“One lock gate just disintegrated. Came apart. The other one was ripped out of the lock wall. In fact, a lot of the wall came with it. And all that water, all the water in the mooring basin and in the canal behind – it all surged through, carrying the barge with it.”
“And the lower gates were open.”
I nodded. “The pressure of the water should have pushed them shut. They’re designed that way. But the poor maintenance and the earlier damage prevented that. One side did swing across, restricting the flow, but the Maddy hit it like a thirty foot javelin with the force of all that water behind her. The gate was carried away. Then she grounded on the sill, stuck halfway through and prevented the other gate from closing.”
“And you were just below the lock when this happened.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.”
We walked back again, down the steps and along the path.
“About here.” I stopped and looked round. We were about forty feet from the steps, from where the lock had been.
“There was this noise. This incredible crashing sound. Not just one crash, it went on and on, a tearing and grating… so loud, and it didn’t stop. But it was drowned out by the water rushing through. A roar. That’s what I remember. A crash and a roar.
“I was standing on the bank, holding a line to the raft, and I looked up and saw a huge wave coming towards us. Like a wall of water, muddy brown and frothing. I suppose – I suppose at the time I must have seen the Maddy smashing through the lower gates, but all I can remember – all I ever remembered – was seeing that water coming towards me.
“There was a tree…” I looked around. “Perhaps this one?” I walked over and touched the bark. Some sort of birch? I’m not well informed on trees. “Of course, it was smaller then. But the branches were across the towpath and hanging down near the bank. Just close enough to reach.
“I don’t remember grabbing a branch. I don’t remember grabbing Adi with the other hand. I can’t remember anything of that moment – except how incredibly strong the water was. The wave spread out across the lower basin, so it had lost some of its power when it reached us, but it still dragged me so hard that my arms felt like they were coming out of their sockets. But I hung on. I don’t know how. I just did.
“And it went on and on. So much water… but finally it eased off. And I was standing again, up to my knees in it but standing. I had hold of the branch in one hand, and Adi in the other. He was kneeling in the water, soaking wet of course. He was looking at me… I didn’t understand his look. Why he looked at me like that.
“Then he said, ‘Where’s Davy? Where’s your brother?’”
I stopped then and took some deep breaths. My cheeks were wet. I fumbled out a tissue and wiped my face.
Sam said nothing. Just looked at me, and looked around, and back at me.
“They found him about a mile down the canal. Along with bits of the raft. I…”
After a few minutes of silence, we began to walk back along the path.
“I really don’t remember much about what happened after that. I’m told that when we got back home, it was Adi who did the talking. I was in shock, I suppose. He told them what had happened. My mother… poor woman, she somehow managed to cope with it. For a while. Called the police. The ambulance as well. They took us to hospital for checks, kept me in overnight, I’m told. I don’t remember.
“Adi, though, he managed better. He went home that day. Next day he played in the match. Played a blinder, apparently. Scored a hat-trick, won the game and the cup for his team. There was a scout there from The Vale, and they’d signed him up by the end of the week. He was playing for them when the new season started, and he never looked back.”
We reached the car, got in, and sat in silence for a while before I started the engine and began to reverse out of the parking space.
“What about you, Dad? I mean – a thing like that – how did you cope?”
I put the gear back into neutral and thought about it. “I don’t know. I – we – just did. Somehow. The church was a big help. They supported us a lot. Shared our grief. I don’t remember much about that time, but there was always someone to talk to when we needed to talk and that made a difference.
“That’s when I started writing things. Someone told me to write down what had happened. I did that several times. Then I started writing other things. I tried stories and poems, but I didn’t have the knack for that. So I wrote about things I saw, things that happened around me, and so on.
“Life moved on and we moved on with it. There was the inquest, of course, and the full story came out – all the things that had gone wrong, everything that had contributed to what had happened. That helped as well, in a way, though I don’t know why. Perhaps just understanding it better.
“There was the funeral, of course. Adi came to that. He’d been at the inquest, but the funeral was the first time we’d spoken since it happened. He told me about the match, and his hat-trick, and signing for The Vale. I told him I was glad for him. I suppose I was. Anyhow, I wrote up what he’d told me and showed it to my mum. She showed it to the minister, Rev. Higgins, thinking he might put it in the church magazine. Instead, he sent it in to the local paper.”
“The Echo?”
“The same. They printed it, and that was the biggest thrill of my life. For the first time since the accident, I felt happy, and I knew then what I wanted to do with my life.
“Adi was happy about it as well. He came round to see me, and asked if I was going to write some more about him. Well, of course I was. And we were mates again, just as we always had been. Closer than ever, perhaps.”
I put the car into gear and drove on.
“Did you ever talk about that day?” Sam said, after we’d driven a mile or two and were coming back into town.
I shook my head. “No. We never did.”
Though actually we did once. Only once.
CHAPTER 9
“A draw wouldn’t have been enough. A draw would have put us in the play-offs for promotion, and that’s not something I need to happen just now.”
