Ian Slater - Rage of Battle

“I ‘m not talking about a pistol, man,” cut in Logan. “How about a bloody shotgun? Bird-hunting license, eh? That wouldn’t be unusual around here. Lot of retired army chaps as well.”

“No, sir,” said Melrose, deflated.

Logan looked again at the house, a magpie squawking somewhere nearby. The inspector didn’t particularly like magpies. He felt the vest of his tweed jacket for his own standard issue — a Parabellum nine-millimeter. The holster was ill fitting. Last time he’d signed out a sidearm had been in the late eighties — a mental patient from nearby Holly Road Asylum, or Holly Road Mental Rehabilitation Center, as they called it these days. “All right,” he sighed, taking Melrose’s point, but not entirely satisfied. And keyed-up. “Well, we might as well go in.” He hesitated. “I presume you did remember to bring handcuffs, Melroad?”

“Yes, sir,” said Melrose.

“What’s up with you?” Logan asked, turning to Perkins, who sounded as if he was choking. “You all right?”

“Ah, yessir — something caught in my throat, that’s all.”

Leaving Perkins at the car, Melrose and Logan started walking toward the house, shoes crunching on the steamy gravel. “Stay on your toes, “Logan told Melrose. “My guess is our Mr. Wilkins is still in the land of Nod. But if not, it’s conceivable he might try to run for it. Don’t want to use the shooter if I don’t have to, so be ready for one of your rugby tackles, Melroad.”

Melrose was surprised — how did Logan remember he played rugby but couldn’t get his name right?

“Breakaway, wasn’t it?” asked Logan.

“Yes, sir.”

“Bit big for that, aren’t you? Must have speed. That it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, let’s hope we don’t need it this morning.”

“No, sir,” answered Melrose, his sidelong glance at the inspector one infused with newfound respect. “Play yourself, did you, sir?”

“Yes. Century ago. On the wing.”

“Faster than me then, sir.”

“Not now,” said Logan, bending down in front of the house to pick up the morning paper. Telegraph, Melrose noted.

Logan pressed the doorbell. “You hear it?” he asked after about ten seconds. “Half the damn things don’t work,” Logan continued, this time reaching for the brass knocker. It was a coiled snake. “Must be a bloody lawyer,” said Logan.

Before Melrose could comment, he saw the change in light on the peephole, heard the rattle of the chain, the door opening to a slit, and behind it he saw an elegant powder-blue housecoat. A middle-aged woman, brown hair and eyes, about five four, Melrose guessed, a little on the plump side, though that was probably the housecoat. Not at all bad-looking, really. Melrose tapped his police cap as Logan doffed his hat. “Morning. Mrs. Wilkins, is it?”

She took the chain off, her hands quickly moving to her throat, holding the satin lapels of her coat close together. “It’s Graham—”

“No, no,” the inspector assured her. “Your son’s quite all right, Mrs. Wilkins. School hospital’s taking good care of him. No, it’s another matter, actually. Is Mr. Wilkins home?”

“Yes-I–I think so.”

Logan nodded but managed to convey polite surprise.

“I mean — sometimes he comes home rather late and—” Embarrassed, she turned and called out, “James—”

There was no answer. She called again.

“He must be in the shower,” she apologized to the inspector, moving a wisp of hair back away from her face. Logan smiled. It was an awkward moment, her eyes shifting to the constable.

“I wonder—” began Logan.

“Won’t you come in? “ she said quickly. “I’ll go and fetch him.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” said Logan, taking off his hat, Melrose doing likewise, and both of them following her into the spacious, deep-carpeted living room, a large blue Persian rug at one end, Edwardian furniture, immaculate. Some photos on the mantelpiece — everything in its place, the smell of wax polish predominant. The kind of house, thought Melrose, you’re afraid to sit in. Might disturb something. Logan’s eyes lighted on a print that looked vaguely familiar, and on a small, round cedar table, dust-colored but clean figurines of the Chinese warriors dug up in Xi’an.

“I’ll just be a moment,” she said, starting up the long, curving stairway.

Logan’s smile was fixed in a practiced graciousness. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“What you think?” said Logan without looking back at Melrose.

“He might be going out the back.”

“No — no,” said Logan. “We’ve got the house covered. No, I mean the house. Marine insurance agent? Didn’t know it paid this well.”

“Maybe mortgaged,” proffered Melrose.

“Possibly.” Logan nodded, unconsciously patting the pipe in his left top pocket. “Or rented.”

“Little too neat for renters, I’d say, sir.”

Logan frowned disapprovingly. “You own your own place, do you?”

“No, sir — but I meant—”

“This is a Turner,” said Logan, hands behind his back, looking closer at the painting. “Thought I recognized it— Rain, Steam, Speed. ” His attention wandered back up to the mantelpiece — a wedding photo. Mrs. Wilkins was a lot thinner in the photograph, but it was her, all right, Mr. Wilkins in a tuxedo, a sharp dresser, mustache, and, or so it seemed in the photo, straining to appear as tall as his wife. Shifty, thought Logan. He was going on gut instinct, his voice low and unhurried. “Go and ask Perkins if there’s been an out call since we’ve been here.”

“Right you are, sir,” said Melrose, taking a last glance up the stairs, expecting the woman to reappear at any moment. She’d sounded pleasant enough and totally surprised.

Logan pulled back from the print, confounded by its lack of definite line, moving left of the fireplace. If Wilkins was at home, and if he did have a gun, Logan was making sure his field of fire was much more advantageous than that of anyone who was coming down the stairs. The front door clicked softly as Melrose left. Then Logan checked to see whether there was another entrance to the living room behind him. There wasn’t, and silently, the sound of an ornate cuckoo clock ticking woodenly behind him, he slid the high-backed Edwardian chair closer to the fireplace and in front of him. It would afford damn all protection, but was the right height to steady arthritic hands. He clenched and flexed his right hand several times to pump up the blood supply into his fingers. He was amazed — there was no pain in his knuckles.

The rear of the two-story house sloped down to a greenhouse, the blurred blobs of several enormous pumpkins and a run of what looked like cucumber barely visible through the steamy greenhouse glass. The two bored constables, watching from the base of the big oak trees seventy yards or so behind the house, saw Melrose, off to their left, heading back toward the car, then returned to their surveillance of the amphitheater of lawn and faded rhododendron bushes behind the house.

“Well, well!” said one of them. “What’s going on here, then?”

A man in white shirt and gray trousers was crawling out of one of the upstairs windows and then began to slide down the main drainpipe to the guttering of the first floor, looking alarmed as he shimmied along the guttering just above the greenhouse roof, his left foot leading in a hurried, short shuffling movement to see if the guttering would hold before following with his right.

“Won’t he be surprised to see us?” said one of the constables. “Didn’t even take time to put on his coat.”

“Would you?” asked the other constable, but his partner didn’t answer, noticing the big aluminum TV dish, which, mounted on the west end of the house and not visible from the front, had several guy wires down to the guttering. “Be careful, Michael,” he told his colleague. “This bugger might be carryin’.”