Trust No One (29 page)

‘We don't even know that there is any stuff.' Kerridge. ‘Unless you've got your hands on something you've not told us about.'

‘Not yet,' Salter admitted. ‘But she's got it. Or knows where it is.'

‘And you think Morrissey was after the same thing?'

‘Sure of it. I stood there listening for a bit. She'd said she'd got something in her handbag. That could have been a bluff, though. She threw it at him. Tried to distract him.'

‘Resourceful lady,' Kerridge said. ‘Maybe you should have let Morrissey finish the job.'

‘Then we'd be even deeper in the shit, wouldn't we? Wouldn't have had any way of getting hold of it.'

‘Might have stayed buried,' Welsby pointed out.

‘Not if Morrissey had found it. Anyway, Donovan's not stupid. She'd have made some insurance arrangement of her own. She's probably got someone lined up to release the material to the authorities if anything happened to her. That boyfriend of hers, for example.'

If
only
, Marie thought. She'd had no time to organize any backup arrangement. And, for that matter, no one to arrange it with. Even if things had been different, she wouldn't get Liam involved in something like this. Still, she was happy to let them carry on thinking it. She'd also noted what Salter had said about listening to her and Morrissey. So the lateness of his intervention hadn't been entirely accidental.

‘Whichever, you went in like some fucking white knight and saved her neck. Hope she was suitably grateful.' Kerridge let out a salacious snort.

‘Not grateful enough to hand over the fucking evidence, it seems,' Welsby said. ‘So where is she?'

‘Must be still in bed,' Salter said. ‘I slipped her a couple of pills last night to give myself a chance to go through her stuff.'

‘But you didn't find anything?' Kerridge.

‘Not yet.'

‘I'm ever the optimist,' Welsby said. ‘I'd expected a bit better of you. Thought you were a smart lad. One of life's high-flyers even. Imagined you'd be a bit cleverer than this.'

‘I don't—'

‘You really must think we're a right pair of fuckwits, Hughie. That's what really disappoints me. I expected a bit more respect.' Marie could hear movement from the room below but couldn't work out what was happening. ‘Where are they, lad? Where are the fucking microphones? Or is it cameras? Smile, Jeffrey, you're on candid sodding camera.'

‘That's not—'

There was a crash.

‘Stop fucking us about, lad. This crap about coming across. Doing us a favour. Bit late in the day to change sides, I'd say. We got you sussed, Hughie boy, well and truly sussed.'

There was more noise. The sound of a struggle. Something breaking. Whatever was happening, it was clear that Salter was getting the worst of it.

Short of breath, Welsby said, ‘Don't you try it, son. Just don't you fucking try it.'

She could hear some response from Salter but the words were too muffled to make out. Then she heard Kerridge's voice, slightly softer than Welsby's. He sounded relaxed, untroubled.

‘Take it easy, Keith. We need to think this through.'

‘If you think I'm letting this bastard—'

‘We'll deal with him. But we need to get some things straight first. Like who the bastard's working for.'

She heard another sound. The crunching, brutal sound of a boot hitting flesh. An agonized groan from Salter.

‘So who is it, Hughie boy? For a bit I thought you were working for those buggers in Standards. That right, Hughie? Those bastards put you up to this?'

Another crunch. More muttered words from Salter. Jesus, she thought, this was almost worse than witnessing it. Her hands were clutched tight to the joists, her head pressed against the ceiling below. Her great fear was that, at any moment, the dust would get into her lungs and she'd explode in a fit of coughing.

‘Yeah, and they've got us fucking surrounded. You know what, Hughie? I don't think I believe you. I don't think you're working for fucking Standards at all. Which, the way I see it, leaves only two possibilities.' There was the sound of another blow, another pained yelp from Salter. ‘Christ, you're pathetic, Salter. Look at you. At least try to show a bit of dignity.' Welsby laughed. ‘So which is it? Either you're on some frolic of your own, or you're working for our friend Peter Boyle. I wonder which you'd rather we believed. Interesting dilemma, that one, Hughie.'

Another blow, seemingly even harder than before. Another cry, shrill now. The sound of someone with not much more to offer.

