Dead in Devon

by Stephanie Austin

  As Paul’s gate came into view I swerved and more or less threw myself over it into the field. I landed hard, slipping on mud and cursing, and raced off towards the caravan. No friendly light shone out from its windows, no promise of safety. I banged on the door with clenched fists and yelled his name. No answer. He wasn’t at home. Of course he wasn’t, I remembered, as I stood there, heaving air into my lungs, nursing my throbbing hand: he had told me. He was in bloody Truro.

  I glimpsed a flash of red through the branches of the hedge as Vlad’s car passed. Then I heard tyres crunch to a gravelly halt. The car backed slowly into view and drew to a stop beyond the gate. I cursed softly.

  As I heard the car door open I ducked down out of sight behind the workshop. The safety of home was only two fields away. But if I made a break for it, I’d be out in the open. Vlad would see me and I wasn’t sure I could outrun him the full distance. Better to find a hiding place.

  I dodged down the side of the old barn, hunting for a way in. Halfway down, almost hidden by a clump of nettles and ragwort, was a low wooden door, frail and rickety-looking with gaps between its shrunken planks and a space at the bottom where the wind whistled through. A kid might have wriggled through that gap, but not me. I tried the rusty doorknob and it rattled loosely. I shoved the door with my shoulder, once, twice, and it gave, pitching me forwards into the murky interior. Slamming it shut it behind me, I collapsed against it, relief flooding over me like cold water. My heart was thumping, trying to burst out of my chest. I took in a deep breath.

  It was almost dark inside the workshop. I stood, breathing hard, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the gloom. Where was Vlad now? The big metal door in the adjacent shed rattled and I swore softly. He was closer than I thought. I felt for the lock on the little door behind me. My fingers found the cold metal of a lock-plate and the draught through the keyhole. There was no key. I slid my hand up and down the wood, my fingers searching, but there were no bolts either, no way of securing the door against outside. And soon Vlad would find it, as I had.

  I grabbed the nearest chair from a stack of old furniture and rammed it under the door handle; it wouldn’t hold out against an assault for long, but it might buy me a few minutes.

  Crossing the workshop on tiptoe, I opened the door of the tank room. I could just make out the shape of the big caustic tank. Above it hung the grid for lowering furniture, and above that, the skylight, one window open to the sky. If I could get up on to that grid, I might be able to squirm out through the skylight and on to the roof. The lid of the tank was shut and if I stood on it, I could probably reach the grid, haul myself up.

  I closed the tank-room door, lifted a chair and set it down quietly next to the tank. As I stood on it, I heard a banging against the wooden door in the workshop. Vlad was trying to get in, throwing his body against it. I stepped up on the lid, feeling it flex slightly with my weight. Inside the tank I sensed the slightest movement as the body of lethal liquid shifted, and prayed that the lid would hold. I reached up with both arms. There was a crash as the little door to the workshop shattered, the scrape of the chair as it slid across the stone floor. I stretched up for the bars of the grid, standing on tiptoe, and my fingers closed around the cold metal bars. It rocked and the chains that supported it jangled.

  There was a sudden flick-flick of strip lights from inside the workshop and brightness flooded in under the tank-room door. Footsteps crossed the workshop and stopped. I stayed still. If I moved, the rattling chains would give me away. I held my breath.

  Vlad was searching around, stopping now and then. I heard him walk around the saw-bench, stop, circle a stack of furniture. He moved to the foot of the ladder that led to the hayloft. ‘Are you up here, girlfriend?’ he laughed, his voice mocking, and began to climb.

  Now was my chance. Gritting my teeth, I locked my fingers around the bars and jumped up, pulling with both arms, straining to heave my body on to the flat surface of the swaying grid. It was like trying to climb on to a floating raft. Not easy.

  The grid swung backwards with me clinging to it and for a dreadful moment I lost my grip. I cried out before I could stop myself, scrabbling at the bars with my fingers and clung on, hanging by my arms as it swung back and came to rest once more above the lid of the tank. Footsteps pounded down the ladder and a few moments later the light in the tank room flicked on.

