by Ewart Hutton
‘I could go up and see him.’
She gave my car a sceptical appraisal. ‘You won’t get up there in that.’
‘I could walk.’ She looked askance at my shoes. ‘It’s all right, I keep some boots in the car,’ I told her. She sucked in her cheeks, her face tightening into mean little lines as she suppressed her natural inclination to tell me to get off their land. I was glad that she wasn’t my mother.
Following her instructions, I took a diagonal line across the contours, steadily rising towards the open hill, making a point of shutting all the gates behind me. I came to a collapsed stone field shelter with an ash tree growing through the middle of it. According to the woman’s directions I was spot on track.
And I would have kept on going like a naïve and trusting pilgrim, onwards and upwards to the open moor, if a fluke of the wind hadn’t brought the sound of sheep to me. From the wrong direction. I followed the sound to the crest of a rise. The ground dropped into a cwm, and, where it levelled out, I saw a Land Rover in a field beside a pen of sheep. The old crone had deliberately misdirected me.
The dogs were the first to see me traversing down the steep side of the cwm. Two of them. Black-and-white sheepdogs circling out at a scuttling run to flank me, practising dropping to their bellies, preparing to effect optimum ankle damage. The sheep, sensing the dogs on the move, started to make a racket.
Trevor Vaughan, in the pen, looked up from the ewe he was inspecting. He raised his voice and called the dogs in. I waved. He watched me descending for a moment, and then waved back, any welcome in the gesture held in reserve.
He was wearing a grey tweed flat cap, an old waxed jacket worn through at the creases, and green waterproof overtrousers. I had checked, he was twenty-four, but he looked older. A mournful, triangular-shaped face, which, for a man who spent his life outdoors, was remarkably pale.
‘Mr Vaughan,’ I shouted, as I got closer, ‘I’m Detective Sergeant Capaldi.’
‘I know who you are, Sergeant. Emrys Hughes told us.’
The dogs, sensing a distraction, made a move towards me again. He checked them with a series of short whistles, and with a couple of clucks and a gesture he got them on to the open tailgate and into the back of the Land Rover. I was impressed.
‘I have nothing more to say about Saturday night.’
‘I’m not here to ask about that.’
He looked surprised. ‘You aren’t?’
‘No, I want to know where – what’s her name? Magda? – where is she now?’
He wasn’t a good actor. He shook his head and feigned surprise, but he wasn’t used to it. ‘I don’t know anyone called Magda. I don’t know who you’re talking about.’
I gave him a con cop smile. ‘Who decided to call her Miss Danielle?’
‘That’s what she called herself.’
‘You’re lying, Mr Vaughan.’
He didn’t protest. He looked away from me. I thought I had him. And then I heard it too. I followed his line of sight. A late model, grey Land Rover Discovery was coming up the cwm towards us. I stuck myself in front of him. ‘I need to know, Trevor. Has anything happened to that woman?’
He shook his head. Almost imperceptibly. It was aimed at me. As if he didn’t want whoever was driving the Discovery to see that he had communicated.
‘Trevor …’ The yell came out of the open window as the Discovery pulled up. The driver pretended to only then recognize me. ‘What are you doing here?’ his voice registering surprise. Ken McGuire was a better actor than Trevor Vaughan. The old crone had not just misdirected me, she had call in reinforcements.
‘Afternoon, Mr McGuire,’ I said cheerily. I sensed that I had got close to something with Trevor Vaughan, but instinct warned me not to let Ken McGuire suspect it.
He got out of the Discovery playing it puzzled, looking between the both of us. ‘I came over to borrow a raddle harness, Trevor. You’re Sergeant Capaldi, aren’t you? I’ve seen you in The Fleece.’
‘I was out for a walk, Mr McGuire.’
‘He was asking about Miss Danielle, Ken,’ Trevor volunteered.
I pulled a weak grin and resisted shooting a reproving glance at Trevor.
Ken winced theatrically. ‘Please, Sergeant, we’re trying to forget that episode.’
