Майкл Ридпат - Launch Code

‘Thank you,’ said Toby. ‘Have you released Alice?’

‘Not yet,’ said the inspector, friendliness replaced by caution.

‘Why not? She can’t possibly have shot Lars.’

‘That doesn’t mean she didn’t murder Sam Bowen. We still have a few more hours to decide whether to charge her.’

‘That’s ridiculous!’ Toby said, anger rising.

Something close to sympathy crept into the inspector’s expression. ‘Look at it from our point of view. She was the last person to see Sam Bowen alive, either just before or when he was killed. She has given us no explanation of what she discussed with him, or even where she was beyond her initial lie about going to the supermarket in Lynn. Neither she, nor you, nor Bill Guth have told us what it is about events on the Alexander Hamilton that might have caused her to meet Sam Bowen or possibly kill him. Alice has to be our top suspect. I know she’s your wife, but you must see that.’

‘But she didn’t kill him!’ Toby protested.

‘We don’t know that,’ said Creswell kindly. ‘You go back to Barnholt now, and leave it to us and Alice and her lawyer to sort out, eh? You’ve had a rough afternoon.’

Anger flared, but was soon doused by a wave of exhaustion. The inspector was right; Toby should leave it to Lisa Beckwith to look after Alice. Maybe when he spoke to MI5 things would be clearer. He was tired. He needed to get back to Pear Tree Cottage.

Bill was waiting for him at the police station, looking anxious, as well he might.

‘How are you doing, Toby?’

‘In the car,’ said Toby between gritted teeth.

It was dark outside as they made their way to the nearby car park where Bill had left his Range Rover.

‘Bill. What the hell is going on?’ Toby said, once he was inside.

‘I don’t know any more than you,’ said Bill. ‘My friend has been killed and my daughter is a murder suspect.’

‘Yeah,’ said Toby. ‘And some poor historian has been murdered as well. And don’t try to pretend that it doesn’t have something to do with that missile launch and Craig’s death, because obviously it must do. Just tell me what.’

‘Hey, I told you all I knew this afternoon,’ said Bill, as he guided the Range Rover through the streets of King’s Lynn. ‘You didn’t give any of that to the police, did you?’

‘No,’ said Toby. ‘But why do you care? Isn’t it more important that we get Alice out of jail and find the maniac who shot Lars? And, by the way, tried to shoot me and will probably shoot you.’

‘I’m telling you, Toby, I have no idea why any of this is happening!’

‘Well, I don’t believe you.’

They drove back to Barnholt in silence, Toby letting his fury boil. He wasn’t sure how much of his anger was justified and how much was a reaction to almost getting killed, but, frankly, he didn’t care.

Megan was waiting for them, her eyes red behind her glasses. Toby was surprised, as was Bill, when she threw her arms around him as he walked in the door. She held him tight for a few seconds. Then she pulled away.

‘Poor Lars,’ she said.

Yes. Poor Lars.

‘Are you going to tell his family?’ Toby asked Bill.

‘Yes. His mother has dementia and is in a home in Wisconsin, but I know he had a brother. I’d better see if I can track him down.’

‘Glass of wine?’ said Megan, once her father had left the kitchen.

‘Go on,’ said Toby. Sweet tea could only achieve so much.

Megan poured two glasses of red and they sat down at the kitchen table opposite each other.

‘It was terrible to hear about Lars,’ said Megan. She hesitated and looked Toby in the eye. ‘But I was so scared that you had nearly been killed.’

She held out her hand. He gave her his and she squeezed it. She didn’t let it go.

Toby found her touch comforting. There was something strangely solid and reliable about his scatty sister-in-law.

‘Are they releasing Alice?’ Megan asked.

‘I don’t know,’ said Toby. ‘They are going to decide whether to charge her tonight.’

‘But how can they think she killed Sam Bowen after what happened to Lars this afternoon?’

Toby shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I told them to get MI5 up here so I can talk to them. About what your father told us.’

‘Is that a good idea?’ Megan said.

‘I think so. It seemed to me like a way around the Official Secrets problem. MI5 can help the police.’

‘Only if they want to,’ said Megan.

‘What do you mean?’

Megan sipped her wine thoughtfully. ‘We know that the US Navy wanted to cover things up. We know that this Admiral Robinson guy has recruited MI5 to help them cover things up. And now Lars has been killed.’

‘Are you suggesting MI5 did that?’

‘Or the CIA. Or the FBI. I don’t know. I am suggesting that they might not want the Norfolk police to discover what really happened.’

‘I see what you mean,’ said Toby. ‘But I’m kind of committed now.’

‘Just be careful,’ said Megan. ‘Please.’

‘OK,’ said Toby. ‘But now I’m not sure what being careful means.’

They heard a car pulling up outside and blue lights danced over the kitchen wall. Toby looked out of the kitchen window and saw two cars parked on the lane beyond the garden wall: a police vehicle and DC Atkinson’s silver Fiesta. He opened the front door to a pair of armed police officers, who instructed him to draw all the curtains in the house, and not to leave unless absolutely necessary, and then only after informing them. They would keep an eye on the house overnight.

Behind the uniformed policemen stood Atkinson and a fellow detective. While Megan showed them Lars’s room in the next-door cottage, Toby went around the house drawing the curtains. They were already closed in Bill’s tiny study: Bill was on the phone, looking sombre.

Back in the kitchen, Megan opened a couple of cartons of pea and ham soup for the three of them for supper, and warmed them up.

Toby laid the table, and poured them both some more wine.

‘I’m glad the cops are here,’ said Megan. ‘Because whoever killed Lars is still out there. And you realize he might be after you?’

‘I doubt it,’ said Toby. ‘Lars knew something and I don’t. My guess is I was just shot at as an afterthought.’ Yet he had been wondering whether he had been a target in addition to Lars, for some reason he had no way of knowing. He hoped that with the police after him, the shooter would either lie low or leave the county, but he couldn’t be sure of that.

Lars’s killer could be out there in the marshes at that very moment. Toby took a gulp of wine.

‘Did you hear what Dad said about the FBI investigating Mom?’ Megan said.

‘Yes, I did.’

‘I wonder what that was about?’

‘He said they thought she was a peacenik.’

Megan smiled. ‘She was certainly that. I used to wonder how someone who was so strongly anti-nuclear weapons married an officer on a nuclear submarine. Now I guess I know. They must have gotten back together afterward.’

‘I asked Lars about that. About the FBI and that woman, Pat Greenberg?’

‘Greenwald, I think.’

‘All right. Greenwald.’

‘And what did Lars say?’

‘Nothing,’ said Toby. ‘I think I had just about persuaded him to talk, and then he was shot.’

Megan paused, thinking. ‘Didn’t Sam Bowen ask Dad about a Pat Greenwald?’

‘That’s right! Your dad said he had never spoken to her.’

‘But she was a friend of Mom’s. A peace activist.’

Megan ladled the soup into bowls and called out to her father upstairs.

He had managed to track down Lars’s brother’s number in Milwaukee and broken the news to him. The brother had promised to tell their mother, although he doubted she would remember it. And then he would have to tell her again. And again.