by Frank Smith
But Jimmy didn’t respond. He’d been looking at something on the side of the quarry at some distance from where they stood. ‘It was a landslide,’ he declared. ‘Look, the side’s caved in over there. Look at the size of those stones! Boulders, more like. That’s what did it. Wish we’d been here to see it.’ The thought prompted him to look up nervously at the route they would have to travel to get back up to the top of the quarry.
‘Not much we can do down here, anyway,’ he said, trying to conceal his fear from Sean. After all, if it could happen once it could happen again. ‘Might as well go back up.’
Sean stayed behind to throw a few more stones before following his friend to the top. ‘Come on, then, let’s take a closer look,’ he said, wiping his hands on his trousers.
The two boys trotted along the edge to the place where they could see the grass had been torn away, leaving a long jagged scar in the side of the quarry.
‘Better not get too close,’ Jimmy warned. ‘It might still be loose.’
But Sean was bent over studying something on the ground. ‘I reckon a car’s gone over here,’ he said soberly as he straightened up. ‘There’s tyre marks and they go right over the edge.’
He moved closer to the edge and peered down. ‘Look!’ he said excitedly, ‘you can see it!’
Jimmy moved forward cautiously. ‘I don’t see anything,’ he said, moving back.
‘You’re not going to see anything from there, you twit,’ Sean said disdainfully. He grabbed his friend’s arm and dragged him forward. ‘There! See it under the water? And it’s not a car, it’s a van. Bet it made a hell of a splash! Wish we’d seen it go in.’
‘Yeah!’ Jimmy breathed as he began to pull back to safer ground.
‘Bet somebody’s in it,’ Sean said. ‘They’d be drowned by now, though, I expect. Wonder how they got in?’ The gate at the end of the road leading to the quarry had been padlocked for years. ‘Let’s have a look.’
The older boy set off across the field toward the gate, while his friend followed at a slower pace. Jimmy Greenwood didn’t like the way things were going. Unlike his friend, who seemed to be taking it all in his stride, he kept thinking about the consequences of their find.
‘Been busted,’ Sean said, rattling the padlock. ‘Busted and put back again, so you know what that means, don’t you?’
Jimmy shook his head.
‘It means,’ said Sean with exaggerated patience, ‘that they closed the gate so no one would know they’d been through. Suicide. That’s what it is. Suicide, and I bet there’s more than one down there as well. I’m going back for another look.’
‘We’ll have to tell the police.’
‘Oh, yeah? And then what?’ Sean scoffed. ‘How’re you going to explain that to your dad, eh? Don’t be daft. We can’t tell anyone, because we’re not supposed to be here in the first place, are we?’
Paget was kneeling beside the filing cabinet when Charlie Dobbs appeared in the doorway of his office.
‘Say a prayer for me while you’re down there,’ Charlie said jocularly. ‘We could both use some extra help from what I hear.’
Paget stood up and locked the filing cabinet and dropped the keys in his pocket. ‘Couldn’t close the drawer,’ he said by way of explanation. ‘One of the wheels was off the rail. Hardly surprising, considering the amount of stuff packed in there. Anyway, what are you doing over here, Charlie?’
‘Alcott wanted to talk about the February stats. To tell you the truth, I was expecting another lecture on how much we’ve been charging him for our services, but as it turned out, he was quite happy for a change, because the amount of overtime we’ve charged him in the last couple of months is down by twenty-two percent.’
Paget frowned. ‘That’s a surprise,’ he said. ‘I thought you must be swamped, considering the amount of overtime Grace has been working lately.’
‘Grace?’ Paget’s head was down as he cleared his desk and locked the drawers, so he missed the look of surprise on Charlie’s face.
‘That’s right,’ he said, straightening up. ‘As a matter of fact, I’m a bit worried about her, Charlie. I think she could do with some time off. I know you depend on her a lot, and she never complains, but couldn’t you ease up on her just a bit?’
