No.
*
For a few seconds I stared numbly at it following her in that wild flow, realising nothing would have stopped her, yet because of Connor Morris, I’d no phone to call 999. I then looked across at The Grange - a large, gabled and turreted creation set in its own huge grounds, beyond the opposite bank. If now a Youth Hostel, it seemed unoccupied. Not a light to be seen and reaching it via the bridge on Longstanton Road would take too long. I’d no choice but to reach the farm in a hurry, because all at once, those almost spectral cars which I’d recognised as mine and Chisholm’s, were moving further away behind the farmhouse.
*
While still running, I had to ignore the increasingly unpleasant smell wafting over from the large field on my right. Surely no one had been muck-spreading? Although a townie I knew from my travels that vital part of a farmer’s year took place in the spring. It was then I also noticed a sizeable, dark depression in the track in front of me, which continued under the pig wire fence and across the adjoining field of wet grass.
Curiouser and curiouser.
When I glanced up, both cars had disappeared. Connor Morris was hardly coming to join me.
Damn him.
With a quickening heartbeat, I climbed the same pig wire to follow that distinct channel to a large circular area, which, in the poor light, seemed to be a stronger shade of green. Also, it seemed to be the source of that foul stink. Holding my breath, I picked up a stray branch with some weight to it, and prodded the edge of this extra spongy ground, already feeling wetness leach into my costly new shoes.
Christ.
The branch was instantly sucked from my grasp, sinking lower and lower, and would have taken me with it had I not sprung back on to slightly firmer ground. What the Hell was this? Some ancient form of septic tank? Because that’s all I could think of.
Then a voice.
“John?”
I glanced up, and for a moment, didn’t recognise the tall guy in a bobble hat and duffle coat standing on the far side. His face white as a bone, even in that mean light. A hand over his nose.
Morris.
“Move your arse quick,” he said. “There’s going to be trouble.”
“You stay there. I’ll work my way round.” I indicated the treacherous area, exaggerating its size just in case he decided to take his chance. “Whatever this bloody thing is, it’s lethal.”
“Animal graveyard, judging by the pong.”
Was it the wind turning colder that suddenly brought another deep shiver? Or something else?
“My phone, please,” I said, finally joining him, whereupon he sheepishly withdrew it and my torch from his bulging pockets. I immediately punched in 999.
“Sorry about your car and the rest, but I was in a state about Mrs. Bitch, and let’s be honest, someone had to get a move on while you were fannying around with that gate.” He then passed me my car keys.
“I’ve just checked. DI Lockley and the others are on board.” He said during the interminable ringing.
At last. An answer.
And once I’d given Rosemary Harding’s details and my name, location plus an urgent request that the Longstanton section of the River Howse be searched as soon as possible. we turned away from that treacherous slough and legged it, stride for stride towards what remained of Wombwell Farm.
*
“What was all that about?” Morris asked. “You don’t stand still.”
“Neither did she.”
When I’d finished the brief story, he slowed down. “So, we’re no closer to knowing what really happened in this dump. He looked at me in an odd way. “And you’re sure her going for a swim was deliberate? I mean, you’ll be asked a lot of questions.”
“You mentioned ‘trouble,’” I countered, to keep that unwelcome prospect at bay. “Who’s at the farm?”
“Where to start?”
He’d resumed the rapid pace and despite my sodden, heavy trench coat and squelching brogues, I kept up. My pulse in overdrive. “Mrs.Vickers and Chisholm will do.”
“And Stephen? Piotr?”
“Anything’s possible with all those nooks and crannies.”
“About ten minutes ago, I glimpsed the Mitsubishi going round the back.”
“Correct. And our love birds are still in it. Waiting.”
*
Love birds.
Both sickly words stuck in my mind like industrial-strength glue as we finally reached what remained of the farmhouse. However, with each step over those scattered, blackened bricks and loose, half-burnt timbers lying in the front yard, it wasn’t just that lingering smell from the field which had petered out, or the fire in my belly, but Mollie Parminter’s sly step to eternity.
