by Liz Evans
Ellie didn’t seem to have noticed the hesitation. ‘You never stop looking, you know? I watch young women’s faces, all the time. Everywhere. One bank holiday, I saw this girl going into the station, and I was convinced it was Heidi. I made Roger get out his bike and we chased the train, all along the stations it would stop at. We finally caught up with it and she — the girl I’d seen — was still on it. It wasn’t Heidi obviously, but the stupid thing is she was only about fourteen. And this was four years after Heidi had gone. She was eighteen and I was still thinking of her as she was that morning.’
Something she’d just said registered. ‘Roger has a motorbike?’
‘Yes. He doesn’t use it much these days. I thought it would be faster, getting us through the bank holiday traffic.’
And handy for riding down females who’ve kicked you in the goolies? Maybe I’d been unfair blaming my stair-dive on Vince Courtney. Perhaps Roger’s bolt into bathroom fittings wasn’t prompted by cowardice so much as the worry that I’d figured out who was behind the assault.
Immy arrived and announced she didn’t want the lizard any more. ‘I want the rabbit instead. The brown one. Rabbits are funny. What’s wrong with your face?’
‘I fell down some stairs.’
‘Oh.’ Immy lost interest and O’Hara reappeared carrying an aluminium ladder.
I joined him in the queue at the cash desk. ‘What happened to the planks?’
‘This is adjustable. It will be easier to manoeuvre.’ He’d got several plastic tubes of something gungy as well. ‘Resin,’ he explained, loading his car. ‘To refix the bars if we don’t find Heidi.’
‘And if we do?’
‘We leave her where she is and call the police. Okay?’
‘Okay.’
*
Picking the lock into the prefabricated cabin took seconds. O’Hara did the picking. ‘I’ve seen you working, duchy. You’re way too slow. You should go through fast enough for anyone watching to assume you’re using a key.’
‘I plainly don’t get your practice in breaking into places.’
Dressed in my all-purpose boiler suit and peaked cap, that could be pretty much any uniform an on-looker thought it was, I waited behind him with the ladder, and two large paint tins that actually contained a hammer, chisel, resin, flexible wire-saws, a safety mask, and a couple of large torches.
The staircase to the caves was protected by a steel gate with a padlocked chain. Once we were through that, O’Hara flicked his torch beam down the descending tunnel of the stairs. Normally the caves were lit by strings of thin liquid lighting similar to that used in the games arcades. Some of it was fixed to the rock wall just above the stair handrail. I used my own torch to follow it out of the stairs and into the cabin. It ran into a metal duct that ended in a light switch by the attendant’s booth. ‘I think the cave lights are on the same switch as the cabin’s.’ And the cabin windows had no blinds.
‘So we either disable the lights in here, or we rely on torches. Not scared of the dark are you, duchy?’
No. Just big black holes underground. ‘Torches will be fine.’
The light bounced around the walls, casting shadows from pillars here, and illuminating a section of wall or ceiling there. The paintings, which had seemed dull and silly before, now started to look spooky. And the cave roof was lower than I remembered it. All the rock above me seemed to be pressing down on the darkness and compacting it. Clamping his torch between his teeth, O’Hara reached over and took one of the paint tins, leaving me with a free hand to use my own torch.
When we reached the farthest cavern, I had to set it down on a rock and help O’Hara lift the ladder over the barrier. We wedged the foot of the ladder between the metal struts and extended the other end across the ‘well’ to rest on the chalk ledge in front of the tunnel.
I offered to go over. ‘I’m lighter.’
‘It will take my weight. I’ll make a start, you can hold the torch.’
He crawled over, straddled the ladder, and examined the bars. ‘Whatever they’re fixed in with looks stronger than the chalk.’ Donning the safety mask, he attacked the bottom of the middle bar. The noise echoed around the caverns behind us. Ghostly hammers started tapping all over the place. It was like being stuck underground with the seven dwarves. I half expected a chorus of ‘Heigh-ho’ to start up at any second.
