Cherringham--Death on a Summer Night

by Neil Richards

  In his mid-forties, Charlie was thin, with long, stringy hair and hollow cheekbones. His leather jacket and jeans hung loose from his wiry frame.

  Jack had seen this haggard look many times before and usually it told of a lifetime’s relationship with drink — or drugs.

  “What do you want … Jack Brennan?”

  “Friendly chat, that’s all,” said Jack.

  He watched as the man looked around at the other stalls, as if checking who was watching this meeting.

  “All right,” he said. “But not here.”

  He turned and opened a small door set into the Dodge City Gaol: Jack followed him and ducked into the darkness of the Ghost Ride.

  *

  Jack looked around the dark, cramped room, embedded in the heart of the Ghost Ride.

  Spooky place for an interrogation, that’s for sure.

  “Quite a little hidey-hole,” he said, leaning back against a timber support. From here he looked down on Charlie Kite, who sat, arms folded, at a dirty table.

  “It’s the office.”

  “And you’re the boss now?”

  “Of this creepy ride? Yeah — all mine.”

  “And back in eighty-nine — you were what — the ride boy?”

  “Ran it for my dad.”

  “Family business.”

  “Something like that.”

  Jack nodded at a gap in the boards that made up the office wall: “Guess you get a good view of all the punters from here Charlie. See ’em screaming, girls holding tight to their boyfriends in the dark …”

  Charlie shook his head.

  “Look man, I thought you wanted to talk about Dinah Taylor?”

  “Just making conversation,” said Jack.

  “I’ve got a ride to fix. Say what you got to say — then I can get back to work — okay?”

  Jack smiled.

  “Sure,” he said. “You know Tim Bell’s back in town?”

  “Yeah. And I hear you’re trying to prove he didn’t kill the girl.”

  “You think he did?”

  Charlie’s eyes went wide.

  “The truth? No.”

  “Really? You sound pretty sure. That what you told the cops at the time?”

  “Yeah — but they weren’t going to believe me, were they? Carny …”

  “Dealer …”

  Charlie shrugged. “Had to make a livin’, hmm?”

  “Did you sell Tim drugs that night?”

  “Probably.”

  “Any idea what?”

  “Coke. Weed. Who knows?”

  “And you saw him go off with Dinah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And they never came back?”

  “No. Not together.”

  Jack paused.

  There’d been no reference in any of the witness reports he’d read in the papers to any sighting of either Tim or Dinah later that night.

  “What do you mean — not together?”

  “I told one of the coppers. When we were packing up, I saw a girl by the entrance. Thought it was Dinah. But you know, it was dark, I’d had a few, um … you know …”

  “Were there other people around?”

  “Handful. Drunk most of them. Or stoned.”

  “You didn’t mention it at the trial.”

  “Cops persuaded me I was wrong, didn’t they? They had their ‘story.’ And I’d been smoking all day — how would that look in court … they said.”

  “Ah. And nobody else saw her?”

  “Seems not.”

  Not the first time an inconvenient piece of evidence is left out of the picture, thought Jack.

  “So the cops went easy on you?” he said.

  “Let’s say I didn’t get busted,” said Charlie. “They gave me a hard time about the car though.”

  “What car?”

  “They were tracking Astras. Had a list of local owners. I had an old one, off the road. They gave it a right going over.”

  “But they didn’t find anything?” said Jack.

  “They came up trumps on Tim’s car same day — so they didn’t bother me no more.”

  Jack nodded. Charlie was hardly the most reliable witness — and neither defence nor prosecution would welcome him to the stand.

  “We done?” said Charlie.

  “Guess so,” said Jack. “And Charlie — thanks. The cops may not have wanted to listen …”

  Jack took a breath.

  “But I do …”

  And Charlie got up and showed him out of the office.

  *

  Back in the bright sunlight of the funfair, Jack bought an ice pop … they called them “lollies” apparently. Then went and sat for five minutes on the steps of the Dodgems to take stock.

  If Charlie was right — and Dinah had been at the fair later that night — then surely other witnesses would have seen her.

  But that didn’t make sense — no one had come forward.

  Maybe Charlie had invented the sighting to try and draw the heat off his pal Tim … and then ended up believing it?

  He’d seen that before plenty of times. False memories becoming real ones.

  He tasted the icy lolly, like none he’d ever had back in NYC.

  It was a sharp reminder — this fair might look and smell the same as back home, the summer sun beating down just the same … but he was in a different country and his childhood was far, far behind.

  His cell rang.

  “Sarah.”

  “Can you talk?”

  “I’m eating a … what is this thing? A Twister.”

  “Really? I would have had you down as a choc-ice man, Jack.”

  “When in Cherringham …”

  “Well, keep eating and I’ll update you.”

  Jack listened as she told him about Rik the music teacher. And how he’d stumbled when she’d hit him with a direct question.

  “Nice work,” he said.

  “I thought so too,” she said, laughing. “But wait till you hear this. Tony finally got back to me — remember I was going to ask him if he had any inside info?”

  “Sure. Crime like this, Tony must have known somebody involved on the legal side.”

