‘And the irony is it was Philpott that laid Freddie in the road.’
‘Got to say you’ve lost me, guv.’
‘Think about it. Jennings remembers turning a Land Rover back that night, but can’t give you the name of the man who ran over the body. When you went back this afternoon, you caught him out. He wasn’t expecting that. The man who “hit” the body was Philpott, but he didn’t run him over, just unloaded it once they’d spotted their men.’
‘How could they be sure they had the right men?’
‘Two men in a Land Rover in the middle of the night, covered in mud? Felix said the police advised them where to spend the night – at the Dog and Pheasant – so they knew where to find them in the morning, and followed them into Colchester for the drop.’
‘But Philpott, a murderer?’
‘Drugged out his mind, anything is possible. We’ll find out . . . Explains why Stone went to the house unarmed. He knew his murderer.’
‘And Patricia Vane in Oldham’s houseboat?’
‘Jennings would have seen Oldham coming and going and have figured it out as the ideal place to hold her to keep an eye on her. At the same time, it would implicate the good captain, as Jennings would know the military connection with the ranges.’
‘What, and have us barking up the wrong tree, as the chief’s been doing?’
‘Yes, it would appear so. Jennings. Jennings is the mastermind.’ Lowry dipped his beam as he followed the road round to the right towards West Mersea. ‘Clever lad, all along; playing the lackey PC.’
‘I still don’t get it – you’ve given Nugent your word that you’ll help him out, after he tried to run you down. Why trust him and not Philpott, who, until lately – let’s be honest, guv – was practically on the payroll?’
‘His behaviour.’
‘What, the swearing and cursing? I can see there’s an honesty—’
Lowry interrupted. ‘Ted Nugent is the epitome of a man in jeopardy, and I don’t just mean because he’s been nicked – he didn’t know which way to turn or where to find safety. When we spoke with Nugent the first time, wild horses wouldn’t have dragged him from the island, remember? Yet the second time, when I nabbed him up the ladder, he knew the situation had shifted up a gear – he was in trouble with us, and that meant with Jennings, eventually, who was the bigger danger. That’s why he was practically begging to come to Queen Street; that energetic episode with his XR3 – as if he’d get away? And then telling us about the cash in the glove box. Compare him to Jamie with his eyes gone crazy – who’d you trust? It’s not always straight forward.’
‘Straight forward,’ Kenton muttered as they passed through the small town centre, its ancient church reaching up into the night, and descended into the harbour.
‘Jesus, it’s dark down here. Worse with the snow,’ Lowry said as huge flurries swirled down, covering all in their path. ‘I can’t see the name of the road, but I’m sure that’s the lane – at the end there next to the yacht club, through the arch. Too narrow for a car.’
By a large white building with large black windows on the upper floor, the road slipped away into the dark.
‘Right, we’ll park up here.’ Lowry edged up to a chain-link boundary, on the other side of which large white hulls loomed, quiet and majestic, the lanyards clinking invisibly above them.
‘I used to be afraid of the dark,’ Kenton said across the car roof, which was already white.
‘Really? Not now, I hope.’ Lowry’s breath caught in the weak orange gloaming surrounding the solitary street light.
‘Of course not.’
‘Good. It’ll be pretty black down there. And be aware, to the left, the path falls away to water, like the edge of a pier. Now, keep quiet.’ They each carried a torch but would hold out on using them unless absolutely necessary. A second later, a gull screech pierced the dark from amidst the boats, confirming Lowry’s warning of the sea’s proximity.
As the street narrowed, the rapidly disappearing tarmac gave way to cobbles. The street light didn’t reach beyond the stone archway, so having passed through they found themselves in total darkness. Lowry had stopped – or Kenton could no longer hear his footsteps, lost in the snow perhaps. Instead, he heard water lapping below and to the right of him. Kenton found that this affected his balance. The closeness of the sound compelled him to reach out blindly for a secure surface. He could barely move his feet; an atavistic fear, something akin to vertigo, had him rooted to the spot.
‘Guv? Guv!’ he whispered urgently into the void.