Charlie’s mind was racing. Things had been fairly quiet lately, and Grace hadn’t worked more than three or four hours overtime in the past couple of months. So what was Paget talking about? More to the point, what was Grace up to? Whatever it was, he didn’t want to say anything until he’d had a chance to talk to her.
‘You’re probably right,’ he said. ‘I must admit I do depend on her a great deal, but I’ll see what I can do.’
‘Appreciate it, Charlie,’ Paget told him, ‘but please don’t tell her I said anything to you. She’d never forgive me.’
Charlie gave a grunt that could mean anything as he looked at his watch. ‘Got to go,’ he said. ‘Talk to you later, Neil.’
Paget’s step was lighter as he left the building. He felt better now that he had spoken to the inspector. It was so easy to keep loading the work onto someone you could depend on – he’d been guilty of that himself more than once – and it just needed someone to remind you that there were other resources you could call on. And now that he had drawn it to Charlie’s attention, he felt sure that the inspector would do the right thing, and Grace would never know that he had intervened on her behalf.
If it hadn’t been for Grace’s insistence that he take some time off, Paget would have spent the entire weekend at work, partly to get rid of the mounting pile of paper on his desk, and partly to try come up with some facts and figures of his own that just might persuade Morgan Brock to reconsider his position on some of the things he was proposing.
‘I understand the need to work some extra hours,’ Grace said when he arrived home after spending all day Saturday at the office, ‘but enough is enough. You need to give yourself a break. You need to get out in the fresh air and get some exercise. Why don’t we do a walk together tomorrow? The weather forecast is good, so why don’t we start with one of the shorter walks on the Long Mynd? The scenery is fantastic, and you’ll feel the better for it on Monday. You’ve always said how much you used to enjoy hill walking, yet you’ve not so much as put on your boots since I’ve known you. I understand why, but surely now, Neil . . .?’
Grace was right. He and Jill used to go out whenever they could get time off together, but he’d been out only once since she died, and walking the hills alone just hadn’t been the same. He’d put his boots and all-weather gear away and hadn’t looked at them since. But now, with the prospect of Grace at his side, he found the idea appealing.
‘I’m pretty rusty,’ he said hesitantly, ‘and I know I’m not in the shape I used to be, so you’ll have to bear with me.’
‘Just don’t expect me to piggyback you off the Long Mynd,’ Grace said, and laughed. ‘Anyway, you’ll be fine. It’s an easy walk.’
Sunday turned out to be one of those rare sunny days just made for walking, and with the wind in his face and the sun on his back Paget wondered why he’d avoided it for so long.
They drove to Church Stretton, then up a winding track that took them to Shooting Box car park, where they left the car to begin their trek across the Long Mynd. There had been almost no wind in the valley, but they were met by a brisk, exhilarating cross-wind once they reached the top and began the trek southward along the spine of the Mynd. The air was fresh and bracing, and Paget found himself savouring it like wine.
Ahead of them, as they began the long descent toward Asterton, they could see the colourful V-shaped wings of hang-gliders wheeling and circling lazily like eagles searching for their prey.
They paused to rest and watch. ‘I love to see them,’ Grace said, shading her eyes against the sun, ‘but I don’t fancy hanging out there with nothing under my feet. But I wouldn’t mind going up in a proper glider. They take off from the gliding club over there, and I’ve
often been tempted to give it a try. It must be a wonderful feeling to fly like a bird with just the sound of the wind beneath your wings. Yes,’ she said determinedly as they set off again, ‘I’m going to do that one of these days – when I get up the courage, of course,’ she added with a chuckle as she tucked her arm under his.
By the time they’d made their way down the steep slope to Asterton, Paget was ready for his lunch, but Grace insisted on pushing on to Wentnor. ‘We always stop there,’ she told him. ‘It’s a sort of tradition, and they’ve never let us down yet.’ Grace belonged to a group called the Border Patrol, thus named because most of their walks took them along the Welsh Marches bordering Shropshire and Wales.
