by Jo Bannister
The man was nodding slowly, seemed more than half convinced. ‘The problem with that is you can identify me. I needed to talk to you – but now I have, I need you to stay silent.’ An odd, almost playful expression stole across his face. ‘Mr Hood, can I trust you to stay silent?’
Ethics or not, Daniel would have lied like a trooper if he thought he’d be believed. But it was a trap. ‘No. But what can I tell the police that would help them find you? You’re an average-looking man with a foreign accent. That’s going to be a real help to the guys watching the Channel ports.’
The man chuckled. ‘This is true. But if I am caught, you can identify me.’
‘If you’re caught, I’ll be the least of your problems. If you’re caught it’s because they’ve already worked out who you are and circulated a picture of you. Nothing I can tell them will make any difference.’
He believed that. He believed that, logically, there was no more reason for this man to harm him than there had been for him to take a beating rather than answer his questions. Logically, there was no reason he shouldn’t walk away from this. But at the back of his mind was what the world had taught him: that not everyone thinks logically.
This was the vet. He hadn’t said as much, but he’d talked about handling big excitable horses and anyway it made sense. Deacon reckoned Windham had one partner and one only, and he had to be the one who had access to the German tranquillizer. If Windham had needed help to evade the authorities on his journey back from Essen, where else would he seek it? And the good thing about that was that vets are scientists, and scientists have the inside track when it comes to thinking logically.
Daniel tried to appeal to that pragmatic side of him. ‘Look, you’ve only got two options, yes? — to kill me or leave me alive. If the police have your picture, killing me won’t make you safe. It’ll get you another ten years.’
‘It is true,’ admitted the man, ‘murder always ups the ante. Is that the expression?’ he asked. ‘Ups the ante?’
Daniel nodded.
The man did the regretful little sigh again. ‘But only the first murder. All subsequent ones come for free.’
It was gone nine o’clock before Brodie thought of Daniel. She knew he’d be waiting to hear from her. She thought he’d be starting to worry and that she ought to call him, tell him what had happened. But he didn’t answer, and when she glanced outside she saw the stars that were the reason why.
Half an hour later she tried again. This time, after a long delay, someone picked up. But it wasn’t Daniel, it was Alison Barker.
At first Brodie could get no sense out of her. She sounded both vague and distressed. ‘Put Daniel on,’ Brodie said, a couple of times. ‘Let me talk to Daniel.’
‘I can’t find him,’ whined the girl.
‘Try the gallery. He’ll be out with the telescope.’
‘He isn’t there. I looked.’
The cats of unease were walking up and down Brodie’s spine with their claws out. ‘Alison, are you all right? You sound … Are you all right?’
‘Yes. It’s just, I can’t …think. I took … My head’s all woolly.’
The cats were right. ‘Alison, listen to me. This is important. What did you take?’
‘Pills,’ mumbled the girl, faintly annoyed. ‘I don’t know what they’re called. Listen. I can’t find Daniel. Do you know where he is?’
‘Are you sure he isn’t outside? Look again.’
It was a couple of minutes before the girl came back. ‘There’s no one there. Only the telescope.’
Now the alarm bells were ringing carillons in Brodie’s head. That telescope was a valuable piece of equipment; more than that, it was Daniel’s baby. He might have gone for a walk, he might have gone to the shop, but he wouldn’t have done either leaving his telescope unprotected outside. ‘Stay where you are, Ally, I’m coming over. Don’t go to sleep.’
When Brodie reached the shore Daniel’s front door was still unlocked, the telescope still pointing skyward on the gallery, and Alison had – despite her instructions – lapsed once again into unconsciousness, curled up on the living room sofa. Brodie shook her vigorously, at first without response.
‘Ally! Ally, wake up. You have to wake up and tell me what it is you’ve taken.’
She was on the point of calling an ambulance when her efforts finally bore fruit. Alison Barker opened a bleary eye that slid over Brodie a couple of times before connecting. ‘Hello.’ She sounded like a punch-drunk boxer.
‘What did you take? Ally!’ she shouted as the girl went to nod off again. ‘You have to concentrate. Tell me what you took.’
