Trick of the Mind Page 3

  Carmichael had made it to the station well ahead of them, Clarkson living quite distant, out in Orpington, and was waiting impatiently. Hollings was very glad he had stopped for the coffee.

  “There were reports of gunshots,” Clarkson told them. “I reported it, but nearly everyone who had heard it thought it came from a different direction. I did look, sir. I’m mortal sorry I didn’t find your man.”

  “But you didn’t hear the shots yourself?” asked Carmichael.

  “No, sir. Best I could figure, I was inside a shop at the time, sorting out a bit of trouble between the owner and one of his customers.”

  Carmichael waved this away. “We have your report, Constable,” he said. “What I want is a blow-by-blow description. Here—show me where this shop is.”

  He slapped an open London A to Z onto the desk and Clarkson obligingly bent over it, yawning prodigiously. Carmichael scowled and Hollings, who was tolerably familiar with the area from a recent murder investigation, leaned in to point out where Gibbons had been found. Clarkson, it evolved, had been some distance away when the shots had been fired. He had already left the shop when he received word of the gunshots and the information that backup was en route to him from the station.

  “It’s that kind of neighborhood,” he said with a shrug.

  “But you didn’t wait for your backup to arrive, did you?” said Carmichael.

  “Well, no.” Clarkson slurped at his coffee and blinked before realizing the chief inspector was waiting for more. “It didn’t seem too likely that the gunman would still be about by the time I got there,” he explained. “I mean, they hardly ever are. If you shoot someone, you don’t wait about for the police, do you?”

  Carmichael admitted this was so.

  Clarkson traced his route on the map for them, and described the residents he had interviewed. They had all heard the shots, but none of them could pinpoint from whence the sound had come, nor did they report hearing any other signs of conflict.

  “And that was a bit odd,” said Clarkson. “Usually, there’s some other disturbance connected with gunfire, like an argument, or at least the sound of a car speeding off. In any case, it didn’t give us much to go on.”

  Backup having arrived, they had proceeded to take a look around the area, but had found nothing amiss, and given the wide divergence of opinion as to how many shots there had been, they had concluded that the noise might have been something else altogether. Clarkson had kept an eye out for the rest of his shift, but it had been an otherwise quiet evening and he had at last gone home, satisfied that nothing much was wrong in his district. He was more than chagrined to discover he had been quite wrong.

  It was raining heavily in Calais, just as the radio had predicted. Bethancourt had been on the road for close on three hours and was beginning to feel it; he had missed rue Chevreul and had had to backtrack, but he had still managed to get onto the 3:15 A.M. ferry to Dover, if only just. The seas were heavy, not unusual for the Channel during a storm, but Bethancourt luckily had a strong stomach. He stretched and then lit a cigarette, leaning on the deck railing as the ferry pushed out into the sea, leaving Calais behind.

  If Gibbons had not been shot, Bethancourt would likely still have been out at a nightclub at 3:15 A.M., thoroughly enjoying himself and in no way ready for bed. As it was, he felt dull and tired, and knew he was not thinking very clearly anymore. He had been going over in his mind all he knew of Gibbons’s personal life, trying to find anything that could explain the attack on his friend, but he had come up with nothing. Gibbons’s life was very much caught up in his work, the more so since he had had his heart broken last summer. He had not yet recovered sufficiently to be interested in dating, much less any kind of full-blown affair that might lead to jealousy and gunshots.

  Bethancourt did not know all of Gibbons’s other friends well, but he could not see any of the younger police detectives or, still less, Gibbons’s old friends from Oxford, resorting to firearms. The other detectives, he concluded, might at least be accused of jealousy, since Gibbons was well ahead of his peers on their chosen career path.

  With that absurd thought, he stubbed out his cigarette and abandoned the deck in favor of a comfortable chair inside. He had barely got himself settled, stretching out his legs and leaning his head back, before he fell fast asleep, worn out with worry and the tedium of the road.

