Where There's A Will

Chapter Sixty-Four

A step ahead of his partner, Stone entered DCI Collins' office, where he was glad to be waved straight to a chair. He sank gratefully onto the first one he came to while Burke took the other – they were both exhausted after a very long night, which they had only survived thanks to a constant supply of coffee made by Burke to his exacting standards; exhausted, but happy now that the investigation into Alice Keating's kidnapping was over, at least as far as they were concerned. All that was left was for the forensic investigators to come up with the necessary corroborating evidence to ensure convictions.

"Coffee?" Collins asked of his detectives, a question that told them he was very happy with them and the work they had done. He only offered drinks to his subordinates when they had pleased him, and that only happened when they solved a particularly tricky case, and did so quickly, or did something else that boosted his reputation with regional headquarters.

"No, thank you, sir," Stone said with a quick shake of his head. "I've had so much coffee in the last twelve hours, if I have any more I'll either burst or float away. I don't think I could bear to even look at another cup of coffee right now." Next to him, Burke nodded in agreement.

"Fair enough." Collins gave an indifferent shrug and settled into his chair. "How's Miss Keating?" he asked, getting down to business.

"She's going to be alright," Stone answered. Thanks to the painkillers he had taken not long before, he was troubled by no more than a dull ache from his ribs and his shoulder; he was glad about that, but looking forward to finishing up and going home so he could rest, for a considerable amount of time – not that he thought that was likely to happen, given he had two children, one of whom was ill. "All of her injuries are minor, mostly just scrapes and bruises from being handled roughly; her most serious injuries are the scratch where she was shot, that might leave a faint scar, though the doctor hopes to be able to avoid that, and her feet – she cut them up quite badly by running barefoot from the farmhouse. She's going to be kept in today for observation, she's suffering from mild shock." In his opinion, Alice was taking what she had been through a hell of a lot better than he would have, had he been in her place. "But should be okay to go home tomorrow."

"That's good, though I saw in the paper this morning that someone has already leaked the fact that Alice Keating was shot at, and that her brother is under arrest for trying to kill one of her kidnappers." Collins was not pleased that the press and television news knew so much about things that should have been known only to the police and the Keating family; the only positive he could find in the situation was that Stone's suspicion about Ryan Keating's motives hadn't leaked – if it had, it would have been disastrous, especially while it was unproven. "I don't suppose you have any idea who's responsible for the leak, do you?" he asked hopefully.

Stone wished he did know, he had a strong dislike of people who leaked information to the press, a dislike that was exacerbated when the person responsible for a leak was a police officer, as he suspected was the case on that occasion. "No idea right now, but I intend finding out."

"I'm glad to hear it. Now, what's the situation with Ryan Keating? So far this morning, I've had the superintendent on the phone, and I've had to field calls from just about every newspaper and news program you can think of. Do you know yet why he tried to kill Constable Flowers, and his sister's kidnapper? I know you have your suspicions, but have you got a definite motive for his actions yet?"

"Yes, sir." Stone was pleased to be able to answer the question. "He isn't speaking at the moment, not about his reasons for doing what he did anyway; he's been very vocal about just about everything else, from the poor treatment he's receiving, to his legal representation – his father is very unhappy with him, and has made it clear that he's not paying for the family lawyer to help him, so he's been forced to make do with a duty solicitor, whose best advice seems to have been for Ryan to say nothing, especially when it comes to what he was arrested for. Keeping him quiet on any other subject seems to be difficult.

"Fortunately, we don't need him to confess."

Collins looked quizzically at his subordinate and Stone's amused expression grew.

"His partners are falling over themselves to pin the blame on Keating," Stone explained. "Lewis Rice, whom Ryan tried to smother last night, is willing to tell us everything we want to know without conditions, he seems to be suffering an attack of conscience over the kidnapping. Callum Marshall, AKA Crash, on the other hand wants to make a deal - he has a record, he's done time on three occasions, so he knows he's looking at a very harsh sentence for this.

"To begin with, he was asking for immunity from prosecution for what he knows. When he heard that we already had Ryan Keating in custody, and Lewis Rice was singing, he changed his tune; now he's saying he'll testify against Keating in return for us going easy on him."

"So you were right, Keating tried to kill his sister's kidnappers to cover up the fact that he was behind it."

"Yes, sir." Stone nodded, though he evidenced no pleasure in having been proved right.

Collins was silent for a few moments, his expression thoughtful, finally he asked, "Have you been able to find out what motivated Keating to kidnap his sister? I can't see what he'd gain from it."

"A lot sir," Burke answered a heartbeat ahead of his superior. "Upwards of a hundred million pounds."

Stone immediately stepped in to answer the unasked question on the DCI's face. "Owen Keating was on the verge of writing his son out of his will – Ryan's caused a lot of trouble, not to mention public embarrassment, for his father – Ryan knew that, and figured the only way to protect his inheritance was to get rid of his sister. Obviously, Ryan hasn't confirmed any of this, but based on what Lewis Rice and Callum Marshall have told us, Ryan's plan was to kidnap his sister, and to have her killed once the ransom was paid. Callum was to kill Alice, and he was to get half the ransom in payment, he was also to kill Lewis Rice because he was a weak link they wanted rid of."

"What went wrong? Clearly something did, because Mr Rice was shot, Alice escaped, and Mr Marshall got run down, when he should have been collecting the ransom. Not that I'm complaining, obviously, since things turned out for the best."

Stone had to stifle a yawn, which he was only partially successful in doing, before he could answer that. "Rice overheard a conversation Marshall had with Ryan Keating on the phone, he couldn't hear it all, but he heard enough to conclude that Marshall had orders to kill both him and Alice – I'm not sure which he was most upset by – and he decided that he had to save her. Kidnapping was bad enough, it seems; he didn't want to be involved in murder. I don't suppose he wanted to be killed either.

"When Marshall announced that he was taking Alice with him to collect the ransom, Rice decided he had to make his move; he fought with Marshall and got himself shot, while Alice ran from the farmhouse. Marshall chased after Alice then, and tried to shoot her before he was hit by John Wilson's car." Next to him, Burke yawned, his mouth stretching into a cavernous black hole, and that set Stone off, in moments it was like they were in a competition to see who could yawn the widest.

"Alright, I can take a hint," Collins said, watching his detectives yawn, one after the other. "Both of you are off duty as of right now. I want you to go home and get some rest, especially you, Nathan – I don't want to see you until the doctor has cleared you for duty. Don't worry, I'll finish things off on the Keating case," he assured his subordinate, who was certain he would also make sure to take as much of the credit for the case's successful conclusion as he could.

"Thank you, sir." Stone was grateful for the opportunity to recover from his injuries, and not bothered about losing out on the credit, and quickly got to his feet so he could leave the office before anything new could come up.