  Vlad stood in the doorway. His eye was horrible, bulging, a blood-red golf ball, the bruised lid barely able to close over it. But it was the other eye, the ice-blue, cold stare glittering with hate, that was more frightening to look at. He surveyed me, hanging by my arms, toes barely touching the lid of the tank, and he laughed.

  ‘You know what is in tank, girlfriend?’ he asked casually.

  I didn’t answer. The bars of the grid were digging into my palms and my arms were starting to tremble. I could feel sweat running through my hair.

  ‘So, where is it?’ he asked, advancing towards me. ‘You get it from the old man, eh? You get him to leave you everything. Clever girl!’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I told him. ‘What is it you want?’

  He picked up a long piece of wood from a pile of odd timbers resting against the wall and banged the side of the tank with it. The metal clanged and the liquid sloshed inside. ‘Pretty full in there.’ He inspected the controls of the machinery and grabbed a lever. ‘What does this do?’ He pulled it towards him and I felt the grid move. I let out a scream. Suddenly my feet left the lid, and I was dangling helplessly, the grid biting into my fingers.

  ‘Ah!’ he nodded. ‘This one makes you go up and down.’ He let go of the lever, leaving me dangling. The muscles in my arms were tearing, screaming for relief.

  ‘If you kill me,’ I cried desperately, ‘you’ll never find out where it is.’ I didn’t know what ‘it’ was but I reckoned bluffing was my only chance.

  He gave an evil grin. ‘I don’t need to kill you, girlfriend. I dangle your toes in that tank and you’ll soon be begging to tell me where it is.’ He surveyed the controls again, studying the two remaining levers, touching first one, then the other, as if trying to choose between them. I watched him, transfixed. Then he smiled up at me. ‘Now, which one opens lid?’

  He reached for the middle lever and I screamed. ‘Not that one!’

  He raised his eyebrows questioningly. ‘No?’ he asked, grinning, and pulled it towards him.

  I knew he would.

  He wasn’t prepared for the sideways movement of the grid, the sudden swing out. I’d operated the machinery and I was. I braced myself and clung on, bending my knees and then thrusting my legs out straight. Both boots kicked him in the throat before he realised I was swinging in his direction. He sprawled backwards, hitting the floor. I let go of the grid, dropping to the concrete, yelling at the impact as I landed on my feet.

  Vlad staggered upright, laughing, breathless. ‘Now I think I kill you,’ he said, and the knife flickered in his hand.

  He was between me and the door. I dodged right, but so did he. I began to back away, behind the tank, but I was backing my way into a corner and searched around desperately for a weapon. There was nothing except the coiled hose mounted on the wall. I grabbed the end of it and pulled, unreeling a length of hose whilst with the other hand I struggled with the tap. It was stiff and unyielding, squeaking as it began to turn.

  Vlad laughed when he saw what I was trying to do. ‘You drown me now, girlfriend?’ he asked. ‘I don’t think so.’

  I aimed the nozzle. Nothing happened. There was no powerful jet of water to force him back, not even a trickle. He came towards me, blade gripped in his fist. Suddenly the hose became a writhing snake as the pressure surged through it. I struggled to keep hold as water gushed from its mouth, but the hose was a sinuous, coiling monster, drenching us both in an avalanche of cold water. Cursing, Vlad dodged back. Water poured across the concrete floor and I almost lost my grip. I grappled with the hose, gripping it hard, about three f
eet from its end, my wet hands choking off the water. As Vlad surged towards me, blade in hand, I swung it like a club and the brass nozzle caught the side of his head. It knocked him out cold.

  I stared at him lying on the floor, the water gushing over his body. When I was sure he wasn’t moving, I went to the wall and turned off the tap. The outpouring dwindled to a trickle and then stopped.

  I stood, breathless, dripping, wondering if I’d killed him. I wasn’t prepared to get close enough to find out if he was faking it. I kicked him savagely in the balls. Not a flicker. Slamming the door of the tank room behind me, I ran through into the workshop and dragged a heavy Victorian dressing table across the floor, shoving it against the tank-room door. It took me a while. It was a hefty beast and I had to stop twice to draw breath. I didn’t think Vlad would be coming round any time soon, but when he did, I wanted to be bloody sure he couldn’t break out.