Yet time was, when the more adversity the better had been my bellows for action, but since that disastrous Poitiers case last spring, and letting Alison McConnell go, their air supply had become at best, erratic.
Another new sign headed by the estate agent’s logo, lay nailed to what remained of the front wall.
Bienvenue, I thought, narrowly missing a tangle of barbed wire and a pile of rusted curing hooks, before suddenly becoming aware of a sound that was nothing to do with the diminishing wind.
“Did you hear that?” I hissed. “Coming from inside.”
“Nope.”
“Come on,” I clicked on my torch and followed the low, moaning sound growing louder as I led the way through what had once been the front door. Morris bumped into me and cursed under his breath when I stopped to listen again, thinking someone or something might be in pain.
Inside was infinitely colder than outside, which had been bad enough. My hands were already numb, and my trench coat like a skin of ice. Under our feet on the cracked concrete floor, lay yet more scorched bricks and large charcoal pieces of what must have once been items of furniture. Above us within inches of our heads, hung the occasional black floorboard secured b a single, twisted nail.
“Parlour,” I whispered. “OK?”
“Count me out. Can’t you feel it? Smell it?”
I could. Ever since setting foot in Norfolk, it seemed.
Apart from the distinct overlay of dried blood and bad meat, that room’s temperature had dropped even further. I moved towards its furthest corner, negotiating yet more remnants of furniture. Two armchairs with their singed, horse hair stuffing poking through the fabric, and what had once been an upright piano and stool near the gaping window. Who’d sat there? I wondered, shivering again. Blue-eyed Mollie Parminter?
These sounds of distress grew even closer. My torch’s new battery flickered uselessly as I suddenly realised I’d stepped into a trap. On my own.
Damn.
“Stop there, Mr. Lyon! You’re trespassing,” barked a sharp, female voice, coming from behind me. “This is all mine now.”
I whipped round and there she was, made up like that girl at the garage had said, with lips darkly shining, her hair a puffed-up blonde confection. Black, knee-high boots and leather fur-trimmed, belted coat to match. No pockets, I noticed. No black box file either.
Catherine Vickers, ready for a night on the town.
“You’re joking.”
“You’re the joke, so get out now. And your pathetic side-kick.”
I looked round.
Morris? Where the Hell was he?
“You heard her,” came an altogether familiar growl which seemed to come from inside a large, battered cupboard set further along against the opposite wall. “Scarper, or...”
“Or what? You’ll shunt me on to some railway track, like you did with Greg Lake? You’re the coward, Vice Chancellor, Diocesan Board member and the rest. Shunting’s your trade mark, isn’t it? Good to meet you again, Doctor Chisholm.”
“She bloody did it.”
“Liar!” cried Catherine. “I tried to stop you. There was that dog walker, remember? He must have heard us arguing. He can prove it.”
At last. An admission.
I couldn’
t bring this so-far unnamed witness into it at this stage, but seeing her white anger, her complete transformation, made speaking difficult. I kept my eye on the cupboard. A kid again, waiting for the Bogey Man to appear. Time for me to set the trap.
“So, which of you called the station master at Tidswell after the murder?”
“She did,” came that growling voice.
“No, he did. From Shimpling. The next village.”
“Why kill an innocent, young man with the rest of his life ahead of him?” I said, braving this falling-out. “Ambition? Greed?”
That same cupboard door began to move again, making another squeak..
“Never mind. A criminal trial should winkle out the truth,” I persisted, keeping it in my sights. Wondering where that lethal crow-bar was. Seeing a large hand grip the door’s edge. “Meanwhile, myself and DS Morris are staying put until we’ve found where Stephen Vickers is. And, Catherine, lest we forget, your devoted son Piotr.”
“What?” snapped Chisholm, finally emerging, crow-bar in hand, while her painted mouth still hung open. “You never said anything about a son. I was led to believe he was an illegal immigrant needing some dough and a roof over his head.”
