Saving Tara Goodwin (Mystery Book 1)

by Richard Harrington

  Walking back to Evelyn’s apartment, he’d more or less thought things through.

  ‘Evelyn, is there a phone in this place that doesn’t go through the internal system.’

  She thought for a moment, ‘Yes, there’s a pay phone for contractors on the ground floor, it’s in the booth by the canteen and has a direct line out.’

  ‘Good, I’ve got some calls to make. So empty Tara’s rooms of all her personal things, and when you’ve packed it all up, fix yourself an overnight bag because you girls are having a night out.’

  Taking the lift to the ground floor, Frank took Duncan’s business card from his wallet and put in a call to the sergeant’s tavern.

  ‘Hi Duncan, this is Frank Lewis, we met last night.’

  ‘Yes sir, I remember. So how can I help?’

  ‘I need accommodation for two ladies, tonight.’

  Frank heard the phone clunk down and the turning pages of a book.

  ‘We seem to be quite full, but I do have a cancellation, a double with twin beds.’

  ‘That’ll do fine. So book it for me and they’ll be over in about an hour.’

  The next call was to Ted Willis at the garage.

  ‘Ted, it’s Frank. How’s my car coming on?’

  Ted smiled, ‘All finished, old son, but whether she’s street legal is another question.’

  ‘Oh, never mind that. Now look, I know this is short notice, but I need a favour.’

  ‘Of course, you know that. So what is it?’

  ‘Well you remember that office party I was talking about.’

  Ted thought of the names in the game, Monty, and those bastards, Daniels and Coogan.

  ‘Yeah, I remember, ‘cos I wasn’t exactly crazy about the guest list.’

  ‘No, neither was I, and now the cork’s popped out of the bottle.’

  ‘I see. So what can I do?’

  ‘I need my car with the box and supplies by lunchtime tomorrow. Can you manage that?’

  With the mention of his box, Bertha jumped into his mind, ‘No problem. Where?’

  Frank gave him directions to the Sergeant’s Tavern.

  ‘And Ted, there’s something else. Your long lost niece wants to visit you for a while, but she’ll need a lot of care and attention.’

  ‘My niece?’

  ‘Yeah, you remember. Lovely little Tara. Blonde, blue eyes and quite tiny. She’s twenty something now and looks like an angel, so you’ll be surprised when you see her again.’

  Ted formed a mental picture, ‘Yeah, but I’m sure to recognise her now.’

  Frank spoke quietly, ‘Someone wants to give her grief, she’ll need looking after.’

  ‘That’s okay, no problem. What are uncles for?’

  ‘Good man. So bring my car over to the tavern, leave the keys up the exhaust and take Tara away with you, but Ted, you’ll need transport home, so use someone reliable.’

  Reaching for his notebook, Ted dialled Sammy’s number at the caravan park, and soon a dark voice came on the line.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Sammy, it’s Ted Willis. Are you free tomorrow?’

  ‘Depends what you got in mind.’

  ‘I need a car and a driver to collect a package, it’s legal, ish, but no guarantees.’

  ‘How far?’

  ‘About fifty miles, then straight back.’

  ‘Any fun?’

  ‘Could be.’

  ‘You goin’ tooled up?’

  Ted remembered that lying to Sammy was like inviting a stay in intensive care.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Okay. How much?’

  ‘Five hundred.’

  There was a short silence, ‘What’s the crack?’

  ‘We meet tomorrow morning, ten o’clock sharp in the old rail yard, then you follow me till I drop off a car, and you bring me and a passenger back here.’

  Another short silence, ‘Okay, it’s yours. Tomorrow at ten.’

  Ted smiled, with Sammy on board he could relax a little.

  Sammy Paradise was a renegade and hadn’t done an honest day’s work in his thirty years, but he was smart and never been caught.

  What kept Sammy in business was his word, his word was his bond, his heart and his soul, and to Sammy it meant just the same as his gypsy handshake. Having accepted a job he would see it through come hell or high water.

