Ghosts from the Past

by Sally Spedding

  I’d normally have picked up on the irony, but not today.

  “I believe that same woman works there,” I said, sounding like some school kid keen to impress the teacher. “According to Laure Deschamps, she seemed to know a lot about her family and Vervain.”

  “Did she indeed?” I sensed he was writing it all down.

  “Now I’d like some info.”

  “What about?”

  “I feel I can ask you. It’s pretty crucial.”

  “What is?”

  “Do either of these two thieves have form? I can soon find out…”

  The line went quiet. Had DC Williams been called away all of a sudden? Got cold feet for some reason? I didn’t have time to waste, so dialled Coed Glas Hotel and waited.

  “Yes?”

  Hardly the tone of a keen hotelier. Lesley Shawcross was clearly pissed off.

  “It’s me, John Lyon,” I said, then apologized for not needing my cottage’s room again after all, and wanting to settle up.

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ve had enough of struggling on my own against savages. This place is going on the market first thing next week.”

  “I though you were having more security cameras installed?”

  “What’s the point?”

  “I’m really sorry, but I do need to pay.”

  “Been done. Miss McConnell settled up before she left.”

  She’d never said…

  *

  Having cleared the trailer’s straw from the shower outlet, I borrowed a pair of boxer shorts, socks and a few clothes from Alain Deschamps’ bedroom. Explanations could come later. So, the Daks slacks weren’t my scene, nor the beige, Coq Sportif fine-knit jumper, but at least I wasn’t going to start a new day stinking of that transporter’s floor, and at least both criminals had kindly ignored my leaving-present watch.

  Just then it represented why I’d joined the Force in the first place. My missing phone was a real bind - there being saved calls between me and Alison, for a start. I needed a replacement pronto, also to get the outside line re-connected. Perhaps Cardigan HQ could help out again, given this was a now a crime scene. I should have asked DC Williams when I’d had the chance, but that omission said it all. Maybe that dodgy farrier could cast some light as to who might have severed the vital wire and removed the house keys. Why too, Vervain had been taken and Danny Lennox shot dead.

  *

  I ignored the mirror over the kitchen sink and, having given my leather jacket another wipe-down, and inserted my feet into DC Eifion Evans’s less than new walking boots, I went to find Laure who’d threatened to disable me some more if I told her Papa she was safe. She’d wanted him to suffer.

  But no Laure anywhere, and Ty Capel was way too quiet.

  I headed for the back door where the northerly wind almost knocked me off the step. By some miracle, my ankles were giving me less pain than in a long time, letting me quicken my pace. I glanced round the yard, half expecting to see a small, bedraggled boy still in school uniform coming home for breakfast, and Vervain’s fine, grey head sticking out from his box, but no. Just the occasional thud coming from those still-occupied quarters and a posse of seagulls overhead making for the feed store. I listened hard. Something was wrong and, sure enough, above this din and the ear-slamming wind came sounds that made me quicken my step towards my planned first port of call.

  A scream. Definitely. Then another, coming from Gilles Dugard’s static caravan now in full view. Both sets of shabby curtains drawn tight together, and from a stained outlet in the Pioneer’s side, spurted burst of yellow water. Next to it stood his equally neglected white Toyota with its Eure et Loire plate.

  Laure?

  Was it the wild wind rocking the long crate on its rusted struts, or worse? I thumped the lightweight door and for an instant, the screaming stopped.

  “Open up!” I yelled, looking around for something useful to keep my right-hand company. “Police!”

  That did the trick. The door nudged away from its frame, enough for me to pull the thing open enough to get myself inside.

  Hangover Hotel.

  Beer and fags, thick as the fug in the Lacemakers’Arms at the end of a Saturday night. They weren’t expecting me, that was obvious. I saw the knife first. The kind the farrier used yesterday for trimming hooves. Its point puckering the skin of his neck. One false move and two lives would be over. She wore her waxed riding coat over pyjamas stuffed into Wellington boots. Her hair spiked up like an angry thistle. Her fearsome expression didn’t alter, even when she’d briefly registered my borrowed clothes.

