Safe House

by Chris Ewan

  I went down on my haunches, the bruising taut across my thigh, and peeled back the shredded flaps of tyre. The rubber had split wide open, like it had been sliced in two with a rusty cheese wire.

  ‘Blow-out,’ I said, half to myself.

  ‘How’s that?’

  I turned and grunted. ‘Tyre must have exploded. Maybe I picked up a nail. Or a piece of glass.’

  She pursed her lips. Nodded.

  ‘Are you going to tell me what’s going on?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Am I going to like it?’

  ‘That depends.’

  ‘On?’

  ‘Many things.’

  She moved across to a workbench that was fitted along the far side of the room and leaned against it. Next to the workbench was a glazed cabinet. The cabinet contained the trophies, cups and medals that Dad and I had won in our respective careers. Most of my wins had come in junior races. Dad’s were far more prestigious. Two replica trophies from his Senior TT victories, plus others from the Southern 100, run over a track in the south of the island, and the North West 200, held in Northern Ireland.

  There were two giant posters on the wall above the cabinet. The one on the left showed me with my knee down on the Yamaha, grazing the tarmac as I rounded the Nook before joining the start/finish straight of the TT course. The one on the right, just above Rebecca’s shoulder, showed Dad on his Honda, both wheels in the air as he was catapulted skywards by the humped rise of Ballaugh Bridge.

  Rebecca rested her elbow on the surface-mounted vice next to her. ‘My firm is based in London,’ she said. ‘Your parents appointed me two weeks ago.’

  ‘To do what exactly?’

  ‘To look into your sister’s death.’

  A gust of air escaped my lips. I felt a hollowness in my chest. Something hot and greasy was coiling inside my stomach. ‘My sister killed herself,’ I said, standing unsteadily. ‘She drove off a cliff.’ My tongue felt rubbery and swollen in my mouth. ‘She planned it.’

  ‘Was she depressed?’

  ‘Didn’t you hear what I just said? She – drove – off – a – cliff.’

  Rebecca tipped her head on to her shoulder. Folded her arms across her chest. ‘It’s common for people who kill themselves to have a history of depression.’

  ‘Really? Is that what they teach you at detective school?’

  A hardness crept into her eyes. She reached down and toyed with the handle on the vice. Eased her slim hand inside. As if maybe she was thinking of squashing it. Or me.

  ‘Don’t do that,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Question my qualifications. I’m more than equipped to deal with this case.’

  Her free hand gripped the vice handle, twisting it left and right. The mechanism squeaked. It needed oil.

  ‘I don’t doubt your qualifications.’

  ‘But . . . ?’

  ‘I do question the need for you to apply them.’

  ‘Your parents disagree.’

  ‘My parents are hurting.’

  ‘You think my firm are exploiting them?’

  ‘I think they’re paying you to look for answers that none of us can provide.’

  She removed her hand from the vice. Gave the handle a swing. Squeak.

  ‘Let me ask you this,’ she said. ‘Were you satisfied with the police investigation into your sister’s death?’

  ‘There was nothing to investigate. Marine Drive is a no through road. She went up there for a reason.’

  ‘Were you and Laura close?’

  My head jerked back. Dumb move. I felt dizzy all of a sudden. ‘What kind of question is that?’

  Her eyes were hard brown enamel. ‘The straightforward kind. The type I usually ask and people usually answer. They taught us it in detective school.’

  I stood there, breathing hard, the air coming fast and warm through my nostrils. The heat churning in my stomach like a furnace. I could have done with sitting down, but I wasn’t about to say so. ‘I knew her as well as I could,’ I said. ‘As much as she’d let me.’

  Rebecca hitched an eyebrow, expecting me to go on. I shook my head roughly, like I was trying to shed something sticky that was clinging to my face.

  ‘She didn’t come home from London very often,’ I told her. ‘We all found that hard.’

  ‘Did she give a reason?’

  ‘She blamed her job.’

  ‘What did she say exactly?’