Alison waved a vacant hand at the stairs. ‘Pills. Sleeping pills. I couldn’t sleep so I took …’
It would be quicker to go and look than wait for her to explain. Brodie found the bottle on the bedside table in the spare room. It was almost full, and the label was for a prescription medicine. She hadn’t been out cruising for drugs, she’d just taken a sleeping pill and not had time to sleep it off. Brodie returned upstairs, reassured on that score at least.
Alison was drowsing again. Brodie shook her shoulder firmly. ‘Will you get your head together? I need you to tell me about Daniel. When did you see him last? How long has he been gone? Ally! Something’s happened to him, and God help us but you’re the only one who might know what!’
Rather than hang around Battle Alley scowling at people who’d done him no harm, Deacon went home. He scowled at the cat instead, and the cat scowled back.
A little after ten the phone rang. It was Brodie, and she was worried. ‘Jack, something’s happened to Daniel.’
The last thing on Deacon’s mind right now was Daniel Hood. He stared at the phone stupidly for a moment before answering. ‘What sort of something?’
‘I don’t know. Alison took a sleeping pill and went to bed soon after seven. At that point he had pupils with him. I tried to phone him about nine but there was no reply. Half an hour later I got Alison, still groggy from the sleeping pill and scared because she was alone. Jack, he’d left the door unlocked and his telescope outside.’
Deacon sucked in a breath. ‘No,’ he agreed, ‘that’s not normal. And Alison’s checked the house?’
‘So have I. I’m there now. There’s no sign of him. He hasn’t left a note, and his wallet’s in the kitchen.’
‘Any signs of a struggle?’
‘None that I can see.’
Deacon wanted his bed. He wanted to finish this day so he could start another in the hope it would be better. ‘I’ll be round in five minutes.’
There were no signs of violence that he could see either. He crossed the Promenade to the Victorian terrace opposite, some of them houses, some of them shops with flats over them. He started at The Singing Kettle. The café was closed now, but it would have been open until nine and Mr and Mrs Miskimmin lived on the premises.
Mrs Miskimmin had spent most of the evening baking for the next day, but her husband had been in the café and saw a vehicle parked close to the netting-sheds. He hadn’t seen anyone get in or out, but it was there for a few minutes. Then it drove away.
‘What kind of vehicle?’ asked Deacon.
‘A van of some sort. I couldn’t tell you what make. White, high sided – a bit bigger than a Transit.’
Deacon considered. ‘Could it have been a horse-box?’
The café owner shrugged. ‘I suppose.’
‘Were there any markings on it? A company logo, anything like that?’
‘I don’t think so. Or if there was I didn’t notice. But then, it was already dark.’
‘What time was this?’
‘About eight o’clock maybe, or a little later? Mr Deacon, what’s going on?’
Deacon didn’t answer him. ‘Did you see Hood at any time during the evening?’
Miskimmin nodded. ‘He was out on the balcony with that telescope of his. It’s a clear night,’ he added with a tolerant grin. ‘He’s always out there if it’s a clear ni
ght.’
‘Before or after you saw the van?’
‘Before.’
‘And after?’ He wanted to be sure.
Miskimmin shook his head thoughtfully. ‘No.’ He asked again, determined on a reply. ‘What’s happened? Is Daniel all right?’
Deacon had noticed this before: that people who had no reason to care whether Daniel Hood was alive or dead found themselves doing so. It wasn’t that he had a lot of friends, more that a lot of people who were mere acquaintances somehow recognised him as a decent human being and enjoyed his amiable presence just enough to miss him. He added a little value to a lot of lives. When the time came there wouldn’t be a crowd at his funeral – just Brodie, and Paddy, and Brodie’s neighbour Marta; and probably Deacon too because there was every chance he’d be looking for a murderer, someone whose patience Daniel had finally pushed to breaking point. But half the town would notice he was gone and be sorry.
Deacon didn’t understand that, and not understanding troubled and annoyed him. But then, Deacon was a good man rather than a likeable one. People who knew him well mostly admired him. But an awful lot of people didn’t want to know him that well.
