by Ken McClure
‘ Sci-Med’s on the case,’ said Steven.
Steven drove back to London feeling a sense of relief that Charlotte Little had now been told. She had taken it well although he suspected that all the implications of the news had not yet got through to her. The next few days were going to be extremely unpleasant when the press started to camp out on her doorstep.
It was eleven thirty when the phone rang. The duty man at Sci-Med said, ‘It’s about your enquiry this afternoon.’
‘ You’re working late,’ said Steven, recognising the same voice he had spoken to earlier.
‘ I like to see things through,’ said the man. ‘I didn’t come up with any place called, The Abbey, in Yorkshire that wasn’t a pub or a tea room.’
‘ It was a tall order,’ said Steven. ‘But thanks for trying.’
‘ I did however, come up with a place called, Friars Gate Abbey,’ said the duty man. It’s in the middle of the moors and it’s registered to a Belgian company called Cine Bruges. They make PR films.’
‘ Well done,’ murmured Steven approvingly. ‘You are a star.’
The man gave Steven details of the location of Friars Gate Abbey and asked if there was anything else he needed.
‘ Not right now, I’ll go up there in the morning and take a look at the place.’
‘ Do you want us to inform the Yorkshire Police that you’ll be on their patch?’
‘ No need for that,’ said Steven. ‘I’ll contact them directly if the place looks interesting.’
‘ Thought you might say that,’ said the man. ‘I’ve got the number for them in case you need to use it.’
Steven punched the number into his mobile phone memory as the man read it out. ‘You think of everything,’ he said. ‘Who needs a wife when I’ve got Sci-Med?’
‘ You don’t even have to take me out,’ said the duty officer.
Steven was on the road by six in the morning. After some thought he had decided not to go straight to The Abbey. The story of Little’s innocence was due to break in the morning papers and if Friars Gate was really Merton’s place then a fair amount of activity or even panic might be predicted. His plan now was to reach the general area by lunchtime and approach it on foot.
He had dressed for the task, wearing camouflage gear and lightweight combat boots suitable for fell walking. He had packed a small rucksack containing what he thought he might be likely to need. This included Carl Zeiss binoculars and a Canon camera equipped with a telephoto lens. He was also carrying a hand-held GPS navigation unit that would enable him to establish his exact position on the moors to within a few yards thanks to signals from several satellites. He would use this to navigate and record his approach the abbey, for which he had the grid reference thanks to a late night session with the on-line ordnance survey map of the area. He had also packed bottled water and a few energy bars in case he was there for some time. He made sure that his mobile phone was fully charged before setting out.
From the map he knew that there was only one access road to Friars Gate Abbey. It was a single track road stretching for some four miles across open moor land. Leaving his vehicle anywhere along the route would be bound to attract attention so he decided to abandon it well before the turn off from the B road and tab the remainder on foot. He didn’t have a heavy pack to carry so he was counting on being able to cover the distance in under an hour.
There were times on the way north when it seemed that rain was likely — not a cheering prospect for a trip across open country on foot — but a west wind kept the clouds on the move and the sky was still relatively bright when Steven eventually found a secluded place to leave the car. He hid it behind a clump of fir trees about thirty metres back from the road.
There hadn’t been much traffic on the road up to the turn-off but he had passed a couple of large four-wheel drive vehicles travelling in the other direction. They had caught his attention because they weren’t the usual workaday Land Rovers used by farmers. They were Toyota Land Cruisers, fairly new and heavy on polished chrome — the type of vehicle used by the well-heeled to pull themselves out of the suburbs in the morning, or more relevantly, by film and TV crews to move their equipment around. It made him fear that Merton had already been spooked into a move.
Steven checked his location on the GPS and punched in the co-ordinates for The Abbey. He didn’t actually need such sophisticated help at the moment because weather conditions were good but he wanted the machine to remember the route he was taking so that he could retrace it should a mist come down later or if he had to return in darkness.
