I slipped myself and fell flat on my back, but scrambled round onto my knees, ready for the next charge.
It didn’t come.
He wasn’t there.
Bewildered, I jumped up, desperate to avoid his knife. Then I realized he really wasn’t there.
He had gone over the cliff edge. The knife had gone, too. And the gun.
I was alone, and all I could hear was the sound of my own hoarse breathing.
I could scarcely believe it. I got up and peered over the edge of the path, down to the sea. Nothing. I stared hard, but I could see no sign of him in the white water crashing onto huge boulders.
The water was deep immediately below where I was standing. He would have hit one of the many big rocks protruding from the sea before disappearing into it. Even if he had somehow missed the rocks, the sea would still have claimed him. I was sure of that. He couldn’t have survived.
I sat back and held my hands to my face for a moment, waiting for the pain the struggle had re-energized to pass. I wondered who he was, who he had been. A man. That was all I knew. A man who had been intent on killing me.
Bill Peart was at his most sensitive when he turned up a bit later. The uniforms had arrived first once again but there hadn’t been much for them to do. They just guarded the crime scene until Bill arrived and told them to check down on the beach.
‘What happened this time?’ he asked when we were alone.
‘This time?’
I stared hard at him until he shook his head and sighed. ‘Were you just in the wrong place again?’
‘It was more than that, Bill. The guy was here to kill me. First he needed to be sure he’d got the right man. He called my name to make certain. But it still didn’t work out for him. That’s all I can tell you.’
‘And in the struggle he went over the edge of the cliff?’
‘I got lucky,’ I admitted, nodding. ‘It was very nearly me that took the drop.’
We trudged back to the house, went inside and sat down. Bill sat up straight, on duty. ‘Who was he?’ he asked.
I shook my head. ‘I’ve never seen him before. From his accent, in the few words he spoke, I would guess he was American. Otherwise, all I know is he was a tough little bugger.’
‘Any idea why you were targeted?’
‘Yes, I have,’ I said ruefully. ‘It’s not the first time I’ve been attacked.’
I told him again about the beating I’d been given by the Geordies. Then I told him someone had been going through my house and checking my computer files.
‘It all seems to be to do with me having been at the South Gare that day when Campbell was killed,’ I concluded.
He nodded.
‘I think PortPlus are behind it. They were trying to make me keep out of it by issuing warnings and making the job offer. That failed. So they decided to go for the next best thing, and get rid of me altogether.’
My story made him uneasy. I could see why. There was no direct evidence for my suspicions and allegations. On the other hand, I was his friend. He knew that, for whatever reason, I really had been in danger, and probably was still.
‘The Geordies who beat you up and the guy who came here to kill you are different animals,’ he pointed out. ‘What does that tell you?’
‘It tells me they ran out of patience.’
‘Maybe. And someone’s been in your house without kicking the door in. That doesn’t sound like the Geordie gang.’
‘More like the man waiting on the path for me?’ I suggested.
‘Could be two different lots, working for two different clients.’
PortPlus and someone else? It was possible, I supposed. But it seemed unlikely.
‘You need protection,’ Bill said, snapping out of it.
I shook my head. ‘We’ve been through that before. I’m staying here, and I don’t want anyone with me.’
‘Unless it’s a woman?’
I grinned. ‘Women in uniform don’t attract me. So you can forget that!’
He got up to go. Some things, he knew, he just couldn’t do anything about.
‘Call me,’ he said, ‘when the next surprise happens to you.’
Chapter Twenty-Six
I took out the newspaper with all the good news about the official launch of PortPlus and read through the main story again, in case I had missed something. I hadn’t. Pushing the paper away, I considered what to do next.
I needed to talk to Nancy, to bring her up to speed. She could be at risk herself now, because of her association with me. What to do about that was an open question. I would have to see how she took the news. First, though, I had to get there and talk to her.
Before I left, I dug out a spare mobile to give her. From now on, I wanted to be able to speak to her without having to drive to the South Gare to do it.
The road through what was left of ruined Warrenby, a former industrial village adjoining Redcar, was busy. A stream of vehicles was pouring out of the steelworks as a shift ended. It was small beer compared with how the whole of Teesside used to be when shifts in the works ended, but at least it was evidence of a thousand jobs saved.
Past the works, the road to the South Gare narrowed to a single lane bordered by sand dunes covered with marram grass. On the broader, seaward side, there were still a few wartime relics remaining in the dunes: pill boxes and concrete gun emplacements half-buried in the sand. On the river side, there wasn’t much space at all before the drop down to the river at high tide, and an expanse of sand at low tide.
Gulls swept by overhead, endlessly searching. Oyster-catchers hunted down on the wet sand. The marram grass bent and rustled in the stiff breeze. The Gare drew close. In a short distance I had entered another world. I parked near the huts and went looking for Nancy.
She wasn’t at home. I looked around the immediate vicinity but didn’t find her. It was very quiet. One or two cars, but hardly anyone in sight. Happily, the two old codgers I had spoken to before were there again, sitting around the stove, the door to their hut wide open.
‘If you didn’t put so much wood in the stove,’ I told them, ‘it wouldn’t get so hot. Then you wouldn’t have to have the door open all the time.’
