Adrian Magson - No Tears for the Lost

‘Where did you get the gun?’

‘I found it up here.’ Clarke retched some more and a thin trickle of bile dribbled from his lips.

Riley smiled unsympathetically. Come morning, apart from a monster hangover, he was going to have a mouth like a mud-wrestler’s armpit. And Myburghe’s anger to cope with. But at least he was alive.

‘You found it.’ She didn’t bother hiding her scepticism. ‘Not that it makes any difference. Ever been to court on firearms offences? It’s a prison term these days.’

Charles Clarke looked up as though it had suddenly occurred to him what he’d done, and that firing a gun in a crowded place was very stupid, not to say illegal.

‘I did — I promise!’ At the thought of prison, Clarke looked horrified. ‘I came up here — OK, that was out of order, maybe. But I needed a drink — something stronger than bubbly, that’s all. The key was in the lock, so I thought, why not? It was boring downstairs, anyway. When I stepped outside, I nearly tripped over the gun. It was lying there. I mean, why should I lie?’ His voice was shrill with youthful protest and indignation. He broke off and coughed, and Riley told him to lie still.

She was tempted to explain to him what might have happened if Rockface had come through the door by himself, but that really would have spoiled his night. Instead she stepped across the roof and placed the shotgun out of the way, then peered over the parapet.

The crowd downstairs had already forgotten the fuss and were back to their partying, milling in and around the marquee as if gunfire was a regular wedding day occurrence. No doubt some of them would have concluded it demonstrated supreme sang-froid, a spin-off of good breeding and schooling. Riley preferred to think that with no bodies cluttering up the lawns, the young blue bloods merely figured it was safe to continue drinking and having a good time until someone died.

Her radio crackled. It was Palmer. She told him they’d found what seemed to be a drunken prank gone wrong, and that Sir Kenneth might want to check his gun cabinet. She also mentioned Rockface being armed.

‘That figures,’ he replied, sounding not the least surprised. ‘See you down here.’

Riley clicked off and had another scout round the roof, then went to see how Clarke was doing. He seemed to be on the road to recovery, although not quite fit to trot. Moments later, Rockface returned, and after slinging the youth over his shoulder with no more effort than a pillow, carried him downstairs, oblivious to his groans of pain. Evidently, the possibility of cracked ribs didn’t rate highly on the butler’s list of medical problems, or if they did, he didn’t care.

Riley followed, carrying the shotgun.

‘That was quick thinking, what you did up there,’ Rockface commented as they neared the ground floor. His voice even held a faint hint of respect, a whole continent away from his earlier displays of mild contempt. ‘Where’d you learn that?’

‘Ballet school,’ Riley quipped. ‘He was lucky — if I’d used my entrechat, I’d have probably killed him.’

He turned and gave a faint scowl. ‘Right. Big secret, is it?’

‘Something like that.’ She handed him the shotgun and went in search of Palmer.

She found him by the fountain, halfway down the drive. Someone had switched on a number of large ground lights, illuminating the scene like day. A group of partygoers had congregated, clutching bottles and glasses, most of them in much the same state of drunkenness as the unfortunate Charles Clarke. The women were in strappy dresses and delicate heels, while the men were mostly jacket-less, ties undone to show wads of manly chest hair. They were uniformly blasted and some of them watched the approach of Palmer and Riley with undisguised hostility.

In the centre of the group, a young woman was being propped up by two companions. She was tall, thin and coltish, with long, honey-blonde hair slipping in damp disarray around her face, a girl barely on the edge of womanhood.

‘Annabel,’ Palmer murmured quietly, nodding towards the girl. ‘I told her to stay close to the house but she went walkabout.’ He paused and looked closely at Riley. ‘You okay?’

‘No problem. The butler’s got the shooter in a stranglehold. I think he’s one of the guests. I may have broken one of his ribs.’

‘Serves him right.’

It became clear, the closer they got, that Annabel had been in the fountain. Her thin dress was soaked through and she was shivering in the cooling air, holding a clutch purse close to her chest. Her face was wet and smeared with mascara, as if she’d been given two black eyes, and she was staring around with the vague lack of focus that accompanies the fairly stoned. She didn’t look happy.

‘Well, well, if it isn’t the faithful old bloodhound, Frank Palmer!’

The speaker was a heavy-set man in his thirties. He was clutching a champagne bottle in one meaty fist and had the swagger and sneering expression of someone accustomed to getting his own way. His tone was challenging and sour, and he looked a little too old for this group of mainly younger people, one of whom called him Henry. ‘I thought you’d given up hanging around the girls, Palmer,’ he taunted nastily. ‘Vicks had a narrow escape, in my opinion. No saying what would have happened to the bloodline if you’d got in there, eh?’

Palmer ignored him and stepped up to Annabel. He reached out and gently held her face, peering into her eyes with evident concern. There was little obvious reaction from the girl. ‘You’d better get her inside and changed,’ he said calmly to her companions. Then he eased the clutch purse from her hand and opened it, shaking the contents out onto the gravel.

A female voice rose in protest, echoed by a couple of men at the front of the crowd. Riley was about to say something as a powder compact, lipstick, cigarette lighter and a surprising amount of other, normal handbag stuff women seem able to pack into a confined space tumbled to the ground. Then came a trickle of small tablets… and two small plastic envelopes containing white powder.

********

The effect on the crowd was dramatic as they focussed on Palmer and Riley, no doubt trying to gauge how official the two of them might be.

But Henry was less guarded; he stepped forward and grabbed Palmer’s arm. ‘Get your grubby hands off her — and that stuff costs!’

Riley barely saw Palmer move, but suddenly Henry was lying on the floor clutching his wrist, the champagne bottle on the ground beside him, gurgling its contents away into the gravel. As Henry struggled to get up, cursing, his face red with pain and indignation, the rest of the partygoers moved back a few paces.

Riley stepped forward to place herself between the two men. As drunk and aggressive as the man was, she was counting on him not wanting to hit a woman. Some of the other men muttered between themselves, but she couldn’t tell whether it was in support of Henry or not.

‘Get her inside,’ Palmer suggested to Riley. ‘I’ll follow in a minute.’

As Riley turned to move the girl away, she heard a scrape of movement behind her. Henry was back on his feet and spoiling for a fight, urged on by one or two supporters.

‘What the fuck’s your problem?’ he spat at Palmer, his face beet-red with wounded pride. ‘Think because you’re a minder and you’ve got your little girlfriend with you, you can act all tough? Much good it’ll do you.’ Behind him, some of the other men were restless with anticipation. They seemed to notice Riley for the first time, and eyed the radio in her hand.

In the total silence that followed, a girl laughed shrilly and a glass fell to the ground and shattered.