Magdalena took out the sharp piece of porcelain tile and started to tear the sheet into long strips.
54
When Kate and Tristan entered the club, it was dimly lit, and there was a stench of mold. Kate could feel that the carpet under their feet was damp. To their left was a long wooden counter, which was covered in bird droppings and dust, and in the shadows behind were rows and rows of coat hooks; some were broken and hanging off the wall. To the right were the ladies’ and gents’ toilets. The doors had been removed from both. They were in the cloakroom.
Kate and Tristan ducked inside the female and male toilets respectively.
“Nothing but old, stinking toilets and dirt,” whispered Tristan when he emerged. Kate nodded. She had seen the same in the women’s toilets. At the end of the cloakroom were three sets of double doors with round glass windows. They were closed, but a light glowed through the glass. Kate went to the middle door and peered through the glass. A bright lamp on a stand was lit, and it sat in the middle of the enormous, empty ballroom. It was a mess of rubbish, dead birds, and bird droppings.
Kate could see that the light didn’t reach the edges of the ballroom. She opened the door, which creaked slightly, and they crept into the huge space.
It had once been ornate and elegant, and large chunks of the original crown molding were intact, but there were large craters in the plaster ceiling and holes in the roof, where they could see up and out to the night sky.
The ballroom floor was made of wood, covered in a layer of filth and dirt, and it was wet underfoot. Running along the back were the dark shutters of a long-neglected bar.
Tristan pointed to the right; at the end of the long ballroom was a set of double doors, where light spilled out. They couldn’t see what was inside the room, but they heard the murmur of voices. Were there more than two voices? thought Kate. It was difficult to tell. She looked around the ballroom; to their left was another set of double doors, and she could see a small sign: BASEMENT.
Kate was mindful of the fact that they’d seen Dylan come into the ballroom with a shotgun. Thomas had also brought in two large, heavy shovels. There could also be more people in the back offices who were armed or willing to fight. It didn’t make sense, though, for so many people to be involved, did it? But there was a lot at stake with the cover-up of the disappearances of Magdalena and the others.
Kate pointed at the door. Tristan was very pale, but he nodded. They hurried across the ballroom and through the doorway into a small, dingy corridor. To the right the corridor led down to a huge kitchen, which sat empty and cavernous. Grimy squares on the walls showed where the kitchen equipment had been ripped out. In the center of the floor were the remnants of several fires. They came back out and hurried along the corridor in the other direction, and at the end were the metal doors of a large lift. Kate didn’t expect anything to happen when she pressed the button beside it, but the small window in the door lit up from the inside.
Tristan’s eyebrows shot up in alarm. Kate pulled the handle, and the door opened smoothly.
“Hang on, what are we doing?” said Tristan, in a low voice.
“Magdalena could be down there,” said Kate. “We saw Dylan and Thomas come in, so they must be in another part of the building. We need to go down and help her. I have this can of Mace. If I activate and press it, it’ll spray in a huge arc.”
Tristan looked at the small can in her hand.
“I wish we had a gun,” he said.
“We don’t.”
“Okay, let’s go down,” he said. They got in the lift. There was only one button, and underneath it: BASEMENT.
Kate pressed it. There was a lurch and a loud clanking as the lift jolted to life. The corridor through the small window in the door rose up and out of sight as the lift started to slowly descend. It was very loud, with the whir of the gears and the whine of the motor.
A minute later, the lift came to a stop with a jolt.
“I can’t see anything on the other side,” said Tristan, peering through the window in the lift door.
The door creaked as they opened it, and Kate and Tristan stepped out into darkness.
They activated the lights on their mobile phones.
It was a huge, empty space with a concrete floor and black walls where water was dripping down into pools. Kate swung her light wide around the space, and so did Tristan. It was completely empty apart from a pile of old bricks and cement in one dark corner. Shafts of light came from a small window in the ceiling on the right-hand side, and when Kate approached it, she could see it was a ventilation shaft, looking up to the car park high above.
