The Girl Who Stole the Apple

‘I panicked.’

Bowman pursed his lips. ‘Skip the big toe,’ he said quietly. ‘Just do the kneecap. On the count of three. One. Two—’

Bowman never got to three. The word froze somewhere at the back of his throat. Elgar swivelled round. He had had enough. Of obeying orders. Of inflicting pain and death. Of being trampled on. He raised the gun and pointed it at Bowman’s head. He paused just long enough to see the fear blossom on Bowman’s face. Another stab of pain shot up his leg, but his hand was steady. Bowman opened his mouth, but Elgar didn’t hear what he said. He clenched his teeth. There would be no way back after this. He squeezed the trigger and a single bullet punched a hole clean through Bowman’s forehead.

* * *

They didn’t run. Ashcroft had wanted to, that was his nature, but Reid had grabbed his arm and forced him to stop. Reid insisted on walking out of the village towards the holiday cottage. He moved briskly, anxious not to waste time, weighing up the options and possibilities. That was his nature.

Neither of them had a gun, they were miles away from back-up and they had no idea what on earth they were going to encounter. The girl had gabbled about two people dead in the quarry and how a bad man was holding Maggie hostage in the cottage and the bad man had a gun. As far as Reid was concerned, there were two options. Wait or go in. But he hadn’t flogged all over the country just to hang around waiting. So they had to go in. Again there appeared to be various options: they could barge in through the front door like a pair of bull elephants. Or they could creep round the side and see if there was a back door that had been left conveniently unlocked. Or they could knock on the front door like a pair of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and see who answered it. Reid blew his cheeks out and pressed on a little faster. When you thought about it, most of the available options ruled themselve

s out.

‘I’ll go first,’ Reid said as the cottage came into view.

Ashcroft grunted, though Reid didn’t know what this meant. Not that it bothered him. For all his faults, Ashcroft was a good person to have at your back when you were in a tricky situation. He might be a slimy creep in the office, but Ashcroft was the sort of man who came alive when faced by a killer with a gun.

They slowed as they drew near. Reid ran his eyes over the building — small, four-square, red brick and rather out of place here. He had expected a pretty country cottage with a flurry of wild flowers decorating the front garden, stone walls, even a thatched roof. Not that he had time to take it all in. What he was looking for were signs of life. The side gate was open, swinging slightly in the breeze. He peered hard at the windows. He thought he could see shadows moving inside.

He crossed the last few metres and knocked on the door. He heard raised voices, a conversation of sorts, followed by the sound of a bolt being slid aside. The door opened and a tall man with a disarming smile looked down at him. ‘Can I help?’

Reid recognised Sam Foulkes immediately. He had seen so many pictures of him he could have drawn him with his eyes shut. He had even encountered him a couple of times, or rather passed him in the corridor without knowing who the heck he was. It was impossible to walk past a man that tall and not notice him. He had heard the rumours too, and he had read enough about him to know that he wasn’t to be trusted.

Reid smiled and held up his ID card, doing his best to portray himself as the friendly trustworthy detective. ‘Hello, there. Do you mind if we come in?’

This was the moment when he had half expected Foulkes to produce a gun or other weapon, but Foulkes merely nodded and turned. The two of them followed him inside. Reid knew it could be a trap. Most probably it was a trap. The fact that Foulkes wasn’t waving a gun under his nose meant absolutely nothing. There were other people inside. Probably one of them had a gun poised in his or her hand. The likelihood of the house being a gun-free zone was zero.

There was a woman sitting in an armchair. Reid recognised her too. It was Maggie Rogers. She was pale and her eyes were darting around the room as if they were trying to track down a hyperactive mosquito. She didn’t appear to have a gun either.

In fact, the only gun was lying on the floor. A man’s hand was wrapped round it, but there was no danger of him firing it because he was extremely dead. Reid wondered who it was. Possibly he knew him, but there was so little of his face left that it was impossible to tell. Suicide, the scenario said. But maybe it said it a little too obviously.

