The Power of One (11 page)

The announcement for
Payne 23
seemed to have come from the top of the column, the margins still running along the right-hand edge and the top corner still intact. She compared it to the way others were laid out.

‘So your last name was Payne. Obvious enough and the line below must have been your year of birth and death.' Stopped in her tracks by the obvious nonsense of that, Rina looked again at the columns. ‘But no, that definitely can't be right, can it. If you'd been born in 1923 then that would be the date left on the page when this piece was torn off. The left-hand date, not the right hand … and as we haven't got to 2023 yet, well … now that really doesn't make sense.

‘And if it had been a funeral date, say, September the twenty-third, well, no. That doesn't work either, does it?'

She scanned the pages for clues, but found nothing at first. A second newspaper made her wonder if this was part of a phone number. Beneath the name of one Betsy Marriot, for example, was the invitation for her friends and relatives to phone should they need further information and the number was given. But, surely, you wouldn't just put a number without an advisory message and it was clear from the placement of the number 23, immediately beneath the PA of Payne, that no additional message had been present.

What was going on?

Rina scanned the other copies of the
Frantham Echo
for any further clue and found it, tucked at the bottom of a column from three weeks before.

‘Arthur Payne,' she read, ‘b. June 1923. To give all friends and family the chance to attend, the funeral of Uncle Arthur has been delayed. Please call Paul for further details.'

The hall phone rang and Rina heard Bethany answer it. ‘Hello, Peverill Lodge. Oh Rina, dear, it's for you.'

Mac, Rina thought. She took the receiver from Bethany and retreated once more to her room. ‘Yes, Mac, something is very wrong and I need to speak with you properly. Now. And I've solved the puzzle, or rather I've found another piece of it.
Payne 23
. I've found another death announcement for the poor man.'

Fitch had called them to say he was five minutes away. To be ready to leave. Lydia and Edward stood in the hallway, conscious of the dark stairs behind them, of the dramatic events that had taken place here and which now seemed to poison the atmosphere of the place, despite its peaceful, tranquil surroundings.

They would be glad to leave.

The car headlights coming up the drive caused a feeling of panic which Lydia fought to control. What if this wasn't the man Rina had sent for them? What if it was …
them
?

Lights were doused. The bulky man who eased himself from the driver's seat matched the description they had been given. The surprise was the smaller, slighter figure that slipped from the passenger side.

‘Hello,' the girl said, fair hair gleaming in the headlights. ‘I'm Joy Duggan. Mum thought we ought to balance things up a bit, you know, all this macho stuff going on? This is Fitch. Fitch, say hello to the nice people.'

Fitch came forward, hand extended. ‘Don't mind her,' he said. ‘She has one little adventure and thinks she's Lara Croft or something.' He shook Edward's hand and then Lydia's. ‘I suggest we get a move on,' he said. ‘Rina doesn't think we should hang around down south longer than we have to.'

He put their suitcases in the car, assured them that it was fine to leave everything else behind. Tim would take care of that later. Got Lydia and Edward settled in the back of the Range Rover. It wasn't easy to turn the large vehicle in the small space in front of the house, but Fitch made it look casually simple. Within minutes of their arrival, they were heading back down the long drive, brambles and hawthorn scraping at the windows and the paintwork and then back out on to the little road and heading for the motorway.

‘We thought the four-by-four would be best,' Fitch told them. ‘The rear windows are smoked glass, gives you a bit more privacy. Bridie, Mrs Duggan, she's getting one of the guest rooms ready and you'll be welcome for as long as you need.'

‘This is really kind,' Lydia said.

‘Oh, Mum will love having you. She's been wanting to do something to say thanks to Rina for ages. Rina isn't the easiest person to pay back favours to, you know.'

‘You've known her for long?'

‘Only since spring. My brother was murdered. Rina helped out.' She hesitated for a moment and then asked, ‘Is Tim all right. Did he, um, say anything?'