‘What?’ Lowry’s voice, soft and barely audible, came back through the dark. ‘Don’t panic; your eyes will adjust. Listen.’
He stood still and listened as hard as he could. Footsteps.
‘Who’s that?’
No reply.
Then voices, urgent, cracking the silence ahead. Gradually, Kenton’s spatial awareness came back as his vision adjusted. A weak moon flickered on the water.
‘I should have let you drown that night,’ came a voice out of nowhere, a second before he felt a truncheon smash across his jaw.
*
By keeping close to the cottages, Lowry, by dint of a sliver of moonlight, had caught sight of the silhouette lunging out at his younger colleague. As Kenton went down, Lowry swiftly leapt in and rabbit-punched his assailant across the neck. Jennings’ pasty face spun round and met with a left hook, which sent him flying into the water and the truncheon rattling on the cobbles.
Kenton lay groaning at his feet. Further off, an outboard motor sputtered into life. Lowry flicked on his torch and shot it down the jetty path; thickening snowflakes caught in the beam. At the very end, there was movement.
‘Keep him in the water – it’ll cool him down,’ he said to his prone colleague, and ran down towards the boat. Snow caught in his eyes as he went, but he could just make out a dinghy casting off. He broke into a sprint and launched himself off the jetty and into the boat, landing squarely on the figure who was steering the outboard motor. The two men went crashing to the wooden hull, the decked pilot bucking violently. Lowry pressed down against taut muscle and sinew underneath the man’s overcoat – this was no weakling like the stringy policeman. Philpott thrashed hard again, this time dislodging Lowry, who was thrown back and cracked his head against the gunwale. The boat circled out of control as Philpott tried to pin Lowry by the neck; he was searching for something within his coat – a knife perhaps. Lowry struggled but couldn’t escape his surprisingly vice-like grip. Reaching blindly to his side, he grasped what felt like a fuel can. He fumbled to tilt the metal container and grab the handle, then swung it up with all his might, clouting the seething, bristly face above him and sending the lighter Philpott sideways. He shot up, abruptly buckling as the boat keeled inwards, then swiftly righting himself as he caught a glimpse of a blade. Philpott was still on the floor, so Lowry tossed the fuel can at his head and trod forcefully on his groin, causing him to bellow with pain. Crouching to steady himself, Lowry was suddenly blinded by torch beams. ‘The cavalry,’ he muttered to the four or so uniforms who had appeared on the jetty. After a sharp kick to the whining man’s ribs, Lowry took control of the outboard and brought the dingy to dock.
7.15 p.m., Queen Street HQ
Oldham had been released.
Jennings and Philpott now swallowed all the attention. The latter was raving in the furthest interview room, his voice echoing down the corridor. Lowry pulled the door shut and took a last look through the glass at Jennings. The man caught his eye. Wrapped in a blanket, his pale face was indignant and said, ‘I’m as good as you.’ And Lowry thought, Yes, you probably were; it was a shame his intelligence had not found a better outlet. Jennings had hidden all this time working under the Dodger, and Lowry wondered what drove a man like him to crime. Surely it was more than frustrated ambition? He couldn’t help but think that, if Jenni
ngs had had a more capable number two, he would have inflicted some major long-term damage and gone undetected for some time, above and beyond the blood of the last week. He could have got away with killing Freddie Cowley, too, probably, if it weren’t for Philpott’s insanity on Sunday night at Greenstead.
Lowry blew his nose; he felt the onset of a cold. He had business to attend to home, but Jacqui had just started a rota of nights; it would be the briefest of interludes – make sure Matt didn’t go to bed too late – with no time for a proper conversation. And he needed time to think how to approach the situation. But if he wanted to catch her before she left for work tonight, he’d have to leave Queen Street no later than eight.
Corporal Quinn was still in custody, and probably feeling abandoned now his chief had been freed. Lowry took advantage of all the commotion to slip down to the cells and run a scenario past him.
