  Louise’s heart turned over with pity. She produced more tissues and once more patiently dried his face. She would need to be very patient in the weeks and months to come. Patient and disingenuous. Tender, loving and gentle.

  ‘And then, of course, I had to know. I had to see her. Not to do harm, though I was blind with jealousy, but just to see w
hat sort of person could bring this miracle about. So I sat and watched. And when Jax left the house I followed him.

  ‘He drove to this place in the East End. I just stopped the car, left it where it was and ran after him. They were in a room at the top of the stairs. The door was open and I could see them hugging, laughing. You’d think they hadn’t seen each other for years. And then he saw me - on the landing. And everything changed.

  ‘I’ve never seen such anger in a human being. He screamed and shouted, and the more I tried to say I was sorry, the more violent he became. How dare I bring my . . . my dirt, my filth into her home. I was a sick fuck. A pile of vomit. I wasn’t fit to live. I think he was half mad. And all the time she was talking quietly, trying to calm him down. And then he hit me.

  ‘I fell down and as I was getting up I heard her cry, Terry, Terry, don’t. And I saw his face and I’ve never been so frightened in my life. I thought, he’s going to kill me. So I started to fight back, I couldn’t help it, and we were on the landing when he . . .’

  Louise gently rested her hand on his arm. A fragile comfort but he cringed as if battered. ‘Val, it was an accident—’

  ‘It was my fault!’

  ‘They’ve got to understand that. You can’t spend the rest of your life in prison.’

  ‘I don’t care where I spend the rest of my life. I just hope to God it’s bloody short.’ He fell silent for a moment then said, ‘The joke is, Lou, the bloody tragic joke is I would have died for him.’

  In the adjoining room, Troy drained his cup of lukewarm tea and Barnaby peered inside his third sandwich (rather fatty ham, pale pink tomato and salad cream) and put it back on the plate. Troy was just stacking both cups and saucers on the tray when Fainlight started to speak again. Barnaby grabbed his sergeant’s arm and hissed for quiet.

  ‘The odd thing was I’d seen her before, this girl.’