I couldn’t resist it. ‘Like you’ve forgotten her telephone number?’
He didn’t break a sweat. ‘That’s right. And just as well, eh?’ He chuckled. ‘No more temptation down that road. We’ve learned a hard lesson. That right, Trevor?’
‘That’s right.’
‘You didn’t mention that she was foreign.’
‘What makes you say that, Sergeant?’ Ken came back just a bit too quickly.
I shrugged. ‘A rumour I picked up. That the girl was from Eastern Europe. Trying to hitchhike to Ireland.’
‘She didn’t try that story on us, did she, Trevor?’
Trevor shook his head.
‘And as for her being foreign – who knows? We’re hicks up here, Sergeant. Ladies of the night from Cardiff are as exotic as the label gets. We’re not good with accents.’
‘Where is she now, Mr McGuire?’ It was a long shot, but I was up close to him, and I wanted to see if anything flecked his composure.
‘In Cardiff, I imagine,’ he replied without hesitating, without a flicker. He grinned at me wickedly. ‘I’m just sorry I can’t pass on her telephone number, Sergeant – you seem so interested.’
The patronizing bastard actually winked at me.
Emrys Hughes and a uniformed sidekick flagged me down before I got back to Dinas.
I was impressed. It had happened quicker than I had expected. Someone was carrying more clout than I had realized.
‘Afternoon, Sergeant Hughes,’ I said pleasantly, lowering the window.
He gave me a measured dose of silence before he slowly leaned down towards me. ‘Your own boss warned you, Sergeant.’
‘And what would that warning have been about?’
‘Harassing my people.’
I played perplexed. ‘Harassing … ?’
‘Don’t get cute,’ he growled. ‘You know exactly what I mean. You were specifically told to lay off the men from the minibus.’
‘Questions, Sergeant. That wasn’t harassment. I was only following up on some discrepancies in their testimony.’
‘There is no case. This has nothing to do with you. You were told not to contact them.’
I bluffed. ‘Detective Chief Superintendent Galbraith is not entirely happy with all the answers we’ve had.’
He called it. Leaning in closer and lowering his voice to keep his sidekick out of earshot. ‘Yes, he fucking is, or this thing would still be live.’
I acted hurt. ‘Why do you think I’m asking these questions?’
‘Because you’re playing the lone fucking vigilante. You’ve got no authorization and you know it.’ He glared, challenging me to refute him.
I just nodded, suppressing my frustration. If I made it worse I would have his boss, Inspector Morgan, on my back too.
He grinned, savouring his moment of triumph. ‘Back to work, eh, Sergeant?’ he suggested smugly, straightening up.
I ignored him and drove off. We both knew that I had to take the warning seriously. Morgan and his men could make my life in these parts even more difficult than it already was. But another message was coming in over the horizon. Ken McGuire really did not want me talking to Trevor Vaughan. I sighed inwardly. Revelations like that can corrupt the best intentions.
It had been a bad day, which, I soon discovered, had the potential to get worse.
‘You’ve had a visitor,’ David Williams called out when he saw me walk into The Fleece.
‘Who’s that?’ I asked absently. I was distracted by the prospect of a proper bath and a hot meal. I had temporarily forgotten that people did not come to visit me in Dinas.
‘He was Scottish.’
I stopped rummaging in the drawer of the reception
desk where I kept the shampoo and flannel I used at The Fleece. ‘Did he leave a name?’ I asked, already knowing the answer.
He glanced down at a notepad. ‘Graham Mackay.’
Why did he want me? One possible answer to that question disturbed me. Really disturbed me. Knowing what he was capable of, both on and off the field of battle.
How deeply had Gina got into him? Could he now be the besotted instrument of my wife’s intense rage?
She blamed me for everything that had gone sour in her life. She blamed me for her weight gain. For the first crow’s feet in the corners of her eyes, the advent of grey hairs, and the back pains that she never used to suffer from. The increase in traffic on the streets of Cardiff was down to me, as was the dogshit on the pavements.
