Chapter 68
Ernesto, blood streaming from a leg wound, is refusing to scream in pain.
Amy is leading a bewildered-looking Connor Brooks from the bird shelter. Steve had expected him to resist a little more than he is. Perhaps he has good lawyers? Though, if so, why does he look so frightened?
‘Oh, Steve,’ says Ernesto from the forest floor. ‘We could have been such friends. But now? Friends don’t shoot friends.’
‘We’re not friends,’ says Steve. ‘I’ll get you an ambulance though.’
Ernesto nods. ‘Yes, probably best.’
Amy roughly pushes Connor Brooks to the floor, and there they all are.
Steve working out how to ring for an ambulance with one hand on his gun.
His beautiful daughter-in-law, gun aimed at the temple of one of the world’s most dangerous men.
That dangerous man, shrivelling and shivering, and Ernesto, bleeding heavily, but maintaining an air of easy urbanity.
‘You shot Ernesto?’ says Amy. This is absolutely a fair observation in the circumstances. Amy doesn’t yet know what Steve knows. About the photograph.
‘I did,’ agrees Steve.
‘On purpose?’ Amy asks.
‘Of course on purpose,’ says Steve.
‘Well, I never know with you and guns,’ says Amy.
Steve takes umbrage at this. ‘You honestly think I can’t –’
‘Ambulance?’ says Ernesto.
Steve nods, and one-handedly calls 999. ‘Ambulance, please, Brockenhurst, gunshot wound. No, this is a different one. We’re by the RSPB shelter on the edge of Hollands Wood. Yes, he’s still breathing.’
‘Barely,’ says Ernesto.
Steve ends his call. With his gun still pointed at Ernesto, he tilts his head to Brooks. ‘You got anything to say, Mr Brooks?’
Connor Brooks looks at him, and up at Amy. He shakes his head. Not defiant. Scared.
‘There has been some mistake, I think, Steve,’ says Ernesto.
‘I was saying,’ says Amy. ‘Steve, you appear to have shot Ernesto?’
‘Agreed,’ says Steve.
‘I’m assuming you have a reason,’ says Amy.
‘Our hitman,’ says Steve.
‘The guy in the ditch?’ says Amy. ‘Blondie?’
‘One of the many guys in ditches in this little escapade,’ says Steve. ‘When Felicity showed me his picture, I knew I’d seen him before.’
Amy nods, ‘Uh huh. And so you shot Ernesto?’
‘I’m getting to that,’ says Steve. ‘I’ve always been pretty good at remembering faces. I was once watching Deal or No Deal with Debbie –’
‘Steve,’ says Amy. ‘I will shoot you if you don’t hurry up.’
Steve nods. ‘Remind me to tell you that story though. Felicity showed me the picture of the guy who attacked Tony, and I was sure I’d seen him in one of the airport photos. With our friend Connor Brooks.’
Amy digs her gun further into Brooks’s temple.
‘But I kept looking through them all, and he wasn’t there. I mean, it wasn’t super-important, we knew he worked for Brooks, but for my professional pride, you know. I knew I’d seen him. I was taking another look just before I rang you.’
‘This is when Trouble solved a murder?’ asks Amy.
‘He’s a very intuitive cat,’ says Steve. ‘Trouble was sitting on all my airport photos, the ones Ernesto had given us, all printed out. And I didn’t like to move him, even to solve a murder. He’s a cat, you know?’
Steve is surprised to see Connor Brooks give a little nod at that. The first glimpse of any humanity he’d seen in the man’s face.
‘So, I opened the photo Carlos sent us,’ says Steve. ‘In my email.’
‘Carlos?’ says Ernesto.
‘Carlos,’ says Steve. ‘A friend of ours from Border Protection in the States. We sent him to Palm Springs, and he sent us an airport security photo too.’
‘Oh,’ says Ernesto.
‘Yes, oh,’ agrees Steve. ‘The photo was identical to Ernesto’s, except for one key detail. The photo Carlos sent us shows a blond man, standing five or six places behind Brooks in the queue. On Ernesto’s photo there is a column in that exact place.’
‘Ernesto doctored the photo?’ says Amy.
‘Ernesto recognized him too,’ says Steve. ‘Was he on your system somewhere, Ernesto?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Steve,’ says Ernesto. ‘It must have been a software glitch.’
‘So Ernesto recognizes Brooks’s hitman,’ says Amy. ‘And then what?’
‘That’s what we need Ernesto to tell us,’ says Steve.
‘I know that Ernesto recognized the hitman and hid his photograph from us. I know that same hitman was killed shortly afterwards, and I know that someone in Rosie’s house murdered Vern Blackwood.
I suspect that a single bullet with a silencer as Ernesto was closing the cellar door would have done the trick. ’
‘They’re called suppressors,’ says Amy. ‘But that would work.’
‘Oh, come on, Steve,’ says Ernesto. ‘First you shoot me, now you insult me. A proud Spaniard can only take so much.’
‘Now Ernesto might have had good reason to shoot the hitman in the ditch,’ says Steve.
‘Exactly,’ says Ernesto. ‘Not that I did it, but exactly.’
‘But when we got here, and I saw him aiming a gun at an unarmed man, however terrifying that unarmed man might be,’ says Steve, ‘I had to stop him.’
