by Chris Ewan
‘Let’s go,’ she said.
Rocky ran on ahead, squirming on his belly to force his way beneath the gate. There was a pedestrian swing-gate at the side, and he could have fitted through if he’d shown a little patience, but that wasn’t his style.
Warm air shimmied above the dusty rock path. The spruce and pine trees pressed in around us, adding insulation we didn’t need, and bees droned around the flowering yellow gorse.
‘About your theory,’ I said. ‘There’s something I don’t get.’
‘Go on.’
‘The idea that someone was waiting for me on the road. That they’d planned to knock me and Lena off my bike. How would they know to do that? How would they know we’d be coming?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Right.’ I listened to the beat of our shoes on the path. ‘Isn’t that a problem?’
Rebecca nodded. ‘A big one.’
‘So what does it mean?’
‘It means we need to find some answers. They taught us that at detective school, too.’ She winked at me, then rummaged around in her pocket, removing a mobile phone and holding it high above her head. ‘Good,’ she said, squinting at the screen. ‘I still have reception.’
‘You should be OK at the cottage, too. I was the other day.’
She closed the phone in her hand. ‘Why don’t you tell me again about the men you saw with Lena?’
We’d already been through it once, but I went through it a second time. I told her about Mr Shades – the way he wore his sunglasses when he answered the door, despite the gloom at the cottage. I mentioned his foreign accent, his prickly attitude. Then I described his companion. His peroxide hair and tattoos. His muscles.
‘And when Lena invited you into the kitchen, you were only there for a couple of minutes?’
‘If that. The atmosphere was pretty strained. So we went back to the garage.’
‘It could be she wanted you to see them,’ Rebecca said. ‘You told me the guy who answered the door wasn’t wearing his sunglasses when you went inside. Would you recognise him if you saw him again?’
I thought about it. Tried conjuring his image in my mind’s eye. ‘I think so.’
Sweat was beading on my face and neck and the air felt thick and hot when I inhaled. It might have been a warm day, but this wasn’t the tropics, and the walk was hardly strenuous. It made me realise that the accident had probably taken more out of me than I might have liked to believe. Yes, my bruised leg was stiff, and my chest and shoulder sore, but my energy levels and stamina were down, too.
We climbed the rise and approached the three-way fork in the path. Rocky was waiting ahead of us, looking back.
‘The middle one, Rock,’ I said, and pointed. He dropped his head and trotted forwards. ‘It’s not far now,’ I told Rebecca.
The trees closed over our heads, a green canopy stretching far above us, as if we were deep underwater. Daylight twinkled through the foliage, dancing like sunshine on the sea.
I looked towards the open gate with the slate sign on it. Yn Dorraghys. The darkness it referred to felt more appropriate than ever.
‘Their car’s gone,’ I said.
Rebecca followed me to the pull-in where I’d seen the red Micra. Tyre treads were still visible where it had been parked, the muddy ground formed into ridges that were soft and spongy underfoot. She reached for her backpack, unclipped a pouch on the side and removed a small digital camera. She fired off photographs from a couple of angles while I caught my breath, the flashes throwing the tree trunks ahead of us into bright relief.
‘Anything else look different?’
I circled around, searching for signs of change. There was nothing. The cottage appeared just as sad and uncared for. Maybe the tall grass was a little taller. Maybe a few more branches and pine leaves were blocking the gutters.
‘I don’t see anything,’ I said.
Rebecca paced towards the cottage. She removed a pair of surgical gloves from her backpack and snapped them on over her wrists. She tried the door handle. Locked. She looked in through a darkened window, flattening her gloved hand on the glass. She went up on her toes to study the sash lock. Rattled the fitting.
‘Wait,’ I said. ‘I have a key.’
‘You do?’
‘To the garage.’ I dug my free hand into the pocket of my jogging trousers and showed her.
Rebecca stared at me. ‘Why didn’t you say so before? Why didn’t you tell Shimmin?’
‘I only just remembered.’