  I shrugged. ‘She worked in the City. As a trader or something. It was stressful. She worked long hours. Had to travel a lot. I don’t think it suited her.’

  There was a screwdriver on the workbench. Rebecca picked it up and turned it in her hands. She rested the point on the wood, her palm on the red plastic handle.

  ‘How long have you been on the island?’ I asked.

  ‘I arrived last night.’

  ‘And before that?’

  ‘I was looking into your sister’s life in London. Interviewing the people she knew.’

  ‘So what led you over here?’

  ‘Your father called. He mentioned your accident.’

  I frowned. ‘What does that have to do with anything?’

  ‘He told me what happened. Mentioned the girl who was with you. The one you say has disappeared.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And he believes you.’

  I paused. My throat had closed up. It was difficult to speak. I tried all the same.

  ‘Does he want you to look into it?’

  ‘He asked me to.’

  ‘But you don’t see the point.’

  She pouted, pressing down on the screwdriver with her palm. ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘Something change your mind?’

  ‘Your motorbike,’ she said, pulling the screwdriver out of the workbench and jabbing it towards my bike. ‘Because if you truly believe your tyre gave out of its own accord, I’d say you ought to sign up for a mechanic’s course at night school.’

  Chapter Seven

  ‘God, your breath stinks.’

  Rebecca was talking to Rocky. He was sitting in the back of her rental Fiesta, poking his face through the gap between our seats. It was a balmy day, and unusually for the island, there was hardly any breeze. We had the windows cracked but Rocky was panting. His tongue was hanging from his mouth like a strip of dry-cured meat.

  Rebecca shot a look at me. ‘What are you feeding this dog?’

  ‘Ask him. Half the residents in the care home palm food his way.’

  ‘Gross.’

  Rebecca was not a dog person. This much was clear. She’d fought hard against the idea of having Rocky accompany us in the first place, but I’d told her it was non-negotiable. He needed exercise.

  ‘How much further?’ she asked.

  ‘Fifteen minutes, maybe.’

  She slapped her hand against the steering wheel and sucked clean air through the gap in her window like she was inhaling from an oxygen canister. It distracted her from the Ballacraine traffic lights ahead of us. The lights turned red and I braced my foot against the floor long before Rebecca stamped on the brake pedal.

  ‘What are your impressions of DI Shimmin?’ she asked me, once we’d come to an abrupt stop and my seatbelt had slashed into my ailing ribs.

  ‘Hard to tell,’ I managed, and tugged some slack into my belt. ‘I’m not sure if he’s lazy, or incompetent, or if he’s hiding something.’

  The lights switched to green and Rebecca swung left. Rocky’s muzzle swayed towards her. He was trying hard to win her over.

  ‘How about you?’ I asked. ‘You’ve spoken to him, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yesterday.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And he said I was wasting my time. You imagined the whole thing.’

  ‘Charming.’

  ‘He also promised me full co-operation.’

  ‘And how’s that panning out?’

  Her mouth curled into a lopsided grin. ‘I’m building a rela
tionship with his voicemail.’

  ‘Maybe you should try Teare.’

  ‘Why? Because we’re both women?’

  I paused for a beat. ‘No. Because she seemed like the type who asked questions. Or at least, she thought of some questions to ask.’

  We drove on in silence, following a gentle gradient through the village of Foxdale, where terraced and whitewashed cottages lined the road, before beginning the climb around South Barrule. Dense, knotted woods flanked the hillside until we gained ground and a view opened up across rectangular fields and flowering gorse and purple heather. The end of the valley was dominated by the tree-lined slope of Slieau Whallian, known in Manx folklore as the Witches’ Hill. In medieval times, suspected witches had been rolled down its steep incline inside spiked barrels. If they were killed, their death proved their innocence. If they survived, they were executed. I felt like I was in a similar lose–lose situation. Either I was imagining things and Lena had never existed, or my memories were accurate and there was a chance that Lena was in real trouble.

  ‘Is this bringing any of it back?’ Rebecca asked.

