EG03 - The Water Lily Cross

by Anthony Eglin

  Curious to see if the pumping system did, indeed, import seawater, he walked past the outbuildings and the barn to the pump house. Built of breeze blocks with a heavy padlocked door and galvanized roof, it was not much to look at—nothing more than a few large and small gauge pipes projecting from the structure. What Kingston was looking for was evidence of new pipes: a pipeline from the pumps all the way to a source of seawater. He found it quickly. A few yards from the pump house a new eight-inch pipe made a right-angled turn and headed south, across the end of the reservoir and out of sight. There was not much point in his following its path any farther; it couldn’t serve any other purpose that he could think of.

  He retraced his steps past the barn to check the outbuildings. The first door he tried was locked, as were the second and third. The fourth and smallest of the buildings also had a padlock but it was open. Lifting the padlock off the latch, he pushed the metal door open and entered. Enough light came from the high clerestory windows for him to see the interior. He took a few paces and looked around at the makeshift living quarters. A full kitchen took up one corner. Next to it was a rectangular table covered with a red-and-white checked tablecloth, surrounded by four chairs. On the table several upturned glasses and cups were set alongside condiment containers. Two single beds, one unmade, were pushed up against one wall. The facing wall was the “entertainment” center: crudely fashioned shelves with the usual VCR, DVD player, tape deck, et cetera, and a large TV as the centerpiece. A partly open, hinged dartboard case with three darts stuck in the center of the board was positioned on the last wall, alongside a couple of cheap art prints, in frames but with no glass.

  He sensed, rather than heard, somebody behind him. The blow to his head was excruciating but only for an instant. He slumped to the ground, unconscious.

  Kingston got up, easing himself into a half-sitting position, leaning on one arm. The headache came in waves, each one more intense than the last. He put a hand up and touched his scalp. The hair was matted with congealed blood where he’d been struck and the bump was a snorter. Thank God, he said to himself, his vision wasn’t blurred and he wasn’t vomiting. Then he noticed his wallet on the floor, a few feet away. Surely robbery couldn’t have been the motive, he asked himself. After resting for a couple of minutes, fighting back the nausea, he got slowly to his feet, picked up his wallet and made his way to the sink. He pulled a clean handkerchief from his pocket and soaked it under the cold tap for a compress. Applying it over the next few minutes helped ease the pain. He checked his watch, wondering how long he’d been out. It was not quite noon. Guessing that he’d arrived at the reservoir about 11:45 meant that he’d been unconscious for ten minutes or so.

  Wanting to be sure he was okay to drive, he sat at the table for about five minutes nursing his injury, staring around the room. If Stewart had been living here at any time or even if he had simply been using the room while supervising the experiments, there was certainly no evidence of it. Not that Kingston was expecting a note pinned to the wall with his name on it. If Stewart had left any clue, it would be subtle, yet evident right away to Kingston or anyone who was adept at solving cryptic messages; something along the lines of the one he’d left in his stapler. But as far as Kingston could tell, there was nothing. On top of being in considerable pain, he was disappointed.

  He’d been through his wallet and nothing appeared missing. The sixty-five pounds was still there, as was his license and credit cards. He could only think that whoever had taken the wallet out of his back pocket must have done so to establish his identity. He was loath to call 999 as he no longer considered his condition an emergency. He would seek medical treatment, though—just in case. One never knew with head trauma. He didn’t know the area at all but remembered that New Milton on the coast was close by. It was quite a large town and he was sure to find someone there to look at his injury. There was no point in dwelling on who it was that had knocked him out. Why, was rather obvious. Desmond’s words came back to him again: “They’re not people you want to mess with.” He would also have report the assault to the police. He would wait on that until after he’d had his injury examined.

