by Jack Benton
‘Slim? John Hardy? God, it’s been a while. I’m glad things worked out for you last time.’
Slim remembered the last occasion he had needed Ben’s help. He had solved the case but still bore the scars, both physical and mental.
‘I appreciate everything you did for me,’ he said.
‘It was nothing. What are you working on this time?’
‘I need details of an ongoing investigation,’ he said, then briefly outlined the case. ‘I’m afraid I’m getting a little close to a few lines, and I need to find out what’s going on. No official information is available.’
Ben sighed. ‘As always, you don’t ask for much, Slim. I’ll make a couple of calls. I have an old friend in Devon and Cornwall Police who might be able to help. How can I get back in touch?’
‘I’m afraid I lost my phone, and I can’t trust emails right now. I’ll call you back in a couple of days.’
‘Are you in trouble?’
Slim considered whether to confess his fears to Ben, then decided it might be the foot in the door Ben needed.
‘I’m afraid I might be,’ he said.
‘I see.’ A long pause. ‘And if I don’t hear from you?’
Slim grimaced. ‘Then I’m either in prison … or dead.’
30
No change at the abandoned house. No sign of entry at any of the doors or windows. Slim hung his wet clothes over the remains of a stair banister, then climbed to the second floor and sat by the easternmost window from where he had the best view of the collapsed railway bridge and the River Dart’s languid flow.
There, sitting naked except for his underwear, he ate some stale bread he had stolen from Greenway’s bins, together with a packet of fruit salad he had bought from a Totnes street vendor. After all, he had to keep his balance right, he thought, smiling grimly and wishing he had something which would warm him up a little.
The handful of notes in his wallet would last a few more days at most, even if he were frugal. Using an ATM would add another electronic footprint. From his conversation with Kim, he felt it unlikely the police had tapped his office phone, but if they were really searching for him they might use voice-recognition or keyword software to link him to calls made from multiple locations across south Devon, and his hooded, shuffling image no doubt already appeared on a hundred CCTV cameras. That he was hiding out in the woods barely made him safer; sooner or later they might connect him with Carson’s death and come sweeping through.
He needed a clear plan of action because his thoughts and aims were a tangled mess. He had no idea if he was hunting a serial killer or trying to link two unrelated suicides to an attack on his own life. If he could get inside information on the extent of the police investigation, it would give him an idea of where to start his own. As he stared down at the ruined railway bridge, he wondered how quickly he was going insane.
Then something caught his eye, a small motorboat out on the river. As Slim watched, a man stood up in the bow and threw something over the side.
The rain had cleared, replaced by gentle cloud cover. Slim watched the figure feed out a chain then return to the tiny cabin and retrieve something large and square.
An easel. The man appeared to bolt the frame to the boat’s floor then pull up a stool and sit down.
Alan McDonald, the elusive painter.
Slim eyed the distance to the boat. It had been a long time since he had intentionally swum anywhere, but the painter would surely notice his approach and flee. In addition, he would be fighting against the river current. Easy to misjudge the distance, and get pulled downriver long before he reached the boat. It frustrated Slim that the man who might have some answers was so close, but he could do nothing about it. Instead he simply watched the painter for a while as he gently worked on the canvas with a brush. At this distance it was impossible to see what Alan McDonald was painting, but from the angle of the man’s position it was likely a downriver view of the Dart or a painting of a local car ferry port across the river from Greenway.
With one eye on the painter, Slim reread the information from Don, searching for an elusive clue that might lead to a chain of others. Nothing. A group of normal people with problems, fears, and family connections, but nothing which obviously set them apart from anyone else. Nothing which hinted at involvement in a terrible crime.
Frustrated, he pulled a pen from his bag and turned over a piece of paper. On the back he began to scribble down dates and times. The day Max Carson had disappeared. Slim, allegedly the last person to see him alive, had been drinking with him on the hotel’s terrace at five p.m. While the ferries ran until late, the last train from Kingswear left at six-forty and there were no commuter buses at that time. How realistic was it that Carson had made it to Greenway by public transport?
He would have had to head straight there, yet his demeanour and attitude had suggested a casualness which made such haste unlikely. Had he decided to head there later in the evening, he would have had to arrange his own way across the river.
His body had been discovered at around seven a.m. by a dog walker, and the police claimed that Carson had been dead only a couple of hours by that time.
Carson had made his way there sometime during the night, but for a radio DJ in his sixties with no obvious maritime knowledge or skill, the river might as well have been a hundred-foot glass wall. Carson couldn’t have crossed it alone.
Which meant someone had taken him, either willingly or by force.
Slim stood up. As he headed down the outer steps, he glanced up at the sky. Grey clouds were gathering again, threatening rain. Out on the water, the little motorboat had gone.
Slim hoped it would be back.
31
Holed up in the abandoned house, Slim was a rat waiting to be trapped, but combing the narrow streets of Kingswear and Dartmouth he could make himself as elusive as a ghost. Slim Hardy would leave a trail, but as Mike Lewis, BBC researcher, he hoped to lay an alternative which might throw off any pursuers.
