by Mike Ripley
I filed that away and asked if it was all right for the girls to stay until the doctors had done their rounds.
He said he supposed it was and offered to show them into the Intensive Care room, which had a hot drinks machine. By this time, Lisabeth was sniffing dramatically into a wad of Kleenex and Fenella had an arm round her (well, half around – her arms aren’t that long) for comfort.
I gave Fenella a handful of loose change for cups of tea and told her I was just popping out to ‘see to Armstrong’ and I’d be back in an hour. She knew me well enough not ask what I was up to in front of a policeman.
Back in Armstrong, I dug out a road atlas from under the driver’s seat and turned to the page covering south-east London and north Kent. I found the A227, which fed into the M20 motorway near Wrotham, easily enough, but the scale of the map was too small to identify anything called Blackberry Hill. From what the copper had said, though, it was somewhere between the North Downs Way country park and Brands Hatch. It was worth a looksee anyway, and was bound to be somebody around to ask; a poacher or an itinerant hop-picker or whatever sort of person wandered the countryside these days.
I zipped back along the M20, letting Armstrong have his head as I thought it made a nice change for him not to plod through heavy traffic at ten miles an hour. At the A227 turn-off, I switched off the cassette-player so I could concentrate on the terrain.
The road wound gradually upwards towards the Downs – only the English could call uplands downs – until I was clear of the motorways that cut through Kent like the prongs of a carving fork stabbing at France. The scenery was lush and the home values just as high as in London. I even passed a couple of oast houses where hops used to be dried after being picked by families of East Enders for a pittance and a daily beer ration. Nowadays, the graphic designers who’d converted the oast houses into very bijou residences all commuted to their dockland offices in the East End. It’s a funny world.
At a petrol station near Vigo, I got directions to Blackberry Hill, proving yet again that taxi-drivers are the only people who can get service at a garage without buying anything.
A few miles further on, I took a left on to a B road that curved up even higher. It didn’t say Blackberry Hill anywhere, there was just an old-fashioned road sign saying Broughton Street was four miles away. The hill was a switchback, and at the top of the first rise, I stopped and got out to have a look around.
There was no traffic at that time in the morning; it was too late for the milkman and too early for the lunch-time pubbers. So I climbed onto Armstrong’s bonnet for a better view.
Blackberry Hill curled down then to my right and up again. From my vantage-point, I could see exactly where the accident had happened – about 60 yards from the summit – as the cops had left a portable barrier with yellow flashing lights on top to mark the spot.
I got back into Armstrong and wound him up again. I couldn’t see anything from road level because of the hedgerow, but as I started up the second switch of the hill, I noticed an Escort estate car parked on the left, opposite the police barrier. I parked behind it and prepared some sarky backchat in case the owners turned out to be sightseers. Then I saw that it had a light on the top and the crest of Kent Fire Brigade on the driver’s door.
I couldn’t see anyone around, so I sauntered over to the barrier.
About a hundred and fifty feet down the side of the hill was Sal’s VW Golf, lying on its roof waving its wheels at the sky. The body shell had been crushed in, and anybody in there could only have come out through the windscreen.
I climbed the barrier and scuttered down towards the wreck, dislodging bits of chalk underfoot. As I drew nearer, a man stepped out from behind the Golf. He was wearing a peaked cap and pullover with epaulettes and elbow pads and carrying a clipboard.
‘There’s very little worth nicking, son,’ he said straight off. Some people are dead suspicious.
‘I’m here on behalf of the owner,’ I said, nodding at the Golf.
‘And who would that be?’ he asked, narrowing his eyes.
‘Mrs Salome Asmoyah,’ I said politely, and offered to spell it.
He looked down at his clipboard.
‘That’s okay, then. We have to be careful, you know; there are so many rubber-neckers and bloody souvenir-hunters, you wouldn’t believe. ‘Specially on Sundays. They make a fucking day out of it if they hear of a prang as nasty as this.’
I tut-tutted sympathetically.
‘What do you reckon happened?’ I knew he couldn’t resist being asked his professional opinion.
