by Adam Melrose
‘Yeah… I seriously hope not,’ said Bruno.
‘I know what you are both thinking, but whatever is in here is hard like rock, so I think we will be OK.’
Max had now nearly completed his cut; the age of the gloves and the time they had been lying outside meant they had no fight left to give, and they succumbed to the knife instantaneously.
Before going any further, Max reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of disposable gloves and put them on.
‘I think this might be a wise move.’
He slowly emptied the contents onto the tray; they consisted of a small lump of earth, a small rock and what looked like clear plastic that someone had drawn or written on.
‘What the hell…’
Everyone moved in for a closer look. No one was quite sure what they were looking at. Matt suddenly announced he was getting a tension headache, and was going to go out for a wander in the hotel grounds, and needed a few minutes to shake it before it took hold and lasted all day. He passed a quiet twenty minutes walking around the lake, the light summer breeze helping to clear his headache and relax him whilst he did his breathing exercises. Turning around and walking back, he heard a voice.
‘Hello.’
Matt swung round to see the familiar face of Mark coming out of a side path pushing a barrow full of earth.
‘Hi Mark, busy day?’
‘Yeah, we are clearing out a ditch and have to move all the soil by barrow. It’s hard work.’
Something drew Matt’s attention to Mark’s arms, he was wearing a short sleeved t-shirt and his arm muscles were tense with the weight of the barrow. The moment Matt noticed his upper arms, a flash of realisation dawned in his mind. He had to get back to the Operations Room quickly.
‘Sorry Mark, I’ve just realised something important relating to work, would you excuse me, I need to get back to the hotel.’
Mark nodded, ‘Of course no worries.’
Matt walked back to the hotel and up to their rooms. When he entered the Operations Room again, he went straight to one of the hotel phones dotted around the room, and called down to reception.
‘Housekeeping please.’
Having made his call, Matt returned to the gloves and their contents. The others joined him, having waited for his return before doing anything else.
Norton leant in even closer, ‘That is the most random assortment of stuff I have ever seen. What is it, some kids, a pretend treasure map?’
Matt shook his head.
‘No, it’s certainly not that. Besides, I don’t think any parent in their right mind would let their children play near The Portal.
There was a knock at the door, Matt went to answer it.
‘Hi, come on in. Thank you very much for coming up. Ah you have it, great, thanks.’
The girl was one they had met in the car park who had told them were Pete worked. She gave Matt a sheet of paper. He came over to the table where they all were.
‘Max, can you try and unfold one of these plastic sheets of paper as best you can, and cut it down one side, then spread it out flat; if I’m right it will be OK.’
Max did as he was asked. Matt grabbed himself a magnifying glass from their mobile office toolkit. He came back and carefully laid the sheet of paper he had been handed close to the clear plastic. He then lent forward and compared the two.
‘I thought so.’
Ava stood up straight, ‘What?’
‘I know what this clear plastic stuff is.’
‘A cry for help?’
Matt handed Ava the magnifying glass, ‘What do you see?’
She took the magnifying glass and examined the piece of paper, then the clear plastic.
‘Ah, I see what you mean.’
Norton’s voice was impatient.
‘What… what does he mean, what is that sheet of paper that has just been brought in?’
‘That sheet of paper is one of the photographs from the staff break room in the old pub. It’s the one showing Pete with his Tattoos.’
‘And they’re a match. These plastic sheets with drawings are actually a set of fresh replacement tattoos, just like Mark told us about when we met him.’
‘OK,’ said Norton, ‘I can accept that, but what’s with the rock and the earth?’
‘Well for starters, that’s not earth, well not technically I guess. It would probably be better to describe that as a sedimentary material. It’s peat…’
Matt was about to continue, but was interrupted by Norton.
‘…And if that’s peat, and another word for rock is stone, suddenly we really do have one coincidence too many.’
‘Exactly, and the scales have firmly tipped in one direction.’
Matt turned to the woman who had been kind enough to bring up the photo.
‘Thank you very much indeed for bringing this. I would keep it safe for now; the police might want to see it.’
The woman left the room.
Chapter 18
Moments later, Matt had wheeled the white board back out of the cupboard now they were alone again. Everyone was seated facing the board.
‘I don’t know about the rest of you, but that is one coincidence too many for my liking. I know we still have no proof of anything, the case is still closed and all that, but I am now firmly of the opinion that we are actually dealing with foul play. There are too many pieces now that simply don’t fit with the accidental death narrative. Just because we can’t yet see how they all fit together, doesn’t mean they don’t.’
Joe was the first with a question.
‘So, you think this was Pete asking for help then?’
‘I do, yes. From the various reports we have access to courtesy of Bella, we know Pete had no phone on him, and to date his phone has never been found and handed in. So probably he had no way of communicating. We know he is resourceful and ex-forces. Again from the reports, we know he had no car with him. So if he was trapped and thought he was going to die, he would at least try and leave a clue. It’s what we would all do when faced with no other options right?’