He headed first for the cross-river ferry. It was still fifteen minutes before the next crossing and he spotted the ferry master standing on the pier wearing a staff t-shirt and smoking a cigarette.
He introduced himself then pulled a couple of pictures from his pocket, one of Max Carson and another of Irene Long.
The ferry master nodded immediately. ‘You’re not with the police, are you? Already had them round asking the same question.’ He shook his head. ‘Yeah, I was on duty both nights, but no, I didn’t see them. ‘Twas dark, though, and we get a lot of commuters between five and seven. Boat’s packed most trips. Could easily have slipped past. What I’m saying is, they didn’t stand out.’
‘Is there CCTV footage?’
The ferry master nodded. ‘Was some outside the marina on the other side. Police took it. No one came back so one could guess it was a blank.’
Slim thanked the ferry master, then took the next ferry across to Dartmouth, keeping one eye on the master in the cabin at the ferry’s bow, wondering whether his questions might have aroused suspicion. The man, though, neither glanced back at him nor made any phone calls, so Slim climbed off the ferry on the Dartmouth side with a renewed sense of optimism.
He headed first for the harbour master’s office in a building across the street from the pier. He requested tide information, and then asked if any boats had been reported stolen in the last few weeks. One had, later found drifting in the middle of the estuary with a group of drunk tourists onboard. The boat Irene had been found in had, of course, never been set adrift.
There were no reports of others, and in Dartmouth Harbour, Slim was told, river traffic was tightly controlled and monitored, with permits and fees required for most vessels. Had Carson crossed the river on the night of his death, it had to have been beneath the official radar. Glancing up the street into the tourist areas, Slim saw a number of CCTV cameras which might have picked up Carson’s passing, but any relevant footage would now be in the hands of the pol
ice.
He headed back across the river, hiding among a throng of commuters. There, despite having enough money to take the train, he decided to keep a low profile and walked the three miles back to Greenway.
It was long past regular closing hours but parked cars were backing up the road from the entrance gates. Moving cautiously onwards, Slim passed a signboard announcing a private wedding. Morbidly curious, he stepped off the path, cut through the undergrowth and made his way around the back of the manor house until a view of a garden party appeared through branches buffeted by a light breeze.
He had missed the main ceremony, but the newly wedded couple now sat on a table at the end of the garden, surrounded by circular tables hosting six guests each. An older man held a microphone and was delivering an emotional speech about how much his daughter meant to him while the onlookers expressed their appreciation with a series of sighs, cheers, and claps. Attendants moved among the tables, carrying drinks and collecting dishes.
His curiosity satisfied, Slim was about to return to the abandoned house when a girl emerged from behind the manor house carrying a platter laden with bread rolls. She walked awkwardly, her steps short, her knees close together, as though the load were too heavy for her slender frame and narrow shoulders. Her hair was tied up, perhaps shorter or to disguise its length, but as she turned her head and gave an irritated scowl up at the sun, Slim’s breath caught in his throat.
It was her.
Eloise.
32
The garden party had been cleared away and the lawn sat in silence beneath a moon peering through thin clouds as Slim returned to the staff office. No one had yet discovered the window with its loose pane of glass and within minutes Slim was inside.
Using a small torch he covered with a cloth to dim the glare, he located the manager’s desk and squatted down beside the chair to inspect the drawers.
Locked.
Slim reached into his pocket for something he could use to pick it, then paused. A slight bulge on the mouse mat beside the computer aroused his curiosity. He lifted the corner, revealing a filing cabinet key lying beneath. With a smile, he memorised the key’s exact location then used it to open the largest drawer.
An information folder lay on the top of a pile of other papers and files, lying crooked because of a half-finished jar of instant coffee with a sticker labelling it as “Ray’s—please ask”. Slim gave a wistful smile at the thought of a decent cup as he lifted out the file.
Most of the information was general stuff regarding procedures, opening hours, and supplier lists, but near the back Slim found the staff manifests. Conveniently, each member of staff had a small ID picture next to their information. On the last page, listed under “kitchen staff” he found a picture of Eloise. Glum and unsmiling, she had refused to look at the camera, her head slightly tilted downwards to leave shadows over her face. To his surprise, he found her listed as Lauren Trebuchet. More important than an alias, however, were a home address and a phone number.
Slim stared. She lived in Paignton, just a few short miles up the road.
33
What might Eloise—or Lauren, as she was calling herself—be doing working a part-time job at Greenway?
Despite his dwindling resources, Paignton was not so far he couldn’t afford the bus fare, even if public transport made him nervous. He headed there the next morning, after a cold and fitful sleep on the upper floor of the abandoned house. Near the bus station, he located an isolated phone box and called Don.
‘Slim? Is that you? You don’t sound too good.’
After a couple of nights sleeping rough, Slim had picked up a cold, but he shrugged it off.
‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘Did you have any luck with that computer?’
‘I did. It wasn’t hard to crack. I managed to break into it using the IP address, then used a nifty little program to view a remembered password. Got a pen? Though you probably won’t need it. Agatha. Capital A. Not the most inventive. However, it’s not quite as simple as that. I couldn’t log in without the user ID. You’ll need to find who uses that computer and what their log-in ID is. I imagine it’ll be a staff number, something like that.’