  Hand resting on the table, Kingston stood, took a deep breath, and walked gingerly to the door. As he passed the dartboard, still a bit wobbly, his shoulder caught the edge of the case. It swung back to reveal a black chalk scoreboard inside. He had no idea what prompted him but he opened the other side of the case. He stepped back a couple of paces and looked at the two chalkboards, now flat against the wall with the dartboard in the center. The result of the last game was still on the board: the vertical rows of chalk scores for each player crossed out as they were deducted from the beginning score of 301. The name Keith was scrawled at the top of the left board. The name of the player on the right side was Hal. Kingston stared at the right-hand board. Hal had won the game by going out with a double 19. “Good going, Stewart,” he muttered, smiling. “Damned good score, too.” He turned away from the dartboard, his pain and sullen mood gone for a fleeting moment. Hal was Stewart’s nickname when they were at university together. It was hard to abbreviate Stewart—“Stew” was unacceptable—so someone, somewhere along the way, had shortened his second name instead.

  Outside, Kingston stopped and took a deep breath. A drizzle had set in, dampening all sound; it was so still, he could hear himself breathing. He walked to the car, cursing that he hadn’t put the top up when it had started clouding over. In a minute, he had the vinyl soft top up and had wiped the seats dry with an old towel kept in the boot. Checking that everything was locked down, he slipped behind the wheel. Propped up on the hub of the three-spoke steering wheel was one of his business cards, He picked it up and turned it over. On the back was written in capital letters: STOP INTERFERING NOW–OR ELSE!

  FOURTEEN

  After leaving the reservoir Kingston went straight to New Milton where he found a sports injury clinic and a doctor who examined and cleaned his wound and gave him some medication to ease the pain. The diagnosis: nothing more serious than a mild concussion. When he had been asked by the office nurse upon arrival how he sustained the wound, he gave a more or less accurate account of what happened, omitting the fact that he had been trespassing on private property and searching for giant water lilies that consumed salt. Before leaving the clinic, head still throbbing, he called Ringwood police station on his mobile, to learn that Carmichael was not in the office. Kingston told the sergeant on duty that he was helping Inspector Carmichael in connection with a missing persons case and reported what had happened at the reservoir. When finished, Kingston was told that the report would be filed and that a patrol car would be sent to investigate, albeit it was “rather late in the day,” as the sergeant put it. Ending the conversation, he took Kingston’s address and phone numbers and told him that Inspector Carmichael would be given a copy of the report as soon as he returned.

  Next, he called Becky. This time the phone rang a half-dozen times before she picked it up. “This is Rebecca,” she said, panting.

  “It’s Lawrence, he said. “Were you in the garden? You sound out of breath.”

  “No, I was upstairs, sorry. How are you, Lawrence?”

  “I’m fine,” he lied. “Never mind about me. How are you?”

  “Coping as best as I can. You know—stiff upper lip and all that.”

  “Any more from the police?”

  “They called once when I was with Sarah. But no news, really. Nothing’s changed, I’m afraid.”

  He was tempted to tell her that he was in New Milton but that would mean having to tell quite a few white lies or do an awful lot of explaining. There was really no point in telling her what he’d been up to, about his probing into Walsh’s death and the other unexplained incidents, until he had some tangible proof or solid evidence. The very last thing he wanted was for Becky to have to start worrying about him, too. “I have a question,” he said, before she could ask him where he was or what he had been doing while she was gone.r />
  “What’s that?”

  “A few days ago, I got a phone call from a woman named Alison Greer. She said that she’d spoken to you about Stewart.”

  “Alison Greer? Oh, that’s right. She did, yes. We had quite a long chat on the phone.”

  “She said that you referred her to me.”

  “No. Why would I? I might have mentioned you, told her you were helping me. I really don’t recall now.”

  “Hmm, that’s odd. What did you talk about?”

  “As I recall, she said that she’d met Stewart at another man’s house—his name escapes me right now—he’d recently died in a fire at his home. She wanted to know if I had met him or knew him.”

  “Adrian Walsh.”

  “Walsh, that’s right.”

  “According to her you hadn’t.”

  “That’s true. I’ve no idea who he is—or was, I suppose.”

