Dead in the Water

by Peter Tickler

  Actually he did think she was being a bit paranoid. Or he would have done if he hadn’t received that early morning call from a man threatening his friends. And Becca was definitely a friend. He had thought about the man’s voice a lot, trying to connect it to someone, but whoever it was he knew exactly what he was doing. The fact was it could have been nearly anyone. Mullen had presumed it was a man, but now he wondered if he could be sure even of that, since the voice had been synthesised. Mullen sipped at his glass and got up. It wouldn’t hurt to check the garden. At the very least it would demonstrate to Becca that he was taking her seriously. He walked through to the scullery, unbolted the side door and stepped outside. He took another slug of gin and tonic, plus one for luck and then put his glass down on the teak garden table. The garden was at least an acre in size, with plenty of bushes for someone to be hiding behind. If anyone was out there, and they were armed, then he was going to be in trouble. He started by standing very still and looking and listening. There was nothing that caught his eye or ear. He picked up a spade which was leaning against the wall and headed down the lawn towards the bushes and trees. If anyone was hiding, that had to be the most likely place. If he or she had a gun, he would be in trouble, but otherwise a spade made a very good close-quarter weapon. He pushed his way through the bushes and into the more open space under the big trees. There was no-one.

  He took a different route back, along the boundary to his right leading up to the kitchen garden area. Overhead, a red kite whistled and drifted idly on the up currents, looking for prey. Mullen looked up, admiring its grace, and yawned. He resumed his walk and felt his legs wobble underneath him. He shook his head. Maybe drinking gin and tonic in the middle of a scorching day wasn’t such a good idea. He smiled as he drew closer to the vegetables. The two tomato plants which he had planted outside the greenhouse were trussing up nicely with fruit. He stopped and knelt down, peering at the promised harvest and then pinching out a few side shoots. It was while he was in the middle of this process that he froze. Beyond the two plants, there were deep footprints in the soft soil where he had only recently planted a second crop of lettuces and radishes. They weren’t his and they didn’t look like Becca’s either. The prints were smaller than his own feet — size eight he reckoned — and they were boots. Not women’s boots, to be sure, or wellingtons, but more like working boots. Or army boots. He had seen enough of those in his short military career.

  Mullen stood up as casually as he could and looked around, scanning the garden again. But it was as if he was on a roundabout and the world was rotating around him. He felt quite giddy. Not to mention tired. As if he had drunk too much.

  But he hadn’t drunk too much, just a few gulps of gin. Suddenly he knew exactly what it must be. It was rohypnol. Becca had spiked his drink. It was like a punch in the gut. Becca! He hadn’t seen that coming at all. He had trusted her, liked her. And she had betrayed him. But why? His brain came up with no answers. Was she an accomplice to someone? Names drifted into his consciousness — Paul Atkinson, Derek Stanley, Kevin Branston — before popping like soap bubbles in the wind. But then, in an instant, it all became ridiculously obvious. Becca Baines worked at the hospital, didn’t she? She was a nurse. No doubt she was used to administering drugs to help people sleep, so getting hold of rohypnol wouldn’t be difficult for her. How stupid he had been! Mullen’s head was thumping like a big bass drum. He held it between his two hands as he staggered up the path to the kitchen door. Thank God he hadn’t drunk all his gin. If he could just get to his mobile, which he had left on the kitchen table, he could ring for help. But who could he trust? Rose? Dorkin?

  He pushed the door open and it slammed against the wall. He cursed himself for being a clumsy idiot! There was no sign of Becca, but if blundering around like an elephant on speed didn’t bring her back into the kitchen, nothing would. Mullen saw with relief that his mobile was still there on the table. He stumbled across the tiled floor and grabbed at it, but his fingers refused to cooperate with his brain. The handset twisted out of their grip, bounced back down onto the table and then over the far side onto the floor.