“She planted him on her brother to spy for you,” I got in first. “And he’s dead too. Killed himself. Haven’t you heard? Your charming threat’s been found at The Vicarage. ‘I’m relying on you, Nicky, and time’s running out.’ Remember? Quite a CV building up what with you threatening Stephen too, thieving the Wombwell File from Kings College, London, and possibly contributing to Sir Lyall Stokes’ sudden death.”
Several dust clouds fell to the floor.
“Slander, Mr. Has-Been. Nothing less. You have no proof whatsoever for these allegations.”
To stay focused, I let it go. “You also prevented me and her over there from visiting Greg Lake in the morgue at the Norwich &General Hospital last night. So, where are her husband and stepson? Remember, every piece of information you volunteer could be a year off your life sentence.”
That all-too familiar crow-bar was coming closer, but in that wreck of a room, I’d suddenly lost my bearings and Chisholm’s bulk soon blocked its one doorway. His dusty coat matched his unkempt, black hair. Wild-eyed. A sociopath on the loose. I snatched at a section of loose floorboard, bringing with it another filthy mist and hail of dead woodlice.
Still solid enough to be useful, I swung it at his head. He swayed before I struck again, feeling sudden strength in my arms as if that mesmering young woman deep in my pocket was willing me on.
He lurched sideways, falling heavily on his left elbow. Someone still with a pulse who wouldn’t be getting up in a hurry, nor she coming to his aid.
But anything could yet happen, and for the moment it was just me and her.
“Morris?” I yelled. “Get over here!”
“Yes, Bwana.”
He suddenly appeared behind Chisholm, pulled the crow-bar free from the man’s grip, straddling him, just to make sure.
“Where’ve you been?” I demanded.
“Making sure our lovely Avril Lockley didn’t get lost.” He glanced across at Catherine, aiming a vengeful kick at her recumbent partner-in-crime.
“Get rid of him!” She shrieked. “And all of you, get out. This is my house! My house!”
She looked deranged. Those once placid features unrecognisable. I didn’t hesitate to poke the end of the plank into her side, forcing her out over Chisholm’s heaving form, deeper into the broken dwelling where a different coldness took hold. Bone-numbing and dead as the grave.
*
“Stephen?” I yelled, while she teetered on in front of me. Still capable of anything. Sounds of moaning still audible but growing weaker. “Where are you? It’s John.”
“Leave her alone or I shoot.”
Hey ho.
I was getting too old for surprises, but emerging from a charred, almost invisible side door leading to what looked like an equally derelict kitchen, was young Black Leathers himself. Shaven-headed with a peculiarly cherubic face. A nose stud but no crucifix. The Go-Between. Mummy’s boy, too, and as Morris’recent search of The Vicarage also showed, a promiscuous gay.
But what was that in his right hand? Hard to tell in the semi-darkness until a shaft of grey light revealed a Glock. Newish too. A nasty, macerating piece of work.
His mother showed no surprise to see him.
I’d been shafted. Not a good feeling.
“So, you’re the errand boy?” I said. “Chatting Greg up, eh? And the rest. Getting him to trust you, then sending him on a trip to eternity with your crucifix. You bastard.”
I thwacked the Glock hard out of his fist, retrieved it from the stone slabs as he was about to knee my groin. Morris got up, held the younger guy’s arms behind his back, pressing him down against an old side table to cuff him. A smile of triumph breaking up his stubble.
Clunk, click.
He’d come prepared after all.
With that loaded weapon in my trench coat’s pocket, I helped him straighten up the handcuffed Pole who seemed ready to headbutt him at any moment.
“Leave him alone!” A snarling Catherine Vickers tried to pull him free. “He’s done nothing wrong.”
“Just obeying orders, right?” I said, pushing her against the wall, aware she too, could be more cunningly armed than her son. “You’re a fabricator of the first order. Just like your claim to have been out hunting for Stephen on foot because your petrol tank was empty. I noticed it was full. Also, how clean your car was. Not a very pleasant trait, Mrs. Vickers. And the icing on your cake, in case you didn’t know it, is that the delectable Piotr Polanyi here, is named sole beneficiary of your late brother’s estate.”
