‘Ritchie isn’t a common name. Is she married?’
‘No. He started sniffing round, asking about Rupert, demanding she tell him. Her boyfriend came home and they called the police. He cleared off but they’d let slip one or two things.’
‘Such as?’
‘She wasn’t sure, he got her flustered and upset. She thinks she told him Rupert was in the antiques business and it was somewhere up north.’
‘How long ago was this?
‘Eighteen months. Sometime around that. I told Rupert when he phoned to arrange our meeting and he said not to worry and he was sorry Vicky had been upset.’
‘Vicky didn’t tell him where Rupert lived?’
She shook her head. ‘She couldn’t, she didn’t know. Neither did I. You see it was the one thing Rupert was particular about. I paid the rent when I saw him each month and he’d tell me bits and pieces about his business, but he said Kinnear would come looking for him one day and he didn’t want me to have to lie. I suppose he realized I wasn’t strong enough, not to stand up to someone like Kinnear.’
‘He knew Kinnear would come looking?’
She nodded. ‘I suppose that’s really how I knew,’ she said. ‘How I really worked it out, but I knew him by then and I knew he’d never have had anything to do with the guns or with Fred dying, so I just forgot I knew.’
‘You knew what?’
‘That Rupert must have been involved,’ she said.
Thirty-Two
By the time he awoke it was late afternoon, the sun had dropped below the level of the hedges and though it was still warm, Derek Reid shivered.
The headache was worse, a cracking feeling running from his temples through to the back of his neck. His shoulders had stiffened and he recognized the effects of whiplash. This added to his general misery and disorientation.
He did not know which way to go. Back towards the car was out. The police would be waiting for him, wouldn’t they? He found it hard to remember why, but he knew that way was danger. So, he plodded on, circling the field, searching for a way out. A gap in the hedge gave access into the next field and he plodded on, grateful that here the massive open, fenland fields had given way to a smaller patchwork.
Twice he stumbled. His ribs hurt now and he found it hard to draw breath and it was getting cold. At first he thought it was just imagination or shock or confusion, but as he glanced upward, attracted by the sudden darkening of the blue sky to charcoal grey, he understood that it was not his imagination. It was rain, collecting in the heavy clouds, rolling in from the coast and getting ready to fall.
On him.
To his relief Derek spied a gate and beyond that a road. A car sped by, its driver no doubt wanting to be home before the promised storm began. He grasped the gate with both hands and tried to climb. It moved beneath his weight and he noticed, much to his relief, that this gate was not locked and chained, merely held closed by a loop of orange twine. Derek pulled it free and staggered through, wincing at the effort it took to close the gate behind him and loop the twine back into place.
He needed a lift. Needed to get somewhere. To Sharon. Yes, that’s where he wanted to go.
He heard the car before he saw it and ran out into the middle of the road hoping to wave it down, his feet disobedient to the wishes of his brain and legs. He fell, heard the brakes squeal as the driver slammed them on. Heard footsteps and voices raised in anger and concern.
‘Sharon,’ he whispered as someone bent down beside him. ‘Need to get to Sharon.’
Back at Fallowfields Billy Pierce had phoned and told Alec about Elaine.
‘That fills in so many gaps,’ Alec said. ‘Billy, tell her we’ll keep her out of this if we possibly can.’
‘Will do. So, what’s happening with you?’
Alec told him about Marcus and Kinnear and Reid and the dramatic chase that had nearly lost him a porch.
‘So, we’ve got a police car parked up on the drive for now, but Fine doesn’t have the resources to keep it there for long. I think the best we can do is move back to the hotel tomorrow. We might even head for home.’
‘You think Kinnear will have given up and gone away? That doesn’t sound like him.’
‘Truth? I don’t know what to think but I’ve got people to think about and responsibilities. Kinnear must realize that someone other than Derek Reid now has his phone. I can’t believe he listed him by name, that’s just too—’
‘Human? I don’t suppose he even thought about it. Be interesting to know what else he’s got in that phone. Hopefully your friend Fine will be able to enlighten you. Right, I think that’s all from my end for now. Elaine’s got my number in case she remembers anything else. I’ve told her to give me a call.’
Alec thanked him and went back to fill the others in about what he had said.
‘So, we still don’t know exactly how Kinnear found Rupert,’ Naomi said thoughtfully.
‘But once Elaine’s daughter had told him north and antiques he was halfway there. Not knowing Rupert’s real name must have been the biggest difficulty. Once he had that, he just had to look up north for an antiques dealer called Friedman. It’s not a common name and not a particularly common occupation.’
Alec nodded. Harry was right about that. Whatever else Kinnear was, he was persistent and determined and that made Alec feel that Pierce was right.
‘He hasn’t gone far,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I’ll bet on it. He’ll either dispose of his phone or leave it switched off so he can’t be traced, but he won’t have gone away.’
Marcus shifted restlessly in his seat. It had been decided that he should stay the night. He felt safer in company than he did about going back to the shop. ‘I hope you’re wrong, Alec. I truly do. I know it sounds cowardly, but I just want him gone.’
Alec was right when he said Kinnear would not have gone far. He was in fact much closer than they realized.
He had driven his car to within a mile of White Farm, parked in a small copse of trees he had used before when he had gone to the farm, and walked the rest of the way, cutting across the fields on the opposite side of the road to the direction taken by Derek Reid when he had abandoned his crashed car.
Once behind the farm he had watched and waited. He’d seen the boy come round the back of the house and go in through the front door, heard him calling out to his father and get no response.
Satisfied that only Danny was there, Kinnear pushed through the low hedge behind the barn. It was dusk by the time he cracked open the small door set into the larger wooden ones and entered the dark and musty space beyond. He stood for a while, allowing his eyes to adjust to the dimness, the only light fighting its way in through filthy windows set high up on the wall. He had a small torch on his key ring and he risked flashing it once just to get his bearings, decided he’d be best up on the platform he spied that formed a sort of mezzanine floor.
A ladder led him up on to the platform once intended for the storage of hay but now empty but for the junk they had no use for but could not bear to throw away. Empty feed sacks, rope and twine and boxes filled with general household junk. Bags whose logos declared they were destined for charity but which had gone uncollected or undelivered. A cardboard box filled with empty jars and, when he risked a second brief flash of his tiny light, topped with an abandoned recipe for damson jam.
Kinnear snorted. He couldn’t see Sharon Fielding making any sort of jam. She wasn’t the homemade jam type. She was the ‘grab it while it’s offered and the more the better’ type and no doubt Derek would find that out for himself now he’d lost the chance of his share of the cash.
Not that Kinnear had ever had the intention of sharing anything. It was his money. No one else was getting a look in. Agreed, Derek had been useful doing the research that had led him to Friedman’s real name. Derek’s search through the news reports had turned up a picture of a so-called witness, and guess who it had been? Kinnear had to admit that brain occasionally had its uses over brawn.