Moving Target, page 10
It was the same shirt that Dillon Moran was wearing in the photo outside the French hotel.
“He could have two of the same shirt?”
“No. You buy identical formal shirts. You don't buy identical beach shirts. You buy different kinds, different fun patterns.” Ellis went out of the room, and came back with the coffee, now nearly cold. He sat down on the edge of the bed and took a sip. “My proposition is that this guy Dillon Moran, who relates to McNab, whose occupation relates to Palmer, was not in France a week ago posing for this snap- and then staying on for two more months, meanwhile sending his shirt back airmail to be laundered and stuck in that drawer.”
“What's your proposition?"
“He's told his girlfriend he's gone missing for two months. He's arranged for an old photograph to be sent from the South of France, to her, and to anybody who might pick her up-us.”
“Well?”
“I don't know what Palmer thinks he's got himself into- I'd say organizing this photo and letter to be sent, these arrangements, smell too elaborate a groundwork for a simple bank robbery...”
Castle walked into Flying Squad Office at nine am. Ellis was already there. Detective Sergeant Davies walked in a second afterwards and said that Hammond had been in at eight and would be back at ten and wanted a charge, something to stick on her, otherwise Martha Williams must be released. "Then find something.” Castle addressed his Sergeant sharply. He'd had three hours' sleep and he was irritable. Sergeant Davies had spent six hours last night, and two hours this morning, trying to find something. Anything-a parking ticket summons unanswered, a Hire Purchase debt. “There is nothing on Martha Williams,” Davies said, and he walked out.
Ellis turned. He had been standing looking out of the window. “What the hell do you want her in custody for. We want her out of custody when we question her.”
Castle's expression showed that he didn't follow the reasoning.
“That girl is a tough broad. She isn't going to talk unless she's persuaded. And that's better done in privacy.”
Castle's eyes hard on Ellis's. “I'm sorry, Lieutenant Ellis, you'll have to spell that out for me...”
Ellis didn't answer immediately. The silence got heavier in the room. “Martha Williams has to talk. Your Sergeant Davies says there's no holding charge. So, she gets released from West End Central. I'll be there. Give me a few hours."
Castle sat down behind his desk. The logic was infallible. Martha Williams was a stripper with a background in crime. Under normal interrogation she'd take days, maybe weeks, to come across. He doubted Ellis would have to put too much pressure on the girl. Just walking into her apartment, and a couple of shoves and threats would do it.
Ellis didn't give him time to think about it. “I'll be in touch.”
The tall American walked to the door. “By the way, I got to tell you something. You're going to find out. It should be from me. I was with Sandra last night...”
Castle's jaw dropped. There was a full twenty seconds of astonished silence. “What the fuck d'you mean?"
“I mean I don't believe in deception. I am telling you I screwed your girl. And if you want to do something about it, you'll do it to me, and not to her.”
Castle couldn't believe it, the suddenness of it. Apart from anything else it didn't add up. “You were with me in Martha Williams' flat most of the night.”
“I said I couldn't sleep. I lay and stared at the goddam flower wallpaper on Sandra's ceiling, and I phoned you at two and I left her and went to your place.”
There was nothing that Castle could think of to say. The tall American's untroubled eyes were on him. Then he turned and paced out of the room.
Chapter Nine
They walked in Hyde Park. It was the kind of morning that London weather can only conjure up half a dozen days in any spring. Eleven am, warm, almost hot. And bright sunlight charging around the park, touching up all the colours, and breaking open the buds of wild primroses under the trees.
The warmth in the air was kind of mockery. Castle studied her. Her expression as cold as her words. But he wasn't blaming her. He also wasn't blaming himself-he was blaming no one. And he cared about her and Ellis, and yet didn't care. And he certainly didn't want to know the details. But she had told him, as if it was an explanation, that the guy had taken her home the night Castle got drunk. He'd phoned her the next day, had come round at about eight and taken her out for an hour's dinner in some lousy local restaurant-so bad that they hadn't stayed for coffee. And so she'd suggested back to her flat for coffee.
