The Secret Dawn

by Solomon Carter

  The woman stared at Hogarth.

  “He’s direct. I like direct,” said Flount, looking Hogarth up and down. “At least you know where you are with people like him.” She stepped towards Hogarth and Simmons, who were still standing close to the door. She slipped her arm under Hogarth’s. He raised an eyebrow and looked at her as the woman smoothly stepped him deeper into the building. From a woman with her looks and fragrance, Hogarth found it difficult to refuse.

  “Once you hear all about what’s going on, I think you’ll want to help Grant get to the bottom of this. In fact, I’m sure of it.”

  Simmons noted the awkwardness of Hogarth’s body language as the stunner led him deep into the barn. Simmons stifled a smirk. His eyes landed on Grant Dawn.

  “She’s a charmer, isn’t she?”

  “Isn’t she?” muttered Simmons. Simmons’s smile wavered. There was no less hint of the charmer – and perhaps also the con man – about Grant Dawn. Simmons saw they would have to tread extremely carefully. What the hell had his father gotten him into?

  ***

  The building was far less ramshackle inside than out. In fact, the more he saw, the more Hogarth was impressed. Emily Flount led Hogarth through a shabby-chic lobby into an opened out set of garages – which they had seen as the three doors from outside. The garages had once been separate, but now the walls had been knocked through to create high archways of whitewashed brick. There were poster placards of retro motor oil brands on the walls, and a metal trolley cabinet of the kind used by a decent mechanic. The cabinet was shiny, red, and looked virtually untouched. There were a few spare tyres stacked at the back wall but all the mechanic parts felt like interior decorating rather than of any true use. The tyres and the tools were just part of the look. There were a couple of chairs, a bit worn-in but still good enough to use, tucked in one corner by a desk, and a mini-fridge, a microwave, kettle, laptop computer and a small printer. Looking around, Hogarth had the feeling of being in a grown-up boy’s den. In the middle space were the cars – two of them, with one empty space in the immediate foreground, marked by a telltale oil mark left on the concrete. The space where the Capri had been. The distant car was a shapely silver E-type Jag. Hogarth was no car expert, but he knew that much. But the vintage car had seen much better days. Its body was dull and scraped. Beside it was a boxy 1980s Porsche. Definitely not one of the desirable models, but one of the cheaper ones. Hogarth reckoned it a dated eyesore. Again, the Porsche showed signs of half-finished attention. An ongoing project only halfway completed.

  Hogarth stared at the oil stain in the empty bay.

  “Yeah,” said Grant Dawn, drawing up beside him. His fingers traced over the cuts on his face. “That’s where my favourite used to live. My Capri. I don’t think she’ll be back.”

  “Seeing as you’re missing presumed dead, I’d have to agree with you, Mr Dawn,” said Hogarth. He fixed the man with his eyes, and Emily Flount let out a peal of laughter. It was a theatrical laugh, he thought, and it certainly drew attention. Hogarth watched her sway across the overly-neat garage towards the desk in the corner. He found himself enjoying the metronomic swing of the woman’s hips. Feeling Grant Dawn’s eyes, Hogarth shook himself out of it. Grant was smiling at him. The woman opened the mini-fridge and pulled out a bottle of lager. She raised it as a suggestion.

  “Might as well,” said Grant. “Like the man says, I’m dead already.”

  “There’s some chocolate too, if you want,” she said.

  “No thanks,” said Dawn. “I’m saving that for a celebration.”

  “What about our visitors?” she said, all eyes and white teeth. “Do they want a beer?”

  The woman was like an emoji for temptation.

  “I’ll pass,” said Hogarth but with some effort.

  “Come on. It’s Saturday.”