Kate looked at Tristan. She had been certain that Magdalena was being kept in the basement at Hedley House. They searched the space with their flashlights once more to be sure, and then they went back to the lift and got inside.
“What are we going to do?” asked Tristan.
“We need to get out of here without being seen,” said Kate. She reached out to press the button, but before she did, the doors closed. The lift lurched into life and started to climb back up again.
Kate pulled her hand away.
“I didn’t touch the button, and it’s taking us back up,” said Kate, hearing the fear in her voice. She took a deep breath and found the Mace in her pocket. “Keep behind me. I’ll yell out if I spray this, and if I do, close your eyes and cover your nose.”
Tristan moved with his back to the wall, and he look terrified. The lift seemed to move so slowly, and yet there was nothing they could do but wait. There was no other button on the wall, not even an emergency stop.
The lift came to a juddering stop, and the door was yanked open.
Waiting outside the lift were Thomas Baker, Dana Baker, Stephen Baker, and Silvia Baker. Next to Silvia was Dylan Robertson, who had his shotgun trained on Kate and Tristan inside the lift. To his right side stood Henry Ko with his father, Arron Ko. It was a shock to see them all, and it was the first time that Kate had seen Arron Ko. He looked much the same as he did in the newspaper photo, but this evening he was dressed casually in old jeans and a fleece coat. Kate was relieved to see Henry Ko, though there was something uncontrolled and gleeful about the way they were all peering into the lift. As if they had been lying in wait for a rodent, and now that they had it cornered, they were going to flush it out.
“Get out of the fucking lift,” said Dylan, peering at them down the barrel of the gun.
55
Kate winced, and she put her hand up to cover the glare of a flashlight.
“Didn’t you hear him?” shrilled Silvia Baker, aiming the flashlight into the service lift. “Come on. Out! You’re trespassing!”
Silvia was dressed like the queen on a day off: sensible Wellingtons, a pleated kilt, a padded Barbour jacket, and a head scarf.
“Hang on, hang on, this isn’t kids trespassing again,” said Thomas.
“They look a bit old to be kids who’ve broken in to light another fire,” said Stephen. He was also dressed casually and wearing a thick fleece. “Hey, I know you,” he said, as if they were old friends meeting in a gentlemen’s club. “They came to see me in the shop.”
Kate and Tristan inched forward out of the lift.
“You can put the gun down,” she said to Dylan, who was glowering at them and shifting on his heels. She was emboldened by the presence of Henry and Arron Ko. She looked to Henry, but he seemed nervous. “Detective Chief Inspector Ko,” said Kate. “Perhaps you could ask him to put the shotgun down?”
Henry didn’t look happy, and it was Arron who leaned forward and put his hand on the gun.
“Come on now, Dylan, that’s enough,” he said, and he pushed the muzzle of the shotgun down until Dylan loosened his grip.
“I’m legally within my rights to shoot trespassers,” growled Dylan.
“Doesn’t mean you have to, Dylan,” said Arron.
“But you are trespassing,” said Henry. There was another silence as they looked expectantl
y at Kate and Tristan. “What the hell are you two doing here?”
“We were talking to a lorry driver,” said Tristan, speaking up. “He saw Magdalena Rossi with an old man by the side of the road on the day she went missing. His description of the old man matches the description provided by Kirstie Newett, which means her story of being abducted could be true.”
There was a moment of silence. Kate scanned the faces of the Bakers and the Kos. They all looked nonplussed. Dylan looked annoyed, as if he’d been denied the opportunity to fire his gun.
“Henry. Who are they? Who are you?” asked Silvia, not waiting for his answer. She hadn’t recognized either of them.
“I’m Kate Marshall. I’m a lecturer at Ashdean University, and this is my research associate, Tristan Harper,” said Kate. Silvia seemed to warm a little to the news that they were academics.
“But why are you here? Is it to do with the university?”
Are you stupid or just playing the fool? thought Kate.
