‘We’ve got three local lads who witnessed it all. One’s a bit shaken up, but the other two are fine.’
‘It’s clearly murder?’ Donaldson asked.
‘No doubt about it,’ Corker replied. ‘Apart from the boys, the skid marks are easy to see. Strange, really.’
‘Why?’ Isaac asked.
‘I don’t hold much with titles,’ Corker said, ‘but I knew the man personally.’
You should meet Wendy, Isaac thought, knowing full well her ambivalence to the concept of privilege based on who’s bed you were born in, who your parents were.
‘And?’
‘His Lordship revelled in it, although once you got past the veneer, he was a decent person. If anyone in the local village was in trouble, he was always willing to help out with advice, sometimes money. There are others of the landed gentry around here who wouldn’t deem to acknowledge that you existed, but not so with his Lordship.’
‘Beautiful car, or at least it was,’ Donaldson said.
‘He bought it new about five months ago,’ Corker said.
‘How do you know that?’ Isaac asked.
‘He gave me a ride in it just after he bought it. As I said, he was a decent man as long as you gave him the necessary respect.’
‘His death?’ Donaldson asked. Allerton’s death, regardless of whether he was well-respected or not in the local community, did not affect the fact that he had had information the police wanted. The man knew something, and he had been silenced. The question was who had been responsible and where were they.
‘If the vehicle rolling over before it reached the quarry edge had not killed him, the impact with the quarry floor would have,’ Corker said.
‘Is the body still in the vehicle?’ Isaac asked.
‘It’s still there. We’ll have to cut him out.’
So far, the three men had not approached the vehicle as it was precariously balanced on a rocky outcrop in an area of the quarry deemed unstable. However, they approached gingerly by a route determined as safe by the crime scene investigation team brought in from Derby, the main city in the county.
Isaac crouched down and peered inside. The man who had phoned him was pinned between the steering wheel and the roof.
‘Almost decapitated him,’ the crime scene examiner said.
‘DCI Isaac Cook, Challis Street in London, and this is DCI Len Donaldson, Serious and Organised Crime Command.’
‘Are you saying Allerton was involved with crime?’ the CSE asked.
‘He’s part of an ongoing investigation,’ Isaac admitted.
‘There’s not much more to see here,’ Donaldson said as he marched up and down on the spot, trying to keep the circulation flowing in his legs.
‘Where are the three boys?’ Isaac asked Corker.
‘They're up at Allerton Hall, in the housekeeper’s cottage.’
‘We’d better go and see them. Has Allerton’s wife been informed?’
‘I dealt with it earlier. She took it well.’
‘No tears?’
‘Women like her do not show their emotions.’
***
The four friends were now three, and the agreement made twenty-five years previously was now broken. Four men who would look out for each other, no matter what, and now one of the four had killed another of their group. The news of Allerton’s death had been on social media before the news agencies and the television channels had picked it up.
‘Keith, you’ve had Tim Allerton murdered,’ Griffiths said over the phone.
‘Did you trust him?’ the leader of the group said.
‘He was reluctant, but yes.’
‘The risk was too great.’
For once Jacob Griffiths was speechless. He had seen a flaw in the character of the person he was talking to. The man, even as a boy, had been brilliant but he should have known that the police would double their efforts to find out who had killed a member of the aristocracy. The man was one of the elites of society, not a tramp on the street.
‘You’ve killed one of us,’ Griffiths said.
‘Before he destroyed us.’
‘How long before the whole sorry saga is concluded?’
‘Ten days.’
‘And then?’
‘You will never hear from me again.’
‘You’re leaving Fortescue and me to deal with the aftermath?’
Keith sat down and looked out of the window of his penthouse overlooking the River Thames. He thought of how far he had come, how much he had achieved. It was good that all that he owned had been purchased through offshore companies, and that whatever happened he would be able to realise his assets. It was remarkable, he thought, that he had gone through life being liked, pretending to like others, but the reality was that he cared for no one other than himself. Even that agreement with those silly boys had meant nothing.
Sure, it had ensured they covered for his illegal activities at Eton, and that Fortescue, fool that he was, had ensured his identity had remained unknown when he was swindling some locals in Fortescue’s constituency. If either Griffiths or Fortescue decided to weaken as Allerton had, then their fate would be the same. Keith knew that where he was going, no one would find him. He decided to shorten the ten days to eight, and woe betide anyone who got in his way.
‘Are you listening?’ Griffiths asked.
‘Jacob, my dear friend Jacob. You worry too much. What was Allerton to us? Is your freedom more important than his life?’
‘It was unnecessary.’
‘It no longer matters. I give you my word. There will be no more killings. Ten days is all I ask.’
‘Ten days.’
Jacob Griffiths ended the phone call knowing one thing: Keith had lied through his teeth.
Griffiths called Fortescue to let him know about Allerton and the previous phone call.
‘Good God, we’re done for,’ Fortescue said.
Griffiths could only agree. Keith would be gone, and he would cover his tracks well, but Tim Allerton’s friends and acquaintances would be