  “Laure? Listen to me,” I said. “Put that down. We won’t get answers that way. Besides, do you want to get done for assault? He’s not worth it.”

  “I’m waiting for him to tell me exactly where my horse is. He fucking knows.” She turned to me, white rage again lighting her eyes.

  “I’d answer if I were you,” I said to the ex-con, waiting for the smallest slackening of her grip. “Unless you fancy another long stretch in the slammer to add to your CV.” I was also keen to see if his story might tie in with what I’d overheard in the truck.

  The bleary-eyed boozer had to grip the crowded table’s edge to support himself. Tee shirt and jogging bottoms hanging off his rangy frame. His brown hair that matched his plentiful stubble had fallen over his eyebrows but didn’t disguise his fear.

  “France, OK?” He said, his voice thick. Very French, bringing back more unwelcome memories of that often stunning country. I wasn’t going to mention what the couple in that stinkhole’s cab had revealed. Play along, I told myself. Let him feel he’s in charge…

  “Where in France? It’s a big place.”

  Laure positioned herself closer. Still in full control. Her grip on the knife handle if anything, even firmer. “I’ll count to five,” she warned. “After that, we’ll be seeing a nice big waterfall of blood. Un… deux…”

  I had the two-way, but to use it now could bring disaster.

  “Les Tourels.”

  “Liar!” The knife wobbled before hitting the floor. I was on it, flinging it far out into the yard.

  “Ask her, your loving, caring Tante Elisabeth who’ll drop her Christian Dior thong for anyone…”

  If shock could be measured on the Richter Scale, Laure’s made nine.

  “Why?” I said as Dugard slumped down on the fag-burnt banquette, legs splayed.

  “She’s une biche folle. Try Monsieur Deschamps.”

  I held Laure’s arm and pulled her back to my side as the caravan juddered in a sudden gust of wind. An overflowing ashtray slid along the cheap, veneered table and fell to the floor. Its contents hardly making any difference to the rubbish already covering the equally cheap carpet.

  “I’m more interested in you at the moment, Monsieur Dugard,” I began. “And I’m sure you realise that withholding relevant information is punishable in law. Is there anything else you could can add as to why this theft has happened?”

  “Just obeying orders.”

  Laure snorted her disdain. I took a punt.

  “Like Himmler and all the rest? I see,” I said. “And paid to lure me out of the house as well?”

  The slightest nod.

  “Who from?”

  “Never you mind. And for cutting the phone line which I kept refusing to do…”

  I sensed my pulse reaching fifth gear.

  “I said, who’s paying?” And then recalled that cryptic call to the transporter’s cab.

  No reply.

  So, I relayed what little of the conversation I’d overheard. “Could it be our thong lady?”

  “Let me go!” The teenager tried to wriggle free. Strong and determined as a young horse. I didn’t dare loosen my grip on her. Not with Dugard just lying there. I managed to check my watch.

  “The police are due any moment,” I said to him. “Time for you to have another think. And if there’s anything you can add about Mathieu’s disappearance and Danny Lennox’s murder,
you have to say.”

  “Didn’t you know?” His eyes swivelled in my direction then at Laure who’d stopped fighting me.

  “I don’t do riddles,” I said, seeing her face drain of colour.

  “You never noticed how close those two were? Laure and Danny. Come on, detective. Use your brain.”

  Detective Inspector, actually…

  I then recalled her earlier, unguarded comment.

  “We’re talking father and son. Get it?”

  Shit.

  She tried to lash out again. “Does Papa know about this druggy, crazy crap?”

  A short, sick laugh.

  “What do you think?”

  *

  There wasn’t time to digest the farrier’s shock news, for within minutes, DC Eifion Evans and his oddly tanned superior, DI Arwel Pugh had taken him off for further questioning and a Statement. They’d concluded that despite my flimsy memory of hearing Mathieu cry out in that foul, rocking transporter, he could well be hidden somewhere inside it. Even underneath, like so many desperate, illegal immigrants. And had Danny Lennox, sniffing a possible French connection, tried to get to that country, too? In advance?

  Wrong place, wrong time?