A gasp, then silence.
“You has-been creep.”
But just then came the sweetest sound on earth. Sirens coming closer. Then, after the slam of various doors, the thud of several boots on stone.
“I’ll say you knew everything,” she spat.
“You would, too.”
And within seconds, while she struggled against me, three armed, black-clad invaders filled the ruin.
*
“Connor’s just found Stephen Vickers,” DI Lockley announced moments later, looking even more bright and eager than at the hospital, as if this was a normal time of day not four o’clock in the morning. “He’s in what must have once been the toilet, around the back. He seems OK, but an ambulance has arrived, just in case.”
“Thank God,” I said, handing over the Glock, careful not to add my own prints.
Morris grinned at me. “D’you know, John, no one’s ever called me God before. Mind you, I don’t think Stephen will be very happy sharing his rescuers with his delightful Vice Chancellor.”
And then, as if job done, my dying torch expired.
“Some developments,” DI Lockley added, as Chisholm, Piotr and his mother were cuffed, still protesting, and escorted outside. “Thanks to your theory that Greg Lake might have been deliberately trapped inside that Fiesta, and you, Connor for so promptly passing it on, our vehicle experts acted immediately. The victim’s seat belts had indeed been tampered with. Ergo, no escape.”
Another silence.
“Poor fucker,” murmured Morris.
Hell is empty. All the devils are here…
“I’ve more news,” added Lockley in an equally sombre voice. “What we’ve been waiting for. That service train’s driver who regained consciousness an hour ago, confirmed the driver of the 4X4 had indeed been a woman. Not only that, she’d been tailing a red Fiesta. He’d owned one himself last year.”
“Did he see who was in it?”
“Two young men, both blond, wearing black leathers. But one got out just before the collision… “
A heavy silence fell on everything, as if the past sixty-eight years had suddenly encroached this derelict domain. A place of too many unrevealed secrets. As I watched Stephen on a stretcher safely loaded on to the waiting amb
ulance, and the three perps herded towards two unmarked police cars, my cold fingers reached into my damp pocket to touch the photograph that had brought me here.
Avril Lockley turned to me. “You do realise, John, you’ll have to make a statement about Rosemary Harding as soon as possible. It’s…”
“Procedure. Yes,” I couldn’t restrain a small smile. “That’s been my special friend for thirty-two years.”
*
“You’ll be fine,” I reassured Morris as we approached my mud-sprayed Citroën. “I reckon your job’s still there if you want it. See how she looked at you? Called you ‘Connor.’ Say no more.” And once seated inside next to me, Morris removed his woolly hat and ran a hand through his flattened hair. That gesture alone told me he’d be alright.
The grass at the top end of the biggest field brushed against my car’s front bumpers, slowiing us down until we reached the makeshift gap leading back on to that same track along the river. Although the car smelt of wet clothes and Morris’ b.o. I caught a whiff of what I hoped never to experience again.
Now.
“What are you doing?” Morris stared at me as I braked and hauled up the handbrake.
“Look over there,” I said. “Am I seeing things?”
“Where?”
“By that pit. Christ Almighty. They’re all there.”
“Who, for God’s sake?”
“The dead.”
Meant only for me, obviously, who’d ingested the stench of their suffering and death too many times for this vision not to be real. Seven in all, including a boy clinging to that very same woman as in that photograph. Three of the other four - an old couple and a tall, broad-shouldered man - each had a gaping hole to their foreheads as if shot at close range. A shorter man, possibly slightly older, had been hit in the heart. No blood. No colour. Bleached as buried bones. All staring my way, and if Mollie Parminter were to be believed, facing their own grave?
*
“Listen,” I said. “Can you hear that?”
“What?”
“Leper bells. I know that now.”
I silently added a short prayer remembered from Sunday School with my sister Carol, then, aware of Morris eyeing me as if I had a screw loose, re-started the Citroën’s engine.
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