When it got to the part where Francis confessed to the murder of Joel Clement and swore that Kate Harris had no involvement, Albert asked, ‘Could you please pass this information on to Detective Sergeant Craig. I am sure he will find it pertinent.’
The young female officer had to show Albert how to transfer the file to her phone, but once she had it, the message that Kate Harris was indeed innocent, quickly passed up the line.
When she returned from the river’s edge, she’d brought Rex and Hans with her. The dachshund was limping again, the wound on his foot open and bleeding once more, but he seemed to care not one jot. Rex had a cut to his right ear, another to a front paw and a small piece of glass embedded in his right flank. He winced in a high-pitched way when Albert found the source of the blood and pulled it free, but it wasn’t deep enough to require treatment. He gave it a lick until it stopped bleeding.
Patterson had volunteered to go down to the body and confirm he was really dead and not somehow clinging grimly to life. Now back on the bank, and soaked from the thighs down, he waited for the coroner’s team to arrive.
Victor was out of the duct tape and cable ties, careful use of the razor-sharp machete setting him free, but now they were bound in a different way – bound to answer questions and fill in all the blanks the police had.
An hour after Francis crashed through the roller door, ran away, and leapt to his death, a chief inspector from Bedford arrived. He introduced himself as Chief Inspector Andy Carter, a short Caribbean man in his early fifties with a receding hairline. By the time he arrived, a team of crime scene guys were doing things to the Mondeo, photographers were taking pictures of the scene and chaps in wetsuits were in the river with the body.
Albert and Victor were the centre of attention, as were the two dogs, but only because the chief inspector wanted to know what on Earth had been going on. Albert played the recording for him, the chief inspector listening quietly to that and to everything both men had to tell him. When they ran out of things to say, he wriggled his lips around a bit, totting up the factors in his head before asking, ‘So what is this all about then?’
Albert and Victor both shrugged and the dogs would have done too if such a gesture meant anything to them.
‘He called you a high-value target,’ Chief Inspector Carter reminded Albert. ‘What does that mean?’
Albert shrugged again. ‘I really wish I knew. Killing Joel Clement appears to be a planned and deliberate crime, but possibly one which came about after he was kidnapped, and they discovered he couldn’t bake. When he failed to do what they wanted, they came for Victor. Why anyone would be targeted for being able to bake a clanger, I have no idea.’
‘This is bizarre,’ the chief inspector commented while shaking his head.
Albert could think of no better word.
Cups of tea were delivered, and cheese sandwiches when they pointed out lunch had been and gone while they assisted the police in their enquiries. Statements were taken and the police had their contact numbers if they needed to get hold of either man again. Finally, they were free to go, but by then, hours had passed, the whole day slipping away in a boring manner which they were both fine by after the terrible excitement of ambush and kidnap.
Neither dog had a collar, so Albert improvised with a cable tie which served as a kind of macabre memento of their ordeal. Hans was bandaged again, a cop producing a first aid kit but advising the dog really needed to see a vet to be treated properly. Victor carried him anyway; it wasn’t as if he weighed all that much.
On their way to the café, Victor asked how soon Kate might be released.
‘If the police drop the charges? Straight away, I should think. If they accept the case against her has fallen apart, she isn’t convicted, so they have no right or reason to hold her.’
Victor nodded. ‘That makes her the new owner of the Clanger Café. I doubt that will fill her with joy given the circumstances by which she comes by it, but it is good news for the staff and the business. I think we shall have to organise a swift homecoming; I think the staff need it as much as she does.’
Albert nodded along. His adventure here was done. What the staff at the café might do and what might happen to the café in the future was not his business. In truth, he felt a little melancholy about it, but he wasn’t about to take a job to become a part of their journey or buy a house nearby so he could see if they now flourished.
However, his belief that he was done, and his plan to shake Victor’s hand at the café and carry on his way, went out the window when April appeared in the street ahead of them.
April
She was getting out of a car thirty yards ahead of them and was in her suit again. Joining her was a middle-aged man, also wearing a suit, but one that was