  Emily Flount didn’t take no for an answer, which was a warning in itself. She used a wall mounted bottle opener to prise away the lids, then sashayed towards them, presenting Simmons and Hogarth with a bottle each before passing one to Grant. On the shelf above the bottle opener, Hogarth noticed a box of ‘micro fine pen needles’. A white box, generic, the kind of thing kept behind the counter at Boots the chemist. Someone here had a medical issue. There was a pill bottle beside it. But Hogarth’s mind soon wandered elsewhere. Emily Flount looked about ten years younger than Liv Burns. A good ten years. But seeing all those curves moving around the place helped him remember the brief kiss and fumble of his goodbye the previous weekend. He’d not wanted to push Liv into anything because they’d had a history as colleagues and friends. There had been a need to keep a respectful distance – and he had felt the same soft barrier coming from her too. It was about not making a mistake, not being too hasty, not pushing too hard. But by the end of the second day they’d barely made it past inviting smiles. The tension had grown between them. The smiles brighter, questions left hanging in the eyes. And seeing their chance pass them by forced Hogarth to push just a little harder. In the last hours of their weekend, he’d moved from friendly conversations to compliments, then laying his hand on hers outside the train station as they said their goodbyes. The passion with which Liv Burns reacted had taken him by surprise. On the steps of Southend Central train station, in front of all those lairy students, Liv had wrapped him in her arms and devoured him. The students whooped and catcalled. As she left, Hogarth hoped he hadn’t blown it by playing the gentleman, but thankfully Liv had left him with more than a parting hint.

  “Next time I’ll save myself the hotel bill.”

  “Next time?” he’d said.

  “Next time,” she’d nodded, and smiled.

  “You know, I do cook a mean breakfast,” he’d said with an eager grin.

  “I’ll put that to the test,” she’d said, by way of a goodbye.

  Regrets, he’d had a few. And not sweeping Liv Burns into his pad on the first night was definitely one of them. Funny how one kiss turned her from a stern brunette in a suit to the wild woman of his dreams. Funny how perceptions could change when you hadn’t been to bed with a woman for more than four months. Abstinence certainly did make the heart grow fonder… Hogarth glanced at Emily Flount’s hips, then tore his eyes away and stared at his bottle. Dawn seemed to sense his struggles. There was a knowing look on the man’s face. Like him, Dawn seemed to be just another teenaged boy stuck inside a middle-aged man’s body. Looking at his current situation, Hogarth guessed Grant Dawn was even worse than him. He looked around and wondered – the location – the cars… why was this man in hiding?

  “You fix up these cars yourself?” said Hogarth doubtfully. He skirted around the most obvious question, allowing Grant Dawn to skirt around it himself. The answers would soon come. After all, those answers were why they had been summoned in the first place. But Hogarth knew, first there was a dance to be done; Emily Flount’s flirtations seemed to be a part of it. In Hogarth’s experience, sometimes the preamble was as useful as the words themselves.

  “I try,” said Grant Dawn. “But as you can see, I haven’t made much progress. The E-type eats money for fun and Haynes Manuals don’t make you into an expert mechanic, I’m afraid. And the Porsche is way down my list. The Capri needed the least attention, so I played with that one most.”

  Hogarth sipped his lager. It wasn’t bad stuff. Deep and yeasty with a hint of citrus. Portuguese and expensive too from the look of it. Like Grant Dawn’s clothes. Like the pretend mechanic’s décor. And whatever the dynamic was between them, Emily Flount didn’t exactly seem low-maintenance herself.

  “You’re a businessman. Self-employed…” said Hogarth.

  “That’s right. I’m the founder for GDS. Grant Dawn Social.”

  “For want of a better name,” said Emily, raising an eyebrow.

  “The new name was coming. I was waiting for some hipster name to drop from the sky into my head. It has to be just right.”

  “You were going to change the name of the business?” said H
ogarth.

  “By popular demand, yes. Emily here – our social media influencer in chief – and the others all wanted me to. I see the sense in it. One-word names with sweet, clean graphics and a solid type face. Yes, that would be very now.”

  “I think Flame would be cool,” said Flount. “Something like that would work.”

  “See?” said Dawn. “I built the business, it makes money, but I’m just not cool enough for the employees. My wife too, perhaps…” Dawn’s voice trailed off. Hogarth’s eyes narrowed, but he refrained from asking. Instead, his eyes tracked to Simmons. He saw the lad noticing the same things.

  “But the business was doing well?” said Hogarth.

  “That’s the third time you’ve asked, Inspector,” said Dawn.

