by Rhys Bowen
“How far’s that?”
“About five mile.” He made this sound like it was close to the end of the earth.
“Thanks,” Evan said, and went to continue on his way.
“I suppose tha’s wanting to ask t’police about t’tragedy then? I expect it’ll be on t’evening news,” the old man said.
“Tragedy?”
“Some poor bugger fell down one of t’potholes. Another of they hikers. They only found him today. He’d been there awhile, they say. They’re always doing it, you know—trying to climb down and then falling.”
“Was he badly injured?”
“No. Dead as a doornail, poor bugger. Been there for weeks. That’s the second this year.” He gave a macabre grin, revealing a mouth of missing teeth. “Tha wants to be careful if tha’ goes up there. Observe the warnings, young man.”
“I’ll be careful then,” Evan said, and again went to pass on his way.
“I told thee that t’cave’s closed, didn’t I?” the old man called after him.
“Thanks, but I’m not going to the cave, just for a hike. And I’ll be careful of potholes.”
“You do that, young man.” The words echoed after him as he passed between two of the stone houses and found a smooth, wellused path stretching out ahead of him. To begin with it wound through pleasant woodland. He had to pass through a gate with a notice announcing he was entering Ingleborough Hall Estate and a fee would be collected. But there was nobody to take his money, so he kept on going through more woodland, with a small ornamental lake to his left. He came to the entrance to the cave, which was, as the old man had predicted, well and truly closed, with an iron grille across the gate.
After the cave the smooth path became a rocky track beside a noisy, dancing beck. He continued on upward, feeling the fresh breeze in his face and the fresh smell of upland air and pines. He came to a small limestone gorge with cliffs rising on either side of the path and fir trees clinging precariously. Then out of the gorge and the first sense of high moor—no more trees, just rocky fields and drystone walls. To the north he caught his first view of the peak that had been described to him—Ingleborough, one of the big three and recognizable by its flat top, as if a giant hand had sawn it off. He began to realize his own folly in taking this on alone and without preparation. He hadn’t stopped to consider how far it might be and how much real hiking would be involved. Now he realized that he might not reach the viewpoint from which the child had been spotted and get down again by nightfall. Not a comforting thought as he had just passed a notice board warning DANGER. POTHOLES AHEAD. PROCEED WITH CAUTION. DO NOT CROSS ANY BARBED WIRE FENCES.
The moment he had taken in the notice, he was conscious that the gurgle of the stream had turned to a roar and he found himself standing beside a wire fence, looking down in awe as the stream plunged suddenly into a black, gaping hole in the ground. The sign at a locked gate identified it as GAPING GILL and mentioned that the winch operated only on weekends. As one who suffered from claustrophobia, Evan could hardly imagine anything worse than being winched down into that blackness. He remembered the hiker who had plunged to his death and had only been found after several weeks. Had that been here or were there other, even more terrifying holes opening up into the earth nearby? He glanced nervously toward the west and saw the sun turning into a red ball as it moved closer to the horizon. Another hour or two of daylight, that was all.
After the Gaping Gill, the trail began its stiff ascent of Ingleborough Peak. Evan slithered on smooth rock and wished for his sturdy hiking boots. He was conscious of rings of wire fencing around what must be smaller potholes and couldn’t help wondering if others were unfenced. His eyes scanned the horizon ahead, trying to pick out the limestone outcropping where the couple had spotted the cottage. Why hadn’t he thought to ask them how many miles it had been from Clapham? He realized to his annoyance that he’d left their phone number in the car. He doubted that he’d pick up a signal up here anyway.
Then the path curved around the side of the mountain, and he found himself staring into the sunset with a rocky outcropping immediately ahead of him. Cautiously, remembering he was wearing work shoes that lacked good tread, he climbed out onto it and lowered himself to the still-warm rock. The view that spread out below him was spectacular—hills and valleys, clumps of trees with hamlets nestled in them, and in the far west maybe the glint of the Irish Sea. The whole scene was bathed in slanting evening sunlight, making the limestone glow almost pink. But the sense of urgency was still pumping adrenaline. He wrenched his eyes from the view and peered down the slope, looking for the cottage the hikers had seen. Again he didn’t know how powerful their binoculars had been and cursed himself for not asking more questions.