‘Is that right?’ Glasses said. ‘But then we wouldn’t see clever buggers like you poking about where you’re not wanted, would we?’
I laughed.
‘What did he say, Willy?’ the deaf one asked.
‘He’s complaining about the heat from the stove, Jack.’
‘Is he now?’ Jack glowered at me and said, ‘Wait till you’re our age! You need a bit of heat at our time of life.’
I nodded and said I could understand that. Then I asked Willy if he’d seen Nancy.
‘You’re not the first to ask me that today,’ he said suspiciously.
‘Oh?’
‘There was three blokes here a while ago looking for her.’
My head jerked and my heart began to beat faster. I didn’t like the sound of that.
‘Three? Did they say who they were?’
He shook his head. ‘Never seen them before either. We didn’t like the look of ‘em, to tell you the truth.’
I was pretty sure who they were. I just hoped I wasn’t too late.
‘Who are you anyway?’ he added. ‘We’d never seen you either till the other day.’
‘Frank Doy.’
‘Never heard of you.’
‘What did he say?’ Jack asked, leaning forward to catch what he could.
‘He says his name’s Frank Doy,’ Willy replied in a voice that could probably have been heard several miles away in Redcar.
Jack shook his head. He hadn’t heard of me either.
‘She won’t have gone out in her boat?’ I asked.
‘Nancy?’ Willy shook his head doubtfully. ‘I couldn’t tell you. Like I told them others, I have no idea where she is.’
We weren’t getting anywhere fast. I chewed at a ragged edge on my thumbnail. Then inspiration stru
ck.
‘I’m a neighbour, and a friend, of Jimmy Mack’s,’ I said quietly, confidentially.
There was a moment of silence. Willy studied me astutely and then said, ‘From Skinningrove?’
I shook my head. ‘Risky Point. That’s where we live. The old cottages.’
He positively beamed now. ‘You should have said!’
‘What’s that?’ Jack demanded.
‘He’s a neighbour of Jimmy Mack’s!’
Recognition dawned there, too. A big smile broke out.
‘How is he?’ Willy demanded.
‘Good. He’s good.’
They gave me their names then, and I promised to tell Jimmy to pay them a visit soon.
‘So what’s all this about the men looking for Nancy?’ I asked when it was possible to get back to business.
‘I didn’t like the look of them,’ Willy said again. ‘Tough bunch, and not from round here.’
‘Geordies, were they?’
He nodded. ‘They could have been. I told them nowt.’
‘What about Nancy?’
‘I haven’t seen her this morning.’
There were plenty of places she could be. She might even have walked along the beach to Redcar.
‘And she won’t be out with the boat?’
‘She could be, but she’ll not be fishing if she is. The tide’s wrong.’
All the same, I thought, she might have taken it out to get away from people she didn’t want to find her.
‘What’s it called, her boat?’
Willy chuckled. ‘Nancy Baby! That’s her grandad for you, calling it that.’
I smiled and thanked them. Then I made my way over to Paddy’s Hole, not sure I wanted to find the boat still there. If it was, it might mean she’d been found by the Geordies. If it wasn’t there, how the hell was I going to find her anyway? I was seriously worried.
Nancy Baby was there. It was a typical small coble, one of a dozen or more in Paddy’s Hole. Its main distinguishing feature was that it was sunk, with just a couple of feet at the front end sticking out of the water. When the tide came in, there wouldn’t even be that much to see. Someone – I could guess who – had hammered a gaping hole low down in the side.
So Nancy hadn’t got away in the boat. Someone had made sure of that. I didn’t despair. It could mean she was still around, and they were still looking for her. I decided to cling to that hope.
But where could she be? I spun round and considered the huts and boats around Paddy’s Hole. No end of possible hiding places. Then there were all the other little mooring places and jetties, and all the abandoned, derelict sheds and old brick buildings. Not to mention the fifty-odd huts around her own place. Always assuming she hadn’t simply walked away – or been found.
I was very worried for her. The three men looking for her were the ones who I believed had killed James Campbell. And they were close.
I walked around, showing myself in the open. If Nancy was in hiding, she might see me and come out. The men looking for her might see me as well, of course. If that happened, I would be on the phone to Bill Peart without any hesitation.
I walked to the end of the breakwater and back, without seeing Nancy or anyone else. On the return leg, I scanned the dunes stretching away towards Redcar, and wondered if there might be a hunt going on somewhere in there. Impossible to say. There was no point going to look either. I might come across people I didn’t want to meet. Better to stay somewhere more public.
But there were limits to my patience. Eventually I decided there were better things to do than hang around indefinitely, waiting. I checked Nancy’s hut once more. Then I headed back to the Land Rover.
That’s where she was. She was sitting in the front passenger seat, waiting for me.
‘What kept you?’ she demanded.
I chuckled, gave her a hug of relief and got in and started the engine.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked.
‘Back to Risky Point,’ I told her. ‘I feel safer there.’
‘Me, too,’ she said.
‘You know three men are looking for you?’
‘I saw them.’
‘They’re the same ones who threw James off the end of the breakwater and knocked me about.’