  “I’m not the one who’s counting, Mr Dawn.”

  “The business is flying. You tell him, Emily. Seems he doesn’t trust dead people.”

  “Don’t be offended, Mr Dawn. I don’t trust most living people, either.”

  Dawn smiled.

  “The business is doing well. Big clients, big paydays, lots of profile,” said Flount. “Other than cash flow, it’s a money spinner.”

  “Then why don’t you pay somebody else to fix up these cars, Mr Dawn, and get on with what you’re good at. Why are they all half-finished?”

  “Get somebody else to do the work? Now where would the fun be in that? Cars are supposed to make your hands dirty.”

  “I see a few tools lying around, but I don’t see dirt anywhere,” said Hogarth “From that stain on the floor, I dare say your Capri had a leak, but I don’t think much car work has been happening in here—”

  “You’ve found me out, Inspector. I’m just a wannabe. A wannabe grease monkey. Don’t you think those people are so cool? The ones who can rebuild DeLoreans at the weekends and make them good as new? Soon as I hit thirty, I wanted to be like that. A bit of a fantasy, because I was always working. So instead, this is as far as I got. I bought myself three old jalopies, and I’ll make some money back on the E-type – if it ever gets done. But the Capri only needed a little tinkering, a bit of topping up here and there. It was the quick win. I loved driving it out here.”

  “I still don’t get it,” said Hogarth. “Surely you’ve got enough money to get them fixed up.”

  “If I spent what was needed to get that Jag going, it wouldn’t be a secret project anymore, would it? My employees Brett and Yvette would have noticed. Then Sabine, then everybody else. Then we’re back to them wanting my hobby for the cash flow.”

  “It’s your business, Mr Dawn. Or it was, until you disappeared.”

  “I didn’t disappear. I crashed into the water off that slipway down the road. My brakes failed because my car was sabotaged. Brakes don’t just fail like that.”

  Dawn’s face changed, became hard with anger. Hogarth nodded.

  “I refused to drain the business for my hobby This project ticks over without me needing too much. And I can always come here knowing I have something to do. I liked that.”

  “This was your little escape.”

  “As you can see,” said Dawn, sipping his beer. “It still is.”

  “And it’s low cost?”

  “I own the things. This place hasn’t got any facilities. The electricity comes from a generator. There are hardly any rates. It’s virtually free.”

  “Fuel? Repair costs?”

  “Out of my pocket money. No receipts are kept.”

  “This really is a secret bolt hole then.”

  “And very handy for times like these.”

  “Times like these?” said Hogarth, arching his eyebrow.

  “Times in life which take you by surprise. Such as someone trying to kill you in your prime.”

  Hogarth looked at Grant Dawn as he took in the man’s meaning. Simmons swigged his beer. Hogarth’s eyes flicked back easily to Emily Flount. She sipped from her lager bottle and nodded at Hogarth, her eyes sparkling the whole time.

  “I’m serious, Inspector,” said Grant Dawn. “Someone tried to kill me.”

  “You crashed your car into the water. You’ve got a fridge full of beer over there. You were here last night and you went out for a late-night drive. Presumably, you had a few of these beers and went for a little joyride. There’s not much police attention out here, eh? Who cares if a few petrol heads scare the pheasants and the seagulls? My guess is a man like you would make the most of that opportunity. I bet half the reason you own this place is to take advantage of an opportunity like that.”

  “You think I was drink driving?”

  “Tell me you’ve never done it, Mr Dawn.”

  “I tell you that and you’d have me arrested.”

  “I’m off duty. The only reason I’m standing here listening to all this nonsense is because I’m intrigued. And because my colleague asked me to help. I’m prepared to hear you out, but that’s all.”

  “Without taking any action against me?”

  Hogarth sipped his beer. The steely look in his eyes said he had yet to make up his mind.

  Grant Dawn tensed and sighed.

  “Last night is what we’re talking about here,” said Dawn “I wasn’t drunk. I came out here because I was pissed off with work hassle… my home life too. Things could be better. I came out here to clear my head and get some peace. I can do that when I’m driving.”

  “Then what went wrong?” said Hogarth.