  Frank went back up to Evelyn’s apartment, and when he saw Tara’s small pile of innocent knickknacks on the sofa, he thought it didn’t look much to show for a life, and carrying the luggage down to Evelyn’s car, he carefully explained the arrangements.

  Evelyn would stay with Tara tonight and they wouldn’t make calls or leave the tavern.

  In the morning, Evelyn would return to Thornley and say they’d enjoyed a girls night out in Oxford, but in the morning she’d found that Tara had gone off on her own.

  At lunchtime tomorrow, Tara would be collected by a man called Ted Willis and she would stay with him until her final move to the safe house could be arranged, and with everything agreed, he stood in the sunshine and watched the Pontiac drive away.

  Christiana stared down to the slumbering Lucinda, their love making, wine and drugs having finished her, and tiptoeing out, found the mournful old house to be as silent as the grave as she made her way down the stairs. Peeping into the kitchen, she saw Martha sat at the table, her tea looking old and glazed as she stared out through eyes wet from tears.

  Leaving her to her misery, she went through to the lounge, and easing open the French windows, stepped out onto the terrace.

  The evening was drawing in now, the sun slipping low, the straggly shadows reaching out across the flagstones to her toes.

  Making her way to the left hand side of the house, she saw there was no proper path on this side and had to pick her way through the flowerbeds, bushes and trees, and having almost reached the front of the house, could now see her car away across the gravel.

  Pushing on, she suddenly stopped dead when she saw a long ladder standing against the house, and it reached right up to a bedroom window.

  Looking up, she recognised the tall colourful statue in the window and realised it must be Lucinda’s bedroom. So what the hell was going on?

  There was no-one in sight as she stepped onto the ladder, but her eyes suddenly narrowed when she saw a pair of gumboots standing in the flower bed. Arthur’s gumboots.

  She felt a surge of anger. Had that bastard been watching them on the bed having sex?

  Calming herself, she wondered where he was now, but there was no sound or movement, and looking more closely, saw the lower sash of the windows was now fully pushed up.

  My god, was that disgusting old man up there?

  Was he up there in Lucinda’s bedroom while she lay naked and fast asleep?

  Dropping her purse into the flowers she began to silently climb the ladder, and peering over the windowsill, could see the top half of the room, and raising herself up, looked over to the bed, and froze.

  Arthur was there, he was leaning over Lucinda as he licked and suckled at her breasts, then spreading her legs, he began running his fingers along her thighs, and moving down, slipped his tongue into the cleft of her.

  Christiana gripped the smooth stone of the windowsill, and was about to shout when her heart missed a beat. Lucinda had woken and was staring up through wide eyes.

  So what the hell would happen now?

  Christiana goggled, but Lucinda began to speak, lazily and far away as if in a dream.

  ‘Did you film it, Arthur? Did you film my wonderful Chrissy with me?’

  He paused from his pleasure, ‘Yes ma’am.’

  Christiana’s thoughts became frozen, What did she say?

  ‘And did you get it all? Everything?’

  ‘I did, ma’am.'

  ‘That’s good, she’s so gorgeous in yellow. And where’s the camcorder now?’

  ‘It’s under the bed, ma’am.’

  Christiana stared in disbelief.


  ‘Excellent. So that will make another juicy film for my collection.’

  ‘And it should be a good one, ma’am, ‘cos it’s the best sex I’ve seen for a long while.’

  ‘Yes, but that’s the difference with true love, true love makes nice movies, not like those bitches in the hole, they didn’t care if it was a nice movie or not, all they wanted was the good life, but you like good movies, don’t you Arthur.’

  ‘Yes ma’am, and you did say I could, you know, if I got a good film for you.’

  Lucinda sighed, ‘Oh god. I did, didn’t I. Oh well, come on then, but don’t be all day about it, I’ve still got that damned paperwork to finish.’

  As Frank’s official Jaguar cruised up to the gates of Angela’s security lodge, it reminded him that it could only be a matter of hours before it became obvious that Tara had left Thornley forever.