She hadn't heard from Ellis today. Obviously she had assumed that Ellis would tell Castle what had happened at some point, but not within hours.
And Castle listened to her trying to make little bits of excuses knit together, and sounding so obvious and honest as she talked on, but his thoughts were ranging elsewhere. It had been the most serious affair since his relationship with Kate; his fiancée broke up. Some of the phrases she was using now were the same pay-off lines that Kate had used six years ago to pull the curtains on that second-rate drama.
Sandra talked, but Castle was recalling another voice. Chief Inspector Peter Taylor, probably the only man who had ever meant anything to him on Squad. Taylor was a man of forty-five who looked sixty. He had a face that had been lived in at least three times. Taylor worked alone, lived alone, drank alone. He had died in a POLAC on the M1 chasing some bugger for no good reason. The squad car had blown out on the front offside tyre and had gone into a bridge upright. Taylor had commented to young, newly engaged, Detective Sergeant Castle: “Why are you getting married, son? What the hell have you got to offer a woman? Except maybe? Maybe be home tonight, maybe see you tomorrow night, maybe see the kids, maybe take a holiday. Women are social animals. They need a man around. If you stay in Flying Squad, you're not available.”
The story of his near marriage and now the story from Sandra's lips; Peter Taylor would have smiled. Sandra was saying: “For instance, why did you not phone me and take me for the meal John took me to? You two are on the same case. Why did he have time to call and take me out, and not you? I mean the reason's obvious.”
“What?" He asked mildly: “You're not that daft to think I've got another girl?"
"No." She protested with a kind of hopeless shrug. "The opposite. You don't even have the time John Ellis found for me. You certainly don't have time for two women. Except maybe the famous seven minutes with a tart. And you would be studying your watch."
She'd worked the whole thing out. Now his role was apparently to listen and maybe at the end agree to split, or stay together. He didn't know.
“I've asked you a specific question-will you answer? Why, if you and John Ellis are on the same case, sharing the same work equally, could he have time to take me out, and not you?"
“I went to bed at ten o'clock, to try catch up some sleep.”
“John Ellis didn't.”
“I know he didn't. He was banging you.”
Her eyes flashing anger. “I don't think that's funny.” She snapped it out.
He was nodding. “I don't think it's funny, either. I'll tell you something-and this I think is where it all goes wrong. I thought that you cared, not loved, cared. Enough for me to have a certain confidence in you. The confidence, say, to take a night off, get some sleep. That's a possible definition of love -confidence. And when that's gone, the whole thing, the lousy house of cards that everybody lives in, caves in...”
She wasn't following his words and he knew it wasn't her English or lack of it; it was her decision.
"And I know something else. You screwed Ellis to get at me. You knew you'd failed to make me want you enough to elbow the job. But you always looked for the test. Then the perfect one. Two blokes, equal billing, on the same case. Why could John Ellis phone you up and not me? Answer? Because you're a whore. And that makes it a lot easier for me to forget you. I've known a lot of whores in my life. I've forgotten every bloody one of them."
She stopped walking and talking. Her eyes started to fill with tears. They'd reached the Marble Arch gate. Twenty yards away he saw an empty cab in the traffic. He signalled the driver. The driver saluted back. He left her standing by a flower bed and walked to the cab without a backward glance.
"I hit her twice. Once on the side of the head. Once on the jaw,” Ellis said the moment he opened the door at 15 Elmhurst Mansions.
Castle stepped past him.
"Here, wait."
Castle could hear a low moan coming from the bedroom. He halted and turned.
"She delivered the goods," Ellis said gently, as if it justified and dismissed his action.
"Goods?"
"Like she really thinks her boyfriend's abroad but she's come up with an address of a farm north of Bath. She says all his IRA pals stay there."
"You think that's the truth?"
"I am confident that she decided to tell me the truth." She was sitting hunched up on the bed, moaning into a Kleenex-about the tenth Kleenex she'd used. The rest were on the floor by her feet; each soaked in blood. The white nylon eiderdown on the top of the bed stained every square foot with some smear of blood. Castle wasn't shocked because of that. He'd seen, in his experience, people lose more than a pint of blood from a split lip. He was shocked by the calculated callousness of it.
