On the Loose (31 page)

Delaney watched as the canary-yellow bulldozer roared into reverse, trying to pull itself free from the remaining wall. His work boots found traction in the viscous mud and he quickly moved out of range as the brick slab toppled backwards and crashed over, lifting its concrete base out of the earth, spraying rocks and clumps of soil everywhere
.

While the driver of the bulldozer concentrated on shoving the last chunks of rubble back into a pile, Delaney went over to the ragged crater and climbed in. He should have been working in a team today, but the other guy had called in sick, said he had food poisoning
. Alcohol poisoning, more like,
thought Terry as he checked the base of the hole
.

Nobody was sure whether there were any foundations to the remains of the building they had just pulled down. The plans didn’t show a basement, but they were often wrong. The worst job Terry had ever undertaken was digging out the lower ground floor of a warehouse in Wapping. The buildings on the docks were built without foundations, so their stability was provided by making them pyramid-shaped, with the thickest layers of bricks at the bottom. They had run weeks over schedule on that one
.

He checked the perimeter but found no sign of another floor. He was
just about to climb out of the hole when he noticed the faint circle of bricks in the very centre of the pit. He knew at once that it was a well; the whole area was peppered with them. Most old factories had drawn up their water from boreholes sunk into the river Fleet. Terry knew a lot about King’s Cross. His family on his father’s side had come from the area, and he enjoyed studying historical documents, matching what he read with what he had been told by his grandparents. The wells usually ran deep, and upon discovery would have to be reported, studied, then filled in—all in a short space of time, if the work schedule was to be kept
.

He pulled out a couple of the loosened stones and then shovelled off a layer of earth, but found ragged stumps of concrete poured over broken brickwork; someone had filled it in, probably during the war. But something else had been exposed by the bulldozer, a flattened black box that at first glance appeared to be some kind of land mine. But now he saw that it was made of cheap tin, and had been cemented inside the well wall like a letter box, someone’s homemade safe. The lid had been crushed and twisted when the bulldozer had pushed down the wall. He punched it with his gloved hand and it popped off, clattering to the floor. Terry looked up to see if anyone else had noticed
.

Inside was just a brown manila envelope, nothing else, but it had once been considered valuable enough to hide. He stuck it inside his jacket and climbed back out of the crater
.

The day dragged by. He could feel the heat of the envelope in his pocket. At home later that afternoon, disappointment set in as he opened it and tipped out the contents. A couple of insurance policies, three birth certificates, for Thomas Porter, Irene Porter and their son, William, and some house deeds to a building long gone. He read the typed print. Number 11, Camley Lane, freehold and valid in perpetuity. Did it mean that whoever held the deeds owned the land?

The next morning, he went to Camden Council on his lunch break and did some research. The ownership of the plot in Camley Lane continued according to the original registration, providing that no other sole
tenant had occupied the land for eleven years. Which meant, by his reckoning, that the Porter family still owned it
.

Terry Delaney was broke. He was behind on his child support, and hadn’t taken his little girl anywhere nice in months. He did not want to go through life getting into a financial hole every time his van’s insurance came up for renewal. But it would not be right to claim the land for himself. It wouldn’t hurt to check up and see if the Porters were still in the area. Terry knew what was going onto the site of number 11, Camley Lane, and how much it was costing. The deed might be worth a fortune. Better, he thought, that the Porters should have what was rightfully theirs than let some faceless corporation get away with stealing it. Perhaps they would even reward him for bringing the document to light. And if they didn’t want it, or he couldn’t trace them, maybe the ADAPT Group would pay for the find
.

The casual phone call left Maddox Cavendish in a cold sweat
.

Ever since he had realised that the documentation for Plot BL827 was missing, he’d been praying that no-one would pick up on his mistake. He’d been working on the project for almost thirteen years, and still couldn’t believe he had managed to overlook the plot of land, despite all the tabulating and cross-referencing he had painstakingly carried out. The system was so complex that Sammi, his assistant, left him with all the data inputting
.