Chips of stone fell into the well below and dust drifted across the beam of the torch. I played the torchlight on O’Hara’s hands. He worked fast, there was no hesitation in the strokes. The stone dissolved around the base of the bar until, finally, he gripped it and it moved fractionally. He twisted at an angle and attacked the top fixing. There were five bars in all. When he’d removed the lot, he came back across the ladder and laid them carefully on the stone floor of the cavern. We both shone our torch beams into the low tunnel entrance. It looked like a huge hungry mouth.
O’Hara stepped back over the barrier. ‘If I’m not back by morning, send in the search party. I’ll leave a trail of breadcrumbs for them to follow.’
‘Couldn’t make it a trail of chocolate could you, I’m starving. And how come you get to go exploring?’
‘Me employer, you employee.’
Fair enough. The guy was paying me. I settled down with my own torch and watched his feet disappearing into that stone mouth. The soles slid out of the range of the light. I listened to the sounds of body being dragged over loose stones until they faded away. And then there was nothing.
I checked my watch and found it was just gone eleven. It felt like we’d been in here for hours, but it was barely thirty minutes. Attempting to make myself comfortable by leaning back on the hard rock, I tried not to keep checking my watch. I succeeded for a whole ten minutes. After that I was looking at the dial every couple of minutes. Where the heck was O’Hara? How long could it take to reach the seaward end of the tunnel? Maybe there was more than one tunnel inside? He could have gone wandering down a branch and got lost. Or a hole. There could be another big cleft like the one opposite me. Maybe he was lying down there with a broken leg, or neck.
‘O’Hara!’
Hara … hara … hara … The ghostly echo whispered in all the chambers.
Enough of the cave-girl experience. Lowering myself on to the ladder, I crawled to the mouth of the tunnel and shone the beam inside. ‘O’Hara. If you can hear me, yell, scream or tap on walls.’
I listened hard. Far away in the distance, I thought I could hear the shush-shush of the sea. And a kind of cracking sound, followed by a pitter-patter. I leant a little further forward into the tunnel. The sound muted. Lying flat, I wriggled backwards and waited. Crack, pitter-patter.
When the ladder lurched, I finally realised what was happening. The chalk ledge outside the tunnel was crumbling under the weight of the ladder and two bodies crawling backwards and forwards. The pitter-patter was small pieces dropping into the well below. I hesitated. Did I try to make it back across and grab the ladder from that side, or dive into the tunnel and hang on to this end?
I ran out of choices. A lump of ledge cracked away. And I was diving head first into a twenty-foot drop.
The stop came sooner than I expected. I’d clung on to the ladder, with its false sense of security. We both came to a halt so suddenly that the jerk nearly jolted me over the side. I let go of the torch and used that hand to grab the metal side. The light descended giving me a brief glimpse of rubbish and lumps of chalk in the bottom and then the thing hit and went out.
Lying in the blackness, with the ladder hugged to my chest, I ran through my options. They weren’t great. When we’d fallen, the other end of the ladder had tilted upwards and caught under the metal rim at the base of the barrier; this end had extended because we’d failed to lock the sections down. A dumb move if we’d been climbing it, but a temporary lifesaver at this point. The ladder had snagged on a crude lip of chalk and was wedged at a diagonal across the well.
So much for the lucky break; the
rest of my situation was more worrying. I was lying on my face with my feet above my head. If I fell now, I’d go down headfirst on to those lumps of chalk and could end up with a cracked skull or broken neck even from this relatively short distance. I needed to twist round before I did anything else. Cautiously I shifted my weight, rotating ninety degrees so I was lying with my feet over one side of the ladder and my head over the other. The ladder dropped another few inches, scraping down the chalk side with a shriek that was taken up by the echoes. Gently easing round, I orientated myself with my head towards the barrier, and pulled myself cautiously upwards. The ladder gave a warning squeal. I stopped again. If I was going to fall it might be best to make a controlled drop. I’d need to jerk the ladder down with me so I could use it to climb out. I was probably going to end up with another face full of bruises. Life as a bunny was starting to look attractive.