But most of all she blamed me for the Merulius lacrymans. As if I could really be held responsible for the dry rot that had been discovered in the house after she had bought me out of my share. I had laughed when she first accused me. That had been a mistake.
‘Was he on his own?’ I asked.
‘Yes. He said he was on his way to Aberystwyth and that he’d call in again on his way back through.’
‘No,’ I said to David as he started to pull my pint.
He looked surprised. ‘Sun’s over the yardarm.’
‘I haven’t finished work yet.’
‘Someone you don’t want to meet?’ His question followed me as I left the bar.
I got away fast. It was precautionary. It would have been messy enough tangling with one of Gina’s run-of-the-mill lovers, but mixing it with the one who had been trained in the precise arts of close-range warfare would have made the mess too one-sided.
Trevor Vaughan was still a temptation. But, after my visit this afternoon, he would now be well and truly buffered. So I decided to shift my interest to the one member of the group that I could currently tackle with impunity. Mostly because he was no longer around.
And I still couldn’t get a handle on the name. Boon Paterson?
It was virtually dark now, with a vague wash of blue-grey light high in the west, the sky clear, promising a cold night. I crawled slowly along the frontage of the few houses that comprised the hamlet. Low cottages with a terrace of ugly brick houses, and a corrugated-iron chapel surrounded by metal railings.
Boon Paterson’s house was the one I would have chosen. A freshly painted stone cottage with its first-floor windows hunkered down under low eaves. The soft light through the curtained windows promised the warmth of a proper fire, and an imagined smell of baking. All safe and well inside, with the cold and cheerless night shut out.
The woman who answered the door was wearing a faded yellow dressing gown and a frown.
‘Mrs Paterson?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ she replied guardedly, pulling the dressing gown tighter around her.
I held out my warrant card. She leant forward to read it before I could introduce myself. ‘What is this about, Sergeant?’ She wasn’t local. English. Slow, flat vowels, a south or southwest accent.
‘Have I come to the right address for Boon Paterson?’
She blanched. ‘Yes. Is anything the matter?’ Her voice rose anxiously.
I smiled reassuringly. ‘No. There’s nothing to worry about. I’m just trying to get in contact with him.’
She shook her head, watching me carefully, as if she was trying to work out whether I was about to spring something awful on her. ‘I’m his mother, Sally Paterson. He’s not here.’
‘I was aware of that.’
‘Well, why turn up here in that case?’ she snapped, visibly annoyed.
‘Does he have a mobile phone number?’ I asked quickly, before she could close the door in my face.
‘I’m letting all the heat out here.’
‘I could come inside?’ I suggested.
‘Is Boon in any kind of trouble?’
‘No, I just need his help on something I’m working on.’
She relented. I caught a glimpse of sandwich preparation on the kitchen table as she led me through to the living room. A portable gas heater stood on the hearth in place of my imagined open fire. The furniture was old, chunky, and looked comfortable, and there were some classy touches of understatement in the arrangements and the decoration. I would have moved into the place as it stood and only changed the fire.
‘Does this have anything to do with Saturday night’s shenanigans?’ she asked.
‘You heard about them?’
She smiled for the first time. ‘It would have been hard not to, round here.’
‘My interest is in the young woman that was in the minibus.’
‘Boon wasn’t there.’
‘He was when she was first picked up. He could give me a description. Perhaps help me identify her.’
She looked surprised. ‘I didn’t think there was any mystery. I thought that she was supposed to be a prostitute from Cardiff?’
‘That’s what I’d like to establish.’
‘Is there some sort of doubt?’
I decided to trust her. ‘I’m concerned that she might still be missing.’
She cocked her head to look at me. ‘Capaldi? I think I’ve heard your name mentioned, but I haven’t seen you before, have I?’
‘Probably not. I haven’t been here long. I used to be in Cardiff. I’m here on a secondment.’
‘You must have done something very bad to deserve that,’ she said, deadpan.
I smiled wanly. She hadn’t realized how close to the mark she was.
‘And young ladies don’t go missing in these parts, Sergeant.’
‘I’ve already had something along those lines explained to me.’