  “I felt something go when I was on one of the bends. The brakes were too light. So I pressed hard and they reacted, like they just needed a little tightening or something. I kept on driving hard, following the roads and the bends tightly. Like a rally driver, that’s what I like. It was late and I know the roads out here really well. I was going at full pace all the way up Waterside Road, and I fully intended to pull up by the shoreside buildings before the slipway, but then there was nothing to the brakes. They’d gone. One hundred per cent gone. No life in them at all. I hit the brake over and over again but didn’t make a dent in my speed. I tried to turn the car instead but the Capri had too much speed. I spun around once or twice before heading towards the water. There was nothing I could do. It was high tide. The Capri went over the top of the slipway and I went down, right into the water and the mud. The windscreen cracked and the water and mud poured right in; the pressure was shocking. I thought I was dead. But somehow the will to live kicked in. I got free of the seatbelt, and even when the car started slipping further into the water, I fought my way through that broken glass and pulled myself to the surface. I was frozen, shocked half to death, but I somehow managed to scramble through the current back up the slipway, then I trudged back here. I was half dead by the time I got back. And all I could think the whole time, was who could have done this to me? Who would have wanted me dead so badly as to sabotage my pride and joy?”

  Hogarth took two gulps of his beer and walked across the concrete. He dropped into a crouch beside the oil stain and touched the rough dry edge with his finger.

  “Do you really think someone sabotaged your motor?” said Hogarth.

  “Yes,” said Dawn. “That’s exactly what happened.”

  Hogarth traced his finger into the centre of the stain. It was still dry, but darker, as if the moisture had been a more recent feature there.

  “You said you top it up and tinker with it. You sure the car was okay before you drove it?”

  “The last time I drove it – I mean the time before last – it was perfectly fine. The car flew around and the brakes were working well. It was only last night the brakes suddenly stopped working. With no warning at all. A change like that, that’s not a simple fault. You get an inkling with a car before a problem happens. It drops hints, gives you a sign. But this was so sudden, so dramatic, I’m sure it was deliberate.”

  Hogarth gulped the rest of his beer down and wiped his mouth.

  “Miss Flount? Miss or Mrs?” said Hogarth.

  The woman smiled. “Why, Miss, of course.”

  Ho
garth’s eyes got snagged on hers. He cleared his throat and started again.

  “Mr Dawn trusts you enough to bring you into this situation. Just a question. Why would Mr Dawn trust you over and above anybody else?”

  “We’re blood relations. Like Grant said already, there’s nothing else in it, if that’s what you mean.”

  “She’s the only one who doesn’t stand to gain by my death,” said Dawn, spelling it out. “Not directly. Everyone else in my life – they all have a vested interest.”

  Hogarth cast his eye between them. Cousins weren’t prevented from crossing family boundaries into sexual relationships. It wasn’t best practice from a gene-pool perspective, but somehow, Hogarth felt they were telling the truth. They had a common cause somehow, but it wasn’t sexual. The woman seemed to shine whenever his eyes fell on her. He scolded himself. If she was after his attention, there had to be a reason beyond animal magnetism. Hogarth knew his limits well. Besides, he’d noticed the woman glancing at Simmons the same way. She wasn’t exactly fussy.

  “Okay. So someone sabotaged your favourite car. Let’s go with that,” said Hogarth. “You find yourself in this accident, you survive somehow and you come back here, then what? You clean yourself up and call in Miss Flount. What for? Why didn’t you call for help?”

  “To help me get perspective. To see the wood for the trees. And come on, for some company and therapy. Someone had just tried to kill me. I needed to speak to someone I could trust.”

  “And that person wasn’t your wife?” said Hogarth.

  Grant Dawn sipped his beer and looked away.

  “Sabine might not have been at her best late on a Friday night,” said Emily.

  “Care to explain?” said Hogarth.

  “She likes to let her hair down of a weekend,” said Flount. “And on weeknights.”

  “I see,” said Hogarth. “Alone… or with company?”

  Grant Dawn grunted. “Alone. I trust her on that score. At least, I think I do…”

  “But when it comes to killing you off for some reason, it’s a different story,” said Hogarth.