‘Not sure it matters all that much, Hughie. If you're working for Boyle, this should send him a clear enough message, I'd have thought. And if you're not – well, more fool you, boyo. Shouldn't go playing with the big boys.'

Another scream from Salter.

‘OK, Keith, he's got the message.' Kerridge again. ‘Let him stew for a minute. You reckon Donovan's even here?'

Marie tensed at her own name. She could hear no sound from Salter now.

‘I doubt it,' Welsby said. ‘Don't know whether our friend here's just lying through his teeth, or whether he's got Donovan tucked away somewhere else. Either way, he wouldn't just leave her here for us to find.' There was a pause and some exchange she couldn't make out. Then Welsby said, ‘Yeah, yeah. I'll go check if it'll keep you happy.' More movement. The sound of Welsby tramping through the hall, her bedroom door opening. Some scuffling, more doors being opened. Welsby returning.

‘Who'd have thought it? She's been here all right. Look at this.' She heard the sound of something being thrown clatteringly to the ground. Her handbag, she guessed. Her handbag with the data stick still in it. ‘All right, Hughie boy. So if she's not here now, then where the fuck is she?'

She could hear Salter saying something, but could make out none of the words. Welsby's response was clear enough, though. ‘Don't fuck with me, Hughie. I'm not a happy bunny as it is. You really don't want to antagonize me.' Another blow, louder this time, again the awful sound of a boot on flesh. ‘Tit for tat, I'd say, if you really are working for Boyle. I saw what you bastards did to Morton. I've got no problem in doing the same to you. What goes around comes around. You got some bad karma, Hughie.' Another louder sound. Then something falling over.

Marie could sense that, whatever might be in store for Salter, it would be worse even than the kicking he'd received so far. He might be a duplicitous bastard – Christ, they were all duplicitous bastards – but he didn't deserve that. She thought back to Jake and what he must have been through. No human being deserved that.

‘Now, if you tell us where Donovan is, we can get this sorted nice and gentle, just like my friend here would prefer,' Welsby went on. ‘If you don't – well, then we'll just work on you till you do. Nice and slowly.'

Finally, she heard Salter's voice. ‘I'm telling you, Welsby. I don't fucking know. If I knew I'd fucking tell you. She was here. I left her here . . .' His voice sounded cracked, as if they'd done something to his throat.

‘And you left her the key to that door, did you?'

‘The whole place was fucking secured. There's no way she could have got out. Have you checked . . .?'

‘I've checked every inch of this sodding place,' Welsby said. ‘She's not here.'

‘But that's not . . .' Salter's words collapsed into an incoherent gurgle as there was yet another crunch. Something harder than a boot this time, Marie thought.

‘Where is she, Salter?'

‘I don't . . .' That sound again, cutting his words short.

Marie had been hesitating. The smart move, she thought, would be just to lie low. Hang on until they'd finished with Salter, wait till they left, then just get out. Through the bloody roof if necessary. She told herself she owed Salter nothing. He'd lied to her, used her as a pawn in whatever game he'd been trying to play, even risked leaving her to die at Joe Morrissey's hands. She had no doubt that, if he had known where she was, he'd have betrayed her already.

But another thought had already struck her. Whatever they were planning to do with Salter, they wouldn't want any witnesses. They'd already worked out that Salter must have the place wired up with surveillance equipment. They'd assumed Salter was acting alone – it sounded as if his claim to be working for Professional Standards was just so much bullshit – so the equipment would be for recording rather than providing any live feed. But they wouldn't want to leave any possibility of evidence at the end of this. Which would mean they'd scour the house for any recording or intercept devices.

Which in turn would mean they'd find her.

She knew that, if it came to it, they'd treat her the same way they were treating Salter. Sentiment wouldn't count for very much in Welsby's world. And I thought he was a fucking father figure, she thought. The sort of father they wrote misery porn about.

