old man became angry. He ordered us out. He grabbed his shotgun off the wall and started waving it about really dangerously. I was terrified. William wrestled the gun away, holding it by the barrel. Mr Gladstone came at him and 312 William swung the gun at him. The heavy part you hold – what do you call it?’
‘The stock.’
‘Yes. The stock crashed against his head and he fell. I was appalled. It all happened so suddenly, and there he was lying on the floor. William was calm. He knelt beside him and tried to feel for a pulse to see if he was still alive. I was in a terrible state by then and he sent me out to the car. I waited there a long time, praying and praying that he wasn’t dead. Then to my absolute horror, I heard a shot. Terrible. I ran back and looked through the window. It was the worst moment of my life. The sight of that old man, what was left of him, propped in the chair.’
‘Did you go in?’
‘I couldn’t possibly.’
‘What did William tell you?’
‘That he’d made it look like a suicide. The only thing to do, he said, because the old man was dead from the blow to his head. He sat the body in the armchair and propped the gun under the chin and fired. It caused a massive injury to the head, so much that you wouldn’t have known he’d been hit previously.’
‘He was right about that.’
Better Let would have described the street as a superior terrace dating from the 1820s in a secluded location south-east of the city, set back from Prior Park Road by steeply banked gardens and the novel feature of a shallow canal. They left the car in Prior Park Road and approached the house by the path skirting the canal.
Emma, handcuffed, remained in the car, guarded by the driver. She had pointed out the house, and there was no reason to think she was bluffing. She wanted Rose to survive. Say what you like about Emma, in all her actions over the past days, Rose’s safety had been paramount.
Two response cars had been ordered to the scene, bringing six uniformed officers – not bad, Diamond reckoned, for the small hours of the morning. Bath was not geared up to night emergencies.
Three men went to the garden at the rear of the house to cover a possible escape through the alley.
No lights were on in the house Emma had named. But they were turned on next door, and the curtains twitched. ‘The Neighbourhood Watch strikes again,’ muttered Diamond, rolling his eyes.
The curtains had not been drawn in the ground floor flat where Rose was supposedly in hiding. He shone a torch through the window. Nothing moved inside.
Over the personal radio, the officers at the back reported that no one was visible in either of the two rooms at the rear.
‘We’ll go in, then.’
They forced the front door and made a search. Signs of recent occupation encouraged them, a half-eaten chicken sandwich in the kitchen that was still soft and moist to the touch and a faintly warm teapot. But no one was there. No signs of a scuffle, even.
‘Where’s he taken her?’ said Julie.
‘Anywhere from Pulteney Weir to Clifton Suspension Bridge. Fake suicides are his m.o.’ He returned to the car and contacted headquarters. They already had a call out on Allardyce’s BMW. No one had sighted it.
He got into the back seat beside Emma. ‘You know where he must have taken her, don’t you?’
She shook her head.
‘I think you do. We need your help, Emma, if we’re going to save Rose’s life.’
She cried out in anguish, ‘I’d tell you if I knew. I’m on her side. God, I’ve spent the last two weeks hiding her from him.’
‘What state is she in mentally? Is her memory back?’
‘Hardly at all. I’ve told her some things I thought she should know. She knows what happened to her father, but I don’t think she remembers finding him.’
‘She
‘A couple of days later, yes.’
‘So she knows her father was murdered?’
‘No. I simply said he was found dead with a shotgun beside him. I was trying to be truthful without saying everything.’
‘She still thinks you’re her stepsister?’
‘Yes.’
‘And William. She has no suspicion that he killed her father?’
‘She doesn’t know who William is. I told her a little about the farm being a possible Anglo-Saxon site. I said the man who tried to force her into the car the other day must be a treasure-hunter who thinks she knows about precious objects her father may have unearthed.’
‘And that was Allardyce, of course?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who was driving?’ Julie asked.
‘I was.’
‘You?’ said Diamond.
‘Wearing a baseball hat.’
‘Nobody got a look at the driver,’ said Julie.
‘There’s something wrong here,’ Diamond said. ‘That car wasn’t the BMW Allardyce uses. It was a red Toyota according to Ada.’
‘A Toyota Previa. It took a dent in the side from Ada. He had to get it off the road until it was repaired, so he rented the BMW, until yesterday, when he got his regular car back,’ Emma said.
He hesitated. ‘You’re telling me the BMW isn’t his damned car? Julie, we’re looking for the wrong motor. What’s the Toyota’s number?’
Emma told him and he radioed central communications.
He turned back to her. ‘You say she doesn’t know who William is, but she knows a man is pursuing her. She knows he’s dangerous.’
‘He terrifies her.’
He leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes. The tension was getting to him. He was striving to second- guess the outcome of this meeting between the terrified young woman and the double murderer. ‘If she isn’t killed straight off – and I don’t think she has been, because he’ll want to dress it up as a suicide – her only chance is to bluff him. Does she have the self-control to do it?’
He’d been speaking his thoughts and he didn’t expect an answer, but Emma said, ‘To do what?’
‘You say he’s obsessed with the idea of finding a hoard. You mean really obsessed?’
‘It’s taken over his life.’
‘Does Rose know he’s so fanatical?’
‘She’s in no doubt about that. I had to get her to understand why I was trying to protect her.’
Diamond leaned forward and grasped the driver’s shoulder. ‘Tormarton. We’re going up to the farm.’ He lowered the window and shouted to Julie to get in. In seconds, all three cars were moving at speed in convoy, with beacons flashing, up Pulteney Road, heading north.
‘She’s bright enough to have thought of it, but is she cool enough?’ he said to no one in particular.
Julie turned to look at him.
He said, ‘The surefire way to buy time from a killer like this is to offer him the thing he craves – an Anglo- Saxon hoard. She tells him what? What would I tell him? What would either of you tell him in desperation? She bluffs. She says it’s a family secret that the stuff was dug up years ago and stored away in the house. Yes, inside the house. She’s willing to show him. It’s all his if he’ll spare her life.’
Julie digested this. ‘It’s asking a lot – for her to think up a story as good that.’
‘If she hasn’t come up with something, we might as well get some sleep and drag the river in the morning.’
