Czech Mate (24 page)

Nights with Susan had been all he had wanted them to be. Until that final six months. He had been away a lot – the demands of his job – and had then caught a debilitating fever on their two-week holiday in Mombasa. During this time a good-looking corporal had come to her rescue when her car broke down on Salisbury Plain. Lovemaking had been spasmodic and unsatisfactory during that period, possibly because Max was not fully fit and was also embroiled in a complicated rape case.

He had not slept with a woman for three years now. Someone had once said to him that sex was like riding a bike; you never forgot how to do it. But a bicycle was a bicycle. Every woman was different, needed to be satisfied in her own fashion. He had so little time for experiment with Livya. It was tonight or never.

They had agreed not to talk shop, so their conversation over dinner was designed to discover the man and woman beneath the uniform. Livya talked at length about her mother's family and her Czech background with warmth and humour. Max said little about his childhood, instead relating several mad student escapades. They soon fell to discussing hobbies, interests and personal passions. She laughed when he confessed to having a collection of classic war films.

‘Go on, tell me you see yourself making Steve McQueen's race for freedom on a motor bike.'

He grinned. ‘Doesn't every red-blooded grown-up little boy? I bought a second-hand Harley Davidson when I was at uni, and raced it across local fields one day in summer.' His grin widened. ‘Didn't get far. Had to keep stopping to open gates.'

‘You didn't jump hedges like Steve?'

‘All I had chasing me was an irate farmer. If there'd been a posse of armed Germans I'd have taken the jumps.'

‘Sez you!' Her smile was excitingly intimate, so he tried to impress her more.

‘I'm pretty good at digging tunnels and scattering surplus soil down my trouser leg around the compound beneath the eyes of the guards.'

While he feasted his eyes on the curve of her mouth and the creamy skin above the low neckline, she laughingly admitted that she had listened to her grandfather's tales of subversive activity during Communist occupation and fancied herself as a Resistance heroine.

‘Is that why you had yourself attached to my father's department?'

She gazed at him frankly. ‘It was my linguistic skills not Andrew's personal charm that led me to apply to fill the vacancy. I've accompanied him on a couple of duplicitous missions to my second homeland, it's true, but there was no danger involved.' After a pause during which her gaze seemed to be assessing his mood, she said softly, ‘I'm in more danger right now, Max Rydal, I think you're well aware of that.'

With quickening heartbeat, Max said equally softly, ‘Then you'll have to take the escape route to Switzerland or face what's coming with fortitude. How brave are you?'

Livya took up her beaded bag. ‘Shall we skip coffee and find out?'

They kissed as soon as he closed the door behind them, but she soon broke from his embrace and walked to the centre of the room. His initial disappointment was lulled by her smile.

‘I like to take it slowly and deliciously. Can't stand the tear-it-all-off-with-the-teeth-and-get-in-there-fast approach. How about you?'

He went across to touch her rich hair gently. ‘I'm not usually a tooth and claw man, but don't let's make it too slow. I can't promise to hold off until dawn.'

Her arms linked around his neck. ‘OK Steve McQueen, you can rev up the Harley Davidson when you need to.'

He discovered that slow and delicious was exactly the right pace for recalling old skills, but he was only half naked and she almost fully so when his mobile rang.

Eleven

T
he team had never before seen their boss in so black a mood as when they assembled on Sunday morning. They were all disturbed by the tragic development that had occurred when their attention was concentrated elsewhere, but he was tight-lipped with anger as he revealed that Greg McRitchie had been dead on arrival at the hospital. His daughter Shona was in intensive care, dangerously weak from loss of blood from her slashed wrists and the deep cuts to her face that would leave her permanently scarred. Julie was deeply traumatized. Mavis McRitchie was under constant supervision in a private room. Kevin had not yet been told what had happened.

‘When the call came in, Sergeant Maddox assumed our killer believed Kevin had returned home and was set on finishing what he had begun at the party last week. What they saw there persuaded them the attack could be an entirely separate issue,' Max said stony eyed. ‘The family had been set upon downstairs, but there was no evidence that the killer had searched the upper floor for Kevin, his intended victim. We can draw several conclusions from that.