‘For my money, she just came over the top of the hill from the Broughton side too fast. It’s straight up that side – ‘ he waved his clipboard at the hill – ‘but it twists this side. She didn’t correct enough or she lost control or maybe she’d had a few bevvies. Who knows? Anyway, she hit the hedge, which is only about an inch thick, and found there was nothing this side. I think maybe she jammed the anchors on, because the car didn’t sail out into space or anything.’
He made a motion with his clipboard like an aircraft taking off.
‘It hit the hedge sideways and just kept rolling. There are faint traces of tyre on the road, but no serious skidding. Could have been just carelessness or inexperience or the booze.’
‘That’s not like her,’ I said, putting on the concern.
‘But tearing about the countryside late at night with a man not her husband is par for the course, eh?’ He saw my expression change. ‘I know, I know. That’s none of my business. That’s for the cops now, but they don’t seem to be worried. The poor cow’ll have to live with it.’
‘Brakes okay?’ I pointed at the car.
‘Yeah, as far as I can tell.’
I walked around the wreck with him.
‘No fire?’
‘Nah.’ He dismissed the idea. ‘It’s only in American movies where they catch fire. The petrol tank split open as it rolled, and most of the gas spilled out over the hill.’
We’d come full circle round the Golf, our feet crunching bits of windscreen.
‘She was a lucky lady, your friend,’ he said thoughtfully.
I agreed, and we stood in silence for a minute, gazing at the pile of crumpled metal.
‘If you’d brought a brush and shovel with you, you could have taken it home,’ he said, slapping his clipboard against a thigh.
‘Yeah. I reckon even the insurance company will accept this one as a write-off. What’ll happen to it?’
The Fire Officer shrugged his shoulders.
‘Probably stay here till it rots. It ain’t on the road, and this isn’t exactly prime farming land.’
‘Would there be any objection to me shifting it?’ I asked on a hunch. ‘It would be easier to get this back to London than to get an insurance assessor out here,’ I added on the spur of the moment.
‘Don’t see why not. I’ve finished with it, but you’ll have to check with the boys in blue. Here.’ He reached into a back pocket and produced an official-looking business card, which said his name was Davis. ‘Clear it with Inspector Ball in Maidstone first, but it should be all right. The police photographers were down here first thing this morning.’
I thanked him. Then I asked what time it had happened.
‘Just before midnight – well, before then maybe. It was reported by a bloke down the hill coming back from the pub. He heard a crunch or two and saw the headlights where he knew there wasn’t a road. Road Traffic were here within ten minutes, and the ambulance almost straight after. We brought a rescue team and an appliance –’ I realised he meant a fire engine – ‘but we were able to get the girl through the windscreen. She was lucky not to be trapped; nine out of ten would be. Of course, there was no rush with the bloke.’
‘You were here?’
‘Yes.’ He nodded. ‘I’m on three days’ leave, but I wanted
to get my report done. It’s best. When there’s a death.’
I bent down to try and look in the back of the Golf. ‘All the luggage has gone to the hospital,’ said Davis.
I straightened up.
‘She’ll probably ask for her clothes as soon as she comes round,’ I said, just for the sake of something to say.
Davis and I climbed back up to the road together. ‘She wasn’t showing much dress sense last night,’ he said over his shoulder to me.
‘What?’
‘Your lady friend, the black girl.’
‘I don’t follow.’ I stopped but he didn’t and I wheezed after him.
‘Dressed like a fucking commando she was, last night. You know, battle fatigues – camouflage gear. If it hadn’t been for the long hair and the high heels, we’d have thought we had a squaddie on our hands. In fact, one of the Road Traffic boys thought she was a Libyan terrorist at first. God knows where she’d been last night.’
I was beginning to think I might have an idea about that. But Salome had said to say nothing, so nothing was what I said.
By the time I got back to the hospital, I’d missed the doctors’ rounds. The policeman on duty was a different one, but he seemed to have already struck up a friendship with Fenella. Lisabeth was sitting apart from them reading a newspaper and eating a bar of chocolate. They vied with each other to fill me in on the gruesome details.