She laughed, it softened her features. ‘Well, a word of advice: don’t believe everything that the sanctimonious buggers tell you.’
‘Can you elaborate on that?’ I asked, trying to keep a lid on the flash of interest that she had just sparked.
She shook her head, shrugging it off, moving on to look at me quizzically. She had an intelligent set to her face, but there was a carelessness about the way she projected herself. Without too much effort she could have shifted to attractive. This evening’s projection, however, was tiredness. ‘Do the McGuires know that you’re asking me these questions?’
‘Your son’s friends?’
She nodded.
I decided on honesty. ‘I think they thought Boon’s absence kept him safe from me.’
She laughed. I sensed that it was private amusement.
‘Did Boon mention anything to you about Saturday night?’
‘I haven’t seen him.’
It was my turn to show surprise.
‘I’m a care assistant at the Sychnant Nursing Home. I’m working nights at the moment.’ She touched the collar of her dressing gown, explaining it. ‘Boon must have left in the small hours on Sunday morning. He had packed up and gone by the time I got home.’ She frowned. ‘I don’t know why he left so early, he wasn’t due to catch his flight until very late last night.’
‘He’s posted abroad?’
‘Cyprus. He’s with the Signals Regiment.’
‘Where was he flying from?’
‘Brize Norton, Oxfordshire. It’s not really that far.’
‘Perhaps he had other people to say goodbye to?’
She pulled a face. It made her look older and even more tired. ‘More like he couldn’t stand spending any more time with his mother.’ She tried it out as a joke, but a tiny crease of pain blistered the surface.
Her emotion was palpable. I smiled sympathetically. She started to respond, and then remembered that I was a cop, that I was trained to entice people into the confessional. She shook her head, pulling herself out of it. ‘Testosterone. It turns young men into monsters.’
She moved forward and reached out to the mantelpiece behind me. For an irrational instant I felt myself thrill at the possibility of physical contact. ‘Here,’ she said, stepping back, handing me a framed photograph, ‘th
at’s Boon.’ I hid my disappointment as she retracted.
But I couldn’t conceal my surprise.
‘You didn’t know?’ she asked, amusement showing in her eyes.
I shook my head. Boon Paterson was a handsome, sturdy, not too tall, young black man. He was standing in khaki fatigues besides a camouflaged Land Rover, a wide smile on his face, and a radio with a long whip antenna strapped to his back.
‘His father?’ I asked, hoping that it didn’t sound too crass.
‘His father’s a shit,’ she said vehemently. But she had understood the question. ‘Boon’s adopted,’ she explained in a softer voice. ‘His birth mother was sixteen years old, and no one was volunteering as the father. She gave him his name. Kind of ironic, isn’t it? You call your child Boon, and then decide that you can’t cope with the reality of it.’ She was pensive for a moment. ‘My husband left me,’ she said, explaining the outburst.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘So was I.’ She smiled wryly. ‘Now I have to spend my nights at the Sychnant Nursing Home.’
I looked down at the photograph again. Trying to understand what it must have been like. To be black and grow up in a place like this.
She read my mind and shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Sergeant, that’s it, time’s up. I’m running behind now. I’ve still got to shower, and I’ve got stuff to prepare to sustain me through another long night.’
She shook hands under the front porch. Her parting smile was warmer. I walked to the car thinking about her. We shared the same polarity. We were both outsiders, both damaged goods. By the laws of magnetism I should have been repelled. I wasn’t.
As soon as I was clear of the house, I tried calling Boon on the mobile phone number that Sally Paterson had given me.
I got an unable-to-connect message. No answering service. I tried again, with the same result. He could still have been in transit. On a plane with his phone switched off. Or, if he had returned, he could be catching up on sleep, or already on duty.
To try to go through official channels would require clearances that no one was going to give me.
On the drive home I rotated through the other information that she had supplied. Wondering what she had meant when she told me not to believe what I had heard about young women not going missing in these parts? Was Boon being black just a surprising fact? Did it have any relevance to Magda?