“No, you bloody can’t!”
McKinnes leaned out the open front door and waved to catch the attention of the officer in the squad car.
“See what the Guv’nor wants, will you?”
Two more officers emerged from the kitchen carrying wooden panels. Mrs. Minton rounded on McKinnes again.
“I want you and your lot to sod off!” she yelled. “I’m keeping a record of every scrap of damage. They broke the door down. If you’d waited I’d have been home. That’s a solid wood door, made to measure, and you can get it replaced — that’s five hundred for bleeding starters.”
DI Falcon appeared from the kitchen. He held up two thick wads of banknotes.
“Guv? We hit the jackpot. Fake pipe.” He handed the money to McKinnes. “I’ll get on to HQ,” he said, heading for the front door, “we’ll need some photos...”
There was a flicker of uncertainty in Mrs. Minton’s eyes. She swallowed visibly and folded her arms, keeping up her front.
“I know nothing about that,” she told McKinnes.
“Tell them back at base we’ll hang on here,” McKinnes was telling his driver outside. “We just struck lucky.”
Somewhere upstairs a child began to howl. McKinnes listened straight-faced, looked pointedly at Mrs. Minton, then turned and examined the alarm by the front door.
“This working, is it?”
“Yeah.” She moved to the stairs. “It’s connected to the local police station. All right if I go up to see my kids? They already turned their bunks upside down this morning”
“You didn’t have it on this morning?” McKinnes said. “The alarm, that is.”
“I was only taking the kids to school!”
An officer came forward and handed over another bundle of bank notes. McKinnes took them. Mrs. Minton, halfway up the stairs, stopped in her tracks and watched.
“How much more is there?” McKinnes murmured, weighing up the bundle. “A lot?”
“I’d say so, sir,” the officer said, nodding.
“Good. Keep at it then...”
He lightly thumped the stair paneling with the side of his fist, turned to walk into the kitchen, then stopped. He moved further along the paneling, struck it again, and frowned. He turned to the officer in the kitchen doorway.
“Get this down.”
The man set to the job at once with a claw hammer and a chisel. DI Falcon came back carrying a roll of plastic bags.
“The Super’s a bit edgy about us not finding Minton,” he said. He jerked his head toward Mrs. Minton, who was watching stiffly as the stair panels were prized away. “Her local police station called in...”
McKinnes watched as a complete section of panel came away. There was a door behind it. McKinnes looked up at Mrs. Minton.
“You know you’ve got a cellar, love?”
Her face had frozen.
McKinnes paused long enough to tell DI Falcon the business with the Superintendent could wait until morning, then he crossed to the door and turned the handle. The door opened. A light filtered up from the cellar. McKinnes smiled.
Five minutes later Mrs. Minton stood in the hall, crying as she watched her husband being handcuffed. Officers emerged from the cellar carrying bundles of papers and bulging plastic bags.
George Minton was shaking with anger. As the cuffs were tightened on his wrists he glared at McKinnes.
“Who put the finger on me?” he demanded. “Come on, you bastard, you wrecked my house, what’s it to you?”
McKinnes waved to his men and they took Minton away.
“You tell whoever it is,” Minton shouted, “he’s a dead man! You hear me, you son of a bitch? He’s a dead man!”
McKinnes looked over Minton’s drawing room. Ready to go back to the station, he half turned, crooked a finger to a uniformed officer, and pointed to a photograph.
“I want that; get Mrs. Minton to give us the okay.” It was a framed photograph of two men seated in what looked like a bar, somewhere like Bermuda. A row of boats could be seen behind the bamboo and ferns. Both men were suntanned, both wearing evening suits. Min-ton’s was black, Edward Myers’s jacket was white, and he had one arm around Minton, smiling to the camera. Minton was laughing.
10
Shortly before ten o clock on Thursday morning, a police patrol car drew up outside the small terraced home of Phil and Moyra Sheffield. DI Jimmy Falcon got out of the car, checked the address with his notebook, and walked up the path. He rang the doorbell. A moment later Phil Sheffield opened the door; DI Falcon showed him his ID card and was then invited into the house.
Forty minutes later DI Falcon left the Sheffields’ house. He hurried out to the patrol car and got in beside the uniformed driver. The car moved off.
Inside the house Phil Sheffield turned away from the window. He was a big man, gaunt-eyed, blunt in his speech and manner. He looked at his wife, sitting on the sofa twisting a damp tissue between her fingers. Her eyes were rimmed with red.
“Well? You going to tell me what all this is about? Moyra?” He came closer, bending forward, trying to make her look at him. “Moyra?” She was on the point of saying something, then she began to cry, losing control, her shoulders heaving. Phil sat beside her and drew her close.
“I’m sorry, love...” He smoothed her honey blond hair, hooked a finger under her chin. “Moyra. Look at me. What did he say?”
She turned away and began to sob harder. Phil stared at the back of her head, exasperated, clenching his fists to keep himself under control. After more sobbing and snuffling, Moyra finally blew her nose and was able to speak.
“I told him about the phone call,” she said.
“Well, I bloody know that — I told you to call them. Did they know who it was?”
Moyra shook her head.
“So what did the copper say? Is it somebody playing silly buggers? Moyra, for Christ’s sake tell me what the bastard said!”
“He’s alive, Phil,” she said huskily, swallowing hard. “They... they picked him up in Spain.”
Phil sat back, staring at her. His mouth was open a clear inch.
“He seemed more interested in the phone call, asking me if the caller told me his name.”
Moyra stood up by the mantelpiece, her shoulders hunched. She stared balefully at her collection of Capo di Monte and Lladro figurines.
“I told him how the man kept on asking about Eddie,” she said, “kept on asking if I knew where Eddie was. I said I couldn’t take it in, because all I could think of was, I’m scared, I’m so scared...”
Phil had been staring at the carpet as if he couldn’t understand where it had come from. He stood up suddenly.
“That cop told you? Moyra, did he actually tell you Eddie is alive?” He watched her nod. “Jesus Christ. What about Italy? Did he ask about us?”
“Oh, God.” Moyra groaned. She hadn’t heard his question; her head was filled with confusion and turmoil.
“He’s been alive all this time.” Her arm shot out and swept the ornaments off the mantelpiece. “The bastard!”
“You missed one,” Phil snarled, knocking the remaining figure flying. He looked at Moyra. “I’ll bloody kill him.”
He could hear her sobbing her heart out as she ran up the stairs, heard the bedroom door slam shut. He went into the kitchen for a pan and brush to sweep up the broken china. He tipped it into the bin outside, then went back into the spotless kitchen and sat at the pine table, sat on the pine chair with the blue and white frilled cushion that matched the curtains. She was still crying, he could still hear her and he wanted to go up to her, but knew it was best to let it all come out.
He had taken her to Italy, it was a real tough journey, she hadn’t seen or heard from her husband in years, not until the call to say his body had been found. All the way there she had clasped Phil’s hand tight, chewing her lips, sighing, and repeating over and over that she was glad, glad they’d found him... it meant they could get married.