The Power of One (19 page)

‘Rina, you're not making me feel any better.'

‘I think, Tim, that our gun-toting friends view us as a minor inconvenience, but one that might be frightened into being useful.'

‘Useful? How?'

She sighed. ‘I've got to admit, that bit escapes me at present, but I'm thinking that they may be wondering what, if anything, the de Freitas's told us. Lydia and Edward are out of play, out of reach. We, on the other hand, are not. So, maybe they're wondering, what have we been told? Nothing or everything? Did Paul confide in any or all of us? That message on Lydia's phone frightened them enough to run away, but they didn't do what most normal people do, they didn't go to the police, presumably because Paul had somehow instilled in them some fear of authority. Given them some reason for not trusting the usual sources of protection.'

‘Rina, we're back to there being a police informant or something.'

‘Which may or may not have been Abe Jackson or the mysterious Hale. You know what, Tim, I think this is a case of no one being at all sure what anyone else has or knows or is going to do. I'm inclined to bet that we have three quite distinct entities here. Hale's lot, whoever Abe Jackson is working for and this other tribe.'

‘How do we know they're not working together?'

‘Because, so far, none of us except Paul and that poor man with him has wound up dead. While our three groups try to second guess whatever it is they are trying to guess, no one dare take anyone or anything out of the game. Not properly, not completely. I think that Paul de Freitas may have been more savvy than any of us have given him credit for. More stupid too.'

‘How can he be both, Rina?'

‘I think whatever he had that these people want, he hid it in different places, maybe allowed several people to have just part of the picture.'

‘Like an insurance policy? Like posting a letter to your lawyer “to be opened in the case of my death”?'

‘Something like that, but as Mac's already spoken to his solicitor I suppose we must assume he didn't do that. Pity, I've always rather liked it as a dramatic device. Stupid, because he has now made any number of people into potential targets. Right now, I'm hoping that enough people want the secret badly enough that they want to keep every potential secret keeper alive and, mostly, intact. But I don't imagine that will last long as a safeguard. I don't imagine it will be long before one or other of those involved decides that if they can't have whatever it is Paul was hiding, then no one is going to.'

The tall man had watched their foray into the copse and the woman stand thoughtful, gazing in his direction. For a moment he thought she had seen him, though he'd been careful to stand close in cover, not allow any part of his silhouette to be seen against the skyline.

‘What are they doing?' The voice on the mobile phone was quiet but no less demanding for that.

‘Just looking at the wood. I think he's showing her where he hid.'

‘Are they alone?'

‘No, that young police constable is with them. Nevins or whatever his name is. They're leaving now. What should I do?'

‘Let them go. We've surveillance in place.'

The tall man closed his mobile phone and slipped it back into his pocket, waited until Rina and company had gone and then returned to his car, parked on the grass verge in the shallow scrape of a parking spot walkers used to access the cliff path from the road.

Tim Brandon had surprised them that night and that was a bad thing. Surprised them and showed also that their local knowledge was sadly lacking. He hated to have so little time to prepare, to recce an area of operation. All the maps in the world were no substitute to seeing the terrain first-hand. They had been surprised too by Tim Brandon himself, had made the mistake of seeing him as a soft target, likely to be scared out of his wits and so easily controlled.

Two errors compounded into one almighty fuck-up; he was wise enough to know he would not be forgiven for a second.

A
be Jackson watched Mac leave the police station and walk along the promenade. He turned off on to Newell Street and, Abe assumed, Peverill Lodge.

He was certain enough of his assumption not to bother following; besides, Newell Street was less crowded than the promenade and Mac was not such an easy tail that Abe could be complacent. He watched as Sergeant Baker and Andy Nevins also took their leave. Baker walked home every night. Andy usually drove, but Abe knew that tonight he was planning to meet friends and have a night out. One of them was driving and Andy's car left parked safely behind the police station.

