The Melancholia of Percy the Pig
By Stuart Slade
The Lounge Bar, The Inn on the Green, Marsh Baldon, Oxfordshire
Paddy knew something was bad the moment the two women walked through the door. At first glance, they seemed normal enough nor was it unusual for two women to enter a public house bar together. It had been once, there had been a time when a decent woman wouldn’t enter a pub without her husband in close attendance. The few that did had been known back then as ‘no better than she ought to be’ which Paddy found highly confusing. Gradually, times had changed, women had started to come in with their female friends and eventually, it had been obvious that some of them were couples. To Paddy’s practiced eye, these two didn’t fall into that category. Not quite. Then, the correct image clicked into his mind; they had the same relationship as two soldiers from the same unit. Comrades.
That didn’t change his almost panic-stricken apprehension. Both the women were Odd. Now, that didn’t mean much to Paddy; the woman working as the bar maid was Odd as well and Paddy really liked her. He’d never met anybody else who was in that strange category of Odd and to have two more coming to the Inn was a bit too much to be coincidence. It wasn’t that they were Odd that disturbed Paddy so much, it was the utter coldness that both of them displayed.
In this, the two women were very different. One of them looked a bit like an Italian with long black hair, olive skin and a nose that looked positively Roman. Her eyes swept the bar, expressionlessly and without any deep concern about the occupants. Despite her apparently soulless exterior, Paddy sensed a deep tranquility within her, one that matched and harmonized with her outwardly aloof demeanor. It was as if she knew and understood what she was and willingly accepted her place in the world. That made her very different from her companion.
She was Chinese and had hair that was the exact color of human blood. Her eyes were completely merciless, uncompromising and devoid of any shred of pity. There was no human feeling in her; the only aura she gave off was one of cold-blooded ruthlessness. With horror Paddy realized this woman was absolutely, dreadfully Wrong. There was a void inside her where something essentially human was completely missing. Unable to control himself, he felt his teeth baring themselves as he challenged her, even as he was trying to make himself shrink undetected into a corner. Then, her attention drawn by his actions, she looked right at him and the deadly gaze almost made him lose control of his bowels.
“Paddy, stop that right now. What’s the matter with you?” The old man sitting at the bar looked at the Chinese woman and smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry ma’am, Paddy’s usually the gentlest dog around. Loves everybody. Can’t think what got into him.”
Angel smiled back, a completely fake smile of reassurance she had carefully copied from Conrad. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not him, it’s me. Dogs have never liked me.”
Paddy had taken the opportunity provided by the brief exchange to retreat to the corner of the Lounge that was as far from the Wrong Human as possible. There, he snuggled down underneath a table, still shaking with the terror she had inspired in him.
Beside Angel, Achillea hooked a barstool towards herself with her foot, sat down, smacked the bar with the flat of her hand and said “Shop!”
The barmaid’s head came up from where she had been sorting out some bottles. She was about to make a stinging reply when she saw who it was and her face broke out into smiles. “Lea! Angel! What are you two doing up here?”
“Just thought we’d drop in and see how you were settling in.” Achillea looked at Igrat, noting that she’d reversed the aging she’d been using for the last few years and was now back to looking as if she was in her mid-twenties. That fitted the new story that she and Cristi were sisters whose parents had died some years earlier. “The Cyberweb page for the Inn says that you have a few rooms for travelers so we thought we’d stay here overnight.”
“Like hell you will.” Igrat’s refusal sounded spirited. “I’ve got plenty of spare rooms at the Old Rectory and Cristi’s coming down from Oxford tomorrow. You two can stay with us. Now, red wine for you, ‘Lea and Bacardi 151 for you, Angel?”
Igrat had the drinks already served by the time Angel and Achillea nodded. She out the red wine and a glass of water beside Achillea who proceeded to mix the two half-and-half. The man who had apologized for Paddy’s behavior looked curiously at the action.
“I’m driving.” Achillea explained. “The parking lot was full so I parked the car on the grass outside, that’s all right isn’t it?”
“It certainly is ma’am. I’m Stanley Wilkinson, everybody calls me Stan.”
“Achillea Foyle. Achillea’s quite a mouthful so most people call me ‘Lea.” She shook hands with Wilkinson.
“I’m Angel. I don’t have a family name so Angel’s just fine.” Wilkinson started to reach out with his hand but caught Igrat’s eye, saw the tiny shake of her head, and turned it into a half salute. Angel smiled with genuine relief, returned the salute, and looked around. “This is a fantastic place. How old is this pub?”
“More than four hundred years, Angel. A few years back, the previous landlord went broke and a developer wanted to knock it down. So, the local community clubbed together and bought it. Now, if somebody buys a house in Marsh Baldon, the price includes the previous owner’s shares in the Inn. All the profits go back to the Village.” Wilkinson seemed very happy about that and quickly explained why. “The Inn has turned into a gold-mine and we have the lowest ra . . . local taxes . . . in the county as a result.”
“And the residents volunteer to work here. That’s how I ended up behind the bar four days a week.” Igrat explained. “I’m not really qualified to do much else.”
“Don’t you believe her.” Wilkinson was laughing. “Irene is the best barmaid in Oxfordshire. The owner of the Badger Inn over in Toot Baldon tries to poach her at least once a month.”
“Told him once, told him a thousand times, not a chance. To me, it's one thing working in a place I part-own, quite different working as an employee in somebody else's business. Anyway, we’ve only got one full-time employee here, the Chef. Chef Murray. He’s the real thing. We use mostly local produce here, purchased fresh each day at the farmer’s market. Look, I’m on the bar here until ten; why don’t you try out our restaurant? Then we can go home together.” Igrat hesitated. “Is Conrad with you?”
Angel shook her head. “He’s down in London, one of the team working on the files concerning the Royal Commission on War Loss Compensation and Restitution investigation. He’s not happy with what he’s finding so ‘Lea and I thought we would take a short vacation. And I am hungry.”
Igrat grinned at the reference to Conrad. He could be a depressing companion when he knew that a terrible injustice had taken place. “I know what you mean. It’s a slow night tonight; for some reason Thursdays often are. We’ll have people backed up on to the common tomorrow waiting for tables but tonight, you can walk right in.”
“Why don’t you go for a walk on the common afterwards?” Wilkinson suggested. “It’s the oldest village common ground in Europe and the largest; the archeologists have found traces of settlements here back before the time of Stonehenge. There’s no need to worry about being out after dark; this is the safest village in England. Not like that place down in mid-Somerset. Surprised anybody is left alive down there. Anyway, this time of year, sunset isn’t until gone nine.”
Well, it was the safest village in England. thought Igrat, looking at Angel. “You’re not working are you, Angel?”
Angel shook her head. “As I said, we’re on vacation. I’ve heard about vacations so I thought I’d try one and find out what they are all about.”
Living Room, the Old Rectory, Marsh Baldon, Oxfordshire
"I never realized steak and kidney pie could taste so good." Angel had panicked slightly when she had seen the menu for the Inn restaurant. Although her diet had expanded slightly from its original pizza, rum and cigarettes, the top-rank menu prepared by Chef Murray had bewildered her, a phenomenon not helped by her limited reading skills trying to accommodate words she had never seen before. There had been literally been nothing on the menu she recognized so she had settled for selecting a dish at random. Good fortune had smiled upon her since her finger had settled on the Chef's signature steak and kidney pie. Ever since finishing their meal, she and Achillea had been sparring good-naturedly over the relative merits of the pie and the braised short ribs.
"Chef Murray is a real find." Igrat was drinking from a glass of orange juice. "He runs a chain of five-star restaurants but the Inn is a sort of combination of his cookery school and a hobby. We couldn't possibly afford him if we had to pay the market rate for a Chef of his caliber. On the other hand, he uses us to try out new recipes and train newly recruited staff. That pie you had was a good example, Angel. He was trying out a new recipe for a herbed crust and also teaching his new sous-Chefs how to make a properly-cooked case. By the time they finish here, they're qualified to go to one of his restaurants. He teaches them everything they know but, of course, not everything he knows."
“I thought you said you only had one paid employee?” Angel was into her fourth shot of rum without any visible effect.
“We don’t pay them, they pay Chef Murray for the privilege of being taught by him. It’s worth it to them; once they put on their resume that they were trained in his kitchen, they’re set up for life.
Relieved of driving duties, Achillea had switched from wine to brandy. Her favored drink was actually single-malt whisky but she knew better than to mix the grain and the grape. "Are the entry roads here really gated?"
"You saw them as you came in then? Yes; they are. Owning the gatekeeper's house technically includes the duty of closing the access gate at ten each night and re-opening them at seven in the morning. It’s a formality now of course."
"That's the white house by the gate?" Achillea had noted it as they had driven in. "What about the other roads in?"
“There is only one and it’s gated as well. Same arrangement only it’s a local farm. That’s where the butter you had with your bread at dinner came from.”
“So how does anybody get in or out between ten and seven?” Angel and Achillea had thought of the same thing at the same instant. How do we get out of here if we have to do so rapidly and secretly?
“These days, beep the horn on your car if the gate is closed. In the old days, it always was and there was a bell hanging by the gate. Anybody wanting in or out after hours had to ring it. Rarely happens though.” Igrat stopped and thought for a second. She was still getting used to the slower pace of life in an English country village after the decades she had spent living in New York. Another thing she had found different was that everybody here knew everybody else. When she and Cristi had moved in, it had taken less than a day for their names and the fact they were Americans to spread across the community and the day after that, they were both being greeted as “Miss Shafrid”. Now, they were ‘Irene’ and ‘Cristi’ but collectively known as “the newcomers”. That was a name that could stick for generations.
“How long are you able to stay for?” The thought of the way the locals volunteered to work at the Inn had set a train of ideas off in Igrat’s mind, one that she found deliciously amusing.
"We had envisaged a day or two. The truth is, we haven't got any real plans. We're just wandering around as we feel like. It's the first time either of us have done that, in my case for years."
"In mine, ever. It's an interesting feeling not having to do anything. The only commitment I have is to call in on Conrad every day and make sure he's all right."
Igrat and Achillea exchanged glances, both trying not to laugh. It was painfully apparent to everybody but Conrad and Angel that the two were in love with each other. Igrat broke the spell with her bombshell. "Look, Cristi is coming down tomorrow for the weekend and she's bringing her new boyfriend with her. They've been on a couple of dates but this one is going to be The One. So, you two should stay the weekend just to make sure he's properly trained."
Achillea and Angel exchanged glances that were heavily flavored by smirks. Since there was no man in the house to play the part of the protective father, the job would fall to them and they were both very good at scaring people.
Igrat smiled in satisfaction. That sets the bait, now reel them in. "Then, next week, the village will have a stand at the Tourist Authority Exhibition in the Oxford Conference Center. We'll be promoting the village as an 'olde English' destination, you know the sort of thing, organized walks in the countryside, looking at all the old houses and so on. We need a couple of Booth Bunnies to help out. Pass out literature, introduce visitors that sort of thing. It'll do you both good; they say a change is as good as a rest."
"Who's they?" Angel asked the question pointedly. "What do you want us to do? I suppose 'Lea could demonstrate the finer points of renaissance sword-fighting while I could show people how the Resistance used to assassinate collaborators."
Igrat shuddered slightly at the thought of the Marsh Baldon tourist booth surrounded by dead bodies. Achillea knew how to put on a display that would entertain an audience but Igrat had a strong suspicion that Angel had no concept of the art. Everything she did was deadly serious. Anyway, putting on a display required empathy with an audience and Angel quite literally did not know what empathy was outside a meaningless dictionary definition. Trying to explain it to her was like trying to explain color to somebody who had been blind from birth. "Not quite, no. Just be hosts to people visiting the stand and keep an eye on things."
Angel's eyes narrowed slightly. She was in her usual inelegant and unlady-like sprawl across an armchair, a posture that put her hands conveniently near her guns. Now, quite unconsciously, Angel moved those hands slightly. "There's something up isn't there? What do you really want us to do?"
Igrat held out her hands helplessly. "I wish I knew, I really do. It's just something is nagging at me about this exhibition and I don't know what it is. My instincts are telling me that there's something amiss."
Achillea and Angel exchanged glances, nodding as they did so. Both were devout believers in listening to instincts. If they were screaming something was wrong, it was. Achillea took the lead in replying. "All right, we'll come along and make a point of keeping our eyes open. Who stands to gain and who to lose from this exhibition?"
Again, Igrat shrugged. "That's the odd thing, nobody really stands to lose anything. The idea is to get more tourists to come to Oxfordshire so it could be argued they'll do so at the expense of other counties but that assumes the pie is fixed. The British Tourist Authority wants more people to come the country in total so everybody benefits from a bigger pie. It's the same at the local level; technically people who come here won't be going to other villages but the idea is again to get more people visiting in total. There are no life-or-death issues here."
"Don't be too sure of that." Angel was quite deadpan. "I've known people killed for a few dollars or the shoes they were wearing. Or for looking at somebody the wrong way."
There was a momentary silence. Angel was quite right and all three knew it. Just because Achillea and Igrat didn't believe something was worth taking a human life over didn't mean that everybody shared the same opinion. Angel was a case in point. Her definition of the value of any given human life was what she had been paid to take it. It was Angel who broke the silence. "How far are we from Oxford here?"
"Five or six miles, heading north. It's a walkable distance for somebody in good condition. You two could run it in less than an hour."
"That would make this a good place to run operations in Oxford from. Might explain why this place is so peaceful. Any sensible crime family bases itself away from where it operates and they might dislike the idea of having lots of tourists around. What else is around here?"
Igrat thought for a moment. "Not much really. Abingdon is about five miles east of here; the only thing of note there is a big RAF airfield. There was a bit of a stir about that recently; the base is being modernized to handle Valkyries. Some locals were complaining about the noise, others don't like the idea of nuclear-armed bombers in the neighborhood even if they have got British markings in them. The students in Oxford had a couple of demonstrations about it but it's all quieting down now."
"What was there before?" Achillea was curious about the base; it was about the only thing in this area that could be a cause for problems.
"The base? Transport aircraft mostly. It was a fighter base during the war, Luftwaffe of course. Apparently it's still possible to find bits of shot-down aircraft in the woods if one knows where to look."
"We'll ask the local kids. They'll know." Angel was certain of that. Her experience was that local children knew much more about the area they lived in than the adults did. What bemused her was that the kids seemed to forget it as they grew up.
"Tomorrow." Igrat got up. "Let me show you to your rooms."
2003 - The Melancholia of Percy the Pig
Re: 2003 - The Melancholia of Percy the Pig
Chapter Two
Living Room, the Old Rectory, Marsh Baldon, Oxfordshire
"Pigs." Angel sounded decisive and Achillea was nodding in agreement. Sitting on the couch waiting for Cristi to finish getting ready, Henry Davenport, her new boyfriend, was going pale. The evening had started with a conversation about a current television detective show and somehow migrated to a discussion of how to commit the perfect murder. That had evolved into a debate about the best way of getting rid of an inconvenient body. It wasn't the subject matter that was worrying Davenport but the degree of expertise on display. In the background, Igrat was trying to stop herself laughing.
"What about the bones?" Davenport was not sure he wanted to know the answer but realized he was probably going to get one anyway.
"No problem. Sixteen pigs can get through a body weighing 200lb in only eight minutes. Best to help them along by cutting the body into six pieces then breaking up the bigger bones with a sledgehammer. The pigs will digest the bones as well, leaving just the hair and teeth. Sledgehammer time again. For the teeth anyway." Angel looked very thoughtfully at Davenport.
"There's always a processed meat factory of course." Achillea, who knew that Angel had got rid of unwanted bodies in exactly that way in the past, was feeding her the line deliberately.
"The problem is modern DNA testing can pick up trace evidence in a meat processing plant. If they get a DNA sample they can tie it to a particular body. Pigs are better, the DNA sample is so contaminated the forensic people can’t be that accurate."
"Don't be too sure on that. We're doing DNA analysis in class right now. The techniques are getting more sensitive all the time and the ability to sort out the needed material is much better than it was even five years ago." Cristi looked around and sat down on the couch next to Davenport.
Angel shrugged. "Of course; if one wanted to be really secure, do both. Feed the pigs, slaughter them and then shovel the remains through a processing plant. Best not to eat pepperoni on your pizza. I never do."
Davenport, who had eaten a pepperoni pizza the night before, started sweating slightly. The timing was almost perfect; Cristi had entered the living room just as Igrat decided it was time to have mercy on him. “Where are you two off for the evening?”
“I thought we would have the pre-show dinner at The White Hart in Fyfield. It’s their dinner club night with roasted haunch of venison.” Davenport couldn’t bring himself to mention the alternative of slow-roasted belly of pork. “Then, we have tickets for their classical Blues concert afterwards. It finishes at nine so we should have time to get back here before the gate closes.”
Igrat, in particular, was in no doubt that they would arrive back just before the village gate closed. She also guessed that Davenport undoubtedly hoped that would provide a good scenario for an invitation to stay the night. He did not, of course, realize that Igrat and Cristi had discussed the matter at length and that the decision on that matter had already been taken. Nevertheless, she frowned mightily. "You're driving Cristi to a pub?"
Achillea looked shocked, which was a good job of acting since she was almost completely unshockable. "Drinking and driving is a really bad idea. Your ability to drive safely goes down with every drink you have. Endangering the safety of this particular passenger is a very bad idea."
Angel's gaze was its usual merciless self. "Oink, oink, oink."
Davenport went back to being pale again as the implications of the imitation pig grunts sank in. "It's all right, I don't drink when I'm driving. I'll be on Coca Cola all evening."
"It's true. Cristi came to the support of her boyfriend, an act which won her approving nods from Igrat and Achillea. "Henry doesn't drink much at all. And never when he's got to drive. He gets hassle from the other students because of that."
"That makes you smart and them not." Igrat smiled at him warmly. "Off you go then and be careful out there."
The warning was a little unnecessary since Achillea had taught Cristi some vicious unarmed combat tricks that were quite rare outside the Flavian Amphitheater. Angel had started giving Cristi lessons in how to shoot and was turning out to be a surprisingly good teacher since her inability to empathize with people also meant she didn’t get annoyed when they made foolish mistakes. Smacking them across the back of the head was business, not personal, and her students realized it.
Cristi grabbed Davenport’s hand and they disappeared out of the room. Once Igrat had heard the front door closed and watched the leave via the camera covering the parking area, the three burst out laughing. Eventually Igrat wiped her eyes and shook her head. “You two are mean. Poor Henry.”
“Cristi’s sure about this?” Achillea asked the question just for confirmation.
“She is now. If she changes her mind, she’ll bring him into here through the front door. If not, she’ll take him directly up to her rooms through her door. That’s one of the reasons why I liked this place; she can be as independent as she wants to be.”
“I don’t think many mothers are quite that tolerant.” Achillea was still chuckling at how Davenport had been methodically terrified.
“Then they’re dumb. Cristi is going to start doing it sooner or later. I want it to be where its clean, safe and comfortable. The back seat of a car doesn’t score one out of three. Also, I want her somewhere she can get help if she needs it. We talked it over at length and she knows I’ve got her back whatever she chooses.”
There was a very profound silence at that point. Achillea watched Angel and Igrat quietly. She knew well that their own childhoods had been nightmares of physical and sexual abuse. She found it to be sadly ironic that they had both been born free yet had been abused and maltreated from infancy onwards. Igrat had grown up as a street-whore and a sneak-thief, Angel had been, and still was, a contract killer. Achillea had been born a slave and had spent the first thirty-odd years of her life as a slave yet her childhood had been comparatively fortunate. If we exclude being trained to fight in the arena, she thought. But I always knew that my parents loved me even if they didn’t love each other. And the people with me at the Ludus always treated me with respect, first as their little sister then as a professional colleague. Igrat’s first time was a public spectacle in a brothel, Angel’s first, and only, time was being raped by her own father. When my time came, I picked my first partner and everybody around us made sure we were as undisturbed as possible. Our Primus loaned us his own room. We even got a special meal and a flask of good wine from the Lanista’s own kitchen.
Igrat caught Achillea's eye and smiled. She knows what I'm thinking. As usual. Achillea knew that Igrat's ability to read people meant she could see through them without really trying. It's almost impossible to fool her and the few that have succeeded have never got away with it for very long. Most people find that disturbing and as soon as they understand just how perceptive she is, they leave. They must also think she remembers everything that goes on around her and that scares them away. I used to believe that until she sat me down and explained how her memory worked. Deep down inside she must be a very lonely person.
"You've done this place up nicely, Iggie. You planning to stay here long?"
"Thank you. We were very limited in what we can do by the building regulations. This place is a Grade A listed building with a Certificate of Immunity from the Secretary of State. Everything we do, even installing the security cameras outside, has to be approved by the local planning authority and then referred to the Home Office for confirmation. Don't go through the process and I could get five years inside and pay to have the work reversed.
"Wow. That's harsh." Angel shook her head. "You don’t want to do time. Believe me on that."
"Oh, I do." Angel had been on Death Row in New York when Igrat had first met her. Getting her out of there, before she was officially or unofficially executed, had been a race against time. "But the rules are strict for a reason; so many historic buildings were destroyed during the occupation, the Government is desperate to preserve the ones that are left. Between the Navy hitting things by accident and the Germans destroying things as a reprisal for . . . whatever . . . a lot of top tier historical sites are gone. On the other hand, if the work is restoration or returning changes made to the building before the regulations were in place, I can get grants to do help finance that. This room, for example, at some point one of the owners had covered the oak panels on the walls with plywood and painted it white. I actually got a grant to strip all that out and restore the oak. I'm negotiating right now to restore the wall between the kitchen and the dining room."
"Who does the housework?" Achillea guessed that a house like this would take a lot of looking-after.
"I tried to do some of it myself. I even bought a vacuum cleaner but I had to throw it away." Igrat looked embarrassed.
"Why?"
"It got full up. Now, I have a housecleaning service that comes in twice a week. To answer your other question, I'll be here for at least four years while Cristi is at university and if she stays on to go to the Oxford University Medical School - and she will, she's already a student at their medical science division - we'll be here for six years beyond that. Her objective is to be a forensic pathologist and she'll be thirty before she makes it."
That caused another long silence. To Igrat and Achillea, thirty years was a very short time, something either of them would be prepared to devote to a passing whim. Angel was beginning to realize the same thing although in her case it was offset by her knowledge that she could be killed at any time. Yet, for Cristi, thirty years was a substantial proportion of her life. That drove home the realization that, in time, they would see her grow old and die.
"Ten years. That's a long time for you to be going without isn't it?" Achillea was almost smirking. Normally, she was the one who was short of male companionship.
"Oh come on, 'Lea. You know me better than that. Richard and I have an . . . . understanding."
"Brigadier Strachan?"
Igrat nodded. "I suppose that makes me the lady of the Manor. Again."
"Lillith was the Lady back then. You were too busy in court . . . . ."
"Iggie was in court for something?" Angel was surprised.
"Royal Court, knuckle-head." Achillea was grinning. "At the time of Charles the Second. Iggie was our court princess back then. She kept us advised on what was going on."
"Who does that now?" Angel was curious; this was an aspect of the Circle she hadn't been aware of. Suriyothai didn't need to be kept aware of what was happening in court; she was the third most important member of that court and nothing happened there without her being aware of it.
Igrat thought about that. "I suppose in many ways, you are. Royal Courts and organized crime have a lot in common and the way you are set up between the Triads and the Mafiya keeps us well-advised on what is happening in that world. We've got the political scene in governments well-covered."
Angel grunted at that. She did a delicate balancing act between the Triads and the Mafiya, between the Thai government security forces and the long-lived community. She knew that she was doing so very successfully and that was a prime reason why her career in the Triad movement had prospered. She was also aware that the volume of business she did as a paid professional assassin was slowly diminishing as her importance grew. She was simply too valuable an asset to risk over a simple killing.
Igrat looked at her sympathetically. She had gone out on a limb to have Angel extracted from Death Row, primarily because she had seen all too much of herself in her. Justifying Angel's extraction and then organizing it had been a major effort on her part and she'd used much of her stock of personal markers to make it happen. Fortunately, it had worked out much better than anybody had expected. Nobody had expected Conrad and Angel to become a couple, even if they were probably the most unlikely pair around. Although Igrat was convinced that they were probably the only two people who could tolerate being with each other for an extended period.
"Are we going to stay up for them?" Achillea was smirking again.
"I suppose we'd better." Igrat sounded just a little bit sad; her baby girl was growing up and an experience she'd never expected to have was about to radically change. "For appearance's sake."
Village Green, Marsh Baldon, Oxfordshire.
If anybody was tired of life, they might have compared the sight of Angel and Achillea out running together with that of a gazelle and a Cape Buffalo doing the same. A more tactful, or cautious, observer would have realized the two showed the differences between a gymnast and an athlete. Normally Achillea dressed to conceal her heavily-muscled body but exercising like this, she was wearing shorts and a close-fitting bra top. That made her unusual strength obvious. Angel was dressed the same way but had on a light nylon jacket. That was to conceal her guns, not her muscles.
The village common was the center of the community, with most of the houses gathered around it. One of the residents waved to them as they passed his house for the third time. It was three quarters of a mile around the circumference of the common and they were on their third circuit. They returned the wave cheerfully. Given the beautiful weather, the pleasant people surrounding them and the charm of the English countryside, the truth was that they were enjoying themselves as well as keeping fit.
"Cristi was positively glowing this morning." Achillea was keeping an eye open for people who might overhear them chatting while Angel concentrated on her running. In her opinion, that was Angel's most dangerous weakness; her focus on the task in front of her at the expense of a more general wariness. Achillea guessed that left on her own, Angel would eventually have been killed by a shot from the side or back while she was focused on the target in front of her. In fact, she nearly did die that way and was only saved by Conrad taking the shot for her.
"And Henry looked insufferably pleased with himself." Angel laughed at the memory. As they had sat around the breakfast table, Angel had told the story of the Chinese Empress Wu Zetian. After she had taken a new lover for the first time, her guards would enter her chamber. If she wasn't smiling in her sleep, the unfortunate lover would be immediately led away and executed. 'Don't worry, Henry, you're safe' had been Cristi's reply. He was now on his way back to his digs in Oxford while Igrat would be taking Cristi to their family doctor for a check-up later in the morning.
"Good Morning." A young couple was running around the Common in the same direction as Achillea and Angel. Angel had given the greeting as she and Achillea had passed them and heard the couple respond. The turning was coming up on their right and that would take them along the back of the Common to the bridle paths that led through the woods that surrounded the village.
"This really is a friendly place. Quiet though; I wonder what made Iggie decide to settle in here?" Angel looked around at the trees surrounding them. The sun was shining though the branches settling up rippling patterns of shadows on the narrow road. "I'd have expected her to want to live in the city center."
"Perhaps she wanted a change." Achillea looked around as well, savoring the smells of the countryside. Fortunately they were far enough away from the local farms not to have to worry about the less pleasant 'smells of the countryside.' "When we've been around for so long, changes are a necessity now and then. I think she likes being a barmaid. It's different. Or at least something she hasn't done for a very long time.
"The turning towards Little Baldon is up ahead. Do you want to see if we can find the wreck those kids told us about?" Before starting their run, Achillea and Angel had asked some of the local children about wrecked aircraft in the woods. It turned out most of them had gone but they'd been given directions to one shot-down Focke-Wulf that was still there. It was something Angel wanted to see.
"Why not? It's only a mile or so. Straight down the bridle path and about two hundred yards off to the left by the old tin hut, Mick said. We've got plenty of time. Don't know about you, but I could get used to just lazing around like this."
Living Room, the Old Rectory, Marsh Baldon, Oxfordshire
"Pigs." Angel sounded decisive and Achillea was nodding in agreement. Sitting on the couch waiting for Cristi to finish getting ready, Henry Davenport, her new boyfriend, was going pale. The evening had started with a conversation about a current television detective show and somehow migrated to a discussion of how to commit the perfect murder. That had evolved into a debate about the best way of getting rid of an inconvenient body. It wasn't the subject matter that was worrying Davenport but the degree of expertise on display. In the background, Igrat was trying to stop herself laughing.
"What about the bones?" Davenport was not sure he wanted to know the answer but realized he was probably going to get one anyway.
"No problem. Sixteen pigs can get through a body weighing 200lb in only eight minutes. Best to help them along by cutting the body into six pieces then breaking up the bigger bones with a sledgehammer. The pigs will digest the bones as well, leaving just the hair and teeth. Sledgehammer time again. For the teeth anyway." Angel looked very thoughtfully at Davenport.
"There's always a processed meat factory of course." Achillea, who knew that Angel had got rid of unwanted bodies in exactly that way in the past, was feeding her the line deliberately.
"The problem is modern DNA testing can pick up trace evidence in a meat processing plant. If they get a DNA sample they can tie it to a particular body. Pigs are better, the DNA sample is so contaminated the forensic people can’t be that accurate."
"Don't be too sure on that. We're doing DNA analysis in class right now. The techniques are getting more sensitive all the time and the ability to sort out the needed material is much better than it was even five years ago." Cristi looked around and sat down on the couch next to Davenport.
Angel shrugged. "Of course; if one wanted to be really secure, do both. Feed the pigs, slaughter them and then shovel the remains through a processing plant. Best not to eat pepperoni on your pizza. I never do."
Davenport, who had eaten a pepperoni pizza the night before, started sweating slightly. The timing was almost perfect; Cristi had entered the living room just as Igrat decided it was time to have mercy on him. “Where are you two off for the evening?”
“I thought we would have the pre-show dinner at The White Hart in Fyfield. It’s their dinner club night with roasted haunch of venison.” Davenport couldn’t bring himself to mention the alternative of slow-roasted belly of pork. “Then, we have tickets for their classical Blues concert afterwards. It finishes at nine so we should have time to get back here before the gate closes.”
Igrat, in particular, was in no doubt that they would arrive back just before the village gate closed. She also guessed that Davenport undoubtedly hoped that would provide a good scenario for an invitation to stay the night. He did not, of course, realize that Igrat and Cristi had discussed the matter at length and that the decision on that matter had already been taken. Nevertheless, she frowned mightily. "You're driving Cristi to a pub?"
Achillea looked shocked, which was a good job of acting since she was almost completely unshockable. "Drinking and driving is a really bad idea. Your ability to drive safely goes down with every drink you have. Endangering the safety of this particular passenger is a very bad idea."
Angel's gaze was its usual merciless self. "Oink, oink, oink."
Davenport went back to being pale again as the implications of the imitation pig grunts sank in. "It's all right, I don't drink when I'm driving. I'll be on Coca Cola all evening."
"It's true. Cristi came to the support of her boyfriend, an act which won her approving nods from Igrat and Achillea. "Henry doesn't drink much at all. And never when he's got to drive. He gets hassle from the other students because of that."
"That makes you smart and them not." Igrat smiled at him warmly. "Off you go then and be careful out there."
The warning was a little unnecessary since Achillea had taught Cristi some vicious unarmed combat tricks that were quite rare outside the Flavian Amphitheater. Angel had started giving Cristi lessons in how to shoot and was turning out to be a surprisingly good teacher since her inability to empathize with people also meant she didn’t get annoyed when they made foolish mistakes. Smacking them across the back of the head was business, not personal, and her students realized it.
Cristi grabbed Davenport’s hand and they disappeared out of the room. Once Igrat had heard the front door closed and watched the leave via the camera covering the parking area, the three burst out laughing. Eventually Igrat wiped her eyes and shook her head. “You two are mean. Poor Henry.”
“Cristi’s sure about this?” Achillea asked the question just for confirmation.
“She is now. If she changes her mind, she’ll bring him into here through the front door. If not, she’ll take him directly up to her rooms through her door. That’s one of the reasons why I liked this place; she can be as independent as she wants to be.”
“I don’t think many mothers are quite that tolerant.” Achillea was still chuckling at how Davenport had been methodically terrified.
“Then they’re dumb. Cristi is going to start doing it sooner or later. I want it to be where its clean, safe and comfortable. The back seat of a car doesn’t score one out of three. Also, I want her somewhere she can get help if she needs it. We talked it over at length and she knows I’ve got her back whatever she chooses.”
There was a very profound silence at that point. Achillea watched Angel and Igrat quietly. She knew well that their own childhoods had been nightmares of physical and sexual abuse. She found it to be sadly ironic that they had both been born free yet had been abused and maltreated from infancy onwards. Igrat had grown up as a street-whore and a sneak-thief, Angel had been, and still was, a contract killer. Achillea had been born a slave and had spent the first thirty-odd years of her life as a slave yet her childhood had been comparatively fortunate. If we exclude being trained to fight in the arena, she thought. But I always knew that my parents loved me even if they didn’t love each other. And the people with me at the Ludus always treated me with respect, first as their little sister then as a professional colleague. Igrat’s first time was a public spectacle in a brothel, Angel’s first, and only, time was being raped by her own father. When my time came, I picked my first partner and everybody around us made sure we were as undisturbed as possible. Our Primus loaned us his own room. We even got a special meal and a flask of good wine from the Lanista’s own kitchen.
Igrat caught Achillea's eye and smiled. She knows what I'm thinking. As usual. Achillea knew that Igrat's ability to read people meant she could see through them without really trying. It's almost impossible to fool her and the few that have succeeded have never got away with it for very long. Most people find that disturbing and as soon as they understand just how perceptive she is, they leave. They must also think she remembers everything that goes on around her and that scares them away. I used to believe that until she sat me down and explained how her memory worked. Deep down inside she must be a very lonely person.
"You've done this place up nicely, Iggie. You planning to stay here long?"
"Thank you. We were very limited in what we can do by the building regulations. This place is a Grade A listed building with a Certificate of Immunity from the Secretary of State. Everything we do, even installing the security cameras outside, has to be approved by the local planning authority and then referred to the Home Office for confirmation. Don't go through the process and I could get five years inside and pay to have the work reversed.
"Wow. That's harsh." Angel shook her head. "You don’t want to do time. Believe me on that."
"Oh, I do." Angel had been on Death Row in New York when Igrat had first met her. Getting her out of there, before she was officially or unofficially executed, had been a race against time. "But the rules are strict for a reason; so many historic buildings were destroyed during the occupation, the Government is desperate to preserve the ones that are left. Between the Navy hitting things by accident and the Germans destroying things as a reprisal for . . . whatever . . . a lot of top tier historical sites are gone. On the other hand, if the work is restoration or returning changes made to the building before the regulations were in place, I can get grants to do help finance that. This room, for example, at some point one of the owners had covered the oak panels on the walls with plywood and painted it white. I actually got a grant to strip all that out and restore the oak. I'm negotiating right now to restore the wall between the kitchen and the dining room."
"Who does the housework?" Achillea guessed that a house like this would take a lot of looking-after.
"I tried to do some of it myself. I even bought a vacuum cleaner but I had to throw it away." Igrat looked embarrassed.
"Why?"
"It got full up. Now, I have a housecleaning service that comes in twice a week. To answer your other question, I'll be here for at least four years while Cristi is at university and if she stays on to go to the Oxford University Medical School - and she will, she's already a student at their medical science division - we'll be here for six years beyond that. Her objective is to be a forensic pathologist and she'll be thirty before she makes it."
That caused another long silence. To Igrat and Achillea, thirty years was a very short time, something either of them would be prepared to devote to a passing whim. Angel was beginning to realize the same thing although in her case it was offset by her knowledge that she could be killed at any time. Yet, for Cristi, thirty years was a substantial proportion of her life. That drove home the realization that, in time, they would see her grow old and die.
"Ten years. That's a long time for you to be going without isn't it?" Achillea was almost smirking. Normally, she was the one who was short of male companionship.
"Oh come on, 'Lea. You know me better than that. Richard and I have an . . . . understanding."
"Brigadier Strachan?"
Igrat nodded. "I suppose that makes me the lady of the Manor. Again."
"Lillith was the Lady back then. You were too busy in court . . . . ."
"Iggie was in court for something?" Angel was surprised.
"Royal Court, knuckle-head." Achillea was grinning. "At the time of Charles the Second. Iggie was our court princess back then. She kept us advised on what was going on."
"Who does that now?" Angel was curious; this was an aspect of the Circle she hadn't been aware of. Suriyothai didn't need to be kept aware of what was happening in court; she was the third most important member of that court and nothing happened there without her being aware of it.
Igrat thought about that. "I suppose in many ways, you are. Royal Courts and organized crime have a lot in common and the way you are set up between the Triads and the Mafiya keeps us well-advised on what is happening in that world. We've got the political scene in governments well-covered."
Angel grunted at that. She did a delicate balancing act between the Triads and the Mafiya, between the Thai government security forces and the long-lived community. She knew that she was doing so very successfully and that was a prime reason why her career in the Triad movement had prospered. She was also aware that the volume of business she did as a paid professional assassin was slowly diminishing as her importance grew. She was simply too valuable an asset to risk over a simple killing.
Igrat looked at her sympathetically. She had gone out on a limb to have Angel extracted from Death Row, primarily because she had seen all too much of herself in her. Justifying Angel's extraction and then organizing it had been a major effort on her part and she'd used much of her stock of personal markers to make it happen. Fortunately, it had worked out much better than anybody had expected. Nobody had expected Conrad and Angel to become a couple, even if they were probably the most unlikely pair around. Although Igrat was convinced that they were probably the only two people who could tolerate being with each other for an extended period.
"Are we going to stay up for them?" Achillea was smirking again.
"I suppose we'd better." Igrat sounded just a little bit sad; her baby girl was growing up and an experience she'd never expected to have was about to radically change. "For appearance's sake."
Village Green, Marsh Baldon, Oxfordshire.
If anybody was tired of life, they might have compared the sight of Angel and Achillea out running together with that of a gazelle and a Cape Buffalo doing the same. A more tactful, or cautious, observer would have realized the two showed the differences between a gymnast and an athlete. Normally Achillea dressed to conceal her heavily-muscled body but exercising like this, she was wearing shorts and a close-fitting bra top. That made her unusual strength obvious. Angel was dressed the same way but had on a light nylon jacket. That was to conceal her guns, not her muscles.
The village common was the center of the community, with most of the houses gathered around it. One of the residents waved to them as they passed his house for the third time. It was three quarters of a mile around the circumference of the common and they were on their third circuit. They returned the wave cheerfully. Given the beautiful weather, the pleasant people surrounding them and the charm of the English countryside, the truth was that they were enjoying themselves as well as keeping fit.
"Cristi was positively glowing this morning." Achillea was keeping an eye open for people who might overhear them chatting while Angel concentrated on her running. In her opinion, that was Angel's most dangerous weakness; her focus on the task in front of her at the expense of a more general wariness. Achillea guessed that left on her own, Angel would eventually have been killed by a shot from the side or back while she was focused on the target in front of her. In fact, she nearly did die that way and was only saved by Conrad taking the shot for her.
"And Henry looked insufferably pleased with himself." Angel laughed at the memory. As they had sat around the breakfast table, Angel had told the story of the Chinese Empress Wu Zetian. After she had taken a new lover for the first time, her guards would enter her chamber. If she wasn't smiling in her sleep, the unfortunate lover would be immediately led away and executed. 'Don't worry, Henry, you're safe' had been Cristi's reply. He was now on his way back to his digs in Oxford while Igrat would be taking Cristi to their family doctor for a check-up later in the morning.
"Good Morning." A young couple was running around the Common in the same direction as Achillea and Angel. Angel had given the greeting as she and Achillea had passed them and heard the couple respond. The turning was coming up on their right and that would take them along the back of the Common to the bridle paths that led through the woods that surrounded the village.
"This really is a friendly place. Quiet though; I wonder what made Iggie decide to settle in here?" Angel looked around at the trees surrounding them. The sun was shining though the branches settling up rippling patterns of shadows on the narrow road. "I'd have expected her to want to live in the city center."
"Perhaps she wanted a change." Achillea looked around as well, savoring the smells of the countryside. Fortunately they were far enough away from the local farms not to have to worry about the less pleasant 'smells of the countryside.' "When we've been around for so long, changes are a necessity now and then. I think she likes being a barmaid. It's different. Or at least something she hasn't done for a very long time.
"The turning towards Little Baldon is up ahead. Do you want to see if we can find the wreck those kids told us about?" Before starting their run, Achillea and Angel had asked some of the local children about wrecked aircraft in the woods. It turned out most of them had gone but they'd been given directions to one shot-down Focke-Wulf that was still there. It was something Angel wanted to see.
"Why not? It's only a mile or so. Straight down the bridle path and about two hundred yards off to the left by the old tin hut, Mick said. We've got plenty of time. Don't know about you, but I could get used to just lazing around like this."
Re: 2003 - The Melancholia of Percy the Pig
Chapter Three
Marsh Baldon Exhibit, Oxfordshire Tourist Exhibition, The King's Center, Oxford. 08:30.
"Irene, have you seen the leaflets we had printed. I left them on top of the counter last night but they seem to have disappeared." Isabel Foster was flustered and flapping her hands in dismay.
On the other hand, she's flustered and frantic all the time. Igrat thought. "I saw them left out Isabel, so I took most of them and locked them up in the counter cabinet. I left a few out just to see what would happen."
"You mean somebody took them? Oh, who would do that?" Another problem Isabel Foster had was a complete inability to think the worst of somebody. Bearing in mind she had a hired killer only a few feet from her, that quirk would have been an intolerable case of cognitive dissonance for her had she known Angel's chosen profession. Fortunately, she didn't.
"Somebody lacking in moral character?" Achillea was trying to stop herself laughing. Quite contrary to her expectations, she was enjoying herself. The previous evening, she had helped assemble the display booth and done most of the heavy lifting herself. That had caused some of the people on other stands who were having trouble doing the same thing to look at her oddly.
"We've got much more space than I thought." Igrat was looking around; the booth size was supposed to have been 10 by 10 feet but the unit next to them had been unoccupied and the show managers had given it to the Marsh Baldon party. The gain in space was much more than just the extra square footage since they had been able to eliminate the partition and use the area more efficiently. Across the passageway, a stout figure in a threadbare, un-ironed shirt, stained tie and creaseless trousers was staring furiously at them.
"Who's that?" Achillea asked.
"Percy Portman. The owner of the Badger Inn over in Toot Baldon. When he found out the organizers had given us the unused space, he stormed off and demanded the same. Didn’t get it of course but he made a real nuisance of himself." Isabel looked curious. "How did you manage to talk them into giving us the extra space, Angel?"
"I just went to see them and reasoned with them."
Achillea caught Angel's eye and patted herself under her arm. Angel shook her head and touched her tattooed shoulder. She was carrying her guns, concealed of course, but hadn't needed them. "Don't be cynical, 'Lea. They wanted to give the space away, a vacant booth looks bad. My request just gave them the excuse they were looking for to give it to somebody. I just got in first. That way they filled it in and we owe them a marker."
There had been more to it than that. The company running the exhibition for the Tourist Board was the British branch of International Exhibitions Ltd, a Chinese management company based in Shanghai but operating worldwide. Their agent on-site was Chinese and had recognized Angel's Triad tattoos instantly. Her red hair and two guns identified her as positively as fingerprints. He hadn't been quite certain why the famous Hēilóng Shāshǒu, a senior Straw Sandal and Red Hatchet of the 14K, was here at a small, inconsequential exhibition but he was keen to accommodate her wishes. After all, a marker was a marker and one day his company might need some Triad help.
"Isn't he the one who keeps trying to hire you?" Angel was ignoring the glares being cast in her direction with sublime disregard.
"He is. He has problems keeping his female staff. Octopus hands."
"Irene, should we put the paintings up on the wall there?" Isabel also had problems making up her mind over things. Privately, Ingrat thought she had spent so much of her life allowing other people to make decisions for her, she had lost the knack of doing it for herself.
"Good idea. The one of the pub in the middle, the landscapes on either side." Now she knew what to do, Isabel trotted off and got the job done with great efficiency. By the time she had done, the positioning of the pictures was perfect.
"All right, I think we're open for business. Doors open in ten minutes, if you want to hit the rest-room, now is the time. Breath mints in the drawer over there." Igrat looked around; everything was in order and laid out properly. "Let's drum up some trade."
Marsh Baldon Exhibit, Oxfordshire Tourist Exhibition, The King's Center, Oxford. 10:30.
So far, it had been a slow morning. Igrat had enough experience with exhibitions in general to know that attendance was usually low on the first morning and it was the best time for the various exhibitors to get to know each other. Most of the stands had been entertaining guests from other displays. Achillea was standing next to a map of Marsh Baldon with two couples from Oxford who were interested in spending a few days away from the city. The map was marked with a series of cross-country walks and runs that passed through several local features of interest. Over the weekend she and Angel had checked them all out and could talk about the running conditions and how much time was appropriate to allow for each route. It had turned out that both couples were keen cross-country runners and the obviously athletic Achillea was giving them an expert opinion on the routes.