‘What she wants to know,' Fitch said, ‘is did Tim give you any message for her. I mean any additional messages to the ones he texts to her three or four times a day or what they manage to fit in on those hour-long phone calls. Not to mention the emails and …'

Joy giggled, embarrassed but pleased.

‘He didn't know you were coming, remember,' Fitch said. ‘So he's not likely to have left you a love note is he? Mind if I put some music on? And if it's all right with everyone, we'll stop for coffee once were safely on the M5, I thought the services just the other side of Bristol. Then we'll do the rest in one if that's all right. Sooner we get home, the better I will feel.'

‘We should let Rina know we're all right,' Lydia said.

‘Yes, do that,' Fitch agreed.

‘Use your phone,' Edward told her. ‘My battery's about flat.'

Lydia rummaged in her bag, found her mobile, and switched it on for the first time since Rina had fetched her bag from the house. She dialled Rina's number to tell her they were safe with Fitch and on their way, not realising that the satnav transmitter in her phone, activated the moment she switched it on, now made them anything but.

Mac, unable to reply to Rina's summons immediately, had arrived some twenty minutes after Lydia called. He took one look at her face and demanded to know what she'd been up to.

‘You are not going to be pleased with me,' she said. ‘But, please, Mac, take a deep breath and keep your mouth shut until I tell you everything.'

Mac seethed as she filled him in. Telling him about the de Freitas's suddenly turning up on her doorstep, that she and Tim had gone to collect their things and the events at the house.

‘Someone shot at you? Rina, why the hell didn't you call me? Dial nine, nine, nine? For God's sake, woman, if there are people wandering around the countryside with guns …'

‘There are,' Rina told him coldly. ‘Regularly people wandering around the countryside carrying weapons. We usually call them farmers. But no, I suppose you're right and I'm sorry, but if Lydia and Edward thought we were involving the authorities, they'd have run further than Peverill Lodge and who knows what would have happened to them.'

‘Instead of which they are?'

‘With Fitch, on their way to Manchester to stay with the Duggans.'

She watched as Mac absorbed this, understanding that he may not be quite as impressed as Rina had hoped. The Duggan family were, of course, not quite on his side of the law and order divide. ‘Bridie Duggan will look after them. I can't see many people trying to get into their place; she's got it done up like Fort Knox.'

‘I still need to talk to them,' Mac said sternly.

‘And I'm sure she'll make an exception in your case and let you in. Mac, I didn't know what else to do and I still think it was the best course of action.'

Mac relented. ‘I suppose it's not a bad option,' he conceded. ‘But, Rina, we could have protected them, you know. That is kind of what the police are for.'

‘And Lydia was convinced that even the police couldn't be trusted, Mac. She doesn't know you so how can she be sure you aren't part of what Paul warned them about?'

‘And what did Paul warn them about?'

‘Well,' she admitted. ‘I'm not really sure. But Paul told them no one could be trusted. No one in authority. He was sure he was in danger and, well, he was, wasn't he? Mac, I don't know what was going on any more than you do and I don't think Lydia and Edward have a clue either. They just know he was threatened, that he's dead, that they are terrified.'

Mac considered. ‘And the phone was gone when you got there?'

‘Yes. Tim found a fragment of plastic on the floor. Lydia said she knocked it off the table and it skidded across the floor, but it was definitely gone. It was one of those digital things, no tape to take out, so I suppose they'd have to have taken the whole thing.'

‘So we've no evidence that the message was left.'

‘Why would they lie? Mac, I've seen scared people before and Lydia was terrified. Edward not much better. They said it was Paul's voice. That they heard him call out to someone called Ian and that there were two shots. They are both convinced that the second shot killed Paul.'

‘Why would anyone tape a killing?'

‘Evidence?' Rina suggested. ‘Proof that they'd done the job?'

Mac shook his head. ‘If they needed proof then a photograph would have worked better I'd have thought.' He frowned. ‘Most mobile phones have cameras these days. Most can record sound as well. I suppose …'

‘Mac, even if the tape was made up afterwards and created just to scare the pants off Paul's family, well, you can say it did the job.'

