by Gary Newman
‘Yes, yes, but –’
‘Then after you’ve reported at the police station, go straight home and wait there till I ring you again. Will you do that? As I say, it may be very important.’
‘All right, all right – I was going to go home, anyway, but –’
‘And – this is vital – if anyone rings you or talks to you in the meantime – and I mean anyone – you’re not to give them the slightest hint that you’ve been near, or especially in, the bungalow at Capel.’
‘Right, then – again, I wasn’t planning on telling anyone, anyway, but all right – I’ll do as you say. But can’t you tell me anything more?’
Reet paused, as if she was making up her mind whether to speak.
‘Look at today’s Guardian – the front page. In the meantime, Essex, police station, home and mouth shut about the Capel bungalow. I’ll be in touch . . .’
My ex-wife rang off as mysteriously as she’d rung up, and, slipping my mobile in my pocket, I strode along back to my car. I got in, and started off on the long haul home to Essex. As I drove on, I pondered on Reet’s latest intervention: what did she know about the Capel bungalow that I didn’t? She’d been there in the past, of course, but Lord knew how many years back. She’d still have been at university with me then – hardly out of her teens – and I smiled as I remembered how shy Dad had been around her. She’d been a real cracker then, and that dash of hers tended to intimidate people who weren’t used to her.
At this moment, I felt a jag of guilt as I acknowledged to myself how good of her it was to bother about me, but still, I’d have given quite a bit to know where she was coming from in all this. Her agitated tone on the phone clearly showed that she hadn’t known about Pat Hague’s disappearance till Paul had told her about it after he’d talked to me, but how much did Reet know? Perhaps she’d been in contact with Pat herself, or even was still in touch with her? And why this bloody extra mystery? All I needed . . .
When I arrived in Essex, I reported to the Colchester police station, as per Reet’s so-urgent request, and my query about progress in the search for Pat was logged by the bod at the desk – he’d see that my message got to Detective Sergeant Morris as soon as possible – then I left the place and drove for home. As soon as I’d crunched on to the drive there, Aunt Hertha rang up to say that there was no record in the back issues of her local paper of any Dusko Francic having made any impression on the town, either in 1945 or ten years later. We’d likely never know, then, whether Philippe Barre had, using Dusko Francic’s ID, come to Wiltshire in search of my fabled grandfather at that time.
Then there was the business of the Guardian . . . What had Reet’s penultimate remark meant? I remembered Pat’s collaring Leah and me at the filling station a fortnight before, and congratulating Leah on her letter to that paper, but was there a tie-in between that incident and my ex-wife’s remark on the phone this afternoon? I got out of the car and let myself into the lighthouse, and there on the welcome mat, with the unopened mail, was my morning’s copy of the Guardian.
Tired as I was, I took the paper straight into the sitting room, sat down and read every single word on the front page, but not a jot or tittle of connection could I find with Pat Hague’s disappearance or with any of the matters I was dealing with. Now whatever her faults, Reet didn’t go in for silly mind-games, so I read it all again, with the same result. Nothing relevant to me or my activities, except my name, scribbled by the newsagent, across the top margin of the paper. I recalled Leah’s embarrassment at the filling station, when Pat had waved the paper under her nose, and a grim suspicion flitted across my mind, only to be dismissed in the same instant. Out of the question – too fantastic . . .
But I had to settle this Guardian business straight away, so I rang Reet about it.
‘Trust me,’ she replied. ‘I’ll be in a position to explain about that next week – probably Monday, but in the meantime, you should stay where you are.’
I thought about my cherished Sunday fish lunch with Leah.
‘Does the exclusion zone extend to West Mersea?’
‘This is serious, Seb – deadly serious. As long as you keep away from Kent. One more thing . . .’
‘Yes, go on.’
‘You’ve been living in a dream world for longer than is good for you, and I advise you to start getting ready for a rude awakening.’
