Laura hesitated. Earnshaw was an old man and evidently frail and she did not feel physically threatened but she was still unsure how to handle such a dramatic confession. She glanced at her tape-recorder, still running on the table.
“Are you sure you want to tell me about this?” she said, her mouth dry.
“It makes no odds to me now,” Earnshaw said. “I'll not live to stand trial.” The admission made, Earnshaw seemed to have shrivelled in his chair until he resembled little more than skin and bone, the only life in him visible in his blue eyes still blazing from deep dark sockets in his grey and haggard face.
“I should call the police,” Laura said. The old man shrugged.
“Do as you like,” he said listlessly.
But before Laura could pull out her mobile the door-bell rang and she helped the old man up to answer it. She went to the door with him to find a burly figure she recognised and a white Escort parked behind her car on the drive, blocking it in.
“Ricky,” Earnshaw said hoarsely. “You'd better come in, lad. I think I may have caused you a bit of a problem here.”
In a sudden flash of understanding, Laura knew that the old man could not have disposed of Simon Earnshaw's body alone and that Pickles must have helped him â and she realised then the danger she was in.
Â
At police headquarters a part of the murder team eager to earn overtime on a Sunday had been tasked to go through the documents which had been removed from the British Patriotic Party offices earlier that morning. It was tedious work and it was not until almost midday that Sergeant Kevin Mower looked up and caught DCI Thackeray's eye as he made one of his increasingly impatient visits to the incident room.
“This is interesting, guv,” he said, wondering why his boss looked as if he had not slept for a week. Laura must be giving him a hard time, he thought, with a flicker of jealousy. His own recent liaisons had ended in tragedy and he had felt no urge to to take amorous risks for months.
“What's that?” Thackeray asked, making his way through the desks to Mower's side where he looked over the sergeant's shoulder at the accounts he was studying.
“Donations,” Mower said. “A surprising number, given the party's reputation for violence. A lot of money given anonymously but some people don't seem to mind their names being recorded, including, it appears, one George
Earnshaw of Broadley, young Simon's grandfather I guess, unless there are two George Earnshaws in Broadley.”
“He has the reputation of being a racist old bastard,” Thackeray said non-commitally. “Though it's not illegal for people to make donations to political parties, however obnoxious their aims. How much did he give?”
“Twenty grand,” Mower said.
“Not insignificant then,” Thackeray conceded.
“Not given that BPP members are now prime suspects for the murder of a union activist who was getting in Earnshaw's way.”
“We'd best have another word with Mr. Earnshaw senior,” Thackeray said. “But it can wait until tomorrow. Let's get the paperwork cleared today and then we'll see where we stand.”
“Right, guv,” Mower agreed, turning back to his pages of figures.
“Where's Sharif this morning?” Thackeray asked, glancing round the room again with tired eyes. He had slept very little the previous night.
“I told him to keep a discreet eye on Pickles,” Mower said. “He's been snooping around off his own bat. I thought it was time to make it official.”
“Is he the best person to do it?” Thackeray asked.
“Let's just say he's the best motivated,” Mower said. “He won't do anything stupid, guv.”
“I hope you're right,” Thackeray said gloomily and turned away to make his way back to his own office where he flung himself into his chair with something approaching a groan, lit a cigarette and drew on it deeply. His sleepless night had brought him no closer to a resolution of his indecision over his future with Laura and had fuddled his brain so that he no longer saw clearly enough where the murder investigations
might lead him. At least it was Sunday, thankfully, a day when some inquiries would stall as mobile phone officials and forensic scientists pursued the sort of normal lives denied to police officers. Increasingly, the resolution of murder cases depended on science, the tiny droplet of blood or other fluids, the hair or the speck of fibre, which placed a suspect somewhere he had vehemently denied being. In his heart, he still had Matthew Earnshaw down for his brother's murder and he hoped against hope that Ricky Pickles might be implicated in the death of Mohammed Iqbal. But he knew these were irrational responses, unscientific and of no value, and in the case of Matthew Earnshaw a visceral reaction to a young man in whom he saw too many of his own failings at the same sort of age. Prejudice, he thought, came in many forms, and when it came down to it he was no more immune than Pickles himself. He needed Laura, he thought, to keep him sane but when impulsively he tried her mobile number he only got her voicemail.
“I love you,” he said softly after the tone. But did he, he still wondered, love her enough.
He was interrupted by a uniformed constable who put his head round the door waving a slip of paper.
“They thought you ought to see this, sir,” he said. The message had come from the French police to inform West Yorkshire that the body of a young Asian woman, carrying a passport in the name of Saira Khan, had been recovered from the Seine that morning.
“Hell and damnation,” Thackeray said.
Â
Omar Sharif had parked his unmarked car a discreet distance down the road from George Earnshaw's house and watched as Ricky Pickles swung his Escort behind a VW Golf on the drive and went inside. Thoughtfully he called
police headquarters and asked the control room to check the ownership of the Golf. The name they came up with meant nothing to him but he asked to be put through to Sergeant Kevin Mower anyway
“He's driven out to some village in the country,” Sharif said. “Broadley” And he relayed the address.
“That's old Earnshaw's house,” Mower said. “We've just discovered that the old bastard's a major backer of Pickles's political ambitions.”
“They must be having a campaign meeting then,” Sharif said. “There's another car there, a Golf belonging to a woman called Ackroyd, Miss Laura Ackroyd. Is anything known about her?”