There was another dull thud and a scream from below. Christ, she couldn't just stay here and allow this to happen. Allow them to complete their work on Salter, and then, in due course, start on her. It would suit them to leave Salter and her here, dead or close to death. They'd probably torch the place. Leave not much but a dealing house – this place must be one of Kerridge's after all, a fitting location for Salter's intended double-cross – and two charred corpses. When the corpses had been identified, they'd leave behind only the kind of mystery that doesn't demand much police time. She was already on the run, suspected of murder. Salter would be denounced as corrupt – maybe even as the suspected leaker. No one would know what had brought them up to this neck of the woods, or what their connections were with whoever had run this place, or even whether their deaths were accidental or deliberate. And no one would care. Whatever the story, they'd just be two bent coppers getting their desserts. Worth no one's time of day.

She looked around her for something she might use as a weapon. There was the screwdriver, which might do as a last resort, but the pile of old tools might yield something better. There were a couple of spanners, an old hammer, and, lying beyond the next joist, a rusting Stanley knife. That looked the most promising.

Her body was pressed flat against the planking, her left ear still resting on the ceiling. She reached out carefully to pick up the knife, which was just at the limit of her reach.
Gently now
, she thought,
gently
.

But as she stretched out for the knife, her body shifted slightly, her foot brushing softly against one of the joists behind her. She looked back but it was already too late. An old yoghurt pot, filled with rusting screws and nails, tottered momentarily on the edge of the joist and then tipped sideways, scattering its contents noisily across the ceiling.

Marie held her breath, realizing that the men below had fallen silent. A moment later, she heard Welsby's voice moving beneath her as he made his way into the hall.

‘What the fuck . . .?' he was shouting eloquently. ‘What the fuck was that?'

Chapter 29

Marie could hear Welsby stomping through the hallway, his voice echoing around the small building. ‘The lying bastard. She's here. She's fucking here.'

Following the sound of his voice, she shuffled on the planks, finding the tiny hole she'd drilled in the ceiling. She could see Welsby's figure framed below, his red face staring up at the ceiling. ‘Donovan,' he said, his voice lower than before. ‘You up there, girl? No point in hiding yourself away now. Why don't you come down and make it easy for both of us?'

Why did everyone want her to make it easy? She held her breath, perfectly motionless, but knew that it was too late. Welsby had no doubt now that she was up here. She couldn't imagine him dragging his own hefty bulk through the trap-door, but he'd find a way. It was only a matter of time.

‘Don't be smart,' he said, as if reading her mind. ‘I'll tear this fucking place apart brick by brick if I have to. You can't get out.'

She was barely even thinking. She'd had enough of all this, that was the truth. Enough of the lying, the game-playing, the deceit. Enough of not knowing who were her friends and who were her enemies. Enough of being out here, on her own, too far from anyone who might care for her and anything that she might still count as home. Whatever happened, she didn't want to carry on this way. And she didn't want to end up caught like a rat in a trap.

Almost without knowing what she was doing, she lifted herself on to her haunches, hearing Welsby's footsteps beneath her. She waited until she was sure he was directly below her. Then she threw herself as hard as she could at the flimsy plasterboard ceiling, the rusting Stanley knife clutched firmly in her hand.

She didn't know quite what she expected to happen, or what the impact would be. In the event, it was better than she could have hoped.

She fell through the ceiling with an ear-splitting crash and a shattering of wood and plaster and dust. She saw Welsby's startled face staring up at her, heard his chopped-off expletive, and then she was on top of him, his bulk perfectly breaking her fall as he collapsed underneath her. She was winded, but, as far as she could tell, otherwise unhurt. She sprawled across Welsby's body, then rolled to her left, trying to regain her equilibrium.

Welsby lay motionless, stunned or worse. She pulled herself round on the floor as he uttered a groan, his eyes flickering.

She didn't, just at that moment, feel too inclined to worry about Welsby's state of health. She was more concerned for her own, conscious that at any moment Kerridge would emerge from the sitting room. She pulled herself forwards and jabbed the blade of the Stanley knife hard against Welsby's neck.

‘Your turn, Keith. You try anything smart, and I'll slit your fucking throat. You think I wouldn't?'

Welsby grunted, his eyes still screwed shut. He'd winced slightly as she pressed the blade against his flesh, but otherwise gave no acknowledgement. He looked more than winded. The stark whiteness of his face, the beads of sweat on his brow, the sharp gasping of his breath, all suggested something more serious. Unless it was just play-acting.