The terrain wasn’t flat — more a wild, undulating plain with low hillocks and rocky gullies and ditches to negotiate. Steven found it hard going but enjoyed the challenge to his fitness. It had been a while since he had been put to the test. With a mile still to go to the abbey, he finally took a break and a drink of water while he got his breath back.
There was a hillock to his left which he reckoned was about a hundred feet high so he decided to climb it and see if he could see The Abbey. He’d also be able to see the lie of the land ahead and plan his final approach. He crawled up the last ten yards to the crest of the hill on his belly so that he wouldn’t suddenly appear on the skyline. It seemed unlikely that anyone at the abbey would be keeping a lookout but old habits died hard and being over-cautious was always better than taking anything for granted.
Steven found that he had a view of the abbey. Using the Zeiss glasses he could see that the tower and main building of the abbey were now ruins but that various out-buildings to the right of the main structure had been restored using similar stone and were obviously in use. He determined that he should make his approach from the left where the ground was hillier and would offer him more cover than the right, which was almost flat for four hundred metres.
Twenty minutes later Steven was in position. He was about a hundred metres from the ruins of the abbey, lying in a small gully between gorse bushes where he had a clear view of the East side of the buildings that were in use. He had a good view of the single-track approach road so that he was in an ideal position to monitor comings and goings should there be any. There were lights on inside one of the buildings so he kept his glasses trained on the windows.
The room he was looking at appeared to be an office but the two male figures he could see inside seemed to be moving around rather a lot. After a few minutes it became obvious that they were packing things into boxes on the floor as if preparing to move out. Steven was excited at this prospect and what he thought might be the reason behind it although, once again, he had to concede that he might already be too late.
The two men disappeared from sight and after a few minutes Steven heard car doors being slammed and an engine starting up. He didn’t see the vehicle until it had come round from behind the building and emerged through an arch to join the track across the moors. It was a white, unlettered, Ford van. At this point the driver, a young man in his twenties paused to wave to someone at the window. Steven’s view was obscured by the van until it moved off and then he was able to get a good look at who was standing there. He focused the glasses and had no doubt at all that he was looking at John Merton.
‘ Well, well, well,’ muttered Steven as he reached into his rucksack to bring out his mobile phone. ‘Got you!’
He was about to hit the send button on his phone for the Yorkshire police number he’d been given when he noticed with dismay that there was no signal. Hoping that this was because he was down in a gully, he moved back a few metres and crawled up to higher ground. There was still no signal at all.
Steven cursed but had to admit that this was probably not that surprising. The phone companies didn’t spend money erecting masts in the middle of nowhere where there were no customers to use them: he was probably two or three miles from picking up a signal. As he stuffed the phone back in his bag he remembered suggesting once to Sci-Med that they equip their people with satellite phones, which would not be dependent on groun
d antennae, but budget considerations had won the day. He now had to decide whether to retreat and call in the police or make an arrest himself.
There was no reason to believe that Merton was armed but on the other hand, he could not be sure that he wasn’t. He could not even be sure that Merton was the only person in the building, although there had been no sign of anyone else in the last hour. It seemed increasingly likely that the two Land Cruisers that he’d seen earlier had in fact come from The Abbey and had been staff moving out with their gear.
Steven decided against heroics. He owed it to Jenny not to take any unnecessary risks. He would return to his car along the narrow single-track road that he had been reluctant to drive along. This would be quicker than the cross-country route and would also afford him a view of any vehicle using the road. He felt confident that the sound of an approaching engine would alert him in time so he could move off the road and hide until it had passed while getting its number to pass on to the police.
Steven was preparing to move off when he heard a door bang and he dropped down again to train the glasses on The Abbey. Merton was outside and he was moving backwards while he reeled off cable from a drum he was carrying between both hands. He stopped every so often to make some sort of connection on the ground before moving off again. Steven was in no doubt that he was wiring up a series of explosive or incendiary charges before leaving. Why he was doing this could only mean one thing. There was something to hide inside.