"The church here, St. Peters, is worth spending some time on. It was built in the 12th Century and much of the fabric still dates from that time. The leaflet tells you all about the building and its special features but the most important thing is that the Vicar has made the rest-rooms available to runners and you can get fresh, cold water there to drink. You know to stay hydrated to avoid cramps of course." Her guests nodded vigorously in agreement. "We're close enough to Oxford so that you could run down on a Saturday morning, stay overnight at the Inn and run back on Sunday evening. You're lucky; I can't do things like that where I come from."
"Where do you live, 'Lea?" One of the women had noted Achillea's accent.
"New York. Got an apartment on Broadway." It was, in fact, Igrat's apartment but Achillea was house-sitting for her.
"Oh my, you must have seen the fighting there a few years back?" The woman sounded shocked and slightly excited by mentioning the 1996 insurgency in the city.
Achillea forbore from mentioning that she had seen the rioting in Brooklyn and Queens through a telescopic sight mounted on a .50 rifle. "It was pretty bad for a few days but the National Guard wrapped it up. The whole area is being rebuilt now. The city planners have taken a lot of advice from over here in how to rebuild shattered city centers. Anyway, if you want to book up in advance, the managers of the Inn are doing a special offer. A room for the night with a fixed-menu dinner at a really good price. Book up here now and you get an extra ten percent show discount."
"Fixed menu?" One of the men sounded wary but the question suggested the two couples were on the verge of being landed.
"Chef Murray has come up with a special fine dining menu for adults and another one more suitable for their children. Here." Achillea handed them copies of the planned menus.
"The Chef Murray? This is too good to miss!" Achillea smiled politely at the woman's enthusiasm and took them over to the podium so she could make their booking. She was beginning to regret not having negotiated a commission.
Igrat nodded happily; bringing her two friends in had turned out rather well. Over in one corner, Angel was entertaining the couples' three children. It was an odd thing that Igrat had noted before; children liked Angel. It wasn't as if Angel had any affection for children in return or was particularly good with them. Igrat had decided that it was simply because most adults related to children as children and spoke down to or patronized them. Angel couldn't relate to anybody on any level and so treated children the same way she treated everybody else. Igrat also suspected that Angel's macabre sense of humor went down well with kids. That impression was confirmed when they burst out laughing at something she had said.
"What happened to him, Miss?"
The younger of the two boys had asked. Angel looked at him. "The name's Angel. I don't miss, ever. He was found with his feet in cement."
The children's eyes bulged. The elder boy had obviously been watching gangster films. "A cement overcoat, Mi . . . Angel?"
"No, we relaid the pathway outside his apartment and when he left in the morning he sank up to his ankles in wet cement. It took him 16 hours to reach his car." Her quip was met with another burst of laughter from the children. Their parents cast a quick glance of appreciation at their hosts; keeping the children distracted was a real service.
Isabel Foster glanced at the information Igrat had entered into the computer system, verified it was all right, and then swiped one couple's credit card for the deposit. "There we are, all booked. We look forward to seeing you next month."
The group went off, Igrat noting that they completely ignored the Toot Baldon stand. Isabel was smiling at the latest booking. "This is so good, Irene. We've already got enough bookings to keep us all working for a month and the show hasn't really got started yet!"
Igrat wasn't quite sure she understood what Isabel had meant by that but it was obviously good so she smiled in return. "Booked solid?"
"Next month, yes. We've got a lot of vacancies for the rest of this month." Isabel looked at Igrat's outfit. "You look so beautiful. I wish I could afford clothes like that. All three of you must be so well-off."
Igrat purred gently; her favorite time of day was when somebody was complimenting her. All three were wearing styled business suits, Igrat and Achillea with skirts, Angel with pants. One of their little secrets was that Igrat chose Angel's 'good clothes' for her; she'd tried to teach Angel to shop for clothes but failed. Igrat used what she had learned was the standard British response to Isabel's implied question. "We're all comfortable, thank you. We've got our own businesses and they're very successful."
"What do you do, Irene?"
"I run a communications company." Igrat left Isabel to think she meant a public relations group, not the courier division of the OSS. Isabel nodded wisely, having received an answer she thought she understood. Now she had a new piece of gossip about the newcomer and her friends.
Marsh Baldon Exhibit, Oxfordshire Tourist Exhibition, The King's Center, Oxford. 12:30.
"What you need is a wheel of fortune." Cristi looked around the stand and the number of people who were looking at the information on display.
"What do you mean?" Isabel was lost.
"Most of the stands here have give-aways. Pens, key-chains, things like that. So you have a wheel like a roulette wheel only vertical. Spin it once for each visitor and the number that comes up corresponds to a give-away. One number is a really good prize, a free weekend with meals thrown in perhaps, but we rig the wheel so it never comes up." Cristi looked around again, taking in the number of people. Trade had picked up a lot; there were noticeably more people around than there had been when she had arrived half an hour earlier.
"You're Irene's sister aren't you?" Cristi nodded and headed off to intercept a newly-arrived visitor. She had no classes between 11:30 and 2:30 so had come along to help out. Her arrival had been timely, coinciding with a surge of attendees. Nevertheless, she was obeying one of Igrat's 'Moral Guidance of the Day' lessons. It is better to avoid questions than to answer them.
The visitor in question was a young man, one of a couple, who were interested in the country hiking and running tours. Cristi gave them the scripted quick introduction to the village and then handed them over to Achillea who started her pitch on the beauties of the Marsh Waldon countryside and the varied routes available through it. Cristi turned away to deal with the next visitor but found herself faced by Portman who was standing unpleasantly close to her. She couldn't help her nose wrinkling slightly at the sour smell he exuded. He tried to get even closer and succeeded in herding Cristi into a corner. She caught Igrat's eye and got a slight nod of recognition.
In the background, Angel saw what was happening and started to go and deal with the situation. Igrat put her hand in front of her but carefully not making contact. "Leave it Angel. Cristi has to learn how to handle situations like this on her own. She knows I've got her back and help's available if she needs it. We can deal with Percy the Pig later if necessary."
Over in the corner, Cristi gave Portman a mechanical smile and stepped to her left. Portman moved to block her exit, and instantly Cristi shifted to her right and slipped past him before he could respond. There was a late middle-aged woman standing near her, looking at the leaflet from the Marsh Baldon Nursery. By the time Portman had realized what had happened, Cristi was telling her guest all about the superior standard of the roses available from the nursery and how the owners cooperated with the Harcourt Arboretum to develop new strains and displays. The woman glanced at Portman, then at Cristi and realized what had happened. She winked and mouthed a 'well done'.
Portman saw that a guest had turned up on the Toot Baldon stand and started to go over and to see him. It didn't register that the display had had its first visitor as soon as he wasn't on it. What did register was that Achillea was in his way and the expression in her eyes was a chilling death-glare. Portman found himself shivering as the scene around him began to change to a snow-scape with dire wolves howling in the distance. He sensed there were other things, unspeakable things, closing in on him.
"Don't." Achillea's single word had all the chill of the arctic in it.
"Do that again." The voice behind him was even colder and pitiless in the extreme. Portman turned around and found himself looking at one of the 'unspeakable things' he had feared. Angel's expression wasn't a death-glare nor was it the vicious smile she usually wore when about to go to work. Instead, it was a sleepy, detached gaze that seemed not to recognize his existence as a person. Portman realized that was exactly what it meant; to her, he was a target, a thing, not a person. Yet, he had a weird feeling that he was isolated in a time warp while the business of the stand went on around him. The other people present seemed not to notice what was happening.
"What's the matter? Did I piss you off?" He was trying bravado to hide the terror that was spreading through his body.
"You can't piss me off, I'm a psychopath." Angel spoke in a quiet monotone. "When I kill you, it will be in cold blood. Now, leave and don't come back."
Portman took note of the 'when' that took the place of the 'if' and started to hurry back towards his stand. As he did so, he noticed people on the Greater Baldon and Baldon Village booths laughing at his ignominious retreat.
Marsh Baldon Exhibit, Oxfordshire Tourist Exhibition, The King's Center, Oxford. 2:30pm.
Isabel Foster was carefully rolling up maps of the Marsh Baldon area into cylinders and securing them with elastic bands. They had turned out to be a popular give-away. The two young men Cristi had been speaking to before the incident had booked a room at the Inn for the next weekend and gone away studying the map and the hiking routes marked on it. Cristi herself had just left for college and her next class. Angel had headed over to the refreshment area in search of pizza while Achillea had been caught short and had headed for the lady's restroom. Isabel didn't mind being on her own for a few minutes; the rush of visitors had quietened down and she had a chance to tidy the stand up and get the displays reorganized.
She was just picking up the next map to roll when a hand grabbed the one she had just finished. There was a sudden blast of sound, a loud monotone that hurt her ears and a sickening smell of pre-used beer as Portman blew through the cylinder. He shouted out "Vuvuzela! Vuvuzela!" Then he stuffed a ball of rolled up paper, one of the sample menus, into the tube and blew it out with another blast of sound. It soared through the air and landed on the floor of the booth, rolling across the carpet and under a table.
Isabel didn’t know what to do. She just stood there, her mouth hanging open in disbelief. Behind her, Igrat hurried out of the storage area to see what was happening. She saw Portman strutting around with the rolled-up map and getting ready to blow another screwed up menu into the air. Her face tightened in anger and she started to close in on him.
Achillea got there first. She grabbed Portman's arm and spun him around into the bouncer's throw'em'out hold. Then, she frog-marched him out of their stand, back to his own. Once there she threw him in and pointed at his face, her finger barely an inch from his nose. "You annoy me again and I will nail your dick to the floor. Get it?"
Achillea went back to her own stand with a round of applause ringing around from their neighbors. Igrat took a disgusted look at the rolled up map, noted the flecks of spittle all over it and tossed it into a wastepaper basket. "Well done, girl."
Achillea bobbed her head in acknowledgment of the compliment. Isabel spoke up from her own station. "Percy the Pig will be gone tomorrow. Some of the other exhibitors have registered formal complaints."
"Not soon enough." Achillea muttered the words quietly to herself.
Marsh Baldon Exhibit, Oxfordshire Tourist Exhibition, The King's Center, Oxford. 08:30.
"Irene, have you seen the leaflets we had printed. I left them on top of the counter last night but they seem to have disappeared." Isabel Foster was flustered and flapping her hands in dismay.
On the other hand, she's flustered and frantic all the time. Igrat thought. "I saw them left out Isabel, so I took most of them and locked them up in the counter cabinet. I left a few out just to see what would happen."
"You mean somebody took them? Oh, who would do that?" Another problem Isabel Foster had was a complete inability to think the worst of somebody. Bearing in mind she had a hired killer only a few feet from her, that quirk would have been an intolerable case of cognitive dissonance for her had she known Angel's chosen profession. Fortunately, she didn't.
"Somebody lacking in moral character?" Achillea was trying to stop herself laughing. Quite contrary to her expectations, she was enjoying herself. The previous evening, she had helped assemble the display booth and done most of the heavy lifting herself. That had caused some of the people on other stands who were having trouble doing the same thing to look at her oddly.
"We've got much more space than I thought." Igrat was looking around; the booth size was supposed to have been 10 by 10 feet but the unit next to them had been unoccupied and the show managers had given it to the Marsh Baldon party. The gain in space was much more than just the extra square footage since they had been able to eliminate the partition and use the area more efficiently. Across the passageway, a stout figure in a threadbare, un-ironed shirt, stained tie and creaseless trousers was staring furiously at them.
"Who's that?" Achillea asked.
"Percy Portman. The owner of the Badger Inn over in Toot Baldon. When he found out the organizers had given us the unused space, he stormed off and demanded the same. Didn’t get it of course but he made a real nuisance of himself." Isabel looked curious. "How did you manage to talk them into giving us the extra space, Angel?"
"I just went to see them and reasoned with them."
Achillea caught Angel's eye and patted herself under her arm. Angel shook her head and touched her tattooed shoulder. She was carrying her guns, concealed of course, but hadn't needed them. "Don't be cynical, 'Lea. They wanted to give the space away, a vacant booth looks bad. My request just gave them the excuse they were looking for to give it to somebody. I just got in first. That way they filled it in and we owe them a marker."
There had been more to it than that. The company running the exhibition for the Tourist Board was the British branch of International Exhibitions Ltd, a Chinese management company based in Shanghai but operating worldwide. Their agent on-site was Chinese and had recognized Angel's Triad tattoos instantly. Her red hair and two guns identified her as positively as fingerprints. He hadn't been quite certain why the famous Hēilóng Shāshǒu, a senior Straw Sandal and Red Hatchet of the 14K, was here at a small, inconsequential exhibition but he was keen to accommodate her wishes. After all, a marker was a marker and one day his company might need some Triad help.
"Isn't he the one who keeps trying to hire you?" Angel was ignoring the glares being cast in her direction with sublime disregard.
"He is. He has problems keeping his female staff. Octopus hands."
"Irene, should we put the paintings up on the wall there?" Isabel also had problems making up her mind over things. Privately, Ingrat thought she had spent so much of her life allowing other people to make decisions for her, she had lost the knack of doing it for herself.
"Good idea. The one of the pub in the middle, the landscapes on either side." Now she knew what to do, Isabel trotted off and got the job done with great efficiency. By the time she had done, the positioning of the pictures was perfect.
"All right, I think we're open for business. Doors open in ten minutes, if you want to hit the rest-room, now is the time. Breath mints in the drawer over there." Igrat looked around; everything was in order and laid out properly. "Let's drum up some trade."
Marsh Baldon Exhibit, Oxfordshire Tourist Exhibition, The King's Center, Oxford. 10:30.
So far, it had been a slow morning. Igrat had enough experience with exhibitions in general to know that attendance was usually low on the first morning and it was the best time for the various exhibitors to get to know each other. Most of the stands had been entertaining guests from other displays. Achillea was standing next to a map of Marsh Baldon with two couples from Oxford who were interested in spending a few days away from the city. The map was marked with a series of cross-country walks and runs that passed through several local features of interest. Over the weekend she and Angel had checked them all out and could talk about the running conditions and how much time was appropriate to allow for each route. It had turned out that both couples were keen cross-country runners and the obviously athletic Achillea was giving them an expert opinion on the routes.
"The church here, St. Peters, is worth spending some time on. It was built in the 12th Century and much of the fabric still dates from that time. The leaflet tells you all about the building and its special features but the most important thing is that the Vicar has made the rest-rooms available to runners and you can get fresh, cold water there to drink. You know to stay hydrated to avoid cramps of course." Her guests nodded vigorously in agreement. "We're close enough to Oxford so that you could run down on a Saturday morning, stay overnight at the Inn and run back on Sunday evening. You're lucky; I can't do things like that where I come from."
"Where do you live, 'Lea?" One of the women had noted Achillea's accent.
"New York. Got an apartment on Broadway." It was, in fact, Igrat's apartment but Achillea was house-sitting for her.
"Oh my, you must have seen the fighting there a few years back?" The woman sounded shocked and slightly excited by mentioning the 1996 insurgency in the city.
Achillea forbore from mentioning that she had seen the rioting in Brooklyn and Queens through a telescopic sight mounted on a .50 rifle. "It was pretty bad for a few days but the National Guard wrapped it up. The whole area is being rebuilt now. The city planners have taken a lot of advice from over here in how to rebuild shattered city centers. Anyway, if you want to book up in advance, the managers of the Inn are doing a special offer. A room for the night with a fixed-menu dinner at a really good price. Book up here now and you get an extra ten percent show discount."
"Fixed menu?" One of the men sounded wary but the question suggested the two couples were on the verge of being landed.
"Chef Murray has come up with a special fine dining menu for adults and another one more suitable for their children. Here." Achillea handed them copies of the planned menus.
"The Chef Murray? This is too good to miss!" Achillea smiled politely at the woman's enthusiasm and took them over to the podium so she could make their booking. She was beginning to regret not having negotiated a commission.
Igrat nodded happily; bringing her two friends in had turned out rather well. Over in one corner, Angel was entertaining the couples' three children. It was an odd thing that Igrat had noted before; children liked Angel. It wasn't as if Angel had any affection for children in return or was particularly good with them. Igrat had decided that it was simply because most adults related to children as children and spoke down to or patronized them. Angel couldn't relate to anybody on any level and so treated children the same way she treated everybody else. Igrat also suspected that Angel's macabre sense of humor went down well with kids. That impression was confirmed when they burst out laughing at something she had said.
"What happened to him, Miss?"
The younger of the two boys had asked. Angel looked at him. "The name's Angel. I don't miss, ever. He was found with his feet in cement."
The children's eyes bulged. The elder boy had obviously been watching gangster films. "A cement overcoat, Mi . . . Angel?"
"No, we relaid the pathway outside his apartment and when he left in the morning he sank up to his ankles in wet cement. It took him 16 hours to reach his car." Her quip was met with another burst of laughter from the children. Their parents cast a quick glance of appreciation at their hosts; keeping the children distracted was a real service.
Isabel Foster glanced at the information Igrat had entered into the computer system, verified it was all right, and then swiped one couple's credit card for the deposit. "There we are, all booked. We look forward to seeing you next month."
The group went off, Igrat noting that they completely ignored the Toot Baldon stand. Isabel was smiling at the latest booking. "This is so good, Irene. We've already got enough bookings to keep us all working for a month and the show hasn't really got started yet!"
Igrat wasn't quite sure she understood what Isabel had meant by that but it was obviously good so she smiled in return. "Booked solid?"
"Next month, yes. We've got a lot of vacancies for the rest of this month." Isabel looked at Igrat's outfit. "You look so beautiful. I wish I could afford clothes like that. All three of you must be so well-off."
Igrat purred gently; her favorite time of day was when somebody was complimenting her. All three were wearing styled business suits, Igrat and Achillea with skirts, Angel with pants. One of their little secrets was that Igrat chose Angel's 'good clothes' for her; she'd tried to teach Angel to shop for clothes but failed. Igrat used what she had learned was the standard British response to Isabel's implied question. "We're all comfortable, thank you. We've got our own businesses and they're very successful."
"What do you do, Irene?"
"I run a communications company." Igrat left Isabel to think she meant a public relations group, not the courier division of the OSS. Isabel nodded wisely, having received an answer she thought she understood. Now she had a new piece of gossip about the newcomer and her friends.
Marsh Baldon Exhibit, Oxfordshire Tourist Exhibition, The King's Center, Oxford. 12:30.
"What you need is a wheel of fortune." Cristi looked around the stand and the number of people who were looking at the information on display.
"What do you mean?" Isabel was lost.
"Most of the stands here have give-aways. Pens, key-chains, things like that. So you have a wheel like a roulette wheel only vertical. Spin it once for each visitor and the number that comes up corresponds to a give-away. One number is a really good prize, a free weekend with meals thrown in perhaps, but we rig the wheel so it never comes up." Cristi looked around again, taking in the number of people. Trade had picked up a lot; there were noticeably more people around than there had been when she had arrived half an hour earlier.
"You're Irene's sister aren't you?" Cristi nodded and headed off to intercept a newly-arrived visitor. She had no classes between 11:30 and 2:30 so had come along to help out. Her arrival had been timely, coinciding with a surge of attendees. Nevertheless, she was obeying one of Igrat's 'Moral Guidance of the Day' lessons. It is better to avoid questions than to answer them.
The visitor in question was a young man, one of a couple, who were interested in the country hiking and running tours. Cristi gave them the scripted quick introduction to the village and then handed them over to Achillea who started her pitch on the beauties of the Marsh Waldon countryside and the varied routes available through it. Cristi turned away to deal with the next visitor but found herself faced by Portman who was standing unpleasantly close to her. She couldn't help her nose wrinkling slightly at the sour smell he exuded. He tried to get even closer and succeeded in herding Cristi into a corner. She caught Igrat's eye and got a slight nod of recognition.
In the background, Angel saw what was happening and started to go and deal with the situation. Igrat put her hand in front of her but carefully not making contact. "Leave it Angel. Cristi has to learn how to handle situations like this on her own. She knows I've got her back and help's available if she needs it. We can deal with Percy the Pig later if necessary."
Over in the corner, Cristi gave Portman a mechanical smile and stepped to her left. Portman moved to block her exit, and instantly Cristi shifted to her right and slipped past him before he could respond. There was a late middle-aged woman standing near her, looking at the leaflet from the Marsh Baldon Nursery. By the time Portman had realized what had happened, Cristi was telling her guest all about the superior standard of the roses available from the nursery and how the owners cooperated with the Harcourt Arboretum to develop new strains and displays. The woman glanced at Portman, then at Cristi and realized what had happened. She winked and mouthed a 'well done'.
Portman saw that a guest had turned up on the Toot Baldon stand and started to go over and to see him. It didn't register that the display had had its first visitor as soon as he wasn't on it. What did register was that Achillea was in his way and the expression in her eyes was a chilling death-glare. Portman found himself shivering as the scene around him began to change to a snow-scape with dire wolves howling in the distance. He sensed there were other things, unspeakable things, closing in on him.
"Don't." Achillea's single word had all the chill of the arctic in it.
"Do that again." The voice behind him was even colder and pitiless in the extreme. Portman turned around and found himself looking at one of the 'unspeakable things' he had feared. Angel's expression wasn't a death-glare nor was it the vicious smile she usually wore when about to go to work. Instead, it was a sleepy, detached gaze that seemed not to recognize his existence as a person. Portman realized that was exactly what it meant; to her, he was a target, a thing, not a person. Yet, he had a weird feeling that he was isolated in a time warp while the business of the stand went on around him. The other people present seemed not to notice what was happening.
"What's the matter? Did I piss you off?" He was trying bravado to hide the terror that was spreading through his body.
"You can't piss me off, I'm a psychopath." Angel spoke in a quiet monotone. "When I kill you, it will be in cold blood. Now, leave and don't come back."
Portman took note of the 'when' that took the place of the 'if' and started to hurry back towards his stand. As he did so, he noticed people on the Greater Baldon and Baldon Village booths laughing at his ignominious retreat.
Marsh Baldon Exhibit, Oxfordshire Tourist Exhibition, The King's Center, Oxford. 2:30pm.
Isabel Foster was carefully rolling up maps of the Marsh Baldon area into cylinders and securing them with elastic bands. They had turned out to be a popular give-away. The two young men Cristi had been speaking to before the incident had booked a room at the Inn for the next weekend and gone away studying the map and the hiking routes marked on it. Cristi herself had just left for college and her next class. Angel had headed over to the refreshment area in search of pizza while Achillea had been caught short and had headed for the lady's restroom. Isabel didn't mind being on her own for a few minutes; the rush of visitors had quietened down and she had a chance to tidy the stand up and get the displays reorganized.
She was just picking up the next map to roll when a hand grabbed the one she had just finished. There was a sudden blast of sound, a loud monotone that hurt her ears and a sickening smell of pre-used beer as Portman blew through the cylinder. He shouted out "Vuvuzela! Vuvuzela!" Then he stuffed a ball of rolled up paper, one of the sample menus, into the tube and blew it out with another blast of sound. It soared through the air and landed on the floor of the booth, rolling across the carpet and under a table.
Isabel didn’t know what to do. She just stood there, her mouth hanging open in disbelief. Behind her, Igrat hurried out of the storage area to see what was happening. She saw Portman strutting around with the rolled-up map and getting ready to blow another screwed up menu into the air. Her face tightened in anger and she started to close in on him.
Achillea got there first. She grabbed Portman's arm and spun him around into the bouncer's throw'em'out hold. Then, she frog-marched him out of their stand, back to his own. Once there she threw him in and pointed at his face, her finger barely an inch from his nose. "You annoy me again and I will nail your dick to the floor. Get it?"
Achillea went back to her own stand with a round of applause ringing around from their neighbors. Igrat took a disgusted look at the rolled up map, noted the flecks of spittle all over it and tossed it into a wastepaper basket. "Well done, girl."
Achillea bobbed her head in acknowledgment of the compliment. Isabel spoke up from her own station. "Percy the Pig will be gone tomorrow. Some of the other exhibitors have registered formal complaints."
"Not soon enough." Achillea muttered the words quietly to herself.
Re: 2003 - The Melancholia of Percy the Pig
Chapter Four
Marsh Baldon Exhibit, Oxfordshire Tourist Exhibition, The King's Center, Oxford. 4:30pm.
"Something's happening." Igrat was looking out at the aisles that separated the stands. There had been a sudden change in atmosphere in the exhibition and it was nothing to do with the fact it was about to close.
Angel was looking around as well; all her own instincts telling her that something bad had just taken place. Instinctively she checked her guns in their shoulder holsters. Her travel bag was tucked away within easy reach and it contained her speed-loaders plus a copious supply of ammunition. "Watch your ass, everybody."
"Percy the Pig has vanished." Achillea was also on her guard. "Come to think of it, I haven't seen him for an hour or so."
"Perhaps your threat to nail his dick to the floor convinced him to leave?" Igrat was getting more concerned by the second.
"That awful man." Isabel was most upset though for entirely different reasons. Another member of the Toot Baldon staff had very apologetically given her the missing leaflets; they'd been found when they'd hunted through the stand after Portman had been away for so long. He'd stolen them the previous night. As she kept telling herself, she wasn’t angry, just very disappointed. In fact, she was screaming furious but didn’t recognize it.
There was a crackle from the public address system. "Ladies and Gentlemen, the exhibition is now closed and is scheduled to re-open at 9:30 tomorrow. However, I must advise everybody that a police investigation is now in progress and we must ask you all to remain where you are until you have been cleared to leave by the investigating officers."
"Oh crap." Angel was distinctly unhappy. "What the hell has happened?"
In the background, Achillea was quietly and unobtrusively tooling up. Knives were being slipped into their sheaths and guns into their holsters with surprising liberality. By the time she had completed the arming process, a police officer had arrived on the scene.
"Excuse me, could you identify yourselves please?" Detective Inspector David Atkinson had started at this point for a very good reason.
"Irene Shafrid." Igrat passed over her identity card and passport. Atkinson noted the details down in his book then took Achillea's papers and did the same.
"Angelique de Llorente." Angel used the cover name that referred people to her relationship with MI.5. Using it would take the inquirer right through to 'Five headquarters and a very suspicious interview based around the ominous words ‘why do you want to know this?’.
Atkinson looked sharply at her. "Excuse me ma'am, but have you got Home Office Permits for those guns?"
"I have. Well-spotted by the way." Angel produced the documents and handed them to Atkinson. Isabel nearly fainted when she saw the pair of Beretta 98s Angel was carrying.
Atkinson went away for a couple of minutes. When he came back his manner had changed completely. "Sorry about the abruptness, ladies. The Cabinet Secretary has just vouched for all three of you personally."
"Officer, what has happened?" Isabel was seriously upset by the situation and by the fact that at least one of her associates was armed to the proverbial, and quite possibly literal, teeth.
"Do you know a man called Percy Portman?"
"Percy the Pig? Sure." Achillea was now very interested.
"Well, he was found, deceased in the restroom here just a few minutes ago. Unfortunately foul play is suspected."
"Why?" Angel was blunt.
"Well, it appears that his head was rammed down the toilet and his throat cut. Subject to coroner's confirmation, he literally drowned in his own blood."
"That's horrible." Isabel was fluttering her hands again.
"No, it’s inventive. I must remember that one." Angel looked around, trying to see if anybody was responding favorably to her comment. Nobody is and those within earshot seem shocked. I bet nobody around here did it. "You started here because of the trouble he caused?"
In the background, Achillea and Igrat exchanged questioning glances and each shook her head in response. After the incident with Cristi, neither would have had any compunction about killing Portman if the need had arose but it hadn't and they hadn't. Not that they didn't think it was a good idea; in fact they felt quite sympathetic towards the killer no matter who he or she was. Sympathy didn't translate to support; they both thought killing him was excessive.
Obviously, Atkinson thought the same. "Killing like that shows a lot of rage, Miss de Llorente."
"Angel, Inspector. Everybody calls me Angel."
"Thank you, Angel. As I said, a lot of rage and Percy the . . . . . Mr. Portman appears to have generated quite a bit of that anger himself. That have been a stream of complaints to the conference organizers concerning his behavior. It also appears he was drunk by mid-afternoon.”
“I wasn’t around then; I was eating at the pizza stand when that event happened. I have heard beer had a lot to do with the way he behaved though. Only that’s hearsay.”
“It is. You sound very familiar with the rules of evidence, Angel.”
I should be; I’ve killed enough people who failed to listen to friendly, well-meant advice about not giving it. “Anyway, Percy the Pig was found in the men’s restroom?”
“That is correct. In the disabled-access stall.” Atkinson found he was being swept along by the questions and realized he was already revealing much more information than he should.
From her point of view, Angel was very happy that the hours she had spent listening to, and learning from, Conrad’s interrogations were paying off. “Well that lets me off the hook then. I’m a girl. We all are on this stand.”
Atkinson sighed. “I had noticed. However, as a basic principle, it doesn’t hold true I’m afraid. What does let you off the hook are those guns of yours. Sir Humphrey Appleday said, when your name came up, that if the victim was riddled with bullets, you probably did it but we’d never prove it. The victim had his throat sliced wide open, literally from ear to ear and so deep the knife blade notched his spine.”
“You want some professional advice from my side of the fence, Inspector?” Angel could read Atkinson’s thoughts very clearly. Why the hell was this woman ever allowed into the country?
“I’d like to say no, but that wouldn’t be doing my job. If you can offer any help, we would really appreciate it.” Atkinson thought about that. So that is what the Sainted Sir Robert meant when he spoke about ‘obtaining the willing co-operation of the public in the task of securing observance of laws.’ Members of the public often know things that are part of their world and are willing to help by sharing that information if asked politely.
“All right.” Angel thought for a second. “Bodies are left lying around like this for one of two reasons. Because the killer is incompetent or because the killer is competent but is sending a message. Find out which one of those applies and you’re halfway home. A competent killer responding to Percy’s actions today out of anger or revenge wouldn’t need to send a message. So, he’d make the body disappear. So, it follows, that if the murder is a revenge killing for Percy’s conduct today, the killer is incompetent. That means it could be anybody in this area at that time. On the other hand, if the body was left like that as a message, the killer probably followed Percy to the men’s washroom and then did him. You might find somebody who saw that but I doubt it. More importantly, the way Percy the Pig was killed is part of the message. Decipher that and you’re another big jump home.”
Living Room, the Old Rectory, Marsh Baldon, Oxfordshire
“The main problem is that Marsh Baldon is a lovely village and I’m really happy here. I can’t quite decide which is the most likely outcome. Angel shooting the entire population which is only about 300 people by the way or ‘Lea, burning the whole place to the ground after having started a civil war between Marsh Baldon and Toot Baldon.” Igrat looked at them sorrowfully. “Please don’t destroy the village.”
“You know, Iggie is getting cynical in her old age. Listening to her, anybody would think we’re the four horsemen of the apocalypse.”
“Instead of just two of them. Three hundred people you say, Iggie?” Angel had a calculator out.
“Three hundred and ten to be precise, excluding Cristi and I of course.”
“That would be two million six hundred and thirty five thousand sovereigns.”
“No discount for quantity?” Achillea looked over at Angel
“Friends and family discount of ten percent. That still comes to two million three hundred and seventy one thousand sovereigns. I can’t honestly see anybody coming up with that much. This place just isn’t that valuable.” Angel put her calculator away. Igrat wasn't certain whether she should look happier or not.
They’d finally got out of the exhibition hall at 7:30 and picked up pizzas on the way home. Isabel had proclaimed herself to upset to eat which had delighted Angel since that meant more pizza for her. Anybody who was around Angel for any appreciable period of time quickly learned she was very territorial about food. Igrat had been happy to learn that both she and Angel were off the hook. Achillea though was a different matter. The police had determined that she was both physically strong enough and had the expertise to perform the killing. She had been asked not to leave the county without informing the police of her whereabouts until further notice.
Angel picked up another slice of four cheese and bit off the tip. “I gave that Inspector a little bit of advice on how to handle this. For all the murder mysteries the British produce, I don’t think their police have much experience in investigating them. Outside a few small areas that is. They haven’t worked out this has to be the work of at least two people yet. Percy the Pig had his face held underwater in the toilet while somebody grabbed his hair to expose his throat. One hand on the back of his head where the skull joins the neck, the other in his hair.”
“Which means another person must have held the knife. Or we’re looking for a killer with three hands.”
“Or prehensile feet.” Angel looked confused so Igrat explained. “Means somebody who can grip and handle things with their feet. Most babies can do that but they lose the ability as they grow up.”
“Ahh.” Angel shook her head. “Geometry is wrong. Two people. Could even be two women, the space in that restroom is limited if the women’s one is anything to go by.”
At that point the telephone rang. Igrat picked it up and listened for a minute. “Thank you for calling Cristi, I’ll put you on speaker.”
“Good evening, everybody. Just calling to give you a head’s up. The exhibition won’t be opening until 12:30 at the earliest tomorrow but everybody has to be there for the normal opening. You’ll be getting a call from the police in a few minutes. Some of us will be there as well; it’s a field trip so we can watch and learn.” Cristi hesitated and there was a careful note to her voice when she resumed. “Is there anything I should . . . Do you have any advice to give me?”
“She means, do we have anything to hide?” Igrat mouthed the words very quietly. “Not really, Cristi. We were as surprised as anybody when the news broke. Angel has a suspicion there is more going on here than it appears though. So do I although I can’t possibly think of any good reason why. How’s Henry?”
“Walking around with a stupid smile on his face all the time.” Cristi was laughing, mostly with relief. She'd been sure Igrat and Achillea hadn't killed Percy the Pig; if they'd wanted to get even with him, they'd have come up with something funny and devastating but non-lethal. Angel, she wasn't so sure about.
"Sounds familiar." Igrat was amused; male reactions to a new conquest hadn't changed in well over two thousand years. "Much more importantly, how are you?"
"Little bit sore but otherwise fine. Mom, thank you for looking after me. Not just this weekend but . . . ."
"I know," Igrat paused slightly and reflected that the room must be awfully dusty. The stumbled thanks showed Cristi was leaving the warm cocoon of her nest for the first time since Igrat and Achillea had rescued her from her real mother five years earlier. "You coming down again next weekend? With Henry of course. You two can stay over if you want and go back Monday morning."
"Oh yes. Assuming we don't get swallowed up by this case."
"Cristi, Angel here. What's the crime rate in Oxford like?"
There was a marked silence on the end of the line. When Cristi spoke, it was very carefully. "Serious crime, it's about average for the UK. The Police here have what they call a 'bound' which is the country-wide average adjusted to give a 80 percentile range. Oxford is right in the middle of that. On the other hand, we're the highest of all the Thames Valley towns and it's going up. At lot of the problem is street drinking; I suppose being a university town is part of that. I get teased a bit about being American and a New Yorker, we'd solve the problem by nuking Oxford."
"How about organized crime?" Angel sounded casual but there was an edge to her voice that made Igrat look up. "Loan sharking, protection rackets, vice, that sort of thing."
"Some of the students here have had offers for 'quick loans', you know, borrow money one week, pay it back plus ten percent the next. The University administration warn us not to listen. I know one student here didn't listen and he got into a really bad mess. One or two of the girls here have had offers of jobs as 'escorts' but turned them down flat. But, I guess if they had accepted, they wouldn't admit it."
"No, they wouldn't." Angel was thoughtful. The uneasy suspicion at the back of her mind was beginning to crystallize into something more concrete. "It's easy to suck people into that kind of life and very hard for them to get out once they are in. What do you know about protection rackets for business?"
"Sorry, can't help there." Cristi sounded very apologetic. "I suppose the business administration students might know more."
"No matter, thank you Cristi. That's helpful." Angel was, as usual being completely insincere but her imitation of gratitude was near-perfect.
After a few minutes socializing, Cristi hung up and there was silence in the room while Igrat got another round of drinks ready. It was broken by Angel. "Iggie, how much does the Inn make for the village?"
Igrat blinked slightly. "About forty thousand pounds a month. A lot is going into refurbishing the building and building up a solid reserve but there's quite a bit left over. It pays for looking after the common and fixing the roads. We were able to put some signs up marking where green roads are dead ends. That’s saved a lot of visitors from getting stuck. We're even going to be able to build a village community center."
"Green road?"
Igrat reminded herself that, while Achillea was familiar with England and its expressions, Angel was not. "A green road is an unsurfaced road. It's called that because it's covered in grass except for the wheel ruts. Usually they serve farms or small hamlets. A hamlet is a very small village, six or eight houses at most."
"That's almost half a million pounds a year." Achillea looked impressed. "I think I can see where you're going with this."
"Nobody has tried anything." Igrat saw the danger as well. "If they did, I'd call you two in."
"Friends help you move, real friends help you move a body." Angel quipped. She was flattered at the professional compliment although the implication that Igrat saw her as a genuine and trusted friend went over her head. "Do you have a rival around here?"
Igrat shook her head. "The Badger Inn over in Toot Baldon was good but we've had word that it's heading downhill now. A lot of people from Toot Baldon have started coming over here to eat. That's not surprising, people are coming in from all over the county."
"All right, Iggie, I can't help it. How does a village get a name like Toot?" Achillea was having a job not laughing.
"Toot means lookout. So, Toot Baldon means the lookout for Baldon. It's on top of a hill you see. Marsh Baldon used to be March Baldon where March meant 'the border of'. I believe back in the day, the border between Mercia and Wessex ran through here."
Angel wasn't listening. Instead she was staring at the ceiling, lost in thought. Igrat reflected that she looked oddly like The Seer when he was contemplating a particularly knotty strategic problem.
Eventually, she looked around. "I think somebody was sending us a message."
Marsh Baldon Exhibit, Oxfordshire Tourist Exhibition, The King's Center, Oxford. 4:30pm.
"Something's happening." Igrat was looking out at the aisles that separated the stands. There had been a sudden change in atmosphere in the exhibition and it was nothing to do with the fact it was about to close.
Angel was looking around as well; all her own instincts telling her that something bad had just taken place. Instinctively she checked her guns in their shoulder holsters. Her travel bag was tucked away within easy reach and it contained her speed-loaders plus a copious supply of ammunition. "Watch your ass, everybody."
"Percy the Pig has vanished." Achillea was also on her guard. "Come to think of it, I haven't seen him for an hour or so."
"Perhaps your threat to nail his dick to the floor convinced him to leave?" Igrat was getting more concerned by the second.
"That awful man." Isabel was most upset though for entirely different reasons. Another member of the Toot Baldon staff had very apologetically given her the missing leaflets; they'd been found when they'd hunted through the stand after Portman had been away for so long. He'd stolen them the previous night. As she kept telling herself, she wasn’t angry, just very disappointed. In fact, she was screaming furious but didn’t recognize it.
There was a crackle from the public address system. "Ladies and Gentlemen, the exhibition is now closed and is scheduled to re-open at 9:30 tomorrow. However, I must advise everybody that a police investigation is now in progress and we must ask you all to remain where you are until you have been cleared to leave by the investigating officers."
"Oh crap." Angel was distinctly unhappy. "What the hell has happened?"
In the background, Achillea was quietly and unobtrusively tooling up. Knives were being slipped into their sheaths and guns into their holsters with surprising liberality. By the time she had completed the arming process, a police officer had arrived on the scene.
"Excuse me, could you identify yourselves please?" Detective Inspector David Atkinson had started at this point for a very good reason.
"Irene Shafrid." Igrat passed over her identity card and passport. Atkinson noted the details down in his book then took Achillea's papers and did the same.
"Angelique de Llorente." Angel used the cover name that referred people to her relationship with MI.5. Using it would take the inquirer right through to 'Five headquarters and a very suspicious interview based around the ominous words ‘why do you want to know this?’.
Atkinson looked sharply at her. "Excuse me ma'am, but have you got Home Office Permits for those guns?"
"I have. Well-spotted by the way." Angel produced the documents and handed them to Atkinson. Isabel nearly fainted when she saw the pair of Beretta 98s Angel was carrying.
Atkinson went away for a couple of minutes. When he came back his manner had changed completely. "Sorry about the abruptness, ladies. The Cabinet Secretary has just vouched for all three of you personally."
"Officer, what has happened?" Isabel was seriously upset by the situation and by the fact that at least one of her associates was armed to the proverbial, and quite possibly literal, teeth.
"Do you know a man called Percy Portman?"
"Percy the Pig? Sure." Achillea was now very interested.
"Well, he was found, deceased in the restroom here just a few minutes ago. Unfortunately foul play is suspected."
"Why?" Angel was blunt.
"Well, it appears that his head was rammed down the toilet and his throat cut. Subject to coroner's confirmation, he literally drowned in his own blood."
"That's horrible." Isabel was fluttering her hands again.
"No, it’s inventive. I must remember that one." Angel looked around, trying to see if anybody was responding favorably to her comment. Nobody is and those within earshot seem shocked. I bet nobody around here did it. "You started here because of the trouble he caused?"
In the background, Achillea and Igrat exchanged questioning glances and each shook her head in response. After the incident with Cristi, neither would have had any compunction about killing Portman if the need had arose but it hadn't and they hadn't. Not that they didn't think it was a good idea; in fact they felt quite sympathetic towards the killer no matter who he or she was. Sympathy didn't translate to support; they both thought killing him was excessive.
Obviously, Atkinson thought the same. "Killing like that shows a lot of rage, Miss de Llorente."
"Angel, Inspector. Everybody calls me Angel."
"Thank you, Angel. As I said, a lot of rage and Percy the . . . . . Mr. Portman appears to have generated quite a bit of that anger himself. That have been a stream of complaints to the conference organizers concerning his behavior. It also appears he was drunk by mid-afternoon.”
“I wasn’t around then; I was eating at the pizza stand when that event happened. I have heard beer had a lot to do with the way he behaved though. Only that’s hearsay.”
“It is. You sound very familiar with the rules of evidence, Angel.”
I should be; I’ve killed enough people who failed to listen to friendly, well-meant advice about not giving it. “Anyway, Percy the Pig was found in the men’s restroom?”
“That is correct. In the disabled-access stall.” Atkinson found he was being swept along by the questions and realized he was already revealing much more information than he should.
From her point of view, Angel was very happy that the hours she had spent listening to, and learning from, Conrad’s interrogations were paying off. “Well that lets me off the hook then. I’m a girl. We all are on this stand.”
Atkinson sighed. “I had noticed. However, as a basic principle, it doesn’t hold true I’m afraid. What does let you off the hook are those guns of yours. Sir Humphrey Appleday said, when your name came up, that if the victim was riddled with bullets, you probably did it but we’d never prove it. The victim had his throat sliced wide open, literally from ear to ear and so deep the knife blade notched his spine.”
“You want some professional advice from my side of the fence, Inspector?” Angel could read Atkinson’s thoughts very clearly. Why the hell was this woman ever allowed into the country?
“I’d like to say no, but that wouldn’t be doing my job. If you can offer any help, we would really appreciate it.” Atkinson thought about that. So that is what the Sainted Sir Robert meant when he spoke about ‘obtaining the willing co-operation of the public in the task of securing observance of laws.’ Members of the public often know things that are part of their world and are willing to help by sharing that information if asked politely.
“All right.” Angel thought for a second. “Bodies are left lying around like this for one of two reasons. Because the killer is incompetent or because the killer is competent but is sending a message. Find out which one of those applies and you’re halfway home. A competent killer responding to Percy’s actions today out of anger or revenge wouldn’t need to send a message. So, he’d make the body disappear. So, it follows, that if the murder is a revenge killing for Percy’s conduct today, the killer is incompetent. That means it could be anybody in this area at that time. On the other hand, if the body was left like that as a message, the killer probably followed Percy to the men’s washroom and then did him. You might find somebody who saw that but I doubt it. More importantly, the way Percy the Pig was killed is part of the message. Decipher that and you’re another big jump home.”
Living Room, the Old Rectory, Marsh Baldon, Oxfordshire
“The main problem is that Marsh Baldon is a lovely village and I’m really happy here. I can’t quite decide which is the most likely outcome. Angel shooting the entire population which is only about 300 people by the way or ‘Lea, burning the whole place to the ground after having started a civil war between Marsh Baldon and Toot Baldon.” Igrat looked at them sorrowfully. “Please don’t destroy the village.”
“You know, Iggie is getting cynical in her old age. Listening to her, anybody would think we’re the four horsemen of the apocalypse.”
“Instead of just two of them. Three hundred people you say, Iggie?” Angel had a calculator out.
“Three hundred and ten to be precise, excluding Cristi and I of course.”
“That would be two million six hundred and thirty five thousand sovereigns.”
“No discount for quantity?” Achillea looked over at Angel
“Friends and family discount of ten percent. That still comes to two million three hundred and seventy one thousand sovereigns. I can’t honestly see anybody coming up with that much. This place just isn’t that valuable.” Angel put her calculator away. Igrat wasn't certain whether she should look happier or not.