  “He was pals with Tim’s solicitor. Chap’s in his eighties now, but Tony took him out to tea in Oxford yesterday and in return got a look at his old case files … And he came home with a copy of the police search list for local cars that matched Tim Bell’s description.”

  “You sound like you’re going to tell me something interesting.”

  “I am. In the file — the list of all Vauxhall owners in the area. Couple of hundred. Now Tim always thought the car he saw was a Vauxhall saloon of some kind. So this list has all the vans and SUV’s crossed out. Leaves around fifty saloons. And guess who’s in there?”

  “Tell me.”

  “Chap called Henry Trask. The man Mary Taylor married two years after her daughter’s death.”

  “Really. And so?” said Jack, finishing the Twister in one mouthful and dropping the wooden stick into a trashcan. “Just coincidence, no?”

  “Trask lived in the house directly behind the Taylors, with his elderly mother. I looked online — the two houses backed onto each other.”

  “Neighbour comforts grief-stricken woman as her marriage falls apart — oldest story in the world …”

  “Okay,” said Sarah. “But listen to this. Police interviewed him about his car. He said he’d sold it at auction just a day after Dinah disappeared. But guess what? The auction house had no record. Police marked it for a follow-up — but then they found the blood on Tim’s car and never took it further.”

  This made Jack pause.

  This could be something.

  If Tim’s story was true — then Dinah jumped into a car that was passing in the night. And she must have known the driver.

  Could be … the neighbour? Mum’s friend? Someone she trusted …

  “Okay, you got me on auction house,” he said, now walking back to his Sprite thr
ough the funfair. “What happened to Mr Trask? He move away?”

  “No,” said Sarah. “He bought a cottage up on Kingfisher Lake. Runs a fishing business.”

  “Kingfisher Lake? Sounds like something out of a fairy story.”

  “It’s about ten miles north of here. I’ll text you the address. Used to be one of the old gravel pits. Pretty grim place in those days. But they chucked some government money at it and turned it into a series of what they call ‘leisure lakes.’”

  “Henry Trask, huh?” said Jack, climbing into his little sports car. “Maybe I should drop in on him. Nice day for a fishing trip.”

  “‘Trask Trout’ — you can’t miss it.”

  “Fairground, fishing trip. Today’s turning into a kid’s dream day off …”

  “Yeah well, while you’re out there, spare a thought for us poor workers chained to our computers in this heat.”

  “I will,” said Jack. “Tell you what. Bring the kids down to the Goose this evening, I’ll do a barbecue and you can all go for a swim.”

  “It’s a deal.”

  “See you later, Sarah.”

  He put the phone away and fired up the engine.

  An afternoon’s fishing — who would have thought it?

  And he headed out of the field next to the funfair and up onto the main road that led north of the village.

  13. Kingfisher Lake

  Jack turned off the dual carriageway at the sign for Trask Trout and headed down a winding track towards a stretch of water in the valley that he guessed was Kingfisher Lake.

  The drive had taken around twenty minutes. Up into the hills that lay to the north and west of Cherringham, then over the other side to the flat farmland that Jack knew stretched all the way to the Welsh borders.

  He had never really driven up here. He knew there was so much more of the Cherringham area to explore — somehow he’d never had the time.

  So much for a leisurely retirement …

  He guided the little Healey Sprite down the twisting track.

  The lake looked to be about a mile long, surrounded by fields and woodland. One end butted up against a steep cliff face — the remnants of the old quarry workings, Jack assumed. At the other end he spotted a small lodge and a couple of cottages.

  As he got closer to the flat, dark water he saw lone figures with fishing rods sheltering from the sun under trees scattered along the edge of the lake.

  The track curved away from the water.

  Guess they don’t want the traffic to spook the fish, he thought.

  He parked outside the lodge, and went inside.

  The place seemed empty: at one end he could see a small bar with plastic chairs. Next to it a shop with the usual fishing gear — rods, bait, clothing. And here, just by the door, an unmanned reception.

  He hit the bell and waited.

  The door behind him opened and a tall, morose-looking bespectacled man walked in, his shoulders bowed as if he’d started apologizing before he’d even entered.

  “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” he said. “Staff problems. Kids. Never turn up. Can’t rely on them.”

  Jack smiled at him: “Day like today — who can blame a kid for not wanting to work, huh?”

  “Hmm? Hmm?” said the man, taking off his glasses, wiping them, and then putting them back on and peering at Jack. “American, hmm?”

  “That’s right. Name’s Jack Brennan — I was just passing, saw the sign, thought maybe I could just drop in for a session. Mr Trask?”

  “That’s right. Henry Trask,” said the man, handing him a leaflet from the counter. “What kind of a ‘session’?”

  Jack looked down at the list of services, baffled. “Bit of advice on casting might be handy,” he said.

  He looked up at Trask who was looking back at him as if he was a child who needed help.

  “Stalking,” said Trask.

  “I’m after a trout, not a deer,” said Jack.

  “Tut tut,” said Trask. “Thirty pounds for the hour and you’ll have a fat trout at the end of it, I promise.”

  “Stalking, huh?” said Jack.

  “Come on,” said Trask. “You have a licence I assume?”