‘One: he demanded to know Kevin's whereabouts and, when they refused to tell him, slashed at Shona to persuade them. McRitchie ran to stop the attack on the girl and was fatally stabbed. At that point, the intruder took fright and fled.

‘Two: as there were no signs of forced entry, the intruder went in by the rear door left unlocked by McRitchie after he garaged his car and came indoors. The neighbours who reported hearing screaming say they saw the whole family return from the Badminton Club around 21:30 and all was quiet until 21:50. That leaves plenty of time for the killer to enter, take stock of the situation, and await the moment when the family settled together.

‘Three: there was no intruder; the attack was totally divorced from the one on Kevin last week and the murder of Tony Clegg.' His cold glance encompassed them all. ‘Until either the children or their mother are able to speak about what happened, we have to draw what we believe to be the most probable conclusion from the available evidence. Mr Black will outline what we know as fact.'

Burdened by the tragic outcome of a family situation they had sensed was heading in dangerous directions, but had done little about due to the demands of another case they feared would result in another death of a young male, Tom spoke more crisply than usual to mask his feelings.

‘Forensics are working flat out on this and will give us info as it develops. This we do know. The whole family had been at the Badminton Club for a knockout tournament Greg was participating in. They returned home together. The bath, the shower curtain and the soap were wet; the children were in sleepwear. Greg was dressed in jeans and sweatshirt; Mavis wore what she had been seen in at the Club. The washing machine was filled with his white shirt, shorts, underpants and several towels. The programme had been set but not started. A saucepan, presumably filled with milk but we'll get confirmation of that, was on a full-power hotplate. The pan subsequently boiled dry and exploded, putting the wind up our uniformed colleagues.'

There was a stifled snigger, but the general mood this freezing morning was subdued.

‘So McRitchie and his kids had showered and changed upstairs, while the mother dealt with the laundry and the girls' bedtime drink in the kitchen,' observed Piercey. ‘Only when they came back to the ground floor did the trouble start. That supports assumption two, that the intruder entered through the unlocked back door after Greg and waited for the family to assemble downstairs.'

‘But why wait?' asked Connie Bush. ‘He had a lone, vulnerable woman in the kitchen to threaten with a knife snatched from a drawer. Why wait for the husband to come on the scene before demanding Kevin's whereabouts?'

‘Because he'd walked in only just before the family gathered in the sitting-room,' suggested Heather Johnson. ‘But I don't understand why he would slice up a little girl sitting with her sister on the settee, when he had a woman in the kitchen where the knives were. Wouldn't he grab one, hold Mavis as a shield and threaten to slit her throat unless Greg told him what he wanted? That's the more usual scenario.'

Derek Beeny spoke thoughtfully. ‘What if there's an entirely different angle? We've been considering a sexual link between Kevin and Clegg. Sexual invitations too often repulsed, maybe paedophilic interest in small, effeminate males. Could that focus have shifted to the girls? They're sitting in nightclothes, mother's busy in the kitchen with the washing machine, father's upstairs. The kids scream at sight of the intruder and Mavis runs at him with a knife. He wrests it from her, then hears Greg on the stairs. Frustrated yet again, the ungovernable temper we believe he has leads him to slash the girl he fancies, then do for the father. Fear drives him to run from a disaster when he imagined a simple abduction and kiddie rape.'

Tom usually appreciated inventiveness, but not today. ‘Initial report on McRitchie's body says there are no signs of self-defensive cuts to hands or arms so, as he was stabbed in the chest, we have to believe he was facing his assailant and not expecting aggression. It's unlikely a paedo would do what you suggest. He'd snatch the girl from the school playground, or entice her away from the NAAFI shop or burger bar.'

‘Except that McRitchie guarded those kids too closely. They weren't allowed out without him or their mother, and friendships were virtually forbidden. Dadda had to be their all. It could have driven a paedo to break that monopoly by another man; add spice to the perversion.'

Roy Jakes glanced up from his doodling. ‘I go for the third assumption; that this was a pure domestic that has no connection with the other cases.'