‘Hell! It’s Bowman,’ Ashcroft said. He was crouching down behind the sofa over another body. At least Reid assumed it was a body. From where he stood all he could see was a pair of feet with highly polished black laced shoes sticking out from behind the sofa. He moved around to get a better look.

‘He’s dead,’ Ashcroft said, unnecessarily. The small hole in the middle of his forehead and the huge wound at the back of his head were eloquent enough.

Both detectives turned and faced the only two other people still alive in the room. Maggie was still sitting absolutely motionless in the chair. Reid guessed that she was in shock. Foulkes had moved behind her and was resting a hand on her shoulder, as if to reassure her.

‘I think you had better tell us what happened,’ Reid said.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Reid had been waiting for half an hour. He wished he had accepted the offer of a cup of coffee from the immaculately dressed young man who had escorted him up from the reception area and was now sitting at a desk on the other side of the room, doing things on his computer. The huge computer screen mostly hid him from view, but even so, Reid couldn’t shake off the feeling that the young man was keeping a very careful watch on him.

Reid was tempted to play solitaire on his phone. Whenever he was stressed or bored, he had a tendency to retreat into solitaire. It was a great way to shut out the rest of the world.

He was feeling stressed and bored now. Stressed because he had been summoned to meet Mark Ruskin, a man so far up the pyramid of power that he probably needed an oxygen mask. Reid had never met him before. Bowman had mentioned him once, in tones which marked him out as someone to be avoided at all costs. Reid was bored because the only reading material on the coffee table in front of him was a copy of the Financial Times. If there was ever an occasion to retreat inside a game of solitaire, this was it. Except that playing solitaire in this place would have felt frivolous and dangerous, like pushing a stick inside a wasps’ nest and stirring it around to see what happened. He had done that once as a boy and had ended up with an ear the size of an elephant’s.

So Reid sat still and let his mind drift back to the day of Bowman’s death. The woman, Maggie, had barely spoken a word. At the time Reid had put it down to shock and he hadn’t changed his mind since. The only thing she had said was to ask if the girl — Beth — was alright. Reid had reassured her. ‘Thank God for that,’ she had said and relapsed into a silence which she had not broken for three days.

Sam Foulkes had been anything but silent. He had been rather hyper. He had described in rapid detail how Maggie had arrived at the house in a state of distress. How he had persuaded Beth to go upstairs and play in her bedroom so that they could have a proper discussion with Maggie. How Maggie had told them about this guy trying to kill her in the quarry. She had escaped from him, even managed to club him on the head with a rock. But then, suddenly, he had burst in waving a gun and threatening to kill them all. Sam said he had no idea who the guy was.

‘At first I thought he was a bit of a fruitcake. Bowman must have thought so too. He started to talk him down, persuade him to drop the gun. He was doing a good job. I thought the guy was going to put it down on the table, but then it was like someone had flipped a switch. The guy’s face froze. He raised his arm, pointed the gun at Bowman and pulled the trigger. Puff! Straight through the forehead. I should have acted then, thrown myself at him. But he was ice-cool. He turned the gun on me, told me to sit down and then he raised the gun up to his own head, just under the chin and pulled the trigger again. Jesus, I nearly wet myself!’

‘Inspector Reid!’ The immaculately tailored young man was standing in front of him, breaking into his reverie. ‘Mr Ruskin will see you now.’ Reid stood up. Ben led the way over to a door in the middle of the oak-panelled wall and opened it. With a nod, he directed Reid through the opening into Ruskin’s inner sanctum. Reid advanced forward. He heard the door click shut behind him and wondered for the twenty-ninth time that morning what the hell this meeting was all about.

‘Come in and sit down!’ The voice emanated from the corner of the room. Reid assumed it was Ruskin, but the man’s back was turned towards him. The man turned round. He had a cup of coffee in his hand and he held it out to Reid. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Keep me company.’

Soon they were sitting opposite each other, on either side of a ridiculously large desk of the sort Reid had only ever seen on TV or in National Trust houses.