Rebecca stared at me a little harder.
‘That’s the problem with head injuries,’ I told her. ‘Unpredictable.’
‘Uh huh. Or maybe you were planning to come back here and snoop around for yourself.’
I glanced down at my fingers poking out of my sling. I didn’t confirm or deny it.
‘So tell me about the key,’ she said.
I did. I told her how Mr Shades had tossed it to me on that first day and how Lena had asked me to hold on to it for when I returned the following morning. I explained that I’d had the key on me while I’d worked on the boiler and when we rode away on my bike. I told her that someone at the hospital must have found it among my clothes and stored it with the rest of my things.
‘So we caught a break,’ I said. ‘We can get inside the garage and access the cottage through the door into the kitchen.’
Rebecca plucked the key from my palm. ‘Not we.’ She shook her head. ‘You might think you’re pretty slick, but I’m going in alone. Your parents hired me to investigate. I’m a professional. This is what I do. And I don’t want you or your dog contaminating anything.’
My dog. Now that she mentioned it, where was Rocky? I hadn’t seen him since he’d run on ahead of us as we were nearing the cottage. An image of little Chester, the missing terrier, raced through my mind.
‘I won’t touch anything,’ I said.
‘That’s right.’ Rebecca fitted the key into the lock on the garage door. She compressed the handle and hauled the thing up. It made a loud metal screech. ‘Because you’re staying out here.’
She bent down and stretched the plastic bootees over her walking boots. Then she clicked on her torch and swept the room with the beam.
‘The boiler?’ she asked.
‘Over there.’ She pointed her flashlight in the direction I’d indicated. The boiler looked just as I’d left it. The front plate fitted back into position. The exterior wiped clean. ‘The door to the kitchen’s on your left. There’s a light cord next to it.’
She reached above her head to yank the garage door closed. It was at knee height when she ducked down and peered out from below.
‘I think I could have worked that one out for myself,’ she said.
The door slammed with a shudder. I cradled my bad arm, grinding my heel into the dirt.
‘Rocky?’ I called, my ribs smarting with the effort. ‘Rocky?’
I knew my dog. I knew he wouldn’t come right away. This was his first adventure in days and he’d want to savour it.
I took a moment to think about where he might be. I’d watched him pass through the gate and trot towards the cottage. I hadn’t kept track of him once Rebecca had started taking photographs but I’d have noticed if he’d stayed close.
I walked behind the garage to the oil tank. The grass was as high as my thighs, laden with pollen and cuckoo-spit. Full of bugs too. Mites and ticks. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d treated Rocky’s coat with something to repel them. Odds were, he’d have plunged right in, picking up an entire colony of new friends.
A rough path had been beaten through the grass to my right. It looked Rocky-sized and led to the back corner of the garden, where a wire fence had been pushed flat against the ground by the encroaching treeline. I waded through the grass. Stepped over the fence.
‘Rocky?’
I heard a bark. Coming from ahead.
‘Rocky?’
More barking.
I brus
hed branches and spider webs clear of my face. Brambles snagged on the legs of my trousers and the cotton material of my sling. I stepped over ditches and around briar patches, my feet sinking through layers of decaying pine needles.
Rocky’s barking was louder now. I squinted through the tree trunks until I caught a blur of golden hair. He was barking with such vigour that his front paws were bouncing up off the ground.
‘What is it?’ I asked. ‘What is it, boy?’
Rocky didn’t answer. He just kept barking. Then he hunkered down and growled. Then he barked some more.
I clambered over a fallen log and seized him by his collar. He barked one final time, like the full stop on the end of a sentence, and nuzzled into my hand with a whimper.
That’s when I heard the buzz for the first time. A low droning. Long and persistent. It repeated itself. Repeated again.
I gazed down and saw a bluish glow. A mobile phone. I picked it up just as the ringing stopped. A message flashed up.
64 Missed Calls.
I glanced towards the tree cover, pinpricks of light filtering down through the watery green. Then I stepped backwards and felt something crack under my heel. I raised my foot, expecting a branch. But I found something else.