They’d finally got out of the exhibition hall at 7:30 and picked up pizzas on the way home. Isabel had proclaimed herself to upset to eat which had delighted Angel since that meant more pizza for her. Anybody who was around Angel for any appreciable period of time quickly learned she was very territorial about food. Igrat had been happy to learn that both she and Angel were off the hook. Achillea though was a different matter. The police had determined that she was both physically strong enough and had the expertise to perform the killing. She had been asked not to leave the county without informing the police of her whereabouts until further notice.
Angel picked up another slice of four cheese and bit off the tip. “I gave that Inspector a little bit of advice on how to handle this. For all the murder mysteries the British produce, I don’t think their police have much experience in investigating them. Outside a few small areas that is. They haven’t worked out this has to be the work of at least two people yet. Percy the Pig had his face held underwater in the toilet while somebody grabbed his hair to expose his throat. One hand on the back of his head where the skull joins the neck, the other in his hair.”
“Which means another person must have held the knife. Or we’re looking for a killer with three hands.”
“Or prehensile feet.” Angel looked confused so Igrat explained. “Means somebody who can grip and handle things with their feet. Most babies can do that but they lose the ability as they grow up.”
“Ahh.” Angel shook her head. “Geometry is wrong. Two people. Could even be two women, the space in that restroom is limited if the women’s one is anything to go by.”
At that point the telephone rang. Igrat picked it up and listened for a minute. “Thank you for calling Cristi, I’ll put you on speaker.”
“Good evening, everybody. Just calling to give you a head’s up. The exhibition won’t be opening until 12:30 at the earliest tomorrow but everybody has to be there for the normal opening. You’ll be getting a call from the police in a few minutes. Some of us will be there as well; it’s a field trip so we can watch and learn.” Cristi hesitated and there was a careful note to her voice when she resumed. “Is there anything I should . . . Do you have any advice to give me?”
“She means, do we have anything to hide?” Igrat mouthed the words very quietly. “Not really, Cristi. We were as surprised as anybody when the news broke. Angel has a suspicion there is more going on here than it appears though. So do I although I can’t possibly think of any good reason why. How’s Henry?”
“Walking around with a stupid smile on his face all the time.” Cristi was laughing, mostly with relief. She'd been sure Igrat and Achillea hadn't killed Percy the Pig; if they'd wanted to get even with him, they'd have come up with something funny and devastating but non-lethal. Angel, she wasn't so sure about.
"Sounds familiar." Igrat was amused; male reactions to a new conquest hadn't changed in well over two thousand years. "Much more importantly, how are you?"
"Little bit sore but otherwise fine. Mom, thank you for looking after me. Not just this weekend but . . . ."
"I know," Igrat paused slightly and reflected that the room must be awfully dusty. The stumbled thanks showed Cristi was leaving the warm cocoon of her nest for the first time since Igrat and Achillea had rescued her from her real mother five years earlier. "You coming down again next weekend? With Henry of course. You two can stay over if you want and go back Monday morning."
"Oh yes. Assuming we don't get swallowed up by this case."
"Cristi, Angel here. What's the crime rate in Oxford like?"
There was a marked silence on the end of the line. When Cristi spoke, it was very carefully. "Serious crime, it's about average for the UK. The Police here have what they call a 'bound' which is the country-wide average adjusted to give a 80 percentile range. Oxford is right in the middle of that. On the other hand, we're the highest of all the Thames Valley towns and it's going up. At lot of the problem is street drinking; I suppose being a university town is part of that. I get teased a bit about being American and a New Yorker, we'd solve the problem by nuking Oxford."
"How about organized crime?" Angel sounded casual but there was an edge to her voice that made Igrat look up. "Loan sharking, protection rackets, vice, that sort of thing."
"Some of the students here have had offers for 'quick loans', you know, borrow money one week, pay it back plus ten percent the next. The University administration warn us not to listen. I know one student here didn't listen and he got into a really bad mess. One or two of the girls here have had offers of jobs as 'escorts' but turned them down flat. But, I guess if they had accepted, they wouldn't admit it."
"No, they wouldn't." Angel was thoughtful. The uneasy suspicion at the back of her mind was beginning to crystallize into something more concrete. "It's easy to suck people into that kind of life and very hard for them to get out once they are in. What do you know about protection rackets for business?"
"Sorry, can't help there." Cristi sounded very apologetic. "I suppose the business administration students might know more."
"No matter, thank you Cristi. That's helpful." Angel was, as usual being completely insincere but her imitation of gratitude was near-perfect.
After a few minutes socializing, Cristi hung up and there was silence in the room while Igrat got another round of drinks ready. It was broken by Angel. "Iggie, how much does the Inn make for the village?"
Igrat blinked slightly. "About forty thousand pounds a month. A lot is going into refurbishing the building and building up a solid reserve but there's quite a bit left over. It pays for looking after the common and fixing the roads. We were able to put some signs up marking where green roads are dead ends. That’s saved a lot of visitors from getting stuck. We're even going to be able to build a village community center."
"Green road?"
Igrat reminded herself that, while Achillea was familiar with England and its expressions, Angel was not. "A green road is an unsurfaced road. It's called that because it's covered in grass except for the wheel ruts. Usually they serve farms or small hamlets. A hamlet is a very small village, six or eight houses at most."
"That's almost half a million pounds a year." Achillea looked impressed. "I think I can see where you're going with this."
"Nobody has tried anything." Igrat saw the danger as well. "If they did, I'd call you two in."
"Friends help you move, real friends help you move a body." Angel quipped. She was flattered at the professional compliment although the implication that Igrat saw her as a genuine and trusted friend went over her head. "Do you have a rival around here?"
Igrat shook her head. "The Badger Inn over in Toot Baldon was good but we've had word that it's heading downhill now. A lot of people from Toot Baldon have started coming over here to eat. That's not surprising, people are coming in from all over the county."
"All right, Iggie, I can't help it. How does a village get a name like Toot?" Achillea was having a job not laughing.
"Toot means lookout. So, Toot Baldon means the lookout for Baldon. It's on top of a hill you see. Marsh Baldon used to be March Baldon where March meant 'the border of'. I believe back in the day, the border between Mercia and Wessex ran through here."
Angel wasn't listening. Instead she was staring at the ceiling, lost in thought. Igrat reflected that she looked oddly like The Seer when he was contemplating a particularly knotty strategic problem.
Eventually, she looked around. "I think somebody was sending us a message."
Re: 2003 - The Melancholia of Percy the Pig
Chapter Five
Marsh Baldon Exhibit, Oxfordshire Tourist Exhibition, The King's Center, Oxford. 9:30am.
"Good morning ladies." Atkinson looked around. "Only three of you today?"
"Isabel took to her bed with conniptions and vapors. She's not used to the more violent parts of life." Igrat sounded sympathetic. Atkinson didn’t know about her, but guessed that Achillea was very familiar with the more violent parts of life and Angel had been responsible for quite a few of them over the years. He knew a professional criminal when he met one and the fact that the Chinese woman seemed quite benign now didn’t mean she would remain that way.
"I see. Have any of you remembered anything else overnight that might help us with our inquiries?"
Which you will then compare with our statements yesterday for discrepancies. "Inspector, I have a suggestion. You know damned well that none of us were involved in the killing. If I was, you'd never have found the body. Why don't we stop wasting time on playing games?" Angel gave him a stony-eyed glare that would have done credit to Medusa.
Atkinson coughed and cleared his throat. It was a point he had to concede, mush as he would like not to. "Well, we have the pathologist's report in. Confirms cause of death was that he drowned in a mixture of toilet water and his own blood. His throat was cut when his face was already under water. The knife used was extremely sharp."
"Try a straight-edged razor." Achillea knew knives and their characteristics. Also, just a few months earlier, she and Angel had more than a passing acquaintanceship with people wielding straight-edged razors.
"That would be compatible with the pathology report, yes. Are you suggesting somebody came down from Glasgow?"
"It's possible. There's a lot of gangsters who got run out of town when the police restored order up there. They are probably looking for a home somewhere." When Achillea had been discussing the aftermath of the Glasgow affair with Sir Humphrey and Chris Keeble, she had stressed the importance of watching out for 'refugee gangsters' leaving the city and trying to re-establish their 'culture' elsewhere.
Angel hadn't actually thought of that but she didn’t find the idea convincing. "And they'll want to avoid anywhere with a significant Chinese community. I'd look at a home-grown mob though. Some round-eyes who think that the city is up for grabs and that they're the ones who can exploit it. I believe the crime rate in Oxford is rising? Or, at least the crime rate you find out about is growing."
"I don't like the suggestion that we don’t know what is going on in our patch." Atkinson bristled.
"Take my word for it, you don’t." Atkinson's irritation passed completely over Angel's head. It only registered with her as how he was behaving and how he was likely to behave, not as an emotional state. "You won't until the situation gets to the point where it can't be covered up any more. A lot of minor crime simply isn't reported to you because the victims don't think it's worth the effort. Or the risk. Those minor issues set the stage for more serious ones. If you want to get on top of this, you have to show that you will follow up on minor complaints."
"We don't have the manpower." Angel said nothing but raised an eyebrow and started ostentatiously counting the police officers in the exhibition hall. Atkinson flushed as the point went home.
"What else do we know, Inspector?" Igrat stepped in to rescue Atkinson from the hole he had dug for himself.
"We think there were two killers, one who held his head down, the other cut his throat. They used the disabled-access toilet, probably because it had enough room for the mechanics of the killing. We would guess that they followed Mr. Portman into the toilet, forced him into the stall and killed him. Then they left the body there. That was a message, we're sure of that. But you're ahead of us on that, aren't you." Atkinson sounded bitter; Angel's comments still rankled with him, not least because he knew she was probably right.
"As of last night, yes." Angel was her usual insensitive self. Igrat and Achillea understood that it wasn't deliberate, it was simply Angel being Angel. "The big question is, what message? Usually, the alternatives are 'this is what happens when you do something you shouldn't' or 'this is what happens when you don't do something you should.' My bet is on the latter. As in refusing to pay protection money or welshing on a debt."
"Inspector . . . " Igrat started.
"David. Or Dave." Atkinson was quickly coming to the conclusion that he would rather have these people on his side than working against him.
Igrat beamed at him. "David then. Dave makes you sound like a mediocre jetfighter."
"Actually it was a Japanese Navy dive-bomber." Atkinson smiled apologetically. "I'm a bit of an aircraft nut."
"We're Americans. Worshipping the big bombers is almost a national religion." Igrat gave him a friendly grin. "Look, why don't we cooperate on this? You must have realized that Angel can go places and ask questions you can't. And get answers you won't. Your case, your bust, we just help out. None of us want this sort of thing to get around and you certainly don’t want street gangs starting to appear in Oxford. ."
"No, we don't want any kind of gangs here. All right, we have a deal. Peace?"
"Peace."
Shanghai Dragon Restaurant, High Street, Oxford.
"Welcome to our business, honored elder sister. We were about to have tea if you would do us the honor of joining us? And perhaps a little rice?"
George Tao looked hopefully at his guest. The woman was wearing a black silk pantsuit with a bright red shirt under the jacket. The careful, tactful, allusion to traditional Triad colors did not go unnoted. The woman's hair was blood red while her eyes were cold and remorseless. Tao guessed she was an enforcer of some kind.
"Some tea would be most welcome. And it is noon, so it would be an honor for me to take rice with you." Angel spoke quietly and put as much friendliness into her voice as she could. She smiled her thanks as she was ushered to a seat. A fresh pot of tea and a tray of small cups quickly appeared. A minute or two later, small bowls of rice appeared, each with a large shrimp carefully placed on top. She exchanged friendly pleasantries for a few minutes while drinking her tea and eating her bowl of rice. Social niceties completed,, it was time for business to start.
"The Hung Family would be most grateful for some assistance from your knowledge of this area." She watched Tao sit up and take notice. The way the opening was phrased told him that his visitor was speaking for the 14K Triad movement as a whole, not for one house within that group. As Angel spoke, her finger traced a Chinese ideogram on the table. It was 432 the I-Ching designation for Straw Sandal.
Tao made as deep a bow as he could while sitting down. "My establishment is honored by your presence, Eldest Sister."
In reality he was deeply relieved. He had feared his business was about to be shaken down for protection money but that would have been the responsibility of somebody much lower down in the organization. Anyway, he had heard that the Triads no longer bothered with collecting traditional protection money. Instead, they invited businesses to take out insurance against risks no other insurance company would cover. ‘Insurance with a hard edge’, one of his friends described it. Either way, a visit from a Straw Sandal meant that this was much more important than a petty demand for money. This really was the upper ranks of the 14K Triad asking for assistance.
"Your name has been mentioned as an influential member of the community, respected and admired by all. Your advice on the situation here would be of great value to us." Angel smiled politely. 'The community' of course, meant the Chinese community, not the round-eyes who were of no concern to civilized people, and the phraseology confirmed that she really was asking for help and advice in dealing with a problem.
Tao was not a member of the Triads nor were any members of his family but he knew that assisting a House would mean a mark of favor would be placed against his name and a debt would be owed to him. A debt owed by the 14K Triad would be the sort of asset that could be handed down from generation to generation until it was finally redeemed. "Any assistance my humble business can provide to the Hung Family would honor us. What do you need to know?"
"Do you have any problems here with round-eye criminals?" Angel used the standard Chinese description of non-Chinese without any sense of irony despite the fact she was half-Italian. The fact she wasn't really Chinese had been made clear to her when she was still a young child. It was fortunate for those who had done so that carrying grudges was largely precluded by her mental condition. "Do they cause trouble and then demand protection? Or try to force their way into your businesses?"
Tao shook his head. "We have not experienced such things. A few times we have had problems with people getting drunk and becoming troublesome or being unable to pay their bill. But no more than any other restaurant I think."
Angel questioned him gently about the incidents, drawing for her experience with Conrad but sadly aware she had nowhere near his ability to draw information out of him. The truth was, she missed his presence in many ways more than just his investigative ability. Nevertheless, it was becoming apparent to her that Oxford was as free of street gangsters as any medium-sized city could be. There was no organized crime presence that she could find, not in the Chinese community at any rate. That did not, of course, mean that the round-eye community was equally free of criminal presence. It might also mean that any round-eye presence was astute enough not to mess with the Chinese. The fate of the Glasgow gangs who had trespassed upon Chinatown and viciously oppressed its people had been well publicized. In the Chinese community at least, the Triad gunslingers who had cleared them out were fast becoming folk-heroes.
Eventually, Angel left, having provided George Tao with a business card with a number to call if he needed assistance and assurances that he was held in high standing by her movement. Which was true; he had assisted her and now he had a marker he could call in when needed. If he was wise, it would not be something he called in lightly or for trivial ends.
The Lounge Bar, The Inn on the Green, Marsh Baldon, Oxfordshire
"The show is still closed then?" Stanley Wilkinson looked sad; the whole village had taken pride in their participation in the exhibition. It had put an official seal of approval on their stewardship of the Inn on the Green.
"It is, Stan, I'm afraid. The forensic people are still collecting evidence." Igrat had come back to the village to find out some more about the victim's background. She'd dropped into the Inn for some lunch and in the hopes she might meet some of the locals who knew Portman. She'd really got lucky; Chef Murray was experimenting with a new hamburger variant and had turned out a recipe that took a staid pub classic into new realms of perfection. It would be on the menu within a week. And, just to make this a business lunch, she had found Wilkinson in the bar, supping his lunchtime pint. He was renowned as the custodian of local lore and was just the person she needed.
"Poor Percy. He never had much luck in his life." Wilkinson looked very sad. Partly because he had finished his hamburger, partly from memories of Portman.
"You knew him well then?" Igrat savored freshly-made thick-cut French fries seasoned with garlic and truffle oil.
"Aye, back in the days when he was a happy man. We knew each other when we were in the Army together but went our separate ways when our enlistment was up. Then, a few years later we found we had both moved in here about the same time. He had a wife and young daughter then. He had inherited money from his family and used it to buy the Badger Inn. Back then, this place didn't have much in the way of good food and he made the Badger the local place to eat. Wasn't much of a cook himself but Judith, that was his wife, was a real expert. Nice lady she was. Real shame."
Igrat waved to the barmaid for another beer for Wilkinson and some red wine for herself. "What happened?"
"Well, I said that poor old Percy never had much luck. Back in the Army, if somebody had a negligent discharge, it would sound like Percy did it. If somebody dropped a piece of paper on the parade ground, that would have Percy's name on it. If somebody left a cigarette butt where it shouldn't be, Percy would be standing next to it when it was spotted. I thought it had changed for him when I met Judith and Penny, that was his daughter see. And the Badger was doing well. All looked pretty good for him it did."
"And it all went wrong?"
"It did. One day, in summer it was, Penny was playing in the garden. She had one of those little children's tricycles, you know the ones with pedals on the front wheel? Well, there was a gate by the side of the Badger with a slope leading down to it. The gate was supposed to be locked but . . . . well, it wasn't. Penny went sailing down the slope, through the gate, just as a delivery truck came around the corner. Driver never had a chance to stop. Well below the speed limit he was but the wheels went right over her legs. Poor little thing. Crushed she was and bleeding out but still screaming. Judith ran out just in time to see her go. No parent should ever see a thing like that."
Wilkinson took a gulp of beer and wiped his eyes. "Percy and Judith took it real bad. Each blamed the other for leaving that gate open. Judith took to the bottle in a big way, started drinking the profits. Percy just went strange. Hard to explain why or how but it was as if somebody let all the air out of him. Soon the pub had a sour air about it that drove people away. About then, we reopened the Inn here and all the people started coming down to us instead. They’d rather walk or drive a mile or so than listed to Percy and Judith bickering. About two year ago, Judith had a real drinking bender. When she woke up after blacking out, she took Percy's shotgun, put the muzzles under her chin and gave herself both barrels"
"That's awful. And Percy found her like that?" Igrat was well-able to envisage the destruction that the shotgun had caused.
"He did. And he blamed himself for that as well. He went really strange then. Sometimes he would just start crying in the bar. Other times he would clown around but in a foolish way, do things that he thought were funny but nobody else did. He started talking to Judith and Penny as if they were there with him in the bar. Soon, everybody kept away from him and that doesn’t do a pub no good at all. Rumor was that the Badger was going down. Odd thing was, Percy seemed to be cheering up a bit lately but I reckon the damage was done by then. Well, sorry to sadden your lunch, Irene."
"You've been very helpful Stan. You've no objection if I remind the police of all that?"
"Nay, lass. If it helps any, although they must know the outlines."
"One other thing. Did Mr. Portman," Igrat stopped herself from calling him Percy the Pig and now bitterly regretted coining that name for him, "did he have any enemies."
Wilkinson shook his head slowly. "Everybody over in Toot felt sorry for him. Not much, not enough to keep his pub afloat, but enough to give him the benefit you know? I think it would have been better for him if he had moved away from the village, tried to start again somewhere else. If he’d done that right away, he’d have got a good price for the Badger, much more than we paid for our Inn, but as the trade dried up, he would have got less and less. By the end, he’d have had a job giving the place away. You don’t think he did himself do you? Saw our display, realized it was all over for him at the Badger and did away with himself?”
Igrat shook her head. “I don’t think so. The police aren’t saying much but the number of officers there today suggest they don’t look on this as an accident or something foolish. They’ve even brought some of the pathology students in from the University as a field course.”
Wilkinson sounded relieved. Ever since he had heard of Portman's death, he had been haunted by the fear that all the hard work the village had put into promoting the Inn had pushed him over the edge. “Cristi in there with them, Irene? If they have any sense she is. Sharp as a tack that one.”
“We saw her this morning; all dressed up in the plastic suits they have to wear to avoid contaminating the evidence.” Igrat was pleased to hear Watkinson’s approval of Cristi although in her own opinion, Cristi was still too deferential to authority. On the other hand, Igrat regarded any deference to authority as too much. “She won’t tell us anything though.”
“How do you find the hamburgers?” Chef Murray came out of his kitchen with a big smile on his face. Plates from the diners were coming back clean and polished with never a trace of leftovers. In his eyes, there was no higher compliment.
“As an American, I’m going to commit high treason, a crime specifically condemned in the Constitution by the way, and say they’re better than anything I’ve ever had in the States. Can I ask how you did it?”
“Garlic butter on the buns before toasting them, use top-rate beef and everything made fresh in small batches. Even the tomato sauce. Plus a few secrets of course.” Chef Murray smiled contentedly; a true chef, there was nothing he liked more than feeding an appreciative clientele.
“Chef, what went wrong with the food at the Badger?” Igrat wanted to round off the picture of Portman’s collapse.
“Nobody cared, Irene. They started by using frozen chips, then bought frozen food and just warmed it up. They just took short cut after short cut and each one saw the quality go down. The secret of good cooking is in the details. For example, the sweet onion in your hamburger was sliced just a few seconds before the sandwich was assembled so all the flavor went into the blend. We never put sliced onions out then leave them to go dry. The buns here are fresh-baked every day. I sent a minion over there one day and he reported the bun was untoasted and stale. They never took any real attention to detail over at the Badger; they just didn’t care anymore. And nobody was managing the kitchen to make them care.”
Marsh Baldon Exhibit, Oxfordshire Tourist Exhibition, The King's Center, Oxford. 9:30am.
"Good morning ladies." Atkinson looked around. "Only three of you today?"
"Isabel took to her bed with conniptions and vapors. She's not used to the more violent parts of life." Igrat sounded sympathetic. Atkinson didn’t know about her, but guessed that Achillea was very familiar with the more violent parts of life and Angel had been responsible for quite a few of them over the years. He knew a professional criminal when he met one and the fact that the Chinese woman seemed quite benign now didn’t mean she would remain that way.
"I see. Have any of you remembered anything else overnight that might help us with our inquiries?"
Which you will then compare with our statements yesterday for discrepancies. "Inspector, I have a suggestion. You know damned well that none of us were involved in the killing. If I was, you'd never have found the body. Why don't we stop wasting time on playing games?" Angel gave him a stony-eyed glare that would have done credit to Medusa.
Atkinson coughed and cleared his throat. It was a point he had to concede, mush as he would like not to. "Well, we have the pathologist's report in. Confirms cause of death was that he drowned in a mixture of toilet water and his own blood. His throat was cut when his face was already under water. The knife used was extremely sharp."
"Try a straight-edged razor." Achillea knew knives and their characteristics. Also, just a few months earlier, she and Angel had more than a passing acquaintanceship with people wielding straight-edged razors.
"That would be compatible with the pathology report, yes. Are you suggesting somebody came down from Glasgow?"
"It's possible. There's a lot of gangsters who got run out of town when the police restored order up there. They are probably looking for a home somewhere." When Achillea had been discussing the aftermath of the Glasgow affair with Sir Humphrey and Chris Keeble, she had stressed the importance of watching out for 'refugee gangsters' leaving the city and trying to re-establish their 'culture' elsewhere.
Angel hadn't actually thought of that but she didn’t find the idea convincing. "And they'll want to avoid anywhere with a significant Chinese community. I'd look at a home-grown mob though. Some round-eyes who think that the city is up for grabs and that they're the ones who can exploit it. I believe the crime rate in Oxford is rising? Or, at least the crime rate you find out about is growing."
"I don't like the suggestion that we don’t know what is going on in our patch." Atkinson bristled.
"Take my word for it, you don’t." Atkinson's irritation passed completely over Angel's head. It only registered with her as how he was behaving and how he was likely to behave, not as an emotional state. "You won't until the situation gets to the point where it can't be covered up any more. A lot of minor crime simply isn't reported to you because the victims don't think it's worth the effort. Or the risk. Those minor issues set the stage for more serious ones. If you want to get on top of this, you have to show that you will follow up on minor complaints."
"We don't have the manpower." Angel said nothing but raised an eyebrow and started ostentatiously counting the police officers in the exhibition hall. Atkinson flushed as the point went home.
"What else do we know, Inspector?" Igrat stepped in to rescue Atkinson from the hole he had dug for himself.
"We think there were two killers, one who held his head down, the other cut his throat. They used the disabled-access toilet, probably because it had enough room for the mechanics of the killing. We would guess that they followed Mr. Portman into the toilet, forced him into the stall and killed him. Then they left the body there. That was a message, we're sure of that. But you're ahead of us on that, aren't you." Atkinson sounded bitter; Angel's comments still rankled with him, not least because he knew she was probably right.
"As of last night, yes." Angel was her usual insensitive self. Igrat and Achillea understood that it wasn't deliberate, it was simply Angel being Angel. "The big question is, what message? Usually, the alternatives are 'this is what happens when you do something you shouldn't' or 'this is what happens when you don't do something you should.' My bet is on the latter. As in refusing to pay protection money or welshing on a debt."
"Inspector . . . " Igrat started.
"David. Or Dave." Atkinson was quickly coming to the conclusion that he would rather have these people on his side than working against him.
Igrat beamed at him. "David then. Dave makes you sound like a mediocre jetfighter."
"Actually it was a Japanese Navy dive-bomber." Atkinson smiled apologetically. "I'm a bit of an aircraft nut."
"We're Americans. Worshipping the big bombers is almost a national religion." Igrat gave him a friendly grin. "Look, why don't we cooperate on this? You must have realized that Angel can go places and ask questions you can't. And get answers you won't. Your case, your bust, we just help out. None of us want this sort of thing to get around and you certainly don’t want street gangs starting to appear in Oxford. ."
"No, we don't want any kind of gangs here. All right, we have a deal. Peace?"
"Peace."
Shanghai Dragon Restaurant, High Street, Oxford.
"Welcome to our business, honored elder sister. We were about to have tea if you would do us the honor of joining us? And perhaps a little rice?"
George Tao looked hopefully at his guest. The woman was wearing a black silk pantsuit with a bright red shirt under the jacket. The careful, tactful, allusion to traditional Triad colors did not go unnoted. The woman's hair was blood red while her eyes were cold and remorseless. Tao guessed she was an enforcer of some kind.
"Some tea would be most welcome. And it is noon, so it would be an honor for me to take rice with you." Angel spoke quietly and put as much friendliness into her voice as she could. She smiled her thanks as she was ushered to a seat. A fresh pot of tea and a tray of small cups quickly appeared. A minute or two later, small bowls of rice appeared, each with a large shrimp carefully placed on top. She exchanged friendly pleasantries for a few minutes while drinking her tea and eating her bowl of rice. Social niceties completed,, it was time for business to start.
"The Hung Family would be most grateful for some assistance from your knowledge of this area." She watched Tao sit up and take notice. The way the opening was phrased told him that his visitor was speaking for the 14K Triad movement as a whole, not for one house within that group. As Angel spoke, her finger traced a Chinese ideogram on the table. It was 432 the I-Ching designation for Straw Sandal.
Tao made as deep a bow as he could while sitting down. "My establishment is honored by your presence, Eldest Sister."
In reality he was deeply relieved. He had feared his business was about to be shaken down for protection money but that would have been the responsibility of somebody much lower down in the organization. Anyway, he had heard that the Triads no longer bothered with collecting traditional protection money. Instead, they invited businesses to take out insurance against risks no other insurance company would cover. ‘Insurance with a hard edge’, one of his friends described it. Either way, a visit from a Straw Sandal meant that this was much more important than a petty demand for money. This really was the upper ranks of the 14K Triad asking for assistance.
"Your name has been mentioned as an influential member of the community, respected and admired by all. Your advice on the situation here would be of great value to us." Angel smiled politely. 'The community' of course, meant the Chinese community, not the round-eyes who were of no concern to civilized people, and the phraseology confirmed that she really was asking for help and advice in dealing with a problem.
Tao was not a member of the Triads nor were any members of his family but he knew that assisting a House would mean a mark of favor would be placed against his name and a debt would be owed to him. A debt owed by the 14K Triad would be the sort of asset that could be handed down from generation to generation until it was finally redeemed. "Any assistance my humble business can provide to the Hung Family would honor us. What do you need to know?"
"Do you have any problems here with round-eye criminals?" Angel used the standard Chinese description of non-Chinese without any sense of irony despite the fact she was half-Italian. The fact she wasn't really Chinese had been made clear to her when she was still a young child. It was fortunate for those who had done so that carrying grudges was largely precluded by her mental condition. "Do they cause trouble and then demand protection? Or try to force their way into your businesses?"
Tao shook his head. "We have not experienced such things. A few times we have had problems with people getting drunk and becoming troublesome or being unable to pay their bill. But no more than any other restaurant I think."
Angel questioned him gently about the incidents, drawing for her experience with Conrad but sadly aware she had nowhere near his ability to draw information out of him. The truth was, she missed his presence in many ways more than just his investigative ability. Nevertheless, it was becoming apparent to her that Oxford was as free of street gangsters as any medium-sized city could be. There was no organized crime presence that she could find, not in the Chinese community at any rate. That did not, of course, mean that the round-eye community was equally free of criminal presence. It might also mean that any round-eye presence was astute enough not to mess with the Chinese. The fate of the Glasgow gangs who had trespassed upon Chinatown and viciously oppressed its people had been well publicized. In the Chinese community at least, the Triad gunslingers who had cleared them out were fast becoming folk-heroes.
Eventually, Angel left, having provided George Tao with a business card with a number to call if he needed assistance and assurances that he was held in high standing by her movement. Which was true; he had assisted her and now he had a marker he could call in when needed. If he was wise, it would not be something he called in lightly or for trivial ends.
The Lounge Bar, The Inn on the Green, Marsh Baldon, Oxfordshire
"The show is still closed then?" Stanley Wilkinson looked sad; the whole village had taken pride in their participation in the exhibition. It had put an official seal of approval on their stewardship of the Inn on the Green.
"It is, Stan, I'm afraid. The forensic people are still collecting evidence." Igrat had come back to the village to find out some more about the victim's background. She'd dropped into the Inn for some lunch and in the hopes she might meet some of the locals who knew Portman. She'd really got lucky; Chef Murray was experimenting with a new hamburger variant and had turned out a recipe that took a staid pub classic into new realms of perfection. It would be on the menu within a week. And, just to make this a business lunch, she had found Wilkinson in the bar, supping his lunchtime pint. He was renowned as the custodian of local lore and was just the person she needed.
"Poor Percy. He never had much luck in his life." Wilkinson looked very sad. Partly because he had finished his hamburger, partly from memories of Portman.
"You knew him well then?" Igrat savored freshly-made thick-cut French fries seasoned with garlic and truffle oil.
"Aye, back in the days when he was a happy man. We knew each other when we were in the Army together but went our separate ways when our enlistment was up. Then, a few years later we found we had both moved in here about the same time. He had a wife and young daughter then. He had inherited money from his family and used it to buy the Badger Inn. Back then, this place didn't have much in the way of good food and he made the Badger the local place to eat. Wasn't much of a cook himself but Judith, that was his wife, was a real expert. Nice lady she was. Real shame."
Igrat waved to the barmaid for another beer for Wilkinson and some red wine for herself. "What happened?"
"Well, I said that poor old Percy never had much luck. Back in the Army, if somebody had a negligent discharge, it would sound like Percy did it. If somebody dropped a piece of paper on the parade ground, that would have Percy's name on it. If somebody left a cigarette butt where it shouldn't be, Percy would be standing next to it when it was spotted. I thought it had changed for him when I met Judith and Penny, that was his daughter see. And the Badger was doing well. All looked pretty good for him it did."
"And it all went wrong?"
"It did. One day, in summer it was, Penny was playing in the garden. She had one of those little children's tricycles, you know the ones with pedals on the front wheel? Well, there was a gate by the side of the Badger with a slope leading down to it. The gate was supposed to be locked but . . . . well, it wasn't. Penny went sailing down the slope, through the gate, just as a delivery truck came around the corner. Driver never had a chance to stop. Well below the speed limit he was but the wheels went right over her legs. Poor little thing. Crushed she was and bleeding out but still screaming. Judith ran out just in time to see her go. No parent should ever see a thing like that."
Wilkinson took a gulp of beer and wiped his eyes. "Percy and Judith took it real bad. Each blamed the other for leaving that gate open. Judith took to the bottle in a big way, started drinking the profits. Percy just went strange. Hard to explain why or how but it was as if somebody let all the air out of him. Soon the pub had a sour air about it that drove people away. About then, we reopened the Inn here and all the people started coming down to us instead. They’d rather walk or drive a mile or so than listed to Percy and Judith bickering. About two year ago, Judith had a real drinking bender. When she woke up after blacking out, she took Percy's shotgun, put the muzzles under her chin and gave herself both barrels"
"That's awful. And Percy found her like that?" Igrat was well-able to envisage the destruction that the shotgun had caused.
"He did. And he blamed himself for that as well. He went really strange then. Sometimes he would just start crying in the bar. Other times he would clown around but in a foolish way, do things that he thought were funny but nobody else did. He started talking to Judith and Penny as if they were there with him in the bar. Soon, everybody kept away from him and that doesn’t do a pub no good at all. Rumor was that the Badger was going down. Odd thing was, Percy seemed to be cheering up a bit lately but I reckon the damage was done by then. Well, sorry to sadden your lunch, Irene."
"You've been very helpful Stan. You've no objection if I remind the police of all that?"
"Nay, lass. If it helps any, although they must know the outlines."
"One other thing. Did Mr. Portman," Igrat stopped herself from calling him Percy the Pig and now bitterly regretted coining that name for him, "did he have any enemies."
Wilkinson shook his head slowly. "Everybody over in Toot felt sorry for him. Not much, not enough to keep his pub afloat, but enough to give him the benefit you know? I think it would have been better for him if he had moved away from the village, tried to start again somewhere else. If he’d done that right away, he’d have got a good price for the Badger, much more than we paid for our Inn, but as the trade dried up, he would have got less and less. By the end, he’d have had a job giving the place away. You don’t think he did himself do you? Saw our display, realized it was all over for him at the Badger and did away with himself?”
Igrat shook her head. “I don’t think so. The police aren’t saying much but the number of officers there today suggest they don’t look on this as an accident or something foolish. They’ve even brought some of the pathology students in from the University as a field course.”
Wilkinson sounded relieved. Ever since he had heard of Portman's death, he had been haunted by the fear that all the hard work the village had put into promoting the Inn had pushed him over the edge. “Cristi in there with them, Irene? If they have any sense she is. Sharp as a tack that one.”
“We saw her this morning; all dressed up in the plastic suits they have to wear to avoid contaminating the evidence.” Igrat was pleased to hear Watkinson’s approval of Cristi although in her own opinion, Cristi was still too deferential to authority. On the other hand, Igrat regarded any deference to authority as too much. “She won’t tell us anything though.”
“How do you find the hamburgers?” Chef Murray came out of his kitchen with a big smile on his face. Plates from the diners were coming back clean and polished with never a trace of leftovers. In his eyes, there was no higher compliment.
“As an American, I’m going to commit high treason, a crime specifically condemned in the Constitution by the way, and say they’re better than anything I’ve ever had in the States. Can I ask how you did it?”
“Garlic butter on the buns before toasting them, use top-rate beef and everything made fresh in small batches. Even the tomato sauce. Plus a few secrets of course.” Chef Murray smiled contentedly; a true chef, there was nothing he liked more than feeding an appreciative clientele.
“Chef, what went wrong with the food at the Badger?” Igrat wanted to round off the picture of Portman’s collapse.
“Nobody cared, Irene. They started by using frozen chips, then bought frozen food and just warmed it up. They just took short cut after short cut and each one saw the quality go down. The secret of good cooking is in the details. For example, the sweet onion in your hamburger was sliced just a few seconds before the sandwich was assembled so all the flavor went into the blend. We never put sliced onions out then leave them to go dry. The buns here are fresh-baked every day. I sent a minion over there one day and he reported the bun was untoasted and stale. They never took any real attention to detail over at the Badger; they just didn’t care anymore. And nobody was managing the kitchen to make them care.”
Re: 2003 - The Melancholia of Percy the Pig
Chapter Six
The Snug, The Inn on the Green, Marsh Baldon, Oxfordshire
"It was a Dora-12." Inspector Atkinson hadn't been invited into the Snug at the Inn on the Green before. Few pubs still had one; usually they had been absorbed into the lounge bar in the name of generating greater cashflow. After much discussion, the directors had voted to keep the Snug as a venue for club meetings and other local business. It had proved a popular decision.
"A what?" Angel had no idea what Atkinson was speaking about.
"A Focke-Wulf 190D-12. One of several shot down in this general area. The enthusiasts know about your Dora-12 but there's rumors of a 262 and a Spitfire still somewhere around here. Towards the end of the war, Abingdon was being used as a base for Me-262 and He-162 jet fighters. That’s why the runways got lengthened. The American Corsairs used to ambush them as they were taking off and landing so the Germans used Dora-12s as top cover. There were a lot of low altitude dogfights all over this area as a result. After the war was over, the wrecks were checked for unexpended ammunition and generally made safe. Later, the wreckage itself was cleared, in most cases. Priority went to ones that were near populated areas. The American Navy came and removed the wreckage of the Corsairs and Skyraiders that were lost. But, they didn't bother with the German aircraft and money was desperately short so our government eventually just gave up.
“There’s an odd story about that particular Dora-12 though.” Atkinson looked a little awkward, knowing that he was digging up old memories that were better forgotten. “That one was ambushed by a Corsair and shot up. The pilot pancaked the aircraft and tried to get out but the Corsair strafed him on the ground and killed him. That happened a lot, the U.S. Navy pilots believed that if they let the man live, he’d simply get into another aircraft and fly again. They all knew that the Germans killed bailed-out Russian and American pilots as a matter of routine so they were just returning the compliment. The Germans didn’t see it that way of course. Anyway, a few minutes later, that Corsair was shot down but the pilot got out and the Resistance got him into hiding.
“Well, normally it would have ended there but a collaborator informed on them. The Resistance had him over in Brookhampton when the Germans kicked the doors in, arrested him and two resistance men. They hanged the latter on the spot, then when they realized who the Navy pilot was, they hanged him as well. Piano wire job. Then ordered that the wreck of the Dora be kept as a memorial to the ‘murdered pilot’. After the war, the Resistance, who ran things around here for quite a time, changed it to the aircraft being a memorial to the murdered resistance people and the Navy pilot. That’s why it’s still there. Money had run out by the time the Government got to it.”
"How can anybody not find something in a country this small?" Angel had an American concept of distance still and found the mile from one village to the next trivial.
"An Me-262 would go into the ground at six hundred miles per hour. The wreckage could be ten or twenty feet underground."
“Who was the informer and what happened to him?” Achillea asked the question carefully. It was still a sore subject in many areas.
“We don’t know. We’re the police, we were all collaborators back then, remember? Nobody told us anything. Anyway, five miles isn't far now but it was a different world back then.” Atkinson took a long swallow from his beer, his flash of bitterness faded and he sighed happily. "From a micro-brewery?"
"That's right. We're a free house so we can stock what we like. We have the big brewery stock as well but the best sellers are all from the micros." Igrat smiled; the profit margin was much higher on the craft beers. Gods' I'm beginning to think like Lillith. "Now, down to business. Time to pool information. I'll start."
Igrat recounted the information she had learned about Percy Portman at lunchtime. Eventually, she reached the end of the story. "I spoke to somebody I know and he said it sounded like Portman went down with severe clinical depression. In fact, given the symptoms Stan told me about, disturbing false fixed delusions and hearing or seeing upsetting hallucinations, border on psychotic depression. In the old days, before people understood things like this, it was called melancholia and was associated with delusions of guilt, poverty, or illness. The victim would literally think themselves into sickness and poverty. They might be quite well-off yet believe they were on the verge of destitution.
"We found out about the deaths of his wife and daughter doing the background checks. The real tragedy was that we think the postman didn't latch the gate properly when he left after the delivery and it swung open. Mr. and Mrs. Portman had nothing to blame themselves about. There were some whispers that Mrs. Portman hadn't killed herself but they were just that. Whispers only, and our investigator discredited them pretty quickly. Official finding was suicide while the balance of her mind was disturbed." Atkinson shook his head sadly. "Melancholia, that's such an expressive name. You're not suggesting he offed himself are you?"
Igrat shook her head. "That's the second time the idea has come up today. I don't think so somehow."
"Geometrically, it's possible." Achillea thought about it carefully. "And it would solve the congestion problem. Although, I can't think of a suicide being likely to cut his own throat, hide the knife and then put his head down a toilet."
"That's what the pathologist said." Atkinson noted that Achillea had the same sense of gallows humor as a police officer. "We haven't found the weapon yet but a razor is the most likely candidate."
"There's another candidate. A thin, sharp wire used as a garrote. Get a wire around somebody's neck and your knee in their back and they're dead. Nothing anybody can do. Leaves a cut just like a knife." Angel looked around. "It's possible to take somebody's head off that way. That's why only dumbasses sit with their back to a door."
Achillea and Igrat nodded in agreement. It occurred to Atkinson that he was the only one in the group who was sitting with his back to the door. He shifted his seat so that he was at an angle to the entrance to the Snug and got satisfied nods from his companions. "All right, our progress report. We're assembling eye witness accounts from everybody and we have detectives going through them, cross-referencing the details. As we do, we're eliminating people from consideration. Angel, you were the easiest. Everybody remembers the Chinese woman with red hair eating pizza like an American and we know you were nowhere near that restroom. Nor were any of you. Most of the rest of the attendees are cleared as well."
"Anybody we know not cleared?" Igrat asked
"Basically, the visitors to the stands in your area, plus those who were using the toilet. So you may well have spoken to the killers." Atkinson said that as if he was expecting them to be shocked by the idea.
Angel shrugged. The truth was that almost everybody she spoke to fell into that category. One way or another. "I checked into organized crime in this area for you. You'll be happy to know that, in the Chinese community at least, there isn’t any. That doesn't mean there aren't any Chinese criminals but there isn't an organized crime presence. In fact there's no Triad or Tong membership at all up here."
Angel hesitated slightly. What she had said wasn't quite true; there were two Triad members living in Oxford but neither took part in any criminal activity. They were classic Blue Lanterns, law-abiding people who had joined the Triad movement simply for its social and business advantages. "Can't speak for the non-Chinese community though."
"I nosed around a little." Achillea picked up the thread. "You do have some street gangs forming but they are seriously petty criminals with delusions of grandeur. Even calling them criminals is pushing the envelope; their driving factor seems to be jealousy of the university students. Their idea of a big score is stealing some poor kid's bike and their definition of being a hard man is pedaling away on it. Drop on them now, and they'll never get to be any more than that."
"I'd say you've done a pretty good job of policing here." Angel's dispassionate voice sounded at odds with the praise. "The local population support you, more or less, and that makes moving organized crime in much harder."
"I'd agree with that." Achillea pursed her lips slightly. "Your only real problem is around the Crowley automobile plant. I've heard there's a lot of thieving from the factories by the workforce."
"That's not where they made mine is it?" Igrat sounded alarmed.
"What do you drive, Irene?"
"Aston Martin Vanquish Zagato."
"Wow. That's slick, can I cadge a ride sometime? Aston-Martins are made over in Gaydon so you're OK." Atkinson enthusiasm at the possibility of riding in an exotic and expensive vehicle was replaced by a pensive look. He wasn't quite certain how to take a compliment from a career criminal on the quality of his force's policing. "So, we can rule out organized crime? So what the hell did happen here?"
"Beats us. None of the standard motivations for a killing like this seem to apply." Igrat had somehow assumed the aura of the leader of the group, or at least the chairwoman of this particular meeting. Probably because she was a part-owner of the pub they were in combined with her own personal magnetism.
"In that case, we need to look more closely at the victim." Atkinson was aware that sounded a bit like blaming the victim but all the other easy routes had been eliminated. "We should start by looking into the Badger a bit more closely."
"If we can get hold of their books, we know the best forensic accountant in the world. We can get them analyzed for you."
Atkinson lifted his beer glass in salute. "Now why did I think you might say that?"
The Badger Inn, Toot Baldon.
Sadness permeated the atmosphere of the Badger Inn. Some of it was inevitable, given the tragedies that had taken place there. More was due to the forlorn appearance of a business that had suddenly closed down. The tables in the restaurant had been laid but the glasses and cutlery were already beginning to collect a fine film of dust. Atkinson noted that some of the plates were chipped and the tablecloths had seen much better days. Behind him, Angel tried the lights and found the power was still on. They all guessed that would change in a few days as the power company realized its bill would not be paid.
"I think the staff realized the place was dead the moment they heard of Mr. Portman's demise and simply didn't bother to turn up." Atkinson had obtained a search warrant from the local magistrate and Igrat had let them in through the back door. The police inspector had been slightly alarmed by the way the door seemed to have sprung open as soon as she looked at it.
"Look at that." Achillea pointed at baskets of bread, already sliced and getting slightly dusty, beneath the serving pass. She tested one of the slices with a fingertip. "Been out for two or three days but still isn't stale. Must be supermarket bread, loaded with preservatives."