  Nevertheless, to cover all possibilities, in one hour, Dyfed-Powys police were starting a fresh search of this area for the eight-year-old. More locals would be interviewed, including young Rhys Evans and Iori Lewis. At my request, also the Sea Breeze Hotel. In my previous life I’d have co-ordinated such an exercise. And still, after two years away, felt diminished. On the touchline.

  *

  The farrier, head lowered, had gone as quietly as if almost glad of the protection the Battenburg-chequered Mondeo would provide. He’d neither mentioned Laure wielding the knife nor claimed knowledge of any cut phone lines or missing house keys or drugs. None had so far been found on him or in his caravan. I’d checked too, and in the top drawer of a minimalist sideboard, found a few photographs, all of his mother from her youth to one dated three years ago. A looker by any standards who’d given him his neat, straight nose, but not it seemed, much else.

  In my book, any guy loving his Mum too much wasn’t to be trusted. As for me, love had long been submerged by sorrow. There’d been an official letter too, from CPAL - France’s Probation Service - for released prisoners back in April 1983, suggesting he was ready for a normal working life. This lay on top a well-worn invitation to some posh reception near Chinon for those in the horse-racing business. On the top, someone had written in red ink.

  Et moi aussi?

  Someone clearly keen to be seen…

  As the police car left the yard, I wondered what else might come to light, and how long DC Evans’s job would be secure, given his older brother’s so-far unpunished record. Wondered too, if the police in Poole should be told about Danny perhaps being Mathieu’s father. For hearsay, read danger.

  “Rot in Hell!” Laure screamed after the car, then turned to me, shaking. “What do we do now? Someone needs to be here. Two mares have foaled and the other horses need cleaning out. On weekdays the lads and the vet are here at six but not weekends…” She was crying again, staring into Vervain’s empty box. Sniffing his blue halter.

  “We’ll get them over now if we can. And at the risk of falling out with you, I’m going to call your father. See what’s going on in Poole… Allez.”

  She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. I noticed thin, dried scars under her wrist and inwardly flinched. Then, to my surprise, she locked her arm in mine. Still shaking. Still raw. We walked back towards the house. “Look, Monsieur, I do know why you couldn’t tell me about Vervain, but if that transporter can be intercepted, there’s a real chance he’ll be OK. You said he’d seemed to be drugged…”

  “Definitely. And I’m no horse expert, but believe me, I’m determined to save him too, and your brother, because not so long ago, I couldn’t save the brightest and best young cop we’d ever had.”

  Even as I spoke, that wind, those moving clouds reminded me of that terrible day…

  “What was his name?”

  “Ben Rogers. Detective Constable. He shot himself before I could reach him.”

  I could tell she was thinking hard. Her eyes screwed up, her grip tightening on my arm.

  “Poor man,” she said as we reached the back door. “Poor family.”

  *

  Without telling Alain Deschamps about Danny, his snipped phone lines and missing keys, I simply left a message for him to get in touch. Then, thanks to Laure, rang round the stable staff and filled them in. Everyone seemed genuinely stricken yet eager to help, beyond the call of duty. They’d be arriving as soon as possible, and happy to answer any of my questions about Friday.

  Laure meanwhile, had changed out of her pyjamas and was now making real coffee in such a swift, expert way, it was clearly one of her everyday tasks. She then joined me at the table - a mug apiece - plus an opened packet of bourbon biscuits. I could have stuffed the lot, while she just nibbled at an already broken one. And there were Mathieu’s things still out. As if he might suddenly appear to claim them.

  “Look,” I began after my first scalding sip. “You and I need to talk, otherwise it’s like crawling around in the dark, and I’ve done too much of that lately. Danny was at Poole for a reason and look what Dugard let slip about your aunt.”

  I leaned forwards towards her to make my point.

  “Do you really believe what he said about Danny and Mathieu? Because if true, the whole picture’s changed, hasn’t it? Your father has so far avoided any discussion about life at Les Saules Pleureurs, so who else have I got? Come on Laure, there may be secrets, perhaps from way back, which have triggered off these events, but any more clues might help get Vervain and Mathieu home in one piece. Otherwise,” I paused. “I’m getting Alison in to help.” A white lie. I already had.