Max nodded. ‘I also believe no one but the McRitchie family was in that house last night. But I fear it does have a connection with the other cases. Whoever attacked Kevin last week put a match to a fuse waiting to be lit. I suspect Mavis McRitchie killed her husband and attacked Shona. In what order we'll understand better when we have all the forensic evidence. When I visited Mavis it was obvious that she was going through some kind of fantasy phase. She didn't connect with who I was, and seemed obsessively focussed on pleasing her husband. Major Clarkson called on her at my request. He judged that she was simply behaving extravagantly, as women sometimes do. I had to accept his diagnosis, but I believe something happened last night to tip her over the edge.' He surveyed them all. ‘Any further thoughts?'

‘Two points of dissimilarity,' offered Connie Bush. ‘Whoever attacked Kevin and Clegg went for adolescent, music-loving males. He's unlikely to make a play for a well-guarded female child who's surrounded by her family at home. Doesn't fit his pattern. Also, our first man killed impetuously when his victims were alone. Both times he grabbed a handy weapon and struck at the head. Knives aren't his thing. I go along with this being a domestic, divorced from the other cases.'

Tom continued that subject. ‘We still have no leads on them and we need to get some fast. The police presence at the Recreation Centre last night kept any intruder from attempting a repeat of Saturday's attack. The undercover man watching Alan Rowe saw nothing to suggest he was unduly interested in adolescent males.'

‘They should all have gone undercover,' murmured Piercey. ‘You can't catch anyone by strutting around wearing a red cap and a gun.'

Tom scowled. ‘That was done to reassure parents that we're on the case. There's a lot of aggro around because we've not yet apprehended anyone. They're unaware of the effort we're putting into it, or of the difficulty in understanding what lies behind the two attacks. We now have yet another dead-end probe. Lists of calls Kevin and Tony Clegg made on their mobiles have finally come in. The lads didn't once contact each other, or a common third party. Neither rang the number of any known drug pusher or gay club.'

‘Or Alan Rowe?' asked Piercey.

‘Or Alan Rowe. We must keep an eye on him, all the same. You're keen on cops going underground, Piercey, so that's your assignment today. Get to it!' As Phil Piercey shrugged on his topcoat, Tom said, ‘The rest of you talk to people who were at the Badminton Club last evening, and to those living in the vicinity of the McRitchie home. Uniform did the prelims last night, but we need more in-depth investigation. Being Sunday many will be out having fun – giving no thought to the fact that we're not – but you'll have to chase up the absentees tomorrow.'

As they all got to their feet, a telephone rang. Derek Beeny answered it. After briefly listening, he waved the receiver at Max.

‘The hospital, sir. Doc wants a word with you.'

Dreading to hear that Shona McRitchie had died of her injuries, Max discovered the call concerned Kevin.

‘We believe the boy must soon be told the truth and have the choice to see his mother and sisters, if he wishes,' the man said, after identifying himself as the psychiatrist treating Kevin. ‘From the time you have brought him back from his runaway he has shown much fondness for the young woman, Hedda. Asks always when she will come with the cat. We cannot have animals here, but it will much help if she would be here this morning when we have such bad news to tell.'

‘Certainly she'll come,' Max assured him, signalling Heather to stay in the office. ‘My second in command is about to set out for the hospital. He'll bring Sergeant Johnson, so you can expect her within the hour.' He could not prevent a twitch of his lips. ‘She'll explain about the cat, sir.'

Before setting out to have a tough talk with Charles Clarkson, Max dealt with paperwork he had neglected during the week. Officially, he should be the man behind the desk coordinating evidence on their cases, but he was too restless and too hooked on face to face investigation to spend day after day in his office.

This Sunday morning he was additionally restless. In the early hours, he had gone to his room to have two hours on his bed before showering and dressing in one of his ‘working' suits. He had not slept. Frustration over the ruin of his date with Livya, as well as anger at his failure to forestall tragedy, kept him wide-eyed. At seven he had rung the hotel to tell Livya he would have breakfast with her. ‘Hi! Did I wake you?'