  “Why call you?”

  “Apparently she’d read about Stewart’s disappearance in the papers and wondered if the two events were connected in any way.”

  “It all seems rather odd. I’m surprised you didn’t mention it at the time.”

  “I’m sorry. If I’d thought for one moment it might be important, I certainly would have. At the time, it seemed innocent enough.”

  Kingston sighed. “It probably is, Becky. Don’t worry about it.”

  The conversation ended with his promising to call her on the weekend to arrange for another visit to The Willows.

  Tired and still hurting after the drive back to London, made interminable by road works on the M3, he got back to his flat around six.

  Sitting on the sofa, he sorted the mail, a glass of Macallan at his side. Separating the bills from the junk mail, he was glad to find a postcard from his friend, Andrew, who was holidaying in New Zealand. Kingston was beginning to wish he’d taken up Andrew’s offer to accompany him. “Wish you were here,” Andrew had written in jest.

  Putting the postcard aside, Kingston leaned back, thinking back on his conversation with Becky and on Alison Greer’s lie about Becky having suggested calling him. What was the woman up to, he wondered. The medication had helped his headache, but the occasional dull throbbing reminded him about his trip to the reservoir and the warning—not that he would ever forget it. On the drive home he’d concluded that whoever attacked him must have been at the reservoir when he’d arrived and had been watching him all that time. No cars in sight probably meant that a motorcycle was tucked away somewhere on the grounds. It seemed the most logical explanation. The circumstances—particularly the more-dead-than-alive water lilies—led him to believe that the reservoir trials were finished and the place was now being put to other use. Despite having paid very painfully for it, the visit was not wasted. He was convinced that the “Hal,” written on the chalkboard, was no coincidence, meaning that Stewart could have been living there all or part of that time. He wished he could go back and see if there was any further evidence or clues that would confirm his suspicion.

  Assuming that the trials—or experiments, or whatever they should be called—had been successful, what would Everard’s next step be, if indeed he were the mastermind behind the scheme? Logical reasoning suggested that if Everard was selling the waterlily hybrid or setting up a joint venture to build a more sophisticated desalination plant, he’d have to prove that the process not only worked but would function efficiently when scaled up. To achieve that, interested parties would have to have seen a demonstration of the system at work to make such a consequential decision. Documentation, statistics, charts, photographic examples, and samples of purified water would not be enough.

  So if the results had been positive and the project was near completion, where did that leave Stewart? And where was he now? Kingston picked up Andrew’s postcard and looked at the photograph of the mirror-like surface of an azure lake with a backdrop of snow-dusted mountains—one of the National Parks. It was all so tranquil and far removed from everything that was happening in Kingston’s world. He sighed, wishing he were there.

  Since that very first phone message from Becky’s daughter—it seemed so long ago now—Kingston’s life had been upended. Now he had become a target: That changed everything. At his time of life, self-preservation trumped heroism every time. He swirled the amber liquid in his glass, inhaling the peat-smoky aroma. Fitzgerald had it right, he mused, when he penned: “Show me a hero and I’ll write you a tragedy.” Stewart’s disappearance and Walsh’s murder had brought tragedy enough already. How did he manage to get entangled in these unlikely situations, and why was he always the one singled out to help solve other people’s problems? Of course, he knew why. He took another sip of the single malt and reached for the phone. He’d call Desmond and tell him about the latest episode. Kingston could hear him now, when he told Desmond he’d been mugged: “Can’t say I didn’t warn you, Lawrence. I told you not to mess with those people.”

  Kingston was about to hang up when Desmond answered after the umpteenth ring.

  “It’s Lawrence. How are you?”

  “Fine. Looks like the Finchley nursery will happen. Nip and tuck for a while but I finally managed to convince the bank that there really was gold in goldfish.”

  “Not to mention water lilies.”

  “Right. How’s all that going?”

  “That’s why I’m calling. Not too well, I’m afraid.”