  “Alison?” Laure’s eyes widened. “Who on earth’s she?”

  “DC Alison McConnell. Tough, clever and…”

  A flicker of a smile that even the sudden darkness couldn’t hide.

  “I know. Your lover.”

  *

  With that out of the way, and Laure’s brief recounting of the Coed Glas Hotel’s taxi driver’s gossip, one by one, the stable team arrived in an array of muddy vehicles. All greeted us with sombre expressions on their faces. Their collective grief bound each of them, all ages and types together. The vet, a pretty ex-Dubliner, gave Laure a heartfelt hug, telling her what a brave fighter Vervain was. A horse in a million.

  I said I’d be speaking to them all once the locksmith from Rhos, whom DI Arwel Pugh had press-ganged into giving up his usual lie-in, had finished his job. BT, despite their often, bad press had done Ty Capel proud. All three lines were back in use and calls made and received since a week ago, able to be traced.

  Just as Laure was distractedly filling up the wood-burner, the kitchen phone rang, startling her into tipping back on her heels. She seemed to freeze as I picked up the receiver, then when realising it was her father, began angrily chucking in the logs one after the other as if to blot out his hated voice.

  “Sssshhh…” I said. “We’ve been waiting long enough to hear from him.”

  Over considerable background noise, Alain Deschamps spoke of seeing Danny’s terrible gunshot wounds. To his right eye and his heart. How his ex-wife badgered the police about the possibility of any unaltered Will, and last but not least, in a voice tight with tension, how Elisabeth Jourdain’s name had come up as a passenger on that very same ferry, La Princesse Poole which had docked in Cherbourg two hours ago - Central European Time - after a considerable delay.

  How bloody weird…

  I recalled another Daniel. This time, Boussioux, shot in both eyes by a criminally-minded young girl in Roussillon who, as a grown woman had also changed my own life. However, unlike that tragic victim, I still had one…

  “Two hours?” I repeated, snapping back to the present. “Does the IMO know? The International Ma
ritime Organisation?” Yet his word ‘delay’ wouldn’t leave me.

  Despite the warming room, and myself still in outdoor clothes, I shivered to my core. That woman’s name represented one serious coincidence, opening up too many possibilities. Aware of Laure now next to me, frowning, I asked him if she’d been interviewed as to why she’d been there, and where else?

  “God knows. Everyone has their own procedures to avoid on-board panic, I spoke to the boat’s Captain just now. French, which helps. Things are done gradually. We’ll just have to trust them. But like you say, what was she doing there? A booze trip or what? A visit here that she’d decided to cancel? Fuck…”

  “When are you back?”

  “This evening sometime. The police still want to talk to me. Is Laure around? If so, could I have a word?”

  “Piss off, you!” she snapped at the receiver’s perforations. “Just get me a new phone. The least you can do after your vandalism.”

  “And Mathieu? Any news?” As if he’d been deaf.

  “None yet, I’m afraid,” I said. “But have you heard about Vervain?”

  *

  Silence can either be merciful or the worst form of torture. For Laure, the fact that her father had put the phone down without saying another word, had left her sitting at the table, head in hands. There was nothing I could say to excuse him, except to recall that after Ben Roger’s suicide, I’d hardly been my usual communicative self.

  “She might have bloody told us she was going to be on a boat to England.” Laure looked up at me. Her flecked eyes rimmed red. “Mathieu would have been over the moon. Me too.”

  “You both may have been the last people on her mind.”

  “Who do you mean, then?”

  “Danny Lennox.”

  *

  Laure returned her head to her hands, as the logs spat and shifted behind the wood-burner’s thick, mica door.

  Meanwhile, to keep some momentum going, the Sea Breeze Hotel might repay a call, and over a bad line, its proprietor - a man all the way from Inverness - confirmed that a Beti Morgan, widowed last year, did indeed work there as a cleaner with Fridays off except during the busiest times. A hard worker, but not the easiest to get on with, he said. She’d neither mentioned a Sion Evans nor had he, Roy Galbraith noticed a dark blue transporter anywhere near the place.