Adi Varney, post-match interview after scoring the goal that secured promotion to the Premier League for The Vale
“I’ve had a thought,” Sam said as we turned into our street. “Lonza and Fake Adi…”
“Wayland.”
“Yes. Him. And this other man – the Leather Jacket one – they must have had some sort of base, somewhere they were staying while they set this up.”
“I suppose so. I’d assumed that that was the hotel.”
“Could have been. But we were thinking earlier that they might just have been using that to give Wayland some practice at being Adi. Sort of a dry run, let him practise the accent with the locals. So perhaps they had somewhere else?”
We reached the house and I turned into the drive. “Somewhere they could take a body to as well,” I said. “I’ve been wondering about that. You can’t dump a corpse just anywhere. Not without attracting some attention, anyway.”
“Right. And obviously not that office building.”
“No. Too busy, too obvious. And in any case, they arrived there from somewhere else. A car journey away.”
We got out of the car and went round the back of the house.
“Lonza might have other properties – or his company might. I’ll get in touch with Rich Hargreaves. He used to be on The Echo, went on to do research for the BBC business reports. He knows how to find out about things like that.”
I put the key into the door lock, and as I did so, and the door swung open.
“That was careless of me. I thought I’d locked it.”
Sam looked at the door and looked at me. “I thought you had. I’m pretty certain you did.”
“Your mum must have come home early then.” I stepped through the door. “Sandy?” I called. “Are you in?”
“No sir, I don’t think she is.”
A male voice, American accent. I didn’t recognize it
.
Entering through our back door brings you into a utility area, with a washing machine and tumble dryer. On the right, it opens out into the kitchen. No door, so nothing to stop us seeing the man sitting at our kitchen table, like a neighbour who’d dropped round for a cuppa. Except that instead of one of our bright and cheerful mugs, he was holding a large black pistol. Decidedly not cheerful, especially as it was pointed at me, with nothing to stop him seeing me either.
“Please step inside, sir,” he said into the silence our shock had left. “Both of you, if you don’t mind.”
He had that polite but firm tone of voice often used by the police when giving orders to members of the public. The pistol gave some extra authority to it. We obeyed. In a distant part of my mind I heard Brodie whining in the other room, upset at being left out of the proceedings, and found time to be relieved that he seemed unhurt. He wasn’t much good as a guard dog, though.
I finally found my voice. “Who the…”
He waved the gun. “I’m sorry, sir. No questions. This is what’s going to happen. You will place your mobiles on the table here. And then you are going to go back out of the door. I will be with you. The pistol will be concealed, since we don’t wish to trouble your neighbours, but it will still be pointing at you. You will get back in your car. Front seats. I will get in the back. You will drive off. I will direct you. Is that clear to you both?”
Sam and I looked at each other. There wasn’t much room for discussion.
“Yes,” I said. Sam nodded.
“Good. Please understand that I do not wish to cause you any harm, but neither will I hesitate to use this weapon if necessary. So let’s stay calm, take things nice and easy, OK?”
He stood up, and came round the table towards us. A tall, broad-shouldered young man in a dark coat. Light brown hair, close-cropped in a military style, over a square face and an expression of earnest sincerity that clashed somewhat with the pistol. He looked like someone who was very keen to do us the favour of not shooting us.
“Your mobiles, please?”
He dumped them into a kitchen drawer. The pistol and his hand disappeared into his coat pocket, though I had no doubt that he was keeping his promise to point it in our direction. He was very believable.
Back into the car, just as he had instructed, and we were reversing out of the drive while I was still struggling to grasp that we’d been kidnapped. The facts were clear enough, but the relevant emotions were taking time to catch up. Shock does that, I suppose.
At his direction we drove for about a mile, before pulling into a large car park behind a pub. The pub I recognized as the Huntsman”, an old pile of red brick that had closed down the previous month. The car park was almost deserted, apart from a small collection of supermarket trolleys that had been dumped there, and a black van parked in the far corner under some trees.
We drove over to it.
“Please exit your vehicle, sir, lock it, and put the keys on the roof.” We complied, and he motioned us back with a wave of the pistol while he collected them.
“Now step over to the rear door of the van.” He pulled out his own keys as we did so, and unlocked the doors remotely.
“Open the door and climb in.” He watched as we did so, the pistol once again clearly in sight and not wavering from us. “I would advise that you sit down, for your own safety. We’ll be travelling a spell.”
The interior was short on amenities. No seats, for example. No windows – not even looking into the cab. And no light, we discovered, as the door slammed shut behind us.
The cab door opened, then closed, and the engine started.
“I don’t suppose there’s any point in trying the door,” I said into the darkness. “It’ll be locked.”
“There’s not even a handle on the inside.”
“You noticed that? I didn’t even think to look.”
“Getting out was the first thing I thought of. But it doesn’t seem likely to happen just yet.”
The van reversed, turning as it did so. On the bare metal, even a low-speed manoeuvre sent us sliding across the floor. It was going to be a very uncomfortable journey, I realized.
That was confirmed as the van moved forward, then turned out of the car park, sending us bumping into the walls and each other.
“Sorry, Sam.”
