Morton nodded, clinging gratefully to her. ‘Just my head hurts.’
‘Come and sit down,’ she ordered, leading him by the hand to a police car that was nose to nose with the BMW.
Morton looked disbelievingly at the scene that had sprung up around him: an abundance of police personnel—uniformed and in plain clothes—swarmed the car park that, just half an hour ago, had been devoid of life barring a dog walker and a few cars. He now realized that most of those vehicles, including the white van, actually belonged to the police.
Blocking the entrance of the car park was a police van, into which Morton watched Kevin and his men being bundled.
‘Sit there until the ambulance arrives,’ Juliette ordered, directing him to the backseat of the police car.
Even though he felt fine, Morton knew better than to resist. He looked up at Juliette like a naughty schoolboy. ‘Thanks.’ The words were grossly insufficient. Somehow, she had come to his rescue and he owed her more than a trite, one-word expression of his gratitude.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she asked. ‘It would have saved a hell of a lot of work and probably would have saved you that nasty gash on your head. We’re supposed to be partners—engaged to be married, remember?’
‘I know, sorry,’ Morton replied feebly. ‘They threatened me. And you and your job, so I tried to keep you out of it. What gave it away?’
Juliette laughed loudly, drawing the attention of some nearby officers. ‘You’ve got to be joking?’
‘What?’
Juliette rolled her eyes and thought for a moment. ‘Right. First of all you had that gash on the side of you neck, which you said was from shaving. You hadn’t shaved that day. Not to mention the size of the cut—what did you shave with—an axe? The fact that you came home wearing a new t-shirt that looked vaguely like the one you had on in the morning made me suspicious—that was when I found your old t-shirt stuffed under your car seat covered in blood.’
Morton grimaced. ‘Why didn’t you-’
‘I haven’t finished,’ she interjected. ‘Then I started to notice that someone, pretty well night and day, was watching our house. Then there was the burglary where all of our valuables were inexplicably left untouched. Next, I found a load of glass all around the lounge and you with a mammoth bruise on the side of your head, with you claiming to have walked into a door. I mean, really? Nobody except toddlers and the elderly walk into doors—that’s why they have handles to open them, Morton.’
He nodded his understanding, but said nothing, allowing her rant to continue.
‘By this time, I know something serious is going on and assume that the reason you’re not telling me is because you feel you can’t. So, I shared my worries with my boss at work and an investigation was started. We found the tracker on your car and placed our own one alongside it to try and find out who these people were.’
‘Oh, well I can give you a name, right now,’ Morton said.
‘Kevin Addison?’ Juliette responded.
‘Yes, how did you…’
‘Well, I have my own little white lie. CSI picked up the trace of a print at our house following the burglary. It matched with another burglary years ago, when he was in his twenties. We traced him to a company called Riccards-Maloney, which I also found in your web browser history.’
Morton blew out a long puff of air. She really was too good for him, in so many ways.
‘I did more digging into Riccards-Maloney and the paperwork you’ve got stuck to your study wall and found their connection to the case you’re working on for Madge’s friend—Rabbit? Bunny?—was that her name? Anyway, then you checked us into the hotel under a false name…’
Morton stared fixedly at her, as she continued her explanation, but his thoughts were trailing off. Madge. Just before he had been chased by Kevin and his men, Morton had been trying to phone Tina Paine but had instead reached Madge. He started to mistrust his memory. It couldn’t have been her. Yet his brain was telling him that the voice sounded like hers. Where was his phone?
‘And that pretty well sums it up,’ Juliette finished. ‘So, to answer your question about what gave it away: you gave it away.’
‘Right,’ Morton said weakly. ‘Do you have my mobile?’
Juliette shook her head. ‘No—maybe one of them had it,’ she said, nodding towards the police van, which was swinging around clear of an incoming ambulance.
‘Here’s the medics,’ Juliette said. ‘Wait here and I’ll bring them over, but I’ve got a feeling you’re headed to hospital for stiches.’
‘Great.’
Sitting on the front terrace of the White Rock Hotel the following morning, overlooking the seafront, Morton swigged down his latest round of painkillers. He was with Juliette, under the giant shade of an overhead awning, having just finished his breakfast.
‘How’s the head?’ Juliette enquired, sipping at her glass of coke. After the incident yesterday, she had been given the day off and was making the most of it, revelling in the sunshine. She was wearing a light, sleeveless shirt, tight white jeans and dark sunglasses.
‘Better,’ Morton lied. It wasn’t better: it hurt like merry hell. Following a three-hour wait at Accident and Emergency yesterday, Morton was assessed by a doctor, then treated by a sweet Welsh nurse, who laced up his head injury with eight stitches.
He could have happily stayed here all day long, just watching the world go by, but later he would need to present the Lovekin Case file to Bunny, finished. There was just one thing still to wait for: the hotel’s post.
‘What’s going to happen with Kevin and his men, now?’ Morton asked.
‘I