“No. We thought that Magdalena Rossi was being kept captive here in the basement. This building is derelict and out of the way, and it has a basement,” said Kate. Now, when they were staring at the whole Baker family, it sounded stupid.
“Is this what you were talking about when you came to the shop?” asked Stephen.
“Yes. They came and talked to me, too, harassed me at work about this missing young woman,” said Dana, speaking for the first time. She was standing behind her aunt. She wore a long blue trench coat and red high heels.
“Why are you all here so late at night?” asked Kate.
“We have no obligation to explain ourselves to trespassers,” said Thomas. He looked down at Kate and Tristan as if they were two rather naughty schoolchildren. “We’re planning to develop Hedley House into residential apartments. We’re all joint shareholders of what will be this new project, apart from Henry here, but, er, Arron is.”
Arron Ko nodded.
“I’m not in the best of health . . . Not very well at all; Henry is my heir,” he said, taking a step forward. Kate noticed that he was limping badly and walking with a cane.
“Arron, don’t, please. You don’t have to tell them . . . ,” said Silvia, her voice trailing off. She sounded genuinely distressed at what he was saying. “Who is this Magdalena?” asked Silvia. “Thomas?”
“Yes, Thomas. I still don’t understand why you arrived so quickly the other day when we found Ted Clough’s body,” said Kate. She knew she was making a leap and throwing this accusation out, but she had nothing to lose.
Thomas opened his mouth to protest, but Henry stepped in, placing his hand on Thomas’s arm.
“I’ve already spoken to Ms. Marshall and Mr. Harper about this,” he said. “I’ve told them that they need to drop this ridiculous theory that the Baker family and my father have something to do with the disappearance of Magdalena Rossi.”
Arron Ko looked genuinely surprised at the accusation.
“What? Look at me; I’m hardly in fighting shape to go abducting anyone,” he said, holding up his walking stick.
“How do you explain what happened to Kirstie Newett?” asked Kate.
Arron Ko closed his eyes and leaned on his stick. From the rest of the family’s faces, Kate could see that they all knew about Kirstie.
“Bloody hell. That young woman, she won’t leave us alone!” said Arron. “It’s true, I found Kirstie on the side of the road late one night when I was coming back from work. I took her to the hospital. I was aware of who she was when I picked her up. She’d been brought into the police station several times for soliciting. She also had a drug problem, and for a time she hung around with a rather nasty bunch of drug dealers.”
“You didn’t believe her when she told you that she’d been abducted?” asked Tristan.
“I believed that someone could have abducted her,” he said. “But you have to realize, Kirstie had previously lied to the police. My first thought was that she needed help. She was in a terrible state, beaten up and wet through. I took her to the hospital and transferred her to the care of a psychiatrist.”
“Why are you a shareholder in the corporation?” asked Tristan. “Isn’t that a conflict of interest?”
“Arron, don’t answer that!” snapped Silvia. “The impertinence of this young man. This is ridiculous. We don’t have to justify ourselves to any old idiots who break in to our property. We should be the ones asking the questions here!” Arron reached out and touched her shoulder, rubbing her arm.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Myself and Silvia go back many years. We have known each other since we were young, and she kindly gave me the opportunity to invest in the company, albeit modestly,” he said.
“Arron, enough,” said Silvia, her face softening a little.
“I still don’t think it’s right, Thomas, for a senior police officer like Arron, and now Henry, to be so intimately involved with your family business,” said Kate.
“As a civilian, Arron has the right to do business and be a shareholder,” said Thomas. “But remember, the Shadow Sands estate is very large, with a community of tenants, and the hydroelectric dam is a massive infrastructure project, part owned by the government. I would be concerned if the local police weren’t involved in protecting the community and the dam . . .”
Kate could see a vein was pulsing in his neck. He didn’t like being questioned.
“I understand that when you retired, Arron, you had DCI Varia Campbell promoted, without her applying for a promotion, and Henry was brought in to take her place as a DCI in the Devon and Cornwall borough.”