Atkinson shook his head. One of the glories of an English pub was a Ploughman's Lunch, crusty, fresh-baked bread served with fine cheese and home-made pickles. To find pre-sliced bread from a supermarket being set out was a slap in the face of a hallowed tradition. Achillea opened one of the refrigerators to reveal packages of pre-processed and pre-cut supermarket meat and cheese. "This isn't right. Even I know that nobody runs a catering business on supermarket supplies."
"There is something else." Igrat pointed at the shelf behind the bar. "No spirits of any consequence but circles in the dust. Somebody has been in here and taken all the valuable drinkables."
"All right, people." Atkinson made a firm decision. "We stop right here. As 'Lea says, there is something seriously wrong in this place. We need to get the forensic people in and collect all the evidence we can find. Iggie, can you get that forensic accountant friend of yours on the line please?"
Inspector Atkinson's Office, Oxford Police Headquarters, Oxford. Three Days Later
"This must rank as the most unusual business plan I have ever seen." Lillith sounded impressed which, in matters financial, was unusual. She was sitting in front of a bookcase that appeared to have copies of every tax code for every country in the world including some that no longer existed. The image on the computer screen wasn't brilliant but, allowing for the fact that Lillith was at the NSC Building in Washington and her audience was in Oxfordshire, it was more than adequate. "It seems to have, at its core, Mr. Portman buying goods at the local stores using his credit card and selling them at a loss. He seems to have believed that he could make up for losing money on every sale by increasing sales volume."
Atkinson laughed, winning a smile from Lillith who appreciated a responsive audience. "So, how is he staying in business, Lillith?"
"I really don't know. I've honestly never seen anything like this before. I've seen badly run businesses of course; I've bankrupted a few of them. I've seen businesses with very poor cost controls, all too many in fact. I've seen businesses that are being deliberately looted by abuse of their credit but I've never seen anything quite like this." Lillith was aware she was repeating herself. The truth was, she was deeply grateful to Achillea and Igrat for bringing the case to her. It wasn't often that she found something new and really bewildering.
"How long has this been going on?" Atkinson asked the computer image. Using the Cyberweb to hold a business conference was new although the NSC had been using the facility for a couple of years. The fact that Igrat had a computer with the necessary equipment was very telling. She had brought it to the police station specifically for this conference and had nearly caused a fight between two veteran sergeants who had wanted to carry the box up the stairs for her.
"At least a year. Possibly two. You know what question that brings up? How come his cards haven't been impounded and chopped into tiny, tiny fragments? Banks take non-payment of credit card debts very seriously. Don't they Angel?" Lillith had put a wealth of meaning into the last few words.
"You had credit card problems, Angel?" Atkinson sounded disbelieving.
Angel shook her head. "Just provided some services to some less than reputable banks now and then. Lillith is right, banks take such things very seriously. How did Percy the Pig keep going?" She didn't notice the reproachful glance Igrat had given her for using the nickname.
"We'd better find out. Lillith, thank you very much for your help on this. We can offer you a consultancy fee if you like?" Atkinson held his breath. His station did have a budget for 'consultants' but it was far from generous.
"Don't worry about it. I'll comail you a full analysis once it's typed up. Just buy me dinner when I'm next in Oxford. Bye." The screen went black as Lillith switched off.
"Comail will put me out of business." Igrat said the words softly but there was real concern in her voice. "So, we need to find out which cards Portman was using and see what the status on them is. Credit check?"
"That'll do it." Atkinson looked around. "Yes Sergeant?"
"Sir, the lab has finished the analysis of witness statements. They say we're lucky it wasn't a very well-attended exhibition and they've narrowed the pool down to about a dozen suspects, all in the area of the toilets about the right time. They're also ones we weren't able to contact for interviews. Here they are, we got pictures of all of them from their security badges."
The sergeant put a pile of photographs on Atkinson's desk. Achillea started rifling through them and picked two out. "I know these two. They were on our stand when Portman was harassing Cristi. They were interested in local hiking and sightseeing routes. They booked one room for two nights. Paid the deposit by credit card."
Igrat picked up the telephone and dialed an outside line. "Hello, Isabel? Yes, the show went pretty well. Those two young men, the ones who booked a single room? Can you look up their names and the card number they booked under? Got it. Thanks Isabel."
"All right, they're identified and they live in Oxford. Isabel's already checked the card and it's real; in fact we've got the money."
"That's a good start. We know their names and the fact they were around Portman before he died. Can we identify the rest?"
"Yes, Sir. We're doing that now."
Another police officer pushed her head around the door. "Sir, I've run the credit check you asked for. These are the cards in Portman's name. All business cards, quoting the Badger Inn as the business address. His credit rating isn't good. Not abysmal but not good. He wouldn't get a mortgage, not a reputable one anyway."
Igrat took the list and scanned it. "Any of these look familiar, Angel?"
Angel also ran her eye down the list. "Nope. But remember, most times I don’t know who hired me. It's done through a cut-out."
"Well, let's find out." Igrat looked up the telephone number of the credit card company on the cyberweb and dialed it. "Hello? Credit services please. This is the Oxford Police here, I'm calling on behalf of Inspector David Atkinson, Badge Number 714. Yes. We're calling about a card held by one Percy Portman, a business card made out to the Badger Inn. Yes, of course. Please ask for Inspector Atkinson at the switchboard."
She hung up and waited. Two minutes late the telephone rang and Atkinson picked it up. "Inspector Atkinson here, yes, my badge number is 714. Yes, my colleague called you. I can't give you any information about the case other than it is serious and criminal charges are involved. I'll pass you to her."
When the call was over, Igrat put the telephone down. "Now that is interesting. It turns out that until about a year ago, Portman was steadily running up charges on his card and making only minimum payments if that. Even that ceased and the bank were about to commence legal recovery proceedings when the balance was suddenly paid off in full. Since then, the balance on the card has been paid in full every month. So far that totals about 20,000 pounds to date."
“Is that strange?” Atkinson was more concerned about the fact that Igrat knew his badge number. He’d never actually shown it to her. Instinctively, he touched the pocket where it was kept and found it was empty. Igrat mouthed a ‘sorry’ and gave it back. “Really? In the middle of a police station?”
“The thing is, the bill isn’t being paid by him, it's coming from a business and the balance is paid by a corporate bank draft. That is really curious."
The Snug, The Inn on the Green, Marsh Baldon, Oxfordshire
"It was a Dora-12." Inspector Atkinson hadn't been invited into the Snug at the Inn on the Green before. Few pubs still had one; usually they had been absorbed into the lounge bar in the name of generating greater cashflow. After much discussion, the directors had voted to keep the Snug as a venue for club meetings and other local business. It had proved a popular decision.
"A what?" Angel had no idea what Atkinson was speaking about.
"A Focke-Wulf 190D-12. One of several shot down in this general area. The enthusiasts know about your Dora-12 but there's rumors of a 262 and a Spitfire still somewhere around here. Towards the end of the war, Abingdon was being used as a base for Me-262 and He-162 jet fighters. That’s why the runways got lengthened. The American Corsairs used to ambush them as they were taking off and landing so the Germans used Dora-12s as top cover. There were a lot of low altitude dogfights all over this area as a result. After the war was over, the wrecks were checked for unexpended ammunition and generally made safe. Later, the wreckage itself was cleared, in most cases. Priority went to ones that were near populated areas. The American Navy came and removed the wreckage of the Corsairs and Skyraiders that were lost. But, they didn't bother with the German aircraft and money was desperately short so our government eventually just gave up.
“There’s an odd story about that particular Dora-12 though.” Atkinson looked a little awkward, knowing that he was digging up old memories that were better forgotten. “That one was ambushed by a Corsair and shot up. The pilot pancaked the aircraft and tried to get out but the Corsair strafed him on the ground and killed him. That happened a lot, the U.S. Navy pilots believed that if they let the man live, he’d simply get into another aircraft and fly again. They all knew that the Germans killed bailed-out Russian and American pilots as a matter of routine so they were just returning the compliment. The Germans didn’t see it that way of course. Anyway, a few minutes later, that Corsair was shot down but the pilot got out and the Resistance got him into hiding.
“Well, normally it would have ended there but a collaborator informed on them. The Resistance had him over in Brookhampton when the Germans kicked the doors in, arrested him and two resistance men. They hanged the latter on the spot, then when they realized who the Navy pilot was, they hanged him as well. Piano wire job. Then ordered that the wreck of the Dora be kept as a memorial to the ‘murdered pilot’. After the war, the Resistance, who ran things around here for quite a time, changed it to the aircraft being a memorial to the murdered resistance people and the Navy pilot. That’s why it’s still there. Money had run out by the time the Government got to it.”
"How can anybody not find something in a country this small?" Angel had an American concept of distance still and found the mile from one village to the next trivial.
"An Me-262 would go into the ground at six hundred miles per hour. The wreckage could be ten or twenty feet underground."
“Who was the informer and what happened to him?” Achillea asked the question carefully. It was still a sore subject in many areas.
“We don’t know. We’re the police, we were all collaborators back then, remember? Nobody told us anything. Anyway, five miles isn't far now but it was a different world back then.” Atkinson took a long swallow from his beer, his flash of bitterness faded and he sighed happily. "From a micro-brewery?"
"That's right. We're a free house so we can stock what we like. We have the big brewery stock as well but the best sellers are all from the micros." Igrat smiled; the profit margin was much higher on the craft beers. Gods' I'm beginning to think like Lillith. "Now, down to business. Time to pool information. I'll start."
Igrat recounted the information she had learned about Percy Portman at lunchtime. Eventually, she reached the end of the story. "I spoke to somebody I know and he said it sounded like Portman went down with severe clinical depression. In fact, given the symptoms Stan told me about, disturbing false fixed delusions and hearing or seeing upsetting hallucinations, border on psychotic depression. In the old days, before people understood things like this, it was called melancholia and was associated with delusions of guilt, poverty, or illness. The victim would literally think themselves into sickness and poverty. They might be quite well-off yet believe they were on the verge of destitution.
"We found out about the deaths of his wife and daughter doing the background checks. The real tragedy was that we think the postman didn't latch the gate properly when he left after the delivery and it swung open. Mr. and Mrs. Portman had nothing to blame themselves about. There were some whispers that Mrs. Portman hadn't killed herself but they were just that. Whispers only, and our investigator discredited them pretty quickly. Official finding was suicide while the balance of her mind was disturbed." Atkinson shook his head sadly. "Melancholia, that's such an expressive name. You're not suggesting he offed himself are you?"
Igrat shook her head. "That's the second time the idea has come up today. I don't think so somehow."
"Geometrically, it's possible." Achillea thought about it carefully. "And it would solve the congestion problem. Although, I can't think of a suicide being likely to cut his own throat, hide the knife and then put his head down a toilet."
"That's what the pathologist said." Atkinson noted that Achillea had the same sense of gallows humor as a police officer. "We haven't found the weapon yet but a razor is the most likely candidate."
"There's another candidate. A thin, sharp wire used as a garrote. Get a wire around somebody's neck and your knee in their back and they're dead. Nothing anybody can do. Leaves a cut just like a knife." Angel looked around. "It's possible to take somebody's head off that way. That's why only dumbasses sit with their back to a door."
Achillea and Igrat nodded in agreement. It occurred to Atkinson that he was the only one in the group who was sitting with his back to the door. He shifted his seat so that he was at an angle to the entrance to the Snug and got satisfied nods from his companions. "All right, our progress report. We're assembling eye witness accounts from everybody and we have detectives going through them, cross-referencing the details. As we do, we're eliminating people from consideration. Angel, you were the easiest. Everybody remembers the Chinese woman with red hair eating pizza like an American and we know you were nowhere near that restroom. Nor were any of you. Most of the rest of the attendees are cleared as well."
"Anybody we know not cleared?" Igrat asked
"Basically, the visitors to the stands in your area, plus those who were using the toilet. So you may well have spoken to the killers." Atkinson said that as if he was expecting them to be shocked by the idea.
Angel shrugged. The truth was that almost everybody she spoke to fell into that category. One way or another. "I checked into organized crime in this area for you. You'll be happy to know that, in the Chinese community at least, there isn’t any. That doesn't mean there aren't any Chinese criminals but there isn't an organized crime presence. In fact there's no Triad or Tong membership at all up here."
Angel hesitated slightly. What she had said wasn't quite true; there were two Triad members living in Oxford but neither took part in any criminal activity. They were classic Blue Lanterns, law-abiding people who had joined the Triad movement simply for its social and business advantages. "Can't speak for the non-Chinese community though."
"I nosed around a little." Achillea picked up the thread. "You do have some street gangs forming but they are seriously petty criminals with delusions of grandeur. Even calling them criminals is pushing the envelope; their driving factor seems to be jealousy of the university students. Their idea of a big score is stealing some poor kid's bike and their definition of being a hard man is pedaling away on it. Drop on them now, and they'll never get to be any more than that."
"I'd say you've done a pretty good job of policing here." Angel's dispassionate voice sounded at odds with the praise. "The local population support you, more or less, and that makes moving organized crime in much harder."
"I'd agree with that." Achillea pursed her lips slightly. "Your only real problem is around the Crowley automobile plant. I've heard there's a lot of thieving from the factories by the workforce."
"That's not where they made mine is it?" Igrat sounded alarmed.
"What do you drive, Irene?"
"Aston Martin Vanquish Zagato."
"Wow. That's slick, can I cadge a ride sometime? Aston-Martins are made over in Gaydon so you're OK." Atkinson enthusiasm at the possibility of riding in an exotic and expensive vehicle was replaced by a pensive look. He wasn't quite certain how to take a compliment from a career criminal on the quality of his force's policing. "So, we can rule out organized crime? So what the hell did happen here?"
"Beats us. None of the standard motivations for a killing like this seem to apply." Igrat had somehow assumed the aura of the leader of the group, or at least the chairwoman of this particular meeting. Probably because she was a part-owner of the pub they were in combined with her own personal magnetism.
"In that case, we need to look more closely at the victim." Atkinson was aware that sounded a bit like blaming the victim but all the other easy routes had been eliminated. "We should start by looking into the Badger a bit more closely."
"If we can get hold of their books, we know the best forensic accountant in the world. We can get them analyzed for you."
Atkinson lifted his beer glass in salute. "Now why did I think you might say that?"
The Badger Inn, Toot Baldon.
Sadness permeated the atmosphere of the Badger Inn. Some of it was inevitable, given the tragedies that had taken place there. More was due to the forlorn appearance of a business that had suddenly closed down. The tables in the restaurant had been laid but the glasses and cutlery were already beginning to collect a fine film of dust. Atkinson noted that some of the plates were chipped and the tablecloths had seen much better days. Behind him, Angel tried the lights and found the power was still on. They all guessed that would change in a few days as the power company realized its bill would not be paid.
"I think the staff realized the place was dead the moment they heard of Mr. Portman's demise and simply didn't bother to turn up." Atkinson had obtained a search warrant from the local magistrate and Igrat had let them in through the back door. The police inspector had been slightly alarmed by the way the door seemed to have sprung open as soon as she looked at it.
"Look at that." Achillea pointed at baskets of bread, already sliced and getting slightly dusty, beneath the serving pass. She tested one of the slices with a fingertip. "Been out for two or three days but still isn't stale. Must be supermarket bread, loaded with preservatives."
Atkinson shook his head. One of the glories of an English pub was a Ploughman's Lunch, crusty, fresh-baked bread served with fine cheese and home-made pickles. To find pre-sliced bread from a supermarket being set out was a slap in the face of a hallowed tradition. Achillea opened one of the refrigerators to reveal packages of pre-processed and pre-cut supermarket meat and cheese. "This isn't right. Even I know that nobody runs a catering business on supermarket supplies."
"There is something else." Igrat pointed at the shelf behind the bar. "No spirits of any consequence but circles in the dust. Somebody has been in here and taken all the valuable drinkables."
"All right, people." Atkinson made a firm decision. "We stop right here. As 'Lea says, there is something seriously wrong in this place. We need to get the forensic people in and collect all the evidence we can find. Iggie, can you get that forensic accountant friend of yours on the line please?"
Inspector Atkinson's Office, Oxford Police Headquarters, Oxford. Three Days Later
"This must rank as the most unusual business plan I have ever seen." Lillith sounded impressed which, in matters financial, was unusual. She was sitting in front of a bookcase that appeared to have copies of every tax code for every country in the world including some that no longer existed. The image on the computer screen wasn't brilliant but, allowing for the fact that Lillith was at the NSC Building in Washington and her audience was in Oxfordshire, it was more than adequate. "It seems to have, at its core, Mr. Portman buying goods at the local stores using his credit card and selling them at a loss. He seems to have believed that he could make up for losing money on every sale by increasing sales volume."
Atkinson laughed, winning a smile from Lillith who appreciated a responsive audience. "So, how is he staying in business, Lillith?"
"I really don't know. I've honestly never seen anything like this before. I've seen badly run businesses of course; I've bankrupted a few of them. I've seen businesses with very poor cost controls, all too many in fact. I've seen businesses that are being deliberately looted by abuse of their credit but I've never seen anything quite like this." Lillith was aware she was repeating herself. The truth was, she was deeply grateful to Achillea and Igrat for bringing the case to her. It wasn't often that she found something new and really bewildering.
"How long has this been going on?" Atkinson asked the computer image. Using the Cyberweb to hold a business conference was new although the NSC had been using the facility for a couple of years. The fact that Igrat had a computer with the necessary equipment was very telling. She had brought it to the police station specifically for this conference and had nearly caused a fight between two veteran sergeants who had wanted to carry the box up the stairs for her.
"At least a year. Possibly two. You know what question that brings up? How come his cards haven't been impounded and chopped into tiny, tiny fragments? Banks take non-payment of credit card debts very seriously. Don't they Angel?" Lillith had put a wealth of meaning into the last few words.
"You had credit card problems, Angel?" Atkinson sounded disbelieving.
Angel shook her head. "Just provided some services to some less than reputable banks now and then. Lillith is right, banks take such things very seriously. How did Percy the Pig keep going?" She didn't notice the reproachful glance Igrat had given her for using the nickname.
"We'd better find out. Lillith, thank you very much for your help on this. We can offer you a consultancy fee if you like?" Atkinson held his breath. His station did have a budget for 'consultants' but it was far from generous.
"Don't worry about it. I'll comail you a full analysis once it's typed up. Just buy me dinner when I'm next in Oxford. Bye." The screen went black as Lillith switched off.
"Comail will put me out of business." Igrat said the words softly but there was real concern in her voice. "So, we need to find out which cards Portman was using and see what the status on them is. Credit check?"
"That'll do it." Atkinson looked around. "Yes Sergeant?"
"Sir, the lab has finished the analysis of witness statements. They say we're lucky it wasn't a very well-attended exhibition and they've narrowed the pool down to about a dozen suspects, all in the area of the toilets about the right time. They're also ones we weren't able to contact for interviews. Here they are, we got pictures of all of them from their security badges."
The sergeant put a pile of photographs on Atkinson's desk. Achillea started rifling through them and picked two out. "I know these two. They were on our stand when Portman was harassing Cristi. They were interested in local hiking and sightseeing routes. They booked one room for two nights. Paid the deposit by credit card."
Igrat picked up the telephone and dialed an outside line. "Hello, Isabel? Yes, the show went pretty well. Those two young men, the ones who booked a single room? Can you look up their names and the card number they booked under? Got it. Thanks Isabel."
"All right, they're identified and they live in Oxford. Isabel's already checked the card and it's real; in fact we've got the money."
"That's a good start. We know their names and the fact they were around Portman before he died. Can we identify the rest?"
"Yes, Sir. We're doing that now."
Another police officer pushed her head around the door. "Sir, I've run the credit check you asked for. These are the cards in Portman's name. All business cards, quoting the Badger Inn as the business address. His credit rating isn't good. Not abysmal but not good. He wouldn't get a mortgage, not a reputable one anyway."
Igrat took the list and scanned it. "Any of these look familiar, Angel?"
Angel also ran her eye down the list. "Nope. But remember, most times I don’t know who hired me. It's done through a cut-out."
"Well, let's find out." Igrat looked up the telephone number of the credit card company on the cyberweb and dialed it. "Hello? Credit services please. This is the Oxford Police here, I'm calling on behalf of Inspector David Atkinson, Badge Number 714. Yes. We're calling about a card held by one Percy Portman, a business card made out to the Badger Inn. Yes, of course. Please ask for Inspector Atkinson at the switchboard."
She hung up and waited. Two minutes late the telephone rang and Atkinson picked it up. "Inspector Atkinson here, yes, my badge number is 714. Yes, my colleague called you. I can't give you any information about the case other than it is serious and criminal charges are involved. I'll pass you to her."
When the call was over, Igrat put the telephone down. "Now that is interesting. It turns out that until about a year ago, Portman was steadily running up charges on his card and making only minimum payments if that. Even that ceased and the bank were about to commence legal recovery proceedings when the balance was suddenly paid off in full. Since then, the balance on the card has been paid in full every month. So far that totals about 20,000 pounds to date."
“Is that strange?” Atkinson was more concerned about the fact that Igrat knew his badge number. He’d never actually shown it to her. Instinctively, he touched the pocket where it was kept and found it was empty. Igrat mouthed a ‘sorry’ and gave it back. “Really? In the middle of a police station?”
“The thing is, the bill isn’t being paid by him, it's coming from a business and the balance is paid by a corporate bank draft. That is really curious."
Re: 2003 - The Melancholia of Percy the Pig
Chapter Seven
Angel's Room, the Old Rectory, Marsh Baldon, Oxfordshire
"So you got involved in the Oxford murder?' Conrad looked quizzically at Angel. His attitude to her profession was that it was a mortal sin and he hated and condemned the sin but not the sinner. She knew that and tried not to involve him in her business or let him know what it entailed. As far as he was concerned, she went away and came back but never spoke of what went between. He knew she felt much the same way about his duties as a priest so he didn’t talk about that either. Like most agreements between couples, it worked for them even if nobody else could understand why.
"We're all helping the police with their investigations. It started off with the Inspector believing we were involved but he's come around. He's even stopped flinching every time he sees my guns." That was true; although the UK was still awash with guns left over from the War, people had mostly stopped carrying them. Angel reached forward and adjusted the computer screen slightly. The image had been getting fuzzy and indistinct; she found the computer conference facility impressive but in her opinion it needed a lot of work. "Iggie, 'Lea and me are investigating it, just like you and I do, but we've got stuck."
On the screen, the image of Conrad nodded thoughtfully. "Usually when that happens, something important is missing. The question is what."
Angel gave a wry smile, a genuine emotional response to another human being, something that was supposed to be medically impossible. The truth was that she was sublimely happy at talking with Conrad again after being away for almost two weeks. "There's more to this investigation thing than I thought. If I tell you everything that's happened, could you tell us what we're missing?"
"Do I get the last shrimp on the plate next time?" Conrad had his 'negotiating face' on. Both he and Angel had developed a taste for tempura-fried shrimp since their visit to Japan and usually ended up arguing who would have the last piece on the plate.
"Deal." Angel made her left hand into a fist and covered it with her cupped right hand, then bowed slightly. It was the Triad symbol for acceptance of a deal. Conrad smiled when he saw the gesture. He missed Angel as well. "This is what happened, Conrad. Right from the start."
Angel spoke carefully for about ten minutes before concluding. "My original thought was that somebody was starting a protection racket, Portman had refused to pay up and this was the result. A message to everybody else, 'when we demand you pay or else'. But I can't find any trace of a racket like that here in the Chinese community and 'Lea couldn't in the rest of the underworld. The police don't know of any serious gangs forming. Crime here in Oxford is small-time, petty and disorganized; there's more than there should be given the kind of city it is but there's no central control. It's anarchy."
Conrad nodded, knowing that Angel disliked anarchy and preferred structured environments. "All right, the thing that strikes me is the funding of that pub. The Badger? Buying supplies at a local supermarket is amateurish. Proper managers just don’t do that. Even if they don't by direct from wholesalers, there are special trade discount markets they can use. To me that suggests that Portman's melancholia had progressed so far that he had effectively ceased to function as the owner and somebody was trying to run the place for him without knowing what they were doing. The missing bottles, I think, were taken by the staff in lieu of unpaid wages. But, who was paying off the credit card debts? Running a business isn't cheap. That's a significant commitment."
"We found five credit cards being used; total debt paid was just over fifty thousand with the largest individual balance being twenty."
"They were all paid by checks from the same company?"
"We’re not certain but we think so.”
“Making sure would be a good place to start. If it is the same one, then I would recommend you look into that company a little more, find what they do and who is behind them. You see, Angel, that arrangement is very unusual. Company's aren't given to spending that kind of money out of the goodness of their hearts. Where we have an unusual movement of money and somebody is killed, usually the two are linked. Find the linkage and it will point right to the killer."
"Thank you, we'll do that. How is your investigation doing?"
Conrad looked saddened. "It's a terrible, terrible mess. As we went into the records of the Royal Commission on War Loss Compensation and Restitution, more irregularities came to light. It seems that some members of the board were using their position to pay off old grudges, others to punish people they saw as collaborators. They passed their judgements based on prejudice and vindictiveness, not justice. Even worse, it appears that some members of the Commission were actually blackmailing people, telling them they'd have claims made on their property that the Commission would support unless they were paid off. The terrible thing is that most of the people who lost their property were either innocent or small fry trying to survive the Occupation. They lost everything they had left while the people who benefitted most, the hard-faced men who looked as if they had done very well out of the war, to quote Stanley Baldwin, got away completely."
"That's nothing new." Angel sounded cynical. Then, a thought occurred to her driven by the memory of the old, wrecked Dora-12. "Conrad, could you do something for me? Could you see if the Badger Inn was one of the cases that came before the commission?"
Rose Cottage, Wilmotts Road, Toot Baldon.
"It was Portman's fault, that's what it was. He was so busy mooning about Judith and Penny, he let the business go to rack and ruin. One day, when I gets in to work, there was no food for the snacks, no mixers or soft drinks or anything so I took the money out of the till, what there was anyway, and went to the market in Crowley. Got some bread and cheese to make sandwiches and few other things we needed. I put the receipts into the till to show what I had done." Matilda Baxter looked indignant. "The business was just staggering along as it was. We run out of food like that, it'd all be over. Me and the rest of the girls would be out of a job and there ain't much to do round here. Nearest place to work is the factory at Crowley and that's a hell-hole."
Achillea looked sympathetic, and mostly was. She could understand how a young woman would want to keep an even partially agreeable job. Really making these inquiries was a job that Igrat was best suited for but she was already too well-known at the Badger Inn. "What did Portman say when he found out."
"Him? He didn’t care. Gave me the cards and said to use them instead of taking the money out of the till. I had to go and see the banks to arrange the signatures. Really sticky about it they were but they had to agree. It's in the law they have to accept an authorized signature. After that, I'd do the shopping every two or three days. Kept all the receipts, balanced the card statements against my till print-outs and that was that."
"Didn't you notice the statements showed the amounts owed were being paid?"
"None of my business, was it? At first I was worried, being told your card won’t go through is embarrassing. You can feel all those people looking at you and sniggering. I checked each card to make sure there was room on it. When I realized 'ee was paying the statements, don't ask me how, I stopped bothering."
"Did any of the other girls do shopping?'
"Nah. Just me. Too much trouble to get the signatures added. If it was a big load I'd take one of the others with me to help carry it but that was it."
“How long were you working there for?”
“About four years now. It’s all right. Easy walk from home to there.”
"How was Mr. Portman to work for?" Achillea tried to look comforting. Unfortunately, her 'comforting looks' tended to scare people.
"He was a bit handy at first. But his wandering hand accidentally got hurt and he left me alone after that."
"What happened, Matty?"
'I was making the cheese sandwiches and he touched me behind. So I turned round sharpish like and accidentally cut his hand with the knife."
Achillea frowned slightly at that. "I've seen those cheese sandwiches. Two pieces of pre-sliced bread with some processed cheese slice between them. No dressing or toppings. What did you need a knife for?"
"Spread the marge of course. And the cheese slice is bigger than the bread so you cut one end off and put it across the middle. Then you half the sammie there so the punters think they're getting two slices of cheese."
Achillea was greatly pleased that she hadn't brought Chef Murray along. She firmly believed that if he'd heard that he would have instantly seized Matilda warmly by the throat. Like most chefs he tends to be excitable and prone to bad language when somebody abuses food. If pre-sliced bread and processed cheese is food. It sounds more like something Angel would eat.
"How long did you keep the sandwiches out for?" Achillea asked, more from curiosity than anything else.
"Until they started to curl up." Matilda looked indignant. "That's how my mum makes them and she worked for the railway."
As she made her farewells, Achillea reminded herself never to eat anything from the railways.
Corporate Headquarters, The Midland Bank, 100 King Street, Manchester.
“Good Morning. I’m Irene Chefrit, I have an appointment with Mr. Salomon of your corporate accounts division.”
The receptionist smiled politely and checked the appointments register. When she came to Igrat’s name, her eyes opened wide with shock. “Yes, of course Miss Chefrit. Mr. Salomon will be with you in a few minutes. In the meantime, he has asked us to take you to the executive hospitality suite on the top floor. William, please take Miss Chefrit to the EHS.”
A youngish man in a dark blue suit stepped out and escorted Igrat to a bank of polished copper doors marked ‘Lifts’. One opened just as they reached it, “Here we are, Miss Chefrit. This lift goes straight to the top floor. Allow me to take you up.”
Twenty minutes later, Igrat was reading next month’s edition of Vogue when Nathan Solomon entered the suite. “Irene, a pleasure to meet you again. Are you working for us? Your services have been sorely missed.”
Igrat stood up, politely shook hands with her host and asked after his family. As far as he knew, his bank had been dealing with Irene Chefrit (from the Moroccan Sephardic branch of the family) for about twenty years after her mother had retired and the management trusted her without reservations. Even by long-lived standards, Igrat’s business as a courier meant that she had more false identities than usual and in dejected moments believed she could populate all of Marsh Baldon with her various personas. Fortunately she was good at keeping track of them all. That really led to something else; she and her father were coming to the belief that knowledge about the long-lived was a lot more widespread than they had realized but people smart enough to work it out were also smart enough to keep quiet about it. They considered that really good news.
The usual social pleasantries exchanged, Igrat assured Nathan Salomon that this was not a confidential visit and started to explain why. When she got to mention of Percy Portman, Salomon’s eyes lit up.
“Ah yes, the unfortunate man who was killed down in Oxford, what, almost a week ago now? I found out that he was one of our customers when the Police started making credit checks on him. Have other banks . . . no, I shouldn’t ask that of course. Please forgive me for any embarrassment.”
“No offense given and none taken, Nate. I’m actually assisting the police with that case. I was only a few feet away when the poor man was killed.” Igrat found with surprise that she really was thinking of Percy Portman as ‘that poor man’. “After they’d excluded me from their inquiries, they asked if I could help out by bringing evidence in. Using a professional bonded courier maintains chain of custody you see.”
“And you’re here collecting confidential information for them. Of course.” Saloman had put together his knowledge of Igrat as an infallible courier with mention of the case and come up with an answer that was actually very close to the truth.
“Well, it’s clear he was murdered and it’s beginning to look as if there were a lot of financial irregularities in his case. Where that’s the case, the police believe that the irregularities and the murder are connected so they asked me to collect the financial records on Mr. Portman and his company from the banks in question.” Igrat had put a slight emphasis on the plural for ‘bank’. Salomon had picked that up instantly, affable and friendly he might be but he was also exceptionally sharp and perceptive. “Because of the nature of the case, they need the information with extreme confidentiality.”
“Of course; I’ll have a copy of his file sent down right away.” Salomon did not insult Igrat by reminding her how confidential it was. “His business? That would be The Badger Inn of course. I’ll get their file for you as well. Irregularities hardly seem to cover it though.”
Igrat knew she was being fed an opportunity for a question. “Their financial arrangements were strange?”
“Very. Most businesses have a set pattern of expenditure with payments made by cheque. That’s almost universal since it makes life much easier when doing the corporate tax returns. He did it that way up to about two years ago, then he did everything by charging it to a card. That’s very unusual and quite disadvantageous. I’m surprised his accountants allowed it. He was paying minimum on the card and the balance was maxing out. Then, he stopped making payments at all so we stopped accepting additional charges. That was when something odd happened. Another company, one unknown to us, paid off his account and started paying his monthly total, in full.”
“Do you know who the company was?”
“As I said, they were completely unknown to us. The bank drafts we received said they were from Ventogreen Ltd. Frankly, Irene, as long as we got our money we didn’t care who sent it.”
Igrat laughed. “Of course. Could I have copies of those drafts for the investigation?”
Salomon laughed. “I though you would never ask. They’re on their way down as well.”
Inspector Atkinson's Office, Oxford Police Headquarters, Oxford.
Police Constable Isolda Rowley had been privately delighted when the prefix “Woman” had been dropped from her rank but it seemed to have made little difference to her duties. When she had told her family that she was joining the police, her mother had burst into tears, assuming she would spend her days dressed as a tart and luring seedy motorists into making illegal propositions. Her father had shaken his head and got drunk while her grandfather had muttered imprecations against ‘damned collaborators’. In reality, WPC or PC, she spent her time either doing paperwork or on the telephone making inquiries.
“Any progress ‘Sol?” Atkinson looked into his office. He had made it available to her since he was out most of the time chasing down suspects on the Oxford Exhibition Murder and she needed peace and quiet to do her work.
“I’ve found three more of the missing attendees, Sir.” Her job was painstaking, boring and vital and she was doing it very well indeed. So much so, she was already the subject of ‘interest’ from those who believed her career could use a boost upwards. She had a list of the attendees at the exhibition on the day of the killing who had not yet been contacted by the police for their statements. Her task had been to find them, contact them, and make appointments so a police officer could come to interview them. So far, in each case the reason why they had been so hard to contact fell into the same general category. They were strangers in the area, were residents of surrounding towns or students who had gone to the exhibition in the hope of free samples. All had been cooperative once they realized that statements were all that the police wanted.
“How many does that leave?” Atkinson saw this line of inquiry as drying up quickly. It was one of those things that had to be done but that didn’t mean it was productive.”
“Just two. Darren Clifford and Chad Marlowe. The first two names we got and the hardest to find. We’ve got nothing on them. Well, nothing serious, a drunk and disorderly against Clifford and a public nuisance against Marlowe. Both bound over to keep the peace. They’re a couple by the way. Find one and we’ve probably found the other.”
“Public nuisance?”
“Harboring a vicious dog. There were complaints, he ignored them, the dog was shot by somebody, we never found out who, he made threats and got bound over.”
Atkinson nodded. It was a common enough tale. “Well, keep looking, ‘Sol. You’re doing really good job. Oh, one other thing. Could you find me as much information as you can on a company called Ventogreen Ltd., please.”
PC Rowley smiled politely and secretly wished she was doing something more exciting. Atkinson looked at the meticulous way she had organized the documents for her inquiries and decided to take her along for the visit when it came up. It would be useful field experience for her and look good on her personnel file when promotion time came up.
Angel's Room, the Old Rectory, Marsh Baldon, Oxfordshire
"So you got involved in the Oxford murder?' Conrad looked quizzically at Angel. His attitude to her profession was that it was a mortal sin and he hated and condemned the sin but not the sinner. She knew that and tried not to involve him in her business or let him know what it entailed. As far as he was concerned, she went away and came back but never spoke of what went between. He knew she felt much the same way about his duties as a priest so he didn’t talk about that either. Like most agreements between couples, it worked for them even if nobody else could understand why.
"We're all helping the police with their investigations. It started off with the Inspector believing we were involved but he's come around. He's even stopped flinching every time he sees my guns." That was true; although the UK was still awash with guns left over from the War, people had mostly stopped carrying them. Angel reached forward and adjusted the computer screen slightly. The image had been getting fuzzy and indistinct; she found the computer conference facility impressive but in her opinion it needed a lot of work. "Iggie, 'Lea and me are investigating it, just like you and I do, but we've got stuck."
On the screen, the image of Conrad nodded thoughtfully. "Usually when that happens, something important is missing. The question is what."
Angel gave a wry smile, a genuine emotional response to another human being, something that was supposed to be medically impossible. The truth was that she was sublimely happy at talking with Conrad again after being away for almost two weeks. "There's more to this investigation thing than I thought. If I tell you everything that's happened, could you tell us what we're missing?"
"Do I get the last shrimp on the plate next time?" Conrad had his 'negotiating face' on. Both he and Angel had developed a taste for tempura-fried shrimp since their visit to Japan and usually ended up arguing who would have the last piece on the plate.
"Deal." Angel made her left hand into a fist and covered it with her cupped right hand, then bowed slightly. It was the Triad symbol for acceptance of a deal. Conrad smiled when he saw the gesture. He missed Angel as well. "This is what happened, Conrad. Right from the start."
Angel spoke carefully for about ten minutes before concluding. "My original thought was that somebody was starting a protection racket, Portman had refused to pay up and this was the result. A message to everybody else, 'when we demand you pay or else'. But I can't find any trace of a racket like that here in the Chinese community and 'Lea couldn't in the rest of the underworld. The police don't know of any serious gangs forming. Crime here in Oxford is small-time, petty and disorganized; there's more than there should be given the kind of city it is but there's no central control. It's anarchy."
Conrad nodded, knowing that Angel disliked anarchy and preferred structured environments. "All right, the thing that strikes me is the funding of that pub. The Badger? Buying supplies at a local supermarket is amateurish. Proper managers just don’t do that. Even if they don't by direct from wholesalers, there are special trade discount markets they can use. To me that suggests that Portman's melancholia had progressed so far that he had effectively ceased to function as the owner and somebody was trying to run the place for him without knowing what they were doing. The missing bottles, I think, were taken by the staff in lieu of unpaid wages. But, who was paying off the credit card debts? Running a business isn't cheap. That's a significant commitment."
"We found five credit cards being used; total debt paid was just over fifty thousand with the largest individual balance being twenty."
"They were all paid by checks from the same company?"
"We’re not certain but we think so.”
“Making sure would be a good place to start. If it is the same one, then I would recommend you look into that company a little more, find what they do and who is behind them. You see, Angel, that arrangement is very unusual. Company's aren't given to spending that kind of money out of the goodness of their hearts. Where we have an unusual movement of money and somebody is killed, usually the two are linked. Find the linkage and it will point right to the killer."
"Thank you, we'll do that. How is your investigation doing?"
Conrad looked saddened. "It's a terrible, terrible mess. As we went into the records of the Royal Commission on War Loss Compensation and Restitution, more irregularities came to light. It seems that some members of the board were using their position to pay off old grudges, others to punish people they saw as collaborators. They passed their judgements based on prejudice and vindictiveness, not justice. Even worse, it appears that some members of the Commission were actually blackmailing people, telling them they'd have claims made on their property that the Commission would support unless they were paid off. The terrible thing is that most of the people who lost their property were either innocent or small fry trying to survive the Occupation. They lost everything they had left while the people who benefitted most, the hard-faced men who looked as if they had done very well out of the war, to quote Stanley Baldwin, got away completely."
"That's nothing new." Angel sounded cynical. Then, a thought occurred to her driven by the memory of the old, wrecked Dora-12. "Conrad, could you do something for me? Could you see if the Badger Inn was one of the cases that came before the commission?"
Rose Cottage, Wilmotts Road, Toot Baldon.
"It was Portman's fault, that's what it was. He was so busy mooning about Judith and Penny, he let the business go to rack and ruin. One day, when I gets in to work, there was no food for the snacks, no mixers or soft drinks or anything so I took the money out of the till, what there was anyway, and went to the market in Crowley. Got some bread and cheese to make sandwiches and few other things we needed. I put the receipts into the till to show what I had done." Matilda Baxter looked indignant. "The business was just staggering along as it was. We run out of food like that, it'd all be over. Me and the rest of the girls would be out of a job and there ain't much to do round here. Nearest place to work is the factory at Crowley and that's a hell-hole."
Achillea looked sympathetic, and mostly was. She could understand how a young woman would want to keep an even partially agreeable job. Really making these inquiries was a job that Igrat was best suited for but she was already too well-known at the Badger Inn. "What did Portman say when he found out."
"Him? He didn’t care. Gave me the cards and said to use them instead of taking the money out of the till. I had to go and see the banks to arrange the signatures. Really sticky about it they were but they had to agree. It's in the law they have to accept an authorized signature. After that, I'd do the shopping every two or three days. Kept all the receipts, balanced the card statements against my till print-outs and that was that."
"Didn't you notice the statements showed the amounts owed were being paid?"
"None of my business, was it? At first I was worried, being told your card won’t go through is embarrassing. You can feel all those people looking at you and sniggering. I checked each card to make sure there was room on it. When I realized 'ee was paying the statements, don't ask me how, I stopped bothering."
"Did any of the other girls do shopping?'
"Nah. Just me. Too much trouble to get the signatures added. If it was a big load I'd take one of the others with me to help carry it but that was it."
“How long were you working there for?”
“About four years now. It’s all right. Easy walk from home to there.”
"How was Mr. Portman to work for?" Achillea tried to look comforting. Unfortunately, her 'comforting looks' tended to scare people.
"He was a bit handy at first. But his wandering hand accidentally got hurt and he left me alone after that."
"What happened, Matty?"
'I was making the cheese sandwiches and he touched me behind. So I turned round sharpish like and accidentally cut his hand with the knife."
Achillea frowned slightly at that. "I've seen those cheese sandwiches. Two pieces of pre-sliced bread with some processed cheese slice between them. No dressing or toppings. What did you need a knife for?"
"Spread the marge of course. And the cheese slice is bigger than the bread so you cut one end off and put it across the middle. Then you half the sammie there so the punters think they're getting two slices of cheese."
Achillea was greatly pleased that she hadn't brought Chef Murray along. She firmly believed that if he'd heard that he would have instantly seized Matilda warmly by the throat. Like most chefs he tends to be excitable and prone to bad language when somebody abuses food. If pre-sliced bread and processed cheese is food. It sounds more like something Angel would eat.
"How long did you keep the sandwiches out for?" Achillea asked, more from curiosity than anything else.
"Until they started to curl up." Matilda looked indignant. "That's how my mum makes them and she worked for the railway."
As she made her farewells, Achillea reminded herself never to eat anything from the railways.
Corporate Headquarters, The Midland Bank, 100 King Street, Manchester.
“Good Morning. I’m Irene Chefrit, I have an appointment with Mr. Salomon of your corporate accounts division.”
The receptionist smiled politely and checked the appointments register. When she came to Igrat’s name, her eyes opened wide with shock. “Yes, of course Miss Chefrit. Mr. Salomon will be with you in a few minutes. In the meantime, he has asked us to take you to the executive hospitality suite on the top floor. William, please take Miss Chefrit to the EHS.”
A youngish man in a dark blue suit stepped out and escorted Igrat to a bank of polished copper doors marked ‘Lifts’. One opened just as they reached it, “Here we are, Miss Chefrit. This lift goes straight to the top floor. Allow me to take you up.”
Twenty minutes later, Igrat was reading next month’s edition of Vogue when Nathan Solomon entered the suite. “Irene, a pleasure to meet you again. Are you working for us? Your services have been sorely missed.”
Igrat stood up, politely shook hands with her host and asked after his family. As far as he knew, his bank had been dealing with Irene Chefrit (from the Moroccan Sephardic branch of the family) for about twenty years after her mother had retired and the management trusted her without reservations. Even by long-lived standards, Igrat’s business as a courier meant that she had more false identities than usual and in dejected moments believed she could populate all of Marsh Baldon with her various personas. Fortunately she was good at keeping track of them all. That really led to something else; she and her father were coming to the belief that knowledge about the long-lived was a lot more widespread than they had realized but people smart enough to work it out were also smart enough to keep quiet about it. They considered that really good news.
The usual social pleasantries exchanged, Igrat assured Nathan Salomon that this was not a confidential visit and started to explain why. When she got to mention of Percy Portman, Salomon’s eyes lit up.
“Ah yes, the unfortunate man who was killed down in Oxford, what, almost a week ago now? I found out that he was one of our customers when the Police started making credit checks on him. Have other banks . . . no, I shouldn’t ask that of course. Please forgive me for any embarrassment.”
“No offense given and none taken, Nate. I’m actually assisting the police with that case. I was only a few feet away when the poor man was killed.” Igrat found with surprise that she really was thinking of Percy Portman as ‘that poor man’. “After they’d excluded me from their inquiries, they asked if I could help out by bringing evidence in. Using a professional bonded courier maintains chain of custody you see.”
“And you’re here collecting confidential information for them. Of course.” Saloman had put together his knowledge of Igrat as an infallible courier with mention of the case and come up with an answer that was actually very close to the truth.
“Well, it’s clear he was murdered and it’s beginning to look as if there were a lot of financial irregularities in his case. Where that’s the case, the police believe that the irregularities and the murder are connected so they asked me to collect the financial records on Mr. Portman and his company from the banks in question.” Igrat had put a slight emphasis on the plural for ‘bank’. Salomon had picked that up instantly, affable and friendly he might be but he was also exceptionally sharp and perceptive. “Because of the nature of the case, they need the information with extreme confidentiality.”