  The little wooden door into the workshop was broken, hanging off its hinge. There was nothing I could do to secure it. I had to move fast. I stumbled down the lane until Maisie’s cottage came into view. My keys were still in the gutter where I dropped them. I selected Maisie’s key and let myself into her cottage. She was still fast asleep. Jacko jumped down from his windowsill, and for once, failed to bark, but circled my ankles, wagging his tail. I patted him briefly. ‘Thanks for trying,’ I whispered.

  As I picked up Maisie’s phone and dialled, she began to stir.

  ‘Police,’ I said breathlessly as a voice asked which service I required. I was dripping wet, trembling, and my right hand was bruised and puffing up nicely. Maisie, finally waking, noticed none of this. She just blinked at me as I stood there, holding her phone.

  ‘You still ’ere?’ she said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  ‘It’s like The Adventures of Robin Hood,’ Ricky said, grinning. ‘I wish I could have seen you, swinging about on that thing like Errol Flynn on a chandelier.’

  ‘Errol who?’ I asked sweetly. He poked out his tongue.

  ‘How’s your hand, Juno?’ Morris asked anxiously. ‘Is it still hurting?’

  ‘A bit,’ I admitted. It was barely twenty-four hours since my encounter with Vlad and actually, it was hurting a lot. I gazed ruefully at my bruised knuckles, at the bandage around my palm.

  ‘Well, I think you deserve a medal,’ he told me proudly, slicing up a Victoria sponge.

  ‘That’ll be the day! I don’t think Inspector Ford approves of me at all.’ He had interviewed me that morning, asking me lots of questions. I’d told him all about my fight with Vlad. I didn’t mention the kick in the balls.

  I had no idea what it was that Vlad thought I had in my possession, but I wasn’t sure the inspector believed me. ‘And poor old Paul!’ I went on. ‘When he got back from Truro, there were police crawling all over his place, his door’s broken, half his workshop had been flooded and he got a ticking off for not securing it properly.’

  Morris tutted and passed me a slice of cake. ‘Well, the police would never have caught Vlad without you.’

  ‘Except his name’s not Vlad,’ I pointed out. ‘It’s Sergei Zhotahyehski,’ although he would always be Vlad to me.

  ‘And do we know what he was after?’ Ricky asked, taking out a cigarette and tapping the end of it on the breakfast table.

  ‘No. He’s being very tight-lipped about that. In fact, according to Inspector Ford, he’s being tight-lipped about everything, refuses to co-operate.’

  ‘What I don’t understand,’ Morris began, stirring his tea thoughtfully, ‘is how this Vlad found out that Nick had left the shop to you. I mean, that’s why he came after you, wasn’t it? Because he thought Nick had left you something that he thought belonged to him?’

  Ricky paused in the act of lighting his fag. ‘Oh, come on! You’ve only got to hang around Ashburton for five minutes and you can pick up gossip on just about anybody.’

  ‘Especially if they’ve been talking to either of you two,’ I put in sweetly.

  ‘But he hasn’t been hanging around Ashburton, has he?’ Morris objected. ‘Not recently.’

  ‘Well, not that we know about,’ I conceded.

  ‘Of course!’ Ricky clicked his fingers, hit by sudden inspiration. ‘Bert Evans told him.’ He turned to me. ‘Didn’t Vlad say to you yesterday that Bert didn’t have this thing he was after, whatever it was?’

  Morris’s brow crumpled in confusion. ‘But why would Bert Evans tell Vlad Juno had it?’

  ‘To save his rotten skin, of course!’ Ricky puffed out smoke and dropped his lighter on the table. ‘Keep up, Maurice! If two blokes kept stuffing your head in a fish pond, wouldn’t you tell them that someone else had got it?’

  ‘There’s just one problem with this theory,’ I pointed out, before the conversation could get more heated. ‘Bert was already dead, long before the reading of the will.’

  Ricky’s shoulders sagged as his theory imploded. ‘So he was,’ he muttered.

  For a moment the three of us were silent.

  ‘He might have seen it, though,’ Morris glanced from Ricky to me. ‘The will, I mean. Nick might have showed it to him. Somebody had to witness it, didn’t they?’

  ‘That’s true,’ Ricky admitted, nodding thoughtfully.

  ‘I suppose Mr Young would know who witnessed it,’ I said. ‘I could ring him.’