  Dotty Carmichael had come prepared for a long wait with a paperback romance novel, a pack of cards with which to play Patience if, as seemed likely, the book failed to hold her attention in the current circumstances, and a large thermos flask of tea. She had also brought a cushion from her sofa at home, an acknowledgment that at her age one could not sit for long on institutional chairs without becoming uncomfortable.

  She did not anticipate having any difficulty in staying awake, despite the fact that she had not been up much past eleven since the birth of her second grandchild some three years ago, and in fact she did not feel in the least sleepy. She was the more nettled, therefore, to find that Detective Constable Lemmy was fast asleep. Carmichael had left him behind with orders to “see to Mrs. Carmichael,” and Dotty could not help but feel Lemmy was not making much of a job of it. Over the last fortnight, she had heard any number of complaints from her husband about his new constable, and she had kept to herself the opinion that poor Detective Constable Lemmy’s worst fault was to have supplanted the brilliant Sergeant Gibbons as her husband’s assistant. As the night wore on, however, she was rapidly revising this estimation of the constable’s character.

  After about an hour, she decided to stretch her legs and find the WC. Lemmy was still asleep, sprawled across the row of chairs opposite her, so she told the uniformed men standing guard where she was going, instructing them to call her if the doctors should reappear. But when she returned, having worked the kink out of her hip, she found everything quiet and a glance at the uniformed men told her there was no news. She sat back down with a sigh, settling herself as comfortably as she could, and wishing that the waiting was over, whatever the outcome.

  She poured herself another cup of tea, offering some to the policemen, but they declined, being well supplied with coffee by the nurses. So she dealt herself a hand of Patience, laying the cards out carefully on the little side table, grateful at least that the waiting room was not crowded with sneezing, coughing people. She had rather expected it would be at this time of year.

  Just before four, Wyber reappeared, still in faultless scrubs but now looking rather tired. He glanced about the waiting room and, not seeing any of the plainclothes detectives who had greeted him before, looked a question at the uniformed policemen standing guard.

  “This is Chief Inspector Carmichael’s wife,” said one of the men. “She knows DS Gibbons.”

  “How is he, Doctor?” she asked, rising and coming forward, steeling herself to hear the worst while hoping for the best.

  “It went quite smoothly,” Wyber told her. “I can’t say he’s entirely out of danger yet, but he came through the operation very well. A small section of bowel had to be removed, but that shouldn’t bother him at all, and the other holes were reparable. Peritonitis is a concern at this point, but he’s young and strong—I should say he has a good chance of coming through this.”

  Something in Dotty’s chest suddenly relaxed, though she had not been aware of the constriction before, and she took her first deep breath in several hours.

  “That’s excellent news,” she told the doctor, beaming at him. “May I sit with him? My husband wanted him to have someone there when he woke.”

  “He’s still in recovery at the moment,” replied Wyber, “but I’ll tell them to let you know when he’s moved into a room. He won’t be waking for some little time yet in any case. Oh,” he added as an afterthought, “the chief inspector wanted the bullets kept.” He looked dubiously down at Dotty. “Do you, er …”

  “No,” said Dotty firmly.

  “That would be Detective Constable Lemmy’s jo
b,” said one of the policemen, and Dotty gave him a grateful glance. “Jake here will wake him.”

  Wyber nodded, looking somewhat askance at the spectacle of Lemmy stretched out across a row of chairs. “Yes, of course,” he murmured. “I’ll have my nurse bring them out.”

  “Thank you very much, Doctor,” said Dotty. “My husband and I think a lot of Sergeant Gibbons and we appreciate your efforts ever so much.”

  “Not at all, not at all, Mrs. Carmichael. Pleased to be of service.”

  And, with a little bow, Wyber withdrew.

  Which left Dotty and the two policemen grinning foolishly at each other.

  “Over the first hurdle,” she said, and went to ring her husband with the news.

  At just about that time, Bethancourt was driving off the ferry at Dover. His nap aboard ship had left him feeling blurry instead of rested, but at least he was once again in England, driving on the proper side of the road, and not much more than ninety minutes’ drive from London.