‘I wasn’t going to shoot him, Steve,’ says Ernesto. ‘Jesus, you’ve got the whole thing wrong.’
Steve’s gun drops just a touch. What if he has got this wrong? What if he’s missed something obvious here? A simpler explanation?
‘I don’t know who killed Vern Blackwood,’ says Ernesto. ‘Lee? And maybe this man killed the hitman?’
‘I want to believe you,’ says Steve.
‘Then do,’ says Ernesto. ‘I did things the wrong way, Steve, I kept things to myself. I didn’t trust the right things would get done the right way. It was important for me to catch this man myself. For my career. I should have trusted you.’
Steve turns to the man who can only be Connor Brooks. ‘You really have nothing to say?’
The man looks at the three of them in turn, and then says, in a perfect English accent, ‘I’m supposed … Mr Blackwood always told me I mustn’t speak.’
‘Connor Brooks, I presume?’ says Steve.
The man looks confused. ‘Connor …?’
‘Come on, Connor,’ says Steve. ‘You disappeared in 2001. This “Jakob Eriksson” appeared straight afterwards.’
‘I’m Eric Jacobs,’ says Eric Jacobs.
‘Eric Jacobs?’ says Steve.
He nods quickly. ‘Yes. Formerly of EJ Gardening Services.’
‘You’re not Connor Brooks?’ says Amy.
‘I used to work for Mr Blackwood,’ says Eric. ‘General garden maintenance at first, then replanting, then –’
‘Jakob Eriksson is Eric Jacobs?’ says Amy.
‘Well, I suppose,’ says Eric Jacobs. ‘I have a passport in that name. Travel around whenever I’m told.’
‘Murdering Vern’s rivals?’ says Steve.
‘Murdering?’ says Eric Jacobs. ‘No, just pottering around. Botanical gardens, that sort of thing.’
‘Everywhere you went, someone died,’ says Amy.
‘I really am just a gardener,’ says Eric. ‘Mr Blackwood hired me to pretend to be this Eriksson chap every now and again. I didn’t like to ask why, because I thought perhaps it was a tax thing. I’ve just got used to it over the years.’
‘Who else knew?’ asks Amy. ‘That Eric Jacobs was Jakob Eriksson?’
‘Well, no one, I thought,’ says Eric. ‘Until that man turned up. He knew the whole thing.’
Eric Jacobs points his cuffed hands at Ernesto.
‘He knew?’ asks Steve.
Eric Jacobs nods. ‘I told him, “I’m afraid I’ve rather got in over my head,” and he said, “Well, I can fix that for you.” He offered me money.’
Steve looks at Ernesto, then back at Eric Jacobs. When he doesn’t see him as an international master criminal, Steve realizes he doesn’t look like Death at all. He just looks like an old man. Funny what the brain will do if you tell it a story. The gaps it fills in by itself.
Amy turns to Ernesto. ‘You knew?’
‘A bit,’ says Ernesto. ‘Sure, I knew a bit.’
‘You knew Jakob Eriksson wasn’t real?’ says Steve. ‘And you knew he wasn’t Connor Brooks either?’
‘Recently,’ says Ernesto. ‘I read Vern’s files at the villa. The whole story. Only recently.’
‘What happened to Connor Brooks?’ says Amy. ‘We were told Vern helped him to disappear?’
‘To be fair to Vern, he did make him disappear,’ says Ernesto. ‘It’s all in his files. He killed him, all those years ago. Killed him and took over his business. Created a scary monster called Jakob Eriksson to do all the dirty work.’
Amy can’t quite believe it. ‘So Vern has been running the whole thing for twenty-five years?’
‘Vern was running the more legit side of the business, keeping out of trouble, while Jakob Eriksson was running the dangerous stuff, and killing his rivals …’ says Steve.
‘And all along, Vern and Jakob Eriksson were the same person,’ says Amy.
‘He was his own arch-rival,’ says Steve. ‘He owned the whole lot.’
‘I could add something here,’ says Eric Jacobs. ‘If it would be helpful?’
‘Fire away, Mr Jacobs,’ says Steve.
‘A lot of people think that Howson’s Garden Centres and Trudgmills Garden Centres are bitter rivals,’ says Eric, clearly happy to contribute something. ‘But they’re both owned by the same company. It’s the same thing, isn’t it? It seems to me?’
Steve gives him a ‘thank you’ nod.
‘No wonder he called us in when he found the note from Jakob Eriksson on Esteban’s body,’ says Amy. ‘He was Jakob Eriksson.’
‘Must have wondered if someone had found him out?’ says Steve.
‘Or if Korbin was trying to intimidate him,’ says Amy.
‘Really in a lot of pain,’ says Ernesto.
‘You deserve it,’ says Amy.
‘Yes,’ agrees Ernesto. ‘Is true. Is Rosie okay? Please say she’s okay.’
Steve ignores him. ‘Will you tell us everything, Eric? While our friend goes to hospital?’
Eric seems like he’s looking for someone he can finally trust. ‘You won’t try to kill me?’
‘Kill you?’ says Steve. ‘Of course not. I actually need some help with my marigolds.’
On a service road deep in the forest, they hear the siren of an approaching ambulance.