He said honestly, ‘I don’t know, Mr Miskimmin. We can’t find him.’
‘Maybe he went off in the van.’
Deacon nodded grimly. ‘Maybe he did.’
Chapter Twenty-One
‘It’s true, then.’ Daniel’s voice was not much more than a shocked whisper. ‘Stanley Barker was murdered. Alison was right. Everybody told her she was letting emotion cloud her judgement. But she was right all along. He didn’t jump and he didn’t fall — he was pushed.’ His chin came up like a challenge. ‘By you?’
‘Of course not,’ said the vet. ‘I wasn’t even in this country at the time.’
But Daniel couldn’t stop thinking. Worse, he couldn’t stop doing it aloud. ‘But Johnny Windham had an alibi. He was abroad when Stanley died – the police asked him to prove it and he did.’ He looked up, his eyes widening. ‘There’s someone else.’
For a moment, before he managed to mask it with annoyance, the vet looked troubled. He was an intelligent man – far more intelligent than Windham, which was why until now he’d done all the thinking and Windham had taken all the risks – and not given to painting himself into corners. What he’d said hadn’t been careless or unthinking, verbal wallpaper to fill a gap. He’d said it because, if you need someone to do what he’s told and not get stroppy and argue with you, and not start to wonder if he could take you in a fair fight, there’s a lot to recommend putting the fear of God into him.
What he hadn’t expected was that Daniel would pick the threat apart to see what it would tell him. ‘Mr Hood, you’re asking too many questions,’ he observed. ‘It’s not a healthy thing to do.’
Somehow Daniel managed to laugh out loud. ‘You mean, you might have to kill me twice?’
The man laughed too. Even people who found him in their way could sometimes hardly resist Daniel’s quite unconscious charm. ‘No. I mean, who knows what may happen in the next few hours?’
‘So you’re going to kill me, but not yet.’
The man gave a non-committal sniff. ‘I’m merely suggesting that we try to remain civil while we wait, and not anticipate the balance of necessities.’
Daniel swallowed hard. ‘So what are we waiting for?’As soon as it was out he realised this was not a sensible thing to have said.
‘I’m waiting for nature to take its course with this pony’s digestive system,’ the vet said calmly. ‘Until then, this is a good place to be. It’s quiet, no one will come, we will not be disturbed. If I leave here I must take the animal with me and risk your friend the policeman spotting me. Afterwards, I can walk away with all I need in a plastic bag.’
Daniel didn’t want to be reduced to begging, but ultimately he valued his life above his dignity. ‘At which point, I can’t do you much harm,’ he said in a low voice.
The man shrugged. A chill like meltwater ran down Daniel’s spine. That was how much someone’s life meant to these people: a shrug of the shoulders. If pressed, perhaps he would toss a coin. ‘I’ll tell you what, Mr Hood. I’ll think about it.’
Deacon knew now he’d done the wrong thing about Windham. If he’d held onto him he could have asked him about the white van. He had a fair idea that the missing pony was in it, and it seemed likely that Daniel was in it too.
He should have considered the possibility of another vehicle. He knew Windham wasn’t in this alone. That they could rustle up a second horse-box to break their trail should not have come as a surprise. In all likelihood it was on the same damn ferry. That would be the smart thing to do. While Customs were watching for the Windham Transport lorry they were hardly likely to pull in a second horse-box. A white van with a nondescript pony on board would have been less likely to attract attention on that sailing than any other.
But that meant Windham had boarded the ferry knowing he would be stopped. The operation had been blown long before Calais. Deacon shoved his hands deep in his pockets and glared at Brodie. ‘He made you.’
‘What? No way!’ Her dark eyes flashed dramatically.
‘He must have done.’
‘It’s not possible, Jack,’ Brodie insisted. ‘We were so careful.’
‘Maybe he spotted the car,’ said Meadows in a low voice. ‘I tried to keep my distance, but it’s a long journey – maybe he saw it just once too often.’