A crushed pair of sunglasses with mirrored lenses.
Part Two
Chapter Nine
The boat was rolling and yawing, waves punching the hull, pitching the trawler high into the air, holding it aloft, then sending it plunging back down. Menser moaned and clutched his bald head. He wasn’t a good sailor. Never had been. So he needed the medication. A double dose. But the idea of adding anything at all to his churning stomach contents was almost more than he could bear.
So he compromised. Took the pills. Passed on the water. And hoped like crazy it would help.
The cabin lurched to the right. Menser peered out through the drenched window glass at the jagged horizon. It was meant to make things better. It just made them worse.
He heard footfall – the clang of metal treads. It was Clarke, climbing the ladder that connected the wheelhouse to the warren of rooms below deck. He’d changed clothes, at last. Ditched the paramedic costume and put on cargo trousers and a fleece jacket, like he was off on a hike.
‘Whoa there!’
Clarke thought he was hilarious. Swaying from one foot to the other, arms spread, acting as if he was being thrown around by the movement of the waves. His cheeks bulged. He covered his mouth and made a retching noise.
‘Give it a rest,’ Menser told him.
Clarke had been working the routine, riffing off variations of it, since they’d first left Peel marina, on the west coast of the island. It had grown old very fast.
‘I’m sorry, but this is priceless.’ Clarke dropped his hands on to his thighs and stared at Menser like he was an animal in a zoo. ‘IQ. The IQ. Outfoxed by Mother Nature. Undone by a dicey tum.’ He grinned like a lunatic. Started the swaying again. ‘Why didn’t you take your tablets before we set off, eh? Egghead like you. Would’ve thought you’d have known to do that.’
The intellect thing had followed Menser throughout his career. A consequence of his premature baldness and, yes, his surname. One time, early on, Menser had told the dumb bastard who was ribbing him that his name was spelt with an er on the end, not an a. It just made it worse. As if having the capacity to think for himself was a bad thing. Which it wasn’t. Menser knew that now. It was what had kept him in the job all these years. Made him useful. A capable employee. But it had also trapped him. Because he’d been expected to babysit a long list of idiots. Like the moron working the drunken sailor routine in front of him right now.
Menser glanced down at his wrists. The elasticised bracelets he was wearing were fitted with plastic buds that were meant to compress his pulse points. And do what exactly? He didn’t know. Hokum, probably. Some kind of placebo effect.
Islands. They were a pain in the backside. Difficult to fly out of without leaving a paper trail or being monitored in some way. That was why they’d gone with the boat. That was why he’d been paired with Clarke. He had some kind of naval background, apparently. Could even be he was ex-SBS.
‘How’s it looking down there?’ Menser asked.
‘No problem. Big guy’s still out of it. The girl looks pissed off. Says her wrist’s broken.’
‘And is it?’
‘Seems more like a sprain. I offered to take a look. Wasn’t having it.’
‘Why not?’
‘I might have suggested it’d help if she took her shirt off first.’
Menser shut his eyes and clamped his hand over his hairless scalp. This is what he had to deal with. What he was expected to manage. Co-operation – it was the key element in any hostage situation. Right now, the girl would barely talk. Wouldn’t eat. Refused to drink. That was normal. A standard reaction. Changing it took trust. Or fear. In Menser’s experience, trust worked better. It took longer – it was something you had to earn – but it could result in a useful bond. The one thing you didn’t want to build was hate. Make them hate you, and their resistance would grow. Make them despise you enough, and they’d stay silent just to spite you. Reach that stage and it didn’t matter what you did. Menser had seen all kinds of torture. Different varieties of pain. Some obvious. Some ingenious. The results, without exception, were unsatisfactory. Either the hostage died without saying anything, or the captor had to back down.
So it was better to be pleasant. Build their trust.
And then dispose of them.