“Oh, you’re being frightfully common,” said Silvia. “I’m very good friends with the dean of Ashdean; I’m going to have a word with him when I next see him.”
“We have a witness, a lorry driver, who saw Magdalena on Sunday, the fourteenth of October, the day she went missing, talking to a man by the side of the road,” said Kate, ignoring her. “He says Magdalena was helping the old man change his car tire. This was close to the spot where her yellow scooter was recovered from the ditch.”
“We asked the lorry driver to phone your help line and report this officially,” said Tristan.
“Yes. And I think that this eyewitness evidence should at least warrant a search of some of the larger properties on the Shadow Sands estate and a search of the reservoir,” said Kate. “And I will shout very loudly if this isn’t done.”
A look passed between Henry and Arron Ko.
“You have a colossal cheek, woman!” cried Silvia. “You don’t get to dictate terms to the police.”
“I was a police officer,” said Kate. “And any body of water close to where a person has gone missing is always searched. And Kirstie Newett might be guilty of many things, but her description of the man who abducted her matches the description the lorry driver gave of the man who Magdalena stopped to help on the side of the road. I will also get Kirstie Newett to give an official statement, something you denied her before. So, I’ll say again, the reservoir needs to be searched, as well as any empty or inhabited premises, of which we know there are several on the Shadow Sands estate.”
Kate took a deep breath.
“You’ll have your work cut out, Thomas,” said Stephen. “He’s your man. The lord of the manor, and the commercial premises are all in his name.” There was a tinge of something in Stephen’s voice—was it triumph or envy? Kate could certainly sense there was conflict between the brothers. Stephen went on, “Now, as much as I love standing around in the cold, talking bollocks, I have to get home to the kids. Jassy is expecting me.”
“Will you do your job as a police officer and search the reservoir and surrounding premises?” said Kate to Henry, feeling like a madwoman but knowing in her gut that she had to keep pressing for this, however strange the forum.
“Yes, Henry, you should have the premises searched,” said Arron, leaning on his stick. He looked exhausted. Silvia glanced back, and a look passed between her and Arron.
/>
“The reservoir is complicated. It’s a part-government-owned infrastructure project; there are different rules,” said Thomas.
“Yes, we can’t even landscape the visitors’ center grounds on the side next to the power plant,” said Dana, speaking for only the second time.
“Well. You can happily come back and nose around my shop,” said Stephen, now annoyed and eager to leave. “I just own my shop, nothing else. I have nothing to do with the bloody estate and all this circus. Now, I really must go.”
“Yes. This has gone on long enough,” growled Dylan, who was still cradling the shotgun. “Henry, can you see that these two have a police escort off the premises?”
56
“Where is your car?” asked Henry as he marched them out into the car park.
“We came off the road, about a mile away, just before the reservoir,” said Kate.
“So where do you want me to drop you?” he asked when they reached his police car.
“Back to my car. I can’t leave it there. We’ll need to call for assistance.”
A moment later, the rest of the family emerged from the main entrance.
Silvia, Dylan, Dana, and Arron went to the Land Rover. Dana had to help Arron climb up into the back seat. Thomas and Stephen stopped to lock the door and then headed over to the other car. Silvia gave Kate and Tristan a nasty stare as they pulled past and onto the road.
Kate and Tristan rode in the car in silence with Henry, back to the point where their car had come off the road. When they pulled up at the shoulder, they got out, and Henry placed a call to the Automobile Association.
“I can wait with you,” he said. “They’re going to be here in twenty minutes.”
“No, it’s fine, thank you,” said Kate. Henry went to go back to his car. “And you’re going to search all the buildings on the estate?” she added.
“Yes,” he said. He didn’t look sure of himself. He got into his car and drove away.
Kate and Tristan stood in silence for a moment, watching as his headlights receded over the hill back toward Ashdean.
Shadow Sands Page 24