Sleepwalk

by Ros Seddon

  ‘Ok. Well thanks Flick and I’m sorry you’ve had to go through all this with the cat business.’

  ‘It’s ok. I’ve had so many shocks recently and I wondered when or where it would turn up once you said it wasn’t you that….. you know.’

  DI Carter stepped forward. ‘Would you like us to …. er, dispose of the cat for you Flick?’

  ‘Oh God! I hadn’t thought about that’

  ‘We have our own veterinary who can arrange a cremation for you and I think under the circumstances……’

  ‘Yes. Thank you Detective Inspector. That would be very good of you. Maybe later, once you’ve caught this man, I might plant a tree or something where his grave was.’

  ‘Yes. Well. Goodbye Flick. We’ll keep in touch.’ DC Peters shook her hand and the two made their way to the car to await the arrival of the forensics team. Felicity went upstairs to find her friend hard at work. Sandra had mixed the paint and was already half way around the bathroom with a pretty pastel shade of blue with the odd dark blue vein in it………

  Margaret Breen very carefully backed the car out of its garage. She hated to drive. Even the thought of getting behind the wheel scared her immensely. She felt a bump as she braked too late and heard the crunch of metal against the low garden wall. She put the gear stick into first gear, pulled forward awkwardly to the left and braked just in time before hitting the stone pillar of the garage. She tried to move the car both forward and back to manoeuvre it but it had somehow become stuck against the low wall and fence to the left of her and no matter how hard she tried she just got closer and closer to the wall until the car was wedged there against the wall and was going nowhere.

  ‘What on earth are you doing love?’ Joseph came across and opened the driver’s door.

  ‘It’s that silly wall again. I’ve told you about it before but you wouldn’t listen. It sticks out much too far’

  Joseph looked at the angle of the car and looked over the bonnet to the passenger side. The sill at the base of the car body was well and truly jammed against the wall. Moving it in any direction would scratch it even more now.

  ‘No doubt about it Margaret; It’s well and truly stuck. We aren’t going anywhere now without causing a lot of damage to the car. Don’t worry though……’ Joseph took his wallet from inside his jacket pocket and took out some coins. ‘… I’ve got some money here. We can call the breakdown people to lift it out with one of their crane lorries’

  ‘Shut up Joseph; you’re not helping at all.’ She dialled Felicity’s number, furious at herself for her inadequacy as a driver and as she stood there in the driveway waiting for an answer, she realised just how much room she had on the right hand side of the car. It was wide enough to fit two cars in so how………….?

  ‘Darling I’m sorry, I know you’re busy but I’m a bit stuck, and I thought you may know what to do.’

  ‘What’s happened Mum?’

  ‘Well, somehow I seem to have got the car stuck against the garden wall and I’m not quite sure how to get it out. Your father has a hospital appointment in twenty minutes and ……. I could call a taxi if it’s difficult.’

  ‘No. No It’s fine Mum. I’ll be right over and I can take you to the hospital.’

  Felicity reached for her handbag. David had only just arrived back after dropping Ollie at his parents.

  ‘I’m sorry guys. I’ve got to pop out. Mum’s got the car stuck.’

  They all had a good snigger at her mothers expense. Sandy volunteered to hold the fort until they got back and David drove her to her parent’s house in Compton. He skilfully pulled the Toyota away from the wall resulting in a small but unavoidable scratch to go with its new dent, turned it around and then reversed it into the garage so that it was easy for her mother to drive out next time she used it.

  ‘There won’t be a next time’ she announced as they all clambered into David’s car.

  ‘I’ve never liked driving anyway so it can stay in the garage and gather dust for all I care……. or you can have it Felicity. It’s a new car and it’s got a lovely heater and everything and one of these CD things that I’ve never used.’

  ‘Don’t be daft Mum. You could sell it if you really don’t want to drive anymore. Or you could take a refresher course; have a few more lessons; get your confidence back.’

  ‘Darling; to get one’s confidence back one needs to have confidence in the first place and I have never felt confident behind the wheel of one of these things. We would never get back what we paid for it anyway. The depreciation value on new cars is way too high and Joseph isn’t allowed to drive it anymore.’

  ‘Might get fifty pounds for it.’ Joseph retorted abruptly.

  David looked at Felicity and they both smiled but he recognised a deep sadness in her smile. He wanted to hold her in his arms right there and then; tell her everything would be all right; but he knew it wouldn’t be. Joseph Breen would slowly get worse until he didn’t know anyone anymore; until he didn’t even know himself.