  But Evelyn could soon be in the Cardinal system and Angela would have even more control over Thornley, so that at least should make her smile, but he noticed tension as the guard checked his ID, and as the car drove through, another guard picked up the phone.

  It was a bad sign. So when he was dropped off, he walked over to the stone bridge, and lighting a cigarette, stood quietly for a while, but as his thoughts drifted away along the babbling stream, there came a long shadow and the silvery fish scattered in all directions.

  ‘So, you’ve decided to come back earlier this time.’

  Turning, he saw Angela, her eyes shining intensely, her body stiff as if in anger.

  ‘Frank. Are you working for me, or against me?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What do I mean? Well let’s start with Mr Dudley.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘Well of course you do, you idiot, you’ve let your Cardinal status go to your head. Jesus, I gave you more credit than that, and didn’t we agree Ambrose Dudley was our man on the inside? So how the hell are we going to get the password now you’ve killed him?’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  Angela fumed, ‘Christ, I know I said you could use piratical methods if you needed to, but for god’s sake, that’s three dead in one day, and Sergeant Jenkins thinks he’s in the middle of a frigging war zone and we’re rapidly running out of body bags.’

  ‘I just told you, I didn’t kill Dudley.’

  ‘Oh, come on, don’t play the innocent. Ambrose Dudley was alive and well when you signed in at floor security, then later, you walked out with a body bag over your shoulder and Dudley hasn’t been seen since.’

  ‘Angela, try to pay attention, I had nothing to do with Dudley, or his death.’

  ‘But Sergeant Jenkins said …’

  ‘Well bollocks to Jenkins, he saw two plus two and made five out of it.’

  ‘Oh. So who did kill him then?’

  ‘Anderton, but he was only following orders.’

  ‘Anderton? So why would the frigging clerk of works, kill the Head of Station?’

  ‘Because Hillsdown made him do it.’

  ‘Hillsdown? The chief of police, but why the hell would he do that?’

  ‘Because Mr G wanted it done.’

  ‘And who the fuck is Mr G?’

  ‘He’s the one you want, and I reckon he’s the big noise behind this whole mess.’

  Angela stood back in surprise, ‘Really? But I thought …’

  Frank turned away, and leaning on the bridge, looked down into the swirling water.

  ‘But that’s the trouble, you’re always thinking, then you get it all ass-backwards and chew my balls off before you even know all the facts, and to be honest, I’m getting totally pissed off with the whole damned thing.’

  Angela glared at him, ‘So the high and mighty, Mr Frank Lewis, is getting pissed off. Well what about me, I’m the poor sod who has to explain it to the CoS, and what do I say? Sorry gentlemen, but as you may have noticed, we’re killing off the staff one by one, and unfortunately, we haven’t discovered the frigging password yet.’

  He sighed, and turning to her, thought she seemed drawn and her eyes looked tired.

  ‘Well I guess one thing’s true, I did help Anderton and Hillsdown to do the decent thing, but it wasn’t all for nothing, I did get the password for you.’

  Christiana tiptoed across the gravel, her mind bursting with the insanity of the farm.

  ‘So how could people be like that?’

  Unlocking the car, she slipped inside and softly pulled the door closed beside her.

  ‘Those people ought to be locked up somewhere.’

  But as she drove the Ferrari, quietly up to the main road, another thought came to her.

  ‘My god. Those crazy bastards have got me on video making a porn movie.’

  She smacked the steering wheel, ‘Oh great, that’s all I need.’

  Speeding away she turned north onto a minor road and looked for a quiet country pub, and after a few miles, saw just what she’d been hoping for. Turning into the leafy car park of a quaint old pub, she checked her purse for money, and collecting the papers from the boot, walked over and pushed the door open.

  It was quiet and cosy inside with just a handful of couples sat chattering along the bar. Buying a glass of dry red wine, Christiana ignored the barmaid’s sniffy glance at her T shirt and walked over to a table in the furthest bay window.

