Deathly Suspense

by John Paxton Sheriff

  ‘If the reliable source gave you a name for Rose’s sailing partner, would it have been Lorraine Creeney?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Alun said. ‘Lorraine Creeney was a frequent visitor to Rose’s flat. It was a joyful life on the ocean wave for two adventurous females now dead, murdered within twenty-four hours of each other in two entirely separate incidents.’

  ‘Separate incidents without any connection,’ I said, and I told him about Rose and Lorraine planning the trip to Wales, and where I had heard about it.

  ‘Annoying, but not unexpected,’ Alun said. ‘It would have been understandable if Rose had seen something relating to Lorraine’s murder and left town because of it, but not all that helpful when you think about it: now that she’s dead there’s no way she could tell tales even if she had seen someone put the rope around that woman’s neck.’ He shrugged. ‘As it is, we’ve established a connection between two women, but it’s a connection to boating not murder and does us no good at all.’

  ‘If we can believe Caroline Spackman.’

  ‘You were there. What’s your opinion?’

  ‘It came out in a mild verbal altercation between Caroline and Max. If either of them had something to hide, it would have been Max.’ I shook my head. ‘No, I don’t think she had reason to lie.’

  ‘So bang goes the link.’ He shrugged. ‘And good riddance, too, because now we can look hard at several local leads. Davey Jones is already in for questioning, because he was seen leaving Rose’s flat that night. And I’ve heard a rumour that an actual eyewitness has come forward. Oh yes, don’t tell me, I know what eyewitnesses are like, but even a bad one can let something useful slip by pure accident.’

  There was a gleam in his eye at that thought. We finished our drinks, Alun went to the bar for a quick word with one of his acquaintances, and I crossed the windswept car park and slid quickly into the Quattro. As I started up and turned on the heater I recalled leaving Karl Tully’s flat with high expectations of learning something interesting from Alun Morgan. It hadn’t turned out that way. All I’d achieved was the removal of one potential witness – Rose Lane. The sprightly elderly lady from Ash Crescent had sailed her boat for the last time, but had left nothing drifting in her wake that would help me to solve Lorraine Creeney’s murder.

  I was in no mood for light conversation as I drove Alun Morgan home, then headed for the coast road and the journey back to Liverpool.

  That was what I intended, and that was the way it turned out, in the end. But first there was an unexpected and unpleasant delay.

  Dropping Alun Morgan at his home had taken me only a couple of miles in the wrong direction, but instead of driving back through Bethesda I went in the opposite direction with the aim of switching to the A470 at Betws-y-Coed and joining the A55 at Glan Conwy. A longer drive, but a pleasant one. No problem. And, as it turned out, my change of plan was never going to have a bearing on the outcome because whoever was following me must have done so doggedly for some time, played a patient waiting game then raced ahead to set the trap.

  Between Llanrwst and Tal-y-Cafn the road dips and dives, with long straight stretches rising and falling across a series of switchbacks with the railway line and river on the left, wooded hills on the right. It was as I came over one of those rises – with the road ahead and behind me unusually clear of traffic – that I saw the car parked at the side of the road in the dip, the young woman in a bright red fleece with blonde hair streaming in the wind as she waved me down.

  I pulled in behind the small white Fiat – a Punto, I think – parked on the grass verge on the wrong side of the road right on the edge of the trees. When I climbed gallantly out of the Quattro she was all smiles and breathless relief.

  ‘That’s brill,’ she said and went on, in impressive estuary English, ‘Thanks a lo’, I think I’ve go’ a puncture or somethin’ an’ I can’ fix i’,’ while leading the way gaily around the side of the car that was listing on the wet grass.

  No puncture. At least not that I could see. The rear wheel was high and dry, the front wheel had settled in soft wet mud causing the car to tilt. So what had happened? Had she felt something go while driving, and pulled in – on the opposite side of the road? Or had she pulled in for some other reason, and assumed a puncture when the car began to sink?

  I looked up. She’d walked around the front of the car and was leaning forward with her hands on the warm bonnet as she watched.

  ‘You’re sure it’s a puncture?’

  ‘Yeah. Or somethin’.’

  I looked again at the front wheel. It was buried in mud up to the bottom edge of the silver trim. Beneath the mire, I supposed, the tyre could be flat. I hesitated, looked at the uninviting mud, hung onto the door handle with one hand and bent down for a closer look—

  And a tree fell on me.