She looked up. She remembered him as the Squad Detective from the night-club interview. "You fucking shit-head, " she said, a blood trickle on her lips. "How could you let this maniac loose, you fucking Sweeney bastard...?"
Castle turned to Ellis and lifted an index finger, gesturing the American to follow him out into the hall. Once out of sight of the girl, Castle turned and steam-hammered his right fist round to hit Ellis in the solar plexus. The blow never connected. Ellis's right arm came across, and his body slid sideways and Castle was spinning, his blow fended off and reduced to total ineffectuality.
Castle was amazed by the speed of the big American's reaction. He stood there. It was obviously pointless to throw a second punch.
"What was that about?" Ellis said softly.
Castle took his time to answer. “You hit her too hard. That wasn't the agreement. You fucked my love life- a whore called Sandra-that wasn't the arrangement." But he didn't know where the hell to take it from there. "What's the address of the farm?"
"Corstone Farm, Hamnett, near Bath," the American's cold eyes on Castle, his fingertips touching the area of his jacket sleeve where he'd fended Castle's blow.
"We take the girl down to Notting Hill nick, charge her -I don't like the irony-with assaulting you in your civilian capacity as a fucking tourist. You probably have a slight bruise on your arm from brushing off my blow..." Castle turned back to head into the bedroom and collect Martha.
Ellis's hand came down on his shoulder and Castle spun round expecting the punch. But Ellis just stood there. He took a few moments to carefully phrase the words. "I have to warn you," he said quietly. "Don't ever try to hit me again for any reason. Don't ever lay a hand on me. Understood?"
"The need won't arise, " Castle said hard. "The next time you piss me about I'll get a gun and blow your fucking head off!"
"They're not getting on," DCI Hammond told Superintendent Mayfield. “Not at all well, I'm delighted to say.”
They were in Mayfield's office. Mayfield was cleaning out his pipe with a penknife and wire brush, the thorough, once a month overhaul. “Roger, you're skating around. What are you saying about Ellis's usefulness reference Castle? And would you say it in words of one syllable.”
Hammond took a moment considering the simplest way. “I think we can make Castle obey orders, be part of a team, discipline him, teach him a permanent lesson, through the agency of this Yank."
“How?”
“We've made them partners. I think it'll be an unholy partnership, and make appalling mistakes. If the mistakes are appalling enough, we boot Castle out of Flying Squad. If not, we threaten him with endless disciplinary action unless he settles and stops the general cavalier behaviour which has become his stock in trade. Ellis is the catalyst for breaking Castle down into useful and manageable components."
Mayfield began to fill his pipe. His expression as he digested Hammond's ideas seemed unsure. “We'll have to wait and see.”
Castle and Ellis walked into the conference at one pm. By then there were about twenty men in Mayfield's office. Castle sat down and his eyes went round the faces. Most of them he knew well, some were just vaguely familiar. This type of meeting happened often enough but there was always that slight shock when an investigation suddenly threw up something, and in came the heavy brigade. Castle and Ellis had been quietly investigating a dead snout, and some vague connections with West Coast, USA, and they had been setting their own pace. Now an address of a farm north of Bath had turned up that could be HQ for the leader of the IRA provos in England. Suddenly a lot of large grim men crowding into this office. Castle knew that this meeting was going to be a fifteen-round heavyweight wrestling competition and the prize was the case, and the challenger was the Bomb Squad, and the title at the moment was held by the Flying Squad. But that meant nothing.
Mayfield stood up behind his desk. “There's a DCI in Bath and Wells CID. Name of Mallory. Worked under me for years here at Squad. One hundred per cent reliable. I've talked to him. He's gone to this farm address to keep an eye on it. If there's any kind of exodus before your operation, he'll call in his CID lot.”