  David waited in the car in the hospital car park while Felicity went inside with her parents. There was a small play area in the hospital grounds and he watched the children playing there. The morning had gone well with Ellie and Abi both playing with Oliver while he’d watched from the bench and read his newspaper. He’d left them alone for a short while and gone to the booth to get himself a coffee and when he’d returned Ollie had come running up to him and held on to him like he wouldn’t ever let go. He had been crying and Abi advised him that it was because he was afraid his father had left him. More and more lately he’d noticed his son becoming quite clingy with him. The boy obviously still had his insecurities about the break up and knew that he wasn’t to be left alone with his mother. He had never had a problem staying with his grandparents; although David had never really left him with anyone else; not even with Flick. Although he’d also noticed that Oliver was becoming more fond of Flick and she, fonder of him. She bathed him, took him to bed and read to him every night and played with him or talked to him the whole time he was awake. She had an incredibly good understanding of children’s education and the boy’s speech had improved dramatically in the past couple of weeks. If she left now and moved back to her cottage it could have a devastating effect on Oliver. David watched as he saw her now, arm in arm with her father and mother, chatting away and smiling as they made their way back to the car park. They were a happy family, even with all the little obstacles life put in their way; they climbed them and moved on. That was what life was all about, wasn’t it; finding someone to share your life with; to climb the obstacles with. David had thought he’d found that with Ellie; then he had lost her. Now he had found Felicity and he wasn’t about to let her go…………….

  *******************************

  Vanessa Gordon had slept well and was more with it today. The round faced nurse was back on duty and had already been chatting away to her on and off for most of the morning. When the door opened and the boy, Williams came and stood by her bed it was no surprise to either of them. The round faced nurse left them to talk and made her exit.

  ‘What do you want Williams? Haven’t you done enough?’

  His face was stern as he sat beside her and he didn’t speak or look at her. He just sat gazing at the floor.

  ‘If you’ve come here to sit and gawk at me and don’t even have a word of apology to offer then you may as well leave.’

  His head moved then and he looked her in the eyes. She’d never really looked at his face before and she thought he was quite a handsome boy ….. in a rugged sort of way.

  ‘Why are you so bitter?

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘What makes you so bitter ……. so unforgiving ……. so short sighted, and so …… venomous.’ Even as he spoke Slim knew that the words coming out of his mouth were not his words; they were Jonquils; but sure enough it was him saying them. It was as though Jonquil were speaking through him and he felt quite pleased with himself that
he had just used a word like venemon…… venemet…… venemunon……. He couldn’t even say it to himself.

  ‘Don’t you dare speak to me like that! How could you? After all the teasing and taunting you’ve done and stealing from my log pile. You have made my life a misery.’

  ‘You make your own life a misery because you see bad in everyone. That first time I came to you because I saw you had that massive pile of logs all getting wet in the rain and it was in the winter and we were so cold; me and Jonk and Bernie and the colonel. I found the barrel and spent ages cutting it up with me penknife so I could make a fire in it but all the sticks were wet and wouldn’t burn. So I come to you to see if I could do a bit o’ work for you in return for some logs, you remember?’

  Vanessa remembered. He had spent the whole morning there building her a covered log store and then stacked the logs securely into the store to keep them dry and she had made a deal with him. She would give him a bag of logs and two loaves of bread fresh from her bread oven but it had all gone wrong. She’d had a call from her sister in America to say she wouldn’t be coming to stay at Christmas after all which meant she’d be spending Christmas on her own again, and she’d been on the phone so long trying to convince her to change her mind; to no avail, that by the time she got to the oven the bread was ruined because she’d had the heat too high and forgotten to turn it down before the phone went. Seeing red she’d put all three loaves of bread in the bin and told him there wouldn’t be any bread after all. He’d grabbed a sack and started to fill it with logs and told her he didn’t care if it was burnt; they were hungry he’d said. But she’d insisted he wasn’t having burnt bread and he could just take the logs and have done with it.

  ‘We had a bargain.’ Said Slim and he looked at her with his eyebrows raised as if he were expecting an explanation.

  ‘You’ve had that bag of logs tenfold since you’ve been stealing from me Williams; you know you have.’

  ‘We were hungry Vanguard. You made a promise. I kept my part of the deal; you never kept yours.’

  She hung her head, his words starting to penetrate the tough exterior of the idealistic world that was Vanessa Gordon.

  ‘Bernie died that winter. He was ex army too, like the colonel. Me and Jonky, they used to tell us stories about the war. They never had a good time in the war you know.’

  ‘I …… I know……’

  ‘And then the colonel……. and ……. and now Jonk……. It’s just me now. Me and Bits. But I had to come. She told me…… she always told me I should come and talk to you…… saw the good in you, she did. Said you needed a friend, that’s why you was bitter. But I never had the guts see; but now she’s gone I…….’

  ‘Jonky …. the girl ……. the hippy girl with the stripy socks?’

  ‘Dead; killed; same as the colonel…….. by some woman in a black car. Jonky called her the angel of death.’ He placed Jonquils scrap book on her lap. You see Vanguard; if it hadn’t been for you turning up that day we would probably still be sitting under that bridge now, and I woulda looked out for her………. and she’d probably still be alive. I want you to help me find her killer……….. I want you to help me find the angel of death’.

  London, Gatwick. They were here at last. It was very busy. There were people everywhere dragging cases along behind them; rushing in every direction and the queues were long. They’d been cutting it fine to check their bags in before the desk closed but had just made it and now had only thirty minutes left of the usual two hours to kill before their flight. Abi was pleased to see Ellie so excited. She had been that way for the last few days and Abi hadn’t had the heart to quiz her anymore about the articles in the paper. If she had, Ellie wouldn’t have known anything about them anyway. If she’d had anything to do with the fire or these hit & run killings, surely the police would have been on to her by now? Abi had been half expecting them to turn up and ruin their holiday. No; this was their first holiday together and they were going to have a ball. Ellie had slept really well lately which was a bonus; apart from last night when she’d found her up bright and early with the washing machine going again. She’d been so excited about the holiday she hadn’t been able to sleep she’d said. They were in the departure lounge sitting near gate 11, passports and boarding passes at the ready. You could see clearly through the high glass walls that London was looking grey and cloudy and then it started to rain.