She eased herself round, still holding the knife against Welsby's throat, until she was sitting upright. What now? She was still waiting for Kerridge to appear. Her only tactic was to use Welsby as a hostage, hope to keep Kerridge at bay long enough for her to – well, what? Try to get out through the now unlocked front door? How far would she get if Kerridge was determined to stop her? And in any case would Kerridge give a fuck about what happened to Welsby? As far as Kerridge was concerned, Welsby might be little more than another witness, better disposed of.

But she knew she had nothing else.

She was struggling to position herself ready for Kerridge when she heard a scuffling and a mutter of voices from beyond the sitting room door.

Then there was the sound of a gunshot, startlingly loud in the narrow confines of the bungalow. She was facing the doorway, still pressing the blade to Welsby's skin, as ready as she could be for whatever was happening, whatever was about to happen.

The door opened slowly. It was Salter standing there, his white face bruised and bloody, one arm hanging limp. He leaned against the doorframe, barely able to stay upright.

‘Jesus, sis,' he said, his voice hardly more than a whisper. ‘That was some entrance.'

‘What happened?'

‘Kerridge's dead.' He said the words matter-of-factly, but there was a blank look in his eyes. ‘He had a gun on me. I was on the ground. Think he thought I was unconscious. But your floorshow created enough of a distraction for me to grab his foot and drag him over. He was trying to shoot me, but I forced the gun back. Don't know what happened then, but it went off. Thank Christ it's his brains all over the wallpaper and not mine. Jesus.'

He sounds in shock
, she thought. Not quite in touch with reality. Or was she projecting her own feelings? ‘Are you OK?'

‘Not really. That bastard gave me one hell of a kicking. But I'm not dead yet. How're you?'

‘I'm OK, I think. Just getting my breath back.' She looked at the figure next to her. ‘I don't know about Welsby, though.‘

‘I'll try to contain my grief. Just make sure the bastard isn't trying it on. I don't trust him any more than I could throw him. Which, given what a fat bugger he is, would be no distance at all.' Salter pushed himself away from the doorpost. ‘Hang on.'

He disappeared back into the sitting room and emerged, a moment later, with a pistol in his hand. ‘I'll keep the bastard covered. Here . . .' He tossed his mobile across to her. ‘Call the police and an ambulance. Better call back to the ranch, too. They'll want some warning before this all breaks.'

She climbed slowly to her feet and looked at the phone. There was barely any signal. ‘I'll have to phone from outside,' she said.

‘Be quick. I don't want to give this fat bugger even a ghost of a chance.'

She pulled open the front door and stepped outside. It wasn't a bad day. The sun was peering between a scattering of white clouds. The air felt warmer than for some days. She could taste the sea salt in the air, even fancy she could hear the distant washing of the waves.

She dialled 999, identifying herself as an Agency officer and saying she had urgent need for police backup, an ambulance. Without going into details, she explained she'd been engaged on an operation, that another agent had been hurt and they needed help. The call handler might assume the call was a hoax, even though Marie had tried to give enough detail to authenticate it. But they'd come anyway, eventually.

Her mind was still churning. Something was nagging at her. The gun. Had Kerridge really been carrying a gun? It wasn't his style, she thought. From what she'd heard, he usually left that kind of thing to the juniors, though these were hardly normal circumstances. Maybe the gun had been Welsby's? If so, who'd trained it on Salter? She'd heard Salter being beaten, but no mention of a gun.

An uncomfortable thought had wormed its way into her brain and was refusing to leave. Was it possible that the gun was Salter's? That he'd had it concealed about his person and had used the commotion as an opportunity to shoot Kerridge? That his story about the gun going off accidentally was just bollocks.

Did it matter? However it had happened, if Salter hadn't acted, they'd both be toast by now. Why the hell should she care what might or might not have happened to Kerridge?

She dialled the number for Agency HQ and asked for the Director-General's office. She spoke briefly to his PA, a woman she'd met a few times and been impressed by. She was warm but efficient, with a remarkable capacity for taking everything in her stride. Now, she took in the gist of Marie's incoherent account and said she'd ensure the DG was informed immediately.