  And, best of all, within mobile phone range again. As he swung the Volvo onto the A2, bypassing Dover’s city center, he reached for his phone, trepidation roiling his stomach as he waited for Carmichael to answer. He was all too conscious that he had been out of touch for well over an hour and that anything might have happened in that time.

  “Carmichael here.”

  “It’s Phillip Bethancourt again, sir,” said Bethancourt, pressing the phone to his ear. It was absurd, but the reception had been better in Calais. “Have you heard anything?”

  “I’ve just got the news,” Carmichael replied, and he sounded pleased. “He’s out of surgery and doing fine. He’s still in critical condition, mind, but he’s done well to make it this far.”

  “Thank God,” said Bethancourt fervently. “Is he awake yet?”

  “Not yet. They apparently expect that to take some little while. Where are you, lad?”

  “In Dover. I’ve just come off the ferry.”

  “And you’ll go straight through to the hospital?”

  “I was planning to, yes.”

  “Good, good. I’ll speak to you then—I should be back there by the time you arrive.”

  “I’ll look forward to that, sir,” said Bethancourt, and rang off.

  He was beginning to feel more hopeful; that Gibbons had come through the operation was, he thought, a very good sign. And he himself was bound to make good time along the A2 at this hour; the only traffic consisted of a few early lorries speeding toward London with their deliveries. At this rate, he should be in town by half five, or six at the latest.

  Ian Hodges, chief of Scotland Yard’s forensics laboratory, had a raspy, unpleasant speaking voice, which was universally regarded by the Yard’s detectives as music to their ears. Certainly Carmichael felt that way early that morning when he answered his phone and heard the familiar gruff tones.

  “What have you got?” he asked eagerly.

  “As far as we can make out from the times we’ve been given, Sergeant Gibbons was on the phone when he was shot,” replied Hodges.

  “On the phone?” The scene of the crime flashed into Carmichael’s mind, the blood on the pavement washing away in the rain and the red stain left beneath the bus shelter. “Of course,” he murmured. “He wasn’t coming out of that house—he stopped there to use his phone and keep it out of the rain.”

  “Probably,” grunted Hodges. “We’re going to have some work to do to pull up all the data on the phone—it died on the way into the lab. All we managed to garner was the last number he rang.”

  “And what was that?” asked Carmichael eagerly.

  Hodges seemed surprised. “It wasn’t you, sir?”

  “What? No, of course it wasn’t me. Why do you say that?”

  “Because it’s your number,” retorted Hodges.

  “It can’t have been,” protested Carmichael. “I’ve had my mobile on all evening, ever since I left the office.”

  “Not your mobile,” corrected Hodges. “Your office line. He rang it at nine fourteen this evening.”

  Carmichael cursed fluently. “I never thought to check,” he admitted. “Let me know when you have anything else, will you, Hodges? I must check my voice mail at once.”

  “Right you are,” agreed Hodges. “I’ll ring you again as soon as I have any more.”

  “Thank you, Hodges. You’re a godsend.”

  Hodges accepted this accolade with his usual insouciance and rang off, leaving Carmichael to meet the questioning eyes of Inspector Hollings and Sergeant O’Leary. They were all sitting in an interview room at Lambeth station, having sent Constable Clarkson off to continue his well-earned repose.

  “Gibbons apparently left me a message,” Carmichael told them, dialing. “I never once thought to check my own messages.”

  “I wonder if Davies has checked his,” said Hollings.

  “See that he does, will you?” said Carmichael, typing in a code. “Ah, here we go.”

  Gibbons’s voice came over the line, sounding just as usual; it gave Carmichael a chill to hear it.

  “Gibbons here, sir. Something rather strange has come up and I wonder if you could spare me a few minutes tomorrow morning. I’d very much like to talk it over with you if you have the time. I’ll ring you again when I get into the office. Thanks.”

  Carmichael played it over again, and then let Hollings and O’Leary listen to it.

  “He doesn’t sound particularly upset,” offered O’Leary.

  “No, he doesn’t, does he?” said Carmichael thoughtfully. “Really, he could have wanted anything at all. It wouldn’t necessarily have to do with a case.”