  Kingston went on to tell Desmond everything that had happened since they last met, ending with the incident at the reservoir.

  “Jesus! You can’t say I didn’t warn you, Lawrence. I told you not to mess with those people.”

  Kingston smiled. “You were right, Desmond. I still have the lump on my head to prove it. The rotten thing is that I’m nowhere nearer to finding Stewart than I was on day one. I’m starting to get a sickening feeling that we may never see him again.”

  “What about the police?”

  “Zip. Nothing. In fact, I got a call from the inspector at Ringwood who’s handling the case asking me if I had any further ideas. That says it all. I’ve done the best I can, Desmond. I don’t know what more I can do.”

  “For God’s sake, just let it go, Lawrence,” Desmond yelled. “How many times do I have to tell you?”

  Kingston heard a sigh, then a calmer voice. “Tell Stewart’s wife—what’s her name?”

  “Becky.”

  “Tell Becky what you just told me and I’m sure she’ll understand. If the truth be known, by now she no longer has her hopes up too high, anyway.”

  “We’re not going to give up hope, Desmond, if that’s what you’re saying.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m saying just knock off the detective work.”

  “All right, all right. I hear you.”

  “By the way, I’m coming into town next Monday. Want to do lunch? My treat this time.”

  “Monday’s fine.”

  “Great. I’ll call you over the weekend and we’ll set it up. No more nice guy, okay?”

  Kingston put the phone down. Desmond was right. It was time to end his investigation. However, he hadn’t told Desmond that, before closing the book on his search, he was about to do one more thing: check on Google Earth, the Internet satellite imagery and mapping site, to see if he might be able to obtain an aerial view of the reservoir.

  If the phone were to ring only once a day, Sod’s Law would have it that the call would be in the middle of either lunch or dinner. In this case Kingston had just sat down at the kitchen table with a bowl of last night’s leftover fettuccine al pesto and a glass of Chianti Classico Riserva—also from the previous night. At first, he considered letting the answering machine take the message but instead he took a quick sip of wine, got up, and picked up the phone.

  “Doctor Kingston?”

  The man’s voice was cultivated and unfamiliar.

  “It is,” Kingston replied, looking across to his cooling pasta.

  “This is Miles Everard. I understan
d you were in our offices last week, asking for me.”

  Caught off guard, Kingston hesitated. “Yes—yes, I was,” he said. “Thank you for getting back to me.”

  “I understand that you talked to Gavin Blake, one of our vice presidents—he usually subs for me when I’m gone. My secretary was out that day.”

  “That’s right,” said Kingston, playing for time, figuring how he should broach the question of Stewart’s disappearance. Everard saved him the trouble.

  “Blake said you wanted to talk to me about a friend of yours who’s gone missing. He said that you felt sure I knew him and thought that I might be working with him on a project of some kind.” Everard’s tone was cordial, not at all businesslike.

  “In a nutshell, that was the purpose of my visit, yes.”

  “What’s your friend’s name?”

  “Halliday. Stewart Halliday. He was a colleague of Adrian Walsh, whom I’m told you also knew.”

  A lengthy pause was followed by Everard’s answer: “I’m sorry, Doctor, I’m not familiar with either of those names.”

  This was not at all what Kingston had been expecting. The idea of Everard’s denying knowledge of Stewart and Walsh had never crossed his mind. Before he could reply, Everard spoke again.

  “May I ask what made you think I knew these people?”

  “The information came from a woman named Alison Greer. She maintained that you, Halliday, and Walsh were involved in a project to develop a new type of desalination process. She believed you were partners and had met at Walsh’s house in Hampshire.” Kingston was about to tell him that Walsh had been murdered but thought better of it—for the moment, anyway.

  Everard laughed politely. “First I’ve heard of it,” he said. “If it works and it’s more cost-efficient than conventional methods, I might like to know more about it. But it’s not really our kind of business. Essentially, we’re an engineering and construction company. So if we were to be involved in such a project, it would most likely be as a subcontractor.”