  It was a long table. Mullen began to edge his way round it. He felt as if he was wading through quick-drying concrete. He got round to the end and saw the mobile lying against the skirting board. Its light was still on. It had survived the fall. Mullen moved his left leg forward, but it encountered something solid and unyielding. He looked down, puzzled by the shape beneath him, and then, like a slow motion video, he was falling down, down, down until his head cracked against the floor. Pain echoed round his skull. Everything went black. Was this what death was like — a mixture of pain and oblivion? He wanted to swear and call out, but he couldn’t do either. He lay there for several seconds before he managed to force his eyes open. His mobile was only inches from his head. He strained to reach it, but his body was no longer part of him. Somehow his left hand responded to the urgings of his brain and crept towards the mobile. He felt its familiar shape. His fingers closed round it like a claw and pulled it towards him. But then he heard the sound of footsteps from the front hall, approaching the room, and he knew he was too late.

  * * *

  In the end, Rose had stopped wallowing in self-pity and come up with a plan. There was only one way to sort this out she had realised and that was to go to the Cedars and confront Mullen — and if he wasn’t there she’d wait until he did turn up. And if Becca Baines turned up too, so much the better. She could have it out with both of them. What would she say to Mullen? What might he say to her? The possibilities didn’t bear thinking about. So instead she concentrated on getting to Boars Hill without giving way to tears or hysterics.

  She was concentrating on herself with such intensity that she very nearly overshot the Cedars. She squealed to a halt in front of the entrance and froze. The driveway was blocked by a police car. She killed her engine and sat there unmoving, as possibilities too horrible to contemplate raced through her head. She shivered, despite the heat of the day. Eventually she bullied herself into getting out of the car. She walked down the drive, past the police car and up the very slight incline towards the house. She was conscious of the gravel crunching under the sensible lace-up shoes that Mullen had insisted would be necessary. There was another car parked up by the house, but it certainly wasn’t Mullen’s. There were two people standing there talking, a female uniformed officer and a very big man in a suit that was struggling to contain his bulk. Their faces turned in unison. The big man was Detective Sergeant Fargo. He had interviewed her with Dorkin. A man like Fargo, once encountered, is hard to forget (especially when he is named after your favourite Cohen brothers’ film).

  “Miss Wilby,” he said advancing towards her with huge strides. He was holding his right hand up in front of him like a policeman whose secret wish (never fulfilled) had always been to direct the traffic. “You can’t come in here.”

  “What’s happened? Is Doug all right?”

  “Mr Mullen is not here.” The two of them stopped. Fargo was a single pace away from her and she could see the sweat on his face. He looked unhappy with life. “You must leave,” he said.

  “Is Becca here?” she said. Fargo’s eyes opened wider, his interest piqued. “Doug had a text from her,” she continued. “She said she was in trouble and needed his help.”

  “When was this?” She had certainly got his attention.

  She shook her head, as if so doing would clear it. At least, she told herself, Doug is alive. “About an hour ago. Or maybe a bit more.”

  He nodded, as if this made sense or fitted in with what he knew.

  “So you were with him when he got the message?”

  “Yes. We were in South Oxford. We had just been visiting my mother and . . .”

  “Did you see the text?” Fargo spoke with surprising gentleness.

  “No. He just told me about it as we were walking to his car.”

  “Did he say anything else?”

  Rose faltered. Far
go was looking at her with a slightly furrowed forehead as if he could sense the dilemma inside her. “I wanted to help him,” she said. “He told me I wouldn’t be any use to him in my sandals, so I went into my flat to change and when I went outside again he had gone.”

  Fargo nodded. “I see. That’s very helpful.”

  Rose didn’t like the idea that she had been helpful, not if, as she suspected, being ‘helpful’ meant she had confirmed the police’s suspicions of Mullen. “So why are you here?” she said with sudden aggression, “if neither Doug nor Becca is here?”

  There was a guttural noise from behind Fargo. Rose peered round his bulk. It was Dorkin. He was standing on the top step of the doorway. She had no idea how long he had been there or how much of the conversation he had heard. All she knew was that she preferred Fargo.

  “Ms Baines has been taken to hospital,” Dorkin said.