‘Salome’s got a brain clod,’ said Lisabeth.
‘Clot, you idiot,’ said Fenella. ‘A blood clot on the brain.’
‘They’re going to operate tonight.’
‘They’ve done the operation hundreds of times, though.’
‘And they won’t have to shave all her hair ...’
‘And it’ll grow back anyway ...’
‘And they don’t know if it’s affected her brain ... her memory ...’
‘Or her eyesight ...’
‘Or sense of smell. That happens too sometimes.’
‘Well, thanks, ladies, now I’m really depressed. Still, who comes to a hospital to be cheered up, eh?’ I put an arm round them both.
‘Pregnant women,’ said Fenella.
‘Pardon?’
‘Pregnant women. They come to hospital and are cheered up.’
‘Oh yes, I forgot. Sorry.’ Sometimes you just couldn’t open your mouth with those two.
‘Ignore her, Angel. I think the smell of this place has gone to her head. Or maybe it’s that nice policeman,’ she hinted, emphasising the last syllable.
Fenella blushed, and I changed subjects quick.
‘Any word on Frank?’
‘Ooh yes,’ cooed Lisabeth. ‘Fenella’s policeman told us. They’ve found him in Edinburgh and he’s on his way to Heathrow or Gatwick, I forget which. But anyway, he’s hiring a car.’
‘You’d have thought the police would have sent a car,’ said Fenella loudly.
‘Who for, miss?’ asked the policeman.
‘Salome’s husband. He must be worried sick.’
‘Sorry, miss. You heard the doctors. There’s not likely to be any change until they operate, and that probably won’t be until late this evening. We just haven’t got the manpower to play at taxis.’ He was gentle enough about it, but of course Lisabeth got the hump.
‘Well, what are you doing here?’ she snapped.
I moved between her and the constable. That way he might live to make sergeant.
‘He’s waiting to give her a breathalyser if she comes round,’ I said under my breath. ‘He’s only doing his job, and pretty soon he’ll give up and go away. It doesn’t sound like she is going to come round, so he won’t have to do anything.’
Lisabeth fumed but I went on.
‘Now make up your minds where to go for lunch. I’ve got something to do. Oh, and remember, this is the countryside, not the big city, and it’s Sunday, so your choice is limited.’
I approached the copper and held out Davis the Fire Chief’s card.
‘Hi there. I’ve seen the Fire guys and they told me to ask for an Inspector Ball. It’s about the car Sal – Mrs Asmoyah – was driving. I wondered if I could arrange for the wreck to be taken back – er – back home. Where can I find him?’
‘Down the Shop, I ‘spect. You a relative of ...’ He jerked a thumb at the Intensive Care doors.
‘We all live together.’ Did I lie?
His eyebrows would have disappeared if he’d been wearing his helmet.
‘I could get him on the radio and ask for you if you like.’ He tapped his collar radio – his ‘talking brooch’.
‘That’s decent of you,’ I said, and I meant it.
He moved down the corridor nearer to the window to get better reception.
‘Fenella says there’s a vegetarian café down the High Street, which does Sunday lunches, or so her policeman fiend tells her.’
‘Okay, we’ll find it.’
Lisabeth’s vegetarianism made it difficult to take her into pubs at lunch-time. Her temper made it inadvisable at other times.
‘It’s expensive, so Clive says,’ said Fenella.
Behind her, Lisabeth mimicked ‘Clive says’ silently.
‘Don’t worry, this is on expenses.’ I peeled off 40 quid from the wad in my back pocket. ‘But keep the bill.’
Clive the Constable came back with as much of a smile on his face as uniformed coppers ever allow themselves.
‘I got through to Mr Ball. He’s quite happy if you want to move the car; we’ve finished with it. In fact, he reckons you’ll save us and Kent County Council a few quid by doing so.’
‘That’s magic. Great. It’s ... er … something to do instead of hanging round.’
‘Yer, I know what you mean.’
I was warming to young Clive.
