The Winter House

by P. R. Black

  ‘I’ll let you know.’

  ‘Good-oh. Well. I’ll leave you to it. Where are you heading to, in fact?’

  ‘There’s a pub a little way up the road.’ Seth dropped his voice, and leaned forward. ‘I told the missus I was out working in the woods. Here’s the inside story; I’m not. I’m off for a lunchtime pint and a bit of peace.’

  ‘A man after my own heart! If I wasn’t on duty, I do believe I’d join you. Now do give me a bell, Seth, if you find out anything about drugs, won’t you? They say possession’s nine-tenths of the law. You might have won a car, but don’t be thinking there’s any star prize behind Bully’s Board, will you?’

  The string of coincidences in his final words sent a jolt through Seth, but he only smiled. ‘Mate, I wouldn’t be gambling with something like that.’

  ‘Good. If you do, you’ll be in prison for a very long time, Seth.’

  ‘Duly noted. Take care now.’

  The copper moved aside to let Seth pass. Seth did not look back, but knew instinctively that he was being studied.

  When he had gone half a mile down the twisty road, he called Vonny.

  ‘I think we’re being watched,’ he said. ‘The copper caught up with me. He was covering the way out through the five-bar gate. Maybe he knew I was around already. I might have to rethink this.’

  ‘Rethink what?’

  ‘Our plan.’

  A note of panic crept into her voice. ‘Seth, this is too big for us now.’

  ‘I’m working on it. I’ll need to think, damn it.’

  ‘What do you mean? There’s nothing to think about. You’ve got to get rid of the stuff, Seth. I’m scared. And where are you? I don’t want to be here on my own!’

  ‘The minute I move this stuff, I am going to get pulled. I guarantee it. Was the copper called Leonard? Cockney?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He knows something.’ He ground his teeth again. ‘He fucking knows something.’

  After hanging up, Seth trudged down an overgrown tractor track, still bearing the twin depressions of immense wheels. Dead pines were piled up here, as if a graveyard for Christmas trees. Shivering a little, Seth stepped over some sodden trunks, half fearing that the hem of his trousers would be pinched between two knuckled branches. He reached the mouth of the road.

  A uniformed officer was stood in a lay-by just off the road. He had a twisted and somewhat gormless expression, his mouth cinched tight, as he crouched to inspect something at the side of the road – something Seth had not expected to see. The officer blanched when he saw Seth, and straightened up.

  ‘Hi, sir,’ he said diffidently. ‘Are you the owner of the house?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Seth said. Fear made his knees weak; they might buckle at any moment like a new-born calf. He could not tear his eyes off what was parked in the lay-by.

  ‘Just wondering, sir – do you know anything about these?’

  He pointed towards the two motorbikes, parked underneath the spectral fingers of a yew tree overhanging the outer drystone wall like a drunk with no chance of reaching home.

  36

  The tall Scottish man with the blond hair was incongruous among the men in high-vis jackets and hard hats inside the portable cabin; he was taller than them by far, and his head almost touched the compact corrugated roof.

  When the men inside noticed him, they put down their papers, rinsed and replaced their mugs on the draining rack by the sink, and quickly filed out.

  The tall man with the longish blond hair sat down and rested his head in his hands. He was joined by the heavily built man who had been with him on the visit to the classic car dealership. He was wearing a suit that, despite being well cut against his frame, still looked too small for him going by the shoulder and neck muscles. This man sat down and waited for the Scottish man to straighten up. ‘Anything, gaffer?’ he asked.

  The Scottish man, whose name was Cramond, shook his head. ‘No one’s seen or heard about them. Rob’s girlfriend says everything’s as he left it. She’s beside herself. And Owen was apparently due to play poker tonight. Cars still parked in the drive. And here’s the thing… The bikes were found. Parked up on a lay-by. Next to the new house.’

  ‘You reckon someone’s done them?’

  ‘Hard to say. Those two bikes were stolen, so they’re no problem – won’t be traceable. Or shouldn’t be, if they’ve done what they should have done.’

  The big man grew very still at this last statement. ‘What you saying? They’ve skipped out on us?’

  ‘It’s not out the question.’

  The big man prodded the table hard enough to rattle the fixtures. ‘I’m saying it is out of the question.’