He presented Quinn with the facts as the police interpreted them: Daley, Jones, Quinn and Cowley had imported one hundred kilos of amphetamines from Germany. Freddie Cowley had arranged the deal. Quinn had avoided much of the trouble by being in the Glasshouse on New Year’s Eve for some minor offence (which had possibly saved his life; otherwise, it might have been him at the bottom of the wall at Castle Park), so, with less of the heat on him, Lowry hoped he might cooperate.
‘Patrick Jennings did not know who Freddie’s contacts were, this side of the channel; Freddie wouldn’t tell them, and so he was killed for protecting you lot. Admirable, don’t you think? But the question remains – Daley and Jones; who chased them?’ he asked as they sat alone in a cell.
‘I dunno,’ Quinn said. He looked tired.
‘The witnesses – one, the girl from the video shop; you know who I mean – said they were meeting people from out of town. Were they dealers? What was the plan? Where were they going to sell it?’
Quinn frowned. ‘There were no dealers. They were looking for those boys from Brightlingsea, you know that . . . and no plan, neither – it was just for us and our mates.’
Lowry didn’t believe it for one minute. There might have been no dealers, but he reckoned on some kind of distribution within the army – possibly nationwide, given the quantity. But there was one question he needed an answer to: the financing.
‘So, no money changed hands at Beaumont Terrace?’
‘No money was ever to change hands – we’d bought it outright, with our active-service bonus. The plan was to ship it halfway from Germany and get some local boys who knew the water to bring it in.’
‘So, if it’s just for you, why were two of your gang chased across town, ending in the death of one of you?’ Given the subsequent course of events, Lowry believed there had to be a connection.
Quinn scratched his cropped ginger scalp. ‘Freddie was staying with that scumbag, Stone – he should never have let him in. It was contained until then, but then Stone came into some money and wanted a piece of the action. We thought, why not? But he couldn’t keep it to himself and told that smartarse, Philpott. And then Stone kept asking about the deal,’ he continued. ‘Like you, he thought there was somebody else.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘He thought we were middlemen. After Felix and Boyd landed it, he thought we were going to sell it on . . . but Boyd was a day late – nobody knew where they’d got to – and then what happened happened at Castle Park.’
‘Okay, and who else would know? It wouldn’t be Philpott who chased them across Castle Park.’
‘No way. Jones and Daley wouldn’t run from no one, ’cept maybe the Red Caps.’
And then it clicked. ‘Do the Red Caps ever operate in civvies?’
‘Aye, for covert ops, so as not to attract attention, but you can always spot them a mile off. Solid hard bastards.’
‘Tell me, Quinn, why were you detained on New Year’s Eve?’ As Lowry asked, he could hear footsteps approaching down the basement aisle. He wouldn’t get his answer now, tonight, from Quinn. But that didn’t matter. He knew the answer. He stood to pre-empt the PC now standing at the door. ‘Ah, constable, about time. We need to let the corporal here return to base.’
Quinn looked up, surprised.
‘Thank you for your time, Corporal Quinn,’ he said reassuringly. ‘Try and keep out of trouble, eh?’
Friday, 7 January, 1983
-59-
8.30 a.m., Friday, Great Tey
‘But Jacqui, don’t you see, it’s because you’re unhappy that you’re so reckless?’
‘Not now, Paul. I just started on nights. I need to go to bed.’
She twirled the telephone cable, listening to Paul plead with her as she sat on the bottom stair in the empty house. He repeated the same line, or variations of it, over and over – that she pursued these stupid, childish antics because her marriage was unfulfilling. Was he right? She didn’t really care; she’d just been having a giggle with her mates. It was pointless Paul saying that if she thought about it ‘deep down’ she’d feel differently: she felt how she felt. Besides, Trish had had an unhappy marriage, got divorced; that hadn’t changed her ‘antics’. And it was her, poor Trish, that was kidnapped, not Jacqui – in fact, she wondered if her marriage to Nick had saved her from that horror somehow . . . Then there was Nick. Nick had arrived home just before she left for her shift last night. He said that he’d be home when she woke up this evening for a proper conversation that was long overdue. She needed to get herself into gear; he sounded serious.
