I saw a single figure hurl itself clear before the machine lurched one last time and fell ten feet into the basin. The excavator rolled over onto the roof of its cab and landed in an explosion of metal and splintered brick.
For a few seconds the engine continued to churn and the tracks attempted to grip the shattered side of the pier, driving the excavator further into the mud as lethal fragments rained down on the basin.
Then the engine choked and stopped. And a strange silence fell on Fosseway Wharf.
I seemed to be making a habit of coming round to find myself in even worse situations than I escaped from. When I awoke, it was to find Simon Monks standing over me. He was staring at me with a calculating look, like a butcher trying to decide which knife to use to dispatch his victim.
I began to panic again, thrashing my arms and tossing my head from side to side to see where I was and what was holding me down. Bafflingly, I realised after a moment that I was surrounded by plain white walls and constrained only by bedclothes. I felt a hand on my shoulder, and heard a voice I knew.
‘It’s all right, sir. You’re quite safe.’
The face was too close for me to focus on it at first, then I recognised Detective Sergeant Graham. I grabbed at his arm and pointed wildly at Monks.
‘It’s him!’ I shouted. ‘Him! Keep him away from me!’
‘Now, calm down, sir,’ said DS Graham. ‘You’re getting a bit hysterical. You’ve had an unpleasant experience.’
‘Unpleasant? He and his friends tried to kill me!’
‘I don’t think you quite know what you’re saying, sir.’
Graham looked worried, embarrassed and puzzled. Monks continued to stare at me contemptuously, a sneer lingering around the corners of his mouth. I couldn’t understand what he was doing in my hospital room after what had happened at Fosseway Wharf.
‘Why isn’t he under arrest? He’s the man who killed Godfrey Wheeldon. He tried to kill me, too. I can give you all the evidence you need.’
Finally, Monks had heard enough. He spoke to the bemused Graham.
‘See that Mr Buckley understands the situation, sergeant.’
‘Yes, sir.’
I gaped at Monks as he leaned closer to me.
‘Just one thing,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘I gather Caroline told you she was the one who pulled the funding for your internet business.’
‘Yes, the dot-com start-up.’
‘Well, it wasn’t her. It was Samuel himself.’
I would have shaken my head if it didn’t hurt so much. What he was saying didn’t make sense.
‘Why would she lie to me?’
‘Because,’ said Monks, ‘Caroline didn’t want you to think badly of him. What you think of her, she doesn’t mind. But she felt protective about her father, and of his reputation. It meant a lot to her what memory people took away of him, so she told you that untruth.’ His rugged face softened for the first time. ‘That’s what she’s like, you see.’
Not for the first time since I’d met Monks, I didn’t believe a thing he was saying. The word ‘liar’ was creeping towards my lips, but I couldn’t articulate it. Instead, I croaked something incoherent. He smiled as if I’d complimented him.
To my relief, I watched him go out of the door. Then I looked at Graham for an explanation. He laughed out loud when he saw my face.
‘You seem to have been upsetting Inspector Monks,’ he said. ‘Now, that’s not a good idea.’
Graham’s explanation left me with more questions than it did answers. He referred to ‘information’ the police had been given by a witness to the hit and run that killed Samuel Longden. The investigation that followed included surveillance of a possible suspect, by the name of Andrew Hadfield. The police had been preparing to move in and make an arrest, but when he slipped out of his house one night, they lost him. They’d been watching for his distinctive Jaguar XJS, but had only discovered it much later in the car park at The Friary. They hadn’t been expecting him to be travelling in my old Escort.
But then there had been a phone call from a person Graham referred to as ‘the lady who is your neighbour’, who’d asked for him by name and informed him that I’d gone to Fosseway with Hadfield, and that she believed I was in danger.
‘She was quite right,’ said DS Graham. ‘Obviously.’
‘It sounds as though everybody was right, except me.’
Graham grinned, a small, conspiratorial grin. ‘Did you really suspect that Detective Inspector Monks was the man who killed Samuel Longden?’
‘Yes. And Godfrey Wheeldon too. And that it was him who tried to kill me in the boat fire.’
‘All those were Hadfield. He’d been keeping a pretty close eye on what you were up to, and decided you were becoming too much of a threat. On the other hand, Mr Monks was the man who saved your life at Fosseway tonight.’
I frowned, cudgelling my brain to remember the details of the night. Some of them I didn’t want to remember. But it seemed to me that it was Andrew Hadfield’s life that Monks had been trying to save, not mine — and that I had, in fact, saved my own life.
‘But how did Rachel know to phone you?’
‘You’ve got Frank Chaplin to thank for that,’ said another voice.
I lifted my head and saw Rachel standing in the doorway, clutching a ridiculous bunch of daffodils and a box of Cadbury’s Milk Tray. What on earth had made her imagine I liked flowers and chocolates? I thought of making a caustic remark, then swallowed it for fear that she might go away. At that moment, I didn’t want her to leave.
‘I’ll let you two be alone for a bit,’ said Graham. ‘We’ll have to talk to you again later, Mr Buckley, when you’re feeling up to it.’
He slipped away discreetly, as if we were two lovers, and Rachel came to sit on the side of my bed. She took my hand, and a curious tingle went through my fingers. ‘Hello, number six.’
‘Morning, number four.’
‘My God, you were a mess when they pulled you out of that wharf, Chris. Nobody could have recognised you under all the mud.’
‘Perhaps that would be an improvement,’ I said.
‘I don’t think so.’
I looked at Rachel for a moment, trying to remember all the things I wanted to say to her. But only one thought came into my mind.
‘Hang on,’ I said, ‘you mentioned Frank Chaplin. Where does Frank come into all this?’
‘Frank told me where you’d gone. He was very worried, because he thought you were making a bad mistake.’
‘Don’t tell me that Frank had it all figured out before I did, too.’
Rachel nodded. ‘He said he tried to tell you it was Andrew Hadfield he’d recognised at Fosseway, not Leo Parker. It was Hadfield who went looking for him at the bowls club. But Frank realised from the way you spoke about Hadfield that you’d got it all wrong. He didn’t know what else to do, so he came next door and told me where you’d gone. I phoned Detective Sergeant Graham, and he seemed to know exactly what I was talking about. The police reacted pretty quickly.’
‘It almost wasn’t quick enough,’ I said petulantly.
‘You didn’t come out of it too badly. Hadfield has two crushed legs.’
‘But why did he do all this?’
‘He’s not saying anything, apparently. But Inspector Monks and Sergeant Graham will work it all out, I dare say. One thing they did tell me is that Hadfield is Leo Parker’s nephew, the son of his sister Eleanor.’