TWENTY TWO
Steven knew now that he would have to try and stop Merton. He abandoned his plan to head back to the car and looked for the best way to tackle him. While there was a chance that he was armed it was important that he keep the element of surprise on his side. He couldn’t hope to cover the clear ground between him and the ruins while Merton was still in view so he would wait until he had moved out of sight. Steven watched him pause to make made two further connections before moving behind the office building he had originally emerged from.
Steven sprinted across the open ground in a crouching run, his heart in his mouth until he found cover in the shadow of the old stone tower where he knelt for a moment to consider his next move. He heard a door bang again and reckoned that Merton must have gone back inside. He peeked out to make sure the coast was clear before making another dash, which, this time, took him up to the end wall of the office building. He saw with relief that there were no windows in the gable end so he was safe again for the time being. There was a dark blue Range Rover sitting there and it was full of black equipment boxes. Steven took a moment to write down the registration number before moving slowly up to the end of the gable. He planned to crawl on his belly along the base of the back wall to reach the door where he would burst in and tackle Merton.
Lying flat on the ground, he used his elbows to push himself just clear of the gable end wall so that he could look along the back wall. All he saw however, was a pair of shoes. They were pointing towards him and about a metre from his face. Steven looked up and saw John Merton, standing there, pointing a gun down at him. Merton used the barrel of the gun to gesture up at the ruins of the tower. Steven looked up and saw the CCTV camera pointing down at him. He cursed himself for having overlooked the possibility.
‘ Who the fuck are you?’ said Merton.
‘ I’m Steven Dunbar. I’m here to arrest you for offences connected with the false imprisonment of David Little,’ said Steven.
‘ The fuck you are,’ said Merton calmly. ‘Well, always nice to put a face to the voice. So you’re the guy who got Ronnie Lee shitting his pants, the bozo who’s been causing us all the trouble.
‘ Put down the gun,’ said Steven.
‘ I’m hardly likely to do that now, am I?’ said Merton. ‘Let’s be adult about this. Get up, turn around and place your hands on the wall.’
Steven did as he was told while Merton searched him for weapons.
‘ Be sensible, Merton. The police are already on their way.’
‘ Christ, Dunbar, does Ealing Comedy write your scripts? You’ll be telling me next that I won’t get away with it. Move!’
Merton prodded the gun into Steven’s back and he moved off in the direction that the gun dictated. Merton seemed so calm that he didn’t bother coming out with any more cliches.
‘ It’s only right that a good-looking chap like you should join the ladies,’ said Merton.
‘ What’s that supposed to mean?’ said Steven.
‘ Just my little joke,’ said Merton.
They came to a flight of stone stairs leading down to a heavy cellar door and Merton paused to fumble in his pocket for the key. It was not only obvious to Steven that Merton was going to lock him up in there but that the cellar would almost certainly become his tomb because of the charges that Merton had been laying. When they went off he would either be buried under tons of rubble or burnt alive in a firestorm.
Steven felt like a lamb being led to the slaughter. He told himself that he couldn’t just meekly step into his grave but the odds were hopelessly stacked against him. Merton gestured that he go down the steps and he did so but when he reached the bottom he suddenly turned and lunged at him. He managed to reach Merton’s arm just as he saw the flash from the muzzle of the gun. It was the last thing he saw before his senses left him.
The sound of the Land Rover’s engine revving woke Steven and for a moment he thought the sound was inside his head, such was the headache that welcomed him back to consciousness. He put his hand up gingerly to the left side of his head and through the sticky, matted mess he found there he could feel a groove running from just above his left eyebrow to the top of his forehead. Merton’s bullet had not penetrated his skull but it had left its calling card. A few degrees different and Jenny would already have been an orphan.