And now this call, from a moronic bloody workman of all people, saying that he was in possession of a valuable property deed, and was having trouble returning it to the rightful owner
.

Cavendish had managed to talk him into a meeting. He would go in with an offer and strike a simple deal in hard cash. Workmen wanted everything off the books, didn’t they? The deed could then be filed and forgotten, and he would trim the cash payment from the accounts system
.

He would take Delaney to lunch—that was it. Buy him a fancy meal and a couple of bottles of wine, loosen his tongue, put him at ease. Cavendish pushed back in his office chair and started to relax. The worst was over. The mistake could be rectified. All he had to do was stay cool and treat Delaney like any other client who needed winning over
.

He booked Plateau, on the fourth floor of Canada Square in Canary Wharf—glamorous white furnishings, floor-to-ceiling glass, fabulous food, what could go wrong?

The lunch was disastrous. Cavendish had appeared arrogant and dismissive, and Delaney wasn’t impressed by the restaurant’s good taste. Cavendish realised that he had underestimated Delaney, who had clearly done his research. He had left the deed at home, but had written down the wording to prove it was in his possession. When asked about the expiration date, he cheerfully informed Cavendish that there wasn’t one, and that the property rights would pass to whoever held the deed in perpetuity. The only good thing was that Delaney didn’t seem to know about the eleven-year ownership rule
.

So, how much was ADAPT willing to pay for it?

When Cavendish named the figure of £2,500, Delaney laughed in his face. No deal, he said, swigging back his wine with a vulgarity that made Cavendish wince. Not unless the amount could be quadrupled. But to do that, Cavendish knew he would need to seek permission from the company accountant, and that meant telling Marianne Waters what had happened. It was bad enough that his assistant might already know about the problem; he had foolishly left the planning permission files open on his computer
.

‘You’ll have to give me a few days,’ Cavendish warned him. ‘I can’t get that kind of money together overnight.’

‘I don’t care if you have to draw it out of your personal savings,’
Delaney countered. ‘If you don’t come through in the next couple of days I’ll find a way to pass the deed to the owners, and the entire project will come to a halt.’

‘You’ll get nothing that way.’

‘I don’t care,’ said Delaney. ‘Two years ago you called me in to carry out a demolition, and fired me halfway through the job. I couldn’t get compensation because you’d kept the job off the books. I’ll be happy enough just repaying the compliment.’

Cavendish returned to the office and went to see the accountant, who referred him to Marianne Waters. No money could be authorised without her signature. He paused outside her door, but could not bring himself to go in. His entire future was at stake. He looked down at the contact number Delaney had given him, and realised that the construction worker wasn’t so smart after all. He had scribbled it on the back of his business card
.

Which meant that Cavendish could get his home address
.

Stopping by his office to grab his coat, he headed out into the streets of King’s Cross, to find someone, anyone, who would be prepared to commit a burglary
.

40
COMPLICATIONS

L
ongbright was awakened by the sound of rain in a bedroom that was clearly not hers. She raised her head and looked across the pillows. Liberty DuCaine was lying on his back snoring faintly.
Oh, my God
, she thought,
I didn’t
, and knew at once that she had because her underpants were hanging on the side-table lamp. Her next thoughts were, in swift succession:
We have to work together, he’ll be so embarrassed he won’t even be able to look me in the eye, I’m not going to get into a blame spiral, best just to leave before he wakes up and never mention it again because men hate women who want to talk about it
. And something else stirred at the back of her mind, something dark as molasses, mysterious as night, faint as a ghost.
You must hold on to this
, said the ghost.
This will not happen again. He will soon be gone. Remember the good
.

‘How can I save him?’
she asked the ghost.

‘You cannot,’
came the reply.

‘How will I know when he is in danger?’

‘It will happen when you call his name.’

Then DuCaine woke up and saw her looking back. He raised himself onto an elbow and studied her slowly, carefully. ‘What time is it?’ he asked with a thick voice, pausing to clear his throat.