  Rose felt a mixture of shock and relief, but mostly relief — not only that Mullen was not lying dead on the drive, but that the two of them had not done a runner into the sunset.

  “Is she alright?”

  Dorkin was watching her through narrowed eyes. “Someone drugged her,” he said. “Very likely it was your friend Mr Mullen. I was wondering if you knew where he might have gone.”

  “Why should I know?”

  “You’re pally with him, aren’t you? Maybe he told you. Maybe you’re planning on meeting up with him.”

  “What on earth do you mean? I am a friend. But I don’t know where he is. And if, as you seem to be implying, you think I am involved in some criminal activity with him, then why on earth would I have come here when there are police swarming all over the house?” She couldn’t help feeling pleased with her own logic. But that didn’t stop Dorkin giving her his grade one hard-man stare. She tried to face him down, anger beginning to stir. She hated bullies. Starting with her father, she had always hated bullies.

  But Dorkin had not finished. “Let me tell you, lady, that assisting a murderer is a very serious offence.”

  A murderer? Mullen a murderer? Surely not. She shuddered, but held Dorkin’s gaze. “Am I free to go?” she said after a long pause.

  Dorkin nodded. “Please do.” He was suddenly as polite as pie. “This is potentially a murder scene so we don’t want it contaminated. But if you do a runner, make no mistake — we will catch you and we will question you until we get the truth out of you.”

  Rose turned and walked away, back towards her car. Fear had been replaced by fury. ‘Lady!’ The word resounded in her head and she felt something not far from hate for Detective Inspector Dorkin.

  * * *

  Dorkin and Fargo watched Rose Wilby get into her car and drive off down the road in the direction of Wooton.

  “So you don’t think she’s involved?” Fargo said.

  “No.”

  “She likes Mullen.”

  “She wouldn’t have come here if she was complicit with his plans. She’s an innocent stooge who’s been taken for a ride.”

  “So where’s Mullen?”

  “He’ll have an escape route. People like him always do. A fake passport. A boat moored in a marina on the south coast under another name.”

  Fargo looked down at his feet because he couldn’t bear to look Dorkin in the eye. It was as if his boss had given up on catching Mullen. Fargo found that deeply disturbing.

  “We need to get a marker on his car,” Fargo said. “If he’s heading for the south, he’ll probably have gone down the A34. We’ll soon pick it up.”

  “He’s probably changed his car or switched the number plates. He doesn’t strike me as being a stupid criminal.” Dorkin was up to his thighs in his slough of depression.

  Fargo pressed on. “There will be evidence in the house. If he’s got a boat, there will be some paperwork somewhere to tell us that.”

  “You think he’s going to leave stuff lying around for us to find?”

  “He’ll have made a mistake,” Fargo said, trying to sound more confident than he felt. Dorkin’s gloom was infecting him.

  “Fat chance.” Dorkin spat into the gravel and pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket. He lit up and sucked in a lungful of smoke before releasing it into the Boars Hill air. He turned towards Fargo. “Well what are you hanging about for then, Sergeant? Get on with it.” And he stamped off down the drive.

  * * *

  Rose Wilby only decided at the last second to pull into the car-park of the Fox pub. It wasn’t the call of nature which impelled her to do so, even though she did want to go to the toilet. It was more a case of needing to think and a car-park seemed as good a place as any to do so. She switched off the engine, but made no move to get out of the car. Mullen was a murderer? She couldn’t grasp the idea. How could he be? He was too nice. He wasn’t the type. Except, of course, she had never as far as she was aware met a murderer, so how on earth could she know that he wasn’t the type?

  Eventually she got out of the car, walked the length of the parking area and entered the pub. She had been here once before. She went to the ladies, did what she needed to, looked with dismay into the mirror and exited. She stopped in the porch, taking advantage of the shade, and rang Mullen’s mobile. It went straight to an answering service. He had turned it off. No surprise there. She was pretty sure that the police could trace you through your mobile nowadays, so it made perfect sense.

