Under a Silent Moon: A Novel (46 page)

In the end, they never made it to the studio. They were heading through Briarstone when Les Finnegan phoned Lou’s mobile.

“Ma’am. Where are you?”

“London Road, stuck in traffic. What’s up?”

“I’m just ahead of you at an RTA. Cause of your traffic jam. Can you get here quick? It’s Flora Maitland. You won’t believe what she’s got in her car.”

Deploying the blue lights and siren scared the crap out of the young lad in the stationary car immediately in front of them, but to give him his due, he moved neatly onto the pavement and gradually a path through the traffic opened up ahead of them like parting waves.

It wasn’t far. About half a mile further up the road Flora’s car was embracing a lamppost. An ambulance was already on the scene, as was Eden Fire and Rescue Service, who were in the process of preparing to cut the roof of the car away to get to the driver.

Sam pulled the car to the side of the road, as far out of the way as she could. Two patrols were already on the scene, one of them managing traffic, the other collaring as many witnesses as they could get their hands on. And on the pavement, grinding a cigarette with the toe of his brown leather loafer, was Les Finnegan.

“Is she conscious, Les?” Lou said, as they got close to him.

“In and out,” he said. “Hard to say how injured. She stinks of booze, though. I reckon she’s paralytic.”

Lou looked across to the remains of the car, but there were so many fluorescent jackets grouped around the driver’s window she couldn’t see who was inside.

“What were you saying about the car?”

“All over the backseat: files, passports, credit cards—and this.” He held up a brown envelope and opened it enough so that Lou and Sam could see the contents.

“Jesus Christ!”

A black handgun, inside one of Les’s handy clear plastic evidence bags.

“What the fuck are you doing with that?” Sam said. “Sorry, ma’am.”

“Couldn’t bloody leave it in there, could I? Not with that lot all over the car. Anyway, don’t worry. I’ve put in a call to Firearms, they’re coming to collect it.”

“I need to talk to her,” Lou said.

“They won’t let you near,” said Les.

But she was already crossing the road, opening her warrant card and holding it up for the fire and rescue team leader in his white helmet on the way past.

“Not a good idea to get close,” he said. “Can you stand back?”

“I just need a minute,” she said. “Less than that. Please—it’s really important.”

“We need to get her out. You’ll have all the time you need after that.”

Lou changed the tone of her voice from one of friendly camaraderie to one that permitted no further argument. “This is a police scene. We’re just waiting for Firearms support, and I need to speak to the witness. I won’t take long.”

“Put this on, then,” he said, offering her a spare helmet and a dust mask. “You don’t want to be inhaling any glass shards. And try not to get in the way.”

It was way too big and must have looked comical, but at least it gave her the authority to get in close to the smashed driver’s window, next to a green-suited ambulance technician. Given the state of the car, Flora looked in reasonable shape. At some point she had vomited and the inside of the car smelled appalling; an oxygen mask was over her face, blood already drying on her cheek from a cut above her eye. A quick glance at the backseat confirmed what Les had told her.

The medics were trying to keep Flora awake, chatting about inane things while the rescue teams prepared the cutting gear.

“Flora, can you hear me?” Lou said. She lifted the dust mask from her face briefly so that Flora could see who it was.

She couldn’t move her head or turn it because they’d already managed to get a neck brace around her. “It’s you,” she said, her voice muffled slightly through the plastic mask.

“Yes, it’s me. Lou Smith. From earlier. I’m sorry we didn’t get longer to talk.”

“My dad. I have to get back.”

“Flora, earlier today you wanted to tell me something. Do you remember?”

“No . . . it wasn’t that. I was wrong after all.”

“You can tell me now,” Lou said. The medic who was right next to her shot her a look.

“Your—what’s his name?—the big one . . .”

Lou had to think for a minute. “You mean Andy Hamilton?”

“That’s it,” she said. “Hamilton. I wish he’d leave me alone.”

Lou smiled at her. “Shall I ask Sam to keep an eye on you instead?”

“Yeah, Sam. She’s nice. I don’t like the other one. He’s downstairs all the time.”

“You need to move away now.” The fire and rescue officer had a hand on her upper arm, pulling her away.