And that was all I could get out of her. At least I could ring Leah, and confirm our Sunday date at the fish restaurant. I had so much to talk to her about . . . I rang her flat number at the university, but there was no reply, then, with a snort of irritation with myself, I realized it would be one of her Leeds weekends. She’d be in constant attendance on her mother, and a heart-to-heart talk just wouldn’t be on. Damn it – it would have to be Monday, then. And what was supposed to happen on the Monday?
But first things first – this business of the Guardian had set off all the alarm bells in my mind, and there’d be no rest for me over the remainder of the weekend if I couldn’t get to the bottom of it. What was Frank’s take on all this? I next rang his flat in Wivenhoe, to find him in, and evidently alone.
‘Have you heard anything new about Pat, Seb?’ were his first words on hearing my greeting.
‘I was going to ask you that . . . I went up to Colchester nick this afternoon to ask for news of her, but neither Morris nor his henchman was around.’
‘They’ve been giving the boathouse a regular turning-over, as well as searching the moored boats and unoccupied houses and huts nearby. There’s even been an underwater unit dragging the creek – it’s looking worse and worse.’
‘Has Morris been asking you questions about me?’
There was a moment’s silence, during which Frank’s embarrassment could have been cut with the proverbial knife.
‘Er, yes, as a matter of fact – quite a bit about your illness and stuff.’
‘Mmm . . . I was expecting something of the kind.’
‘There’s something I was going to ask you specifically, Seb – to help cover your back, you understand – but just shut me up if it’s none of my business.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I wondered if you knew if the coppers had been leaning on Reet? I think she should be alerted, in case they get her to make some sort of hostile statement towards you – you know, unreasonable behaviour, and all that crap.’
This was a facer – did I breach Reet’s secrecy zone?
‘If they have been round to the Holt,’ I began, diplomatically, ‘I should think I’d be the last person she’d let on to about it.’
‘Mmm . . . well, you know best about that.’
Just then I remembered something about my last interrogation by the detectives.
‘Oh, yes, Frank – something I’d like to ask you. Detective Sergeant Morris told me Pat used to go to a health club in London – the Triada Health Club. Do you know anything about that?’
‘News to me – like so much she gets up to. Why, are they trying to connect you with that?’
‘Looks like they’re trying to ring all the circumstantial changes they can round my movements.’
Now for the business of the Guardian, I thought, and Pat Hague’s odd little bit of business with that paper at the filling station the fortnight before, when she’d walked up in tracksuit and trainers, and brandished that Thursday’s issue of the paper under Leah’s nose.
‘Frank,’ I began, ‘do you remember where Pat was a couple of Thursdays ago? Just a loose end I’m trying to tie up.’
‘Mmm . . . that’d have been 24th April – let’s see . . . Hang on a sec – I’ll look in my diary. It’s here on the desk somewhere . . .’
Frank scrabbled about at the other end for about half a minute, then spoke.
‘Ah, here it is: she was at some seminar in Cambridge on that day – stayed overnight, in fact – and as there were other functions there on the Friday morning, I didn’t in fact see her again till that afternoon, when I d
rove over to the boathouse to hand her that morning’s mail. In fact, I’d been doing a house contents inspection near Clacton since early on that morning, and I didn’t get home till after lunchtime.’
‘So Pat hadn’t been to the flat on first arriving back from Cambridge, in order to pick up her mail?’
‘Mmm . . . no, I distinctly remember driving over to the boathouse with it. Is it very important?’
‘As I’ve said, just a loose end – can’t afford to have too many of them, when you don’t know what the coppers are going to spring on you next.’
‘Too right. Anything else I can help you with, Seb?’
‘Thanks, not at the moment. Where can I get in touch with you tomorrow, Frank, in case anything turns up?’
‘I’ll be doing a house contents recce up Woodbridge way.’
‘On a Sunday?’
‘We live in ’ard times, sir – ’ard times . . . Mobile’ll find me – you know my number.’
‘Cheers, Frank.’