Kendal had been there earlier, but had left close on an hour before as had the two officers he had borrowed to collate the sackfuls of evidence – or potential evidence – Mac had brought from Paul's flat.

Abe had been surprised by the way the whole operation had been kept so low-key. Voices from the top advising caution, no doubt. Managing the media. Not that they'd be able to keep the lid on for long, Abe thought, as the story they'd put out about a tragic accident on board
The Greek Girl
wouldn't cut it for long. The media reports had, so far, given the impression that Paul had been alone on the boat, but too many people had seen the second body being brought off. Even given Abe's own dealings with official dissembling, he was astonished that the pretence had held for this long.

Abe waited, watching the world go by and the boats sail into the marina. Families, late at the beach, were enjoying the evening sun and then he turned back along the promenade and made his way to the rear of the police station. There were three cars parked in the tiny space. Mac's own, Andy's little Fiat and the official, area car. Abe had already familiarised himself with the terrain. The small yard was at the head of a cul-de-sac. A few houses backed on to the little road, but unless you had a reason to be there, it was not somewhere anyone would need or want to be. Once inside the yard, he could not be seen from the road, nor was he overlooked from any of the nearby properties. Abe slipped between the cars. He had already selected his point of entry earlier in the day, checked out the ageing alarm system while he had been there legitimately, with Mac, and he decided now not to wait for dark. He might be able to make himself invisible in the yard, but start shining a torch around and there was a fair bet someone would notice an unusual light. There were no street lights in the dead end of a road and Abe was pretty sure that, much past seven o'clock, there would be little ambient illumination in the cramped little yard even at this time of year.

Mac's car was parked close beside the wall. Abe clambered on to the bonnet and took a careful look around. The wall was still high enough to conceal him from the road. The small window at the back of the police station had a simple latch. Abe had noticed when he had first visited the police station that the little room beyond was just used for storage, but that the door had no lock and, from there, he was out in the main reception area. He had brought with him a glass cutter and a roll of tape bought at a local DIY warehouse. He donned thin latex gloves and, carefully, he cut a half-circle above the latch leaving an inch or so of glass still attached. He taped across the cut, so it would not fall, then cut the rest. A light tap and it freed itself from the rest of the pane, kept from falling by the tape. Abe fished a tough, zip-lock bag from his pocket and slipped glass cutter, glass and tape inside, then reached in and released the latch.

This window, he knew, was not alarmed and he knew too that once out of the storeroom, he'd have thirty seconds to reach the panel and unset the alarm. The same to get out again once it had been reset.

The latch was stiff; Abe figured it had been years since anyone opened it. His worry was that the window would have been sealed by equal years of over-zealous decorating, held fast by sedimentary gloss paint.

He need not have worried. Re-decorating had clearly not been on anyone's list of ‘must dos' for a long time. Abe opened the window and jumped lightly down from the sill, closing the window behind him. Out of the store room, into the front of house, the panel for the alarm was behind the desk. It had a lock but the key, as Abe had also noted on his visit, hung on the wall beside it. He opened the panel and unset the sensors, watching as the light blinked out and hoping there was nothing more sophisticated that he was unaware of, and decided, judging by the rest of the set-up, that thought was just paranoia on his part.

Mac's office door was open and the case file in the cabinet, together with the bags of assorted detritus he had collected from the flat.

Abe flicked through the crime scene photographs, looking not so much at the bodies as at the background, examining what was there and what was not.

Updated reports told him that Mac and Kendal were little further on than they had been when his subterfuge had been discovered and he'd lost access. He read with interest an account of Tim's misadventures, which Mac had copied into the file in the belief that this might be related to the death of Paul de Freitas.

‘No doubt about that,' Abe said softly. Question was, who? Not Hale, he thought. Hale was more subtle, more patient than that. There were additional notes, too, about the visit to
Iconograph
. Abe had noticed that day that Mac had hung back, chatting to Lyndsey and Ray, but had been unable to get close enough to hear what had been said. Mac had noted in the file that he had asked them about
The Power of One
and the phrase
Payne 23
. He had recorded Ray's comments and noted that Lyndsey seemed oddly silent on the subject.