“Downstairs? You mean waiting outside for you?”

“No,” Flora said, her voice becoming indistinct. “The other flat.”

“I’ll come and see you as soon as you’re in the hospital,” Lou called. “Try not to worry.”

Then she was taken back across the road, picking her way over bits of plastic from the smashed bollard and broken glass to where Sam was waiting. Les was sitting in the back of an unmarked van that had just arrived. Firearms, clearly, come to take charge of the weapon. Les would be briefing them so they could take over control of the scene.

“What did she say?” Sam asked. “Is she all right?”

“I think she’ll make it. I hope so, anyway. Can you do me a favor? Make sure Les stays with the car and doesn’t let that evidence out of his sight, whatever Firearms say. We’ll need to start bagging it as soon as the roof comes off. Don’t let Traffic take over or do anything until that’s done, okay? Get one of the patrols to stay with Flora, especially if she’s not too badly hurt after all. I can’t risk losing her again.”

“We’re going to arrest her?” Sam asked.

“Soon as we can, yes, I’m afraid so.”

“And Nigel Maitland?”

“I’ll see if I can get the surveillance team on him until we’ve been through the stuff and got enough to arrest him. Christ knows we’ll need plenty of time on the clock to argue the toss with that solicitor of his.”

“Right.”

As soon as Sam had gone out of earshot, Lou pulled her mobile phone from her jacket pocket and dialed Andy Hamilton’s mobile number. “Come on,” she said. “Answer, you piece of crap.”

There was no reply. Lou swore gently, disconnected the call, and redialed the number she had called yesterday. This time, the call was answered.

“Hello?”

“Hi! Karen, it’s Lou Smith.”

“He’s not here. No idea where he is.”

“Oh.”

“Went out this morning, hasn’t come back. If you find him, tell him to get his arse back here, would you?”

When she had promised to do just that, Lou hung up and looked around for Sam. She was with Les Finnegan, standing by the back of the Firearms van.

“Sam!” she called, already heading back to the car. This time, she was going to drive.

Taryn Lewis had told her—she had actually fucking
told
her everything she needed to know. Her father had said, “
She likes to kill people.
” Lou had thought Brian was talking about Flora Maitland—but he wasn’t talking about Flora at all, or Barbara for that matter. He was talking about
her.
Suzanne.

She likes to kill people . . .

12:40

“What do you think?” Lou said.

They were parked on Waterside Gardens, across the road from number 14. A single car, a black Mercedes, was parked on the gravel driveway, and further down the road, clearly in their line of sight, was Andy Hamilton’s people carrier.

“I don’t know. He could be . . . I mean, it’s his day off, right?”

Lou frowned. “She’s a suspect, Sam. A bloody suspect. You really think he’d . . . ?”

Sam looked like she didn’t want to say it, but went ahead anyway. “You know him better than me. What do you think?”

Lou sighed heavily. “I don’t want to do this, I really don’t. Everything about this feels bad.”

“What do you want to do?”

This wasn’t something they could train you for, as a senior investigating officer, but then no situation was like any other, was it? They trained you to think on your feet, make decisions and hope to God they were the right ones. And if you made the wrong decision, heaven help you. You weighed up the pros and cons and you did your best. The only thing you could do.

“Try his number again,” Lou said.

“I just did. Still nothing.”

“Okay. We need to get Tac Team down here, but we’re going to go in, whatever happens. Let’s hope to fuck he’s in there interviewing her or something sensible like that.”

Sam called it in and Lou kept her eyes on the house, the two doors side by side at the front; the one on the right would lead to Flora’s first-floor flat, the other one to the ground-floor flat where Suzanne Martin lived.

“They’re on their way,” Sam said.

A moment later, the door on the left opened and Sam and Lou both sat up straight. The woman who came out—the woman on the CCTV, without a doubt—was in a hurry. She slammed the door and hurried over to the Merc, opening it and getting inside.

“Sam,” Lou began, as the Merc’s wheels sprayed gravel in an arc, turning fast in the driveway. “You follow her. Call backup.”

As the Mercedes flew past, Lou got out of the car and ran across the road while Sam climbed across to the driver’s seat, started the car, and moved off in pursuit.