I rang off. So if Frank had been away in Clacton on the Friday lunchtime two weeks previously, he wouldn’t in fact have known whether Pat had already looked in at their flat on arriving back from her Cambridge seminar. Come Monday – it was beginning to take on the air of Judgement Day – I’d really have to pull out all the stops to get to the bottom of this.
But just then the accumulated weariness of the crowded day I’d had overcame me, and I let out the mother and father of all yawns. I hauled myself out of the armchair and went into the kitchen to gobble up a pork pie, then went upstairs for a Neronian bath, to be followed by an early night.
Next morning I got up physically refreshed, but with the instant return of my puzzlement and concern over the previous day’s events and discoveries. I was being kept away by Reet from my father’s old holiday retreat at Capel-le-Ferne, and I’d no idea why. All my ex-wife had told me was that it was for my own good, and that it had something to do with the front page of the Guardian, any old Guardian, if an examination of yesterday’s front page of that paper was anything to go by. And that had given me the chilling suspicion which, if true, would turn my world completely upside down . . .
And all – according to Reet – would be revealed on the morrow – Monday. I further suspected that, if I could make the link between the Guardian enigma and the importance of Monday, I’d have it all cracked. But did I want to know? Wouldn’t I be happier if I just let it all take its course? Hadn’t Reet also said that I was in for some unpleasant revelations? With this dilemma hanging over me, I tried to get on with the day.
I didn’t pop out to buy the Sunday paper that morning – I’d other things on my mind – just took a leisurely breakfast, then went upstairs to my computer and worked on several minor outstanding pieces of work. When I came down, I was under the sullen cloud of not having my fish lunch with Leah to look forward to.
After a scratch meal I took a turn in the garden, then came back in, brewed up a mugful of coffee in the kitchen and switched on the radio: Gardeners’ Question Time on Radio Four. There was a question from a listener who wanted to know how to prevent stored potatoes from sprouting in the sacks. Maybe she was storing them in too warm an environment, suggested the expert, and might he recommend she clamped them outdoors throughout the winter? In a manner of speaking, he observed, she’d be keeping them on ice . . .
For several seconds the hand with which I was holding my coffee mug remained suspended halfway up my chest, as the remark of the garden expert on the radio did its work of suggestion. ‘Keeping them on ice . . .’ That was it! The last piece of the jigsaw puzzle, the Meaning of Monday Morning . . . I put down the mug smartly on the kitchen table, and hurried into the lobby in search of my Barbour jacket, with the car keys. Reet’s warning notwithstanding, and however unsettling my suspicions as to the outcome of the affair, I had to get to Capel well before the new owners moved into the bungalow next morning: a life might be at stake.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I had to get to Capel by nightfall, but afterwards it would be a waiting game, perhaps all night. I took the A12 to the entry to the M25, and so round till I could get on to the M20. I didn’t want to get to the coast too early, so stopped for tea in Ashford; by the time I’d started off and got to the opening with the A20, dusk was already setting in. Here, instead of driving straight ahead for the approach road into Capel, I took the road that led through Hawkinge, as I knew there was a little loop of minor roads and lanes south of that township where I could park my car. From there I could make my way discreetly, and, I hoped, unobserved, southward to the back of my father’s former holiday home.
All went well as to the general logistics of my plan, but I found it heavier and more confusing going than I’d thought through woods and fenced-off fields in the still evening. It wasn’t till after eleven that, sweating and bleeding from snags and brambles, I crashed through a gap in the sharply scented may hedge that all but stood between me and the back garden of the darkened bungalow.
All but, for there remained a rutted lane between the hedge and the scraggy privet barrier which somewhat symbolically divided the back garden of the bungalow from the lane. My normal reaction would have been to crouch under the may hedge till I’d taken a breather and worked out in greater detail exactly what I was going to do, but, if my theory was right, I’d no time to lose in getting as close to the house as possible, so that any intervention on my part could be made in time.
