Judas Horse Read online

  They still had no prints, no damage for the sake of it and no alarm systems tripped. What they did have was one dead dog and a sick old man who was in bed during his break-in.

  ‘It’s my belief,’ Jack started, ‘that this gang is getting inside information from someone you all know and have probably already interviewed. I want a calendar on this whiteboard showing all upcoming social events – golf tournaments, harvest festivals, school plays, walking groups, theatre groups, bridge nights – let’s see if we can predict when they might hit next.’

  Oaks immediately picked up the whiteboard pen and got to work, and soon everyone was chipping in. It turned out the social calendar for residents in and around Chipping Norton was a busy one. Most residents were out more than they were in, which was a boon for burglars.

  But Jack’s biggest problem came from those property owners who still wouldn’t give up the names of the famous people renting at the time of a burglary. It meant that apart from the unfortunate Maisie, there were no witnesses at all.

  As Oaks filled up the whiteboard, one thing was abundantly clear: this gang was bold, because they came prepared with transport big enough to cart away antique furniture and paintings; they weren’t restricting themselves to easier, smaller items such as jewellery and cash. And they hadn’t been caught in more than three years of activity, meaning every one of them was a professional. Except, that is, for the person caught creeping up Maisie’s stairs. This discrepancy was bugging Jack.

  Were the people who stuck a knife into the ear of a dog the same people who ran when a teenage girl spotted them in the mirror of her wardrobe door? And, perhaps more to the point, were the people who had never once been caught on camera, or left a single fingerprint, the same people who allowed Maisie to spot them so carelessly? Jack was beginning to think that Maisie’s burglar was someone else entirely.

  CHAPTER 7

  Gifford’s team was pleasantly surprised to see Jack mucking in with the laborious background research connected to this case.

  ‘Nothing’s irrelevant,’ Jack had told them. ‘If it’s in this room, we need it. We might not know why yet, but we do need it.’

  Barbara from the canteen was under orders from Gifford to keep his team and his guest topped up, so a steady stream of pastries and hot drinks were brought up every couple of hours. Within a few days of arriving, Jack could tell whether Barbara was having a quiet day or not, depending on the variety of homemade biscuits and pastries. Jack sometimes thought she looked like a gnarly old witch, but her baking was fabulous, and her tea was to die for. She was also a mine of information.

  Barbara walked into the squad room just as Jack and Oaks were discussing Charlotte and Annie’s financial situation. The two women were still of interest based on Charlotte being in the employ of all the burglary victims – but it was a tenuous link at best, seeing as Charlotte was also in the employ of half the station. Most of her customers had not been burgled, so she was looking more and more like a stray statistic that would come to nothing.

  Four years earlier, Annie’s father had passed away and left her £200,000. Their smallholding had been mortgaged to the hilt, so this money rescued them at exactly the right moment. They paid off the mortgage and were now living a much more comfortable life. Charlotte’s earnings peaked at around the £30,000 mark; most of that came from the gardening work, with a little extra from produce sales, but nothing life-changing. Charlotte sold fresh fruit and veg direct to her gardening clients and Annie sold the rest at a farmer’s market each Saturday morning. They also both had part-time work at the Soho Farmhouse, a 100-acre luxury retreat in the Oxfordshire countryside.

  Their bank balance fluctuated seasonally, which made sense to Jack, and currently it was low – but a cash amount of almost £2,000 had gone out just three weeks ago and this was an anomaly. Jack had just instructed Oaks to find out what that money was for when Barbara chipped in, ‘That’s her new mower. Big green thing it is. Noisy as hell. Got it second-hand for £1,800 from James Somerset. She gets a bargain and he gets free mowing for the rest of his life. Not that that’ll be long. He’s got cancer of the pancreas . . .’ Jack had stopped listening just after Barbara said that Charlotte had bought a new mower for £1,800, which Jack thought was good, because he liked them and didn’t want them to become persons of interest.

