Up to that point Rebanks himself hadn’t spoken. Now he took advantage of the death of the conversation to lever himself out of his chair. He moved casually in front of the desk with his back towards me.
“I don’t suppose you can shed any light on this, can you?” he asked. And when he moved aside there was a single 9mm Hydra-Shok hollowpoint standing on the polished wooden surface.
I knew, don’t ask me how, that the round was the very one I’d found on the range and given to Blakemore. If they’d had me wired up to a heart monitor it would all have been over at that point, because my pulse rate went storming off into cardiac arrest territory.
Outwardly, I tried to stay calm. Inwardly, my mind went totally blank, which I suppose is another kind of calm. I tried to figure the innocent response, but couldn’t find one.
Then, with a mental lurch, my brain reconnected and started running again.
I shook off that last unwelcome thought and looked Rebanks straight in the eye. “Why should I be able to?” I asked pleasantly. “Munitions are your field, aren’t they?”
A quick flash of something chased across his narrow face too fast for me to identify.
“All right, Miss Fox,” Gilby said then. He sat on the edge of his desk, suddenly looking as tired as he had done earlier that day, when he’d realised that Blakemore was dead. “That will be all.”
I nodded, grateful of the chance to escape. He let me get the study door halfway open before he called me back, the frozen relief at almost making it out of there in one piece grabbing me by the throat.
“Just one last thing,” the Major said with that deceptive quiet. When I turned back I found him watching me with the dispassionate stare of a stone-cold killer. “The police will be investigating the crash and they will present their findings in due course. In the meantime I will not have anyone shooting their mouth off about what happened today that will unsettle the staff or the students here. Is that quite clear, Miss Fox?”
People have made that kind of mild threat to me before and it’s never ended well. I didn’t think this was the time to say so, so I nodded meekly. “Yes sir,” I said, not nearly as smartly as Todd had done, and made my exit.
I was out of the study and had almost reached the end of the corridor when a voice behind me made me stop.
“Charlie, can I speak with you?”
I turned to find Rebanks had followed me out and was hurrying after me. Without waiting for an answer, he took my elbow as he came past and hustled me towards the hallway, as though afraid Gilby would appear and call back both of us.
I let him walk me well out of earshot before I twisted my arm out of his grasp.
“What’s this all about, Rebanks?” I demanded. “What’s going on?”
“Why did you ask about hollowpoints the other day?” he said, ignoring my question to pose one of his own. “You asked if you’d be firing them. Why?”
“Just something somebody mentioned,” I said, wary enough to be deliberately vague.
“Who?”
“I don’t recall.”
He let his breath out, exasperated. For a moment he regarded me with his head slightly cocked, as though he couldn’t quite make up his mind if I really was innocent, or whether I was just stalling him.
“Look, Charlie, there’s stuff going on here that you can’t begin to understand,” he said suddenly then, speaking low and urgent. “Blakemore was into it and look what happened to him. You and I both know that crash wasn’t an accident, but the Major’s stonewalling.” He glanced over his shoulder, just to make sure the corridor leading to Gilby’s study was still empty.
Surprised by this unexpected confidence, I said, “Surely the local police will turn up evidence of the other vehicle.”
He gave me a withering look. “The local plod will toe the line,” he said. “What they turn up is immaterial. Gilby’s got influence. If he wants it kept quiet, that’s the way it will stay. Trust me on this.”
And how would he know that? Of course, Gilby had done it before. Kirk had died in the most suspicious of circumstances, but the school had not been put under the microscope, hadn’t been closed down. The whole matter had been dusted under the carpet.
I feigned puzzlement, tried to push aside everything Blakemore had told me right before he died. “But why the hell would the Major want to cover up the man’s death?”
“Ah,” Rebanks said, giving me a bleakly knowing look. “Isn’t
“What do you mean?”
“Oh come on, Charlie,” he said. “You said yourself it wasn’t an accident!”
“No,” I said carefully, dismissing the doubts I’d shared with Elsa and Jan. “That’s not what I said. It could very well have been an accident. I meant it wasn’t simply down to rider error. The other driver could just have panicked and run, that’s all. And now you’re telling me that Major Gilby wanted Blakemore dead. What possible reason could he have had for that?”
Rebanks stepped back away from me abruptly, staring, and a combination of thoughts flitted across the screen of his face too fast for me to unravel any of them.
“I thought—” he began, then stopped, shook his head. “Never mind, forget it.” He turned and started away from me, but I grabbed his arm, pulled him back.
“Hang on a minute, Rebanks,” I said. “You can’t just drop that one on me and then walk away. What the hell are you talking about?”
Rebanks shook his head again, more forcefully this time, his mouth compressed as though I wasn’t going to force another wrong word out of it. “Forget it, Charlie,” he repeated, urgently. “I mean it. If you value your safety, you won’t pursue this any further.”
***
That evening we handed in our reports on the fleshpots of Einsbaden village, which Gilby warned us he would mark and return the following morning, like junior school homework. I wondered who’d be getting a gold star and who’d be getting a “See me.”
I was aware, also, when I’d finished mine that it was a shoddy piece of work and unlikely to earn me particular praise, but that was just too bad. I had other things on my mind.
Why would Gilby have killed one of his own men? And why choose such a hit and miss fashion to do it? There was always the chance that Blakemore might have avoided the ambush. Kirk’s death had been much more certain, much more precise.
Maybe Gilby had realised that he wouldn’t get away with two such obvious executions. It made it all the more important to find out what he was up to.
Just after supper McKenna had walked out of Einsbaden Manor, as he’d said he would, to meet a taxi down at the main gate. I watched him go from the dormitory window, but didn’t feel inclined to go down and indulge in any kind of fond farewells. Not many of the other students did, although I was surprised to see Jan talking to him outside the front door. Maybe she had a softer heart than she’d like us all to think behind that sharp exterior.
McKenna hadn’t tried too hard to make friends during his short spell in Germany. I doubt he was going home with answered questions. Still, at least he was going home in a seat in Economy, rather than a box in the hold.
Elsa came into the dormitory then and disappeared into the bathroom announcing her intention to soak in the bath before turning in. I didn’t want to risk being overheard, so I grabbed my jacket and the mobile, and headed back out to the woods where I’d collared McKenna that afternoon.
It took me a while to wind myself up to call Sean, but even so I had no clear idea what I was going to say when he picked up the phone. In the end I needn’t have worried.
“I know about Blakemore,” he said as soon as he came on the line. “Madeleine called me.”
I didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. “Did she tell you about McKenna’s uncle as well?” I asked.
“Yeah. Do you think he could be our boy, or do you think the Russians took Blakemore out?”
“Neither,” I said, and I told him what had happened since I’d got back to the Manor.