The fact that Merton was leaving suddenly brought home to Steven where he was and what was about to happen. Panic threatened to take over from pain and its message was clear and simple. If he didn’t get out of here, he was going to die. Adrenaline flooded through him but his first scrambled attempt at getting to his feet failed. He lost his balance and fell heavily to the floor again where he remained on all fours, breathing hard and fighting feelings of nausea. He looked up at the one window in the wall above him and saw that there was no glass in it but it was heavily barred.
He pulled himself across the floor, fighting dizziness all the way until he reached the door and could examine it at close quarters. It had to be at least six inches thick and the heavy lock was in good condition. The fact that he could see the outside through the large keyhole when he knelt in front of it told him that the key had not been left in the lock.
Steven rested his cheek against the door for a moment, knowing that even if he had the strength to put his shoulder to it, the most likely outcome would be a broken collarbone. He turned and looked at his surroundings in the light that was coming in through the barred window. He had no idea what the original use for the cellar had been when monks had been at the abbey but in more recent times it had been used for storing gardening tools and equipment. Most of it looked as if it hadn’t been used in many years. The tools were rusty and covered in cobwebs and the writing on several of the bags of what he supposed was fertiliser or weed killer had almost faded away to nothing.
There was an old wooden bench with an ancient paraffin primus stove sitting on it along with bits and pieces for making tea — a heavy black kettle that would have been at home in a Victorian kitchen, a rusty tea caddy, a couple of tarnished spoons and a half-full sugar bag that had once been white but was now parchment yellow.
A muffled explosion outside made him stop breathing in anticipation but there was no after-blast and no sound of crashing masonry. Merton had set incendiary devices rather than explosives. As if to confirm this, a searing wave of heat came in through the window and made him screw up his eyes. When it abated he continued examining his surroundings. The ceiling was solid stone. The floor was covered in stone flagging and there
were three extra stones propped up against the wall under the window, not that being able to stand on them and get up to the barred window would be much help.
Steven revisited his earlier fear that this cellar would be his tomb and found little comfort in being proved right. He did however, see the irony of a British tomb having tea-making equipment in it whereas an Egyptian one would have provided a more expansive spread for the journey into the afterlife. Another explosion and the sound of fire taking hold told him that his own journey must be imminent.
Although his stomach was knotted with fear, Steven took out the notebook that he’d noted down the registration number of Merton’s car in and tore out a clean page in order to write a last note to Jenny. By the orange glow that was coming in from outside, he addressed the note to Miss Jenny Dunbar at Sue and Peter’s address in Glenvane. In it he told her that he loved her very much and hoped that in time she would forgive him for not being there for her but he felt sure that she would grow up into a young lady that her Daddy and Mummy would be very proud of.
With tears mingling with the sweat and blood on his face, Steven looked around for something to put the note in, something that would protect it from the fire and allow it to survive to be found one day by someone who would deliver it. His eyes fell on the tea caddy and he lurched across the floor to empty out the tea, which had long ago turned to dust. He put the note inside and replaced the lid but then realised that the tin was so flimsy that it probably wouldn’t be up to the job. Supporting himself with a hand against the wall, he moved unsteadily around the cellar looking for some safe place to put it. The temperature seemed to be rising by the second. He stumbled when the floor beneath him seemed to give way then found that he was standing on bare earth. The flagstones under the window weren’t extra stones. They were part of the floor that had been lifted.
A fantasy of being able to tunnel his way out quickly gave way to cold reality. Even though there was an old spade in the corner, he would have to dig down at least six feet and then out for three before coming up for six again but at least he could bury the tin in the earth here. He knelt down and started scooping earth away with his bare hands as sweat dripped from his face into the hole. To his surprise he found that the earth was quite soft and he made good progress until he hit something that at first he thought was a flexible pipe. He gripped it and pulled hard until it seemed to come away at one end. It wasn’t a pipe. It was soft and it had a hand on the end of it.