Then he saw it, half-hidden by some trees, directly below him. There was no sign of a road or other houses nearby. Not in a village then. He tried to pick out landmarks that would help him to identify it from below. Probably northwest from Clapham, with the summit of Ingleborough due east behind it. And three trees. And a stone wall coming down in a direct line from the mountain. Would that be enough? He decided not to take the chance of losing it again. The slope below him was steep, but not impassible. Someone had managed to build and maintain a wall down it. All he had to do was follow that wall, and he’d get a look at the cottage for himself. If the worst happened and he was seen, he’d be a hiker who had lost his way. Ivan Sholokhov had no idea what he looked like and probably wouldn’t even recognize a Welsh accent. He was quite safe.
He lowered himself down the outcrop and began the descent. It was hard going, slithering over patches of limestone in places, making sure he didn’t turn his ankles on rocks hidden in the grass. Down and down until the bright sunlight on the peaks was replaced by shadow. The wind that had blown fresh in his face had now become icy cold, and he realized again what a stupid chance he had taken, going into the high country so ill prepared. Every year he had had to rescue tourists who had been stranded on Mount Snowdon when the weather turned ugly, and he had not been able to believe their stupidity at starting out in sandals and shorts. Now he had been equally guilty and just lucky that the weather hadn’t turned on him yet.
A light came on, farther down in the valley, identifying possibly where the road ran. Still no lights shone out from the cottage. He came closer, hoping that they hadn’t a watchdog. Then he froze as he heard something—through an open window a child was singing. The sound sent his spirits soaring. If it was indeed Ashley, then she was still alive and well and happy enough to sing.
He moved more slowly now, circling away from the drystone wall to give the cottage a wide berth. He passed the cottage and on the other side of it, he picked up a rutted track that led down to the nearest road. At least cars could get to it. That was good to know. Now all he had to do was make his way down to the road, call the local police, and wait for them. Before he went down to the road, however, he decided he should at least see if the cottage had a name, which would make it easier to find. He found a battered front gate, standing open, and saw that his hunch had been right. There was a board tacked onto the gatepost identifying it as FERNDALE COTTAGE.
At that moment his mobile phone rang. His tension level was so high that his heart gave a huge lurch at the sound, and he almost dropped the phone as he fumbled to get it out of his pocket before it rang again.
“Evans, where the hell are you?” D.I. Watkins’s voice demanded. The crackling indicated that the connection was tenuous.
“In Yorkshire, sir, following up on the reported sighting of the child, like you told me.” Evan struggled to make his voice sound calm.
“Have you got in touch with the local police yet?”
“No sir, I tried to do that when I got here, but they’ve closed the police station.”
“They can’t have closed every police station in the whole bloody area,” Watkins said. “Make sure you contact them at once. You don’t tread on someone’s turf without permission—you know that full we
ll.”
“Yessir, I know. I was just about to call them. I just thought I should check out the cottage for myself first.”
“For yourself? I’m not having any of my team playing lone ranger, Evans. You go in with backup or not at all. If we’ve really located Ashley, we’re not going to risk a screwup because you’re too bloody pigheaded to hand over to the local boys.”
“Don’t worry, sir. I wasn’t planning to go in alone. I’ll call them right away.”
“And you stay put until they get there, Evans. That’s an order.”
“Right, sir.” He had to smile at this last order. If Watkins really knew where he was.
“And Evans? Don’t do anything daft, you hear me?”
“I won’t, sir.”