“Say that again,” Mower said, his mouth suddenly dry. It was ten miles to Broadley and there was no permanent police presence in the village. Sharif was effectively on his own. When Sharif had repeated what he had seen Mower knew both their jobs were on the line, not to mention Laura's safety.
“Take this very slowly, Omar,” he said. “Very slowly and carefully. Laura Ackroyd is the DCI's girlfriend, and Pickles is at best a violent bastard and at worst a murderer. We need Laura out of there without a hair of her head disturbed. Have you got that?”
“Loud and clear, sarge,” Sharif said, his heart suddenly thumping uncomfortably.
“I'm going to transfer this call to the DCI's office. Stay on the line, Omar.”
But by the time Mower had barged unceremoniously into Thackeray's office and indicated that he should pick up his phone, Sharif was already talking again, an edge of panic in his voice.
“They're moving,” he said. “Pickles has been fiddling about in the Golf â I can't make out from here what he's been
doing but now he's shifted his car off the drive, and moved the Golf onto the road as well to make space for some old boy - Earnshaw presumably â who's getting a red car out of the garage, some sort of old estate.”
“A dark red Volvo, an old model?” Mower snapped.
“Could be,” Sharif said. “Difficult to tell from here. The red car's driving off now and Pickles is following in the Ford. They've left the Golf behind. Should I follow or try to find Miss Ackroyd in the house.”
Mower glanced at Thackeray who was listening in on his extension ashen-faced and shaken, his knuckles white.
“What do you think, guv?” he asked desperately, knowing that whichever decision they made might be the wrong one for Laura. “She could be in the Volvo.”
“Follow them, Omar,” Thackeray said harshly. “We can't afford to lose them. We'll get help to you as quickly as we can. Keep us in touch with where you are.”
For a second the two men's eyes locked in mutual fear.
“Get a local car up there fast to search the house,” Thackeray said, his voice hoarse. “And see if you can scramble the chopper to catch up with Omar, and get every car in the area out there, though God alone knows what's available on a Sunday morning.”
“Guv,” Mower said. “And should we get the Super off the golf course.”
“You'd better do that too,” Thackeray said grimly.
The phone shrilled again and Sharif came back on the line.
“They're heading out of the village towards somewhere called Gawstone, according to the last signpost I passed,” he said.
“There's a big reservoir up at Gawstone,” Thackeray said. “If that really is Simon Earnshaw's car they're taking up there I guess they plan to dump it. There's plenty of spots secluded
enough. Be careful, Omar. We've got help on the way. Don't do anything rash.”
Mower could only guess what that injunction cost Thackeray though neither man was willing to put into words what they dreaded most.
“What the hell was she doing at George Earnshaw's house on a Sunday morning?” Thackeray said later as he and Mower left headquarters and began a frantic drive out of town towards Broadley, where they now knew that the old man's house had been found deserted.
“And what was Earnshaw doing concealing his grandson's car?” Mower muttered, glancing left and right very briefly before shooting a red light.
“Get us there in one piece, Kevin, for God's sake,” Thackeray said. “Are you sure they'll keep us patched onto Omar's calls?”
“Quite sure, guv,” Mower said. “Don't worry.” Although as soon as the words left his mouth he realised that was one of the most pointless bits of advice he had ever offered anyone.
Â
DC Omar Sharif followed the two cars at a discreet distance along the narrow winding lane which clung to the side of the river valley to the north of Broadley. There was little traffic on the road which led only to a small hamlet on the banks of Gawstone reservoir and then petered out on the fells beyond. Only twice did he have to brake hard and pull into a passing place to accommodate traffic coming in the opposite direction; most of the time he was unable to see one or other of the cars ahead as the road twisted between dry stone walls and the occasional deserted barn. This was high, wild country much loved by ramblers but of little interest to an urban man like Sharif.
When the Volvo and the following Escort finally turned off, Sharif almost lost them. The road itself took a sharp turn onto a castellated stone bridge across a narrow part of the steeply banked reservoir which had suddenly come into view round one of the many sharp bends, while a narrow track on the left followed the edge of the lake on its southern bank. Sharif had approached the bridge slowly and been horrified to discover that neither car appeared to have crossed it. He braked hard, looking right and then left, and caught just a glimpse of the dark red Volvo's tail-end weaving its way down a section of the track that was visible on the left. He called headquarters again to give them his position and found himself patched through to the DCI.
“We think they plan to dump the Volvo, Omar,” Thackeray said.
“Right, guv,” Sharif said, knowing without being told that the obvious place to dump a car at Gawstone was in the lake. “If anyone's got a map they could tell me where this track leads. It's very narrow and if it's a dead end they're not going to get out again without running into me.”
There was a brief silence before the DCI replied.
“It goes to some sort of pumping station. It's unlikely that there'll be anyone up there on a Sunday morning. Most of these places are run automatically these days. But the chopper's in the air, Omar. The cavalry's on its way.”
“Right, guv,” Sharif said, realising without being told that this level of mobilisation meant only one thing.
“They haven't found Miss Ackroyd at Broadley, then, sir?”
“No,” Thackeray said. “They found her coat and she left her tape-recorder running. We know that George Earnshaw killed his grandson and that Ricky Pickles probably helped him dispose of the body. Don't take any chances, Omar. Pickles is dangerous.”
It was impossible to pick up any emotion in Thackeray's voice through the crackle of static on the line but Sharif tightened his grip on the wheel as he realised the full implications of the situation he was going into.
“Did you hear me, Omar?” Thackeray's voice crackled back.