Bloodline

‘In what way?’ he asked.

‘Well, for a start, it might have affected her state of mind, to say nothing of the hormone changes that must accompany pregnancy.’

He said nothing.

‘And,’ I went on, ‘it would have been nice to have known at her funeral. Prayers could have been said for the unborn child.’

‘As I said, I assumed you knew. Your father had been informed.’

Bloody hell, I thought.

Why hadn’t the stupid old bastard said something? Probably because he was embarrassed by the fact that his unmarried daughter was pregnant.

God save me from my parents, and their old-fashioned opinions.

‘I’m sorry,’ DS Sharp said finally. ‘I should have told you.’

‘Yes, you should,’ I said. ‘But at least you’re telling me now. And there is something else I’d like to know.’

‘Fire away,’ he said, clearly relieved that I hadn’t shouted at him more.

‘Is there any CCTV footage from the hotel? Maybe for when Clare arrived and checked in? I’ve been to the hotel lobby and there are cameras all over the place, and also some in the lifts. She must have been filmed by lots of them.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I have copies of all the hotel’s CCTV recordings for that evening. I suppose you want to see them?’

‘You suppose correctly,’ I said. ‘Where are they?’

‘At Charing Cross police station.’

‘Can I come and have a look?’ I asked.

‘I can’t think that it will do any good,’ he said, ‘but, I suppose so.’

‘Later this afternoon?’

‘I’ll be here until about six,’ he said. ‘Come to the main entrance on Agar Street and ask for me.’

I looked at my watch. It was a quarter to one and it would take me a good two hours to get there, especially as I had to go via Cambridge to collect my bag.

And there were a couple of other things I had to do first.

‘I’ll try and be there by five.’

The man from the builder’s arrived soon after one o’clock, followed closely by a woman from the car-hire company with a shiny new navy-blue Honda Civic.

Suddenly I felt I was back in business. I could now leave the cottage secure and also get around.

I left the builder’s man tut-tutting about the state of the door and how he would need to replace some of the framing as well as the lock, which was bent beyond repair, and I drove the Honda out of Newmarket along the Bury Road and into Austin Reynolds’s driveway.

I didn’t bother with his front door, which I assumed would be locked. Instead I drove the Honda down the side of the house to his office, and then simply walked in.

There was racing that Monday at Pontefract in the north, and Windsor in the south, and Austin Reynolds didn’t have any runners at either meeting. I’d checked in the Racing Post when I’d been in Geoff Grubb’s stable office collecting the inventory for the cottage.

And, just to make sure he was at home, I’d earlier called his house and he’d answered, although I’d hung up without speaking.

I hoped he might be in his office and I was right. He was sitting in a leather armchair watching RacingTV’s coverage from Windsor.

‘What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?’ he blustered, standing up. ‘Walking in like this without so much as a “by your leave”?’

‘At least your door was unlocked,’ I said. ‘So I didn’t need to use a sledgehammer.’

That shut him up, and he sat down again.

Austin Reynolds would have made the world’s worst poker player. Every thought and emotion was readable in his face. And he was suddenly scared, shrinking back into the armchair like a small child caught with his hand in the sweetie jar.

I shouted at him. ‘Do you think I’m an idiot or something?’

He shook his head slightly, although I did think that it had been pretty stupid of me to leave the money and the blackmail note in the cottage.

‘Where is it?’ I asked, drawing myself up to my full six foot two inches and purposefully standing over him in a menacing manner.

‘Where is what?’ he asked me back.

‘The blackmail note you took from Clare’s cottage.’

‘I burned it,’ he said with an air of triumph in his voice. ‘In the fireplace in the drawing room, along with the other one.’

I bet he hadn’t burned the money, but I did expect that the envelope had gone the same way. Without the envelope, and the words written on it, the money was meaningless.

‘So what are you going to do now?’ I asked him, reducing my apparent threat by moving away to his right and perching on the corner of his desk.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Are you going to pay?’ I asked.

‘Er... I haven’t decided yet.’

‘Ten thousand is a lot of money,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ he agreed.

‘And you’ve just burned the things I’d hoped to use to catch the bastard.’

‘I have to protect myself first.’ He said it in a way that made me think he had rehearsed that line many times before in his head.

‘By breaking into other people’s houses?’

‘If necessary, yes.’

‘Have you received the payment instructions?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Let me know when you do.’

‘Why should I?’ he asked.

‘Because, if you don’t, we won’t be able to catch him and he’ll simply ask for more next time.’

Austin shivered.

‘And my advice,’ I said, ‘would be not to pay him this time, either.’