  Ricky jerked his head at the clock on the wall. ‘I don’t think you’re going to find a solicitor in his office at half past five on a Friday afternoon.’

  ‘Probably not,’ I sighed, but I tried his number anyway. The answer machine kicked in after several rings and I put the receiver down. There was no point in leaving a message. It would have to wait until Monday. I drained my teacup. ‘Thanks for the tea,’ I said, getting up. ‘I’m going home.’

  ‘Well, at least you can stop worrying about Vlad,’ Morris told me, catching my arm. ‘He’s safely under lock and key.’

  ‘You look after yourself, Juno,’ Ricky advised, pointing his fag hand at me. ‘Take it easy over the weekend.’

  ‘I will,’ I promised, lying. Bloody ceilings do not paint themselves.

  Stupidly, I decided to get the job out of the way that evening. I was already knackered, but I argued to myself that a quick coat of paint with the roller couldn’t take long and if that didn’t do the trick it could dry overnight, ready for another coat next morning.

  But when I let myself inside the shop, I found it was raining. There was a large shiny puddle on the floor, a steady dripping from above. I looked up and swore. The stain on the ceiling was a dirty cloud; I held my hand out beneath it and felt a cold droplet of water on my palm. I stared as another droplet bounced off my skin.

  The nearest bucket was upstairs, so I fetched a willow-pattern chamber pot from the corner and placed it on the floor to catch the drips. Then I ran up the stairs into the living room.

  I surveyed the bare floorboards, looking for one I could lift. I found one right in the middle of the floor, in front of the fireplace, lifted it out with a bit of heaving and groaning, slid it aside and knelt, peered down into the black void beneath.

  I grabbed the torch from my bag and shone the light into the hole. I didn’t know what little critters might be lurking underneath the floorboards and I didn’t fancy putting my hand down into the dark. The beam illuminated dust, cobwebs and a rusty-looking pipe. I lay on the floor and reached my arm through the hole, stretching to the ends of my fingers. The pipe was wet to the touch. I knelt up, aimed the torch and took another look. Judging from the dark patch on the surface beneath the pipe, it had been dripping for some time, slowly. It probably wasn’t going to cause a major flood. Not until around two in the morning, I thought grimly, when the ceiling of the shop collapses. I was going to need a plumber and I didn’t know where I was going to get one. When the sun goes down in Ashburton, all tradesmen, like little furry animals, go home to hide in their holes. I scowled into the space beneath the floorboards. I would have to leave it t
ill the morning and hope for the best.

  Before I replaced the floorboard I shone the torch around once more. The light picked up a dark lump, lying a foot or so from where the pipe was dripping. I couldn’t make out what it was. It seemed to be some sort of package. I put the torch down, lay on the floor and began groping around, my arm at full stretch. I couldn’t reach it. Unless I could find something to help me get at it, I’d have to prise up another floorboard. I suddenly thought of Nick’s walking stick and fetched it from the hall.

  Lying down once more I slid it beneath the floorboards, holding it by the rubber ferrule using the curved handle to hook the package towards me. After a few moments’ fishing, the handle made contact. I heard something slide beneath the floor. ‘Gotcha!’ I cried triumphantly and pulled the stick back towards me.

  I thrust my arm back down into the darkness and came up with the package. It was about the size of a paperback book, wrapped in black plastic and bound with tape. I sat up and wiped the dust off the surface. Inside I felt a flickering of excitement.

  Too impatient to unwrap the tape, I pulled the plastic apart with my fingers, making a hole wide enough to ease the contents out. I was holding something bundled up in soft woollen cloth which turned out to be an old grey scarf. As I unrolled it, I found I was holding my breath. Was this what Vlad had been after? Or perhaps, at last, I had found those damn rings.

  But the object I unwrapped was too shallow to be a ring-box. It was less than an inch deep, made of some glossy, dark wood and hinged down both long edges. I realised I was looking at the back of it and turned it over. It didn’t open like a book. The lid was divided into two halves, held together in the middle by an ornate clasp of yellow metal. I gently pressed the clasp and the two halves of the lid opened. I stared. An exquisite, sloe-eyed Madonna stared back at me, her radiant face framed by a blue veil, her virgin head haloed in gold.