I started to ease my legs off the ladder again. And hit a snag. I knew what was below me; I’d seen it before the torch went out. But the idea of jumping into a totally black hole was doing something odd to my fingers. I was telling them to let go, they remained stubbornly curled.
Okay, if they wouldn’t let me go down, how about up? I looked towards the barrier and was nearly blinded by an unexpected blast of light.
Footsteps echoed, coming closer. My options had shrunk to one: wait to be discovered. I sort of knew as soon as the shadow slid over the chalk wall.
Jerry Jackson looked down and I saw the annoyance give way to concern when he took in my situation. ‘Keep still.’ He told someone behind him to find a rope.
‘Actually, I think I can make it by myself.’ With the light I could see that the far end of the ladder had wedged on a fairly substantial chalk outcrop this time. I wriggled upwards a few inches. The ladder creaked.
‘Grace, for heaven’s sake.’ Jerry stepped over the barrier. Holding on with one hand, he extended the other. ‘Here, reach out.’
I strained for it. Our finger-tips met. I walked them into his palm and then far enough to grasp his wrist. His fingers closed around me just as the ladder dropped away. With Jerry heaving, I scrambled up and over the barrier. Instead of letting me go, he hauled me to the stone ledge I’d been perched on earlier and dumped me down hard.
‘I knew you’d try this. I assume Mr O’Hara is somewhere inside that tunnel?’
There wasn’t a lot of point in denying it. ‘He thought it was important. Heidi’s parents have been waiting for fourteen years.’
‘And you don’t think that concerns us?’
‘It’s not that, but I know you have other priorities.’
I tried to look vulnerable and appealing. The trouble was I didn’t really do vulnerable and I guess the appealing bit needed practice. Jerry’s mouth tightened even further.
‘For your information I sent someone to dig out the old files of the Walkinshaw case this afternoon. And I discovered that the original investigators did know about Winifred Higgins working at these caves. They also ascertained that the locks in this place were changed six months after Winifred left her employment here, thereby ruling out the possibility that Leslie Higgins could have had access to a spare set of keys.’
‘Ah.’
‘However,’ Jerry continued as if he hadn’t heard me. ‘Being a thorough and professional team, they had the cave checked anyway. And the surveyor reported back that the tunnel bars had been in place for some years with no sign of any recent work on them.’ Jerry pushed a hand through his hair. ‘Grace, have you any idea how much trouble you’re in here? This is breaking and entering. Not to mention damaging a place of historical importance …’
‘You’ve got to be kidding!’
‘No, I’m not …’ He broke off as the officer he’d sent for the rope arrived in a rush with a blue plastic nylon tow-rope.
‘Sorry, sir. I couldn’t find …’
‘It doesn’t matter, we didn’t need it.’
‘What about him?’
He indicated the tunnel. A pair of boots were emerging, soles first. I shouted a warning that the ladder wasn’t there.
‘You’d better stay where you are until we find something to bridge the gap, Mr O’Hara.’
‘Not necessary, but thanks for the thought.’ O’Hara just kept on sliding until his legs were over the drop. He found toe-holds and started moving across the chalk walls.
Jerry waited impassively until O’Hara reached the barrier and hauled himself over it. And then promptly arrested him for breaking and entering.
O’Hara didn’t seem too devastated by this experience. ‘I don’t get brownie points for good intentions?’
‘What was your intention exactly, Mr O’Hara? To risk your own neck, and Grace’s? She could have been seriously injured if I hadn’t arrived when I did.’
He and O’Hara locked metaphorical horns. Powdery dust had added a new veneer of greyness to O’Hara’s sweat-pants, T-shirt and hair. Jerry looked like he’d showered before changing into a casual flannel shirt, cord jeans and crepe-soled shoes.
I gave O’Hara a quick resume of the lock changes and the investigating team’s survey.
‘Then I guess Higgins was smarter than anyone gave him credit for.’ He reached into his back pocket and drew something out. Gold glowed in the light of the torches. It was a woman’s necklace; a fine chain suspending a circlet with two initials inside: HW. ‘What’s left of her is in a side tunnel near the far end, buried under a pile of rocks.’