‘Seven-fifteen.’

‘We have to be at the unit by eight.’

‘Yes, I know.’ She nodded.

‘Let’s save time by showering together.’ He grinned, reaching for her.

At seven-thirty a.m. on Sunday, Banbury was still collecting evidence at the closed-off ground-floor offices of ADAPT. The story had now broken in the national press, and photographers were lurking in the courtyard outside, waiting to snap any further grisly discoveries.

‘Somebody must have seen him,’ insisted Renfield, watching as Banbury continued to painstakingly remove every item from the desk and examine it in infuriating detail. ‘Old Bryant’s theory is that Cavendish panicked and went over to burgle Delaney’s apartment, attacking him in a frenzy when he got home.’

‘You’re supposed to be giving me a hand,’ said Banbury, annoyed.

‘You’re only bagging and tagging; that doesn’t take two of us. I’m thinking this through. Isn’t that what you blokes are supposed to do? Have you finished with this chair?’ Renfield dropped into it and swivelled himself around. ‘So, Cavendish lays out everything in the apartment carefully, searching for the document. He knows exactly what it looks like; he’s seen hundreds of them. He hears the front door open and realises he’s trapped. There’s an argument and maybe Delaney takes a swing at him.’

‘The carpet scuffs would bear that out,’ Banbury agreed. ‘Cavendish must have been carrying a knife—he didn’t pick up anything in the flat. And he must have stabbed Delaney through his clothes; there were no arterial sprays.’

Renfield swivelled back and forth. ‘He drags the body down
the stairs of the empty house to the front door. The street is empty, so he shoves Delaney in the trunk of his own car.’

‘There’s no evidence of that. I’ve been over the car.’

‘Maybe you missed something.’ Renfield jumped to his feet. ‘Wait. There were no blood creases on the body so he used Delaney’s own vehicle, a van. You don’t need me here to hold your hand. I’m going to do another door-to-door.’ He pocketed Cavendish’s security ID.
‘Someone
must have seen it. Then I’m going over to that bloody church.’

‘Why there?’ asked Banbury, dropping a stapler into a plastic pouch.

‘Because Bryant keeps mentioning it. He’s got an idea about the place, and I want to know what it is.’

‘Is this case complicated or am I getting old?’ asked Arthur Bryant wearily.

‘Well, you’re getting old whether it’s complicated or not.’ Longbright smiled sweetly, touching her hair.

‘Is there something going on that I should know about? You look eerily radiant today. And you only wear that tortoiseshell barrette when you’re really happy. You’ve had a disconcerting smile on your face ever since you returned from Brighton.’

Longbright refused to be drawn. She thrust out her imposing bosom and delivered her news. ‘I came in to tell you that Richard Standover is here to see you.’

‘Ah,’ said Bryant, ‘the collector. Show him in.’

Standover was almost as wide as his height, and wouldn’t have stood over many people at all. He had made up for the loss of a neck with an exorbitant goatee, and stared angrily at the detective through shrunken eyes. ‘This is absurd,’ he said testily, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing here.’

‘No, but we do. I’m Arthur Bryant. Do find something to sit on. Your rival, Adrian Jesson, turned up in two separate pieces while you were away sunning yourself with his sister in Majorca.’

‘So this lady already told me.’ He indicated Longbright.

‘Not heartbroken, then?’

‘Of course not. I barely knew Jesson.’

‘Not what we’ve heard, old chum. Your mutual acquaintance at the Rocketship bookshop seems to think you were having a feud with him. He said you’d been rivals for many years.’

‘Our business relationship was common knowledge. The collecting world is a small one, and highly competitive. We all know each other, and we all love to gossip. Collecting is a disease, Mr Bryant. Start collecting something professionally, whether it’s china frogs or British beer mats from the 1930s, and you’ll soon find out who else is doing the same thing.’

‘You don’t help each other, then? Say, if you’re collecting a set and need a particular item, you don’t trade.’