‘We'll get someone straight on to it,' she said, in the tone of one dealing with a minor domestic crisis. Marie had no doubt that she would. Quite what that would mean was harder to predict.

She stepped back into the house, feeling a momentary anxiety that something might have happened in her brief absence. That Welsby had been feigning. Or – and with a mild shock, she realized that this felt more likely – that Salter would have found a reason, real or concocted, to shoot Welsby as well.

But everything was as she'd left it. Salter was hanging on to the doorpost, the gun barrel trained unwaveringly on Welsby. Welsby himself was lying motionless, eyes still screwed shut. His leg was bent awkwardly. She found herself hoping that the bastard was suffering.

‘Police and ambulance on their way. Spoke to the DG's secretary. She'll make sure the right people are informed.'

‘Bet she will,' Salter said. He looked in nearly as much pain as Welsby. Marie held out her hand for the gun. He hesitated, as if unsure why she wanted it, then handed it over. She pointed it at Welsby, still fearing that this was not yet over.

‘Sit down,' she said to Salter. ‘You look all in.'

Gratefully, he lowered himself to the floor. He sat, his back propped against the doorpost, watching Welsby's motionless body.

‘We need to get our stories straight, sis.'

‘Do we?'

‘Yeah. Wasn't quite true what I said about Professional Standards.'

‘Really?'

He shook his head, wincing as if the movement caused him some pain. ‘Been chasing this one on my own. Didn't know who to trust. Knew it went high, thought even Standards might have been compromised.'

‘They're the incorruptibles,' she said. ‘You know that.'

‘Yeah, aren't we all? Still don't know who to trust. Don't know if Welsby was acting on his own, or if others were on the Kerridge payroll. But we've got enough now to convict Welsby, even if some of the surveillance stuff here's inadmissible.'

‘You set this place up? I saw the wires upstairs.'

‘Multi-talented, me. Last couple of days, I let Welsby know I'd sussed his relationship with Kerridge. I tried to persuade them that I was onside. Not exactly on the payroll, but prepared to help them deal with Boyle. Do them a few favours if they'd do a few for me. Thought I had them fooled. Seems I didn't.' His white face looked momentarily rueful, as if he'd been caught out in some technical error. ‘This was Kerridge's place. Kerridge likes this neck of the woods. Bit more upmarket than the places he sells his shit to, convenient for the sea, inconspicuous. His people used to deal from up here. But lately they've just used it as an occasional hideaway or stash. Welsby suggested it when I said I was going after you yesterday. He gave me the keys so I could prepare the place – just had time to get the recorder up there. I thought I could get them to come here with you as bait.'

‘Nice to be in people's thoughts,' she said.

‘Yeah, well. It nearly worked.'

‘And even more nearly got us both killed. So what story do we need to get straight? I was planning just to tell the truth. Thought it might make a change.'

‘That's fine,' he said. ‘Just don't want them to know I was following you. That I let you get away from Blackwell's clutches. Or that I knew where you were all the time the police were searching for you. That might be seen as bending the rules too far. Young Hodder helped me as well. Want to keep him out of it.'

‘You're all heart. So what do I say?'

There was a moment's pause. ‘I think you should say you'd called me yesterday to give yourself up. You wanted to do it discreetly, rather than just stepping into Blackwell's clutches, so you asked me to meet you at the hotel. I got there just as Morrissey was taking you away – against your will. Once I'd dealt with Morrissey, we decided between us to try to lure Kerridge and Welsby out here, put this thing to bed once and for all. How does that sound?'

‘Convoluted as hell, but then so's the truth. Your story puts me more on the side of the angels, too. Panicked and went on the run, but then was going to give myself up. Do the right thing.'

‘That's what I thought,' Salter said. He was smiling, now, as if he'd just pulled some confidence trick that no one else had seen.

She looked away from him, uneasy. She had the sense that she'd just taken her own first step into the unknown, had walked over that line. Trivial enough in its own right. But impossible to step back from.

In the far distance, she could hear the sound of approaching sirens.