  Laying the papers out, she took a sip of wine as she thought back to the priest hole, because although she’d photocopied all the used portion of the pad, the small leather diary only contained the three longish messages, and as the pad pages were all without dates, it seemed almost impossible to match them up.

  In the end she settled for the six most recently used pad pages, and concentrating on the first long message in the diary, carefully transcribed the blocks of figures using non carrying arithmetic until hopefully something would emerge that made sense.

  She tried for over half an hour without success, but when using the fourth of the pad pages and hastily scribbling out an answer, her pulse quickened and her eyes widened in surprised relief when a long message finally appeared.

  Attn DC.

  Confirmation.

  C agrees special dispensation.

  RS temp secondment to C for your divorce requirements.

  Target date 24 March 2001. Target area, Frankfurt, Germany.

  Best wishes for the future.

  A.

  29

  Christiana read the message over and over again, but it still didn’t make any sense.

  It was for the attention of DC, whoever that was, and reading it through again, it looked as though RS, who was almost certainly, Robin Sheverill, had been deliberately seconded to Cardinal on a temporary basis as a dispensation to someone as a target for divorce.

  So what the hell did that mean?

  Sipping her wine, she looked at the message again, and it seemed to read as if Robin Sheverill was the intended target, but that was crazy, so why would he be his own target and noted down in his own diary?

  Nothing made any sense.

  After reading the message again, she still ended up with the same conclusion.

  Someone known as DC had been given dispensation by C to get a divorce from RS.

  So if C meant Cardinal, and RS meant Robin Sheverill, could divorce be a Cardinal expression for a hit, and if it was taken literally, RS had been seconded to Cardinal so that DC could kill him in Germany, and of course, that’s exactly what happened.

  Christiana gazed out through the bay window, and while she looked at the countryside, the obvious reality of it all suddenly flooded into her mind.

  Robin Sheverill hadn’t been named in his own diary at all, because this wasn’t his diary, and if divorce was meant literally, DC could only be one person.

  So that horrible priest hole wasn’t Robin Sheverill’s communication room after all.

  It belonged to Lucinda, and if that were true, it was the perf
ect murder.

  Robin Sheverill had been seconded to Cardinal, so would have ceased to officially exist and his death would be recorded as missing in action - presumed dead, which meant, not only had Lucinda arranged for the murder of her own husband, but she’d gone to Germany and buried an ice pick into the back of his head.

  My god. And if she ever discovered she knew this, she would end up the same way.

  So, Lucinda was not only half mad but a Cardinal assassin, and the sooner she decoded the other messages and got out, the better.

  Finding the blocks on the fifth page, she transcribed and scribbled out the answer, her eyes sparkling as the message revealed itself.

  Attn DC.

  Target name, Patrick Cleary.

  Target date, 12 September 2001.

  Target area, Dublin - Ireland.

  Best wishes,

  A.

  Reading the message through, its intention couldn’t be clearer, well, except for those initials again. So what did DC stand for? And who the hell is A?

  Sipping her wine, she realised the 12th of September confirmed Lucinda once again because Robin Sheverill had been dead for ages by that time, and Lucinda had been away, and when she’d returned, said she’d had to cover another article for her publisher.

  So she’d been chasing shadows in the mirror all the time, but having come this far, wondered if the last long message in the diary might prove anything else.

  Buying another glass of wine, she lit a cigarette and flipped through the diary to the last long message, but if it didn’t have a reference to Area 57 she’d wasted a hell of a lot of time at Sheverill’s farm. Oh well, she might as well find out now.

  The blocks were on the most recently used page, and that was a big surprise, because the date in the diary was yesterday.

  Thinking back, she remembered Martha slipping the diary to her in the early afternoon, and reading it in the summer house, found the confusing blocks of figures, and later, Lucinda received that call from her publisher and threw the phone across the garden.

  So this must have been received in the morning, and scribbling blocks under blocks, she transcribed the answer to the alphabet and suddenly it was there.

  Attn DC.

  Be aware.

  Projected Target. Female (Sorry). Name, Tara Goodwin.