No one objected, so Matt continued.
‘Right, so he can only work with what he has to hand. Joe, empty your pockets onto the table.’
Joe did as he was asked.
‘What’s the first thing you have pulled out?’
‘A pair of latex gloves.’
‘Exactly, we all have them when we are working; many people do in these modern times. It is certainly no leap, to imagine Pete did. Also, we know for a fact from Mark that Pete carried an extra pair of replacement tattoos, which are also present. And then there is the stone and the peat.’
Max was next to speak.
‘The only thing is, where did Pete get hold of any peat from? That can’t be easy to get hold of in Gloucestershire at this time of year, not readily at least.’
Matt looked a little sheepish.
‘Well yes and no. I should have said something before, but I have seen a stack of peat already since we have been here, it was at Nalebury Park around the back. We know from old Fred that he had seen Pete around in the grounds, what if he had helped move it. It’s not a great leap of faith to assume some ended up in his pocket.’
‘So that places Pete at Nalebury. I think it’s time we dig into Mr Evelyn de Varley in much more detail.
Random acts of vandalism with no obvious benefit at a scene where the deceased was discovered, glued padlocks and gloves spelling out the name of the subject of their investigation when put together were beginning to spell out a very strong case for an alternative solution to the mystery of Pete Stone’s death.
‘OK,’ said Matt, ‘The next question is, what do we tell Bella?’
Max felt he should take the lead on this one.
‘We tell her the truth; we keep nothing from her. That’s our only option. She is strong. We have been asked by our client to uncover the truth as much as we can, so I say that is what we do. We tell her, in such terms that make her awar
e what each step is, so she understands the difference between theorising and proving in legal terms for a case like this. Most importantly, we make her aware there is still no proof of anything, just too many coincidences and that is what we are looking into.’
Joe offered a thought.
‘I think it would be a good idea to talk to Mark again. He might be prepared to offer some more detailed insight into who Pete was work-wise. That might help us work out what he was doing up here and point us in the right direction.’
Matt cleared some of the superfluous notes off the white board and wrote down the two main tasks for the rest of the day. Speak to Mark and speak to Bella and update her.
Then he spoke.
‘Max, you and I and Ava will talk to Bella to update her and make a plan. Joe, Norton and Bruno, can you track down Mark, and ask if he will share anything about Pete that might point us in the right direction of what he did for work up here. I think it was way more than a security job. There are too many smoke and mirror antics for whatever he was doing work-wise to be straightforward.’
Joe, Norton and Bruno left the room in search of Mark and decided to first try the old pub. Meanwhile Max, Matt and Ava worked out what to tell Bella.
Matt outlined his plan.
‘I think we should still play this investigation two days at a time maximum. We have made some inroads, but we still have nothing – well nothing concrete if you’ll pardon the pun. We tell Bella that we have some avenues to explore but – well I’m sorry Max, I don’t think we should tell her any specifics. We still can’t be totally sure why she has lied to us and she has appeared here without warning. I don’t want her turning up at The Portal and putting herself, or us in danger if we tell her about it.’
Max nodded, ‘Good plan.’
Ava was taking notes and adding to the progress report, but instinctively nodded her head in agreement also. She trusted Max’s intuition that Bella was a good sort, but equally, she understood the anguish Bella was feeling, and knew just how far off course it could take a person who was in this much grief; she thought Matt was right to exorcise caution where Bella was concerned.
They updated Bella on the fact the case was progressing, and that they had a couple of potential leads to follow up. They confirmed that she was happy for them to progress and report when they had more findings or in two days’ time, even if there were no further developments; and they would go from there.
The others had managed to track Mark down. It was his day off and he was down the road, enjoying a pint in the beer garden of a local pub. The pub in question was only a few minutes down away, and they were there in no time.
Joe sat back in his chair and turned towards Mark.
‘We appreciate you can’t talk about what you and Pete did in your army days, but you mentioned that when you were all done Pete went off to work on a hydroelectric dam. Can you tell us anything about that? Bella seems to know nothing.’
Mark took a long drink from his pint, held it up towards the sun, and lowering the glass to the table nodded a thank you for the pint.
‘I’ll tell you everything I know, but there is not very much I’m afraid. He got a job working on a very large dam construction somewhere in Germany, I think it was. He has had a beer with a work colleague from that German dam project here at the hotel. I saw them a couple of times, said hello, and Pete introduced me to him, saying they had worked together there.’
‘I don’t suppose you remember this man’s name by any chance?’
Mark gave it a few moments thought, ‘Jeff… Jeff Pyke.’
‘Brilliant, thanks.’
Bruno was taking notes on his tablet, ‘What was his job there; was it site security?’
‘Good God no, Pete was a highly qualified engineer, heavy engineering and construction of things like dams and tunnels for roads and railways; that was his line as well as his military background. His degree was either in civil engineering or structural engineering. I forget where from though. I must admit, I thought it odd that Pete appeared to be doing a security job given his skill set, but guessed he had his reasons for doing it. Like I said previously, he said best not to ask so I didn’t. That said though, I do remember that he said he undertook corporate security work from time to time in the past when engineering work was not available, if that is what you meant; but more along your line of investigations, rather than guarding a site against intruders.’