  “I can’t see why he would be ringing you about a case at all,” said Hollings. “If he’d had some idea about the Haverford robbery, he would have rung Davies. Unless—” He paused, thinking it out. “Have you spoken to him about any of your own recent cases, sir?”

  Carmichael shook his head. “I last spoke with him about a fortnight ago,” he said. “I stopped in to make sure he was doing all right with Arts. It’s a big change from homicide. I may have mentioned the case I was working on, but since I wrapped it up last Sunday, I can’t think why he should ring me about it now. There’s no doubt in the case—the killer confessed.”

  “So we’re back to square one,” said Hollings, exasperated.

  “Jack himself may be able to fill us in,” said O’Leary. “We can’t know until he comes to himself.”

  “Mrs. Carmichael will ring me the moment he does,” Carmichael assured them.

  Dotty Carmichael was at that moment sitting by Gibbons’s bedside in intensive care, having finally been allowed in to see him. There had been a stool, but the sister had done away with it and brought up a proper chair. Dotty liked the sister, who was a brisk, no-nonsense sort of person.

  “He’s stirring a bit,” she had said. “We’ll probably move him into a room in an hour or so if he continues on as he’s going.”

  “He’s doing all right then?” asked Dotty doubtfully. Gibbons looked terribly unwell to her eye.

  “Quite all right,” said the sister, who apparently did not share this outlook. “His blood pressure is holding up nicely. We’re keeping a close eye on his temperature, but he’s doing well so far.”

  Much gratified by this news, Dotty had nodded and taken her seat, making herself as comfortable as she could and hoping she would soon be moving to a hospital room where—she knew from long experience—they had cushioned armchairs.

  The sister had said Gibbons was beginning to come out from under the anesthetic, but Dotty could see no sign of it. He lay very still, the only movement the shallow rise and fall of his chest, and she contemplated him anxiously. She felt she knew him well, having heard so much about him from her husband, though in fact she had met the sergeant only a handful of times. She knew what it would do to her husband if Gibbons should die or be permanently disabled and she clung to the sister’s encouraging words while she waited, praying silently, for him to
wake up.

  Time was ticking down on the clock in Bethancourt’s mind, while his lips moved in an echo of Dotty Carmichael’s prayers. He was beginning to feel that he would make it to Gibbons’s side before the drama finished playing itself out, however it might end. He did not suppose his presence would make any great difference, other than to make himself feel better, but having come so close, he was desperate not to fail at the last.

  His brief leg on the M2 had flown by and he was back on the A2 again, just now reaching the outskirts of Greater London. Another half hour should, he thought, see him at the hospital. His London A to Z was back in his Chelsea flat, and he did not know the area well, so he was dependent on the hire car’s GPS system, which he did not wholly trust. It seemed, for some reason, to think he should have turned off some miles ago.

  His back ached and his long frame felt cramped and stiff from sitting so long behind the wheel, but he was buoyed by the thought that the long night was nearly over.

  2

  The Morning

  Detective Inspector Jack Gibbons was asleep, his face very pale beneath the brown stubble on his cheeks, his redbrown hair looking dark in contrast. He was normally a slightly stocky, energetic man, but he looked thinner now and terribly vulnerable. A tube snaked across one wan cheek into his nose, intravenous fluid dripped into his arm, while a blood pressure cuff tightened and relaxed about his biceps. The machines and monitoring devices gave off a constant low hum in the quiet of the room.

  Bethancourt’s face was sober as he stood by the bedside, his skin bleached nearly as pale as his hair with fatigue, his tall, lean form stooped a little from the same cause. He had taken off his hornrimmed glasses to rub at his eyes and they dangled from one hand as he regarded his friend silently.

  Dotty Carmichael watched the pair from her chair in the corner of the room. It was she who had come out to vouch for Bethancourt with the uniformed guards at the door, despite never having met him before. But Carmichael had told her he was on his way, and she easily recognized the young man from his description, secretly amused to find that Bethancourt was somewhat taller than her husband had ever mentioned, topping the chief inspector by at least an inch.