In the centre of the group, a young woman was being propped up by two companions. She was tall, thin and coltish, with long, honey-blonde hair slipping in damp disarray around her face, a girl barely on the edge of womanhood.
‘Annabel,’ Palmer murmured quietly, nodding towards the girl. ‘I told her to stay close to the house but she went walkabout.’ He paused and looked closely at Riley. ‘You okay?’
‘No problem. The butler’s got the shooter in a stranglehold. I think he’s one of the guests. I may have broken one of his ribs.’
‘Serves him right.’
It became clear, the closer they got, that Annabel had been in the fountain. Her thin dress was soaked through and she was shivering in the cooling air, holding a clutch purse close to her chest. Her face was wet and smeared with mascara, as if she’d been given two black eyes, and she was staring around with the vague lack of focus that accompanies the fairly stoned. She didn’t look happy.
‘Well, well, if it isn’t the faithful old bloodhound, Frank Palmer!’
The speaker was a heavy-set man in his thirties. He was clutching a champagne bottle in one meaty fist and had the swagger and sneering expression of someone accustomed to getting his own way. His tone was challenging and sour, and he looked a little too old for this group of mainly younger people, one of whom called him Henry. ‘I thought you’d given up hanging around the girls, Palmer,’ he taunted nastily. ‘Vicks had a narrow escape, in my opinion. No saying what would have happened to the bloodline if you’d got in there, eh?’
Palmer ignored him and stepped up to Annabel. He reached out and gently held her face, peering into her eyes with evident concern. There was little obvious reaction from the girl. ‘You’d better get her inside and changed,’ he said calmly to her companions. Then he eased the clutch purse from her hand and opened it, shaking the contents out onto the gravel.
A female voice rose in protest, echoed by a couple of men at the front of the crowd. Riley was about to say something as a powder compact, lipstick, cigarette lighter and a surprising amount of other, normal handbag stuff women seem able to pack into a confined space tumbled to the ground. Then came a trickle of small tablets… and two small plastic envelopes containing white powder.
********
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The effect on the crowd was dramatic as they focussed on Palmer and Riley, no doubt trying to gauge how official the two of them might be.
But Henry was less guarded; he stepped forward and grabbed Palmer’s arm. ‘Get your grubby hands off her — and that stuff costs!’
Riley barely saw Palmer move, but suddenly Henry was lying on the floor clutching his wrist, the champagne bottle on the ground beside him, gurgling its contents away into the gravel. As Henry struggled to get up, cursing, his face red with pain and indignation, the rest of the partygoers moved back a few paces.
Riley stepped forward to place herself between the two men. As drunk and aggressive as the man was, she was counting on him not wanting to hit a woman. Some of the other men muttered between themselves, but she couldn’t tell whether it was in support of Henry or not.
‘Get her inside,’ Palmer suggested to Riley. ‘I’ll follow in a minute.’
As Riley turned to move the girl away, she heard a scrape of movement behind her. Henry was back on his feet and spoiling for a fight, urged on by one or two supporters.
‘What the fuck’s your problem?’ he spat at Palmer, his face beet-red with wounded pride. ‘Think because you’re a minder and you’ve got your little girlfriend with you, you can act all tough? Much good it’ll do you.’ Behind him, some of the other men were restless with anticipation. They seemed to notice Riley for the first time, and eyed the radio in her hand.
In the total silence that followed, a girl laughed shrilly and a glass fell to the ground and shattered.
Palmer continued to ignore Henry, and stared down at the tablets and the small bags of powder. Then he stepped forward and ground them with careful deliberation into the gravel. Someone protested, but made no move to stop him.
Henry moved towards Palmer in a crouch, hands open and flat, his fingers stiff. His eyes glittered in the reflected lights, and Riley guessed he probably wasn’t quite as soft as he seemed. Somewhere in his spare time, he’d learned how to fight — probably karate — and was big enough and sufficiently confident in front of his friends to be dangerous.
Riley almost felt sorry for him. Whatever he thought he knew about Palmer, it wasn’t enough.
A spurt of gravel signalled the attack, and Henry seemed about to land on Palmer and crush him under his considerable weight. But he didn’t quite make it. Just as they were about to collide, Palmer spun away and executed a savage back-kick into his opponent’s mid-section. Slim as he was, it was deceptively powerful, and stopped the bigger man in his tracks, eyes bulging with shock and pain.
In the background, somebody moaned softly in sympathy.
Before the big man could recover, Palmer took his wrist and spun him round to face the fountain. Putting his knee behind the man’s buttocks, he flipped him over the edge. Henry screamed shrilly and hit the water with a splash.
As Palmer turned and walked back towards the house, Henry began to be noisily sick.
Riley waited for Palmer by the front door. Annabel had been ushered inside by her friends, leaving a wet trail across the foyer towards the staircase. There was no sign of Rockface.
‘Any problems?’ she asked. ‘I’m merely being polite — I know you hate anyone making a fuss after you’ve been all heroic and hairy-chested.’
‘The fountain might need cleaning,’ he replied. ‘How’s Annabel?’
‘She’ll be fine. I suggested they get a doctor take a look, just in case.’
‘Good idea. There must be at least half a dozen members of the BMA here.’
‘Who is Henry?’
Palmer shook his head. ‘Someone with too much money and ego.’
‘Sounds like you have history.’
‘Not really. He was one of the group when I was watching Victoria’s friend. Ex-army — guards regiment, I think. He found out that I used to be RMP and made it obvious what he thought. I think he fancied his chances with Victoria. She wasn’t interested.’
Riley thought she could guess why, but let it go. ‘Annabel,’ she reminded him, ‘was carrying enough drugs to buy a small country.’
‘I know. Not surprising, though, with the crowd she moves in. I’ll deal with it.’ Palmer looked calm enough but Riley detected a storm brewing. She didn’t think she wanted to be in the same room if he decided to tell Annabel’s father.
She changed the subject. ‘Charles Clarke, the kid on the roof, claims he found the gun up there and was just letting fly at the treetops.’
‘You believe him?’
‘I think so. He was too well-oiled to be covering up. He said the key was in the door to the roof. It was in the lock when Rockface and I got up there.’ She reached into her jacket pocket and took out her hand. She was holding a collection of empty nut shells. ‘I found these. They were spread on the roof around the door. When I stepped on them, it was like tiny firecrackers going off. It was quiet up there, even with the noise from the party.’
Palmer took a moment to absorb what she was telling him. ‘I think someone left the gun there on purpose. The shells were an alarm. There are feeders all over the gardens among the trees. Whoever it was, was thinking on their feet.’
‘But why?’
‘To increase the pressure on Myburghe. Whoever it was, probably planned to fire off a couple of shots then disappear. It would be a way of demonstrating how close they could get to his family in spite of the security.’