Lou’s heels crunched on the gravel as she hurried across to the house. Her mind raced through the possibilities of all the things that might confront her in this woman’s flat. Not least the body of Andy Hamilton. The last thing she should do was go in there by herself.

The door had slammed fast, and would not open. She rang the doorbell, knocked on the door hard. Looked in through the letterbox. Nothing. The empty hallway stretched away toward the back of the house. A smell drifted to her. Coffee, she thought. And something else, something she could not identify.

“Andy?” she called through the letterbox.

Nothing. Not a sound. Halfway up the hallway was a door to the left, and on the floor by the door was a pile of clothes, crumpled into a heap. On top of the pile, a mobile phone. Lou reached for her own phone and speed-dialed Andy Hamilton’s number—and the phone inside began to ring.

That was enough. Technically she needed a warrant to enter the premises. For her own safety she should wait for backup, for the proper equipment. But under these circumstances she could argue that there was a risk to life.

She went around the side of the building, looking for a back door. There was a wrought-iron gate at the side, which opened easily. And there, a second door, glass panels top and bottom. She tried it. Locked! Fuck it.

Lou went into the garden and, holding a piece of roof tile over a drain, there was a brick. That would do it. She went back to the door. “Andy!” she shouted. “I’m coming through the back door—stand back.”

Then, one arm up, shielding her eyes, she hammered the brick at the glass.

It took two blows before the glass smashed on the tiled floor of the kitchen and over the step outside. The hole was big enough to put her arm through, and to her immense relief the key was in the door on the other side. She turned it and opened the door.

“Police!” she called. “Anyone in here?”

Nothing. From a long way off, she could hear a siren. Was it Sam’s backup? She must have stopped the Merc . . . that was good.

She crossed the kitchen to the door at the far end. The hallway stretched up toward the front door. To her left, a door opened into the sitting room—empty. To her right, the pile of men’s clothes and a closed door.
Deep breath and open.

It took a second to register what she was seeing.

The man was stretched out on the bed, naked apart from leather straps around his ankles and wrists, which were attached to cords leading to the corners of the metal bed frame. But his head—the most bizarre thing of all—was encased in a wooden box, his neck disappearing into a padded hole at its base. On the top of the box was an oval-shaped hole, which should have revealed his face.

The whole box was wrapped in cling film.

A second later, she realized that he wasn’t breathing.

“Andy!” She took hold of a wrist, felt for a pulse. His hand was swollen, bluish already. Kneeling on the bed she could make out his face through the cling film. He was blue. His eyes open, staring, unseeing.

“Andy! Can you hear me?” She tried to pull the cling film away, tried to tear at it with her fingers, poke holes into it, but it was layer upon layer, wrapped and wound tight, and her fingers were ineffectual.

Back to the kitchen, pulling out drawers looking for a knife, a screwdriver—something! Shit, shit—nothing. And then, the last drawer she came to, a set of stainless-steel cutlery. Back to the bedroom, to the box, using a blunt dinner knife to snag at the plastic. Then there was a hole she could pull at, make larger, and at last she could see him properly.

“Andy!”

Her hand inside the box, touching the skin of his face; he felt clammy. He needed air, he needed mouth-to-mouth—and there was no way she could get close enough to his mouth with the box in the way.

Yelling with frustration, back to the kitchen—scissors, there had to be a pair of scissors in here—all the time wondering about how long he’d been like this, if it was already too late to make a difference.
He was dead, he was dead. Too late.

No. Lou pulled at the door of the dishwasher. Inside, clean and shiny, a basket full of cutlery and among them a black-handled sharp kitchen knife.
Yes
.

In the bedroom Lou knelt on the bed, sawing at the cling film at the side of the box, tearing the loose bits away, pulling at strands that just became stronger until she cut them free. Once she was down to the bare wood she pulled the cling film away, exposing the box. His face was gray-blue.

The knife was slipping out of her hand, and she saw there was blood everywhere. Where was it coming from? Had she cut Andy’s neck somehow? She couldn’t see a wound.

At last the lid of the box could be lifted and she took hold of a handful of Andy’s damp, dark hair, lifting his head out of the box and pulling it away, throwing it off the bed.