“Of course; I’ll have a copy of his file sent down right away.” Salomon did not insult Igrat by reminding her how confidential it was. “His business? That would be The Badger Inn of course. I’ll get their file for you as well. Irregularities hardly seem to cover it though.”
Igrat knew she was being fed an opportunity for a question. “Their financial arrangements were strange?”
“Very. Most businesses have a set pattern of expenditure with payments made by cheque. That’s almost universal since it makes life much easier when doing the corporate tax returns. He did it that way up to about two years ago, then he did everything by charging it to a card. That’s very unusual and quite disadvantageous. I’m surprised his accountants allowed it. He was paying minimum on the card and the balance was maxing out. Then, he stopped making payments at all so we stopped accepting additional charges. That was when something odd happened. Another company, one unknown to us, paid off his account and started paying his monthly total, in full.”
“Do you know who the company was?”
“As I said, they were completely unknown to us. The bank drafts we received said they were from Ventogreen Ltd. Frankly, Irene, as long as we got our money we didn’t care who sent it.”
Igrat laughed. “Of course. Could I have copies of those drafts for the investigation?”
Salomon laughed. “I though you would never ask. They’re on their way down as well.”
Inspector Atkinson's Office, Oxford Police Headquarters, Oxford.
Police Constable Isolda Rowley had been privately delighted when the prefix “Woman” had been dropped from her rank but it seemed to have made little difference to her duties. When she had told her family that she was joining the police, her mother had burst into tears, assuming she would spend her days dressed as a tart and luring seedy motorists into making illegal propositions. Her father had shaken his head and got drunk while her grandfather had muttered imprecations against ‘damned collaborators’. In reality, WPC or PC, she spent her time either doing paperwork or on the telephone making inquiries.
“Any progress ‘Sol?” Atkinson looked into his office. He had made it available to her since he was out most of the time chasing down suspects on the Oxford Exhibition Murder and she needed peace and quiet to do her work.
“I’ve found three more of the missing attendees, Sir.” Her job was painstaking, boring and vital and she was doing it very well indeed. So much so, she was already the subject of ‘interest’ from those who believed her career could use a boost upwards. She had a list of the attendees at the exhibition on the day of the killing who had not yet been contacted by the police for their statements. Her task had been to find them, contact them, and make appointments so a police officer could come to interview them. So far, in each case the reason why they had been so hard to contact fell into the same general category. They were strangers in the area, were residents of surrounding towns or students who had gone to the exhibition in the hope of free samples. All had been cooperative once they realized that statements were all that the police wanted.
“How many does that leave?” Atkinson saw this line of inquiry as drying up quickly. It was one of those things that had to be done but that didn’t mean it was productive.”
“Just two. Darren Clifford and Chad Marlowe. The first two names we got and the hardest to find. We’ve got nothing on them. Well, nothing serious, a drunk and disorderly against Clifford and a public nuisance against Marlowe. Both bound over to keep the peace. They’re a couple by the way. Find one and we’ve probably found the other.”
“Public nuisance?”
“Harboring a vicious dog. There were complaints, he ignored them, the dog was shot by somebody, we never found out who, he made threats and got bound over.”
Atkinson nodded. It was a common enough tale. “Well, keep looking, ‘Sol. You’re doing really good job. Oh, one other thing. Could you find me as much information as you can on a company called Ventogreen Ltd., please.”
PC Rowley smiled politely and secretly wished she was doing something more exciting. Atkinson looked at the meticulous way she had organized the documents for her inquiries and decided to take her along for the visit when it came up. It would be useful field experience for her and look good on her personnel file when promotion time came up.
Re: 2003 - The Melancholia of Percy the Pig
Chapter Eight
The Snug, The Inn on the Green, Marsh Baldon, Oxfordshire
Atkinson concluded that The Snug was rapidly becoming a substitute for the incident room controlling the murder investigation. It had excellent beer and food that was even better which put it way above any police incident room. For a moment he toyed with the idea of moving the entire police station to the Inn. What worried him was that he couldn't think of a downside to that arrangement.
"Cristi came up with a really brilliant idea." Igrat had a glass of sparkling white wine in her hand. "We're already doing country walks, we have stables in the village so we can do cross-country treks on horseback as well. There's a whole network of bridlepaths through the fields and copses we can use. As long as people can ride, a guide can take them out for the day."
"How did she come up with that?" Achillea thought it was an excellent idea. A skilled rider herself, although one without much in the way of style and elegance, she knew she'd take one of those treks given the chance.
"We bought a horse, well he sort of came with the Old Rectory. The owner was moving out of the area and having problems finding stables for him, Cristi wanted to take up the sport so we included the horse in the deal. She's finding out that grooming a skewbald white is hard work.
"You ride, Irene?"
"Sure, but not for some time though. I'm slowly getting into practice again." She was stopped by a knocking on the door. "Come in?"
PC Rowley was in uniform, right down to the bowler had that the British police had, for some unknown but probably sadistic reason, inflicted on their female officers. "Sorry to trouble you but we've got the information from our searches back and I thought you would want it right away. We've got nothing on that Ventogreen company. No records at company house, none at the Inland Revenue, no permits, nothing. It's as if they don't exist."
"They probably don't." Angel was sprawled out as usual and the sight of her guns in their shoulder holsters made Rowley flinch slightly. "Ya ged the idea there's somethin' stinkin' bad about the whole situation there?"
Achillea and Igrat exchanged glances; Angel's New York accent had strengthened slightly, a sure indicator that she had spotted something seriously amiss in the situation and was worried about it.
"Anyway, the good news is, we found Darren Clifford and Chad Marlowe. They're down in Crowley, they work there watching one of the part suppliers for the factory. They're in the warehouse now."
"We'd better go see them." Atkinson finished his beer and stood up. "You can come along, 'Sol. Be some good experience for you."
"Shouldn't we call ahead first?"
Atkinson thought about that. "No, not this time. We had enough trouble finding them; let them know we are coming and they'll fade away. Anyway, 'Lea mentioned there was a lot of gang activity starting there, stealing parts and selling them. Us turning up unexpectedly might crimp their style. Did you park outside?"
Rowley shook her head. "Well away from the building. Don't want to scare the customers."
"Now that's thoughtful. I'm Irene by the way, this is Achillea, better known as 'Lea and the lady with the guns is Angel."
"Isolda Rowley. I've seen you three around the station. Pleased to meet you."
After they'd left, Achillea looked at the door that had closed behind them. "What's wrong Angel?"
Angel shrugged. "Just can't help remembering that the last time some cops turned up unexpectedly, there was a bloodbath. I got the same gut feeling now as I had before the Brighton Beach shoot-out started. Iggie, can I borrow your videolink computer? I've got a chat with Conrad scheduled."
"Sure, go ahead. We'll probably have word from Dave by the time you get back."
Angel's Room, the Old Rectory, Marsh Baldon, Oxfordshire
Conrad was speaking to a young woman standing to one side of the computer screen and, in Angel's opinion, she was standing far too close to him. Idly, she wondered what she would look like with a bullet hole between her eyes, but then Conrad turned around and the smile of delight on his face seemed to make everything all right. Angel couldn’t understand why, but it did.
"Angel, I've missed you. This is Phyllis, she works in the research department here. She's just brought up the Toot Baldon file for you."
Conrad made a small gesture with one hand and Angel took the hint that she should be grateful. "Thank you, Phyllis."
The woman waved and vanished from the screen. "How's your case going, Angel?"
"It's weird. None of the bits seem to fit together properly."
"I think we can help there. Your instincts were right, there is a case that the Royal Commission examined. It didn’t show up at first because we're only looking at ones where there was a potential miscarriage of justice. The Toot Baldon case was pretty much open and shut. The Commission did its job all right."
"What happened, Conrad."
"Well, the Badger Inn is an old establishment, goes back to the early 19th century." Conrad was smiling, to the long-lived, going back two hundred years was not a long journey. "It was owned by the Wilkinson family from well before the First World War up to 1946. From 1942 to 1947, the Luftwaffe used it as an officer's country club but the family stayed in nominal ownership. What the Luftwaffe didn't know was that members of the Wilkinson family and especially Thomas Wilkinson, the landlord of the Badger Inn, were prominent members of the Resistance and had a nice little spy-ring running.
"Now, the Wilkinsons had some sort of feud with another local family, the Baxters. Nobody knew quite how it started but it was a pretty vicious one. Bricks through windows, livestock poisoned, that sort of thing." Conrad shook his head sadly. In his opinion this kind of feud had been responsible for untold numbers of unnecessary deaths. "Anyway, the feud turned deadly in 1946 when James Baxter informed on Thomas Wilkinson. Apparently Wilkinson, in addition to spying, had helped the odd Allied pilot escape to the coast. They were getting another one out when Baxter told the Gestapo where to find them. The pilot, Tom Wilkinson and his cousin George were arrested. All three were hanged in a village called Brookhampton. As a reward, the Germans gave The Badger Inn to James Baxter."
"Which was painting a pretty big target on his back." Angel laughed at that; she had a suspicion that whatever German had come up with that idea really disliked informers.
"Quite. Now, Thomas had a wife, Jenny Wilkinson. She was seven months pregnant when her husband was hanged but the family got her out of the area before the Gestapo could string her up alongside him. She went up north, to a town called Keswick and had her baby up there. Most of the family joined her and they stayed there. Two weeks after the war ended, James Baxter was shot dead by unknown assailants presumed to be from the Resistance. Nobody knows because the Police didn’t find out about the killing for nearly two weeks. His brother, William Baxter inherited the Badger Inn, or thought he did, because Tom Wilkinson's brother, Richard Wilkinson immediately entered a petition for the restoration of the family property.
"The case went before the Royal Commission on War Loss Compensation and Restitution. It was very early on, probably before the commission went rotten. They almost instantly ruled in favor of the Wilkinsons and ordered the Baxters to quit the property immediately. They did, they had no choice with the Resistance looking for an excuse to get them all, but they smashed up The Badger Inn before they left. Broke all the glass windows, knocked the doors in, smashed up the inside walls and roof with sledgehammers, that sort of thing." Conrad sighed, human stupidity and malevolence went together so often. "Angel, that achieved nothing of course. The Baxters were forced to make good the damage and they had to sell the family farm to do so. With their reputation as collaborators, there were no buyers and they had to sell for pennies on the pound. By the time they had paid for the repairs to the Inn, the family was ruined - and for late 1940s Britain, that meant really ruined.
"Anyway, that was where the Royal Commission file ends. Their part in this was over but I did manage to find some more details. Apparently, Richard Wilkinson died without issue and intestate in the early 1990s. The rest of the family had moved away by then, mostly up north to Keswick. They didn’t want to take over the Inn so it was put up for sale by auction. The Baxters tried to buy it but they'd never recovered from selling their farm and they were easily outbid by Percy Portman. He had no part in the feud of course and probably knew nothing about the history. That didn't stop them shouting threats and abuse at him after the auction. The auction house filed a complaint against Charles Baxter, son of William Baxter, but it was withdrawn when he was bound over."
Angel regarded family feuds quite differently from Conrad. He looked on them as an unmitigated tragedy and a sad commentary on human frailty. To her, they were a useful source of income. Nevertheless, she could see how this particular feud had soured the lives of generations and quite possibly destroyed a young family. "Conrad, in the files you have there, is there any mention of anything called 'Ventogreen'." She spelled the name out.
"Ventogreen? " Conrad thumbed through the files he had received. "No, nothing here. Wait a minute, the Baxter's old farm, the one they had to sell, was called 'Ventnor Green Farm.' Does that help?"
"It sounds the same, doesn't it. Thank you, Conrad, you've given me a lot of pieces here. How is everything going your end?"
They chattered for a few minutes about inconsequential things, then Angel closed down the connection and made her way back to the Inn.
The Lounge Bar, The Inn on the Green, Marsh Baldon, Oxfordshire
In the background, Paddy trembled at the sight of the Wrong Human entering the bar and hid under the table that was furthest from her. Angel never noticed and wouldn't have cared if she had. Stan Wilkinson was having his evening pint at the bar and gave her a friendly wave as the door closed behind her. "Evening, Angel. You joining your friends in The Snug?"
Angel noted that he had smiled at her so she gave him the friendly smile she had, of course, copied from Conrad. "In a couple of minutes. Could we talk a little please? There's a few things I need to know."
"Sure lass, can I buy you a dram? Never let it be said that Stan couldn’t stand his round." There was laughter around the bar at the lame pun so Angel joined in.
"Could I have a Bacardi 151 please? Stan, are you related to the Wilkinsons who used to own the Badger Inn?"
"Aye lass, that I am. My mum was Jenny Wilkinson and my dad was her husband Tom. When Uncle Dick died, the family did na want to take over the Badger, too many bad memories, so we sold it. I'm the oldest son so I came down to manage the sale, liked it here and stayed. Why do you ask?"
Angel's drink had arrived. She'd noticed when one person bought another a drink, the recipient would raise the glass to the health of the donor so she did the same.
"It's all tied up with the killing of Percy the . . . with Percy Portman. We'll tell you all about it once we've got a handle on what happened. I promise." Angel sipped her drink appreciatively. “So, you never wanted to go back there then?”
Wilkinson shook his head emphatically. “To the Badger? Nay. I’ll tell you something, lass, that place is cursed. After what happened to my dad, the Baxters and now the Portmans, there’s a curse on it for certain. My mum reckoned it was the ghost of that Navy pilot the fascists hanged. Mum said he might have been fighting to liberate us but he was still a nasty piece of work and she could imagine him haunting the place. Best thing that could happen is somebody take a bulldozer to it and use the land for something else.”
Angel bought a round of drinks for the people around her and asked some more background questions about Marsh Baldon and its history. She found it curious that nobody except the Baxters took their feud with the Wilkinsons seriously and that the villagers in general viewed the Baxter family grudge as no more significant than children having a tantrum. After a few minutes chatting, she excused herself and went to The Snug. Behind her, Wilkinson finished his beer and looked around the bar. "Nice girl that. But then, she's a friend of Irene's so she would be."
There was a general nodding of heads and the bar conversation moved on to the football results. It never occurred to anybody that, as a well-compensated psychopath, Angel was an expert at manipulating the people around her and had no scruples about doing so.
In The Snug, Angel pulled up a chair and repeated the conversation she'd had with Conrad. "So, it seems like we have a multi-generation feud here between two families. We've all seen that before."
Igrat and Achillea nodded. They knew well that nobody ever benefitted from such feuds. Achillea wondered what her Dottore would have made of this situation and shook her head. Once again, his calm patient and kindly voice echoed across the years. Remember, it is not enough to be hit or insulted to be harmed, you must believe that you are being harmed. If someone succeeds in provoking you, realize that your mind is complicit in the provocation. Which is why it is essential not respond impulsively. Take a moment before reacting, and you will find it easier to maintain tranquility. "The Greeks have a saying, when seeking revenge, first dig two graves. If only it would stop at two, we'd all be better off. Do we know what started this whole thing?"
Angel shook her head. "I was talking to Stan Wilkinson in the bar. He doesn’t know and nor does anybody else. The Baxter family were the only people who took it seriously. Most people in the bar seemed to think it was more funny than anything else."
"They're wrong." Igrat looked worried. "It turned serious in . . . . 1946 you said? But the fact that nobody takes it seriously has probably made things worse. Their family was shouting and screaming about what they thought was the injustice they had suffered and nobody listened to them. Their frustration must have built up to the point where they just blew up. 'Lea, wasn't the girl you interviewed a Baxter?"
"Matilda Baxter, sure. Given her age, she must have been a grand-daughter of William Baxter. I wonder why Percy gave her a job at the Badger?"
"He probably didn’t realize the background. Village like this, newcomers don’t find out about anything more than superficial events for years. I'm me and I'm behind the bar most nights. For all that, there's a hell of a lot going on here I don’t find out about. Chris and Richard tell me English country villages are like that."
"Did you pick up anything else, Angel? How's Conrad doing?"
"Oh, he's happy making himself miserable contemplating the injustices that commission was responsible for. He'll cheer up when he puts them right. One thing we may have located that company, Ventogreen. Apparently the farm owned by the Baxters had a very similar name and it seems likely they created the name as a business cover."
"One thing I don't understand." Achillea looked at the wall, trying to get her mind around the situation. "If the Baxters are obsessed with getting the Badger Inn back, why were they paying Percy's debts off? We worked out they spent at least fifty thousand pounds on keeping him afloat. That's a lot of money for a family on its uppers. Why? If the Badger was going bankrupt, all they had to do was buy it up when it was auctioned."
Suddenly a light went on in Igrat's head. "We paid a little over three hundred thousand pounds for the Inn. The locals subscribed most of it and we got a mortage for the rest. The Badger hasn't the history this place has and it’s a much less distinguished property but the auction would get at least a quarter of a million. I bet the Baxters don’t have anything like that and they're too broke to get a mortgage."
"So?" Achillea couldn’t see where this was going.
"I'm not sure what British law is like on this but remember that Baxter girl said she did the paperwork? I bet that it will turn out that she included some that stated Ventogreen loaned the money to The Badger on a preferred debtor basis with a lien on the property. That means when they call the debt in, if there was no money to repay them the business has to close and they would get the property for whatever the debt is. Lillith described that once, she said it was a way of getting properties cheaply or of transferring ownership. Poor Percy never knew what was going on around him. The Baxters were taking the Badger right out from under his nose."
"And Matilda Baxter was the one doing the paperwork. She ran the debts and losses up as high as she could to make the foreclosure look real." Achillea's mouth twisted. "Anybody who could sell curled up sandwiches is capable of anything."
"Wasn't she working there when Percy's wife and daughter died? Perhaps they were trying to drive him out even then." Angel looked around. "Women don’t usually shoot themselves in the head. I bet Ventogreen was created purely for this scam. That's why they don’t exist anywhere."
Isabel had brought in plates of sandwiches and a tray of drinks just in time to catch Angel's last words. "Ventogreen? That was the name on the credit card Darren Clifford and Chad Marlowe used when they made their booking."
Igrat, Achillea and Angel looked at each other. Eventually, Igrat voiced the thought they all had. "They killed Percy, probably because he wouldn't just give up and leave. And Dave and that PC are walking straight at them thinking they’re just more witnesses."
"Oh crap." Achillea's words were considered to be something of an understatement. By that time, Atkinson and Rowley had been gone for almost half an hour.
The Snug, The Inn on the Green, Marsh Baldon, Oxfordshire
Atkinson concluded that The Snug was rapidly becoming a substitute for the incident room controlling the murder investigation. It had excellent beer and food that was even better which put it way above any police incident room. For a moment he toyed with the idea of moving the entire police station to the Inn. What worried him was that he couldn't think of a downside to that arrangement.
"Cristi came up with a really brilliant idea." Igrat had a glass of sparkling white wine in her hand. "We're already doing country walks, we have stables in the village so we can do cross-country treks on horseback as well. There's a whole network of bridlepaths through the fields and copses we can use. As long as people can ride, a guide can take them out for the day."
"How did she come up with that?" Achillea thought it was an excellent idea. A skilled rider herself, although one without much in the way of style and elegance, she knew she'd take one of those treks given the chance.
"We bought a horse, well he sort of came with the Old Rectory. The owner was moving out of the area and having problems finding stables for him, Cristi wanted to take up the sport so we included the horse in the deal. She's finding out that grooming a skewbald white is hard work.
"You ride, Irene?"
"Sure, but not for some time though. I'm slowly getting into practice again." She was stopped by a knocking on the door. "Come in?"
PC Rowley was in uniform, right down to the bowler had that the British police had, for some unknown but probably sadistic reason, inflicted on their female officers. "Sorry to trouble you but we've got the information from our searches back and I thought you would want it right away. We've got nothing on that Ventogreen company. No records at company house, none at the Inland Revenue, no permits, nothing. It's as if they don't exist."
"They probably don't." Angel was sprawled out as usual and the sight of her guns in their shoulder holsters made Rowley flinch slightly. "Ya ged the idea there's somethin' stinkin' bad about the whole situation there?"
Achillea and Igrat exchanged glances; Angel's New York accent had strengthened slightly, a sure indicator that she had spotted something seriously amiss in the situation and was worried about it.
"Anyway, the good news is, we found Darren Clifford and Chad Marlowe. They're down in Crowley, they work there watching one of the part suppliers for the factory. They're in the warehouse now."
"We'd better go see them." Atkinson finished his beer and stood up. "You can come along, 'Sol. Be some good experience for you."
"Shouldn't we call ahead first?"
Atkinson thought about that. "No, not this time. We had enough trouble finding them; let them know we are coming and they'll fade away. Anyway, 'Lea mentioned there was a lot of gang activity starting there, stealing parts and selling them. Us turning up unexpectedly might crimp their style. Did you park outside?"
Rowley shook her head. "Well away from the building. Don't want to scare the customers."
"Now that's thoughtful. I'm Irene by the way, this is Achillea, better known as 'Lea and the lady with the guns is Angel."
"Isolda Rowley. I've seen you three around the station. Pleased to meet you."
After they'd left, Achillea looked at the door that had closed behind them. "What's wrong Angel?"
Angel shrugged. "Just can't help remembering that the last time some cops turned up unexpectedly, there was a bloodbath. I got the same gut feeling now as I had before the Brighton Beach shoot-out started. Iggie, can I borrow your videolink computer? I've got a chat with Conrad scheduled."
"Sure, go ahead. We'll probably have word from Dave by the time you get back."
Angel's Room, the Old Rectory, Marsh Baldon, Oxfordshire
Conrad was speaking to a young woman standing to one side of the computer screen and, in Angel's opinion, she was standing far too close to him. Idly, she wondered what she would look like with a bullet hole between her eyes, but then Conrad turned around and the smile of delight on his face seemed to make everything all right. Angel couldn’t understand why, but it did.
"Angel, I've missed you. This is Phyllis, she works in the research department here. She's just brought up the Toot Baldon file for you."
Conrad made a small gesture with one hand and Angel took the hint that she should be grateful. "Thank you, Phyllis."
The woman waved and vanished from the screen. "How's your case going, Angel?"
"It's weird. None of the bits seem to fit together properly."
"I think we can help there. Your instincts were right, there is a case that the Royal Commission examined. It didn’t show up at first because we're only looking at ones where there was a potential miscarriage of justice. The Toot Baldon case was pretty much open and shut. The Commission did its job all right."
"What happened, Conrad."
"Well, the Badger Inn is an old establishment, goes back to the early 19th century." Conrad was smiling, to the long-lived, going back two hundred years was not a long journey. "It was owned by the Wilkinson family from well before the First World War up to 1946. From 1942 to 1947, the Luftwaffe used it as an officer's country club but the family stayed in nominal ownership. What the Luftwaffe didn't know was that members of the Wilkinson family and especially Thomas Wilkinson, the landlord of the Badger Inn, were prominent members of the Resistance and had a nice little spy-ring running.
"Now, the Wilkinsons had some sort of feud with another local family, the Baxters. Nobody knew quite how it started but it was a pretty vicious one. Bricks through windows, livestock poisoned, that sort of thing." Conrad shook his head sadly. In his opinion this kind of feud had been responsible for untold numbers of unnecessary deaths. "Anyway, the feud turned deadly in 1946 when James Baxter informed on Thomas Wilkinson. Apparently Wilkinson, in addition to spying, had helped the odd Allied pilot escape to the coast. They were getting another one out when Baxter told the Gestapo where to find them. The pilot, Tom Wilkinson and his cousin George were arrested. All three were hanged in a village called Brookhampton. As a reward, the Germans gave The Badger Inn to James Baxter."
"Which was painting a pretty big target on his back." Angel laughed at that; she had a suspicion that whatever German had come up with that idea really disliked informers.
"Quite. Now, Thomas had a wife, Jenny Wilkinson. She was seven months pregnant when her husband was hanged but the family got her out of the area before the Gestapo could string her up alongside him. She went up north, to a town called Keswick and had her baby up there. Most of the family joined her and they stayed there. Two weeks after the war ended, James Baxter was shot dead by unknown assailants presumed to be from the Resistance. Nobody knows because the Police didn’t find out about the killing for nearly two weeks. His brother, William Baxter inherited the Badger Inn, or thought he did, because Tom Wilkinson's brother, Richard Wilkinson immediately entered a petition for the restoration of the family property.
"The case went before the Royal Commission on War Loss Compensation and Restitution. It was very early on, probably before the commission went rotten. They almost instantly ruled in favor of the Wilkinsons and ordered the Baxters to quit the property immediately. They did, they had no choice with the Resistance looking for an excuse to get them all, but they smashed up The Badger Inn before they left. Broke all the glass windows, knocked the doors in, smashed up the inside walls and roof with sledgehammers, that sort of thing." Conrad sighed, human stupidity and malevolence went together so often. "Angel, that achieved nothing of course. The Baxters were forced to make good the damage and they had to sell the family farm to do so. With their reputation as collaborators, there were no buyers and they had to sell for pennies on the pound. By the time they had paid for the repairs to the Inn, the family was ruined - and for late 1940s Britain, that meant really ruined.
"Anyway, that was where the Royal Commission file ends. Their part in this was over but I did manage to find some more details. Apparently, Richard Wilkinson died without issue and intestate in the early 1990s. The rest of the family had moved away by then, mostly up north to Keswick. They didn’t want to take over the Inn so it was put up for sale by auction. The Baxters tried to buy it but they'd never recovered from selling their farm and they were easily outbid by Percy Portman. He had no part in the feud of course and probably knew nothing about the history. That didn't stop them shouting threats and abuse at him after the auction. The auction house filed a complaint against Charles Baxter, son of William Baxter, but it was withdrawn when he was bound over."
Angel regarded family feuds quite differently from Conrad. He looked on them as an unmitigated tragedy and a sad commentary on human frailty. To her, they were a useful source of income. Nevertheless, she could see how this particular feud had soured the lives of generations and quite possibly destroyed a young family. "Conrad, in the files you have there, is there any mention of anything called 'Ventogreen'." She spelled the name out.
"Ventogreen? " Conrad thumbed through the files he had received. "No, nothing here. Wait a minute, the Baxter's old farm, the one they had to sell, was called 'Ventnor Green Farm.' Does that help?"
"It sounds the same, doesn't it. Thank you, Conrad, you've given me a lot of pieces here. How is everything going your end?"
They chattered for a few minutes about inconsequential things, then Angel closed down the connection and made her way back to the Inn.
The Lounge Bar, The Inn on the Green, Marsh Baldon, Oxfordshire
In the background, Paddy trembled at the sight of the Wrong Human entering the bar and hid under the table that was furthest from her. Angel never noticed and wouldn't have cared if she had. Stan Wilkinson was having his evening pint at the bar and gave her a friendly wave as the door closed behind her. "Evening, Angel. You joining your friends in The Snug?"
Angel noted that he had smiled at her so she gave him the friendly smile she had, of course, copied from Conrad. "In a couple of minutes. Could we talk a little please? There's a few things I need to know."
"Sure lass, can I buy you a dram? Never let it be said that Stan couldn’t stand his round." There was laughter around the bar at the lame pun so Angel joined in.
"Could I have a Bacardi 151 please? Stan, are you related to the Wilkinsons who used to own the Badger Inn?"
"Aye lass, that I am. My mum was Jenny Wilkinson and my dad was her husband Tom. When Uncle Dick died, the family did na want to take over the Badger, too many bad memories, so we sold it. I'm the oldest son so I came down to manage the sale, liked it here and stayed. Why do you ask?"
Angel's drink had arrived. She'd noticed when one person bought another a drink, the recipient would raise the glass to the health of the donor so she did the same.
"It's all tied up with the killing of Percy the . . . with Percy Portman. We'll tell you all about it once we've got a handle on what happened. I promise." Angel sipped her drink appreciatively. “So, you never wanted to go back there then?”
Wilkinson shook his head emphatically. “To the Badger? Nay. I’ll tell you something, lass, that place is cursed. After what happened to my dad, the Baxters and now the Portmans, there’s a curse on it for certain. My mum reckoned it was the ghost of that Navy pilot the fascists hanged. Mum said he might have been fighting to liberate us but he was still a nasty piece of work and she could imagine him haunting the place. Best thing that could happen is somebody take a bulldozer to it and use the land for something else.”
Angel bought a round of drinks for the people around her and asked some more background questions about Marsh Baldon and its history. She found it curious that nobody except the Baxters took their feud with the Wilkinsons seriously and that the villagers in general viewed the Baxter family grudge as no more significant than children having a tantrum. After a few minutes chatting, she excused herself and went to The Snug. Behind her, Wilkinson finished his beer and looked around the bar. "Nice girl that. But then, she's a friend of Irene's so she would be."
There was a general nodding of heads and the bar conversation moved on to the football results. It never occurred to anybody that, as a well-compensated psychopath, Angel was an expert at manipulating the people around her and had no scruples about doing so.
In The Snug, Angel pulled up a chair and repeated the conversation she'd had with Conrad. "So, it seems like we have a multi-generation feud here between two families. We've all seen that before."
Igrat and Achillea nodded. They knew well that nobody ever benefitted from such feuds. Achillea wondered what her Dottore would have made of this situation and shook her head. Once again, his calm patient and kindly voice echoed across the years. Remember, it is not enough to be hit or insulted to be harmed, you must believe that you are being harmed. If someone succeeds in provoking you, realize that your mind is complicit in the provocation. Which is why it is essential not respond impulsively. Take a moment before reacting, and you will find it easier to maintain tranquility. "The Greeks have a saying, when seeking revenge, first dig two graves. If only it would stop at two, we'd all be better off. Do we know what started this whole thing?"
Angel shook her head. "I was talking to Stan Wilkinson in the bar. He doesn’t know and nor does anybody else. The Baxter family were the only people who took it seriously. Most people in the bar seemed to think it was more funny than anything else."
"They're wrong." Igrat looked worried. "It turned serious in . . . . 1946 you said? But the fact that nobody takes it seriously has probably made things worse. Their family was shouting and screaming about what they thought was the injustice they had suffered and nobody listened to them. Their frustration must have built up to the point where they just blew up. 'Lea, wasn't the girl you interviewed a Baxter?"
"Matilda Baxter, sure. Given her age, she must have been a grand-daughter of William Baxter. I wonder why Percy gave her a job at the Badger?"
"He probably didn’t realize the background. Village like this, newcomers don’t find out about anything more than superficial events for years. I'm me and I'm behind the bar most nights. For all that, there's a hell of a lot going on here I don’t find out about. Chris and Richard tell me English country villages are like that."
"Did you pick up anything else, Angel? How's Conrad doing?"
"Oh, he's happy making himself miserable contemplating the injustices that commission was responsible for. He'll cheer up when he puts them right. One thing we may have located that company, Ventogreen. Apparently the farm owned by the Baxters had a very similar name and it seems likely they created the name as a business cover."
"One thing I don't understand." Achillea looked at the wall, trying to get her mind around the situation. "If the Baxters are obsessed with getting the Badger Inn back, why were they paying Percy's debts off? We worked out they spent at least fifty thousand pounds on keeping him afloat. That's a lot of money for a family on its uppers. Why? If the Badger was going bankrupt, all they had to do was buy it up when it was auctioned."
Suddenly a light went on in Igrat's head. "We paid a little over three hundred thousand pounds for the Inn. The locals subscribed most of it and we got a mortage for the rest. The Badger hasn't the history this place has and it’s a much less distinguished property but the auction would get at least a quarter of a million. I bet the Baxters don’t have anything like that and they're too broke to get a mortgage."
"So?" Achillea couldn’t see where this was going.
"I'm not sure what British law is like on this but remember that Baxter girl said she did the paperwork? I bet that it will turn out that she included some that stated Ventogreen loaned the money to The Badger on a preferred debtor basis with a lien on the property. That means when they call the debt in, if there was no money to repay them the business has to close and they would get the property for whatever the debt is. Lillith described that once, she said it was a way of getting properties cheaply or of transferring ownership. Poor Percy never knew what was going on around him. The Baxters were taking the Badger right out from under his nose."
"And Matilda Baxter was the one doing the paperwork. She ran the debts and losses up as high as she could to make the foreclosure look real." Achillea's mouth twisted. "Anybody who could sell curled up sandwiches is capable of anything."
"Wasn't she working there when Percy's wife and daughter died? Perhaps they were trying to drive him out even then." Angel looked around. "Women don’t usually shoot themselves in the head. I bet Ventogreen was created purely for this scam. That's why they don’t exist anywhere."
Isabel had brought in plates of sandwiches and a tray of drinks just in time to catch Angel's last words. "Ventogreen? That was the name on the credit card Darren Clifford and Chad Marlowe used when they made their booking."
Igrat, Achillea and Angel looked at each other. Eventually, Igrat voiced the thought they all had. "They killed Percy, probably because he wouldn't just give up and leave. And Dave and that PC are walking straight at them thinking they’re just more witnesses."
"Oh crap." Achillea's words were considered to be something of an understatement. By that time, Atkinson and Rowley had been gone for almost half an hour.
Re: 2003 - The Melancholia of Percy the Pig
Chapter Nine
ExpressParts Warehouse, Blackbird Leys Industrial Estate, Crowley, Oxfordshire
Igrat was sitting calmly in the back seat of her Aston Martin while Angel drove. Her reasoning was that Angel's fast and extremely aggressive driving style was best calculated to get them to the warehouse with minimum delay. It was their primary hope of getting to Atkinson and Rowley before they ran into trouble. That was true and the fact Angel was driving at nearly 80 miles an hour in a 30 mph limit with the car's headlights turned off emphasized the urgency. It wasn't the real reason why Igrat had handed the keys to her though. It was that she was mentally flaying herself for letting this situation develop in the first place. She was telling herself that she should have recognized the danger and warned them; that she would have done so had not her danger-sense been dulled by months of living in the peaceful and bucolic atmosphere of Marsh Baldon. As a result, two people who she regarded as being little more than innocent bystanders, were in grave danger. She accused herself of negligence and rashness, cringing inside as she remembered how she had shown off her pick-pocketing skills and then forgotten to return the item she had taken before its loss was noted.
"Let up on yourself." Achillea's voice came from the front. "This isn’t your fault."
Angel looked as if she was about to disagree but checked her location instead. She drifted around another corner, then slowed down as she approached the warehouse. Another drift parked the car so it was pointing down the road for a quick exit and the radiator was shielded from stray shots. She was in no doubt that there was going to be killing. How much and who were the only things left to be decided. In contrast to Igrat’s misery and self-condemnation, Angel was happily back in her element.
There was a low wall separating the road from the warehouse. Beside it was a pile of something that looked like discarded garbage only when the car approached, it moved slightly and moaned. For a moment, Angel thought it was a woman wearing red blouse but saw the bowler hat on the ground and realized it was Rowley. Her blouse had been white but it was now soaked in blood. Marks on the pavement showed how she had dragged herself to cover.
"Please don’t kill me." The voice was a barely audible whimper.
Achillea was already on her knees beside her. Rowley had been shot twice, one bullet had hit her low in the shoulder, the other squarely in the middle of the back. Both Achillea and Angel were experienced in treating wounds, their own and other people's but Achillea knew that Angel had other things to do at this point. So, she looked after the wounded policewoman. "It's 'Lea. What happened?"
Rowley's voice was shattered, a barely audible whisper. "Parked the car near doors. Went to them knocked. Just started shooting. David went down. Ran away but they shot me. Can't move my legs. Hurts so much."
"Being shot will do that." Angel's voice was cold. "You're not bleeding out fast so you'll live if we can get you to emergency."
"Where's their car?" Achillea was checking Rowley's equipment. "Damn, a bullet hit her radio. It's gone. Iggie, you have a radio in your car?"
"Standard car radio. Receive only." Igrat's self-condemnation went up another notch.
“Angel, your portable?”
Angel flipped the top of her portable telephone open. “Not our night. No signal.”
"OK, Igrat, take over here, I need to watch Angel's back. Try to keep Isolda as calm and as comforted as you can. Don’t move her or let her move. Angel, sitrep?"
"Can see the police cruiser. It's by the loading doors. Can't see David. He must be inside. We'll have to go in."
Achillea knew that Angel meant that she would go in while Achillea held the perimeter. Angel performed best at room clearing when there were no friendlies around to shoot by accident. "Done. You deal with them and I'll get to the radio in the police car."
"Won't work" Rowley was struggling to breathe and speak. "Don't know why."
Achillea cursed with spectacular obscenity in Latin and shook her head. “Seriously? Not our night.”
Then, she took a brief breath in, held it and then let it out. "Let's do it."
It took them only a couple of minutes to slip through the shadows towards the doors. Angel could see them swinging slightly, obviously left open. The trap was obvious, blindingly obvious. She watched closely for any movement while Achillea squirmed over to the police car and tried to use the radio. She threw it down on the seat and gave a thumb's down. It was indeed out.
The time schedule was set by a loud scream from inside the warehouse. Despite being racked by pain, it was obviously Atkinson and was designed to force those outside to take premature, ill-considered action. It also told Angel that neither person inside knew who was coming for them. She was incapable of having that reaction and Achillea was too well trained and experienced to be taken in by the ploy. However, it had told her what to do.
She got into a half crouch, took a deep breath and started running. By the time she reached the doors, her final four or five steps had been in a curve, allowing her to lean into her turn, away from the doors. This had allowed her center of gravity to be lowered even before she pushed with her legs to take off. The sudden swerve also rotated her body so that her back and shoulders slammed into the door high up, causing them to fly open.
Angel had guessed right; the opposition had shot low, hoping to hit her in the stomach and legs as she ran through the door. The fact that she was nearly six feet off the ground, her body parallel to the top of the double doors frame and was already starting to somersault towards a landing meant that she was passing over the bullets they were firing. Also, their muzzle flashes gave her their exact position; one off to the left, the other to the right, about a hundred and twenty degrees apart. She was already drawing her own guns when she dropped to the floor, well over to one side of the expected path through the doors that were swing backwards and forwards behind her.
Angel landed with her right foot and her left knee flat on the ground. She was staring downwards, her mind occupied by the picture of the room, her position and those of the two men who had just tried to kill her. She felt the guns kicking in her hands as she fired more than a dozen round split between her two targets. Already, as her mind registered that she had fired, she was rolling across the floor to avoid any return fire but there was none. The silence as the echoes of the gunfire died away was broken only by the racked breathing and whimpering of Atkinson on the floor behind her. Beside him lay his personal radio, crushed by a stamping foot.
"Help me." His words were a gasp. Angel nodded, glanced around and saw a telephone. She picked it up, dialed 9-1-1 then cursed in Chinese. A quick press on the receiver rest killed the incorrect number and she redialed 9-9-9
"Emergency services."
"This is Angelique de Llorente." Angel knew the moment that name was typed into the emergency services computer, red lights would start flashing, metaphorically and literally, at 'Five'. "You've got officers down. I need the police and ambulance, right now."
Oxford Emergency Call Center.
"Police, emergency dispatch." Shirley Fawcett saw the emergency board light up.
"I'm at the ExpressParts Warehouse, Blackbird Leys. Perps ambushed to of your officers, a male Inspector and a female constable. Both down, alive but worse than critical. Gut-shot. Need medevac right now. The assailants are dead."
Fawcett started thumbing buttons and giving orders. "Medevac rotodyne and police support on its way. What happened to the assailants?"
"I shot them." It was the cold disinterest in the voice that was terrifying.
"Are you sure they are dead?" Fawcett didn't want her medical team walking into a potentially deadly situation.
"Hold one."
Fawcett heard the telephone receiver being put down and the echoing sounds of steps in a large, mostly empty buildings. Then there was a quick tattoo of four shots and more steps. The voice at the other end of the line sounded almost bored. "Yes."
"Are you on your own there? Is the scene . . ."
"There are three of us here, none of us are hurt and the scene is secure, now get help here unless you want to bury your cops instead of treating them." The telephone at the other end was suddenly and violently hung up.
Almost instantly, another telephone on Fawcett's desk rang. "Miss Fawcett, I hope you have all available assets on your way to the scene in response to that call from an unidentified civilian informant."
"But she told us her . . . . " Realization dawned. "I understand, an unidentified civilian has alerted us to two of our officers being attacked. All assistance possible is being rendered."
Emergency Trauma War, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford.
"What's happening?" Igrat asked the woman managing the emergency admissions desk.
"Both patients are in critical condition, both are being operated on by our best surgeons. Prognosis is unknown at this time. Nothing has changed since five minutes ago when you last asked."
The receptionist looked up at the three women who had arrived with the two casualties. All three were liberally stained with blood from their efforts to keep the victims alive. It was the attitudes of the women that differed. The one she was speaking to was suffering from acute guilt and blamed herself for the situation. Blythe Walcott had many years of experience on this desk and knew the symptoms. It might have been irrational but it was also a very common reaction. I could have done more; this is all my fault because I didn’t do more. The second woman was sitting patiently, stoically, recognizing there was nothing she could do and waiting for the situation to develop. The third, the Chinese woman with red hair and two guns was doing the same but showed no signs of concern about the battle going on to save the lives of the victims. There were whispers that she was the one who had killed the two men who had attacked the police officers and had thus saved the officer's lives.
"Angel?" Two men in civilian clothes had just entered the waiting room. One of them, the one who had just spoken. had an air of officialdom about him.
Angel looked up. "Hi, Chris. You need to train your police a bit better. This shouldn't have happened. Start by getting rid of those white shirts."
Chris Keeble looked at her with a touch of anger mixed in with gratitude. "Nobody could have known those two were the killers Inspector Atkinson was looking for. Our people were just lucky you were there."
"That's never been said by members of a police force before." Angel chuckled at the incongruity of the statement. "There was only five minutes in it. If they'd stopped to finish their drinks, they'd have been there when we got the link. If they’d driven just a little more slowly, we’d have caught up with them. And then we'd have gone in mob-handed. Just really crappy, crappy bad luck. The two men were the ones we thought they were?"
"Clifford and Marlowe. Identified from fingerprints after you blew their heads apart. Well done, by the way. There'll probably be a commendation in this for you. Going through that door took guts."
"Already being written." Another police officer had entered the room. "Assistant Commissioner Chris Keeble? Pleasure to meet you, Sir. Thank you for coming up so promptly. I'm Chief Constable Malcolm Watts. Miss . . . ."
“Just Angel.”
“My personal thanks for your work tonight, Angel. The Thames Valley police are in your debt.”
Angel watched the two police officers reflecting that a commendation was very different from the last time she had been involved in a police-related shooting. Then, the 27th Precinct had given her a beating that had broken five ribs and knocked out a lot of her teeth. The ribs had healed and her teeth had, for reasons she hadn’t understood then, grown back. This time, the two senior officers were exchanging notes about something but that didn't worry her. She had much more important things to do. "Conrad, it's so good to see you again. You come up here to help us? We need it."
Conrad looked at her and smiled with relief. The message had come through that she had been involved in a shooting up in Oxford and had expected another wait in an emergency ward while she was patched up. As Mr. Cheng had once warned him, Angel and emergency wards were intimately related. To find her alive, well and unharmed, in fact, the heroine of the hour, was both a relief and a source of delight. Later, he also would find the irony of the situation amusing but not now. “I don’t know about that. You seem to have done pretty well piecing this thing together.”
“And we got two people nearly killed.” Igrat was about to say something else when the doors banged and a middle-aged man and woman came in, followed by another mid-thirties woman with two children in tow.
“No, we didn’t. And stop blaming yourself for this mess.” Achillea was growing increasingly worried about Igrat.
“People, we have some news. Constable Rowley is out of surgery and is critical but stable.” A nurse had come in and was making the announcement. “The bad news is, the bullet wound in her back damaged her spinal column. We don’t know how badly, yet. Mr. and Mrs. Rowley, you have to face the possibility your daughter might lose the use of her legs. If you’d like to come with me, you can see her although she is still unconscious.”
The dam broke. Igrat slumped into a seat, her face in her hands, weeping. Conrad gave Angel a wry grin and went over to speak with her. Angel herself just shook her head slightly. There’d been a gunfight, people had been hurt and killed as was the way of things with a gunfight. She couldn’t understand why Igrat was so distraught about that.
“Angel, what happened in there?” Keeble was trying to put a ‘lessons learned’ report together and he thought he might as well consult an expert on situations like this.
Angel thought about that. “They were sadists, Chris. They shot David in the stomach so they could watch him die slowly. That’s stupid and unprofessional. It also killed them; when they were up against me, muscle memory made them shoot low again. The moment I heard David scream I know the sort of people they were and what they would try and do. So, I went in high and fast. These were stupid kids pretending to be hard men and they thought having guns made them hard. They thought being hard meant making people suffer. They didn’t understand that professionals kill clean and fast because it’s the safest thing to do.”
“You said this shouldn’t have happened. Why?”