It wasn’t impossible. But she hadn’t taken any chances, or made any mistakes, that she shouldn’t have. ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ said Brodie stoutly. ‘I suppose, if you’ve the makings of a fortune with you, you’re probably pretty paranoid. Maybe he did notice the car and it was just enough to make him wonder, and wondering was enough to make him dump the evidence.’
Then she shook her head. ‘But he was never out of our sight. And if he suspected he was being followed, why leave the motorway at all? He could have stuck to his schedule and picked up the catalyst another day.’
‘He didn’t spot you until after he’d met with his vet friend,’ growled Deacon.
‘But that was the last place he could have off-loaded the pony,’ insisted Brodie.
‘He didn’t stop at all between there and Calais?’
‘He went into a service station for a coffee and a paper. Then he drove on.’
‘And you had the lorry in view throughout?’
‘Yes.’ Then Brodie’s eyes narrowed. ‘And no. We had the front of the lorry in sight. We could see Windham in the cab. The back was sandwiched between other vehicles and the garage wall.’ She grimaced. ‘I suppose, if there was someone else to do it, the pony could have been taken offWindham’s lorry and put onto another one without us seeing.’ Understanding how easily an expensive surveillance had been compromised made her feel very small.
Deacon was spitting tacks. ‘So all he had to do was phone his mate from his cab to say he might have company. His mate met him at the service station and while you were watching Windham he off-loaded the pony onto another horse-box. It wasn’t exactly The Great Escape, was it? My Aunt Martha could have pulled it off!’
Brodie didn’t know what to say. She’d thought they’d done a good job; only it turned out Windham had done a better one and now the pony was missing and the drugs were missing and Daniel was missing, and she didn’t know where to start looking for any of them. The only thing she was sure of was that they weren’t at Windham’s yard. He hadn’t made enough mistakes to give them reason to hope he’d made that one.
‘What will you do?’ she asked in a low voice. ‘Pull Windham in? Give him the third degree, make him tell us where they’ve taken Daniel?’
Exasperated as he was, Deacon could find it in him to be sorry for her. This odd-couple relationship she had with Daniel, he might not understand it but he knew how important it was to her. If Hood got hurt because she’d made mistakes she wouldn’t forgive herself. He wished he had an answer for her.
‘I could, but it wouldn’t achieve anything. He knew we were onto him before Daniel was lifted. He knew he was being watched: it was the perfect alibi. I can pull him in but I can’t make anything stick and he knows it. He’ll just sit there smiling, inviting me to try. Time’s on his side, not ours. Once he has the catalyst from inside it his mate can shoot the damn pony, and Daniel too, and torch the van, and we wouldn’t know him if he walked down Battle Alley in broad daylight.’
Brodie knew – the conclusion was unavoidable – that Daniel was in danger. But Deacon saying that made it real. Tears welled in her eyes and she could do nothing to stop them.
Seeing them made Deacon feel like shit. He knew there was no kindness in his soul. Most of the time he either didn’t notice or didn’t care, but just occasionally he hurt someone he didn’t mean to and then he felt like shit.
It was too late to bite his tongue, and she wasn’t stupid enough to believe him if he back-tracked now. An apology was all that was left. ‘I’m sorry. I’m tired, I’m bad-tempered – what do I know? Maybe he just wanted to find out what Daniel knows. It’s his name on the paperwork, maybe they had him down as the brains of the operation. In which case, by now they know different. Maybe they’ve chucked him out on top of the Downs somewhere and he’s walking back to civilisation.’
Brodie appreciated him trying, however unconvincingly. She managed a watery smile. ‘But you don’t really think so.’
‘I don’t know. I want to think so. It’s possible.’
‘I think you were right the first time.’
He needed some realistic hope to offer her, not platitudes. He groped in his tired mind for the next move. ‘If they’d wanted him dead they could have taken him into his house and killed him there, and Alison with him. They didn’t. They wanted to talk to him. Obviously we suspect Windham, but do we have the rest of it – the German end, the vet, the factory? Just how badly are they blown? Well, there’s nothing Daniel knows that he wouldn’t be prepared to tell. He has no one to protect. He probably said this was my idea rather than yours, but apart from that he hasn’t any information worth getting hurt over. That’s one thing to be grateful for.’