“So why the ‘controlled panic’ last night?”
I scowled. “Were you eavesdropping on the whole conversation?”
That killer smile again. “No, just the important bits,” he said. “Now answer the question.”
I pushed back my chair and got to my feet, suddenly too restless to sit. “Because I’ve had someone die in my arms before and I didn’t like it much,” I said brutally, turning back just so I could watch his face. “Certainly not enough to want to repeat the experience if I could do a damn thing to prevent it.”
I was saved from having to elaborate much on that theme by the arrival of a bleary-eyed Jacob. He limped in, seemingly unaware of the combative silence between us.
The dogs were jostling round his ankles. Jacob didn’t say a word until he’d fed them, made a fresh pot of coffee, and had taken his first mouthful. Then he sat back and studied us with far more alert attention. “Ah, that’s better,” he said. He nodded to Sean. “How’s the shoulder this morning?”
“Stiff and sore,” Sean said easily, “but I’ll live.”
“Muscle damage is nastier than broken bones, in my opinion,” Jacob said, adding with a rueful smile, “I’ve had enough of both in my time to know.”
“I was lucky.”
Jacob treated me to one of his arresting smiles. “Hmm, she’s a useful lady to know, is our Charlie.”
“So,” I broke in, trying not to squirm, “where do we go from here?”
“Well, for a start I don’t think it would be a good idea for Sean here to go anywhere for a day or two,” Jacob said straight away, pouring coffee into our mugs. “You’re welcome to stay here, lad, keep your head down, pick up a bit of strength.”
Sean looked taken aback by this unexpected hospitality. “That’s very decent of you,” he said.
Jacob waved away his thanks as he pushed the milk and sugar bowl towards us. “It gives us a bit of time to try and work out what the hell’s going on,” he said briskly. “Clare’s just filled me in on the details. Any ideas who might have wanted to put the knife into Harvey Langford – speaking literally and figuratively?”
“How long have you got?” I said, “I’ll make a list.”
Jacob grinned at me, and I went on, more seriously, “Whoever killed him didn’t just want Langford out of the way, though, they wanted us dead, too.”
Sean shook his head at that. “I don’t think so,” he said, “In fact, the more I think about it, the more I realise they just wanted to keep us pinned down for long enough for the police to arrive.”
He shifted awkwardly in his seat, caught his breath, and waited for the biting pain to subside before he continued.
“I think finding that we were capable of shooting back at them put them off their stroke, ruined the plan. If our friendly shooter had wanted us dead he had more than enough chance to ambush us while we were inspecting the body. Anybody halfway competent could have slotted the pair of us while we were helpfully hanging around against the light. They wouldn’t have waited until we were moving across that floor in the dark.”
The terrier, Beezer, finished wolfing down her food, trotted across the kitchen and jumped for Jacob’s lap to see if there was anything interesting for dessert at table height. Jacob fondled her moth-eaten ears absently. “Surely you don’t think he was killed just as a means of getting the pair of you arrested? That seems a bit drastic.”
“Not necessarily,” Sean told him. “After all, they’ve already made one attempt on Charlie’s life, and the police have been tipped off that I was involved in Nasir’s death. From their point of view, neither of those efforts have worked too well.”
“So,” I said, “was Langford a victim, or just a pawn in somebody’s game?”
Sean shrugged, raising just his right shoulder, and reached for his coffee. “Search me. That day on Copthorne he offered to bring you information about who’s behind the crimewave on the estates, didn’t he? Next thing we know, he’s dead. What does that tell you?”
It was my turn to shrug, helplessly. “I don’t know. Maybe we should be asking Mr Ali what he was doing letting Langford hide out on his site, and what exactly he was paying him to do. After all, Ali must have known he was there.”
Clare walked in just as I was speaking. “Is that Mr Ali the builder?” she asked, looking surprised. “You remember I told you he owns great chunks of Copthorne and Lavender? Apparently there are big discussions going about redeveloping the whole of that area. Lots of Euro money up for grabs and lottery funding, according to the people at work. If it all goes ahead Mr Ali’s not only going to make money on the property as the values and the rents go up, but his firm’s also right in the running for quite a chunk of the renovation work as well.”
Suddenly a whole rake of ideas started to firm up like shapes appearing out of the fog on a motorway. “How certain is all this?” I demanded.
Clare frowned. “Well, from what I understand, if the crime rate carries on rising like it has been doing, it’s getting more certain all the time. Why, Charlie, what is it?”
I sat back in my chair and a long chill settled over me. “We’ve been looking at this all wrong,” I said slowly. “Ali wasn’t paying Langford to keep the estates quiet. He was paying him to stir them up . . .”
I recounted the snatch of conversation I’d overheard between the two men the night I’d first trailed Langford to the building site as it came drifting back to me. “That’s why Ali was so worried in case anyone found out about his arrangement with Langford,” I finished. “Langford got well out of hand the night Fariman was injured, and Ali was shit-scared that if they knew about it people would blame him. They would have done, too. He’d have been lynched.”
There was silence as everyone turned the idea over. “I think you might just be on to something there,” Jacob said after a while. “But, that still doesn’t bring us any nearer to knowing who killed your man Harvey.”
Sean sighed. He’d turned paler during the time we’d been talking, started to slump a little more in his chair. “I suppose at least we know that Jav was definitely lying to you,” he said. Even speech seemed an effort. “He must have known he was setting us up for something last night, even if he didn’t know what.”
“Yeah,” I agreed grimly. “I think he’s my first port of call – if I can find him.”
The phone started to ring then, and Jacob looked round for the cordless handset. When he couldn’t spot it right away, he shoved the terrier onto the floor and left the room in search of it, muttering.
Clare took advantage of his departure to fuss anxiously round Sean. “I’ve made up the spare bed. You’ll be more comfortable there than on the sofa,” she said. “You look all in.”
“I’ve felt better,” Sean admitted, which I thought was probably understatement on a global scale. “I could do with making a couple of phone calls myself, though, if that would be OK?” He glanced at me. “I need to let Madeleine know I’m all right. She’ll be fretting.”
I couldn’t suppress a twitch of amusement. “I don’t know what your Ma will make of you abandoning your fiancée to spend the evening with me, and then not coming home all night,” I said, finishing the last of my coffee. “She’s waiting for you two to name the day.”
Clare looked blank at the exchange, and I’d just begun to explain the complicated relationship between Sean, Madeleine, and Sean’s mother, when Jacob reappeared looking troubled.
“Didn’t you mention that Roger had been seen blatting around the place on a CBR 600?” he asked, and got his answer from the frozen expression on Sean’s face.
“Why?” he said sharply. “What’s happened?”