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Maybe something will filter through when we get to where the accident happened.’

  We reached the scene five minutes later. The road was a narrow ribbon of tarmac, riddled with cracks and potholes and scattered with loose gravel. To the left, a low wire fence ran along the crowded treeline of the plantation. To the right, an area of scrubland close to the ruins of an old tin mine had been bulldozed into a dirt-bike track. A couple of lads in garish motocross gear were riding off-road bikes over the dusty humps and hollows. 125ccs, maybe. Engines like chainsaws.

  Rebecca pulled over and stepped out of the car. I followed her as far as a series of yellow chalk marks that had been drawn on the crumbling tarmac. She knelt beside an arrow that pointed towards a wonky circle. In the middle of the circle, a thin trench had been gouged out of the road surface.

  ‘You went down hard.’ She pointed to the trench. ‘Very hard. How fast do you think you were going?’

  ‘Nothing crazy. I think I was still in first gear.’

  ‘I’m not the police, Rob. I don’t care if you were reckless.’

  I shrugged. ‘Forty-five. Maybe fifty miles an hour.’ I knew it didn’t sound good. The road was only wide enough for one vehicle, the surface bitty.

  Rebecca nodded. ‘You were thrown from your bike.’

  She straightened up and paced out the distance to a patch of flattened grass at the side of the track. It was marked by blue-and-white police tape stretched between two wooden pegs. A sign had been stapled to one of the pegs, asking for any witnesses to contact the police.

  ‘Six metres, give or take.’ Rebecca whistled. ‘You can fly.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘But you need to work on your landing.’ She pointed to a sod of wet earth. ‘I’d say this is where your shoulder hit the ground.’

  I glanced at the spot, then looked away. I fought the temptation to cradle my damaged shoulder blade with my free hand.

  ‘And Lena?’ I asked.

  Rebecca turned, hands on her hips. She surveyed the tarmac carefully. Kicked at some light grey scrapes with the toe of her shoe. ‘Here, maybe.’

  Something else caught her eye. She crossed over the road and negotiated her way down a drainage bank. Crouched behind an outcrop of brambles and gorse. She checked around and behind her, then straightened and peered further up the road, shading her eyes with her hand.

  ‘Where did you come out of the plantation?’

  ‘See the gate on that sheep field? It’s just opposite.’

  ‘Huh.’ She climbed out of the trench and walked past me, beyond the Fiesta. Rocky watched through the rear window as I stumbled behind her towards a minor junction some two hundred metres back. Off to the right, an even smaller road followed the edge of the plantation towards a low valley stream. ‘Interesting.’

  ‘What?’

  She ignored me and crossed the road towards the edge of the dirt track, where the two guys were tearing around on their bikes. She waited until they were thundering towards her and then she waved her arms and flagged them down. A fog of dust swirled around her and she covered her mouth with her forearm before showing the bikers some ID and conferring with them.

  Five minutes later, she was back. In the time that she’d been away, the gnarly pain in my scapula seemed to have got a lot worse. I’d almost convinced myself that I could hear a crunch when I moved.

  ‘A white van has been parked here during the past few weeks,’ she said, pointing at a gravel pull-in beside the junction. ‘Those bikers say they saw it at least twice. They also saw a man getting into the back of it. They reckon it looked like he’d been into the woods for a pee.’

  ‘So?’ I asked, cupping my elbow to ease the weight on my shoulder.

  ‘The van was white, Rob.’

  ‘And?’

  She sighed. Shook her head. ‘You were concussed, right? Dizzy? And you saw something that looked like an ambulance. But did you see any flashing lights? Hear any sirens?’

  ‘You think I mistook a white van for an ambulance?’

  She pointed back up the road towards the entrance to the plantation. ‘If they parked it here, you wouldn’t have seen it properly. Maybe they pulled out after the crash and you caught a glimpse of it then. You’d barely have been conscious.’

  I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t sure there was anything to be said.

  ‘And one, or maybe two of them, must have been hiding up there in that ditch, behind the hedge. They used a cable or some kind of concealed obstacle to burst your tyre and knock you from your bike.’