  ‘Use your loaf,’ Cramond said, levelly. ‘Count nothing out. I shouldn’t have sent the brothers over to do it. Leaves doubt. And I don’t like doubt.’

  ‘They’d never have ripped us off.’

  ‘The amount of gear we are talking about, it’s worth skipping out on folk. Even family.’

  ‘You saying you would skip out, boss? Is that what you mean?’

  Cramond gave a lopsided grin. ‘For the record, no, I wouldn’t skip out on anyone. This is the Grail score. Only thing making me scratch my head is, why does it show up now? Place must have got torn apart. Us, then the cops. Now we find out it was on that plot of land all along. It’s a bit mysterious, isn’t it?’

  Jay shrugged, and relaxed a little. ‘I think the whole thing’s mysterious, gaffer. Like we’ve been chasing something that doesn’t exist.’

  ‘You were there when Grainger tapped out. It’s there, all right. Or it exists, anyway. Cops never seized it. We’d know about that. But we know he’d farmed it out for testing. Got very good results. Where it came from’s a mystery. Someone said it was a perfect job. All the way from Afghanistan. Loaded onto a boat, all planned out, nodded through at every stage. Smooth as you like. Big money paid for people to turn a blind eye. Big money meant less of a risk, same as everywhere else. It just showed up, papers got signed, it got put on a truck. Money doesn’t buy you integrity, though. A few folk found out about it. Grainger ripped it off first.’

  ‘You’re more fussed about the gear than you are about Rob and Owen,’ the big man said, quietly.

  ‘Not true. Rob and Owen and yourself… we don’t have an operation without them. Just got to be open-minded. Someone might have taken them out. Grainger doesn’t have close connections, but the distant ones might still be around. One or two idiots promised to kill us, but then you would, if you wanted to save face.’ Cramond almost looked amused. ‘Or – they might have run out on us. Those are the top answers. And the truth is, I need the Shandley brothers. And I don’t do promotions at this time. But we need to have someone reliable on board, now.’ Cramond’s gaze lifted as the light changed, outside the cabin window.

  A shadow crossed the frosted glass, and then the door opened. An older man came in, quite short, but lean. He wore a navy blue sailor’s cap and a heavy coat the same colour. Neatly shorn white hair protruded beneath the cap, shaved into the faintest wisp of sideburns, thin fingers running down the ears. He had a craggy face, but not an unpleasant one, and a big smile. To put him at seventy would have been about right, but he might have been about a decade younger.

  He unbuttoned the blue coat and sat down, revealing a Breton shirt. Cramond realised the older man had done this deliberately – a nautical ensemble, the type of thing a well-to-do retiree would allow his wife to buy him. And, Cramond supposed, Lukas Vinnicombe was a well-to-do retiree.

  ‘Nice little set-up here, Cramond,’ the newcomer said, in a diluted Liverpudlian accent you might have heard on a newsreader or a front-bench politician. ‘Building game, is it?’

  ‘Got my fingers in a few pies. All business is legit, these days. This is Jay.’

  ‘I know,’ the older man said, looking right into Jay’s eyes. Jay looked back, face unreadable.

  ‘And this, Jay, is Lukas Vinnicombe. He’s an old family
friend, you could say. I’m bringing him on board to try and sort this out.’

  ‘You know me. Am I supposed to know you?’ Jay asked.

  ‘No, you definitely don’t know me, son,’ Vinnicombe said, agreeably. Then he turned towards Cramond, his nimble fingers seeking out the salt and vinegar cellars on the table, brushing aside some of the salt crystals that seeded the tabletop. Turning the crystal containers with mesmerising speed in his fingers, the older man said: ‘I take it you know this boy well?’

  ‘He’s with me,’ Cramond said, shortly. ‘Long term.’

  Vinnicombe shrugged. ‘Good enough. Now let’s get to the base of the problem.’ He sniffed the vinegar container, winced a little, then set both it and the salt cellar on the table. Linking his hands together, he said: ‘You have good reason to suspect that the Holy Grail stash is somewhere on this couple’s estate.’

