Cherringham--Death on a Summer Night

by Neil Richards

  She gasped, and swallowed her next gulp of air as the fish disappeared.

  She also stopped her steady underwater swim.

  The fish encounter had rattled her.

  But this had to be near the spot. And save for the umbrella, the tyre, and the nosy fish … there was nothing here.

  She began to perform what she hoped was spiralling swim, small circles at first, then expanding.

  After one loop, she again checked her air.

  Fifty percent gone. Probably sucking it in way too fast. The tension, her anxiety.

  Steady, Sarah reminded herself.

  Another circle.

  Nothing. Not even more debris.

  She almost wished that the fish would come back for company.

  This had been a good idea of Jack’s. But not all good ideas work out, she guessed.

  Another loop. She’d have to think about surfacing soon. At sixty feet she’d be wise to do a safety stop ten feet or so below the surface. Pause for a few minutes, and let any nitrogen that had built up by breathing at this depth dissipate.

  Standard procedure — and not one to be ignored.

  Time for one more circle.

  And she wasn’t sure she had enlarged her arc enough, so hard to gauge.

  Was she just going in the same useless circles?

  Head continually turning left, right, the headlamp illuminating nothing.

  Until, turning right, suddenly — she spotted a shape.

  She had nearly passed it.

  She stopped, her breathing fast, suddenly unable to control it.

  The thing was, blurry, as if she was looking at something through a rain-smeared window.

  But she could swim over to it.

  To the car.

  There was a car here.

  As she swam, she saw that she was gliding towards the bonnet of the car. A vintage vehicle. Easily decades old.

  Heart racing.

  The trick here was getting close enough to see, but not so close that she would swim right into the windscreen.

  And now closer, slowly flying over the bonnet, she noticed one thing right away.

  It wasn’t a Vauxhall.

  Her family had had a succession of those. She didn’t know what this was.

  Now at the windscreen, she looked in, her headlamp barely penetrating the even murkier gloom inside the car, windows rolled up tight, windows that hadn’t kept the water from seeping in.

  Whatever silt or algae was inside made the water of the interior look an oily black.

  She decided to use her hands to guide herself to the driver’s side of the car, kicking gently with her fins to keep her as level as possible, her fingertips pulling her along.

  And now she wished she had worn diving gloves.

  Not for the temperature really; after this summer, even this normally frigid lake was temperate.

  Just … to touch this car … she didn’t like it.

  Finally, getting to the rear right window, getting her lamp and head as close to the glass as possible.

  Then — in that blackness, in the sealed container of the car’s interior — she saw something move.

  Maybe stirred by all the small eddies and flows she was making.

  A piece of material — dotted with holes, web-like in its deterioration — swirled up, like a lazy fish.

  She couldn’t turn away.

  Because even though there was nearly nothing left of it, she knew what that swirling bit of decayed cloth was.

  A bit of a dress.

  Her stomach tightened.

  She had thought, almost assumed, she’d find nothing.

  Now this.

  She pulled back, trying to keep calm.

  If there was anything else in the back seat … or maybe in the car’s boot, she didn’t want to see it.

  But she needed to do one thing more. A tricky manoeuvre.

  And she left the rear window and — with her hands now feeling icy — crab-crawled her way to the back of the car, then, tilting down, needing to get her head … down.

  Close to the bottom, then turning.

  To see the licence plate, a thick smudge of collected dirt and grit blocking the number.

  A wipe with her hand, the debris flew away but also created a cloud that made it impossible to see.

  She held her breath, and then as quickly reminded herself to breathe. Slow, steady, slow …

  She hadn’t checked her air for a while.

  Not a good thing, she thought.

  Seconds waiting while the cloud she had created cleared.

  And then — she saw the number.

  She repeated the succession of letters and numbers in her head, over and over until she would no more forget it than her children’s birthdates.

  And when that was done, she looked up, and slowly, no faster than her escaping bubbles, she began to surface.

  *

  Jack saw Sarah pop to the surface. He had been mad with worry, repeatedly looking at his watch.

  Sarah had told him that it might be a twenty-minute dive. Maybe twenty-five.

  She had just passed thirty minutes down when she surfaced over by the rocky ledge, their target spot.

  She started swimming to the shore; Jack saw that she had her snorkel in her mouth.

  Had she run out of air?

  The actual swimming on the surface looked strenuous, but she kept coming, steady, Jack feeling helpless, standing here waiting.

  The sun wasn’t down yet; but the continuing thick clouds made the twilight so dark.

  Then, Sarah was only yards away, and she stood up, all the weight of her gear now dead weight.

  She walked straight to him, spitting out the snorkel, pushing her mask to the top of her head beside the amp.

  She wasn’t smiling.

  Instead she staggered towards him.

  “Found the car,” she said.

  “Trask’s?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  Jack handed her a towel and waited for her to say more.

  “Not a Vauxhall,” she said.

  “Could be a rental?”