  ‘You think?’

  It was all sounding a bit far-fetched. I’d wanted someone to believe me. Now I was having doubts myself.

  ‘Skidmarks,’ she said.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘There aren’t any. No sign that you braked. You’re going fifty.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘Maybe fifty-five miles an hour. If you’d spotted something, you’d have tried to avoid it, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘The back wheel kicked up.’ I shuddered. ‘I remember that much.’

  ‘So it kicked up because of the obstacle your front tyre hit. Only explanation.’

  ‘You believe me, then? About Lena?’

  Her head jerked back and she gave me a curious look with her soft brown eyes. ‘Why wouldn’t I?’

  She led me back to the Fiesta and spoke to me across the roof of the car. ‘Listen, a road accident like yours. A story like yours. The police wouldn’t send two senior detectives to quiz you in your hospital bed. They’d send uniform. Maybe later, if you persisted, you’d get to speak to the cheap suits. But if that happened, we’re talking a worthwhile investigation. Something that digs below the surface. But Shimmin and Teare didn’t do that. Whatever happened here, someone wants it to stay buried.’

  She climbed inside the car. I opened my door and ducked down gingerly. Stared over at her.

  ‘And there’s something else,’ she said. ‘Shimmin claimed there were no witnesses. That nobody responded to their appeals for information.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So it doesn’t make sense. Somebody called an ambulance for you. We just don’t know who it was yet.’

  Chapter Eight

  My van was parked by the lower gate to the plantation, just as Shimmin had said. It was tucked right in against the bushes and trees. There was no way I would have left it like that. I wouldn’t have risked the sign work getting scratched by branches and thorns.

  Rebecca peered in through the front passenger window, her hands cupped around her eyes.

  ‘Spot anything out of place?’ she asked me.

  I opened the driver’s door. It was unlocked, which didn’t surprise me very much. A lot of people don’t bother to lock their cars on the Isle of Man and Shimmin was obviously one of them – especially when the vehicle didn’t belong to him.

  ‘
Nothing here,’ I said. ‘Let me look in the back.’

  I threw the rear cargo doors open and scanned the stale and dusty interior. I’d lined the van with quarter-inch ply and fitted cubby-holes and shelving for my tools along one wall, opposite the sliding load door. The space in the middle was for storage and there were two wooden planks on the floor. I’d used them as a ramp when I was wheeling my bike into the garage up at the cottage. It made me remember something.

  ‘I had a spare helmet and leather jacket,’ I said to Rebecca. ‘They belonged to an ex of mine. I loaned them to Lena.’

  ‘That’s good. Anything else?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  I closed the doors as Rebecca considered the wooden gate and the rutted pathway beyond. The poster about the missing dog was still there, curling in the afternoon sun. But the rusted security chain and the combination padlock were gone.

  The ground had baked dry in the days since I’d been there last. I could smell pollen and warm sap, hear the crick of insects from the grass at my side. A cloud of midges had settled over the Fiesta and I batted them away as I opened the door and released Rocky. He jumped out and stretched his back with a long groan of satisfaction.

  Rebecca popped the boot, took a seat on the lip and began to lace up a pair of stout walking shoes. Then she grabbed a backpack from the parcel shelf. The backpack was compact and made of tough black nylon. It had padded straps and multiple compartments.

  ‘It’s really not far,’ I told her. I was flexing and clenching the fingers of my bad arm as I spoke. It was good to get my blood pumping every now and again to ward off the pins and needles that had been bugging me since I’d been wearing the sling. ‘You won’t need supplies.’

  She unzipped the main compartment and I caught a glimpse of the backpack’s contents. A heavy-duty torch, a notepad and pen, and a pack of disposable plastic gloves. She burrowed deeper, checking for something, and I saw her remove a blue, elasticised plastic overshoe, the kind forensics officers wear. She dug further, until she found a matching one. Then she swung the backpack over her shoulder and locked the car.