  By early evening, Oaks and Jack were the only ones left. Oaks watched Jack’s silhouette as he paced up and down the wall of windows, the rolling hills beyond reddening under the setting sun. ‘Maisie’s burglary is confusing us,’ Jack finally said. ‘It’s not the same. It’s clumsy, amateurish. I know real criminals, and the man who allowed himself to be seen by a teenager was not a real criminal.’ Oaks listened intently. He’d learnt so much from Jack already about how to read people and events properly. ‘Oaks, find out if Maisie can come back. If she can’t . . . we’ll go to Swindon and interview her there. I’m popping to London tomorrow, but I’ll be back the day after.’

  Then Jack said goodnight and headed to his B&B.

  *

  Jack returned to London with an empty suitcase and a list of items he needed to bring back with him – top of which were his wellies. He called Maggie from the M40 to ask if she needed anything bringing home for tea – but in truth, he was checking to see whether any stray pregnant couples had been invited over to eat his food and drink his beer. Maggie confirmed that not only were her friends not going to interrupt their evening, but Penny was also out with a friend she’d met at her needlecraft class. Jack ended the call by saying that he’d bring home a takeaway and a bottle of wine – so Maggie was under orders to express enough milk to get Hannah through the night, because this evening she was going to learn how to drink again. He’d be with her by seven.

  Jack could have been home by five, but he wanted to detour via the station to catch up with Ridley.

  ‘How’s it going over there?’ Ridley asked when Jack walked into his office, though he already knew the answer. Gifford had called him the second Jack left for London and bent his ear – again – about the dangers of ruffling delicate feathers.

  ‘The gaps between burglaries is interesting, sir.’ As Jack spoke, Ridley invited him to sit and then set about making two mugs of tea. ‘These guys were in no rush, doing an average of one or two burglaries every couple of months; then all of a sudden they’re doing one every two weeks. Gifford was getting nowhere fast due to the lack of a pattern, lack of MO, lack of resources. But I think he’s right to assume that this gang is working up to something big before disappearing for good.’

  From the squad room, her chin resting in the palm of one hand, Laura faced her computer screen, but her eyes were definitely looking at Ridley. Anik could feel the jealousy rising in his chest and burning in his face. It wasn’t pure jealousy, because he didn’t fancy Laura; it stemmed from being overlooked in general. Anik wheeled his chair across to Laura and stopped at her shoulder, making her jump. He spoke in a spiteful whisper. ‘You don’t always have to fancy someone from this squad room, you know.’ Laura looked him dead in the eyes and told him to fuck off. Which he did.

  Twenty minutes later, Anik watched Jack stand, shake Ridley’s hand and head for the office door. Jack paused when Ridley said something, the men smiled, shared a private joke and then Jack left, giving a general wave and a ‘Night all’ to the squad room.

  ‘What a prick,’ Anik mumbled under his breath.

  *

  Jack arrived home bang on seven, as promised. The plates were in the oven, the wine glasses were out and two bottles of breast milk were in the fridge door. Maggie was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the lounge, surrounded by christening paraphernalia – even though it wasn’t going to be a proper christening. Propped on the coffee table was an iPad showing Hannah on her nursery camera, sleeping in her cot.

  Jack sat on the floor next to Maggie and laid the takeaway out on the coffee table for her to help herself. Maggie had become an eclectic eater since Hannah arrive
d – she’d learnt to eat on the run, grabbing bites of this and that as she ran from the washing machine to the dishwasher to the steriliser. Jack had ordered his usual chicken madras with steamed rice, while Maggie had gone for several starters that she could pick at.

  Maggie swept the invitations, guest list, car list, booking confirmation, food confirmation and gift receipts to one side, so as not to get any of her hard work stained with curry sauce and Jack stared at it all in trepidation. Considering this wasn’t even a proper christening, there seemed to be a hell of a lot of prep to be done.

  Through the onion bhajis, lamb samosas and kakori kebabs, Maggie never stopped talking. Such overt excitement was very unlike her and Jack wondered whether lack of sleep might be sending her a little manic. Then he spotted that she was drinking at her pre-pregnancy pace, which, after nine months sober, probably wasn’t a good idea.

  He listened to his beautiful, exhausted, drunk wife and tried not to laugh. ‘The hotel in Richmond is booked, we got a discount on that so actually it’s the same price as the hall down the road. They said there’s no untoward reason, just a promotional thing. Anyway, it’s done now. There’ll be four babies and three kids there, so I’ve got them all gifts. Just a little something. Penny’s getting there in Mario’s car. The only thing left to sort is, I want some of those disposable cameras, so guests can just snap away.’ Jack didn’t express his curiosity about the price and instead smiled at Maggie’s unbridled enthusiasm.