“Not your fault, Dad.”
“I mean for getting you into this.”
“Not your fault either. We didn’t go looking for this – it came to us!”
The van braked quite sharply, bashing us into the front bulkhead. I grunted, and Sam used a word I’m sure he never learned from us.
I used a few choice words myself during that journey. My watch – fortunately illuminated – told us the trip lasted about half an hour, but it felt longer. When we finally stopped and the doors opened again, I felt bruised, sick, and disorientated. Perhaps that was the intention. Either way, I also suffered from loss of dignity because I needed Sam’s help to climb out again.
We were standing in an enclosed yard, with high brick walls all round and a closed wooden gateway, so no clues as to where we were. Our chauffeur stood off to the side, pistol in hand, watching dispassionately as we stood blinking in the sunlight.
When he was satisfied that we could manage to walk and see where we were going, he motioned towards a door.
“Enter the building, sir.”
The door was a blank sheet of unpainted wood, flanked by boarded windows. It didn’t look like somewhere we wanted to enter.
“Now.” The gun was raised, pointed in our direction. Just a reminder.
Sam pushed open the door and we went inside.
There was a long corridor, dimly lit, with grimy walls, and broken black and white tiles underfoot.
“Straight down to the end, and through the door.”
Another wooden door, but this one had a bit more class. Varnished oak, it looked like – peeling, but still solid. With a brass handle that could use some polish. It was again Sam who opened it, and we went through into a large old-fashioned sitting room. Large, but so over-furnished that it felt cramped. Big sofas and armchairs, small tables, and several chests of drawers, all ornate but shabby and smelling of dust and old fabric. Dull brass ornaments covered the top surfaces, dark oil paintings of severe gentlemen and gloomy landscapes covered the walls.
It gave the impression of a well-stocked but abandoned antique shop. The tall windows on the far wall had their curtains drawn, which made the room dim in spite of the bright sunlight outside, and amid the clutter I failed at first to see the man sitting over to one side.
But I knew his voice at once.
“Hello again, Graham. Been a while, hasn’t it?”
I turned to the sound.
“Adi? Adi?”
“Oh, yes. It certainly is.”
As my eyes adjusted, I made him out more clearly. He was sitting back on one of the sofas, regarding me with the expression of sly amusement that he had always greeted me with. He had shaved his moustache and grown his hair out longer; he was not, of course, wearing his trademark jacket and the stick he cradled in his hands was plain wood, without the brass handle he had preferred.
“And this is your lad Sam, isn’t it?” Adi continued. “Well, you’ve grown up a bit, haven’t you? Hear you’ve been travelling around a bit.”
Sam shrugged. “I had itchy feet. How are you, Uncle Adi?”
Adi laughed. Adi’s laugh always had a particular richness to it that made it stand out from other laughs. He could be laughing with you or at you, but you always wanted to join in with him.
“Well, I’m not too bad at the moment, Sam, thanks for asking. Been better, perhaps, but certainly been worse. And much better for seeing your dad again.”
I was in shock, I think. Part of me was standing back, open-mouthed, listening to this conversation with my old pal who’d just had us kidnapped at gunpoint.
The other part, which was just going with the flow, said, “And
I’m glad to see you, Adi! Where on earth have you been all this time? We’d completely lost track of you!”
Then the more rational segment of my psyche took control of my mouth, and I added, “But if you were so keen to see me, why the heck couldn’t you just come round the house? Or phone me up and tell me where to meet you, if that was too much trouble.” I nodded at the kidnapper. “What’s all this about, eh?”
“Ah, yes.” Adi shook his head. “I am sorry about that. But believe me, it was necessary. I did tell my associate to avoid hurting you, but I’m having to be very careful about people knowing I’m here.” He waved at a seat. “You don’t have to stand there looking like a wet weekend, Graham. Sit down, for goodness’ sake. Sorry I can’t offer you much in the way of refreshments, but Casey makes a decent cup of coffee. Oh, apologies, I’ve forgotten the proper British way of doing things. Introductions first, eh? Graham, Sam – this is Casey; Casey, this is my oldest and best friend, Graham, and his son Sam.”
Casey inclined his head in our direction. The pistol was no longer visible, but I doubted it was far away.
“We have met,” I told him. “Sort of. He was making himself at home in our kitchen. Him and his gun.” I took the offered seat and Sam sat next to me.
“Like I said, I’m sorry about that.” Adi sounded impatient. He didn’t like going back over things he considered dealt with. “Casey was acting on my instructions. I needed to get you here quickly and quietly, and that was the best way to do it. I couldn’t risk a phone call. I can’t risk being seen and perhaps recognized – and as you know, there’s a lot of people who might recognize me. Any word that I’m here would get around, and that is not something I need to happen just now.”
Somehow, it was the phrasing that struck me before the words. “Not something I need to happen” was a use of words as much part of the Adi Varney legend as the jacket had been. It had regularly come out in team briefings, in numerous interviews and private conversations. And somewhere inside of me, something that I hadn’t been aware of relaxed and acknowledged that this really was Adi.
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