Joe’s face registered a flash of inspiration.
‘He was a structural engineer working on the construction of a vast hydroelectric dam?’
Mark nodded.
‘So he would know about specialist concrete then, and probably be in close proximity to it for some of the time?’
Bruno and Norton looked at each other.
Mark looked at them both.
‘I guess so Joe, I have never worked on a site like that so I wouldn’t know for sure. Why do you ask?’
‘We’re just trying to find out what Pete was doing up here work-wise. We don’t think it was just site security either.’
Mark stared down at the floor.
‘No, I suspect not. If his job had been simple security, he would have told me as much; there would have been no reason to swerve the question. I probably should have pushed him a bit further, I might have managed to help more.’
Without looking up Joe added.
‘I think you have already helped him to be honest.’
Mark looked up from his pint.
‘I don’t really see how my saying what little I have will help in finding Pete’s killer. That was a while ago. Also, there are no big heavy engineering projects around here.’
‘Not current ones, no,’ remarked Bruno.
Mark looked towards Bruno, he was clearly thinking for a moment before speaking.
‘The only large scale engineering project around here that I have heard speak of was the renovation of the old canal tunnel; but that’s been derelict for years and years, and the project never came to fruition from what I understand. I’m not surprised, the restoration costs would be insane.’
‘No, I agree in principle,’ said Bruno, ‘Though we have been there for a look, there is something going on there, it’s certainly not abandoned; I think the renovation project may actually have been underway for quite some time, and that Pete was involved somehow. There are a couple of things pointing us in that direction at the moment, and we don’t have anything else, so will have to go with that for now.’
Mark looked surprised.
‘Why the hell would anyone want to waste millions on renovating an old canal tunnel, there would be no commercial benefit.’
Bruno gave a nod, ‘That’s something we are going to look into, but for now, we have no more idea than anyone else.’
Mark said nothing; instead, he finished off the rest of his pint.
The conversation turned to small talk once more briefly before Bruno, Joe and Norton headed back to their Operations Room, leaving Mark where they had found him; enjoying his well-earned day off.
Chapter 19
Once again, they were back in the Operations Room. Ava had looked up the name Alastor online and found the only thing that came back as a name, other than for an animal was as that of a demon; specifically, one concerned with exacting retribution. She explained the other meaning was that of a baddie or scoundrel in ancient Greek, and lastly – it was the name given to one of the four horses that belonged to Hades. They had all given the matter of Alastor further consideration, and the consensus for now was that until there was evidence to the contrary, he would be viewed as a harmless old eccentric. Every member of the team had grown up in the British countryside and knew such characters to be relatively commonplace.
Matt noticed that Ava looked anxious.
‘Are you OK?’
‘I am thanks. But I think we need to take all this demon business seriously.’
Norton let out a loud laugh.
‘You think we should take
demons seriously?’
Ava’s nostrils flared and she stared at Norton.
‘No, I don’t think we should take demons seriously, but I do think we should pay attention and respect how seriously the locals might take them.
Matt gave Norton a look that made it clear he was unhappy with his behaviour.
‘Go on Ava, explain what you mean.’
‘It’s just that we are still dealing with a pretty ancient place. I think that sort of history demands respect. Especially given there have been a lot of deaths up there. We know about the ones when the place was built, and if Alastor is correct then there have been even more deaths recently.’
Norton gave a small shake of the head.
‘So what – you’re saying there is something sinister up there and we need to be careful?”
‘No, that’s not what I am saying. What I am saying is the place is steeped in history and associated with an abnormally high percentage of deaths. Factors like those feature very strongly in the psyches of the people living in close proximity to such places. It becomes part of their folklore – their narrative, and can have a noticeable psychological effect. That’s all I am saying. It is important to respect the beliefs and values of the community you’re based in, even if you are only there on a temporary basis. If you just trample all over everything – there will be consequences. That is what I am talking about – not spooks and the supernatural, but simple human nature in terms of the collective unconscious. We ignore that at our peril.’
‘Thanks Ava,’ said Matt, ‘That’s good advice and we shall all heed it. We don’t need any more problems than we already have trying to get to the bottom of this case.’
Matt was swiping through his tablet and took a moment to think before continuing.
‘Right, so on top of what we already know; I see from Bruno’s meeting notes, that Mark says Pete was a highly specialist engineer, and that although he had done corporate security investigations in the past, it is very unlikely that he was doing a site guarding security job. I think our next focus needs to be on Evelyn de Varley and this Shadow Tide phenomena that Alastor character was on about. Norton, you and I will investigate de Varley, as I have an idea of who might be able to help; Joe Ava Bruno and Max, can you guys investigate the Shadow Tide subject, that would be great. Then in a couple of hours’ time, we can all meet up and go from there.’