“Because David and Isolda walked into an ambush like two innocent lambs to the slaughter. They assumed the situation was what they wanted it to be and didn’t bother to make allowances for what could happen. The real problem is that you don’t have enough murders this side of the pond so most of your officers have had to deal with a situation where killing is the first resort, not the last.” Angel shook her head. “Even in harmless situations, you should teach your officers always to take into account what might happen if the situation isn’t as harmless as they think. If I’d been in that warehouse, you’d have lost two officers tonight before they knew what had hit them and then I would have just walked away.”
Keeble closed his notebook as he had an epiphany. “Angel, you ought to write this report. What happened tonight is your world, isn’t it? If you’d been our police officer there, Clifford and Marlowe would still be dead but we wouldn’t be waiting to see if we’d lost two of our own.”
Angel took a very deep breath and let it out as an embarrassed flush spread over her face. “I’ll do that while Conrad finishes his investigation into the commission. I’ll have to borrow a secretary though; I’ll dictate it to her.”
“Excuse me miss, I understand you’re the one who went in to rescue David?” The woman with children had come over and was waiting politely to talk to Angel.
Angel nodded briefly, feeling sick with the anticipation of a very unwelcome hug. To her great relief, the woman had been briefed by Achillea with the advice that the one thing Angel appreciated more than anything else was not being touched.
“I just wanted to thank you. I don’t know what I would do if David. . . . . . He’s my rock.”
Angel, of course, couldn’t understand what the woman was talking about. Then she tried to imagine what it would be like if she was the one thanking a stranger for saving Conrad. That gave her a glimpse of how Atkinson’s wife must be feeling. What would Conrad say?. That was when she realized what Conrad would say was irrelevant because she wasn’t him. Instead, she gave her a dose of reality, Angel-style. “Look, I did the easy bit. And for me, it was very easy because I’m the best there is at what I do. You’ve got the hard job now. David has been hit very badly, his guts are all ripped up and he’ll be a long time recovering. You’re going to have to help him every step of the way. Cook him special meals so his stomach isn’t strained, make sure he doesn’t try and lift anything that’ll tear the wounds open. You’ll even have to nag him into working on his recovery. You can do all of that, but in your position I couldn’t. It’s not my thing at all.”
Mrs. Atkinson thought about that and Angel saw her eyes harden as her determination to make sure her husband recovered grew. That made her think she had said the right thing although she was quite confused as to why it was appropriate. She made a mental note to ask Conrad about that.
“Mrs. Atkinson, your husband is out of surgery. You can come and watch over him if you wish. He’ll be unconscious for many hours to come though. You might want to get the children to sleep for a few hours instead.” Angel watched the woman and children leave with the nurse then glanced around the room. Chief Constable Watts gave her a respectful salute and Angel returned it. Even so, she wondered why, since she hadn’t done anything particularly unusual. Not for her.
ExpressParts Warehouse, Blackbird Leys Industrial Estate, Crowley, Oxfordshire
Igrat was sitting calmly in the back seat of her Aston Martin while Angel drove. Her reasoning was that Angel's fast and extremely aggressive driving style was best calculated to get them to the warehouse with minimum delay. It was their primary hope of getting to Atkinson and Rowley before they ran into trouble. That was true and the fact Angel was driving at nearly 80 miles an hour in a 30 mph limit with the car's headlights turned off emphasized the urgency. It wasn't the real reason why Igrat had handed the keys to her though. It was that she was mentally flaying herself for letting this situation develop in the first place. She was telling herself that she should have recognized the danger and warned them; that she would have done so had not her danger-sense been dulled by months of living in the peaceful and bucolic atmosphere of Marsh Baldon. As a result, two people who she regarded as being little more than innocent bystanders, were in grave danger. She accused herself of negligence and rashness, cringing inside as she remembered how she had shown off her pick-pocketing skills and then forgotten to return the item she had taken before its loss was noted.
"Let up on yourself." Achillea's voice came from the front. "This isn’t your fault."
Angel looked as if she was about to disagree but checked her location instead. She drifted around another corner, then slowed down as she approached the warehouse. Another drift parked the car so it was pointing down the road for a quick exit and the radiator was shielded from stray shots. She was in no doubt that there was going to be killing. How much and who were the only things left to be decided. In contrast to Igrat’s misery and self-condemnation, Angel was happily back in her element.
There was a low wall separating the road from the warehouse. Beside it was a pile of something that looked like discarded garbage only when the car approached, it moved slightly and moaned. For a moment, Angel thought it was a woman wearing red blouse but saw the bowler hat on the ground and realized it was Rowley. Her blouse had been white but it was now soaked in blood. Marks on the pavement showed how she had dragged herself to cover.
"Please don’t kill me." The voice was a barely audible whimper.
Achillea was already on her knees beside her. Rowley had been shot twice, one bullet had hit her low in the shoulder, the other squarely in the middle of the back. Both Achillea and Angel were experienced in treating wounds, their own and other people's but Achillea knew that Angel had other things to do at this point. So, she looked after the wounded policewoman. "It's 'Lea. What happened?"
Rowley's voice was shattered, a barely audible whisper. "Parked the car near doors. Went to them knocked. Just started shooting. David went down. Ran away but they shot me. Can't move my legs. Hurts so much."
"Being shot will do that." Angel's voice was cold. "You're not bleeding out fast so you'll live if we can get you to emergency."
"Where's their car?" Achillea was checking Rowley's equipment. "Damn, a bullet hit her radio. It's gone. Iggie, you have a radio in your car?"
"Standard car radio. Receive only." Igrat's self-condemnation went up another notch.
“Angel, your portable?”
Angel flipped the top of her portable telephone open. “Not our night. No signal.”
"OK, Igrat, take over here, I need to watch Angel's back. Try to keep Isolda as calm and as comforted as you can. Don’t move her or let her move. Angel, sitrep?"
"Can see the police cruiser. It's by the loading doors. Can't see David. He must be inside. We'll have to go in."
Achillea knew that Angel meant that she would go in while Achillea held the perimeter. Angel performed best at room clearing when there were no friendlies around to shoot by accident. "Done. You deal with them and I'll get to the radio in the police car."
"Won't work" Rowley was struggling to breathe and speak. "Don't know why."
Achillea cursed with spectacular obscenity in Latin and shook her head. “Seriously? Not our night.”
Then, she took a brief breath in, held it and then let it out. "Let's do it."
It took them only a couple of minutes to slip through the shadows towards the doors. Angel could see them swinging slightly, obviously left open. The trap was obvious, blindingly obvious. She watched closely for any movement while Achillea squirmed over to the police car and tried to use the radio. She threw it down on the seat and gave a thumb's down. It was indeed out.
The time schedule was set by a loud scream from inside the warehouse. Despite being racked by pain, it was obviously Atkinson and was designed to force those outside to take premature, ill-considered action. It also told Angel that neither person inside knew who was coming for them. She was incapable of having that reaction and Achillea was too well trained and experienced to be taken in by the ploy. However, it had told her what to do.
She got into a half crouch, took a deep breath and started running. By the time she reached the doors, her final four or five steps had been in a curve, allowing her to lean into her turn, away from the doors. This had allowed her center of gravity to be lowered even before she pushed with her legs to take off. The sudden swerve also rotated her body so that her back and shoulders slammed into the door high up, causing them to fly open.
Angel had guessed right; the opposition had shot low, hoping to hit her in the stomach and legs as she ran through the door. The fact that she was nearly six feet off the ground, her body parallel to the top of the double doors frame and was already starting to somersault towards a landing meant that she was passing over the bullets they were firing. Also, their muzzle flashes gave her their exact position; one off to the left, the other to the right, about a hundred and twenty degrees apart. She was already drawing her own guns when she dropped to the floor, well over to one side of the expected path through the doors that were swing backwards and forwards behind her.
Angel landed with her right foot and her left knee flat on the ground. She was staring downwards, her mind occupied by the picture of the room, her position and those of the two men who had just tried to kill her. She felt the guns kicking in her hands as she fired more than a dozen round split between her two targets. Already, as her mind registered that she had fired, she was rolling across the floor to avoid any return fire but there was none. The silence as the echoes of the gunfire died away was broken only by the racked breathing and whimpering of Atkinson on the floor behind her. Beside him lay his personal radio, crushed by a stamping foot.
"Help me." His words were a gasp. Angel nodded, glanced around and saw a telephone. She picked it up, dialed 9-1-1 then cursed in Chinese. A quick press on the receiver rest killed the incorrect number and she redialed 9-9-9
"Emergency services."
"This is Angelique de Llorente." Angel knew the moment that name was typed into the emergency services computer, red lights would start flashing, metaphorically and literally, at 'Five'. "You've got officers down. I need the police and ambulance, right now."
Oxford Emergency Call Center.
"Police, emergency dispatch." Shirley Fawcett saw the emergency board light up.
"I'm at the ExpressParts Warehouse, Blackbird Leys. Perps ambushed to of your officers, a male Inspector and a female constable. Both down, alive but worse than critical. Gut-shot. Need medevac right now. The assailants are dead."
Fawcett started thumbing buttons and giving orders. "Medevac rotodyne and police support on its way. What happened to the assailants?"
"I shot them." It was the cold disinterest in the voice that was terrifying.
"Are you sure they are dead?" Fawcett didn't want her medical team walking into a potentially deadly situation.
"Hold one."
Fawcett heard the telephone receiver being put down and the echoing sounds of steps in a large, mostly empty buildings. Then there was a quick tattoo of four shots and more steps. The voice at the other end of the line sounded almost bored. "Yes."
"Are you on your own there? Is the scene . . ."
"There are three of us here, none of us are hurt and the scene is secure, now get help here unless you want to bury your cops instead of treating them." The telephone at the other end was suddenly and violently hung up.
Almost instantly, another telephone on Fawcett's desk rang. "Miss Fawcett, I hope you have all available assets on your way to the scene in response to that call from an unidentified civilian informant."
"But she told us her . . . . " Realization dawned. "I understand, an unidentified civilian has alerted us to two of our officers being attacked. All assistance possible is being rendered."
Emergency Trauma War, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford.
"What's happening?" Igrat asked the woman managing the emergency admissions desk.
"Both patients are in critical condition, both are being operated on by our best surgeons. Prognosis is unknown at this time. Nothing has changed since five minutes ago when you last asked."
The receptionist looked up at the three women who had arrived with the two casualties. All three were liberally stained with blood from their efforts to keep the victims alive. It was the attitudes of the women that differed. The one she was speaking to was suffering from acute guilt and blamed herself for the situation. Blythe Walcott had many years of experience on this desk and knew the symptoms. It might have been irrational but it was also a very common reaction. I could have done more; this is all my fault because I didn’t do more. The second woman was sitting patiently, stoically, recognizing there was nothing she could do and waiting for the situation to develop. The third, the Chinese woman with red hair and two guns was doing the same but showed no signs of concern about the battle going on to save the lives of the victims. There were whispers that she was the one who had killed the two men who had attacked the police officers and had thus saved the officer's lives.
"Angel?" Two men in civilian clothes had just entered the waiting room. One of them, the one who had just spoken. had an air of officialdom about him.
Angel looked up. "Hi, Chris. You need to train your police a bit better. This shouldn't have happened. Start by getting rid of those white shirts."
Chris Keeble looked at her with a touch of anger mixed in with gratitude. "Nobody could have known those two were the killers Inspector Atkinson was looking for. Our people were just lucky you were there."
"That's never been said by members of a police force before." Angel chuckled at the incongruity of the statement. "There was only five minutes in it. If they'd stopped to finish their drinks, they'd have been there when we got the link. If they’d driven just a little more slowly, we’d have caught up with them. And then we'd have gone in mob-handed. Just really crappy, crappy bad luck. The two men were the ones we thought they were?"
"Clifford and Marlowe. Identified from fingerprints after you blew their heads apart. Well done, by the way. There'll probably be a commendation in this for you. Going through that door took guts."
"Already being written." Another police officer had entered the room. "Assistant Commissioner Chris Keeble? Pleasure to meet you, Sir. Thank you for coming up so promptly. I'm Chief Constable Malcolm Watts. Miss . . . ."
“Just Angel.”
“My personal thanks for your work tonight, Angel. The Thames Valley police are in your debt.”
Angel watched the two police officers reflecting that a commendation was very different from the last time she had been involved in a police-related shooting. Then, the 27th Precinct had given her a beating that had broken five ribs and knocked out a lot of her teeth. The ribs had healed and her teeth had, for reasons she hadn’t understood then, grown back. This time, the two senior officers were exchanging notes about something but that didn't worry her. She had much more important things to do. "Conrad, it's so good to see you again. You come up here to help us? We need it."
Conrad looked at her and smiled with relief. The message had come through that she had been involved in a shooting up in Oxford and had expected another wait in an emergency ward while she was patched up. As Mr. Cheng had once warned him, Angel and emergency wards were intimately related. To find her alive, well and unharmed, in fact, the heroine of the hour, was both a relief and a source of delight. Later, he also would find the irony of the situation amusing but not now. “I don’t know about that. You seem to have done pretty well piecing this thing together.”
“And we got two people nearly killed.” Igrat was about to say something else when the doors banged and a middle-aged man and woman came in, followed by another mid-thirties woman with two children in tow.
“No, we didn’t. And stop blaming yourself for this mess.” Achillea was growing increasingly worried about Igrat.
“People, we have some news. Constable Rowley is out of surgery and is critical but stable.” A nurse had come in and was making the announcement. “The bad news is, the bullet wound in her back damaged her spinal column. We don’t know how badly, yet. Mr. and Mrs. Rowley, you have to face the possibility your daughter might lose the use of her legs. If you’d like to come with me, you can see her although she is still unconscious.”
The dam broke. Igrat slumped into a seat, her face in her hands, weeping. Conrad gave Angel a wry grin and went over to speak with her. Angel herself just shook her head slightly. There’d been a gunfight, people had been hurt and killed as was the way of things with a gunfight. She couldn’t understand why Igrat was so distraught about that.
“Angel, what happened in there?” Keeble was trying to put a ‘lessons learned’ report together and he thought he might as well consult an expert on situations like this.
Angel thought about that. “They were sadists, Chris. They shot David in the stomach so they could watch him die slowly. That’s stupid and unprofessional. It also killed them; when they were up against me, muscle memory made them shoot low again. The moment I heard David scream I know the sort of people they were and what they would try and do. So, I went in high and fast. These were stupid kids pretending to be hard men and they thought having guns made them hard. They thought being hard meant making people suffer. They didn’t understand that professionals kill clean and fast because it’s the safest thing to do.”
“You said this shouldn’t have happened. Why?”
“Because David and Isolda walked into an ambush like two innocent lambs to the slaughter. They assumed the situation was what they wanted it to be and didn’t bother to make allowances for what could happen. The real problem is that you don’t have enough murders this side of the pond so most of your officers have had to deal with a situation where killing is the first resort, not the last.” Angel shook her head. “Even in harmless situations, you should teach your officers always to take into account what might happen if the situation isn’t as harmless as they think. If I’d been in that warehouse, you’d have lost two officers tonight before they knew what had hit them and then I would have just walked away.”
Keeble closed his notebook as he had an epiphany. “Angel, you ought to write this report. What happened tonight is your world, isn’t it? If you’d been our police officer there, Clifford and Marlowe would still be dead but we wouldn’t be waiting to see if we’d lost two of our own.”
Angel took a very deep breath and let it out as an embarrassed flush spread over her face. “I’ll do that while Conrad finishes his investigation into the commission. I’ll have to borrow a secretary though; I’ll dictate it to her.”
“Excuse me miss, I understand you’re the one who went in to rescue David?” The woman with children had come over and was waiting politely to talk to Angel.
Angel nodded briefly, feeling sick with the anticipation of a very unwelcome hug. To her great relief, the woman had been briefed by Achillea with the advice that the one thing Angel appreciated more than anything else was not being touched.
“I just wanted to thank you. I don’t know what I would do if David. . . . . . He’s my rock.”
Angel, of course, couldn’t understand what the woman was talking about. Then she tried to imagine what it would be like if she was the one thanking a stranger for saving Conrad. That gave her a glimpse of how Atkinson’s wife must be feeling. What would Conrad say?. That was when she realized what Conrad would say was irrelevant because she wasn’t him. Instead, she gave her a dose of reality, Angel-style. “Look, I did the easy bit. And for me, it was very easy because I’m the best there is at what I do. You’ve got the hard job now. David has been hit very badly, his guts are all ripped up and he’ll be a long time recovering. You’re going to have to help him every step of the way. Cook him special meals so his stomach isn’t strained, make sure he doesn’t try and lift anything that’ll tear the wounds open. You’ll even have to nag him into working on his recovery. You can do all of that, but in your position I couldn’t. It’s not my thing at all.”
Mrs. Atkinson thought about that and Angel saw her eyes harden as her determination to make sure her husband recovered grew. That made her think she had said the right thing although she was quite confused as to why it was appropriate. She made a mental note to ask Conrad about that.
“Mrs. Atkinson, your husband is out of surgery. You can come and watch over him if you wish. He’ll be unconscious for many hours to come though. You might want to get the children to sleep for a few hours instead.” Angel watched the woman and children leave with the nurse then glanced around the room. Chief Constable Watts gave her a respectful salute and Angel returned it. Even so, she wondered why, since she hadn’t done anything particularly unusual. Not for her.
Re: 2003 - The Melancholia of Percy the Pig
Chapter Ten
Living Room, the Old Rectory, Marsh Baldon, Oxfordshire
“What’s the problem, Iggie?” Conrad phrased the question directly; he’d known Igrat long enough to realize that beating round the bushes and trying to sugar coat things didn’t work.
“Nothing.” Igrat gave a beaming and obviously false smile. That was as much a warning that something was wrong as using the infamous ‘nothing’. Igrat had known Conrad long enough to be sure that he wouldn’t be fooled by either.
“Then it’s the worst nothing I’ve ever seen. Iggie, you’ve helped me often enough and put me back on the right path more than once. Let me pay part of that debt off. And don’t try and tell me it’s the fact two people who were working with you are in intensive care. We’ve all see that too often to be this upset over it. Where short-lifers who get close to us are concerned, we cherish their lives, mourn their deaths and then move on. We have to, or we would go mad.”
Igrat turned around, her lips compressed with anger. “It’s my fault these two are in hospital. I screwed up and they’re paying the price.”
“You screwed up? How?” Conrad’s question was mild with an air of scholarly interest. As if a teacher was asking a student why their science experiment had gone wrong.
Igrat wasn’t fooled for a second. She was familiar with that behavior pattern from Conrad and knew that it marked him at his most devious. "Everybody but me knew there was something going wrong. Angel was speaking in pure Mott Street and that's a sure sign something is going bad. But I let those two walk into an ambush and didn’t say anything. Now David has got his guts torn up and Isolda is crippled for life."
"I didn't know you're a police officer, Iggie . . ."
"I'm not but I was in charge. . . ."
"No, you were not. Inspector Atkinson was." Conrad had deliberately put a heavy accent on Atkinson's rank. "And in his absence, command devolved to Constable Rowley. At no point did it ever descend to Miss Shafrid. In fact, Angel and Achillea outranked you as well due to their 'Five' connection. This is the hardest thing civilians like you and me have to learn when we get mixed up with criminal investigations. We're consultants, not in the chain of command. In the final analysis, we can advise and recommend but not give instructions. If we were running a package of data from one place to another, yes you'd be in charge. But not here and not now."
"But . . ."
"But me no buts Iggie. If you had told them what to do they would have ignored you. And quite rightly so. The information you needed to make the link didn’t arrive until after they had left. Up to that point, you had nothing but gut feelings which is why Angel and Achillea kept quiet. Up to that point, the only guns involved in this case are the ones Angel carries and they're meaningless because she always carries them. As far as the police knew, Atkinson and Rowley were going to interview a couple of witnesses whose only brush with the law had been youthful exuberance. Nobody knew any different and your gut instincts, no matter how reliable you know they are, didn't change that. British police doctrine with such interviews is to keep everything as low-key as possible. 'Display courtesy and friendly good humor' are actually instructions written into their manual; Angel showed it to me once. Think about this, if Angel and Achillea really believed that something bad was going to happen, don't you think that one of them would have gone along? Probably Achillea, it would have been rational to expect a close-quarters fight and she's better at that. Have you seen how Angel and Achillea defer to each other depending on the circumstances?
"So, you didn’t do anything wrong and didn't make a mistake. This isn’t your fault. I'll tell you what I tell everybody who thinks the results of a crime are their fault. It isn’t, the fault lies with the people who committed the crime and you know it. So why do you blame yourself? Let’s start with what makes you think you were in charge?"
"Well . . ." Igrat had the same mulish obstinacy expression on her face that she used when she was clinging to something she knew was irrational. She had a lot in common with cats, faced with the inevitable she would accept it. Just barely.
Conrad pressed home his advantage. "So, let's see what is really troubling you. What's happened recently? Tell me about moving into Marsh Baldon."
Igrat started a description of her move and Cristi's arrival at University. Halfway through, Conrad held up his hand. "Who's Henry?"
"Cristi's boyfriend."
"Ahh. And they're sleeping together." Conrad had seen the light.
"Well, I don't think they do much sleeping." Igrat smiled, a genuine smile for the first time in days.
"Do you think that's what's been troubling you? You rescued a frightened young girl from a horrible situation, brought her up and made her into a fine young woman. Now, she's leaving the nest you built for her and trying out her wings. From a position where you were in charge of her welfare, you're now a more-or-less helpless spectator. You're afraid she'll crash and burn although how she'll do that with you and Achillea watching over her escapes me. But, you can't tell her that because she has to grow up and make her own choices and her own life. So you transfer your worry and fear over Cristi striking out on her own to what happened to Atkinson and Rowley. You see them walking unsuspecting towards that warehouse and instead it's Cristi walking into trouble that she can’t see coming. So, you pre-emptively blame yourself for not warning her and transfer that to blaming yourself for not warning our two police friends."
Igrat grunted rather inelegantly but Conrad's point had struck home.
"Let me tell you something, Iggie. Watch Angel. Every so often she'll point at my head and then at the wall behind me. Normally she does that when I'm blaming myself for something when I shouldn't and she's telling me if I don’t stop, she'll splatter my brains all over the wall. So, I'm going to use one of the many lessons I've learned from her." Conrad pointed at Igrat's head and then at the wall behind her. "You've done an incredible job bringing Cristi up, far better than anybody ever suspected you could. So trust yourself and what you've taught her. Now, let's join the others and see where we go from here."
The Snug, The Inn on the Green, Marsh Baldon, Oxfordshire
"I'm Inspector Rupert Gladstone. I've taken over the case from Inspector Atkinson following his injuries. Angel, I've been asked by the whole station to thank you for saving David's life. He's a very popular officer at the station and you should know you won’t be allowed to buy your own beer at the local watering hole."
Angel picked up the 'gratitude due' sign from Conrad and thanked Gladstone for the courtesy. "How's Isolda?"
"She's still in intensive care while tests are carried out. It's not looking good. The bullet that hit her spine was a hollow point so it's torn her up badly but the bone may have protected the spinal cord from fragments. The doctors will know in a week or so when the bruising starts to go down."
Angel looked dubious. Gladstone picked up the look and gave a wry smile. They both knew that the doctors were hoping against hope and that Isolda Rowley would almost certainly never walk again. "All right, could you all bring me up to speed on what's happening? I've read the file of course, but it only tells a small part of the story. By the way, I do have one more thing for you. Percy Portman didn't have his throat cut, not with a knife. According to a detailed autopsy, he was garroted with piano wire. I believe you mentioned that possibility, Angel?"
It was Achillea who answered. "Let me guess; he probably went to the restroom on 'business' and was standing at the stall when one of the two looped the wire around his neck. He probably thought he was being robbed so didn’t resist. They dragged him into the disabled stall, rammed his head into the pan and jerked the wire tight. Finish."
"My thoughts exactly." Gladstone agreed.
Igrat carefully repeated everything that had happened so far. She was doing so for Conrad as well as Gladstone, bringing him up to date. When she finished, she looked at her audience. "That's all we have. What do you think, Rupert? Conrad?"
"Conrad? Chris Keeble speaks highly of you."
Conrad thought carefully. "We've got two parts of the story here. The first is the murder of Percy Portman. I don't think there is any reasonable doubt that Clifford and Marlowe killed Portman. The odd thing is that proving it might have been quite difficult. We can be certain they were in the area and they had a credit card from the same company that paid off the credit card debt on The Badger Inn. But, that doesn't prove they killed Portman. A good defense attorney could say they had it for business purchases and were using it for private transactions. If their employer confirmed that and said they were allowed to do so as long as they refunded the money, there's almost no case. By shooting down David and Isolda, they convicted themselves. They saw two police officers arrive unexpectedly, assumed they were being arrested for the murder and fought. 'The guilty flee where no man pursueth.'
"The second story is the feud and how it affected the Portmans including the murders of Penny and Judith Portman."
"Whoa. Screeching halt time." Gladstone held up his hand in the 'stop traffic' sign. "WHAT murders?"
"Penny Portman first. She went down a slope towards a gate that was normally locked but happened not to be this time. According to the report, she had one of those little tricycles that had pedals on the front wheel only. They're toys, they don’t have brakes. If she was in the habit of going down that slope, she'd have injured herself before by hitting the gate and her parents would have made sure it didn’t happen again. Either by putting another gate at the top or forbidding her to go down. Or both. I would say that she was pushed down that slope, through the opened gate and in front of the truck. That's murder. The murderer may have opened the gate or simply seen it had been left open and seized the opportunity.
"As for Judith, Angel spoke the truth. Women don’t shoot themselves. They most especially don’t shoot themselves in the head and they never blow their heads apart with shotguns. Given the length of the average British double-barrel, she would have had to fire the gun with her toe. Do the scene-of-death pictures show whether she was wearing her shoes?"
"I'll check." Gladstone was fascinated by the way the situation was developing. "I'll have the file pulled tomorrow."
"Thank you. I think that Judith was on the floor, comatose from binge-drinking and somebody walked in, saw the opportunity and held the gun under her chin. Then pulled the triggers."
The three women present were familiar with violence and gunfire but two of the three shuddered at the way the victim must have been mutilated by the blast. Angel just shrugged.
"Killing somebody like that took a lot of hate." Achillea regarded it as an obvious statement. "Who hated her that much?"
"Her husband." Igrat sounded heavily final. “Think about it, he blamed her for the death of their daughter, he blamed her for drinking the profits of their business, he blamed her for driving away the customers with her behavior. There was, quite literally nothing he didn’t blame her for. He found her on the floor, probably in a pool of her own vomit, and finally had enough. She probably hadn’t been much of a wife to him since their daughter died. When he saw her like that, what was left of love died. So he shot her, made it look like suicide and then called the police.”
“He went into deep psychotic depression after that.” Gladstone objected.
“He’d killed his wife. He could see that the business and the life together they had built up was gone. He could see the mess the shotgun had left of her head every time he closed his eyes. Most people can’t stand seeing things like that.”
Igrat glanced at Angel who was about to disagree and amended the last comment. “Most normal people.”
Angel gave her the finger and the two women laughed. As the reality and truth of Conrad’s lecture had sunk in, Igrat had realized that she had been sinking slowly into melancholia herself and made the decision to snap out of it. She also realized that one contributor to that state had been her trip to collect information from the bank and how it had reminded her of the courier work she had discontinued but which filled a deep need inside her. She had made the decision to start work again, even on a limited basis and simply making that decision had caused her depression to lift.
“The problems we now have are twofold. One is, why was Percy Portman killed? The other is, who killed Penny Portman and why? Can we link the two sets of crimes? Is there a link between them.”
“There’s the credit cards, Conrad.” Angel looked around. “That’s a link.”
“And its one we have to look into.” Conrad thought about that. “It’s the only bit of the puzzle that still doesn’t fit.”
“It’s a very weak link.” Gladstone thought carefully. “We have a bit of extra latitude when police officers are attacked and this is the first time since the Occupation that a deliberate attempt has been made to kill a policewoman. We’ll bring Matilda and Charles Baxter into custody. The credit card is a strong enough link for that. Also, the fact that credit cards were issued to an unregistered company raises the possibility of a conspiracy to defraud the Inland Revenue. We can hold them on that.
“Inspector Gladstone. . . . .”
“Rupert, please, Angel.”
“All right, Rupert. Have you counted how many shots were fired by Clifford and Marlowe?”
“Eighteen at Atkinson and Rowley, twelve at you. They were armed with Walther P-38s, it’s about the most common handgun around here. Left over from the Occupation you see.”
“Nine by nineteens. They’re hard to get these days. You might try and find out when and where they bought them.”
“It’s under way. Although they could be ex-German stock as well.”
Angel shook her head. “They used hollow-points. Which is dumb by the way, they jam semi-autos. Hollow-points aren’t military issue. Partly for legal reasons, partly because they do jam pistols when you most need them. Your police don’t have P-38s available do they? I know you don’t normally carry them.”
Gladstone looked abashed. “We do. We’ve never been able to afford to replace them. Other things came first.”
“Get rid of them. The heavy trigger pull makes them too inaccurate. You’ve probably got a window of opportunity right now.” Angel remembered how the NYPD had completely replaced its firearms industry after Brighton Beach.
“We’ll look into it. By the way, you may want these.” Gladstone gave her a bag of expended cartridge cases. “Your brass. Nine by twenty-ones are nice.”
“I can recommend the Berettas, caliber 9mm of choice. The open top means they won’t stovepipe jam on you. The military have reservations about them because the same open design means they get dirty but for civilian use, their reliability makes them the best options.” Angel stowed the bag of expended brass away. She was aware there was a deliberate police message inherent with eliminating possible evidence against her but she’d already replaced the firing pins in her pistols and pushed a rat-tail file down the barrel. Now, forensic comparison would show that the cases and any recovered bullets didn’t match the pistols.
With that, the meeting broke up. Conrad and Angel stayed on at the Inn for a quiet drink before heading back to the Old Rectory and the rooms Igrat had ready for them. “Conrad, could you explain something to me? I was speaking with David’s wife, she wanted to thank me for saving her husband. I think I said the right thing in reply but I don’t understand why. Explain it to me?”
Angel related the details of her meeting and what she had said. When she had finished, Conrad smiled at her. “You did say the right thing. She was grateful to you for saving her husband but also afraid of you and your guns and resentful that you, another woman, had done something for her husband that she couldn’t possibly equal. Beyond that she knew that she was facing a very hard time helping her husband recover and didn’t know if she was up to the task. You told her that you were just doing your job and reassured her that she was capable of the long, hard work that lay before her – and that you wouldn’t even know where to start on that. You know Angel, I’ve said this before, but underneath all your scars, there’s a good person inside you.”
Angel looked at him with a genuine half-smile of affection on her face. “Conrad, there is no need to be insulting.”
Living Room, the Old Rectory, Marsh Baldon, Oxfordshire
“What’s the problem, Iggie?” Conrad phrased the question directly; he’d known Igrat long enough to realize that beating round the bushes and trying to sugar coat things didn’t work.
“Nothing.” Igrat gave a beaming and obviously false smile. That was as much a warning that something was wrong as using the infamous ‘nothing’. Igrat had known Conrad long enough to be sure that he wouldn’t be fooled by either.
“Then it’s the worst nothing I’ve ever seen. Iggie, you’ve helped me often enough and put me back on the right path more than once. Let me pay part of that debt off. And don’t try and tell me it’s the fact two people who were working with you are in intensive care. We’ve all see that too often to be this upset over it. Where short-lifers who get close to us are concerned, we cherish their lives, mourn their deaths and then move on. We have to, or we would go mad.”
Igrat turned around, her lips compressed with anger. “It’s my fault these two are in hospital. I screwed up and they’re paying the price.”
“You screwed up? How?” Conrad’s question was mild with an air of scholarly interest. As if a teacher was asking a student why their science experiment had gone wrong.
Igrat wasn’t fooled for a second. She was familiar with that behavior pattern from Conrad and knew that it marked him at his most devious. "Everybody but me knew there was something going wrong. Angel was speaking in pure Mott Street and that's a sure sign something is going bad. But I let those two walk into an ambush and didn’t say anything. Now David has got his guts torn up and Isolda is crippled for life."
"I didn't know you're a police officer, Iggie . . ."
"I'm not but I was in charge. . . ."
"No, you were not. Inspector Atkinson was." Conrad had deliberately put a heavy accent on Atkinson's rank. "And in his absence, command devolved to Constable Rowley. At no point did it ever descend to Miss Shafrid. In fact, Angel and Achillea outranked you as well due to their 'Five' connection. This is the hardest thing civilians like you and me have to learn when we get mixed up with criminal investigations. We're consultants, not in the chain of command. In the final analysis, we can advise and recommend but not give instructions. If we were running a package of data from one place to another, yes you'd be in charge. But not here and not now."
"But . . ."
"But me no buts Iggie. If you had told them what to do they would have ignored you. And quite rightly so. The information you needed to make the link didn’t arrive until after they had left. Up to that point, you had nothing but gut feelings which is why Angel and Achillea kept quiet. Up to that point, the only guns involved in this case are the ones Angel carries and they're meaningless because she always carries them. As far as the police knew, Atkinson and Rowley were going to interview a couple of witnesses whose only brush with the law had been youthful exuberance. Nobody knew any different and your gut instincts, no matter how reliable you know they are, didn't change that. British police doctrine with such interviews is to keep everything as low-key as possible. 'Display courtesy and friendly good humor' are actually instructions written into their manual; Angel showed it to me once. Think about this, if Angel and Achillea really believed that something bad was going to happen, don't you think that one of them would have gone along? Probably Achillea, it would have been rational to expect a close-quarters fight and she's better at that. Have you seen how Angel and Achillea defer to each other depending on the circumstances?
"So, you didn’t do anything wrong and didn't make a mistake. This isn’t your fault. I'll tell you what I tell everybody who thinks the results of a crime are their fault. It isn’t, the fault lies with the people who committed the crime and you know it. So why do you blame yourself? Let’s start with what makes you think you were in charge?"
"Well . . ." Igrat had the same mulish obstinacy expression on her face that she used when she was clinging to something she knew was irrational. She had a lot in common with cats, faced with the inevitable she would accept it. Just barely.
Conrad pressed home his advantage. "So, let's see what is really troubling you. What's happened recently? Tell me about moving into Marsh Baldon."
Igrat started a description of her move and Cristi's arrival at University. Halfway through, Conrad held up his hand. "Who's Henry?"
"Cristi's boyfriend."
"Ahh. And they're sleeping together." Conrad had seen the light.
"Well, I don't think they do much sleeping." Igrat smiled, a genuine smile for the first time in days.
"Do you think that's what's been troubling you? You rescued a frightened young girl from a horrible situation, brought her up and made her into a fine young woman. Now, she's leaving the nest you built for her and trying out her wings. From a position where you were in charge of her welfare, you're now a more-or-less helpless spectator. You're afraid she'll crash and burn although how she'll do that with you and Achillea watching over her escapes me. But, you can't tell her that because she has to grow up and make her own choices and her own life. So you transfer your worry and fear over Cristi striking out on her own to what happened to Atkinson and Rowley. You see them walking unsuspecting towards that warehouse and instead it's Cristi walking into trouble that she can’t see coming. So, you pre-emptively blame yourself for not warning her and transfer that to blaming yourself for not warning our two police friends."
Igrat grunted rather inelegantly but Conrad's point had struck home.
"Let me tell you something, Iggie. Watch Angel. Every so often she'll point at my head and then at the wall behind me. Normally she does that when I'm blaming myself for something when I shouldn't and she's telling me if I don’t stop, she'll splatter my brains all over the wall. So, I'm going to use one of the many lessons I've learned from her." Conrad pointed at Igrat's head and then at the wall behind her. "You've done an incredible job bringing Cristi up, far better than anybody ever suspected you could. So trust yourself and what you've taught her. Now, let's join the others and see where we go from here."
The Snug, The Inn on the Green, Marsh Baldon, Oxfordshire
"I'm Inspector Rupert Gladstone. I've taken over the case from Inspector Atkinson following his injuries. Angel, I've been asked by the whole station to thank you for saving David's life. He's a very popular officer at the station and you should know you won’t be allowed to buy your own beer at the local watering hole."
Angel picked up the 'gratitude due' sign from Conrad and thanked Gladstone for the courtesy. "How's Isolda?"
"She's still in intensive care while tests are carried out. It's not looking good. The bullet that hit her spine was a hollow point so it's torn her up badly but the bone may have protected the spinal cord from fragments. The doctors will know in a week or so when the bruising starts to go down."
Angel looked dubious. Gladstone picked up the look and gave a wry smile. They both knew that the doctors were hoping against hope and that Isolda Rowley would almost certainly never walk again. "All right, could you all bring me up to speed on what's happening? I've read the file of course, but it only tells a small part of the story. By the way, I do have one more thing for you. Percy Portman didn't have his throat cut, not with a knife. According to a detailed autopsy, he was garroted with piano wire. I believe you mentioned that possibility, Angel?"
It was Achillea who answered. "Let me guess; he probably went to the restroom on 'business' and was standing at the stall when one of the two looped the wire around his neck. He probably thought he was being robbed so didn’t resist. They dragged him into the disabled stall, rammed his head into the pan and jerked the wire tight. Finish."
"My thoughts exactly." Gladstone agreed.
Igrat carefully repeated everything that had happened so far. She was doing so for Conrad as well as Gladstone, bringing him up to date. When she finished, she looked at her audience. "That's all we have. What do you think, Rupert? Conrad?"
"Conrad? Chris Keeble speaks highly of you."
Conrad thought carefully. "We've got two parts of the story here. The first is the murder of Percy Portman. I don't think there is any reasonable doubt that Clifford and Marlowe killed Portman. The odd thing is that proving it might have been quite difficult. We can be certain they were in the area and they had a credit card from the same company that paid off the credit card debt on The Badger Inn. But, that doesn't prove they killed Portman. A good defense attorney could say they had it for business purchases and were using it for private transactions. If their employer confirmed that and said they were allowed to do so as long as they refunded the money, there's almost no case. By shooting down David and Isolda, they convicted themselves. They saw two police officers arrive unexpectedly, assumed they were being arrested for the murder and fought. 'The guilty flee where no man pursueth.'
"The second story is the feud and how it affected the Portmans including the murders of Penny and Judith Portman."
"Whoa. Screeching halt time." Gladstone held up his hand in the 'stop traffic' sign. "WHAT murders?"
"Penny Portman first. She went down a slope towards a gate that was normally locked but happened not to be this time. According to the report, she had one of those little tricycles that had pedals on the front wheel only. They're toys, they don’t have brakes. If she was in the habit of going down that slope, she'd have injured herself before by hitting the gate and her parents would have made sure it didn’t happen again. Either by putting another gate at the top or forbidding her to go down. Or both. I would say that she was pushed down that slope, through the opened gate and in front of the truck. That's murder. The murderer may have opened the gate or simply seen it had been left open and seized the opportunity.
"As for Judith, Angel spoke the truth. Women don’t shoot themselves. They most especially don’t shoot themselves in the head and they never blow their heads apart with shotguns. Given the length of the average British double-barrel, she would have had to fire the gun with her toe. Do the scene-of-death pictures show whether she was wearing her shoes?"
"I'll check." Gladstone was fascinated by the way the situation was developing. "I'll have the file pulled tomorrow."
"Thank you. I think that Judith was on the floor, comatose from binge-drinking and somebody walked in, saw the opportunity and held the gun under her chin. Then pulled the triggers."
The three women present were familiar with violence and gunfire but two of the three shuddered at the way the victim must have been mutilated by the blast. Angel just shrugged.
"Killing somebody like that took a lot of hate." Achillea regarded it as an obvious statement. "Who hated her that much?"
"Her husband." Igrat sounded heavily final. “Think about it, he blamed her for the death of their daughter, he blamed her for drinking the profits of their business, he blamed her for driving away the customers with her behavior. There was, quite literally nothing he didn’t blame her for. He found her on the floor, probably in a pool of her own vomit, and finally had enough. She probably hadn’t been much of a wife to him since their daughter died. When he saw her like that, what was left of love died. So he shot her, made it look like suicide and then called the police.”
“He went into deep psychotic depression after that.” Gladstone objected.
“He’d killed his wife. He could see that the business and the life together they had built up was gone. He could see the mess the shotgun had left of her head every time he closed his eyes. Most people can’t stand seeing things like that.”
Igrat glanced at Angel who was about to disagree and amended the last comment. “Most normal people.”
Angel gave her the finger and the two women laughed. As the reality and truth of Conrad’s lecture had sunk in, Igrat had realized that she had been sinking slowly into melancholia herself and made the decision to snap out of it. She also realized that one contributor to that state had been her trip to collect information from the bank and how it had reminded her of the courier work she had discontinued but which filled a deep need inside her. She had made the decision to start work again, even on a limited basis and simply making that decision had caused her depression to lift.
“The problems we now have are twofold. One is, why was Percy Portman killed? The other is, who killed Penny Portman and why? Can we link the two sets of crimes? Is there a link between them.”
“There’s the credit cards, Conrad.” Angel looked around. “That’s a link.”
“And its one we have to look into.” Conrad thought about that. “It’s the only bit of the puzzle that still doesn’t fit.”
“It’s a very weak link.” Gladstone thought carefully. “We have a bit of extra latitude when police officers are attacked and this is the first time since the Occupation that a deliberate attempt has been made to kill a policewoman. We’ll bring Matilda and Charles Baxter into custody. The credit card is a strong enough link for that. Also, the fact that credit cards were issued to an unregistered company raises the possibility of a conspiracy to defraud the Inland Revenue. We can hold them on that.
“Inspector Gladstone. . . . .”
“Rupert, please, Angel.”
“All right, Rupert. Have you counted how many shots were fired by Clifford and Marlowe?”
“Eighteen at Atkinson and Rowley, twelve at you. They were armed with Walther P-38s, it’s about the most common handgun around here. Left over from the Occupation you see.”
“Nine by nineteens. They’re hard to get these days. You might try and find out when and where they bought them.”
“It’s under way. Although they could be ex-German stock as well.”
Angel shook her head. “They used hollow-points. Which is dumb by the way, they jam semi-autos. Hollow-points aren’t military issue. Partly for legal reasons, partly because they do jam pistols when you most need them. Your police don’t have P-38s available do they? I know you don’t normally carry them.”
Gladstone looked abashed. “We do. We’ve never been able to afford to replace them. Other things came first.”
“Get rid of them. The heavy trigger pull makes them too inaccurate. You’ve probably got a window of opportunity right now.” Angel remembered how the NYPD had completely replaced its firearms industry after Brighton Beach.
“We’ll look into it. By the way, you may want these.” Gladstone gave her a bag of expended cartridge cases. “Your brass. Nine by twenty-ones are nice.”
“I can recommend the Berettas, caliber 9mm of choice. The open top means they won’t stovepipe jam on you. The military have reservations about them because the same open design means they get dirty but for civilian use, their reliability makes them the best options.” Angel stowed the bag of expended brass away. She was aware there was a deliberate police message inherent with eliminating possible evidence against her but she’d already replaced the firing pins in her pistols and pushed a rat-tail file down the barrel. Now, forensic comparison would show that the cases and any recovered bullets didn’t match the pistols.
With that, the meeting broke up. Conrad and Angel stayed on at the Inn for a quiet drink before heading back to the Old Rectory and the rooms Igrat had ready for them. “Conrad, could you explain something to me? I was speaking with David’s wife, she wanted to thank me for saving her husband. I think I said the right thing in reply but I don’t understand why. Explain it to me?”
Angel related the details of her meeting and what she had said. When she had finished, Conrad smiled at her. “You did say the right thing. She was grateful to you for saving her husband but also afraid of you and your guns and resentful that you, another woman, had done something for her husband that she couldn’t possibly equal. Beyond that she knew that she was facing a very hard time helping her husband recover and didn’t know if she was up to the task. You told her that you were just doing your job and reassured her that she was capable of the long, hard work that lay before her – and that you wouldn’t even know where to start on that. You know Angel, I’ve said this before, but underneath all your scars, there’s a good person inside you.”
Angel looked at him with a genuine half-smile of affection on her face. “Conrad, there is no need to be insulting.”
Re: 2003 - The Melancholia of Percy the Pig
Chapter Eleven
Interview Room, St Aldates Police Station, Thames Valley Police, Oxford.
“Thank you for coming in, Mr. Baxter. You have probably heard how serious the situation is and we appreciate every bit of help we can get.” Conrad had his mildest and most friendly voice in place.
“I wasn’t given much choice, was I?” In contrast to Conrad’s measured tones, Charles Baxter was truculent and aggressive.