  I groaned and slumped to my knees. My face smacked against the car. Red light flashed and there was a rushing in my ears. Another tree hit me on the back of the head. A wave of blackness engulfed me. I floated weightlessly. Then my hair was snagged by a giant claw. Searing pain snapped open my eyes as my scalp ripped. I floated backwards. A cold metal vice clamped on my wrist. Through the roaring I heard a voice scream. Then my arm was jerked almost out of its socket, I slid backwards, backwards and, as I kicked feebly and tried to cry out, another tree hit me and I went on sliding all the way into the black hole that was oblivion.

  ‘You OK now?’

  ‘Mm. Yes. Thanks.’

  ‘What about driving?’

  ‘I’ll be fine. Army trained.’

  The dark-haired man chuckled. ‘Like Foggy. A trained killer. Didn’t do you much good, did it?’

  I was sitting on the back seat of his BMW, door open, my feet planted on the wet grass, elbows on my knees and wrists dangling. Weakly. I felt like a wet rag.

  ‘Tell me again what you saw,’ I said, ‘before you go.’

  ‘Well, I came over the hill, making for the coast, and I could see this white car and a big bloke and a blonde girl trying to drag you into the woods. She had hold of your hair. He looked as if he was pulling your arm off. I kept my hand on the horn and swung over to pull in behind your car. And that was it. They saw me coming, dropped you and drove off.’

  I managed a grin. ‘You could have gone after them, but thanks again for stopping.’

  ‘What was going on?’

  ‘Robbery, I suppose. She was the bait, I was the sucker.’

  ‘They prey on decency. I used to pick up hitch-hikers, but not any more.’

  And so I returned shakily to my car and my rescuer went on his way. As I climbed in I saw lying in the grass the heavy broken branch that had been used to club me. Neatly round, no jagged projections so no blood in my hair. Just a couple of tender lumps, and a headache fierce enough to split logs.

  Eventually I started up, eased back onto the correct side of the road and pointed the Quattro towards Glan Conwy. Once again I had plenty to think about. I’d told Caroline Spackman about my trip to Colwyn Bay, and it was possible she had told Max. But from the window of his flat, Karl Tully had almost certainly watched me drive away, and a phone call would have put someone on my tail. Then again, someone I had not yet spoken to could have followed me all the way from Liverpool. It had been done before.

  My head was pounding. Thinking was bringing me nothing but nausea and a desire to scream, and just about the only decision I did make on the drive back to Liverpool was to be much more careful when dishing out Smarties. Yet even that resolution was soon forgotten. When I parked on the edge of the Mersey outside Calum’s flat I was behind a metallic-silver Shogun, and from an upstairs window I was being watched by a frowning Sian Laidlaw.

  EIGHT

  ‘How’s your arm?’

  ‘My arm?’

  ‘Gunshot wound, remember? Sam Bone’s noisy little pistol, the yacht in Conwy harbour, a nasty graze that was aggravated when you tumbled out of Danny Maguire’s floating caravan?’

  ‘I’m los
ing track of injuries. Getting better at private eyeing, but much worse at ducking.’

  ‘So it seems. There’s mud on your knees, and you were chalk white when you got out of the car.’

  ‘Shock. I thought you were miles away, never dreamt you were so close …’

  I’d walked through the door and she’d run to me and was snug in my arms, her subtle perfume making my poor battered head swim as she leaned back and examined my face with concerned eyes that didn’t quite meet mine.

  ‘Ducking suggests someone bashed you on the head,’ she said. Her eyes danced as she smiled and looked away. ‘And here’s me thinking it was serious.’

  ‘It all depends,’ I said, ‘on what you’re talking about and how you define the word.’

  I lowered my head quickly to brush her cheek with my lips as she gently slipped her arms from around my neck.

  ‘I’ll make coffee,’ she said, drawing away, ‘while you tell me exactly what that’s supposed to mean.’

  I followed her into the kitchen, sat down by the table as she filled the percolator with cold water and set it on the stove.

  ‘Where’s Calum?’

  ‘He went out to see Stan when I got here. That was less than an hour ago.’ She glanced over her shoulder, then turned away as she juggled with mugs and spoons and sugar basin. ‘If you’ve been to Bryn Aur, you must have just missed us.’