Chapter Twenty-Seven
By the time we’d admitted the offence and been bailed, it was near enough four o’clock in the morning. I’d been warned not to speak to the Walkinshaws about the body. A totally unnecessary warning as far as I was concerned. The last thing I wanted to do was wipe all the hope from Ellie Walkinshaw’s eyes.
I fell asleep (alone) figuring out where I could hide to avoid any chance of accidentally running into either Ellie or Graham. I woke up to someone hammering on the flat door and dived under the duvet, convinced that the Walkinshaws had heard rumours, discovered my address, and come round to demand the truth.
The pounding stopped just as the telephone bell shrilled. I located the receiver and pulled it under the bedclothes. ‘This is Grace. I’m not here at present. Please leave a message after the tone and I’ll get back to you.’
‘You haven’t got an answering machine.’
Annie. ‘Hi, what can I do for you?’
‘You can answer the door, I’ve been banging on it for ten minutes.’
She was in her black suit, the one she thinks makes her look slimmer. And she had on her large red-rimmed spectacles. Stalking in, she dumped the spotless black leather briefcase on my table. ‘Have you any idea what it does for the agency’s reputation to have one of its staff charged with a criminal offence?’
‘I’m not staff. I’m self-employed.’
‘You’re quibbling.’
‘No, I’m making coffee. Do you want one?’
‘I haven’t time. I’m on my way to London. Securities Company. I just dropped in to —’
‘Nag?’
‘See you were all right. Are you?’
‘Yes. I’m just desperate to avoid the Walkinshaws. Have you heard about the body in the caves?’
‘Jerry Jackson rang me.’ That was odd. Annie had informants in the police, but Jerry wasn’t one. Jerry didn’t discuss police business with outsiders. And given he was the one who’d warned me not to talk about the discovery at the caves, it was doubly strange. ‘He’s worried about you.’
‘Why? Does he think I’m going to have a girly fainting fit because we found a body? Heck, I didn’t even see the thing.’
‘No, it’s not that. I got the impression he was more concerned about your relationship with O’Hara.’
‘Really?’ I considered the possibility that Jerry was jealous. And dismissed it immediately.
Annie perched on an upright chair. ‘He was sounding me out on how much we knew about O’Hara, without actua
lly coming right out with it.’
I filled the kettle and tried to locate the coffee jar. ‘What did you tell him?’
‘Very little. I only know very little about him. And so do you.’ She checked her watch. ‘I’ve got to go, I’m taking the train into town. Can we have a drink tonight?’
‘Are you buying?’
‘I’d say that was a sure bet, wouldn’t you? Byron’s Wine Bar? Eight o’clock?’
‘Looking forward to it already.’
Which was more than could be said for my phone call to Della Black. I’d put it off for long enough. I was going to have to tell her that her son and heir probably was missing a few keystrokes in the sanity department.
‘Are you certain?’ she demanded when I got through to her on the phone.
‘I haven’t actually seen him addressing envelopes to himself, but if I had to compile a list of suspects, I’ve got to tell you he’d be way out in the lead. Can Jonathon ride a motorbike?’
‘Yes. He used to have one. When he was at drama college.’
‘Do you know what happened to it?’
‘I never asked. Is it important?’
‘Maybe.’ Definitely, if he was the Mr White who’d bought that newspaper and had it couriered to the film location. I’d assumed the name was a play on words; a subconscious mind-flip to the opposite side of Jonathon’s personality. ‘Does the name White mean anything to you?’
‘It was my maiden name. It was always a bit of a family joke; that I changed from White to Black. Why?’
‘It’s complicated, I’ll stick it in my report. The meter’s running here Della, if you’d like me to wrap it now …?’
‘No. I told you. I need proof. Something I can wave under both their noses and insist that Jonathon gets help. You need to go back. Don’t worry, you’ll get paid.’
The stormy weather had passed in the night, depositing a layer of salt crystals over the parked cars that caught the weak sunlight and reflected it back with a glare that made your eyes water. I had to bail buckets of hot water and washing up liquid over the Micra before I could drive it round to Clemency’s house.