  When Maggie asked what he was smiling at, his next words came without having to think about them. ‘I’m happy, that’s all.’ The tears immediately welled in Maggie’s eyes. Jack put his food down and crawled across the carpet towards her. He wrapped her in his arms and held her head to his chest. She put her arm around his waist and gripped his shirt, screwing it tightly in her fist.

  ‘You OK?’ Jack whispered.

  Maggie slid one leg across his thighs and sat on his lap. Her smile told him that nothing was wrong and that these were happy tears. When she kissed him it wasn’t passionate, but slow and loving. Her hands explored him, as though rediscovering every curve. Jack didn’t touch Maggie, he simply enjoyed being touched by her. It had been so long.

  As her hands slid down his torso and began unbuttoning his trousers, Hannah stirred. They froze and looked at the iPad, holding their breath. It took a second for the crying to begin.

  Jack kissed Maggie and told her to ‘hold that thought’. He grabbed a bottle of breast milk from the fridge, blitzed it in the microwave and headed upstairs.

  Maggie sat sideways on her hip, head resting on the sofa’s seat cushion and watched the grainy, black-and-white image of Jack feeding Hannah. In less than three minutes, Hannah was asleep in his arms. Maggie watched him put the bottle down, run his finger over the contours of his daughter’s face, down the bridge of her tiny nose, across her chin, and gently over her closed eyes. He put his finger in her hand and she closed her tiny fist. Jack stayed with Hannah for another ten minutes, just looking at her face and listening to her breathe.

  As he walked back downstairs, he imagined Maggie would by now be comatose on the sofa. In fact, she was still on the floor, with her head on the seat cushion. Fast asleep. Jack sat back down on the floor and finished his now-cold chicken madras.

  *

  Back in the Cotswolds, George and Sally Barrowman’s house was dark apart from the hallway light, which suggested an empty home pretending to be occupied. Security lights flicked on and off, as foxes moved freely through the extensive grounds. The garden was rustic and rambling compared to its neighbours, but that’s how the Barrowmans liked it – the idea of wildlife sharing their habitat was important to their son, Mathew, so they had purposefully asked Charlotte to use plants that would naturally come and go with the seasons, with little intervention. This four-acre garden was home to mice, foxes, hedgehogs and an unknown number of bird species. It was a beautiful space.

  Around the back of the property, there was a swimming pool housed in a glass conservatory and an area for playing various outdoor games such as football, basketball and putting. When George had got this part of the garden levelled and turfed, it was his honest intention to play sports with his son, but this had never quite worked out. Mathew’s autism meant that while as a very young boy football occupied his every waking minute, once he reached the age of eight or nine, his obsession became chess, and by the time he was in his late teens, things had changed again to fantasy and science fiction. Since then, Mathew focussed on the comings and goings of TV shows, such as Dr Who and, more recently, Game of Thrones.

  The Barrowmans’ next-door neighbour, Essie Blaketon, was walking her four Jack Russells past the Barrowmans’ home, when her attention was caught by the fact that the electronic driveway gate was wide open and, more disturbingly, there was movement coming from the overgrown garden – and she knew it wasn’t foxes because they always made her dogs bark like crazy until they’d walked beyond the Barrowmans’ boundary. This time, her dogs did not bark at all. Essie paused and she gave her eyes a couple of seconds to adjust to the darkness away from the streetlights – then she saw it. A man was in the bushes of the Barrowmans’ garden. Essie got out her mobile and was just about to dial 999, when the figure emerged and started to sprint in her direction. Once he was out in the open, she could immediately see that it was Mathew – his height and frame were distinctive and, when he moved quickly, the top half of his body seemed to get ahead of the bottom half. When he used to play football day and night, he always ran like he’d tripped over something and was about to fall flat on his face. Mathew stopped and turned and changed direction, as though he simply couldn’t decide on where he should be heading. He was crying, clearly distressed and confused. Essie immediately texted Sally.