By the time they reached the village, Paget was more than happy to see the welcoming sign of the sixteenth-century inn – not so much for the food and a drink, although he was certainly ready for them, but for a chance to rest. ‘I’m utterly ashamed of myself,’ he confessed as he sank into his seat. ‘And to think I used to be able to do twenty miles in a day without any trouble at all. How far did you say this was?’
‘Eight miles, perhaps a little longer.’
‘And this is only the halfway point? Oh, Lord,’ he groaned. ‘I am in poor shape, but I must admit I am enjoying it. The views are magnificent.’
‘And I thought you weren’t paying attention,’ Grace said. ‘You were so quiet up there. You were thinking about work, weren’t you?’
‘Afraid so,’ he confessed. ‘I have a bad feeling about Mark Newman’s disappearance, and I keep wondering if we’re missing something out there in Whitcott Lacey. I don’t know what’s going on out there, but I think Newman and Doyle got themselves mixed up in something that could prove fatal – if it hasn’t already.’
He shrugged apologetically. ‘Sorry, love, but I am enjoying the walk and I’m glad you bullied me into coming.’
‘That’ll be the day when I can bully you into anything,’ Grace laughed. ‘Anyway, that’s enough shop talk. There’s nothing you can do about it out here, so let’s just enjoy the day. And I’m starving, so let’s order lunch before the place fills up.’
Nine
Monday, March 17
Paget was still thinking about their day out while driving to work on Monday morning. He’d enjoyed the pub lunch and he’d enjoyed the return journey more than he’d thought he would. His legs ached from the unaccustomed climbing, but it was as if his whole body had been re-energized, and even another go-round with Brock seemed less daunting this morning.
Tregalles was getting out of his car as Paget drove in, and they entered the building together. Molly Forsythe was at her desk, and Len Ormside didn’t look as if he’d ever gone home.
Paget looked at the whiteboards. ‘I see all the call-back names are scratched off,’ he said to Molly. ‘Any luck?’
‘Afraid not, sir. I think I must have talked to half the people in the village, including Fred Dawlish, the man who was passing Dr Chandler in his car as they went by Wisteria Cottage. He remembers Chandler, and he remembers seeing another car at the side of the road, but he says he was too busy trying to avoid a collision to notice anything about it, and he doesn’t remember seeing any men at all.’
‘And I suppose,’ said Paget, turning to Ormside, ‘no one has seen Newman’s van, since there’s no mention of it on the board?’
‘Not a whisper,’ the sergeant told him. ‘And nothing on Doyle, either.’
Paget eyed the boards bleakly. ‘If that van is on the road, it should have been spotted by now,’ he said. ‘So, since we have virtually nothing to go on in Newman’s case, the only thing we can do is concentrate on Doyle. Have we searched our own records and those of the surrounding areas for the times he’s been brought in after one of his drunken binges? There may be something in there that would give us a clue about his background.’
‘Already done, sir,’ Molly told him, ‘and there was nothing. It’s always the same pattern: he’s picked up and brought in after drinking himself into a stupor, spends one and sometimes two nights in the cells, pays his fine and leaves. He’s never given anyone any trouble, and apart from his drinking, he’s got a clean record.
‘I also checked with the DVLA in Swansea, but the information they have is rubbish. It’s all false, so it would appear that Doyle has managed to live and work here for years under false pretences. In fact,’ she concluded, ‘I’m not even sure that the man’s name is Doyle.’
Jimmy Greenwood had hardly slept at all over the weekend. He couldn’t get the image of the people in the van at the bottom of the quarry out of his mind. And when he had managed to fall asleep, he’d dreamt about them.
He hadn’t actually seen anyone down there himself, but Sean had – at least he said he had when he’d gone back for a second look over the edge, and he’d sounded pretty serious.
‘There’s two of ’em down there,’ he’d said with conviction. ‘Lovers, probably. Happens all the time. They jump off cliffs holding hands and smash themselves to pieces on the rocks, then the pieces are swept out to sea and they’re never seen again.’
‘Why do they do that?’
‘I dunno, do I? Maybe their parents won’t let them get married ’cause they’re too young or something, so they jump so they can be together forever.’