  What a fool she was to have fallen for a man like Mullen! She began walking slowly down the slight slope of the car-park, reluctant to reach her car because then she would have to get into it and drive back to her flat and then face up to her mother’s ‘I told you so’ and the pity of all the others. Her car was three-quarters of the way down the long row of cars on the right, but when she reached it she continued walking, her pace increasing. Her eyes were fixed on a blue Vauxhall Astra parked at the farthest point on the left, tucked up under the hedge. Most particularly they were focused on a dent on the nearside rear wheel arch. When she reached it she bent down and touched it, reassuring herself that she hadn’t imagined it. She straightened up and peered inside. It was neat and tidy as it always was. Her mother often commented on how particular he was. But what on earth was his car doing here? She delved inside her bag, extricated a biro and an old supermarket receipt and scribbled the registration number on the back.

  Then she ran back to her car, got in and rang her mother.

  “Yes, dear?” It was the tone of voice, patronising and rather bored, that she often used when speaking to her daughter.

  “Where’s Derek?”

  “Derek?”

  Rose was breathing heavily. “Yes, Derek. Your lover, Derek.” She had never referred to him like that before. Derek was a ‘friend.’

  “He’s gone to the coast. I told you that, didn’t I? He’s gone sailing for the weekend with some school pal. Archie something.”

  “Where does Archie live?”

  “Well, on the coast of course. He loves his sailing.”

  “In that case, can you tell me why Derek’s car is parked here in Boars Hill at the Fox pub?”

  There was a pause. Then a question: “Are you sure it’s his, dear? Lots of people have Vauxhalls.”

  “Of course it’s his. I’d recognise the dent on the wheel arch anywhere. I was there when he did it. And besides, I’m sure it’s his registration number.” She read it out.

  Her mother made no reply for several seconds.

  “Cat got your tongue?” Rose was aware that she was becoming more unlike herself with every word she uttered, but she had no desire to stop. “Well?”

  “There must be a reason. Perhaps he got a lift with someone.”

  “Ring him and ask him.”

  “I can’t.” Her mother, usually so self-assured and bossy, sounded feeble, crushed even.

  “Then I will,” her daughter continued, undaunted.

  “That won’t do any good. His phone is turned off.”

  “What?”

  There was
the noise of sobbing from the other end of the phone. Rose could barely believe it. Her mother never cried. “He sent a text. He said he had forgotten his charger and his battery was low, so he was going to leave his mobile turned off in case he needed it for an emergency over the weekend.”

  “Where is he, mother? Why is his car parked here in Boars Hill?”

  But the only reply she got was more tears.

  * * *

  Dorkin was standing by the gateway looking across the fields towards Oxford. The haze had almost cleared and he saw clearly why it was known as the city of dreaming spires. But the view failed to lift his spirits. The fact was that there were few dreams in his line of work — and those he had once entertained lay shattered in his past. He had just finished his third cigarette. He always carried a packet, and often it sat untouched in his pocket for days on end. But when the black dog came barking, it was the only safe solace he could find.

  He was about to succumb to a fourth. His fingers were feeling for the filter tip as his eyes continued their hopeless stare across the valley. Then he became aware of a car coming fast from the left, too fast for this stretch of road. He tried to pretend he hadn’t noticed. He wasn’t a traffic cop for crying out loud! He put the cigarette between his lips and felt in his right-hand jacket pocket for his lighter. There was a squeal of brakes and Dorkin turned his head, alert to the possibility that he might be in danger. A silver Rav 4 rocked to a halt less than a metre away. He recognised it, just as he recognised the woman getting out of the driving seat. He said nothing. She looked as though she would have enough to say for both of them.

  “You’ve got it all wrong!” Rose Wilby had come up so close to him that he edged back half a pace. “Doug Mullen is not a killer.”

  Dorkin lit his cigarette and took a drag, his eyes taking in every feature of the angry round face in front of him. He exhaled the smoke out of the corner of his mouth. “So you said a little while ago.”

  “Derek Stanley’s car is parked down the road at the Fox.”