I looked briefly up and down the lane, then darted across it and through a gap in the privet hedge of the garden where I’d spent so many summer weeks of my childhood. I lay doggo on the other side of the privet shield, and looked around: no evidence of the tarting up that had been done on the front garden, nary a square metre of decking or a tin feature. Ah, and there in the moonlight was the old octangular summerhouse I remembered, with its half-railing across the open side. Well, I reflected, this was no time for nostalgia, and, taking a deep breath, I got up and took a step towards the little hut.
I hadn’t taken my second step, when a sturdy, spider-suited male figure in a baseball cap appeared soundlessly in front of me and barred my way. I recoiled instinctively, but not before I’d recognized the familiar, scrutinizing stare of Detective Constable Conlon.
‘Not in the plan, Mr Rolvenden!’ he hissed. ‘You’d better come in with us, and don’t make a sound . . .’
Conlon’s gloved hand closed round my elbow, and, crouching, he led me across the rough sward to the prewar, revolving summerhouse. Inside we took our places at the rail with another crouching figure, also in a baseball cap. I turned wonderingly to Conlon, but he just laid his finger across his lips, and nodded towards the back door of the house. I squatted down there in silence with my two dark-clad companions for close on an hour, till I began to shiver gently in my oiled jacket. Then there came the faint squeak of car suspension from somewhere down the enclosed lane behind us.
‘They must be coming down the back,’ Conlon whispered to his oppo. ‘You’d better go down to the other end of the hedge and cover the car – I’ll send a message now for someone to go and reinforce you.’
The man got up and slunk away into the night, as Conlon gave terse instructions into a hand radio, then turned to me.
‘Let’s get out of here, Mr Rolvenden – this’ll be the first place they’ll check.’
I followed the DC nippily out of the summerhouse and over the grass till we hit a clump of shrubs just outside the back door of the bungalow. The astringent scent of philadelphus soon reached my nostrils.
‘Haven’t got hay fever, have you?’ Conlon muttered, and, after I’d shaken my head: ‘Thank Gawd for that – down! – they’re coming!’
It was like the rear end of a pantomime horse emerging from the gap in the hedge, then I could make out that the figure was carrying something – like the end of a sagging, rolled-up carpet . . . My heart sank: had I come too late, after all? Then the front end of the panto horse came into view, bearing its en
d of the carpet. It was an even slighter figure than the first, but, like the first, was clad in what looked like motor-bike leathers. Both their heads were obscured by tight-fitting coverings. Suddenly, the garden was flooded in white light.
‘Right!’ Conlon’s South London voice rang out. ‘Both of you stand still exactly where you are!’
The dark figures stood like still-life for an instant, then dropped their burden in the grass and dashed for the side path which led to the front of the house and the coast road. There then came a flash of light over the roof of the bungalow, as if something was being lit up at the front, and was throwing a bright arc into the night sky. The two figures were caught – literally – in the headlights from the road as they stood at the mouth of the path, to be engulfed instantly by scampering figures in tight clothing.
Conlon whipped out what looked like a hunting-knife, and I followed him to the rolled-up bundle on the lawn. He deftly slit through the gaffer tape that secured the bundle, then, with the same speedy deftness, unrolled the carpet.
‘Pat!’ I gasped, recognizing the putty-coloured face which was pressed, open-mouthed, against the dirty underside of the carpet. Then, to Conlon: ‘Is she . . .’
He’d slipped off a glove, and was applying two fingers gently to Pat’s neck.
‘Pulse is still going – better get the medics over.’
‘They’re on their way now from the road.’ I heard Detective Sergeant Morris’s voice above us. ‘You definitely recognize this lady as Mrs Patricia Hague, Mr Rolvenden?’
‘That’s her, Sergeant – no mistake about that.’
Morris smiled his weary smile. ‘I daresay you had it sussed out right from the beginning, eh, Mr Rolvenden?’
‘It may look like that, Sergeant, but it wasn’t till I . . .’
The paramedics arrived with the stretcher, and took Pat away.
‘We’ll have a nice, long talk about it later, Mr Rolvenden,’ Morris said as he turned towards the path and gave an order: ‘Bring the woman over here for a minute.’