Ian Rankin - Westwind

‘No, she did it. She hung him up there.’

The detective decided to ignore all this. He referred to his notebook. ‘The name we have for the visitor is a Miss Victoria Simmons.’

Hepton shook his head. ‘Her name’s Harry.’

‘Harry?’ The detective sounded doubtful.

‘Short for Harriet.’

‘And her second name?’

Hepton shrugged. ‘I don’t know. She’s something to do with the military. That’s what she told me, anyway. You can ask my boss, Mr Henry Fagin. I’ll give you his number...’

‘Yes, well, meantime just you rest, Mr Hepton. You’ve had a bit of a shock.’

‘I’m fine. But I’m telling you...’ He looked up at the policeman. A simple-looking face, disguising a simple-working mind. He shook his head. ‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘Never mind.’

The duty doctor gave him a couple of tablets, but Hepton refused them. He didn’t need calming down, or cheering up. He didn’t require the proffered lift home. He was quite capable of driving himself.

Paul had given him a name: Argos . Perhaps the truth had been too obvious, too glaring, too outrageous. But now that he thought it over, it was quite true that the United States space shuttle Argos had been in space at the time Zephyr had malfunctioned. But Argos wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near Zephyr ’s orbit. It had been a thousand or more miles away, launching another satellite. With Dreyfuss on board, now its only survivor. A coincidence? Paul had given him that one word because he had suspected Argos of interfering with Zephyr in some way. One person would know for sure.

Dreyfuss.

But how the hell could Hepton get to him? There had to be some way. The Foreign Office, perhaps. Their people in the United States would have access to him, surely? That might mean a trip to London...

London.

Of course! Jilly would have been keeping in touch with him. Hepton just knew she would. Partly from friendship — mostly from friendship, even — but partly because she had a nose for a story, and Dreyfuss was news. That was that then: he’d pack a bag and head for London. But first there were more questions to be asked of him, more tea to be served up and drunk. Why garden twine? Why suicide? Why by hanging? Why in a cupboard? He kept his answers to himself. Garden twine was strong. It wasn’t suicide, but murder. Hanging to make it look like suicide. A cupboard to prevent the body being found too quickly.

Because Harry had known Hepton was on his way, and there hadn’t been much time. Not enough time for an overdose, and not enough time for an abduction. No one, of course, had seen anything. No one had heard anything No chair falling. No choking or kicking. It was a neat operation. Neat and tidy. Hepton couldn’t get Harry’s face out of his mind.

Eventually they had to let him go. He gave his address in Louth, got into his car and drove off at a steady pace, picking up speed only when he was out of the nursing home’s gates, picking up more and more speed until he caught himself doing seventy. Too fast on these roads. Braking, slowing. He didn’t want there to be any other accidents.

Parking outside the flat, though, locking the car door, he felt a fresh wave of foreboding wash over him. Harry had killed Paul to stop him saying anything about Zephyr and, more especially, about Argos . Hepton thought of Harry again: I like things neat and tidy . With Paul gone, he knew he himself had become a target. Perhaps the only target left.

He stood at the bottom of the stairwell for a long time, listening. Then he climbed quietly to the first floor. He slowly pushed open his letter box and listened for sounds in the flat. There were none. Then he unlocked the mortise and the Yale lock and opened the door. There was a piece of paper lying on the floor of the hallway. He unfolded it and read: Need to speak with you. Please come to the Coach and Four, 7.30. Nick.

Hepton looked at his watch. It was 7.25. He’d have to hurry; the Coach and Four was a good seven or eight minutes’ walk away. He’d never been to it before, there being two other pubs nearer the flat. He wondered why Nick wanted to meet him. Perhaps he had discovered something. Well, Hepton had things to tell him too, didn’t he? Things about Zephyr and Argos . Things about Paul Vincent. Things about his death.

It hit him then, standing in the hall with the note in his hand. A huge tremor ran through him, and the strength left his body. He leaned against the wall for support and thought he was going to be sick. Was this what delayed shock felt like? He stumbled into the bathroom and ran cold water into the basin, splashing his face and neck. He wasn’t going to be sick; the feeling was passing. He had to be strong, for his own sake. And he wouldn’t be late for his appointment.

There was only one real route to the Coach and Four. It took him up a narrow, cottage-lined street, a street he’d always admired. But the people who lived there these days weren’t farmhands or labourers or even small merchants. They were estate agents and accountants, most of them working in London during the week, coming here only at weekends. And as this wasn’t yet the weekend, the street was deserted. At the end of what might seem to some a cul-de-sac, he turned right into a narrower lane yet, which would bring him out across from the pub. It too was quiet; one side being workshops and garaging, the other the backs of some houses, high fencing protecting the privacy of the gardens. A few brave motorists used this lane as a shortcut, though its surface was rutted and booby-trapped with potholes. He could hear a car now, slowing in the street behind him, turning into the lane. But there was plenty of room for it to pass him.

He turned to look at the car and saw the nose of the black Sierra as it started to speed towards him. Harry, clearly visible behind the windscreen, seemed to be enjoying the look of terror on his face. She gunned the vehicle forwards just as Hepton turned and ran.

He was no judge of distance but reckoned that he couldn’t make the end of the lane before the car caught him. He quickly sought an open door to one of the workshops, some garage that hadn’t been locked up. But it was useless. The Sierra was only a few yards from him when he made up his mind. He braced himself against the metal door of one of the garages, then pushed off from it and sprinted across the line of the oncoming vehicle. Harry accelerated harder yet, but Hepton had judged it right, and he leapt at the high wall of one of the gardens, his fingers seeking the top edge of the brickwork. They found it, and he pulled himself upwards as the Sierra curved towards him, its front wing searing against the wall. He swung his legs upwards so that the roof of the car just missed them, and hung there, teeth gritted, thinking suddenly and absurdly of the multigym’s chinning bar.

The Sierra screeched to a stop at the end of the lane, just as Hepton was about to drop back to the ground. Then its wheels spun and it started to reverse hard towards him. Christ, he couldn’t hang on much longer, and he hadn’t the strength to pull himself over the wall. But then the car stopped, idled for a moment.

‘What’s going on?’

Hepton turned his head and saw that a man had appeared from a gate in one of the garden fences. He was in his shirtsleeves and carried a folded newspaper, obviously having just been disturbed from an evening’s reading in his garden. Hepton dropped to the ground and watched the Sierra start forwards slowly, turning out of the lane and speeding away.

Of course: there couldn’t be any witnesses, could there? It had to look like an accident. Hepton saw it all clearly. The note from Nick was a fake. She had chosen the pub because she’d known he had to walk along this lane to get to it. And in the lane there would be no escape, and no one to see the car hit him. But it wouldn’t have been hit-and-run. That might have looked too suspicious. No, she would have stopped and played the innocent. She would say he had jumped in front of the car, perhaps, and everyone would come to believe her, because it would be shown that Hepton was distraught, unstable after watching his friend die earlier in the day.