‘Which was? Oh, yes, put the fear of god into them, certainly, but to what purpose? To get them out of the house?' Mac frowned. ‘I don't think Lydia has been out of the house since Paul was killed, but to be frank, Rina, I don't think that would have kept Paul's killers away. They attacked him on his boat, what's to stop them attacking the de Freitas's in the house? The closest farm is half a mile away. No one would have heard or seen anything.'

‘Scare tactics then.'

‘And what do most scared people do? What do most sensible people do when they need help? I mean, when they don't have a Rina Martin available.'

‘Go to the police, I suppose,' Rina said. ‘Confide their problems to the authorities.' She stared hard at Mac, the ramifications dawning. ‘They would tell the authorities all they knew and ask for protection.'

‘Exactly what Paul warned them not to do.'

‘Which means,' Rina said slowly, ‘that someone on the side of the angels definitely isn't. You have a mole, Mac. Someone who should be trusted, definitely cannot be.'

Mac thought about Hale and Abe Jackson and the way Aims had been taken in. By one, by both, so far as Mac was concerned, the jury was still out.

‘Rina, I'm going to hate myself for this but …'

‘You've got a job for me.'

‘I'm going to have to go and organise a team to get up to the de Freitas's house. Rina, Tim has relatives with military connections, doesn't he?'

‘Yes, and his Uncle Charles was part of the Diplomatic Protection Group until he retired. He's still got the contacts. Why?'

‘I've got a couple of names I'd like him to check out. Rina, this is so unofficial as not to be happening, you know that, but there are things I need to know and I think I'm getting to be as paranoid as Paul de Freitas.'

‘More so, I hope. Look what happened to him.'

He wrote down what scant details he had concerning the mysterious Hale and Abe Jackson. ‘Write small, just in case I have to eat the evidence,' Rina told him mischievously. ‘Tim said he'd call in his break, so I'll ask him then. I think we should get moving on this as soon as possible.'

Mac nodded. ‘Rina, lock the doors, let me know when Fitch and co. are safe. I'll get a patrol car to sweep by but I think that's probably the best I can arrange tonight.'

‘Mac, we'll be fine,' she reassured him. ‘Chances are, no one has connected us to the de Freitas's.'

‘I hope you're right,' Mac said.

Tim watched from the wings of the small stage as the singer finished her set. Lucy had a great voice and the management recognised that they were lucky to have hung on to her this long. She was booked to the end of the season but then off to pastures new having acquired a significant supporting role in a West End musical. The Palisades was an art deco hotel that the new owners had restored with loving attention to detail. The small stage even had its own orchestra pit though at present it was occupied only by the grand piano that was used to accompany Lucy's first set. Later in the evening the action became more intimate, shifting to the raised platform at the other end of the grand dining room on which the five-piece band set up. Tim's own act was divided into two elements. The first set stage based and the second close-up magic performed table to table.

He loved the little stage with the miniature orchestra pit and heavy velvet curtains. There had been photographs taken of the original and Lilly, the wife of the new owner, had gone to great lengths to have everything put back just as it was. What Tim loved most was the new idea he had put forward for its use and which Lilly and husband Blake had embraced with an enthusiasm that had taken him by surprise. The stage set-up lent itself perfectly to the reconstructions of some potentially impressive illusions, Pepper's Ghost being just one. Mentally, Tim had already positioned the mirrors, lights and plate glass and was meeting with an engineer next week to look at the best ways of fixing everything from the point of view of modern health and safety regulations. If all went well, Christmas would see the launch of a Palisades extravaganza.

He kissed the pretty singer as she came off the stage and walked back with her to her dressing room, listening to her latest news. She'd just got the rehearsal schedule for her new role and couldn't wait for it all to start.

‘How's the illusion going?'

Tim smiled, enthusiasm lighting his face. ‘I got the model a couple of days ago,' he said. ‘I meant to bring it up tonight but events kind of took over.'

‘You were nearly late, we were getting worried.'