  George and Sally were less than ten miles away at the local golf club, hosting their annual charity auction to raise funds for St Barnabas’s, in Gloucester, the special school that their son had attended until he was 16. George was on stage, talking up the sale of a vintage SylvaC collection, when he happened to glance down at his wife, who was standing by the edge of the stage supervising the order of the lots. Her face was lit well enough by the light of her mobile phone for him to see that she was ashen. Within minutes, George and Sally were driving home.

  ‘We should never have left him on his own!’ Sally cried.

  ‘What else could we have done, Sal?’ her husband countered. ‘He refused to come, and when he gets like that, there’s no shifting him. Tonight was an annual commitment. Once a bloody year! He picks his moments, I’ll give him that.’

  Sally’s mobile pinged and another text came through from Essie: Mathew was still circling the garden and was still incredibly distressed about something. George and Sally knew that Essie wouldn’t approach Mathew; she was unsure of him at the best of times. But she’d not leave him on his own either. Mathew was rarely aggressive but when he was, it was terrifying; and as an 18-stone, 26-year-old man, he could be hard to deal with. Another text:

  Mathew’s come out onto the road and someone’s called the police!

  It was another seven worrying minutes before George and Sally pulled up next to a patrol car parked across both lanes of the narrow road outside their home. Sergeant Fiona McDermott held up her hand and made a turning motion with her arm, telling them to go back the way they’d come. George and Sally got out of the car and raced to the blockade. ‘Oh, it’s you, Mr Barrowman. Thank goodness for that. I’ve not seen Mathew like this in years.’

  In the distance, George could see a second police car blocking the road at the opposite end and, right in the middle, Mathew was pacing back and forth, shoeless, with his hands pressed tight over his ears. ‘I can’t get him to move off the road.’ McDermott’s tone was concerned but kindly. ‘If you could get him back into the garden and close the gates, that’d be perfect. Then I’ll need to talk to you.’

  George called Mathew’s name as he approached and he immediately stopped pacing and low
ered his hands. ‘Come on, lad,’ George said. ‘Let’s go home.’

  Mathew’s voice quivered as he spoke. ‘No, thank you, Dad. No, thank you. I’m not going home. The police can go away now. I’m OK here.’

  ‘They’re here because you’re in the middle of the road. If you want them to go away, then you have to come home with Mum and me. You can’t be on the road, Mathew. It’s dangerous.’

  Mathew strode towards the open gates, faltered as he got closer, then continued into the grounds of his home. George and Sally followed him, and three police officers on foot followed them. George clicked the button on his car keyring and the gates began to close. At the same time, from the darkness of the road, the police cars could be heard pulling out of the way and the traffic began to move again.

  Mathew turned at the sound of the gate closing and, for reasons unknown to everyone but himself, his anxiety levels soared. He headed quickly back towards the road, in a race against the closing gate.

  ‘Matty, what’s wrong?’ Sally shouted. ‘Calm down, darling, calm down! I’ll make you a hot chocolate.’ But not even the promise of his favourite drink was going to stop him from trying to escape.

  Sergeant McDermott held up her hand, palm towards Mathew and shouted ‘Stop!’ but he wasn’t listening. Driven by an inexplicable fear, Mathew barged past her, knocking her off her feet. George raced forwards, worried that now he’d technically assaulted a police officer, they’d try to arrest him. ‘Don’t grab him! It’ll make him worse! He’s just frightened! Please don’t grab him!’

  Cars were now speeding down the long, straight stretch of unlit road beyond the still-closing gate. Mathew was head down, tilted forwards as he ran. He had no comprehension of the danger ahead, George was too far away to help and the police were out of options. Officers stood, arms wide, shouting for Mathew to stop, but he couldn’t hear them above his own prolonged, high-pitched squeal. Then, in a flash, Mathew was on his belly with a police officer pinning each arm to the ground. He screamed at the top of his lungs in utter terror. Sally fell to her knees by Mathew’s head and stroked his hair as his screaming turned to sobbing. ‘OK, darling. OK. It’s over.’ Sally glanced up and could now see that the frustratingly slow-moving gates were finally closed. ‘They’ll let you up now, darling. And you’ll come with me into the house. It’s over and you’re fine. I’m not going to leave you. I promise. I’m not going to leave you ever again.’