  ‘How cool is this Ell?’

  ‘It’s amazing Abs. I can’t wait to get on that plane.’

  ‘I know; me too. It’s especially good when you’re leaving London and its all grey like this because Crete is going to be so hot.’

  ‘Well, that’s not entirely guaranteed Abs. It could be cloudy the whole two weeks.’

  ‘Unlikely. We might get a couple of bad days but at this time of year I suspect we’re in for some really hot weather.’

  ‘Lets hope so eh? Come back all tanned up.’

  ‘Mmm …….Oh listen!’

  ‘Passengers on flight no ZY6250 departing for Crete please go to gate 13……not gate 11, as previously announced…….’

  ‘That’s us, come on.’

  The girls grabbed their hand luggage, raced to the next terminal and joined the queue which had already formed at their gate.

  ‘Gate 13; that’s unlucky’ whispered Ellie.

  ‘Ell, for the next two weeks we’re having nothing but good luck..... and love...... and sunshine.’

  Abi could just make out the two uniformed police officers at the far end of the terminal building talking to an airport security guard who was pointing in their direction. They waited in the queue for a few more minutes and eventually the gate was opened and the queue began to shuffle forward, slowly at first and all the time the two policemen were getting closer and her adrenalin was rising. She knew then that their focus was on Ellie who was standing, oblivious to all this amongst several small children, her tall blonde physique standing out like a poppy in a field of clover. Abi took a large pink sun hat from her hand luggage bag and pulled Ellie to her side mingling amongst the tall people.

  ‘Put this on, Ell……. let’s get in the holiday mood.’ She pulled the hat over Ellie’s head just as the two officers had reached the back of the queue and were bobbing up and down searching the crowd. The queue began to move more quickly, and then they were through the boarding gate making their way along endless corridors that led to sunshine……. and freedom.

  DI Carter slammed the phone down. Nothing was going right today.

  ‘They didn’t manage to catch them then?’ Claire was sitting at his desk. She’d been adding her latest report to the Breen file.

  ‘No; useless lot. They’d already boarded the plane. Thames Valley’s hands were tied without a warrant they said. I ask for a twenty minute delay off the record; enough time to make them miss their flight and they can’t even do that. The best we can do now is to take a drive up there ourselves once the search warrant comes through and if we find what we’re looking for in the car we’ll have to wait till they get off that plane in two weeks time because I don’t think the East Barton Constabulary funds will stretch to a couple of days vacation in the Greek Islands.’

  ‘Shame. Can’t we liaise with the Greek police Sir?’

  ‘More funding Claire; it costs to employ an interpreter. How’s your Greek?’

  ‘What’s the opposite of fluent?’

  ‘Non existent?’

  ‘That’ll be the one.’

  As soon as the search warrant came through Carter took Claire Peters with him and they set off to Gatwick airport where the car park attendant eventually handed over the keys to Ellie’s blue Fiesta. Carter asked airport security to come with them as independent witnesses to the search and they followed the two officers to parking area ‘C’ and pulled up behind the Fiesta. Donning his surgical gloves, Claire and the security officers watched as Carter opened the boot.

  ‘Well, well. Surprise, surprise.’ A small red petrol ca
n was clearly visible at one side of the boot. Carter went to the boot of his car and took a large clear plastic bag, turned it inside out and put his hand inside, then scooped up the can carefully pulling the bag up over it and sealed the strip at the top. ‘For the record, It’s empty’ he stated and shook the can to prove his point. ‘There’s a strong smell of petrol in here.’ He lifted the carpeting inside the boot to reveal a jack and a pack of car tools. He replaced the carpeting carefully and then started to look inside the car but found nothing of importance. DC Peters had been looking around the outside of the car at the damage to the driver’s side.

  ‘Ok. Well we’ve found what we were looking for. I’ll get a team over to collect the car. It’ll need to be taken back to our forensics for testing.’

  One of the airport security officers looked aghast.

  ‘You can’t do that can you? These people are on holiday and they have entrusted their car to us. Surely you…..’

  Carter gave him a wry smile.

  ‘This is a murder investigation sonny. We can do what we bloody well like.’ He slammed the boot closed and locked the car then put the keys into another clear plastic bag. ‘Oh, and when your people get back from their sunny little holiday, I think they’ll be going for a much longer one; where the sun don’t shine.’

  On the way back to Devon Claire, who had been quiet for a while suddenly spoke.

  ‘The girl who was killed sir, Jonquil?’

  ‘Yes. Bit of a waste of life wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes........... I was reading her statement earlier.’

  ‘Oh. The ‘angel of death’ statement. She was right about one thing. She came for her in the end didn’t she? Poor kid.’