Paul was still going on: ‘You have to leave Nick.’
‘I don’t have to do anything, Paul.’
‘But I love you, Jacqui. I really love you.’
She didn’t love him back – it was just a laugh, a bit of fun, and something to give the endless night shifts a kick. ‘Oh, you’re so sweet, Paul. Really . . .’
And, as she said this, she knew she had to end it. Love was not fun.
9.30 a.m., Queen Street HQ
Sparks scratched his chin thoughtfully. What a week. He topped up his coffee with Scotch. After the week they’d had, to his mind, it was perfectly okay to drink alcohol after breakfast and he needed a nip before facing the press. Even when victorious, the Colchester chief suffered from nerves. He wished Lowry was at his side.
Lowry was bracing Oldham over the Castle Park incident. Sparks had asked him to stop for a pint afterwards, when the press had been dealt with, but Lowry had tried to duck out, pleading family matters (and, in fairness, who could blame him?), but it was approaching the first game of the new year and Sparks reckoned he could persuade him to see the U’s train the day beforehand. There was cause for celebration, after all: they had solved three murders in under a week! And although there were still some loose ends – they had no idea where the drugs were, for one – Lowry was convinced he could get Oldham to square things with Lane, thus allowing Sparks to save face over the arrest. (Lane would then phone Merrydown and explain it was all a misunderstanding.)
Merrydown. Sadly, there was no escaping her. They were due to have dinner on Monday evening to discuss a shake-up at West Mersea. Dodger Bradley would certainly have to retire. Shame; Sparks liked the old toad. He might be crap at paperwork, but in his day he’d been a damn fine policeman.
He took a sip of his laced coffee as he pondered the afternoon’s Division 3 football. Shame about young Jennings, too, with his long legs – would have made an excellent winger. The police had now traced phone calls from the West Mersea cottage to Germany. Whatever disagreement had taken place, it had been enough to prompt Freddie to get on a plane and meet Jennings. He hadn’t realized it would be the last trip he ever made.
Sparks didn’t know Jennings and cared little what happened to him. No, the big surprise was Jamie Philpott, who had killed Boyd and Stone. The fight with Quinn had sent the man crazy – paranoid and psychotic, according to the doctors, for Jamie Philpott was entering a plea of insanity. After
doing a bunk from Colchester General, he had indeed holed up with his mother for a spell, but after refuelling on more powder, he had taken it upon himself to return to Greenstead on Sunday evening. There, the domestic simplicity of two men jabbering away over a curry sent delusional signals of conspiracy pulsing through his temporal lobes. He was convinced they were plotting against him. Philpott waited until one man went to use the toilet. He picked up a combat knife and killed one while he ate, and then followed the other upstairs to the bathroom.
Sparks was surprised that Philpott had it in him to murder, and found it equally unlikely that a pasting from a giant Irishman could send a man mad, even if he was whizzing like an Apollo rocket. It was one thing to have taken leave of one’s senses when the incident happened, fully loaded, but then to spend a night at his mother’s, in Tiptree, craving revenge on his pal and a simpleton from Brightlingsea? But that’s what had happened. Still, not his problem: the lunatic had confessed, leaving Sparks with nothing to worry about. That was drugs for you. The phone disturbed his thoughts.
‘Sparks.’
It was the front desk. ‘There’s a doctor here to see Detective Inspector Lowry.’
‘He’s not expected back until midday.’
‘I’ve said that, sir. The gentleman said he’d wait. I said not to . . .’
It would be about Kenton, no doubt – truncheoned across the jaw last night. He might be a crafty bugger in the ring, but every time they let him loose outside, somebody took a swing at him.
‘All right, send him up.’ Poor sod might have concussion. He could ill afford to be a man down this early in the season. Lowry had better shake himself out of this no-fighting nonsense, with Kenton idling in the General. He folded the News of the World and topped up his coffee again.
In less than a minute, there was a rap at the door.
‘Come.’
In walked a handsome blond fellow with a gingerish beard. Well-built, broad shoulders.
‘Ah, doctor, sit down. Can I interest you in a snifter?’