Under Orders

chair. I was looking at the bookcases and the television. The bullet clearly hadn’t gone into the television because the screen was unbroken, so I started with the books.

I removed the contents of each shelf in turn, checking both the books themselves and the wooden bookcase behind them. It took me ages and I turned up some surprising finds. One of the books was not a book at all but a secret hiding place. The centre of the book had been hollowed out and Bill had used the space to keep some gold coins. Behind a row of racing Time-forms, he had hidden a couple of men’s magazines with well-thumbed pages, and there were two old-style fivers neatly pressed between the pages of Tolstoy’s War and Peace. There were also a couple of old letters to Bill from people I didn’t recognise, one concerning a horse for sale and the other about a holiday villa in Portugal. But no bullet, and no bullet hole.

I scrutinised all the surfaces of the bookcases and where they met the walls. I looked into the flap on the front of the video player to see if I could see any damage. I lifted the rug and looked at the wooden floor to see if a hole existed. I pored over every square inch of the leather sofa and inspected every thread of the cushions. I moved the sofa and the tables and looked under them all for a tell-tale bullet hole in the floor or a wall. I searched behind the curtains and in the pelmets, even though these had predominantly been behind Bill as he sat in the chair. I examined every nook and cranny that existed in that room. I missed nothing.

In the end, I had a few coins and a ball point pen from down the back of the sofa, a piece of a jigsaw puzzle and dust from underneath it, and some fine, gritty, sand-like material from the paisley rug. No bullet. No cartridge case. Nothing. Not a thing that could indicate that a second shot had been fired.

I sat down again in the chair, exhausted and fed up.

Was I wrong?

I had been so sure that a second bullet existed. I’d thought I just needed a quick search to find it and that would be enough to convince Inspector Johnson that I was right and he would reopen the case.

But now what?

Was there any other way of getting the gunpowder residue on to Bill’s hand and sleeve?

I looked out at the garden. Had the second bullet been fired out through an open window?

I went back into the hall and let myself out through the front door. I spent some time looking but could find nothing. It was a hopeless task, I thought. If the bullet had been fired out here, it could have gone anywhere. But it would have been risky. Quite apart from hitting something that couldn’t be seen in the dark, it would have been much noisier out here than with the windows closed. There would also have been the risk of someone hearing the noise and investigating before an escape could be made.

I didn’t know the answer. Was I even asking the right question?

I went back inside the house and through to the kitchen.

Kate and Marina had been joined by the children who were sitting at the table, ready for their lunch.

‘Any luck?’ asked Marina quietly.

I shook my head.

‘Would you like some lunch?’ asked Kate.

‘No, it’s fine, thanks,’ I said. ‘We’ve taken up too much of your time already. We’ll be off.’

‘Are you sure? There’s plenty.’

‘Please stay,’ said William.

‘Yes, stay, pleeeeeeease,’ chorused the others.

‘OK,’ I said, laughing.

Kids were a great tonic for the soul.

We stayed, squeezed round the kitchen table, and ate a hearty lunch of fish fingers, baked beans and mashed potato, with chocolate ice cream to follow. Wonderful.

After lunch, the children took Marina up to their bedrooms to show her their toys and I went for a walk round the stable yard. I had happy memories of many hours spent here, teaching young horses to jump on the schooling grounds beyond the hay barn.

I had ridden here first for Kate’s father when I was about nineteen and had done so on and off until I had been forced to retire.

But my memories were of a place buzzing with activity, a living, energetic factory of thrills and excitement. Now it stood empty and quiet like a wild-west ghost town. The Marie Celeste of the racing world with straw still on the floor of some boxes and hay nets still hanging in others. It was as if the effort of clearing up had been too much and when the horses walked out, so did the staff.

I wandered around the lifeless buildings and wondered who would next occupy this establishment. Perhaps it was time for the timber stables to be torn down and replaced with warmer, fireproof brick.

I made my way back to the house. Beside the gate from the yard sat a red fire extinguisher and a red-painted metal bucket filled with sand. Some of the stable staff had put out cigarettes in the sand and left the stubs standing upright as if they had been thrown in like little brown darts. I was sure that if Bill had still been alive the lads wouldn’t have dared dispose of their fag ends in the fire buckets.

I went through the gate, and then stopped. Fine, gritty, sand-like material.

I went back to the bucket and tipped the whole thing out on the concrete path. I went through it with my fingers and there it was, a lump of lead, slightly misshapen but still identifiable as a.38 bullet.

CHAPTER 13

‘You’ve found another what?’ said Chief Inspector Carlisle.

‘Another bullet,’ I said.

‘Where?’ he asked.

‘At Bill Burton’s place. Can I come and see you to explain?’

He sighed. I could hear it down the telephone line.

‘Do you have to? I’m up to my ears here. The Press are after me for failing to arrest a child killer. I’m exhausted.’

‘I’ll come now. It won’t take long but it’s easier face to face.’

What I really wanted was his undivided attention. I didn’t want him looking at his computer screen and thinking of his other case while I prattled on to him over a wire.

‘Oh, all right. I can give you half an hour, no more. How soon can you get here?’

Lambourn to Cheltenham, Monday afternoon.

‘About fifty minutes max,’ I said.

‘OK. See you then. Bye.’ He disconnected and I realised that he had his problems, too. The Press can be merciless on the police for not catching a killer, especially a child killer, whilst, at the same time, accusing them of having too many powers. A no-win situation.

Marina was talked into staying with Kate and the children while I drove to Cheltenham.

I made it to the police station in forty-five minutes flat but Carlisle kept me waiting for fifteen minutes more before he hurried into the reception area. This time I accepted his invitation to join him in one of the interview rooms.

‘Now, what is all this about another bullet?’ he asked. ‘Where is this bullet? Where did you find it? What is so important about it that brings you all the way here?’

Your undivided attention, I thought.

‘All in good time,’ I said. ‘We are going to play a little game of “Let’s suppose” first.’

‘“Let’s suppose”? I’ve never heard of that.’

‘Well, it’s quite simple really. You sit there quietly without asking any questions and I’ll do the talking.’

‘All right, if I must.’

I smiled. ‘You must.’

He leant back and tipped the metal chair on to its back legs. My mother had always told me off for doing that, but I resisted the temptation to say so.

‘Now let’s suppose that Bill Burton didn’t kill himself,’ I said.