It was something he could have told Clarke. A theory he could have explained. But Clarke wasn’t the type to listen. Take that ridiculous patch of facial hair below his lip. Menser had told him to lose it. Warned him it was memorable. And what happened? The bumfluff remained.
Same thing when they’d snatched the girl. He’d told Clarke not to speak to the biker, but Clarke had gone ahead and done it anyway. He’d claimed the guy was concussed – like the green jumpsuit had convinced him he was a genuine medic – but Menser didn’t like it. Taking chances was something you did if you wanted to get caught. And Menser didn’t. Not ever. Especially not now.
He put his hand to his gut. He was going to have to get past the sickness. Go below deck and repair whatever damage Clarke had caused. Maybe he could turn it to his advantage. Make the girl see that he was the one she could deal with. A rational mind. A reasonable guy.
Someone she could trust.
Chapter Ten
Lena stared blankly at the figure in the doorway. Deep inside her gut, she experienced a flutter of relief. It was the older man. The one with no hair. He was clinging to the doorframe because the boat was tipping and swirling around. In his spare hand he carried a plastic mug. Steam was rising from it.
‘I brought you some tea,’ he said, and extended the mug towards her, spilling hot liquid over his knuckles as the boat pitched suddenly to the right.
She had to fight back a smile. Tea. Of course. This was what the English always offered you. It didn’t matter that they’d imprisoned you in a ship’s cabin in the middle of a storm. It made no difference that you’d been drugged and abducted against your will.
She wanted to decline. Or even better, ignore him. But she was thirsty. Her mouth was dry and she was suffering from a headache that wouldn’t go away. It had been with her since she’d first come around to find herself in this . . . cell, she supposed she should call it.
The room had metal walls, painted white, and no window. There was a grubby linoleum floor, a metal toilet, a metal sink and two bunk beds with rusted frames. The door the man had come in by was metal, too. It had riveted panels and a sturdy lock. She’d tried opening it already. Many times. But the door had been bolted on the outside.
‘Either you want it, or you don’t,’ the man said. ‘But if I was you, I’d take it. You keep refusing and we might forget to come down here altogether.’
Her thirst was too much. Her headache too urgent.
L
ena unfurled her right hand, the one that wasn’t inflamed and throbbing. The man approached and placed the mug in her palm. It wasn’t so bad when she finally took a sip. The tea had plenty of sugar in it. She could feel the sucrose zinging through her system, like a tiny spark of energy.
The cabin tipped and rocked. The door swung backwards and the man grabbed for it. He closed his eyes and swallowed thickly.
‘Mind if I sit down?’
He stumbled across and collapsed on to the bunk that faced her own. The veins pulsed in his temples. His ears and his scalp were flushed red. Lena could see that he was wearing a pair of pale-blue wristbands.
‘We need to talk,’ the man said, and spread his clammy fingers, as if he was prepared to be entirely open with her.
Lena didn’t reply.
‘About the cottage,’ the man continued. ‘About what you’ve been doing up there. And about Melanie Fleming. Her, in particular.’
Lena said nothing. She sipped her tea. Nursed her wrist in her lap.
The man smiled glumly. Shook his bald head. ‘You know what concerns me? What concerns me is that you’re not concerned. Now, if it was me, and I was in your position, I’d be terrified.’
The man waited a beat. Exhaled sharply.
‘Look, if you talk to me, I can help you. Maybe between us we can think of a way to make some of this go away.’
Lena slumped against the wall of the cabin.
‘Listen, you know the police have been looking for you, right? Maybe not publicly. Not in a major way, at least. But in a discreet, persistent way. So don’t think for a minute they won’t jump at the chance to take you into custody. That’s where we’re heading, get it? That’s where we’re taking you right now. We have people waiting. It’s all set up.’
Lena drank some more of the tea and closed her eyes to think. When she opened them again, the man was still there. He was crouched forwards, his elbows resting on his spread thighs, his palms pressed together, as if in prayer. He waited for a rolling swell to pass under them before speaking again.