  ‘It’s a strong suspicion,’ Cramond said. ‘Every bit of information we got at the time was that Grainger had it hidden on his property somewhere. Two different women told us that him and Grainger Jr had stashed it in an ancient Datsun Cherry. I did ask both of them, eighteen months ago. Their answers tallied up. But neither Grainger was amenable to telling me where the car was. I think we were very persuasive.’

  Vinnicombe nodded. ‘That’s the car that turned up in the local paper. Yes?’

  Cramond nodded.

  ‘Give it up,’ Vinnicombe said, sincerely.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Cramond frowned.

  ‘I said, give it up. This is a wild goose chase. This couple don’t know where the stuff is. Even if they did… If they found the stuff in the Datsun Cherry… why in God’s name would you put it in the paper? They can’t be that naïve.’

  ‘According to Vonny – that’s the woman of the house – she was a bit annoyed that the car took up so much space in the paper. As if she regretted that.’

  Vinnicombe raised his eyes. He looked almost interested. ‘Now that’s curious.’

  ‘You follow my thinking. Now, we shook up the guy who bought the Cherry – nothing happening there. Pulled it apart – same result. But we managed to get hold of a drugs unit dog and the thing went off its head. So the stuff was in there, all right. At some point.’

  ‘OK.’ Vinnicombe began to fiddle with the salt and vinegar again, which annoyed Cramond. ‘You may have a case.’

  ‘Gut instinct tells me that the man of the house may know exactly where the stuff is. Seth Miller. Record producer. No real rep to speak of on the street. Might have bust a couple of heads, and you’d think he was Al Capone from the records he makes. Bloody racket. Well known among the young yins – I’ve got nieces who know who he is. He had hit records maybe eight, nine years ago. Nominated for prizes. One got to number one. Works behind the scenes. He’s got the connections, though. Worked with one or two villains.’

  ‘Doesn’t prove anything,’ Vinnicombe said. ‘But I’ll go with it. Let’s say they’ve got the gear. And you send the two brothers over, to shake them up a bit?

  ‘Exactly right. Not so long ago.’

  ‘And they’ve vanished?’

  ‘Only sign of them was their bikes. They left them parked in a lay-by. Cops picked them up.’

  ‘Now that’s very interesting.’ Vinnicombe sat back a little. ‘Going back to this couple… the big guy, mainly… he going to be a problem?’

  Cramond shook his head. ‘No. He’s got associates, but he’s no hard case. Local boy made good, you could say. I wouldn’t have guessed there was anything untoward, to speak to the lassie… So, far, so middle class. Except I was sure the woman was lying. Uneasy. One or two little spots and tells.’

  ‘Maybe she was nervous?’

  ‘Maybe she was. Taken in tandem with two of my top boys going missing, it’s strange.’

  ‘They might have topped them,’ Vinnicombe said. ‘The pair in the house. It’s possible. Maybe unlikely. But it could have happened. Even if you get the drop on someone, you don’t know what’s in their house. So the guy pulls out a kitchen knife from his bedside table, and the game’s over. Maybe the lass can swing a baseball bat.’

  ‘Possible, but unlikely. She looks like she could be on the front cover of a lifestyle magazine. Polite as they come. Something about her shrieks “history graduate”. Bakes quite a lot, maybe. Doubt she would swat a fly.’

  ‘The other possibility is that the Shandley brothers found the stuff, it was a straightforward transaction, and they did a runner with it.’

  ‘What about the two bikes?’

  ‘Smokescreen. Creates a bit of doubt. It’s done its job on you, if so. The thing about the Shandley brothers – and I had heard of them – is that they’re a bit too clever to be someone’s number two and three. The younger one, Robbie… He should have gone into politics, that one. Or the law. But in our game, he’s one of the worst of the lot. I knew his father. Nasty piece of work. You knew to keep him off the tools. Not the sort of guy you want as site foreman. Clever. Too clever by half. You should have split them up. Sent one of them with this lad, here. The less clever one – not Robbie.’ He indicated Jay.

  Jay bristled. ‘What you mean by that, old fella?’

  Vinnicombe ignored him. ‘They won’t sell each other out, that’s the thing. So if they’ve made it look as if they’re dead, and left the bikes… That’s exactly what someone who ran with the gear would make it look like. ’Cos make no mistake, if that gear is worth half as much as they say, it’s still worth skipping out on someone.’