  “Sure do,” said Jack. “Though I’m a bit light on gear.”

  Jack watched Trask go to the back of the room and select a rod and a landing net. He came back and then leaned down behind the counter and dragged out some waders.

  “You can borrow these.”

  “No bag?”

  “Don’t need a bag; like I said, stalking.”

  “Travel light, huh?”

  “I won’t even charge you this time. Maybe you’ll become a regular customer.”

  Jack thought — from Trask’s tone — that he rather wished Jack would never become a regular customer.

  Maybe it’s because I’m an American, he thought. Or maybe it’s just because … I’m a customer.

  And he followed Trask towards the door and then out into the blazing sunshine.

  *

  Twenty minutes later and Jack was baking under the hot sun.

  Trask had led him slowly round the lake, pointing out places the trout liked to go, shallows, fallen tree trunks, little gullies.

  Stalking was the right word for it.

  Jack had got a bit of small talk going, but it was hard work. He’d pushed the conversation round to Cherringham. It turned out Trask didn’t go back much.

  Though he was going to be at the concert at the weekend.

  Good chance to have another “accidental” chat with him, thought Jack.

  Jack watched Trask carefully: he walked silently, aware of his prey, always in cover, using shadows and trees to conceal his approach from the fish.

  And when they saw one of the big, fat trout that lived in the lake pop up, Trask seemed to know unerringly which way the fish would swim, where to cast the lure, where to throw bait …

  At one point they waited, not speaking, just watching, until a monster fish emerged from beneath an underwater root system. Jack saw its speckled shape as it glided away into the deep waters.

  Jack knew just enough about fly-fishing to ask the right questions.

  But he wasn’t here to learn about fishing. He needed to find Dinah Taylor’s killer.

  “You sure know these waters well, Henry?”

  “I should do,” said Henry, “been here twenty years.”

  Jack noticed that Henry never looked at him directly when he spoke, always kept his eyes averted.

  Habit? Some kind of nervous tic? Or a sign of … shame? Guilt?

  “You own the business, huh?”

  “That’s right.”

  Trask stopped dead and signalled him to be quiet. Jack waited another minute until they moved on. Then:

  “You live down here by the lake?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I saw the cottages. You rent them out?”

  “No. Then I have to take care of them, change sheets. Hell with that.”

  “Pretty isolated then, I guess.”

  “That’s fine by me.”

  Jack looked out across the black water. On the far side, a couple of hundred yards away, he saw that a fish had taken someone’s line and the man was playing the trout in the water, slowly bringing it to shore.

  “Couple of lakes I passed on the way here, they had sailing dinghies, kayaks, all sorts — you never thought of branching out?”

  “It’s a fishing lake,” said Trask, who paused again by the side of a willow tree that overhung the water.

  Jack stopped too.

  “I hear there’s good money to be—”

  Trask suddenly spun round and stepped forward — Jack took a pace back.

  “You’re no fisherman, are you? And what’s with all these questions! What do you want? Who the hell are you?”

  Trask’s eyes bore into him and Jack could see the man was angry — and he had gotten that way fast, like lighting a match.

  “Whoa, Mr Trask, let me explain—
”

  “Bloody journalist, are you? That it? I’ve got nothing to say. This is my lake; I can do what I want with it!”

  Jack took another step back. Trask had gone from passive to aggressive in seconds.

  “I’m not a journalist, Mr Trask.”

  “Okay — so who the hell are you?”

  And Jack told him.

  *

  They sat together at a picnic table at the far end of the lake.

  Jack told Trask about Tim Bell’s return to Cherringham and the doubt over his conviction.

  Trask had calmed down, and Jack watched him carefully as he listened to Jack’s explanation of what he and Sarah were doing: the fisherman just nodded and stared into the distance.

  “I apologize for not making it clear from the beginning why I was here, Mr Trask,” said Jack. He smiled. “An old detective habit, I guess.”

  “Hmmph.”

  “And it’s always difficult bringing up events from the past that people would rather forget.”

  “I hardly knew the girl — you know that, don’t you?”

  “But you lived close — and you and Dinah’s mother …”

  “God — that was years after.”

  “You never spoke to Dinah?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Perhaps you went to Dinah’s house, met her there one day?”

  “No, I never did. I only met her mother later, when she’d moved out.”

  “I see.”

  “Hang on. What are you implying? That I killed her? You can’t say things like that, not on my property!”

  “I’m not saying that, Mr Trask. Just trying to establish who Dinah knew.”

  “Well, she bloody well didn’t know me.”

  “What about that night, the night she died?”

  “You don’t quit, do you? What do you mean? What kind of question’s that?”

  “Well … Where were you that night? Did you go to the fair?”

  “No! Are you daft? I don’t go to fairs! I’ll be going to tomorrow’s concert, but I avoid the fair — always have — like the plague!”

  “Okay, okay. But you know the police had your car on a list to be examined—”

  “What? Wait a second. No. I did not know that. And how did you get that information?”

  Trask stood up. From the expression on his face, Jack knew the interview was over. He stood up too.

  “Hey — I’m sorry to bring all this up, Mr Trask,” he said. “But I had to talk to you. What do I owe you for the lesson?”