‘I guessed.’
‘Where are they now?’
She shrugged. ‘Gone, I think.’
‘Thank God for that! I’m sorry about your boat, by the way. Did they do that?’
She nodded and grimaced. ‘Bastards!’
‘We’ll get it fixed.’
‘You think? Is that possible?’
‘Of course it is. I know people who can take care of that very easily. Don’t worry.’
She smiled and kissed me on the cheek. ‘You’re a wonderful man,’ she said.
That made me actually feel rather wonderful. So we set off happily on the long, thin road away from the South Gare.
We got half a mile or so. Then, just where the road does a little kink through the dunes, we found a big pickup straddling the road, blocking our way. I recognized the two men standing beside it. The third was in the cab.
‘It’s them!’ Nancy gasped.
She was right. And there wasn’t much I could do about it.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
There really wasn’t much choice. Instinct and reflexes took over, and I did what came naturally. I shifted down a gear and jammed my foot on the accelerator.
The engine screamed and the steering wheel juddered. I yelled at Nancy to brace herself. Then I wrenched the steering wheel round, aimed at the back end of the truck and gritted my teeth.
Jimmy Mack had recently helped me fit a winch I’d picked up at a scrap yard on to the front of the Land Rover. We’d thought it might come in handy for hauling his boat out of the water. I had a very different use for it in mind now.
We hit the truck at the back end of the load deck and I was flung forward until the seat belt stopped me. The projecting winch dug hard into the truck and my nerves went mad as my ears filled with the screeching of tortured metal.
I held on and kept my foot on the throttle. Coming in at an angle, we were still moving and turning the truck, but not fast enough. Momentum had gone with the impact. We needed to get out.
I wrenched the wheel round and the winch came away from the body of the truck. A gap appeared between us and the nearest sand dune. I made for it. Our offside wheels dropped off the tarmac and began to spin in soft sand. I eased back on the throttle but managed to keep us going until we were through the gap and could get all four wheels back onto pavement again. Then we were off!
There was damage. I could hear something banging and rattling at the front end. Somehow the windscreen had cracked and splintered, and I could see that Nancy’s window had disappeared. But it was no time to be stopping for an audit.
‘You all right?’ I shouted over the roar of the engine.
I glanced sideways and she nodded. She was tight-lipped and covered in shards of glass from the broken window.
‘Hang on!’ I called. ‘We’ll stop somewhere soon.’
Somewhere safe, I meant. We couldn’t stop here.
But the truck was not following. In the rear-view mirror I saw men milling around it. The front end was buried in soft sand. We had won ourselves some time.
I kept going hard until we reached Warrenby a few minutes later. Then I eased off. Soon afterwards I turned off the main road and into the old Coatham High Street. Then I stopped, keeping the engine running, and hauled out my phone.
‘Frank?’ Nancy said quietly.
‘I’m calling up the cavalry.’
Bill Peart must have been at his desk. He answered the phone immediately.
‘What do you want this time, Frank?’
It was always the same. If he wanted me, any time would do. If I wanted him, it was always an inconvenience.
‘The three guys I saw after James Campbell was put in the water? I’ve just had a run-in with them
on the road past Tod Point to the South Gare. Their truck is stuck in soft sand. If you’re quick. . . .’
‘Right. Got that.’
He broke the connection.
I shook my head, impressed. He could be a ball of fire when it suited him.
Nancy had got out of the cab to dust broken glass off herself. I motioned to her to climb back inside. I wanted to get moving again.
‘Who did you call?’ she demanded to know as we picked up speed.
‘The cops. There’s just a chance they might be able to pick them up.’
‘Who did you call?’ she insisted.
‘A pal. Bill Peart, a detective inspector.’
‘Must be nice to have connections like that.’
‘Not always, it isn’t. But on occasion. . . .’
I left it there. I didn’t think Bill would be able to move fast enough to grab them, but there was a chance.
‘You all right?’ I asked again.
She nodded. ‘Just a bit shaken up. That’s all.’
She paused and then added, ‘Someone fired a gun at us, Frank.’
I grimaced. No wonder the glass had broken!
‘All I can say, Nancy, is that if I’d stopped, it could have been a lot worse.’
‘I know.’ She shook her head and added, ‘They mean it, those people, don’t they?’
She was right. They were playing for keeps. Us or them.
‘They’re the ones who dumped James off the breakwater,’ I told her. ‘And I’m the witness they want to eliminate. Unfortunately, they’ve linked you with me now.’
‘That’s not why they were after me,’ she said.
‘It is,’ I assured her. ‘But let’s not argue about it.’
She didn’t reply.
I set course for Risky Point. Perhaps I was kidding myself, but I felt we would be safer on my home ground.
We were both quiet the rest of the way. Nancy was subdued and very obviously upset. I began to wonder if I was right in assuming the Geordies had gone after her because of her association with me. Would they have known about that yet?
And what had she meant when she disagreed with me about why they were after her? An alternative explanation was that they had targeted her because she had been close to James Campbell and was herself a critic of PortPlus, although she certainly wasn’t alone in that respect. Surely they couldn’t be planning to murder all their critics?
A Death at South Gare Page 11