  “I don’t think so, Jack.”

  She wiped her face with the towel. “I got the number. We need to ask Tony if he can track the owner.”

  Jack started to dig out his phone.

  “And Jack. Jack. Inside the car.”

  He looked right at her. They hadn’t talked at all about what she might see.

  She’s a mom, he thought. And who knows what could have been down there …

  “Did you—”

  “No,” she said to the unanswered question, both of them knowing what that was.

  Did you see a body?

  Then: “But I did see … God … I saw—”

  She had held it together.

  Up to now.

  But now, no way to stop those slow tears that formed.

  “Bit of a dress, Jack.”

  Then as if it needed repeating.

  “Bit of a dress …”

  And he put his arm around her and walked her to the RAV4 to get her gear off, call Tony, get away from this bleak lake.

  *

  By the time Sarah was dry and dressed, Jack’s phone rang.

  And with that, they knew just where to find the owner of the car.

  17. Fireworks

  By the time they got to the outdoor concert, the Cherringham Symphony Orchestra was well into the final piece, Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture.

  Jack kept looking at Sarah to see if she had recovered from the dive, from what she had seen.

  She gave him a reassuring smile.

  He just had to hope that was all she saw. A piece of floating material and nothing more.

  Let the police find the rest.

  Sarah had called Alan … and his night-time desk person said that he was already “on site” but would meet up with them.

  Jack looked around the temporary outdoor arena. The audience — some on lawn chairs, others standing,
ready for the big finish — had their eyes trained on the brightly lit stage, on the orchestra.

  And off, to the side, cordoned off in the darkness, he spotted the three cannons with a matching number of men in revolutionary-era redcoats manning them.

  Redcoats.

  We’re not in Valley Forge, he thought.

  And as they weaved their way forward, he saw other people.

  Terry Hamblyn with his mates, probably here for just the cannon blasts. Then Dinah’s dad, arms folded, off to the side.

  Maybe looking for Tim Bell?

  But — good thing — no sign of Bell himself. Maybe he’d taken Alan’s advice and was being careful in his return to Cherringham.

  At the end of a far row of seats, Jack now saw Henry Trask too. The fisherman sat forward in his chair, his body not moving, lost apparently in the music.

  As Jack and Sarah got closer, it was as if the orchestra was accompanying their slow, relentless march to the front.

  Jack looked up at the stage: the conductor, dressed in black tails, had his back to them. He was hunched over his score, swaying with the passion of the piece.

  So that’s Rik Chase, thought Jack.

  He watched the man’s baton carving the night air, his left hand imploring the orchestra to give more, more …

  The horns blared out the triumphal music signalling that the explosions were close.

  He looked back at Sarah who had spotted her kids. “Oh … there’s Daniel and Chloe.”

  “Sarah, I can do this myself,” Jack said. “You’ve done plenty …”

  A few people looked at them for talking during such a wonderful if loud moment.

  Jack leaned closer. “I mean, you can go, be with your kids.”

  But she shook her head.

  “They’re all eyes and ears for this. They won’t miss me.”

  She took a breath, and Jack realized how much everyone takes breathing air so much for granted.

  Something a diver would never do.

  It became harder for them to get close, and when they hit a sea of white folding VIP seats for those who’d paid for the privilege of sitting there, accompanied by a basket lunch and a spot of bubbly, Jack pointed to the right.

  To where the cannons stood.

  “Best make our way over there.”

  Sarah turned to him, smiling, her voice loud in his ear even with the drums thumping out the martial rhythm.

  “Near the cannons?”

  Jack grinned back

  So good to see that smile again, grounding her after her experience in the lake.

  “We’ll plug our ears. I know when the blasts come.”

  “Just tell me too, all right?”

  And they moved left.

  Towards King George’s Redcoats.

  This, Jack thought, was going to be something.

  *

  Sarah watched the three cannon soldiers look at them as they stepped over the ribbon that separated the audience area from the big guns.

  One soldier with a pointed tricorn hat, the General of the group, looked as if he was about to say something.

  But Jack raised a finger, pointed to the back area away from the cannon, and the General — as if understanding — nodded.

  And besides, even Sarah could see that the moment was close.

  As they passed, two of the soldiers shifted, one holding chains that led from the cannons, another a long stick with a bulb-like end.

  She heard the General say, loud enough to be heard over the finale racing to its finish.

  “Cannon officers — at the ready.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “On my signal.”

  Sarah could hardly keep walking ahead, her eyes glued to the scene of the cannon being readied.

  Then she heard trilling trumpets, followed by violins, the music rising and plummeting.

  “Ready?” Jack said.

  He stuck his fingers in his ears, and Sarah did as well.

  One cannon blasted. Then the second. Then, a wave of plunging violins as if falling into space, spinning away from the planet.

  On stage she saw Rik, his body silhouetted against the lights, both arms flying.

  The soldiers hurried to reload, the bulb-like implement stuffing all the barrels with new gunpowder.