‘Any idea what’s going to go down over this?’ I asked, making sure we were not overheard by Les Girls.
‘Depends. Could be drunken driving, manslaughter, who knows? Did the chap who copped it have family?’
‘I don’t know. Would it make a difference?’
‘It might. Mothers Against Drunk Driving, that sort of thing, though usually it’s the mums of young daughters who beat the drum. The present Chief Constable’s very keen on causes like that. I’d line up a brief if I were you.’
‘Her husband’s a solicitor,’ I said, which wasn’t strictly true, but he was in the legal profession, and they’re all thick as thieves as far as I’m concerned. (Rule of Life No 24: If you ever find yourself needing a solicitor, it’s too late.)
I looked at my watch. There were 15 minutes to opening time, which meant I might just be able to head Duncan the Drunken off at the pass.
‘Look,’ I said to Clive. ‘Er ... thanks for everything, but I’ve got to get these ladies some food. See you later, eh?’
‘I’m off at two. I don’t think there’s much point in hanging around.’
‘No, I’m sure you’re right.’
He came closer and bent towards my ear.
‘Tell me something. Are those two really her sisters?’ He nodded towards where Salome lay in traction.
Well, they were Sisters, if not sisters, but I didn’t know if he’d get that. So I said:
‘Oh yes. And that one –’ I pointed discreetly at Fenella – ‘is the black sheep of the family.’
Chapter Seven
I rang Duncan from the phones on the wall in the hospital entrance as time was running out. As it was, I got Doreen, because Duncan was halfway down the garden path (all three feet of it) on his way to the pub. I told her I had a job for Duncan and there was money in it, and that was enough for her to yell ‘Duncan!’ so loud I felt I heard it without the need of the phone.
Duncan took some persuading – £250 and the scrap option on the VW, to be exact – but agreed to m
eet me at Blackberry Hill with his wrecker truck (there isn’t a vehicle known to man he can’t get hold of) in two hours. He told me I should be grateful, as this was the first Sunday lunch-time down his local that he’d missed in five years. I promised to buy shares in the brewery to make up for it.
I drove the girls around the suburbs until we found a newsagent big enough to sell maps, and stuffed behind a wad of yellowing, unfunny birthday cards, I found an Ordnance Survey map of the Blackberry Hill region. I wedged it in the carrier bag with the papers I’d taken from Salome’s briefcase, and then we went in search of the veggie noshery recommended by Fenella’s nice policeman.
We found it easily enough, and it was open for business – at least it was when they went in. I said I’d pick them up in an hour, and then drove until I found a pub with a bar food sign and a quiet corner. I bought myself a pint of shandy and something called a French banger, which turned out to be a six-inch sausage served in a nine-inch piece of French bread. In a crisis, it could have doubled as a draught excluder or, if the pub got rough, as a cosh.
I had my bag of reading material with me, and before the pub got too crowded, I spread the map, the Exhilarator brochure and the file marked ‘Cawthorne’ over a metal-legged table and got down to it. By the time the pub had filled enough so that the punters were giving me dirty looks for taking up so much room, I felt I had discovered enough to put two and two together and make five if not six.
The Exhilarator bumph advertised the latest in executive pastimes – dressing up as soldiers and running round the countryside shooting each other with paint pellets from air guns – a sort of hide-and-seek directed by Sam Peckinpah. The address on the brochure was Pegasus Farm, Blackberry Hill, Broughton Street, Kent, but there was no name to it. Yet Werewolf’s new friend Sorrel had said ‘Cawthorne’ and ‘assault courses’ virtually in the same delicately-taken breath, and surely there couldn’t be two of them? But then, how come Sorrel knew about things like that? Cawthorne’s file from Prior, Keen, Baldwin didn’t actually mention the Exhilarator; it was mostly financial stuff about his holdings and interests in the City. There was a lot of stuff in there I didn’t understand, such as ‘MM’ and ‘TF’ and ‘JS’, mostly in the form of cryptic notes after a company name, though even I worked out that ‘BB’ meant Big Bang, when the City had been deregulated two years earlier.