“So I have been told.” Conrad sighed theatrically. Lounging up against the wall behind him, Angel thought he had overdone it a bit. But then he understands these things. All I can do is watch and learn. “You must understand the Thames Valley Police are really on edge right now. With two of their own critically injured in hospital and the two gunmen in the morgue, they’re being a bit more brusque than they should, I suppose.”
Baxter had no excuse for not knowing what was happening. News of the shooting of Atkinson and Rowley hadn’t just make the UK national newspapers but had been headlined all over the world. The BBC Morning News had been extended to a full hour with detailed accounts of what they thought had happened and interviews with families and police officers. Conrad was grimly aware that, in many countries, Baxter would have been dragged behind a police car to the nearest station. All in all, so far he has got off lightly.
Behind him Angel was comparing the way he was being treated with what had happened to her when she was arrested, two years after the Brighton Beach Massacre. The irony was that she had been brought in as a material witness to another crime, one that she had nothing to do with. When they had finally identified her, she’d been dragged into a back room where she sincerely believed the beating she had been given had been intended to kill her. It very nearly had, but it had also delayed her trial by four months. That had meant that capital punishment had been abolished by the time she was due for execution. She was aware of just how lucky she had been; the beating that had nearly killed her had also saved her life.
“Yeah, well, it was nothing to do with me.” Baxter was a little less aggressive than he had been.
“Do you know Darren Clifford and Chad Marlowe?”
“Don’t think so.” Suddenly, Baxter was guarded.
“They had corporate credit cards from a business called Ventogreen. That’s your family business isn’t it?” Conrad was inwardly holding his breath. They suspected the Baxter Family owned Ventogreen but hadn’t been able to confirm it. If he admitted doing so, it would be a big step in the right direction.
“It is. But we have dozens of casual laborers on the books. I suppose Clifford and Marlowe might have been on our list. Show them to me and I might recognize them I suppose.”
Conrad slid two pictures across the table. They were of Clifford and Marlowe and had been taken for their passes to the Tourist Authority exhibition. “Do you recognize these men?”
“Think I’ve seen them around. They couldn’t be more that casual laborers. I’d know them better if they were skilled.”
“What does Ventogreen do, Mr. Baxter?”
Baxter thought for a moment. “We’re a labor agency. Farmers who need temporary workers, say to bring the harvest in, call us up and we send them over. Charge pretty high too for skilled men. It’s still cheaper for a farmer to hire temporary labor from us than employ them regular like. You know, I think I do recognize these two. We repainted our offices recently and we had them on the books so gave them the job. Come to think of it, we gave them a card to buy the supplies they needed. Yeah, that’s them.”
“That’s a bit trusting isn’t it? Giving two youngsters like that a corporate card.”
“Not so you’d notice. Give them cash and they’d be down the pub drinking it. Give them a card and they’d have to go to a store that took it. Pubs don’t take corporate credit cards you see. Not over the bar anyway. Never let them touch real money and we’d check the card statement against the authorized purchases to make sure they’d paid only for business goods.”
Conrad nodded. So that was where Matilda Baxter got the idea from. “Another credit card oddity, Mr. Baxter. Why did your company pay off credit card debts for The Badger Inn? I understand your relations with the present owner, or I should say the late owner, Mr. Portman, were not amicable. Also, you had very poor relations with the previous family that owned the Inn?”
“That’s easy. We loaned The Badger Inn enough money to keep it running, secured on the property and with payment in full on demand. We just demanded. In fact, we filed papers to foreclose on the loan and take possession as soon as the murder was announced. We’ll get it too.” Baxter sounded immensely self-satisfied.
“I understand the Badger Inn has been the subject of contention for many years?”
“You could say that. Since the start of the last century. Sorry, century before last. Still can’t get used to the change.”
“What started it all, Mr. Baxter?”
Years of being the subject of derision for pursuing his vendetta against the Wilkinson family and then the Portmans caught up with Baxter. With a sympathetic listener in front of him, the whole story poured out. “It was like this, see. We had a farm back then, Ventnor Green Farm. Some good land, some not so good. One piece of land was useless. An odd shape that made it hard to plow, on the side of a hill and covered in trees. All it ever grew were rocks and all it was fit for was collecting firewood. One year, old Wilkinson came and offered to buy it from my great-great granddad. Offered us a good price and all. Grandad thought he was a bit of a fool but took the money. Then, old Wilkinson cleared the ground and built the Badger Inn there. It was right near where the main road from Headington crossed the Oxford road you see and soon he was making money hand over fist there on our land. So, grandad went to him and told him he wanted more money for the land. Old Wilkinson laughed in his face, said he’d paid a fair price for it and it belonged to his family now. What they did with it was their business.”
“How did that lead to James Baxter taking over for a few years.” Again, Conrad was holding his breath. This was a key that could unlock the whole situation if only Baxter would talk about it.
“Grandpa Jimmy was no collaborator. Yank Navy fighter got shot down one day. Pilot jumped out and the resistance picked him up. They were going to get him to the coast and out but before they did that, Aunt Ada went with him. You know. Glamorous fighter pilot and a rich Yank as well. Grandpa Jimmy couldn’t have the Wilkinsons laughing at the way their guest had had a Baxter woman so he called the Gestapo. What else was he to do? They hanged the pilot and two Wilkinsons, serve them right, and gave Jimmy the pub. Only those resistance bastards killed him after the Septics atom-bombed Germany and the Wilkinsons got the Badger back. When it went on the market a few year back, we tried to buy it but Portman outbid us so we lost it for the third time."
Hunter’s Lodge Sporting Goods Store, Brook Street, Oxford.
Achillea looked at the fifth store she had visited that morning. Patience is everything, the beginning and the end. No thing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen. Dottore’s voice echoed in Achillea’s mind as she stretched her feet. Two of the five stores she had visited didn’t stock pistol ammunition at all, one only stocked .45 ACP. The fourth had three different kinds of 9mm but none were hollow points and none were 9 by 19.
Inside, she went to the shooting supplies counter and called over the sales assistant. "Excuse me, do you stock 9 by 19 mm pistol ammunition here?"
The sales assistant looked as if somebody had asked him for the Holy Grail. "Nine by nineteen? I don't think so. We have 9 by 25 Browning and 9 by 21 Skoda but I'll have to ask the manager about 9 by 19 Luger."
A couple of minutes later, another member of the store staff came back. "Good Morning, ma'am. I'm Terrance Butcher, the shooting supplies manager. I'm sorry to say we only have a very limited supply of 9 by 19 ammunition; there is little demand for it these days. We have some boxes left in stock but they are all hollow-points. May I ask why you are interested in this particular type?"
Achillea gave him her most friendly smile and watched him step back slightly. "I've been called in as a consultant to help the police investigate the shooting night before last. All the regular officers are tied down with the investigation so I've been asked to find possible suppliers of the ammunition used by the attackers. Nine by nineteen hollow points."
Butcher went pale as the possible implications sank in. "You mean we might have supplied the ammunition. That's terrible. I believe we sold some boxes of that ammunition not long ago; to two young men."
"You couldn’t have known. Do you recognize any of these people?" Achillea handed him a pile of a dozen pictures. Ten of them were random miscreants drawn from the files, two were of Clifford and Marlowe.
To his credit, Butcher went carefully through the pictures studying each one in turn. Most people just went quickly through the pile before denying they recognized anybody. Eventually he pulled out the pictures of Clifford and Marlowe. "These two, I'm sure of it."
"Do we have the details of what they purchased and when?"
"Certainly ma'am. All ammunition sales have to be recorded and the customer has to present his national identification card when buying the rounds. We're only allowed to sell two boxes, one hundred rounds, to any customer at a time." Butcher went away and came back with an old-fashioned ledger. "We're not even allowed to keep the primary record on computer; we have to record the details of each sale by hand in a bound book and the customer has to sign for them. I'll use our sales computer to find the date and then look that day up in the ledger. Ah yes, here we are. Four boxes of 9 by 19mm hollow point. All right, now we go to the ledger."
There was a pause while Butcher opened up the ledger. "Yes, sale of two boxes of 50 rounds each to Darren Clifford and the same to Chad Marlowe. Aren't they the two who . . . . "
"Yes; unfortunately they ran into some return fire and won’t be available to testify. Ever." Achillea gave Butcher another friendly smile. "How did they pay for the ammunition? Cash?"
Butcher shook his head. "Corporate credit card. From a company called Ventogreen. Here you are you see, our computer record has the card name and number."
"Mr. Butcher, you've been really helpful. I'm going to call my colleagues and they'll send an officer down to take your statement."
Chancery Estate Agents, Westway Shopping Center, Oxford.
Igrat was beginning to appreciate the extent to which melancholia slowed and dulled the mind. Now she had shaken off her own attack, she was putting things together quite quickly. Conrad had given her the clue with a simple, passing question. 'I wonder why they killed him now.' That had struck a spark in her mind and she was now following it up. A quick check through the business directory had told her that Chancery Estate Agents were the only such agency in Oxford that dealt with business sales. Her logic had been simple; he had been killed now because he had done something that would forestall Charles Baxter's plan to steal the Badger Inn. That something could only be to pay off the debt he had incurred to Baxter and the only way to do that was to sell the business. The only way Baxter could stop him was to kill him.
So, to find out if the Badger Inn had been put up for sale, she had located Chancery and was now about to discuss the matter with them. To that end, she had made an appointment with the manager and was now enjoying a cup of his excellent coffee.
"Ahh, yes, the Badger Inn." Elizabeth Watson didn't even need to consult the file. The deal she had negotiated was unusual enough to stick in her mind. "We're not precisely the agents for its sale. We actually own that particular property."
"I'm sorry?" Igrat blinked at that. She'd never heard of a realtor actually buying a property for sale.
"When Mr. Portman came to see us, we did a valuation of The Badger Inn. We assessed its value at 225,000 pounds. Mr. Portman offered to sell it to us for 155,000 pounds, 55,000 immediately, 100,000 to be paid when we had found a buyer for the property. He explained the mess he had got himself into and that the payment was needed to prevent a creditor for taking the property for peanuts. We consulted our solicitors of course and they set up the deal by which we gave Mr. Portman two cashier's cheques one for 50,000 pounds made out to his creditor, the other to him for 5,000 pounds. That was for him to live on until we sold the property and he got his hundred thousand. Now, that was a cashier's cheque, literally as good as gold. The moment it was made out to Ventogreen, his creditor, the debt was paid off and Ventogreen had no claim on the property. We own it and we owe him nothing. Anyway, our solicitor officially noted the payment had been made and undertook to deliver the funds."
"So, if Mr. Baxter tries to foreclose now?"
"He would get a nasty surprise. In fact, he might even end up with a fraudulent misrepresentation charge against him. If I have anything to do with it, he will." Igrat looked at her shrewdly. Elizabeth Watson had a familiar air about her. Not one of the long-lived but the distinct air of an adventuress.
"Elizabeth, may I call you that? Have you ever been to Melbourne?"
In reply, Watson held up her left hand with the thumb and forefinger in a circle, the remaining three fingers held straight up. Igrat returned the gesture and both women burst out laughing at their mutual membership of the Adventurer's Club. "You must know that Percy Portman was murdered a few days ago. Does that change the situation?"
Watson thought about that. "No, it would not. The meeting I described took place the day before his death and the deal was signed then. If he'd made no provision to pay off Ventogreen, then they would have a good case but since he had made such arrangements and provided a cashier's cheque for the money, they had no claim at all."
"Did he know that?"
Watson suddenly stopped smiling when she realized where this was going. "That's a good question. We know the cheque was delivered to him the evening before Mr. Portman was killed. His company solicitor signed for it. He should have known that eliminated any claim he might have had, but he might not have done. He may not have understood that a cashier's cheque made payment of the debt a done deal. It's an unusual area of law but not precisely rare. He may have thought that the cheque was a normal one and that payment wasn't made until it was presented. If Mr. Portman died first, he may have thought that would render the cheque invalid. Which it would - had it been a normal cheque."
"But it wasn't."
"No, it wasn't. You think that Charles Baxter was responsible for Mr. Portman's death?"
"I think so, and now I know why. I'm going to have to tell the police about this and there'll be an officer here to take your statement. Sorry about that but it’s a capital case now and we have to dot all the Is and cross the Ts. Can I make it up to you with dinner? I live at Marsh Baldon; we can eat at the Inn."
"Turn down a meal cooked by Chef Murray? No way. Name the evening and I'll be there."
"I'll get back to you on that. Promise." Igrat winked and left, feeing much more like her old self.
Once outside, she called the police station. "Hello, Rupert. It's Irene here. You need to get an officer down to the Chancery Estate Agents in Westway Shopping Center. Take down a formal statement from Elizabeth Watson, she's expecting the visit. We've got the link between Charles Baxter and the killing of Percy Portman. My bet is he hired Clifford and Marlowe to kill Percy. I'll explain why when I get back to the station. Can you round up Conrad, please? . . . He's where? . . . . . . . Why's he at the Police shooting range? . . . . . . . Oh, I see, I suppose that makes sense. . . . . No, they’re not married."
Igrat leaned against a lamppost and started laughing. As the tide of hilarity swept through her, she felt it wash away the last traces of her melancholia. Still chuckling she shook her head. "Angel, teaching the police to shoot? The world has gone completely crazy."
Interview Room, St Aldates Police Station, Thames Valley Police, Oxford.
“Thank you for coming in, Mr. Baxter. You have probably heard how serious the situation is and we appreciate every bit of help we can get.” Conrad had his mildest and most friendly voice in place.
“I wasn’t given much choice, was I?” In contrast to Conrad’s measured tones, Charles Baxter was truculent and aggressive.
“So I have been told.” Conrad sighed theatrically. Lounging up against the wall behind him, Angel thought he had overdone it a bit. But then he understands these things. All I can do is watch and learn. “You must understand the Thames Valley Police are really on edge right now. With two of their own critically injured in hospital and the two gunmen in the morgue, they’re being a bit more brusque than they should, I suppose.”
Baxter had no excuse for not knowing what was happening. News of the shooting of Atkinson and Rowley hadn’t just make the UK national newspapers but had been headlined all over the world. The BBC Morning News had been extended to a full hour with detailed accounts of what they thought had happened and interviews with families and police officers. Conrad was grimly aware that, in many countries, Baxter would have been dragged behind a police car to the nearest station. All in all, so far he has got off lightly.
Behind him Angel was comparing the way he was being treated with what had happened to her when she was arrested, two years after the Brighton Beach Massacre. The irony was that she had been brought in as a material witness to another crime, one that she had nothing to do with. When they had finally identified her, she’d been dragged into a back room where she sincerely believed the beating she had been given had been intended to kill her. It very nearly had, but it had also delayed her trial by four months. That had meant that capital punishment had been abolished by the time she was due for execution. She was aware of just how lucky she had been; the beating that had nearly killed her had also saved her life.
“Yeah, well, it was nothing to do with me.” Baxter was a little less aggressive than he had been.
“Do you know Darren Clifford and Chad Marlowe?”
“Don’t think so.” Suddenly, Baxter was guarded.
“They had corporate credit cards from a business called Ventogreen. That’s your family business isn’t it?” Conrad was inwardly holding his breath. They suspected the Baxter Family owned Ventogreen but hadn’t been able to confirm it. If he admitted doing so, it would be a big step in the right direction.
“It is. But we have dozens of casual laborers on the books. I suppose Clifford and Marlowe might have been on our list. Show them to me and I might recognize them I suppose.”
Conrad slid two pictures across the table. They were of Clifford and Marlowe and had been taken for their passes to the Tourist Authority exhibition. “Do you recognize these men?”
“Think I’ve seen them around. They couldn’t be more that casual laborers. I’d know them better if they were skilled.”
“What does Ventogreen do, Mr. Baxter?”
Baxter thought for a moment. “We’re a labor agency. Farmers who need temporary workers, say to bring the harvest in, call us up and we send them over. Charge pretty high too for skilled men. It’s still cheaper for a farmer to hire temporary labor from us than employ them regular like. You know, I think I do recognize these two. We repainted our offices recently and we had them on the books so gave them the job. Come to think of it, we gave them a card to buy the supplies they needed. Yeah, that’s them.”
“That’s a bit trusting isn’t it? Giving two youngsters like that a corporate card.”
“Not so you’d notice. Give them cash and they’d be down the pub drinking it. Give them a card and they’d have to go to a store that took it. Pubs don’t take corporate credit cards you see. Not over the bar anyway. Never let them touch real money and we’d check the card statement against the authorized purchases to make sure they’d paid only for business goods.”
Conrad nodded. So that was where Matilda Baxter got the idea from. “Another credit card oddity, Mr. Baxter. Why did your company pay off credit card debts for The Badger Inn? I understand your relations with the present owner, or I should say the late owner, Mr. Portman, were not amicable. Also, you had very poor relations with the previous family that owned the Inn?”
“That’s easy. We loaned The Badger Inn enough money to keep it running, secured on the property and with payment in full on demand. We just demanded. In fact, we filed papers to foreclose on the loan and take possession as soon as the murder was announced. We’ll get it too.” Baxter sounded immensely self-satisfied.
“I understand the Badger Inn has been the subject of contention for many years?”
“You could say that. Since the start of the last century. Sorry, century before last. Still can’t get used to the change.”
“What started it all, Mr. Baxter?”
Years of being the subject of derision for pursuing his vendetta against the Wilkinson family and then the Portmans caught up with Baxter. With a sympathetic listener in front of him, the whole story poured out. “It was like this, see. We had a farm back then, Ventnor Green Farm. Some good land, some not so good. One piece of land was useless. An odd shape that made it hard to plow, on the side of a hill and covered in trees. All it ever grew were rocks and all it was fit for was collecting firewood. One year, old Wilkinson came and offered to buy it from my great-great granddad. Offered us a good price and all. Grandad thought he was a bit of a fool but took the money. Then, old Wilkinson cleared the ground and built the Badger Inn there. It was right near where the main road from Headington crossed the Oxford road you see and soon he was making money hand over fist there on our land. So, grandad went to him and told him he wanted more money for the land. Old Wilkinson laughed in his face, said he’d paid a fair price for it and it belonged to his family now. What they did with it was their business.”
“How did that lead to James Baxter taking over for a few years.” Again, Conrad was holding his breath. This was a key that could unlock the whole situation if only Baxter would talk about it.
“Grandpa Jimmy was no collaborator. Yank Navy fighter got shot down one day. Pilot jumped out and the resistance picked him up. They were going to get him to the coast and out but before they did that, Aunt Ada went with him. You know. Glamorous fighter pilot and a rich Yank as well. Grandpa Jimmy couldn’t have the Wilkinsons laughing at the way their guest had had a Baxter woman so he called the Gestapo. What else was he to do? They hanged the pilot and two Wilkinsons, serve them right, and gave Jimmy the pub. Only those resistance bastards killed him after the Septics atom-bombed Germany and the Wilkinsons got the Badger back. When it went on the market a few year back, we tried to buy it but Portman outbid us so we lost it for the third time."
Hunter’s Lodge Sporting Goods Store, Brook Street, Oxford.
Achillea looked at the fifth store she had visited that morning. Patience is everything, the beginning and the end. No thing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen. Dottore’s voice echoed in Achillea’s mind as she stretched her feet. Two of the five stores she had visited didn’t stock pistol ammunition at all, one only stocked .45 ACP. The fourth had three different kinds of 9mm but none were hollow points and none were 9 by 19.
Inside, she went to the shooting supplies counter and called over the sales assistant. "Excuse me, do you stock 9 by 19 mm pistol ammunition here?"
The sales assistant looked as if somebody had asked him for the Holy Grail. "Nine by nineteen? I don't think so. We have 9 by 25 Browning and 9 by 21 Skoda but I'll have to ask the manager about 9 by 19 Luger."
A couple of minutes later, another member of the store staff came back. "Good Morning, ma'am. I'm Terrance Butcher, the shooting supplies manager. I'm sorry to say we only have a very limited supply of 9 by 19 ammunition; there is little demand for it these days. We have some boxes left in stock but they are all hollow-points. May I ask why you are interested in this particular type?"
Achillea gave him her most friendly smile and watched him step back slightly. "I've been called in as a consultant to help the police investigate the shooting night before last. All the regular officers are tied down with the investigation so I've been asked to find possible suppliers of the ammunition used by the attackers. Nine by nineteen hollow points."
Butcher went pale as the possible implications sank in. "You mean we might have supplied the ammunition. That's terrible. I believe we sold some boxes of that ammunition not long ago; to two young men."
"You couldn’t have known. Do you recognize any of these people?" Achillea handed him a pile of a dozen pictures. Ten of them were random miscreants drawn from the files, two were of Clifford and Marlowe.
To his credit, Butcher went carefully through the pictures studying each one in turn. Most people just went quickly through the pile before denying they recognized anybody. Eventually he pulled out the pictures of Clifford and Marlowe. "These two, I'm sure of it."
"Do we have the details of what they purchased and when?"
"Certainly ma'am. All ammunition sales have to be recorded and the customer has to present his national identification card when buying the rounds. We're only allowed to sell two boxes, one hundred rounds, to any customer at a time." Butcher went away and came back with an old-fashioned ledger. "We're not even allowed to keep the primary record on computer; we have to record the details of each sale by hand in a bound book and the customer has to sign for them. I'll use our sales computer to find the date and then look that day up in the ledger. Ah yes, here we are. Four boxes of 9 by 19mm hollow point. All right, now we go to the ledger."
There was a pause while Butcher opened up the ledger. "Yes, sale of two boxes of 50 rounds each to Darren Clifford and the same to Chad Marlowe. Aren't they the two who . . . . "
"Yes; unfortunately they ran into some return fire and won’t be available to testify. Ever." Achillea gave Butcher another friendly smile. "How did they pay for the ammunition? Cash?"
Butcher shook his head. "Corporate credit card. From a company called Ventogreen. Here you are you see, our computer record has the card name and number."
"Mr. Butcher, you've been really helpful. I'm going to call my colleagues and they'll send an officer down to take your statement."
Chancery Estate Agents, Westway Shopping Center, Oxford.
Igrat was beginning to appreciate the extent to which melancholia slowed and dulled the mind. Now she had shaken off her own attack, she was putting things together quite quickly. Conrad had given her the clue with a simple, passing question. 'I wonder why they killed him now.' That had struck a spark in her mind and she was now following it up. A quick check through the business directory had told her that Chancery Estate Agents were the only such agency in Oxford that dealt with business sales. Her logic had been simple; he had been killed now because he had done something that would forestall Charles Baxter's plan to steal the Badger Inn. That something could only be to pay off the debt he had incurred to Baxter and the only way to do that was to sell the business. The only way Baxter could stop him was to kill him.
So, to find out if the Badger Inn had been put up for sale, she had located Chancery and was now about to discuss the matter with them. To that end, she had made an appointment with the manager and was now enjoying a cup of his excellent coffee.
"Ahh, yes, the Badger Inn." Elizabeth Watson didn't even need to consult the file. The deal she had negotiated was unusual enough to stick in her mind. "We're not precisely the agents for its sale. We actually own that particular property."
"I'm sorry?" Igrat blinked at that. She'd never heard of a realtor actually buying a property for sale.
"When Mr. Portman came to see us, we did a valuation of The Badger Inn. We assessed its value at 225,000 pounds. Mr. Portman offered to sell it to us for 155,000 pounds, 55,000 immediately, 100,000 to be paid when we had found a buyer for the property. He explained the mess he had got himself into and that the payment was needed to prevent a creditor for taking the property for peanuts. We consulted our solicitors of course and they set up the deal by which we gave Mr. Portman two cashier's cheques one for 50,000 pounds made out to his creditor, the other to him for 5,000 pounds. That was for him to live on until we sold the property and he got his hundred thousand. Now, that was a cashier's cheque, literally as good as gold. The moment it was made out to Ventogreen, his creditor, the debt was paid off and Ventogreen had no claim on the property. We own it and we owe him nothing. Anyway, our solicitor officially noted the payment had been made and undertook to deliver the funds."
"So, if Mr. Baxter tries to foreclose now?"
"He would get a nasty surprise. In fact, he might even end up with a fraudulent misrepresentation charge against him. If I have anything to do with it, he will." Igrat looked at her shrewdly. Elizabeth Watson had a familiar air about her. Not one of the long-lived but the distinct air of an adventuress.
"Elizabeth, may I call you that? Have you ever been to Melbourne?"
In reply, Watson held up her left hand with the thumb and forefinger in a circle, the remaining three fingers held straight up. Igrat returned the gesture and both women burst out laughing at their mutual membership of the Adventurer's Club. "You must know that Percy Portman was murdered a few days ago. Does that change the situation?"
Watson thought about that. "No, it would not. The meeting I described took place the day before his death and the deal was signed then. If he'd made no provision to pay off Ventogreen, then they would have a good case but since he had made such arrangements and provided a cashier's cheque for the money, they had no claim at all."
"Did he know that?"
Watson suddenly stopped smiling when she realized where this was going. "That's a good question. We know the cheque was delivered to him the evening before Mr. Portman was killed. His company solicitor signed for it. He should have known that eliminated any claim he might have had, but he might not have done. He may not have understood that a cashier's cheque made payment of the debt a done deal. It's an unusual area of law but not precisely rare. He may have thought that the cheque was a normal one and that payment wasn't made until it was presented. If Mr. Portman died first, he may have thought that would render the cheque invalid. Which it would - had it been a normal cheque."
"But it wasn't."
"No, it wasn't. You think that Charles Baxter was responsible for Mr. Portman's death?"
"I think so, and now I know why. I'm going to have to tell the police about this and there'll be an officer here to take your statement. Sorry about that but it’s a capital case now and we have to dot all the Is and cross the Ts. Can I make it up to you with dinner? I live at Marsh Baldon; we can eat at the Inn."
"Turn down a meal cooked by Chef Murray? No way. Name the evening and I'll be there."
"I'll get back to you on that. Promise." Igrat winked and left, feeing much more like her old self.
Once outside, she called the police station. "Hello, Rupert. It's Irene here. You need to get an officer down to the Chancery Estate Agents in Westway Shopping Center. Take down a formal statement from Elizabeth Watson, she's expecting the visit. We've got the link between Charles Baxter and the killing of Percy Portman. My bet is he hired Clifford and Marlowe to kill Percy. I'll explain why when I get back to the station. Can you round up Conrad, please? . . . He's where? . . . . . . . Why's he at the Police shooting range? . . . . . . . Oh, I see, I suppose that makes sense. . . . . No, they’re not married."
Igrat leaned against a lamppost and started laughing. As the tide of hilarity swept through her, she felt it wash away the last traces of her melancholia. Still chuckling she shook her head. "Angel, teaching the police to shoot? The world has gone completely crazy."
Re: 2003 - The Melancholia of Percy the Pig
Chapter Twelve
Firing Range, Thames Valley Police, Oxford.
"Father forgive them for they know not what they do." Angel shook her head sadly. As a gunslinger, she found the sight in front of her depressing. It wasn't that the men with her were unskilled; merely that they had been taught all the wrong lessons. "Gather round people. Now tell me why you think you have that pistol."
That caused confusion. Her six trainees, all men, looked at each other doubtfully. They'd been carried along by the shock wave resulting from the shooting of Atkinson and Rowley, had volunteered for the armed response squad and never asked why. Eventually one took the plunge. "To assist in making arrests of armed criminals?"
"No. And I'll show you why. Go to lane one and fire nine shots at the target. At 25 feet range. And that's point-blank by the way. Eye and hearing protection in place, people."
Angel watched as Constable Gregory drew his pistol took it in both hands, dropped into the approved stance and emptied the magazine downrange. When the last round had gone, she stopped the timer she was using. "Fourteen seconds and it was five seconds before you got your first round off. Your pistol is now empty."
She picked up the target that Gregory had been using. "Not bad. One kill shot, a couple of wounds, neither that bad, the rest missed. Under the circumstances that's pretty good. Constable Andrews, run another target back to fifty feet for me please. Then take the stopwatch."
Angel stood in the stall. Suddenly her hands blurred and there was a roar of continuous pistol fire. When it ended, the silence was impressive and the trainees looked like stunned fish. Andrews looked at her in disbelief. "Five seconds, probably less. I wouldn't even like to guess how quickly your first shots went out."
"Probably around a quarter of a second. Perhaps a third. Take a look at my pistols. They're both loaded. The first, absolutely the first, thing you do after emptying a magazine is to reload. Otherwise, one day, when it matters, you'll be holding an empty gun and that makes you look foolish. You'll be dead but you'll still look foolish."
"We don’t have those things you have." Gregory sounded resentful which went completely over Angel's head.
"I'm going to talk to people about that. Carrying a gun isn’t just a matter of the gun. You need proper holsters, spare magazine clips and a lot of other stuff. Thank you Constable Andrews." Angel put her target on the table. Where the head and heart areas had been were now gaping, ragged holes. "I put thirty six shots through that target. By the way, the P-38s you have are eight plus one and have a 16 to 20 pound trigger pull. My Berettas are 16 plus one and have a two pound trigger pull meaning I fire fast and get tight groups. So, who do you think won that exchange?"
The silence was answer enough. If this had been a real gunfight, Gregory would have joined the long, long list of people who had faced Angel and died before they could even get a shot off. "Understand this, no matter how hard you train, no matter how much you practice, if you go up against a professional gunslinger, you will die. You can hold a gun pointing at my face and I can draw and fire before you can squeeze the trigger. It's called the Gunslinger's Paradox. First lesson for the day. It's not speed that's deadly, it's not accuracy. It’s the unflinching willingness to kill another human being. Most people don’t have it; you don't. Second lesson of the day. You try and use a gun to make an arrest and you are in extreme danger. Probably, the person you are arresting is as incompetent as Clifford and Marlowe; they fired 18 rounds at me and missed every time. Or they might be somebody like me. There's not that many of us around but we are out there. Why take the chance? Any other offers?"
Constable Melrose spoke up with something he had read somewhere. "As a symbol of authority?"
"Very good but not appropriate here. In countries where the police are routinely armed that is true. The pistol is a symbol that the law enforcement officer is legally authorized to use deadly force and the civilian is not. This country is different, the police are a part of the community, not set in authority over it. That pistol is counter-productive in several ways but the most important is that people resent it. Take a look at the newspapers since the shooting. You've got the entire community, even people you would normally be arresting, on your side. That's an asset you need to save."
Constable Andrews had been thinking. "To protect ourselves in an emergency when all other options have failed?"
"Good boy!" Angel smiled at him. The smile was carefully faked of course but she knew that an approving response was required. "You got it. You don’t wave that gun around to make arrests or impress people. It’s the last-ditch way of protecting yourself. By the way, a professional gunslinger won’t shoot an unarmed cop without very good reason. It's too much trouble. So don't give him, or her, that reason. Stand like this."
Angel lifted her hands so that they were at shoulder height with the palms facing her audience. "Make a move towards your gun and you will die. So, this course is a defensive pistol fighting course. You're going to find out that most of it is concerned with how to analyze situations and how to assess the level of risk inherent in a confrontation. And do so instantly then act on that assessment equally quickly. Actually using a pistol is only a small part of it."
"Angel, you said he or she. How many professional gunslingers are women?" The voice came from the back of her group. Angel wasn't sure who it was.
"A little more than half." Angel looked at the expressions of shock on the faces of her audience. "Yeah, you never guessed that did you. You'd be on your guard against a muscled-up six-foot man with cropped hair and a broken nose but a five-foot six woman who is smiling at you? That's what I mean by realistic risk assessment."
"Angel?" She heard Conrad's voice from outside the range and she turned around with a delighted smile on her face. Behind her, the students exchanged knowing smiles; they knew a couple when they saw one. "We've cracked this case open, or at least a large chunk of it. Will you be long?"
"45 minutes." Angel thought carefully. "Yeah, that'll do us for a first lesson. These guys will have a lot to think about by then."
"As if we haven't already." It was the same person who had asked the question about female gunslingers.
"Good boy." Angel tossed the compliment out without being sure who it was aimed at. Just that somebody was getting the idea quickly. "Conrad, I'll be with you then. Can you hold that long?"
"We're doing fine. It'll take that long to put everything together."
Oxford Magistrate's Court, St. Aldates, Oxford.
"Case number 24525. Baxter vs the Estate of Percy Portman. Foreclosure on property for non-payment of debt." The Clerk of the Court read out the case with impressive enunciation. "Your honor, the facts of the case are that Charles Baxter in the person of his company, Ventogreen, loaned Mr. Portman, in the person of his business, The Badger Inn, the sum of fifty thousand pounds which has not been repaid. The loan agreement was secured on the property and Mr. Baxter has a lien thereon. With the death of Mr. Portman, there is now no chance the loan will be repaid, so the plaintiff is asking for a court order of foreclosure."
"Your Honor, may I crave the court's indulgence." The judge made a double take - the defendant was being represented by a Police Barrister. That was rare to the point of being unique. "I have information that will save much of the Court's valuable time."
"Do tell." The Magistrate was fascinated. This had the potential to brighten up a boring morning. He was also well-known for his informal approach to events in his court.
"Your honor, the debt in question was paid in full by means of a cheque delivered to Mr. Baxter's solicitor the day before Mr. Portman's untimely death. The case for foreclosure for not-payment was filed the day after his death. Therefore there is no case to answer here."
"Does the Plaintiff have a comment on this information?"
Baxter's barrister was looking very flustered. "No, your honor, I was not made aware of these circumstances. May I see a copy of the cheque?"
The defense barrister handed a copy over with the attached correspondence including the lethal words "paid in full". "Your honor, I have Miss Elizabeth Watson in court who is ready to testify as to the provenance and authenticity of the cashier's cheque in question."
Elizabeth Watson stood up and nodded. The Magistrate looked at the ceiling. "Can anybody tell the bench why this case is being brought before me? Is Mr. Baxter here?"
"Your Honor, I fear that he is currently assisting the police with their inquiries."
The Magistrate smiled happily. This was turning out to be an interesting morning after all. "Into fraudulent misrepresentation?"
"No, your honor, in connection with three murders and the attempted murder of two police officers." The stir that ran around the court was emphatic. In the background, three local court reporters were fighting ferociously to get at the single telephone with an outside line.
"I see. Case Dismissed." The magistrate turned to the Plaintiff's Barrister. "And, Mr. Kemble, I suggest you exercise more care in which cases you bring before this court in future."
Interview Room, St Aldates Police Station, Thames Valley Police, Oxford.
The case had taken a little longer to put together than Conrad had expected but the pieces all fitted together. The police had thoroughly searched the flat occupied by Clifford and Marlowe. They had found the boxes of ammunition and compared the serial numbers on the boxes with those still in stock at the Hunter’s Lodge Sporting Goods Store. They matched. Forensics had shown that the cartridge cases found in the warehouse matched those in the box and had been fired from the P-38s in possession of the two dead men. They had also found ten thousand pounds in new notes that had proved to be taken from an ATM the evening before Percy Portman had been killed. Finally, they had found a length of piano wire with two wooden handles. It was still being examined for blood trace evidence but Conrad had no doubt it was the murder weapon.
The police had also raided Charles Baxter's house and taken away the financial records. They were still being examined but Conrad had taken one look at the credit card statements and knew they were what he was looking for,
"Mr. Baxter, I have some bad news for you." Conrad was his usual mild and polite self. "I'm afraid, I've just come from over the road and I have to tell you that your plea for foreclosure has been thrown out of court. Your family has just lost the Badger Inn for the fourth time."
"But the debt. . ."
"Was paid in full and you knew it." Conrad's voice had hardened. "We know you paid Clifford and Marlowe to kill Mr. Portman before the cheque cleared. That way you could still claim the debt was unpaid and foreclose. Unfortunately for you, Mr. Portman sent a cashier's cheque via a solicitor and that meant payment was made the moment that cheque was signed. Mr. Portman no longer owned the Badger Inn when he was killed; it was the property of Chancery Estate Agents. You had Mr. Portman killed for nothing. And you will hang for it."
"Sounds a good story, I suppose. If you like that kind of yarn."
"Oh, it's more than a story, Mr. Baxter. You see, we pulled the bank records from the ATM where Clifford and Marlowe withdrew the money you authorized. There is a computer record of the withdrawal, camera film of them making it and a note of your personal authorization earlier that evening - just after you would have received that cheque. We have a proven record of them being within the vicinity of Mr. Portman just before he was killed, again using that credit card. And, we have the murder weapon which they, quite incredibly in my view, neglected to dispose of."
"Mr. Baxter, I am arresting you on a charge of the willful murder of Mr. Percy Portman. You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence." Gladstone recited the words with relish. After all, he knew what else was coming. "I am also required to advise you that hiring others to commit murder on your behalf is a capital offense for which you may be sentenced to hang."
Conrad heard the last words with gloom but took comfort from the knowledge that in Britain, all death sentences were automatically commuted to a "full life" prison sentence, meaning life with no possibility of parole.
"Now, we move along to the next part of the case." Conrad looked sorrowfully at Baxter who was beginning to realize how tight the net around him was. "Why did you buy ammunition for Clifford and Marlowe?"
"I didn't . . . . ."
"Mr. Baxter, we have your credit card records that show the purchase of four boxes of 9 by 19mm ammunition. We have your signature authorizing payment of that purchase. Clifford and Marlowe may have presented the credit card you gave them but you authorized payment of the account." Conrad had his man and everybody knew it.
"Mr. Baxter." Gladstone spoke heavily. "In buying the ammunition that was used to critically wound police officers Atkinson and Rowley and was also used to fire upon one of our emergency response officers, you made common purpose with Clifford and Marlowe in their assault upon our officers. That makes you equally guilty of that offense."
"We counted the rounds. They fired thirty shots that night. They have three full boxes of ammunition and one with twenty rounds left in it. Combined with your authorization of the purchase, the common purpose is demonstrated." Conrad shook his head sadly. Knowledge that the whole case was pointless and that the killings were unnecessary wounded him on a personal level.
"Mr. Baxter, I am arresting you on a charge of the attempted murders of Inspector David Atkinson, Police Constable Isolda Rowley and Special Constable Angelique de Llorente. You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence." Gladstone glanced at Angel and saw she was trying hard not to laugh. So far, in one day she had started training police officers to shoot and had now somehow become a police officer herself. For her, this was . . . . unexpected.
Baxter's temper burst. "Damn those two stupid bastards. I gave them money to buy ammunition for cash. They had to spend it at the pub and use their company card instead. I gave them a right bollocking for that. Then they go and panic and shoot up those two cops with them. How was I to know they'd do something that stupid? All they had to do was keep calm and wear their mouths shut."
"Why pistol ammunition?" Conrad was just filling in details now. "Were you going to fake Mr. Portman's suicide by gunshot?"
"Yeah. We had a nice note ready, how he was going to join his Judith and little Penny. Them two bastards would have held him down and blown him away when he got drunk one night." Baxter calmed down and his expression changed to a stunned shock as he realized what he had said.
"Mr. Baxter, I will offer you a deal. You will give us a full confession of your plan to kill Percy Portman and take his business. You will plead guilty. In exchange, we will take the death penalty off the table . . "
"Big deal. Nobody hangs here."
Gladstone continued as if he hadn't spoken, "and drop the charge of acting in the common purpose of attempted murder. The ordinary decent criminals are really upset about somebody shooting down a policewoman. I understand a lifetime of sodomization with an axe handle is the least they have planned for anybody who goes to jail on that charge."
Baxter thought about that and realized there were worse things than a nice, clean drop. "All right, you win. I'll give you a confession. Just get the pad."
In the background Angel shook her head. Special Constable Angelique de Llorente had just vanished like a drop of water on a hotplate. That was something she found very convenient.
Conrad looked at her and winked. Then, he returned to Baxter. "Now, we have the next problem. The murders of Judith and Penny Portman."
"Murders? What are you talking about? Judith Portman killed herself and the little girl was an accident."
Gladstone had pulled the file on Judith Portman and taken out the pictures of her corpse. A black blob had tactfully been placed over the shattered ruin of her head. However, her feet, still wearing high-heeled pumps, were clearly visible.
"You see, Mr. Baxter, to shoot herself, she would have to have operated the triggers on the shotgun with her toe. She couldn't do that with her shoes on and I have never heard of a suicide shooting herself and then putting her shoes back on." Conrad shook his head, privately thinking that Achillea's gallows humor was having malign effects on him. Not to mention Angel's even more macabre jokes.
"I know nothing about that. Honest. I was as shocked as any when Mattie told me that the little girl was dead. Judith, well I expected her to top herself after that. But I don’t go round killing little girls."
After Baxter had been taken away, Conrad leaned back in his seat. "Well, we're mostly there. Only thing is, when he said he didn't kill little girls, I believed him."
Firing Range, Thames Valley Police, Oxford.
"Father forgive them for they know not what they do." Angel shook her head sadly. As a gunslinger, she found the sight in front of her depressing. It wasn't that the men with her were unskilled; merely that they had been taught all the wrong lessons. "Gather round people. Now tell me why you think you have that pistol."
That caused confusion. Her six trainees, all men, looked at each other doubtfully. They'd been carried along by the shock wave resulting from the shooting of Atkinson and Rowley, had volunteered for the armed response squad and never asked why. Eventually one took the plunge. "To assist in making arrests of armed criminals?"
"No. And I'll show you why. Go to lane one and fire nine shots at the target. At 25 feet range. And that's point-blank by the way. Eye and hearing protection in place, people."
Angel watched as Constable Gregory drew his pistol took it in both hands, dropped into the approved stance and emptied the magazine downrange. When the last round had gone, she stopped the timer she was using. "Fourteen seconds and it was five seconds before you got your first round off. Your pistol is now empty."
She picked up the target that Gregory had been using. "Not bad. One kill shot, a couple of wounds, neither that bad, the rest missed. Under the circumstances that's pretty good. Constable Andrews, run another target back to fifty feet for me please. Then take the stopwatch."
Angel stood in the stall. Suddenly her hands blurred and there was a roar of continuous pistol fire. When it ended, the silence was impressive and the trainees looked like stunned fish. Andrews looked at her in disbelief. "Five seconds, probably less. I wouldn't even like to guess how quickly your first shots went out."
"Probably around a quarter of a second. Perhaps a third. Take a look at my pistols. They're both loaded. The first, absolutely the first, thing you do after emptying a magazine is to reload. Otherwise, one day, when it matters, you'll be holding an empty gun and that makes you look foolish. You'll be dead but you'll still look foolish."
"We don’t have those things you have." Gregory sounded resentful which went completely over Angel's head.
"I'm going to talk to people about that. Carrying a gun isn’t just a matter of the gun. You need proper holsters, spare magazine clips and a lot of other stuff. Thank you Constable Andrews." Angel put her target on the table. Where the head and heart areas had been were now gaping, ragged holes. "I put thirty six shots through that target. By the way, the P-38s you have are eight plus one and have a 16 to 20 pound trigger pull. My Berettas are 16 plus one and have a two pound trigger pull meaning I fire fast and get tight groups. So, who do you think won that exchange?"
The silence was answer enough. If this had been a real gunfight, Gregory would have joined the long, long list of people who had faced Angel and died before they could even get a shot off. "Understand this, no matter how hard you train, no matter how much you practice, if you go up against a professional gunslinger, you will die. You can hold a gun pointing at my face and I can draw and fire before you can squeeze the trigger. It's called the Gunslinger's Paradox. First lesson for the day. It's not speed that's deadly, it's not accuracy. It’s the unflinching willingness to kill another human being. Most people don’t have it; you don't. Second lesson of the day. You try and use a gun to make an arrest and you are in extreme danger. Probably, the person you are arresting is as incompetent as Clifford and Marlowe; they fired 18 rounds at me and missed every time. Or they might be somebody like me. There's not that many of us around but we are out there. Why take the chance? Any other offers?"
Constable Melrose spoke up with something he had read somewhere. "As a symbol of authority?"
"Very good but not appropriate here. In countries where the police are routinely armed that is true. The pistol is a symbol that the law enforcement officer is legally authorized to use deadly force and the civilian is not. This country is different, the police are a part of the community, not set in authority over it. That pistol is counter-productive in several ways but the most important is that people resent it. Take a look at the newspapers since the shooting. You've got the entire community, even people you would normally be arresting, on your side. That's an asset you need to save."
Constable Andrews had been thinking. "To protect ourselves in an emergency when all other options have failed?"
"Good boy!" Angel smiled at him. The smile was carefully faked of course but she knew that an approving response was required. "You got it. You don’t wave that gun around to make arrests or impress people. It’s the last-ditch way of protecting yourself. By the way, a professional gunslinger won’t shoot an unarmed cop without very good reason. It's too much trouble. So don't give him, or her, that reason. Stand like this."
Angel lifted her hands so that they were at shoulder height with the palms facing her audience. "Make a move towards your gun and you will die. So, this course is a defensive pistol fighting course. You're going to find out that most of it is concerned with how to analyze situations and how to assess the level of risk inherent in a confrontation. And do so instantly then act on that assessment equally quickly. Actually using a pistol is only a small part of it."