‘Right.’
‘Now, I’m not going to ask what you’re doing, because, believe it or not, I actually trust you. However, once you’re in, be careful. Clean up after yourself. Delete your browser history, that kind of thing. It won’t stop a forensics team, but you don’t want a casual user noticing anything amiss. At the very least they’ll change their password and put us right back to the start.’
‘I understand. Thanks, Don.’
‘Take care, Slim.’
Slim hung up. Next he called Ben Holland, but got no answer. He decided against leaving a message for fear of being traced.
Eloise’s address was for a block of flats not far from Paignton Station, but there was no convenient place from which her fourth-floor flat could be observed. Slim had no option but to confront her, so he headed upstairs and knocked on her door.
No answer.
He tried again, calling out her name but addressing her as Lauren. He was about to try one last time when a door opened a little way along and an elderly woman leaned out.
‘Can you give it a rest?’
‘I’m sorry. Are you Lauren Trebuchet’s neighbour? Do you know when she’ll be back?’
‘Yes, and no, I don’t. She’s never back ’til late most nights. Nine, ten o’clock. Now buzz off or I’ll call the police.’
‘I’m sorry. I’m leaving now.’
The woman went back inside and slammed her door. Slim had hoped he might ask a few questions, but the rattle of a chain slipping back into place was followed by an increase in the TV’s volume.
Back on the street, he found another phone box and tried Ben once more, but again received no answer. With his frustration growing, his cold bringing his mood down, and his frugal spending limiting his dinner to an out-of-date bread roll from the reduced basket of a bakery about to close, he headed back to the bus station.
Through the glass façade, two police officers were visible ambling up and down the open waiting area, seemingly in no hurry to be anywhere. It might have been nothing more than a general patrol, but Slim was spooked enough to retreat to a small park across the street from where he could keep watch.
Were they on to him, or was it pure coincidence? Deciding it wasn’t worth the risk, Slim walked along the bus route to pick up his lift at a quieter stop. He missed the first bus, however, caught between two stops as it trundled past. It had started to rain, and he spent a frustrating forty-five minutes waiting in the gloom before another bus came. This one didn’t go all the way to Kingswear and left him with a miserable walk back to Greenway. He had planned to go back inside the tourist centre but even had he possessed the energy, he would have left an obvious trail. Feeling like he’d wasted a day, he made his way back down through the forest in the dark.
The rain had left the undergrowth moist and slippery, and he felt like a drowned mouse by the time he staggered out of the forest onto the last stretch of the old railway cutting, a partially obscured moon providing just enough light to make out outlines and greyscales.
He had spent enough time exploring the surrounds that he could find the safest approach to the house in the dark, but the rain had shifted the playing pieces, and halfway to the house’s looming angular silhouette he slipped in a patch of wet mud where yesterday grass had been. He caught himself as he fell, but a cough which had been building chose that moment to expel itself, echoing up the valley like a dog’s sudden bark.
Slim snapped his mouth shut, covering it instinctively with a muddy hand. The wind sighed. The leaves of the nearest trees rustled, and the undergrowth popped and crackled as something farther upslope began to move.
Something large passed within a couple of steps of where he lay crouched on all fours in the undergrowth. Whatever it was continued on downslope, moving deliberately but without alarm nor
haste, as though attempting to avoid the very fall he had made to disturb it. As the seconds ticked past, the sound of its movement grew faint, and the very fear which had held Slim in place loosened its grip. Slowly he rose to his feet.
He turned to look at the river in time to see a figure step out of the undergrowth and onto the old railway cutting. It reached the remains of the steel bridge, increasing its speed now it had surer ground underfoot. It ran to the end and, with a sudden jerk, lifted arms into the air and dived over the edge.
34
The passage of time, a poor mood, and worse health were enough to leave Slim doubtful of every aspect of what he thought he had seen.
He might have seen nothing at all. Or he might have seen the lithe figure of a young woman leaping off the end of the ruined bridge, as naked as the day she was born.
Rationality shone through his fear, that no matter where she might have been, she was gone, and unlikely to return. Even so, Slim, forced to stay in the abandoned house by returning rain and a lack of alternatives, couldn’t bear the thought of sleep. Crouched in an alcove beneath the remains of the internal stairs, he attempted to channel memories of his longest nights on patrol during the first Gulf War, trying to stay alert for the slightest sound which might constitute a threat. He failed, opening his eyes to the grey dawn, his body aching and soaked.
A fit of coughing ruined any hope he had for stealth as he crawled out of his hiding place, but there was no movement besides the fluttering of a couple of birds on the upper floor. Moving slowly, he searched for signs of tracks or other disturbances, but the only boot prints were his own. Rain had come in through the roof, soaking the stairs and leaving puddles on the floor, but while he found animal tracks that might have been a fox, there was no sign of anything human.
Outside, the heavy rain had similarly made signs of passage impossible to ascertain, springing many of his carefully laid traps, so Slim headed straight for the railway cutting and the collapsed bridge.