They still had no name for the second man on Paul's boat. Nothing more than the first name of Ian.

‘Manning,' Abe said. ‘His name, Mac, was Ian Manning.' He found one of Mac's business cards in a desk drawer, wrote the name on the back, and lay it in a prominent position on Mac's desk. Then rummaged through the collection of evidence bags not yet submitted for forensic examination. Had it been Abe's call, the lot would have gone, and he suspected Mac would have liked to do the same, but Abe knew the deal. Each test cost money and ninety-nine per cent of what Mac had collected, and was currently collating with help from Kendal and his assistants, would prove irrelevant. Abe glanced through the selection of bank statements and web printouts, takeaway brochures and shopping lists and decided, as Mac had already done, that there was nothing here. The one exception being the
Payne 23
clipping that he had already seen … and the pack of pills, which he had not.

Abe turned the blister pack between his fingers, knowing who they had belonged to and what they meant and that they had nothing to do with any relationship of Paul de Freitas with anyone.

Lyndsey Barnes, assistant to Paul de Freitas, had met Ian Manning, minder to the same, and they had fallen for one another. Simple as that. Ian had no proper base down south; Lyndsey shared a flat with a couple of girlfriends, so Paul had allowed them to meet up in his. Result, one happy couple, but also one young woman drawn further into her boss's affairs than would usually have been the case and what Paul might have told her, outside of working hours, was something Abe would give a great deal to know. Abe and others too.

He dropped the pills back on the desk, straightened everything up, and packed it back in to the filing drawer.

Abe would never have allowed this relationship to develop. If Ian had shown interest in Lyndsey on Abe's watch, he'd have taken him off the watch, given him a good dressing-down and an ultimatum. Keep away from the girl until the work was done. Anything otherwise was messy, sloppy, unpredictable and by the time Ian had realised that for himself, it had been too late. He'd tried to tell Lyndsey that it was over, but been unable to do so because he hadn't believed it himself. Abe didn't want to think that Ian's distraction was what had got him killed but he knew it hadn't helped. The girl had become an unwilling chink in his usual armour and Ian had died, Paul de Freitas with him.

Abe had lost a good friend and when the opportunity to run interference had arisen, Abe had grasped it with both hands. That the brief he had been given had gone rapidly astray and Abe found himself ordered out had done nothing to dissuade him. His masters may not want him in the game now but, too bad. They'd invited him to the party and, just because the host had thrown a strop, Abe saw no reason to leave just yet.

‘You were a good man, Ian,' Abe said softly, glancing down at the name he had written on Mac's business card. ‘But always a fool for a pretty face. Was she worth it, is what I want to know? Frankly, my old friend, I think not.'

‘Can I come with you tomorrow?' Tim said. ‘Or would that be too unofficial?'

‘To Manchester? I don't see why not. I'm using my own car and to be honest, I'd appreciate the company and the extra pair of eyes.'

‘Good. Thanks. You'll be all right, Rina?'

‘Oh, course I will. We're all being careful and you can't stay chained to the house. Give my best to Joy,' she added with a sly smile. ‘Tell her she's more than welcome to come and stay for a while once things have settled down. You know, I do find all of this a little ironic.'

‘Oh, what particularly?' Mac asked.

‘That you and Bridie Duggan should both end up on the same side. Considering her background and history and all that.'

Mac laughed. ‘I like Bridie,' he said. ‘For that matter, I liked James, though I doubt it would do to say so in front of Superintendent Aims.'

‘His nose still out of joint, is it?'

‘Oh yes. Very much so. Dave Kendal says he's practically apoplectic and looking very hard for someone to blame. You can't be too hard on him though. I knew Hale wasn't what he said he was, but I still don't know exactly what he is and for all I do know, he may well be working for the government or the MOD or something just as unlikely.'