"Angel, you said he or she. How many professional gunslingers are women?" The voice came from the back of her group. Angel wasn't sure who it was.
"A little more than half." Angel looked at the expressions of shock on the faces of her audience. "Yeah, you never guessed that did you. You'd be on your guard against a muscled-up six-foot man with cropped hair and a broken nose but a five-foot six woman who is smiling at you? That's what I mean by realistic risk assessment."
"Angel?" She heard Conrad's voice from outside the range and she turned around with a delighted smile on her face. Behind her, the students exchanged knowing smiles; they knew a couple when they saw one. "We've cracked this case open, or at least a large chunk of it. Will you be long?"
"45 minutes." Angel thought carefully. "Yeah, that'll do us for a first lesson. These guys will have a lot to think about by then."
"As if we haven't already." It was the same person who had asked the question about female gunslingers.
"Good boy." Angel tossed the compliment out without being sure who it was aimed at. Just that somebody was getting the idea quickly. "Conrad, I'll be with you then. Can you hold that long?"
"We're doing fine. It'll take that long to put everything together."
Oxford Magistrate's Court, St. Aldates, Oxford.
"Case number 24525. Baxter vs the Estate of Percy Portman. Foreclosure on property for non-payment of debt." The Clerk of the Court read out the case with impressive enunciation. "Your honor, the facts of the case are that Charles Baxter in the person of his company, Ventogreen, loaned Mr. Portman, in the person of his business, The Badger Inn, the sum of fifty thousand pounds which has not been repaid. The loan agreement was secured on the property and Mr. Baxter has a lien thereon. With the death of Mr. Portman, there is now no chance the loan will be repaid, so the plaintiff is asking for a court order of foreclosure."
"Your Honor, may I crave the court's indulgence." The judge made a double take - the defendant was being represented by a Police Barrister. That was rare to the point of being unique. "I have information that will save much of the Court's valuable time."
"Do tell." The Magistrate was fascinated. This had the potential to brighten up a boring morning. He was also well-known for his informal approach to events in his court.
"Your honor, the debt in question was paid in full by means of a cheque delivered to Mr. Baxter's solicitor the day before Mr. Portman's untimely death. The case for foreclosure for not-payment was filed the day after his death. Therefore there is no case to answer here."
"Does the Plaintiff have a comment on this information?"
Baxter's barrister was looking very flustered. "No, your honor, I was not made aware of these circumstances. May I see a copy of the cheque?"
The defense barrister handed a copy over with the attached correspondence including the lethal words "paid in full". "Your honor, I have Miss Elizabeth Watson in court who is ready to testify as to the provenance and authenticity of the cashier's cheque in question."
Elizabeth Watson stood up and nodded. The Magistrate looked at the ceiling. "Can anybody tell the bench why this case is being brought before me? Is Mr. Baxter here?"
"Your Honor, I fear that he is currently assisting the police with their inquiries."
The Magistrate smiled happily. This was turning out to be an interesting morning after all. "Into fraudulent misrepresentation?"
"No, your honor, in connection with three murders and the attempted murder of two police officers." The stir that ran around the court was emphatic. In the background, three local court reporters were fighting ferociously to get at the single telephone with an outside line.
"I see. Case Dismissed." The magistrate turned to the Plaintiff's Barrister. "And, Mr. Kemble, I suggest you exercise more care in which cases you bring before this court in future."
Interview Room, St Aldates Police Station, Thames Valley Police, Oxford.
The case had taken a little longer to put together than Conrad had expected but the pieces all fitted together. The police had thoroughly searched the flat occupied by Clifford and Marlowe. They had found the boxes of ammunition and compared the serial numbers on the boxes with those still in stock at the Hunter’s Lodge Sporting Goods Store. They matched. Forensics had shown that the cartridge cases found in the warehouse matched those in the box and had been fired from the P-38s in possession of the two dead men. They had also found ten thousand pounds in new notes that had proved to be taken from an ATM the evening before Percy Portman had been killed. Finally, they had found a length of piano wire with two wooden handles. It was still being examined for blood trace evidence but Conrad had no doubt it was the murder weapon.
The police had also raided Charles Baxter's house and taken away the financial records. They were still being examined but Conrad had taken one look at the credit card statements and knew they were what he was looking for,
"Mr. Baxter, I have some bad news for you." Conrad was his usual mild and polite self. "I'm afraid, I've just come from over the road and I have to tell you that your plea for foreclosure has been thrown out of court. Your family has just lost the Badger Inn for the fourth time."
"But the debt. . ."
"Was paid in full and you knew it." Conrad's voice had hardened. "We know you paid Clifford and Marlowe to kill Mr. Portman before the cheque cleared. That way you could still claim the debt was unpaid and foreclose. Unfortunately for you, Mr. Portman sent a cashier's cheque via a solicitor and that meant payment was made the moment that cheque was signed. Mr. Portman no longer owned the Badger Inn when he was killed; it was the property of Chancery Estate Agents. You had Mr. Portman killed for nothing. And you will hang for it."
"Sounds a good story, I suppose. If you like that kind of yarn."
"Oh, it's more than a story, Mr. Baxter. You see, we pulled the bank records from the ATM where Clifford and Marlowe withdrew the money you authorized. There is a computer record of the withdrawal, camera film of them making it and a note of your personal authorization earlier that evening - just after you would have received that cheque. We have a proven record of them being within the vicinity of Mr. Portman just before he was killed, again using that credit card. And, we have the murder weapon which they, quite incredibly in my view, neglected to dispose of."
"Mr. Baxter, I am arresting you on a charge of the willful murder of Mr. Percy Portman. You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence." Gladstone recited the words with relish. After all, he knew what else was coming. "I am also required to advise you that hiring others to commit murder on your behalf is a capital offense for which you may be sentenced to hang."
Conrad heard the last words with gloom but took comfort from the knowledge that in Britain, all death sentences were automatically commuted to a "full life" prison sentence, meaning life with no possibility of parole.
"Now, we move along to the next part of the case." Conrad looked sorrowfully at Baxter who was beginning to realize how tight the net around him was. "Why did you buy ammunition for Clifford and Marlowe?"
"I didn't . . . . ."
"Mr. Baxter, we have your credit card records that show the purchase of four boxes of 9 by 19mm ammunition. We have your signature authorizing payment of that purchase. Clifford and Marlowe may have presented the credit card you gave them but you authorized payment of the account." Conrad had his man and everybody knew it.
"Mr. Baxter." Gladstone spoke heavily. "In buying the ammunition that was used to critically wound police officers Atkinson and Rowley and was also used to fire upon one of our emergency response officers, you made common purpose with Clifford and Marlowe in their assault upon our officers. That makes you equally guilty of that offense."
"We counted the rounds. They fired thirty shots that night. They have three full boxes of ammunition and one with twenty rounds left in it. Combined with your authorization of the purchase, the common purpose is demonstrated." Conrad shook his head sadly. Knowledge that the whole case was pointless and that the killings were unnecessary wounded him on a personal level.
"Mr. Baxter, I am arresting you on a charge of the attempted murders of Inspector David Atkinson, Police Constable Isolda Rowley and Special Constable Angelique de Llorente. You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence." Gladstone glanced at Angel and saw she was trying hard not to laugh. So far, in one day she had started training police officers to shoot and had now somehow become a police officer herself. For her, this was . . . . unexpected.
Baxter's temper burst. "Damn those two stupid bastards. I gave them money to buy ammunition for cash. They had to spend it at the pub and use their company card instead. I gave them a right bollocking for that. Then they go and panic and shoot up those two cops with them. How was I to know they'd do something that stupid? All they had to do was keep calm and wear their mouths shut."
"Why pistol ammunition?" Conrad was just filling in details now. "Were you going to fake Mr. Portman's suicide by gunshot?"
"Yeah. We had a nice note ready, how he was going to join his Judith and little Penny. Them two bastards would have held him down and blown him away when he got drunk one night." Baxter calmed down and his expression changed to a stunned shock as he realized what he had said.
"Mr. Baxter, I will offer you a deal. You will give us a full confession of your plan to kill Percy Portman and take his business. You will plead guilty. In exchange, we will take the death penalty off the table . . "
"Big deal. Nobody hangs here."
Gladstone continued as if he hadn't spoken, "and drop the charge of acting in the common purpose of attempted murder. The ordinary decent criminals are really upset about somebody shooting down a policewoman. I understand a lifetime of sodomization with an axe handle is the least they have planned for anybody who goes to jail on that charge."
Baxter thought about that and realized there were worse things than a nice, clean drop. "All right, you win. I'll give you a confession. Just get the pad."
In the background Angel shook her head. Special Constable Angelique de Llorente had just vanished like a drop of water on a hotplate. That was something she found very convenient.
Conrad looked at her and winked. Then, he returned to Baxter. "Now, we have the next problem. The murders of Judith and Penny Portman."
"Murders? What are you talking about? Judith Portman killed herself and the little girl was an accident."
Gladstone had pulled the file on Judith Portman and taken out the pictures of her corpse. A black blob had tactfully been placed over the shattered ruin of her head. However, her feet, still wearing high-heeled pumps, were clearly visible.
"You see, Mr. Baxter, to shoot herself, she would have to have operated the triggers on the shotgun with her toe. She couldn't do that with her shoes on and I have never heard of a suicide shooting herself and then putting her shoes back on." Conrad shook his head, privately thinking that Achillea's gallows humor was having malign effects on him. Not to mention Angel's even more macabre jokes.
"I know nothing about that. Honest. I was as shocked as any when Mattie told me that the little girl was dead. Judith, well I expected her to top herself after that. But I don’t go round killing little girls."
After Baxter had been taken away, Conrad leaned back in his seat. "Well, we're mostly there. Only thing is, when he said he didn't kill little girls, I believed him."
Re: 2003 - The Melancholia of Percy the Pig
Chapter Thirteen
Interview Room, St Aldates Police Station, Thames Valley Police, Oxford.
"Conrad, we've just had a call on the TIPS Hotline." Constable Andrews stopped Conrad just before he went back into the interview room. "A Mr. John Smith called us with some interesting information."
"Ahh, John Smith. A very active figure I believe."
Andrews laughed at that. "I think so. And he seems to enjoy using our TIPS telephone number. However, this John Smith has a distinctive accent and he is known to us. He's Bertie Walpole, head of a firm that runs loan sharking, protection and vice rackets in Thames Valley."
"Firm meaning gang?" Conrad was just making sure. He reflected that since meeting Angel, he'd become distressingly familiar with criminal slang.
"Well, nobody quite says that, but yes." Andrews paused for a second. "He's a nasty piece of work but he seems a bit put out by Isolda getting shot like that. Apparently, it seems a loan from some friends of his financed Baxter's attempt to take-over the Badger Inn. Baxter was paying the interest all right but hadn’t made a dent in the principal. Mr. Walpole is not happy that Baxter has been arrested. Not at all is he happy. In fact, I would say he is right peeved."
Conrad worked out that Mr. Albert Walpole was seriously upset at the shooting of Isolda Rowley. He wasn’t naïve enough to believe that Walpole’s anger was humanitarian in nature but because the police hue and cry that was now taking in most of the county was seriously disrupting his firm’s business. “Did we get those photographs of Penny after the accident?”
“We had to dig in the files but yes. This is the poor little thing.”
Conrad looked at the picture. As with the picture of Judith Portman, the terrible damage where the truck had run over the little girl’s lower abdomen and upper legs had been blacked out but it was the legs below the knees that Conrad wanted to see. As he expected, the girl’s shins were covered with heavy bruises. “These were perimortem?”
Andrews looked at the notes. “That’s what the Coroner said.”
"Thank you, that may be very useful. I'm going in to talk to Matilda Baxter right now."
"Sergeant says I can watch and learn if it's all right with you." Andrews looked hopeful.
Conrad took great pride in the fact that by demonstrating how to interrogate prisoners without using violence, he had greatly reduced the incidence of said prisoners having unfortunate accidents in their cells. Quite apart from anything else, Judges are getting more suspicious of shaky signatures on the bottom of blood-stained 'confessions'. "Of course. Join your colleagues next door. I can't promise spectacular results this time around though,"
Matilda Baxter was waiting in the chair across the interview room table. Conrad sat down opposite her, and opened the files on the 'accidental death' of Penny Portman and the 'suicide' of Judith Portman. "You are Matilda Baxter?"
"I am. So what?"
"And Charles Baxter is your father?"
"Nah, he's my great grandson. Of course he's my dad."
"I am sorry to have to tell you that he has been charged with the murder of Percy Portman. You will be able to visit him once the details of taking him into custody have been completed."
"Well, what had that got to do with me?" Baxter sounded indignant. "I know nothing about this. Why the hell have I been kept sitting here and talking to cops all day."
"I am sure you do not and you really have been put upon." Conrad was at his most amiable. Oh you know about it all right. The difficulty is proving it. But, we have other places to go before then. "However, it is not about the Portman case that I wish to talk with you. It is about Penny and Judith Portman."
Baxter looked confused. "That was years ago."
"I believe you were working at the Badger Inn when both incidents occurred? Is that correct?"
"Yes I was. You ain't sticking those on me. Everybody knows Penny was killed in a road accident and Judith topped herself."
"Well, Matilda, often things aren’t quite as they seem. We are now reasonably sure than Judith Portman was murdered and that, of course raises questions about the death of Penny Portman. Since you were there at the time, you are probably the only accessible witness we have. Let's start with Penny Portman. What do you remember about that?"
“I was in the beer garden, setting out the tables. I heard Penny laughing then the sound of brakes and skidding and a terrible bang. Then Penny screaming. I started to run towards the road. By the time I got there, Judith had come out and she was holding Penny. They was both screaming then Penny stopped.”
“You heard the delivery lorry coming around the corner?”
“I suppose I must have done but it didn’t register. Traffic noise is an all day thing there.”
Conrad got some pictures out of his briefcase. The first one was an aerial shot of the Badger Inn. Conrad put his finger on a green area surrounded by buildings on three sides. “This is the Badger of course. You were standing here?”
“That’s right.”
Conrad got some more pictures out. These were taken from road level and showed the sloping path down beside the west wall of the pub, ending in a rickety wooden gate. “Penny must have gone down this path, is that right?”
“Yeah, and that’s the gate the postman left open.”
“Well, that’s the problem. You see, the gradient of that path isn’t steep enough to make that tricycle go out of control. Children stop them by taking their feet off the pedals and putting them on the ground. Penny should have been able to stop that tricycle at any time.”
“So?”
“Well, we know she tried and yet she failed. The only explanation is that she was being pushed down that slope. The reason why the van driver didn’t see who was pushing her was this wall. It completely blocks his view of the path. All he saw was her shooting out in front of him through the gate and under his wheels. After that he only had eyes for the little girl he had just killed. Or thought he had. The real killer was the person who pushed her in front of his van.”
“How do you know that?” Baxter was openly scoffing at him.
“Look at the front of her legs. That bruising occurred just before she died. Perimortem the coroner calls it. The cause is that when she took her feet off the pedals to stop herself, the wheels kept rotating and the pedals, heavy rubber blocks, hit the front of her legs. Over and over again. Once again, the only explanation for that is that the tricycle was being pushed along, forcing the front wheel in particular to keep turning.”
Baxter looked at the pictures, sheer terror in her eyes. Then it faded and was replaced by a crafty sneer. “It must have been Judith pushed her. Thank of that, a mother killing her own daughter. Don’t know what the world is coming to, really I don’t.”
Firing Range, Thames Valley Police, Oxford.
Angel now had eight trainees, two women having been added to the course she was teaching. She happened to know there had been a major confrontation in the office of the Chief Constable the night before when the entire force of police women had sent representatives to demand that they be included in the armed response training. As they had pointed out, Isolda Rowley had been shot as well. Eventually, apparently after much shouting and a full and frank exchange of views, two women volunteers had been included.
Angel looked around her group. "All right, I've heard through the grapevine that the purchase of new pistols has been authorized. You'll be getting Swiss SIG-Sauer 9 by 21s. The Home Office has selected the P-225 which has a nine round capacity with one up the spout, and the P-226 which is the same weapon but with a double-stack magazine giving seventeen plus one. You get to pick which one you prefer. They're both good, reliable weapons."
"I suppose the women will get the 225s." Constable Alice MacMahon sounded bitter.
Angel said nothing but her hand moved and suddenly, there was a Beretta in it. "Twin stack, sixteen plus one. I said you get to pick and I meant it. Try them both and find out which fits your hand best. That's the only criteria and it is an individual decision. For me, it's pistols with twin stack mags. We're also going to have to decide how to carry them. If we carry them."
"Why not shoulder holsters like yours?" It was Constable MacMahon again.
"Because I'm Chinese and you're European. That big rack of yours gets in the way." Angel smiled at the rest of her students. "There are a lot of advantages in being a member of the itty bitty titty club."
There was an outburst of laughter from her students. Constable MacMahon frowned for a moment, then joined in the laughter when she realized what Angel had said was both funny and true. Andrews spoke up once the outburst had subsided. "You said, if we carry them?"
Angel nodded. "Look, quite some time ago, I told Assistant Commissioner Keeble that the British Police, as long as they stuck to their guiding principles, were probably the only competent police force I had ever met. The NYPD are a group of over-armed thugs with delusions of adequacy, the Bangkok Police are as corrupt as hell. You lot are different which is why I am taking the trouble to sit here. The fact you don't carry one of these is a good thing. The fact that you're not trained to use them is a good thing as well. You're part of the community and that's your greatest strength. Start carrying these things around and you won’t be part of the community anymore and you won’t have their support. That's a huge loss for little gain."
"Then why are they being issued to us?" MacMahon was still being argumentative.
"Because there will be rare occasions when they are needed. As armed response officers, your duties will be the same as any other police officer of your rank but maintaining competence with a firearm and using it when necessary is an additional, unpaid, duty for which you have volunteered. I have suggested that you carry your pistols in your police cruiser, not on your person. When you do carry, you carry concealed. Like me. Two reasons for that. One is that the sight of an openly displayed gun will anger people and prejudice them against you. You really want to avoid that. Remember the Blackshirts carried guns openly." Angel noted the nods. "The other thing is, if your weapon is concealed, nobody will know whether you have a gun or not. Therefore, you are protecting not only yourself but every other police officer. Think about that. Now, enough chatter, back to work. Take a look at the pictures I've handed out. They're a recreation of the scene at the Expressparts warehouse. A good careful look. What do you see there?"
There was a long pause. Eventually, Constable Gregory said, speaking slowly. "The doors of the warehouse are slightly open. They shouldn't be. That's, well not suspicious, but certainly out of the ordinary."
"Good boy. That's out the ordinary and tells you something is wrong. It's a sign that care is needed. Now, what did Atkinson and Rowley do wrong?"
There was another long silence. Eventually Angel broke it. "That police cruiser. It's parked far too close to those doors. You spotted there was something wrong, so should they. They should have parked well back. If it is an ambush, the shooters will open up as you get out of the cruiser. That's when you're most vulnerable. Remember the odds are, they're pretty incompetent. They probably will hit you at five feet, they may hit you at twenty five, they'll almost certainly miss at seventy five. To me, distance doesn't really matter. I can kill you as easily at 150 feet as I can at five but most people can't do that."
"I wish you wouldn’t say things like that. You make us nervous." Another ripple of laughter went through the group.
"Think of me as the ace of spades in the deck of life. But, if they'd parked well back, the first few shots would have missed them and they could have backed out of trouble or gone to ground. As it was, those first few close-range shots were near-lethal and crippled them both. Isolda was further away and had a chance to run. This is what we mean by risk management. Always be alert, look for things that are wrong and work out what you should do if things go bad. Conrad? What's the matter?"
Conrad had walked over while Angel had been talking and listened quietly to her lecture. "I don’t think they call them police cruisers over here. Can we talk?"
Angel glanced at her watch. "Ten minutes? We're close to wrapping up for the day and I've got to hand out the homework."
Conrad settled back to listen to Angel continuing her lesson. He knew how competent she was at her chosen profession, much as he regretted her choices, but he found it fascinating how she was applying her own life lessons and experience to the different demands of law enforcement. It occurred to him that she would have made a pretty good police officer herself if her life had taken a different path. Once again, he mentally cursed the father and the priest who had wantonly destroyed the life she could have had. Eventually, she finished and dismissed her class by handing out the SIG manuals for their new pistols. She actually had two of each type in her possession and would be showing them to her class tomorrow.
"Something gone wrong?" Angel had sat down next to him.
"She did it, I know she did but we'll never prove it. We'll have to let her go." Conrad shook his head. The idea of letting go a suspect who had deliberately pushed a little girl in front of a delivery van, filled him with despondency. Bleakly, he recognized that, in a case filled with melancholia, he was likely to go down with a case himself.
"Matilda Baxter?"
"I'm sure of it. She nearly broke down and admitted it but she thought of another explanation that was plausible enough to bring reasonable doubt with it. We'll never prove she did it to the standards the law demands."
"I can't complain about that, Conrad. My entire life is based around the concept that nobody can prove anything against me to the standard the law demands. The one time they did . . . " Angel paused. It was not a happy memory for her. "You couldn't break her down?"
Conrad sighed and shook his head. "She did it right; invented a simple story and stuck to it. One that was as close to the truth as possible. That gave little room to pull the threads loose. You know Angel, most of the criminals in this case were unusually stupid but this one, the one we really needed to get, is going to walk."
"We'd better tell the cops here that. What else happened today?"
Conrad gave her a brief run-down on the events surrounding the interrogation of Matilda Baxter. When he came to the TIPS call by Albert Baxter, Angel nodded slightly. It did explain how Baxter had financed the operation. It also meant that the Baxter family now had a problem with the local firm. Angel thought about that.
Intensive Care Ward, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford.
Achillea looked around at the room filled with flowers and boxes of chocolates. "I hope you don’t suffer from hay fever."
Isolda Rowley looked up and gave her visitor a beaming, but in the final analysis faked, smile. "Fortunately no. Hi. 'Lea."
That was when the mask collapsed and depression came flooding back. "'Lea, the doctors said my legs are done. I'm paralyzed from the waist down. What am I going to do?"
"You can fight. Isolda, you can find out what you can do right now, you can decide what you want to be able to do and try to get there and you can accept what you can't do and work around it. A very wise man once told me that if you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment. So revoke it."
"Who was that, 'Lea." Isolda was looking very thoughtful. She'd had enough sympathy and commiseration to last her a lifetime. Like a drink with far too much sugar in it, it was making her sick. Achillea's words were different and empowering. They had made her think about the future instead of wallowing in self-pity.
"The man who taught me how to fight. I used to call him Dottore. Here's another piece of advice he gave me. 'The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are. When you do these things, and look deep into yourself; you will find a source of all the strength you will need. All you need to do is look for it and it will always spring up.”
Isolda began to smile. "So, if I want to walk again, I just have to work hard enough."
"That's it. 'Sol, I know people who have had this sort of injury and have recovered. Maybe not perfectly, but better than if they'd just given up. I live two hours away in New York and I'll be coming backwards and forwards now Irene's living here. I'll help you all I can."
Isolda smiled again and this time, it was genuine. "Just keep quoting your Dottore at me."
Croft Road, Marsh Baldon, Oxfordshire.
"What the . . . ." A Land Rover, the classic vehicle of the British farming community had backed out of a field in front of her and completely blocked Croft Road. Matilda Baxter hit the brakes and her car squealed to a halt with a yard or two to spare. She was about to back up when a second Land River came up behind her and turned to block the road as well. Now, she couldn't move. Four men got out of the two vehicles, two of them carrying shotguns broken over their arms. "What the hell do you think you are doing. Get out of my way."
"Now, now, Mattie, you can't speak to your neighbors like that. Especially neighbors who know you. You might have fooled the cops but you can't fool us."
"Dangerous place the countryside. Lots of bad accidents happen there." One of the men wasn't speaking to anybody in particular. If anything, he was addressing a crow that was perched on a nearby tree.
"Yeah, especially to people who push kids in front of lorries. I'll give it to you straight, Mattie. We don't want people who kill little girls in our village. So get out. Right now. Just keep driving and don’t look back. We don’t care where you go or what you do, but don’t come back here. Understand?"
"Really bad accidents happen in the countryside. Horrible ones." The crow in the tree nodded, probably in agreement.
Rose Cottage, Wilmotts Road, Toot Baldon.
Matilda Baxter hurried out of Rose Cottage with a bag containing as much money and jewelry as she could collect and her clothes. It had only taken her a few minutes but as the front door slammed behind her, she knew it was too late. What she didn’t know was that it had always been too late. The black limousine blocking the exit of her own car had been following her since she passed through Marsh Baldon and had stayed discretely out of the way while she had been stopped by the farmers. Those farmers hadn’t been part of their plan but they had been part of Angel’s scheme to get rid of Matilda without Conrad blaming himself for her death.
“Going somewhere are we, Mattie?” Albert Walpole looked at her through thick-rimmed glasses that were just a little too large for his face. His brick-red hair was a tousled mess.
“I’m being run out of the village.”
“Now that’s a pity. You see, your dad borrowed fifty large from me. He’s going down and can’t pay so you inherit the debt. I hope you weren’t thinking you can run out on it. Then there are transfer fees, refinancing fees, user fees, accountancy fees.” Walpole had just got himself a portable telephone and had been impressed by the way various fees could be used to run up the bill. “Seventy large you owe me now.”
“I can’t pay that.” Baxter was almost in tears.
“Oh dear, oh dear oh dear.” Baxter’s world suddenly went black as the man behind her slammed a leather sap across the back of her head. A few seconds later she was in the trunk of her car. A few seconds beyond that, it was following the black limousine away down Wilmotts Road.
A few yards away, Angel was watching as Walpole came over to join her. “Thank you for the tip-off, Straw Sandal. If she’d done a runner, we’d have looked right stupid and that would have cost us dear. We owe you.”
“The Auspicious Society is pleased to have worked with you. Perhaps we can do so again when it is mutually beneficial for us both?”
“That would be an honor, Straw Sandal.” Walpole made a left-hand fist, cupped it with his right hand, and bowed. Angel returned the gesture and so the deal was struck. Debt had been established and recognized and an agreement was made to pay on demand. There was another part of that deal, implicit but understood. Keep your nose out of Chinatown.
Walpole went off to his car and followed the little convoy away. Angel watched them and allowed herself to smile broadly. Two weeks ago, there was no Triad presence in Oxford. Now, there is.
She set off for a nice leisurely walk through the countryside, back to the Inn. There was Shepherd’s Pie on the menu and she was keen to try it. Also, to tell Conrad that Matilda Baxter had fled the village and vanished. Which, in a manner of speaking she had. There were even four witnesses who were genuinely convinced their amateurish attempt to be heavies had actually succeeded in making her leave the area. Angel was confident that he would believe that she was alive somewhere, and keeping her head well down. Believing that he was not responsible for her death would keep him happy and that meant she would be happy also.
A few miles away, Matilda Baxter recovered consciousness just as her car came to a halt. The sudden flood of light when the trunk was opened blinded her for a moment but then the shadow of Albert Walpole fell over her. “Try to do a runner on debt, would you? We might have come to an agreement on that, but pushing a little nipper under a lorry? Oh no. That's not on at all. You know who I am, Mattie? I’m Nemesis and you’re done.”
That was when Matilda Baxter realized the squealing and grunting she could hear came from a barn full of pigs.
Interview Room, St Aldates Police Station, Thames Valley Police, Oxford.
"Conrad, we've just had a call on the TIPS Hotline." Constable Andrews stopped Conrad just before he went back into the interview room. "A Mr. John Smith called us with some interesting information."
"Ahh, John Smith. A very active figure I believe."
Andrews laughed at that. "I think so. And he seems to enjoy using our TIPS telephone number. However, this John Smith has a distinctive accent and he is known to us. He's Bertie Walpole, head of a firm that runs loan sharking, protection and vice rackets in Thames Valley."
"Firm meaning gang?" Conrad was just making sure. He reflected that since meeting Angel, he'd become distressingly familiar with criminal slang.
"Well, nobody quite says that, but yes." Andrews paused for a second. "He's a nasty piece of work but he seems a bit put out by Isolda getting shot like that. Apparently, it seems a loan from some friends of his financed Baxter's attempt to take-over the Badger Inn. Baxter was paying the interest all right but hadn’t made a dent in the principal. Mr. Walpole is not happy that Baxter has been arrested. Not at all is he happy. In fact, I would say he is right peeved."
Conrad worked out that Mr. Albert Walpole was seriously upset at the shooting of Isolda Rowley. He wasn’t naïve enough to believe that Walpole’s anger was humanitarian in nature but because the police hue and cry that was now taking in most of the county was seriously disrupting his firm’s business. “Did we get those photographs of Penny after the accident?”
“We had to dig in the files but yes. This is the poor little thing.”
Conrad looked at the picture. As with the picture of Judith Portman, the terrible damage where the truck had run over the little girl’s lower abdomen and upper legs had been blacked out but it was the legs below the knees that Conrad wanted to see. As he expected, the girl’s shins were covered with heavy bruises. “These were perimortem?”
Andrews looked at the notes. “That’s what the Coroner said.”
"Thank you, that may be very useful. I'm going in to talk to Matilda Baxter right now."
"Sergeant says I can watch and learn if it's all right with you." Andrews looked hopeful.
Conrad took great pride in the fact that by demonstrating how to interrogate prisoners without using violence, he had greatly reduced the incidence of said prisoners having unfortunate accidents in their cells. Quite apart from anything else, Judges are getting more suspicious of shaky signatures on the bottom of blood-stained 'confessions'. "Of course. Join your colleagues next door. I can't promise spectacular results this time around though,"
Matilda Baxter was waiting in the chair across the interview room table. Conrad sat down opposite her, and opened the files on the 'accidental death' of Penny Portman and the 'suicide' of Judith Portman. "You are Matilda Baxter?"
"I am. So what?"
"And Charles Baxter is your father?"
"Nah, he's my great grandson. Of course he's my dad."
"I am sorry to have to tell you that he has been charged with the murder of Percy Portman. You will be able to visit him once the details of taking him into custody have been completed."
"Well, what had that got to do with me?" Baxter sounded indignant. "I know nothing about this. Why the hell have I been kept sitting here and talking to cops all day."
"I am sure you do not and you really have been put upon." Conrad was at his most amiable. Oh you know about it all right. The difficulty is proving it. But, we have other places to go before then. "However, it is not about the Portman case that I wish to talk with you. It is about Penny and Judith Portman."
Baxter looked confused. "That was years ago."
"I believe you were working at the Badger Inn when both incidents occurred? Is that correct?"
"Yes I was. You ain't sticking those on me. Everybody knows Penny was killed in a road accident and Judith topped herself."
"Well, Matilda, often things aren’t quite as they seem. We are now reasonably sure than Judith Portman was murdered and that, of course raises questions about the death of Penny Portman. Since you were there at the time, you are probably the only accessible witness we have. Let's start with Penny Portman. What do you remember about that?"
“I was in the beer garden, setting out the tables. I heard Penny laughing then the sound of brakes and skidding and a terrible bang. Then Penny screaming. I started to run towards the road. By the time I got there, Judith had come out and she was holding Penny. They was both screaming then Penny stopped.”
“You heard the delivery lorry coming around the corner?”
“I suppose I must have done but it didn’t register. Traffic noise is an all day thing there.”
Conrad got some pictures out of his briefcase. The first one was an aerial shot of the Badger Inn. Conrad put his finger on a green area surrounded by buildings on three sides. “This is the Badger of course. You were standing here?”
“That’s right.”
Conrad got some more pictures out. These were taken from road level and showed the sloping path down beside the west wall of the pub, ending in a rickety wooden gate. “Penny must have gone down this path, is that right?”
“Yeah, and that’s the gate the postman left open.”
“Well, that’s the problem. You see, the gradient of that path isn’t steep enough to make that tricycle go out of control. Children stop them by taking their feet off the pedals and putting them on the ground. Penny should have been able to stop that tricycle at any time.”
“So?”
“Well, we know she tried and yet she failed. The only explanation is that she was being pushed down that slope. The reason why the van driver didn’t see who was pushing her was this wall. It completely blocks his view of the path. All he saw was her shooting out in front of him through the gate and under his wheels. After that he only had eyes for the little girl he had just killed. Or thought he had. The real killer was the person who pushed her in front of his van.”
“How do you know that?” Baxter was openly scoffing at him.
“Look at the front of her legs. That bruising occurred just before she died. Perimortem the coroner calls it. The cause is that when she took her feet off the pedals to stop herself, the wheels kept rotating and the pedals, heavy rubber blocks, hit the front of her legs. Over and over again. Once again, the only explanation for that is that the tricycle was being pushed along, forcing the front wheel in particular to keep turning.”
Baxter looked at the pictures, sheer terror in her eyes. Then it faded and was replaced by a crafty sneer. “It must have been Judith pushed her. Thank of that, a mother killing her own daughter. Don’t know what the world is coming to, really I don’t.”
Firing Range, Thames Valley Police, Oxford.
Angel now had eight trainees, two women having been added to the course she was teaching. She happened to know there had been a major confrontation in the office of the Chief Constable the night before when the entire force of police women had sent representatives to demand that they be included in the armed response training. As they had pointed out, Isolda Rowley had been shot as well. Eventually, apparently after much shouting and a full and frank exchange of views, two women volunteers had been included.
Angel looked around her group. "All right, I've heard through the grapevine that the purchase of new pistols has been authorized. You'll be getting Swiss SIG-Sauer 9 by 21s. The Home Office has selected the P-225 which has a nine round capacity with one up the spout, and the P-226 which is the same weapon but with a double-stack magazine giving seventeen plus one. You get to pick which one you prefer. They're both good, reliable weapons."
"I suppose the women will get the 225s." Constable Alice MacMahon sounded bitter.
Angel said nothing but her hand moved and suddenly, there was a Beretta in it. "Twin stack, sixteen plus one. I said you get to pick and I meant it. Try them both and find out which fits your hand best. That's the only criteria and it is an individual decision. For me, it's pistols with twin stack mags. We're also going to have to decide how to carry them. If we carry them."
"Why not shoulder holsters like yours?" It was Constable MacMahon again.
"Because I'm Chinese and you're European. That big rack of yours gets in the way." Angel smiled at the rest of her students. "There are a lot of advantages in being a member of the itty bitty titty club."
There was an outburst of laughter from her students. Constable MacMahon frowned for a moment, then joined in the laughter when she realized what Angel had said was both funny and true. Andrews spoke up once the outburst had subsided. "You said, if we carry them?"
Angel nodded. "Look, quite some time ago, I told Assistant Commissioner Keeble that the British Police, as long as they stuck to their guiding principles, were probably the only competent police force I had ever met. The NYPD are a group of over-armed thugs with delusions of adequacy, the Bangkok Police are as corrupt as hell. You lot are different which is why I am taking the trouble to sit here. The fact you don't carry one of these is a good thing. The fact that you're not trained to use them is a good thing as well. You're part of the community and that's your greatest strength. Start carrying these things around and you won’t be part of the community anymore and you won’t have their support. That's a huge loss for little gain."
"Then why are they being issued to us?" MacMahon was still being argumentative.
"Because there will be rare occasions when they are needed. As armed response officers, your duties will be the same as any other police officer of your rank but maintaining competence with a firearm and using it when necessary is an additional, unpaid, duty for which you have volunteered. I have suggested that you carry your pistols in your police cruiser, not on your person. When you do carry, you carry concealed. Like me. Two reasons for that. One is that the sight of an openly displayed gun will anger people and prejudice them against you. You really want to avoid that. Remember the Blackshirts carried guns openly." Angel noted the nods. "The other thing is, if your weapon is concealed, nobody will know whether you have a gun or not. Therefore, you are protecting not only yourself but every other police officer. Think about that. Now, enough chatter, back to work. Take a look at the pictures I've handed out. They're a recreation of the scene at the Expressparts warehouse. A good careful look. What do you see there?"
There was a long pause. Eventually, Constable Gregory said, speaking slowly. "The doors of the warehouse are slightly open. They shouldn't be. That's, well not suspicious, but certainly out of the ordinary."
"Good boy. That's out the ordinary and tells you something is wrong. It's a sign that care is needed. Now, what did Atkinson and Rowley do wrong?"
There was another long silence. Eventually Angel broke it. "That police cruiser. It's parked far too close to those doors. You spotted there was something wrong, so should they. They should have parked well back. If it is an ambush, the shooters will open up as you get out of the cruiser. That's when you're most vulnerable. Remember the odds are, they're pretty incompetent. They probably will hit you at five feet, they may hit you at twenty five, they'll almost certainly miss at seventy five. To me, distance doesn't really matter. I can kill you as easily at 150 feet as I can at five but most people can't do that."
"I wish you wouldn’t say things like that. You make us nervous." Another ripple of laughter went through the group.
"Think of me as the ace of spades in the deck of life. But, if they'd parked well back, the first few shots would have missed them and they could have backed out of trouble or gone to ground. As it was, those first few close-range shots were near-lethal and crippled them both. Isolda was further away and had a chance to run. This is what we mean by risk management. Always be alert, look for things that are wrong and work out what you should do if things go bad. Conrad? What's the matter?"
Conrad had walked over while Angel had been talking and listened quietly to her lecture. "I don’t think they call them police cruisers over here. Can we talk?"
Angel glanced at her watch. "Ten minutes? We're close to wrapping up for the day and I've got to hand out the homework."
Conrad settled back to listen to Angel continuing her lesson. He knew how competent she was at her chosen profession, much as he regretted her choices, but he found it fascinating how she was applying her own life lessons and experience to the different demands of law enforcement. It occurred to him that she would have made a pretty good police officer herself if her life had taken a different path. Once again, he mentally cursed the father and the priest who had wantonly destroyed the life she could have had. Eventually, she finished and dismissed her class by handing out the SIG manuals for their new pistols. She actually had two of each type in her possession and would be showing them to her class tomorrow.
"Something gone wrong?" Angel had sat down next to him.
"She did it, I know she did but we'll never prove it. We'll have to let her go." Conrad shook his head. The idea of letting go a suspect who had deliberately pushed a little girl in front of a delivery van, filled him with despondency. Bleakly, he recognized that, in a case filled with melancholia, he was likely to go down with a case himself.
"Matilda Baxter?"
"I'm sure of it. She nearly broke down and admitted it but she thought of another explanation that was plausible enough to bring reasonable doubt with it. We'll never prove she did it to the standards the law demands."
"I can't complain about that, Conrad. My entire life is based around the concept that nobody can prove anything against me to the standard the law demands. The one time they did . . . " Angel paused. It was not a happy memory for her. "You couldn't break her down?"
Conrad sighed and shook his head. "She did it right; invented a simple story and stuck to it. One that was as close to the truth as possible. That gave little room to pull the threads loose. You know Angel, most of the criminals in this case were unusually stupid but this one, the one we really needed to get, is going to walk."
"We'd better tell the cops here that. What else happened today?"
Conrad gave her a brief run-down on the events surrounding the interrogation of Matilda Baxter. When he came to the TIPS call by Albert Baxter, Angel nodded slightly. It did explain how Baxter had financed the operation. It also meant that the Baxter family now had a problem with the local firm. Angel thought about that.
Intensive Care Ward, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford.
Achillea looked around at the room filled with flowers and boxes of chocolates. "I hope you don’t suffer from hay fever."
Isolda Rowley looked up and gave her visitor a beaming, but in the final analysis faked, smile. "Fortunately no. Hi. 'Lea."
That was when the mask collapsed and depression came flooding back. "'Lea, the doctors said my legs are done. I'm paralyzed from the waist down. What am I going to do?"
"You can fight. Isolda, you can find out what you can do right now, you can decide what you want to be able to do and try to get there and you can accept what you can't do and work around it. A very wise man once told me that if you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment. So revoke it."
"Who was that, 'Lea." Isolda was looking very thoughtful. She'd had enough sympathy and commiseration to last her a lifetime. Like a drink with far too much sugar in it, it was making her sick. Achillea's words were different and empowering. They had made her think about the future instead of wallowing in self-pity.
"The man who taught me how to fight. I used to call him Dottore. Here's another piece of advice he gave me. 'The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are. When you do these things, and look deep into yourself; you will find a source of all the strength you will need. All you need to do is look for it and it will always spring up.”
Isolda began to smile. "So, if I want to walk again, I just have to work hard enough."
"That's it. 'Sol, I know people who have had this sort of injury and have recovered. Maybe not perfectly, but better than if they'd just given up. I live two hours away in New York and I'll be coming backwards and forwards now Irene's living here. I'll help you all I can."
Isolda smiled again and this time, it was genuine. "Just keep quoting your Dottore at me."
Croft Road, Marsh Baldon, Oxfordshire.
"What the . . . ." A Land Rover, the classic vehicle of the British farming community had backed out of a field in front of her and completely blocked Croft Road. Matilda Baxter hit the brakes and her car squealed to a halt with a yard or two to spare. She was about to back up when a second Land River came up behind her and turned to block the road as well. Now, she couldn't move. Four men got out of the two vehicles, two of them carrying shotguns broken over their arms. "What the hell do you think you are doing. Get out of my way."
"Now, now, Mattie, you can't speak to your neighbors like that. Especially neighbors who know you. You might have fooled the cops but you can't fool us."
"Dangerous place the countryside. Lots of bad accidents happen there." One of the men wasn't speaking to anybody in particular. If anything, he was addressing a crow that was perched on a nearby tree.
"Yeah, especially to people who push kids in front of lorries. I'll give it to you straight, Mattie. We don't want people who kill little girls in our village. So get out. Right now. Just keep driving and don’t look back. We don’t care where you go or what you do, but don’t come back here. Understand?"
"Really bad accidents happen in the countryside. Horrible ones." The crow in the tree nodded, probably in agreement.
Rose Cottage, Wilmotts Road, Toot Baldon.
Matilda Baxter hurried out of Rose Cottage with a bag containing as much money and jewelry as she could collect and her clothes. It had only taken her a few minutes but as the front door slammed behind her, she knew it was too late. What she didn’t know was that it had always been too late. The black limousine blocking the exit of her own car had been following her since she passed through Marsh Baldon and had stayed discretely out of the way while she had been stopped by the farmers. Those farmers hadn’t been part of their plan but they had been part of Angel’s scheme to get rid of Matilda without Conrad blaming himself for her death.
“Going somewhere are we, Mattie?” Albert Walpole looked at her through thick-rimmed glasses that were just a little too large for his face. His brick-red hair was a tousled mess.
“I’m being run out of the village.”
“Now that’s a pity. You see, your dad borrowed fifty large from me. He’s going down and can’t pay so you inherit the debt. I hope you weren’t thinking you can run out on it. Then there are transfer fees, refinancing fees, user fees, accountancy fees.” Walpole had just got himself a portable telephone and had been impressed by the way various fees could be used to run up the bill. “Seventy large you owe me now.”
“I can’t pay that.” Baxter was almost in tears.
“Oh dear, oh dear oh dear.” Baxter’s world suddenly went black as the man behind her slammed a leather sap across the back of her head. A few seconds later she was in the trunk of her car. A few seconds beyond that, it was following the black limousine away down Wilmotts Road.
A few yards away, Angel was watching as Walpole came over to join her. “Thank you for the tip-off, Straw Sandal. If she’d done a runner, we’d have looked right stupid and that would have cost us dear. We owe you.”
“The Auspicious Society is pleased to have worked with you. Perhaps we can do so again when it is mutually beneficial for us both?”
“That would be an honor, Straw Sandal.” Walpole made a left-hand fist, cupped it with his right hand, and bowed. Angel returned the gesture and so the deal was struck. Debt had been established and recognized and an agreement was made to pay on demand. There was another part of that deal, implicit but understood. Keep your nose out of Chinatown.
Walpole went off to his car and followed the little convoy away. Angel watched them and allowed herself to smile broadly. Two weeks ago, there was no Triad presence in Oxford. Now, there is.
She set off for a nice leisurely walk through the countryside, back to the Inn. There was Shepherd’s Pie on the menu and she was keen to try it. Also, to tell Conrad that Matilda Baxter had fled the village and vanished. Which, in a manner of speaking she had. There were even four witnesses who were genuinely convinced their amateurish attempt to be heavies had actually succeeded in making her leave the area. Angel was confident that he would believe that she was alive somewhere, and keeping her head well down. Believing that he was not responsible for her death would keep him happy and that meant she would be happy also.
A few miles away, Matilda Baxter recovered consciousness just as her car came to a halt. The sudden flood of light when the trunk was opened blinded her for a moment but then the shadow of Albert Walpole fell over her. “Try to do a runner on debt, would you? We might have come to an agreement on that, but pushing a little nipper under a lorry? Oh no. That's not on at all. You know who I am, Mattie? I’m Nemesis and you’re done.”
That was when Matilda Baxter realized the squealing and grunting she could hear came from a barn full of pigs.