Stephen Leather - Take Two

‘Plus you might talk in your sleep.’

‘Ha ha ha,’ said Richards. ‘And get your feet off the coffee table, will you? Were you born in a barn?’

Halpin did as he was told. ‘Boss, I’ve been thinking.’

‘That’s a new one for you, mate.’

‘I’m serious, boss. It’s the truck driver.’

‘Reg, whatsit?’

Halpin nodded. ‘When they realise Castle has gone missing, there’ll be publicity. Lots of it. It’ll be all over the papers. Look what happened when Jill Dando got shot.’

‘That was a bit different. She was shot on her doorstep. With what we’ve got planned, no one is going to find her.’

‘They’ll look, boss. And the papers will be all over it. And when that happens, Reg is going to come forward. Stands to reason, right? He was one of the last people to see her.’

Richards nodded thoughtfully. ‘And he’ll tell them where he picked her up.’

‘Which means they’ll find Cohen’s house sooner or later. And they’ll realise Cohen is missing. So we’re vulnerable on two fronts. If Reg talks to the cops he’ll tell them about us. And even if that doesn’t ring alarm bells, they’re going to find out Cohen was your accountant.’

Richards sat down. He knew that Halpin was right. ‘Shit,’ he said.

‘So you can see where I’m going with this?’

‘Can you take care of it?’

‘I can, boss. Sure. But we’re going to have to be clever about it.’

‘I hear you,’ said Richards.

‘I’ll make it look like a robbery, maybe. And I’ll do it when he’s away from home. That way the Met won’t be investigating it. The further away the better.’

‘Do you need help?’

‘The fewer people who know what’s going on the better,’ said Halpin. ‘And it’ll be easy enough, he’s not going to be expecting it.’

‘When do you want to do it?’

‘The sooner the better. But it’ll depend on his schedule. Let me do some checking.’

‘I don’t believe you just did that,’ said Terry. ‘What was going through your head? You think he’s a murderer and you’ve just agreed to go on a boat with him?’

‘The boat’s not going anywhere,’ she said. ‘I’ve been to St Katherine’s Dock before, it’s full of million pound boats for posers.’

‘Even so, darling. You’re playing with fire.’

Carolyn grinned. ‘I love it when you get all protective,’ she said.

‘I’m serious,’ said Terry. ‘Have you forgotten what you were like that night after you’d seen him kill Cohen? You were shaking.’

‘I’m not sure if it was him. Really. But maybe if I spend a bit more time with him I’ll get a better sense of what he’s like.’

‘And what if he knows you saw him?’

‘Then he’s a better actor than I am,’ she said. ‘And I’ve just been given a lifetime achievement award, remember?’

‘I just want you to be careful, okay?’

She raised her wine glass in salute. ‘I will be.’

‘You need to think about this, Carolyn. Suppose he saw you that night. And tracked you down. And now he’s trying to get close to you…’

‘He didn’t see me, I’m pretty sure of that. As soon as the security lights went on, I was out of there like a bat out of hell. I practically leapt over the gates.’

‘You told me you left your shoes behind.’

‘Yes, and they were Prada. They were lovely shoes but there’s no way he could have traced me that way. Everyone wears Prada these days.’

‘I don’t think you should go.’

‘You could come with me?’

Terry laughed. ‘Yeah, I’m sure he’d want me along as a third wheel.’ He wagged a finger at her. ‘I’m serious darling, you need to be careful.’

‘You are so masterful sometimes, I bet Gabe just goes weak at the knees, doesn’t he?’ She finished her wine and held up her empty glass. ‘Now how about a refill?’

Detective Inspector Mark Biddulph nodded at the cluster of police cars around an ambulance and what appeared to be a SOCO van. ‘Give them plenty of room, Kim,’ he said. ‘Last time I was at a murder scene my car was scraped by an ambulance and I spent hours on the paperwork.’

‘No problem,’ said Detective Sergeant Kimberley Marriott. She had been Biddulph’s regular partner for the past six months on the Met’s Homicide Command. The car was from the office pool but she knew the inspector was right, every scratch and dent had to be accounted for and they both had better things to be doing with their time.

Marriott parked the car and she and Biddulph climbed out. He was in his late forties, tall and thin with a receding hairline. His tendency to wear dark suits and a black raincoat gave him the look of a dour undertaker. Marriott was a decade younger with shoulder-length blonde hair and a trim figure that belied the fact that she was the mother of three young children.

A uniformed sergeant walked over. From the look on his face it was clear he was as pleased as the two detectives to have a late-night murder case. ‘Jim McDonald, I’m with the Safer Neighbourhood Team,’ said the sergeant.

‘And how’s that working out for you?’ asked Biddulph. He flashed his warrant card and Marriott did the same.

The sergeant frowned and then realised the inspector was joking. ‘Right, yes,’ he said. ‘The victim’s name is Maxwell Dunbar. He’s lived here for twenty years or so. Looks like he disturbed a burglar. Phone’s gone, along with his wallet and watch and, we think, a DVD player and a laptop.’

‘Forced entry?’

The sergeant nodded. ‘Smashed a window at the back. Dunbar was a private detective, worked from home.’

‘Was he ever in the Job?’ asked Marriott.

The sergeant shook his head. ‘No. He applied way back when but he had medical issues. Tried to sign up as a Special but private eyes aren’t allowed, for obvious reasons.’

‘SOCO already in?’ asked Biddulph as he started walking towards the house with Marriott in tow.

‘They got here half an hour ago,’ said the sergeant.

‘And the medic’s pronounced him dead?’

‘All done and dusted.’

They walked by the ambulance. A paramedic was sitting in the open rear door, smoking a cigarette. He nodded as the cops passed by.

‘Any similar burglaries recently?’ asked Biddulph.

‘With fatal stabbings?’

‘Involving a knife. And smashing a window.’

‘That’s pretty much every burglary we have around here,’ said the sergeant. ‘They’re pretty much all drug-related and we don’t see much in the way of subtlety.’

The front door was open, guarded by a uniformed constable in a high-visibility jacket. He stepped to the side to allow them in. ‘Body’s in the sitting room,’ said the sergeant.

He led them along the hall and into the sitting room. A SOCO technician — a young man with a bad case of acne — was taking swabs from the under the victim’s fingernails. The victim was an overweight man in his late forties or early fifties.

‘Do we need shoe coverings?’ asked Biddulph.

‘I won’t be getting anything off the carpet and I’ve already given it the once-over,’ said the technician. ‘Providing you don’t step in the blood, you’ll be okay.’

There was a gaping wound in the victim’s throat and a large pool of congealed blood around his head.

‘Time of death?’ asked Biddulph.

The technician frowned. ‘Do you mind talking to my boss? He’s in the kitchen. He’s senior to me and he gets a bit tetchy if I do the talking. Sorry.’

‘I know exactly what you mean,’ said Marriott.

Biddulph and Marriott headed down the hallway to the kitchen. ‘What did you mean by that?’ asked Biddulph.