‘Sounds a bit daft to me,’ Jimmy said. ‘Why don’t they wait till they’re older? Besides, they couldn’t jump off holding hands when they were in a van. And it wasn’t a cliff, it’s a quarry, and the bits can’t get washed out to sea in a quarry.’
‘That’s because we’re not close to the sea and there aren’t any cliffs round here, you twit. And they aren’t going to drive all the way to Barmouth or somewhere like that, are they? Not when they’ve made up their minds. I mean once they make up their minds to do it, they wouldn’t want to hang about, would they? Anyway, I know there’s two of ’em down there because I could see their hair waving about in the water inside the van, and their eyes are all bugged out ’cause of the pressure.’
‘I didn’t see any hair waving about,’ Jimmy said as they left the field. ‘Besides, men’s hair doesn’t wave about. It’s too short.’
Sean snorted. ‘You didn’t see it because you didn’t get close enough, did you? If you don’t believe me, we can go back and you can take a closer look like I did. I’ll hang on to you while you look over the edge.’
He made as if to turn back, but Jimmy said, ‘No, no, I believe you. It was just the bit about the hair, that’s all.’
‘My brother’s got long hair,’ Sean pointed out, ‘so’s old Tadpole at school.’ Old Tadpole was Mr Tadman, their maths teacher.
‘Can’t see him driving over the edge of the quarry with a girl,’ Jimmy said scornfully. ‘He’s too old for a start, and I can’t see a girl fancying Tadpole either?’
Mr Tadman was all of thirty-five.
‘We’re not talking about Tadpole, though, are we?’ Sean said with exaggerated patience. ‘We’re talking about those two lovers in the van, and he could have long hair couldn’t he? Well, he did,’ he corrected himself hastily, ‘or it wouldn’t have been floating about, would it? Look at Samson in the Bible. He had long hair.’
‘But what’s-her-name cut it off, didn’t she? And he didn’t drive off the top of a quarry.’
‘He could’ve in a chariot,’ Sean shot back. He kicked a stone and watched it lift and fly over the hedge. ‘Just think,’ he said, ‘by the time somebody else finds them, they could be skeletons, still sitting there with their seat belts on, holding hands.’
‘What about the horses?’
‘What horses?’
‘The ones pulling the chariot. Bet they wouldn’t jump off a cliff.’
‘They would if somebody was whipping them like they did in them days. Anyway, we’re not talking about what they did then, are we?’ Sean said and changed the subject.
Jimmy didn’t really think that Sean had seen hair waving about. How could he when all he’d been able to see was
the outline of the van, and then only dimly through several feet of water? And he was quite sure Sean hadn’t seen any faces, but the images remained, and they were even stronger when he went to bed on Saturday night. Which was why he took his torch to bed with him and switched it on under the covers.
He’d gone to sleep eventually, but when he woke in the middle of the night, the torch had gone out. He tried the switch several times, but the batteries were dead. He pulled the covers over his head, but the images were still there, skeletons with hair waving about and eyes bugged out because of the pressure.
He had to go to Sunday school that morning, but he shot round to Sean’s house as soon as lunch was over.
‘You didn’t really see anyone down there, did you, Sean?’ he said when they were alone.
‘Did, too,’ Sean said stoutly. ‘Well, I didn’t actually see their eyes bugging out, but that’s what happens under water. It’s like when you dive, except they didn’t come up.’
‘But if it’s because of the pressure,’ Jimmy said slowly, ‘why would their eyes bug out? Wouldn’t it make their eyes bug in?’
‘Don’t you know anything?’ Sean asked irritably. ‘The water gets up their noses, doesn’t it? And in their mouths and that’s what makes them bug out. I read it in a book.’
‘We’ve got to tell someone,’ Jimmy said. ‘I mean somebody will be looking for them and wondering what’s happened to them.’
‘Can’t though, can we? And you’d better not, either, unless you want a good hiding from your dad for being at the quarry.’
‘We could ring the police and not say who we are.’