  “Officers!” the general said.

  And now the horns stood up.

  Somewhere church bells rang.

  God, Sarah thought, it’s overwhelming.

  The sound huge. A sea of noise.

  The cannon soldiers standing ready, tense for the finale, all cannons reloaded.

  Jack had taken his fingers out; she followed suit.

  His smile was as big as the sound.

  More movement from the soldiers. Jack’s fingers went back in.

  Then drums began thumping, the blasts loud.

  Incredible. She almost couldn’t resist raising her arms and “conducting”this grand finale.

  Instead she plugged her ears as suddenly fireworks began firing overhead, their explosions joining the overture’s end.

  And the field — filled with all of Cherringham’s residents — became lit with the colours erupting from the sky, the scene magical and terrifying.

  Then, the last massive fireworks exploded, colliding, sending a million stars shooting over the village like canopy, and all of Cherringham out on the field stood up cheering.

  *

  The applause went on for so long as if nobody wanted it to end.

  But it did end.

  Then one last bow from the conductor.

  His gracious gesture to the orchestra to stand, bow, then specifically to the horns. Then he clapped out to the side, to the soldiers at the cannons who saluted back.

  And when the conductor walked stage left from the podium, to the wings of the stage, Jack looked at Sarah.

  “Here we go …”

  *

  Chase was mopping his brow, accepting congratulations from orchestra members and also from some of the VIPs who had come backstage.

  Then she saw that Chase had spotted her, standing with Jack, well off to the side.

  He kept grinning, kept pumping hands.

  But Rik Chase had seen her.

  *

  And after a few more pats on the back and handshakes, Chase slowly walked over to Sarah.

  “You ready for this?” Jack said.

  The excitement of the music, the cannons, the fireworks, had faded for her.

  There were only the next few moments.

  Chase put on a smile. “Sarah, so good to see you here. Enjoy the concert?”

  For a second she didn’t say anything.

  She even felt Jack look at her, as if wondering what was going on.

  When finally she said …

  “I found the car.”

  Chase still kept his smile on.

  “Wh-what do you mean?”

  She waited again, as if giving him time would let him understand what she was really saying.

  “I found your car in the lake. At the bottom of the lake. Where you thought no one would ever find it.”

  The smile evaporated. Chase kept sweating, whether from the heat or Sarah’s words, she didn’t know.

  “I don’t know what …” he started.

  “Your car,” she said, surprising herself with how sharp her words were. What she had seen had affected her that much.

  “And in the back of the car …” she went on.

  That made Chase turn away, as if this conversation and what it meant could all be avoided.

  But when he turned, Chase now faced Alan Rivers, who had walked over from the other side of the stage.

  A few of the orchestra members stopped their chats, looking over. Even groups of people out on the grassy field stopped and looked up.

  Sarah knew that Chase understood what she was saying.

  When the police went down into that lake, when they brought that car up, Sarah knew they would have the evidence of the crime
Chase committed twenty-five years ago.

  Alan nodded to her and Jack. It was his job now.

  “Richard Chase, you are under arrest for the murder of Dinah Taylor. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence …”

  Chase gave one last look back at Sarah.

  But she turned away, and with a nod to Jack, the two of them left the stage.

  18. Amends

  Jack knocked again on Tim Bell’s door, still defaced with the giant spray-painted letters “Killer”, the remnants of the fire still in evidence.

  He looked at Sarah, then back to the man standing a few feet behind him.

  Another knock, louder. “Tim. Jack Brennan here.”

  He heard steps from inside. Maybe Bell having gone from bravely walking around the village as if he didn’t have a care … to hiding here.

  With the evidence due to be raised from the lake, Alan had told Jack and Sarah that Chase held nothing back in his testimony.

  How it seemed like Dinah Taylor was going to throw everything away. Going out with stupid boys.

  When she had so much talent, talent he could mentor.

  Talent … he could love.

  She’d turned up that night at the fair, upset, crying. That bastard Tim Bell had come on to her. Then some other dodgy bloke had brought her back, dropped her at the fair, so late, all alone …

  She’d cried on his shoulder, hugged him.

  But then when he opened up to her, she ridiculed his dreams.

  It was her life, and who did he think he was, bad as her father?

  And when Chase confessed his love, when he even tried to kiss her, she ridiculed him even more.

  What was he thinking?

  And somehow, something snapped.

  His dream vanishing.

  And he wouldn’t let her go. He had to stop all those words coming from her mouth, accusatory words, so dismissive, so painful.

  They simply.

  Had.

  To be.

  Stopped.

  And when it was over, only one thought. To get rid of her body. To get rid of the car.

  Panicked. Lost. Frightened.

  Alan had told Jack: “He even said, Jack … ‘don’t you see how I was trapped’?”

  As if it was the victim’s fault.

  “Bell might be home,” Jack said. “But he’s not answering.” Another quick rap. “Tim.” Then: “Guess we better—”