  ‘I stopped on the way home, fought off assailants, crawled in some convenient mud.’ My face felt stiff. I rubbed it with my fingers. ‘You said “us”. That would be you and the man with big feet. Did you know you missed a footprint?’

  ‘I was cleaning, not destroying evidence.’

  Who is he?’

  ‘Mark Deeson.’

  ‘Do I know him?’

  ‘You know of him. I saved his life.’

  ‘Ah. Cape Wrath. Hypothermia, the young executive who didn’t want to lose touch. He spoke to you during the Gault case, I recall, and we had a difference of opinion in that pub out Hale way while a marvellous woman pianist soothed us with sublime jazz. What happened this time? Did he come to you, or you to him?’

  ‘He walked in when I was eating breakfast.’ She turned to face me as the percolator began to bubble. ‘He was very persistent. He wanted me to go with him.’ She paused, watching me. ‘His manner warned me refusal wasn’t an option, Jack.’

  ‘And you a trained killer.’ I was echoing the words so recently thrown at me, but I couldn’t keep the relief out of my voice because what she was telling me pointed at coercion rather than connivance.

  ‘Being a trained killer is an ego boost, but not always that much use when it comes to the crunch,’ she said ruefully. ‘I know the moves, Jack, but the thought of being responsible for someone’s death gives me the willies. If I was up against a man who was truly evil, well … maybe….’ She shook her head. ‘But Mark’s certainly not like that.’

  ‘As far as you can tell. You saved his life at Cape Wrath, now this, just a few hours as his unwilling companion.’ I watched her shrug. ‘You were there at Bryn Aur when I left for the Sleepy Pussy on Sunday, gone by Monday morning when I returned with Calum. Where did this Mark take you?’

  ‘A cave in the mountains.’ She saw my look, and smiled ruefully. ‘Honestly. He wanted to impress me, to show me that he really could survive in the wilderness. But he went about it the wrong way. He had a gas heater, a camp bed with down sleeping bag, a two-burner stove and a shiny new Land Rover hidden in the trees …’

  She turned away again to pour the coffee, and I thought for a moment and said, ‘Why didn’t you answer your mobile? I called several times. Calum guessed you couldn’t get a signal. Was he right?’

  ‘Partly. But Mark’s a big lad. He didn’t want me to talk to anyone, and I wasn’t in the mood for ducking punches or thrashing about on the ground.’

  ‘But you did call me.’

  ‘When he was out using the chemical toilet. Would you believe it, a Porta Potty in the bushes?’ She chuckled at the thought, and handed me a steaming mug. ‘But he climbed back up the slope sooner than expected and saw the phone and I told him I was checking the time.’

  ‘So now the obvious question. Why? What did he expect to gain?’

  She sat down opposite me, frowning, nursing the warm mug, a little girl looking for comfort when all around her there was uncertainty. Or was I underestimating her? Did her obvious nervousness have another cause? My own mood was like a yo-yo. Ten seconds ago I’d been up, now I was down again because somehow, without conscious thought, I really did know where this was going and I was sick with foreboding.

  ‘He wanted to impress, I know that,’ Sian said. ‘I thought that. But after a while….’

  She sipped her coffee. I waited, saying nothing, watching the thoughts race behind her troubled blue eyes. She tugged at her blonde pony-tail, slipped off the elastic bands; toyed with them.

  ‘We slept in the cave just the one night, Sunday. Monday we were back at Bryn Aur. I put him in the spare room.’ She smiled briefly as she saw my nod, and I knew she accepted that like a clever little PI I’d followed their trail through house and what she was telling me was nothing new. ‘Today,’ she said, ‘he went back to his cave, and I suppose he broke camp and headed for home.’ She looked up at me. ‘It was a job well done, wasn’t it, Jack? He’d got what he wanted, and he didn’t even have to ask.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Do you know what I mean?’

  ‘Mm.’ I smiled. ‘I never did see you as a TV personality, and I don’t think you were pleased with your image. Radio was OK, but TV …’ I shrugged. ‘Reality shows are forcing others to dumb down, which makes the call of the wild, for a woman of your calibre, that much more attractive. This pillock dragged you off into the woods and showed you what you’ve been missing.’