  Cramond drummed his fingers. ‘It was worth the risk. I had to find out what they knew, if they knew anything. I had to know if they’d found the gear in the car.’

  ‘It’s an interesting predicament. Maybe you should have gone yourself?’

  Before Cramond could answer, Jay pointed at Vinnicombe. ‘You’ve had your say. And I don’t like what you’ve said.’

  ‘All right. Duly noted. You got any other ideas or suggestions about what happened?’

  ‘I don’t know what happened,’ Jay said. ‘All I’ve been hearing since I sat down here is theories about what might have happened. I’m more interested in what we’re going to do, old son.’

  ‘Go on then,’ Vinnicombe said. ‘Fill us in. What’s your plan?’

  ‘We go back, and this time we go mob-handed. If there’s any nasty surprises, there’s enough of us to pull together and deal with them. We get the truth out of them – and we wait till their stories match up. Then at least we know what we’re dealing with. And if they’ve got the gear on site, then we make sure we don’t leave without it.’ Then he glowered at Vinnicombe. ‘And I’ll tell you – I’ve run with the Shandleys since we were at school. There’s no way they’d have skipped out with the stuff.’ He turned to Cramond, a little discomfited by the older man’s steady gaze in response. ‘What did they have to get out of it? We were all quids in, however it gets split. They might have made a good chunk more on their own, but what’s the cost? They’re dead men if we spot them again.’

  ‘Or maybe you two are the dead men?’ Vinnicombe smiled.

  ‘Is this guy coming on board with us?’ Jay said. ‘Can we sack him, gaffer? I don’t like his attitude.’

  ‘What you like and don’t like is up to you. What you get with me is planning. And to be fair, I reckon that our big friend here is right, Cramond.’ Vinnicombe cleared his throat. ‘No faulting his reasoning.’

  ‘That’s it? We go back to the house?’ Cramond snorted. ‘No. We’ve already tried that. What is it they say about the definition of madness? Doing the same thing, and expecting a different result?’

  ‘Except, we won’t be doing exactly the same thing. We adjust what we do, to a better plan. No disrespect, but it wasn’t great. If we get the stuff, fantastic. If we don’t, we at least know who we’re looking for. My money’s on the latter.’

  ‘Let’s get ourselves together and move in on them, then.’

  Vinnicombe nodded. ‘I accept. If you’re offering.’
/>
  Cramond nodded. ‘We’ll need your expertise.’

  ‘Then you can have it. For twenty per cent.’

  ‘We’ll do the horse trading later,’ Cramond said, laughing. ‘But you know you’re not getting twenty per cent.’

  ‘Lot of football to be played, as they say. I may have one or two ideas up my sleeve before we do the old commando raid, though.’

  ‘Be glad to hear them,’ Cramond said. The two shook hands.

  ‘I’m not happy about this,’ Jay said. ‘I’ve no idea who this guy is.’

  ‘Ask around, son,’ Vinnicombe said.

  ‘I will. And I’ll tell you, I don’t care who you know, or what you did, during the fucking war, or whenever. Keep your mouth shut about the Shandley brothers. I don’t know how, but someone’s put them out of commission. And I’ll find out who.’

  ‘Brave of you,’ Vinnicombe said, dripping sarcasm. He applauded, touching only his fingertips together. ‘Commendable loyalty. Commendable.’

  Jay exploded, without warning. He got up, scattering the chair, and laid a hand on Vinnicombe’s arm. ‘That’s it.’

  Before he could pull the older man out of his seat, Vinnicombe grabbed the vinegar cellar. The top – which he had unscrewed, without anyone noticing – spun like a top on the table. Cramond could taste the tang on his tongue as the vinegar splashed across Jay’s face. Jay staggered back, rubbing the back of one hand against his face, and swiping wildly with the other.

  Amused, Vinnicombe stayed out of his way, buttoning up his coat.

  ‘That wasn’t clever,’ Cramond said.

  ‘Have a word with him, will you, Cramond? When he’s calmed down, that is.’

  ‘I’ll kill him! Stop him!’ Jay had blundered over to the sink, and was pouring water into his hands, then throwing it into his eyes.