A disapproving sound coming from a large baldheaded man-DCI Peacock, Bomb Squad. Peacock now leant forward and started to voice his doubts. “Guvnor, I'm deeply disturbed about this. Dillon Moran and his associates are obviously and exclusively our province, certainly to the extent that we carry their files and have had, for three months now, a warrant for Moran's arrest. We're delighted your people have turned up this address. Assuming this farmhouse is some sort of centre, and terrorists are holing out there- I'm sorry, but we were first on the Moran case. It will, of course, be our province to plan raid strategy.”
Mayfield said nothing. Peacock's argument was basically sound if Bomb Squad had opened the case file on Moran first and had a warrant out. Mayfield was waiting for somebody else to disagree with Peacock.
Castle studied Hammond. There was a pecking order. Hammond as Squad DCI should answer DCI Peacock. But Hammond was sitting there looking sour, as if he'd been deprived of breakfast this morning and now, because of the timing of this meeting, was going to lose his lunch.
Castle waded in. “I have some observations, sir.” Mayfield nodded.
“I'd say if one were to characterize our work on the Flying Squad, it's gathering information and carrying out raids. Equally I'd characterize the Bomb Squad as very good people who rush around searching Left Luggage Offices and organizing the military to unknit gelignite from alarm clocks. Or who are very good at TV interviews when the bombs have gone off before the Bomb Squad got to them."
He could see the colour begin to rise on Peacock's neck. “What the fuck are you talking about, Castle?” Peacock's voice hard. "That sounds fucking insolent to me.”
“Gentlemen.” Mayfield's voice was sharp and clear, “I'd like to make the point that arms will probably be used in this raid. Chief Inspector Peacock, I think you'll agree that the Squad has a higher percentage of grade marksmen.”
“And if the Squad cocks it up?” Peacock queried. “Then everyone will want to know why the Sweeney was dabbling in IRA affairs on a case that was already established as a Bomb Squad case.”
Ellis tapped Castle on the shoulder. “What's happening?” he asked in a low voice.
"There are other people interested in the IRA. Everybody and his mother is looking for promotion."
Ellis didn't understand. He was studying the back of Peacock's head which was wagging to emphasize the points he was making. And he was talking about McNab and Dillon Moran and Martha Williams, and it did sound as if it was Peacock's case all along and somehow the Flying Squad had stumbled on to it.
“What exactly is he trying to do?” Ellis making no attempt to keep his voice low.
“Peacock wants the raid and the Big Arrest,” Castle replied. “You mean we could get the squeeze. We might not be there?”
“It's possible. Peacock has to be talked out of it-that's Mayfield's job-otherwise he may go over Mayfield's head.”
“Look, there's no time to fuck about,” Ellis said firmly.
Castle turned his back on Ellis and studied Mayfield standing behind his desk, listening to the Peacock monologue, hiding so well his impatience. Eyes flickering for one second across the faces, and meeting Castle's.
Castle cut straight across Peacock summing up some argument. “My opinion, sir, is that it has to be simple, small, competent numbers. It sounds as if Mr. Peacock is trying to organize a charabanc party-“
“Shut your bloody mouth, Castle!” Peacock snapped.
“I have to interrupt you twice, Mr Peacock, sir. Our American friend here has pointed out there is a slight element of urgency-“
“What d'you mean American friend? What does that mean?"
Castle turned round automatically in Ellis's direction. Ellis had gone.
Hammond stepped in. “What makes this a Bomb Squad case? It's a Gloucester CID Murder Squad case relating to the McNab murder. The Flying Squad are also involved because McNab was once a career informer of ours. I fail to see any connection with the Bomb Squad until we physically discover a bunch of IRA micks in the raid area."
That started Peacock up again, and louder. Castle looked at his watch. He couldn't walk out of this meeting like Ellis, because his voice was needed. The meeting was critical. If everything went well on the farm then it didn't matter, but if there was a foul up, and normal practice was to plan for the possibility of things going wrong, then there would be an enquiry afterwards. The key question at any enquiry would be how was the raid set up, who were the command group, and why?
Castle was worried. Peacock was really digging his heels in. Dillon Moran might die of old age before this argument was resolved. It was going to take time to resolve. Castle could see there was now a distinct possibility that he, Ellis, and the Flying Squad were going to lose the case to Peacock.