  ‘Absolutely. I miss the excitement. The sheer joy of the outdoors – even when it’s bloody freezing and my knickers are damp and my hair’s all knotted with twigs and spiders’ webs. I miss seeing eager faces around the camp-fire, watching young executives struggle in after a successful – or, more often, unsuccessful map-reading exercise; the debriefing around a roaring fire in the nearest pub when a course ends and they begin to realize what amazing feats they’ve achieved.’

  ‘What you’ve helped them achieve.’

  ‘Yes. That especially, that more than anything.’

  I nodded slowly, looked at her over my coffee mug. She met my eyes. Hers crinkled at the corners and I wasn’t sure if it was in joy or pain.

  ‘So it’s back to old times,’ she said softly.

  ‘Good ones or bad ones?’

  ‘That depends, doesn’t it?’

  ‘On me?’

  ‘On us.’

  ‘We’re adults.’

  ‘Are we? I’m going back to playing soldiers. You spend your time making them.’

  ‘When I’m not chasing the baddies.’

  ‘Talking of which,’ she said, ‘you’ve been bashed over the head so it’s game on. What do I need to know?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I said, ‘if you’re no longer part of the team.’

  ‘Oh, Jack,’ she said reproachfully. ‘One of the good things about my return to the wilderness is that what I do makes me better at what you do. Not better than you are at what you do, but better than I would be at what you do if I didn’t do … Oh, God,’ she said, her eyes glistening, ‘you know exactly what I mean because you always do, so come on, tell me what’s been happening, everything, from the very beginning – and let’s get at them.’

  When Calum walked in I was sitting at his work table with one hand holding a bag of Bird’s Eye frozen peas to my aching head, the other turning a shiny Black Watch Grenadier under the bright light of the anglepoise. On the other side of the coffee table, Sian was stretched out on the settee with a black moggy curled up at her ankles and her ears hidden beneath fluffy pink earphones. She’d borrowed Calum’s Walkman. The ’phones looked more attractive on her than o
n the tall Scot, but the combination of her pink ears and my weird green headgear stopped him in his tracks.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ he said, ‘have you two gone completely round the bloody twist?’

  ‘Music has charms to sooth a savage breast,’ I quoted. ‘Sian has jettisoned her television career, rekindled the flames of enthusiasm and is about to burst. I’ve got a sore head.’

  ‘War wounds?’

  ‘A sucker punch. Painful, but acceptable because it proves we’re on the right track.’

  He cocked his head at that, tossed his leather jacket at Sian’s feet, slipped out of tan Timberland boots and dropped into a chair. I put down the finished toy soldier, clicked off the anglepoise and carried the bag of peas back to the fridge freezer. My hair was wet. I found a towel, thought about coffee; filled the percolator, put it on the stove, took three china mugs from the cupboard: Sian was back, we would drink our coffee in style.

  When I returned to the living-room, Sian had removed the earphones and was talking softly to Calum. From the earnest look on her face I knew she’d swiftly told him of her plans to return to the wilderness; from the smug look on his, I knew he’d been expecting it for some time, and approved. I could understand why. In the hour between our heart-to-heart talk and Calum’s return I had told her everything that had happened since an unidentified person phoned the Sleepy Pussy and sent me out to find Joe Creeney. And I knew that while listening to Calum’s Walkman she would have been mentally sifting and filing the evidence, tirelessly searching for clues that would lead us to the identity of the killer.

  She would have been doing it more diligently, I suspected, than during any of our previous investigations into ghastly crimes – and with good reason. Sian had told me, in tones that were ferociously intense, that she wanted this killer found and dealt with. That was the way she had put it: not brought to justice, but dealt with; and the menace in those words disturbed me greatly. To make naked threats – even euphemistically – was unlike her, yet in this case understandable. When, in recounting of what had happened, I had reached the point when the police burst into Joe Creeney’s house and found his wife hanging in the hall, she told me that she had met, and liked, Lorraine Creeney. Some weeks ago she had been in town with DS Meg Morgan; they had popped into Marks and Sparks for morning coffee and struck up a conversation with two women. One of them was Lorraine Creeney. The other … well, that doesn’t matter. There’d been instant rapport between all four, phone numbers had been exchanged, and there had been talk of an evening out at some time, the theatre followed by dinner.