Imposture (DI Gardener 6)

In an agitated state, Anthony ran through every room. Each one was the same. The whole place had been cleared out. He didn’t even have a fucking bed! It didn’t have the feel of a burglary – more a house clearance.

He returned to the front door and the pile of correspondence. Staring at the floor, he murmured, “I have no idea what the fuck’s happening with my life but I’m going to find out.”

He reached for his phone. That would be of no use, it was still displaying emergency calls only.

Anthony needed to contact the others and the only way he could do that was from a public phone, which meant a walk to the Generous Pioneer, the pub at one end of the village.

First of all, he wanted to check through all the crap on his hall carpet. Whatever was happening to his life he was pretty sure someone was controlling it, and he needed to stop and think before doing anything rash, or drawing attention to himself.

Anthony picked up the post and the newspapers and walked to the table and four chairs in the living room.

He checked the newspapers first. He figured there must have been a copy of every single local and national daily, all of which had the lead story of the death of David Hunter. He checked the dates. None were recent – all of them from the night in question, and the following few days.

Who had kept all these? And why had they ended up here? Somebody was obviously trying to tell him something. But who, and what?

Sorting through the pile of letters he noticed that very few were junk mail. Npower and British Gas had written to him – two weeks ago. Both were final bills. They had been given readings and these were a settlement. He then noticed something else rather odd. They were addressed to the occupier, not him.

Further final bills came from the water company and the phone company. He did have a landline as well as a mobile. Both providers had written with final settlements. Other news came from insurance and investment companies – all sorry to hear the bad news, and that final settlements were being prepared.

Anthony flopped down in one of the chairs. He had absolutely no idea what it all meant. As far as he could see his whole life had somehow been switched off.

Why? Did all these people think – for some reason – that he was dead? Is that why everything was so final?

But he wasn’t dead. So why did they think he was, and who had told them? Panicking, Anthony searched through more paperwork. His exclusive wine club had written to say they were sorry that his membership had been cancelled. He’d always been a valued customer and if he wanted to return at any time he was more than welcome.

So they didn’t think he was dead.

He spotted a letter from Santander – his bank. Anthony reached out and ripped it open, his heart almost stopping when he saw the account had been completely cleared.

He jumped, causing the chair to fall back onto the floor. “What the fuck is going on?”

He found another bank letter: same story, no money.

If it was some bastard’s idea of a joke, Anthony was not laughing. He’d rather his colleagues were not responsible but he couldn’t think of anyone else – certainly no one clever enough.

But why would they do it? Had any of them actually gone away? Or had they conned him, led him to believe they had? And all the time, they had stayed back and – as far as he could see – completely wiped him out. Whilst he could understand them taking the money, he couldn’t see why they would clear out his house. Or steal his car from the airport.

Anthony sat back down, tried to think rationally. Why was he so quick to blame his colleagues? They had never shown signs of robbing him in the past. All of them had worked well together. They’d had disagreements, ups and downs, but then all companies go through that.

Anthony ran his hands through his hair. Were they playing a joke on him? A pretty sick fucker if it was.

Another thought forced its way into Anthony’s brain at jet miles per hour. He ran out of the living room, through the extension and past the swimming pool. He actually stopped to notice that all the water had been drained, before continuing, slipping into the small changing room at the side.

Like the others, the room was empty. He reached down to the false tile, pressing and shifting it to the right. The whole thing lifted out of the floor like a box. Anthony removed the top and reached in, breathing a sigh of relief.

Whoever had cleaned him out knew nothing of his emergency supply. Anthony retrieved the money – £5,000 in cash – all he had if the letters were anything to go by.

Dropping the safe back into the floor he left the house in search of answers.

Chapter Twenty-five

Gardener stood at the front of the incident room with a bottle of water in his right hand. Behind him were a number of whiteboards. Pinned to one were photos of James Henshaw, Zoe Harrison, and Anthony Palmer. To the other, a number of photos of Michael Foreman, taken at the scene of the crime on Bond Street, plus a whole host of information.

In front of him on a desk were the files the desk sergeant had found relating to the hit and run of David Hunter, with another steadily growing pile to the left, courtesy of DI Winter’s cyber team.

In the next room he could hear HOLMES setting up their equipment.

The last of his officers, young Patrick Edwards, filed in, closing the door behind him. He was pleased that Thornton and Anderson had returned to work. And thankful that DCI Briggs was still down in London at a Metropolitan Police convention, which, no doubt, was all about the latest cuts to the police budget. Shona Pearson had returned as the SPOC for the latest meeting.