He hung up and dialed 999, only to be told that there was no one at the Ingleton station at the moment because the policeman on duty had escorted the hiker’s body to the morgue in Skipton. Evan tried to give details to a patient, but slow-moving, girl on the switchboard and impressed upon her that she should send someone as soon as possible. At some point during the conversation, the penny dropped. “The little girl whose picture was on the telly, you mean?” she blurted out. “You’ve found her?”
“I hope so. I think she’s being held at this Ferndale Cottage, so we need to be careful. I’ll give you my mobile number so that your blokes can contact me. Tell them I’m watching the place now.”
“Ooh, how exciting,” she said, most un professionally. “Right. I’ll get them onto it straightaway.”
Feeling more confident now, Evan pocketed his phone and was about to head for the road when he heard a sound behind him. Instinctively he turned toward it. A door had opened and somebody had come out. She was standing on the doorstep, looking directly at him. It took him a second or two to recognize her in the gathering twilight. It was Shirley Sholokhov.
Chapter 30
Before he could hide in the bushes that flanked the path, she spotted him and the look of surprise on her face matched his own.
“Bloody hell,” she muttered. “What you are doing here?”
“I was about to ask you the same thing,” Evan said, coming steadily up the path toward her. “But I think I know the answer to that one. I’ve been on a wild-goose chase looking for you in Leeds, where your boyfriend assured me you’d be back any moment.”
“This is my auntie’s house,” she said. “I decided to stay with her for a few days. I felt trapped in Leeds. I needed to be with family at a time like this. Is there anything wrong with that?”
“Nothing at all. I think family members should stick together. I just don’t go along with lies and deceit.”
She had her hands on her hips. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I think you do.” He was eye to eye with her now. “It’s funny, but I felt that something was wrong all the time. There never was a kidnapping, was there? You brought Ashley here, out of the way, and then pretended that your husband had kidnapped her.” He shook his head. “I could never really believe that a child had been playing on that beach. No child goes to a beach without digging in the sand. It’s part of their nature.”
She was still looking at him defiantly. “All right. What if I did? I only wanted to make sure we were free of him forever. He had some high-powered lawyer paid for by his Russian friends—they were trying to make out I was a bad mother, and they were going to give him custody of Ashley. I couldn’t give her up—I just couldn’t.” She stared at him for a moment. “So how did you find us?”
“We’ve been running a hot line. Some hikers spotted a little blonde girl playing outside the cottage this morning and called us. I just happened to be trying to visit you in Leeds. If you’d come to us and told us you were going home, I’d never have come looking for you.”
“Bloody stupid of me, wasn’t it? But I just didn’t want you blokes questioning me again. I did tell your local Mr. Plod.”
“Who conveniently forgot to mention it to us,” Evan said. “But you left some other clues too. You had her prescription filled in Skipton—that’s the nearest big town, isn’t it? And that was also something that never made sense to me. If my child had had a major operation like Ashley, I’d have been frantic about her medications. You never even mentioned it to us the first time.”
“Shit,” she muttered. “So what will happen now? It’s not a crime, hiding my own child, is it?”
“Falsely reporting a crime and mobilizing all those policemen is not going to be taken too kindly. It could also go against you when you have your custody hearing.”
“Have you found Johnny yet?” she asked.
“No. He may have gone into hiding when he heard we were looking for him. He may have feared being deported.”
“That’s rubbish. I bet he’s gone home to Russia like I told you. He did nothing but talk about it and how much he missed it.”
“Not according to his friends,” Evan said. “They say he wanted to stay in England. Look, are you going to invite me in? I’d like to meet Ashley for myself, since we’ve all been so worried about her.”
“All right. I suppose so,” she said grudgingly and passed through the door ahead of him. Evan followed her into a lowceilinged, dark kitchen. The lights had not yet been turned on, and the house was in strange, flickering shadow. Evan saw the reason for this, as he looked through the doorway to a living room beyond. A television set was showing cartoons and in front of it a blonde-haired girl was sitting. At that moment a stout, older woman came through into the kitchen and gasped when she saw Evan.
“Who’s he?” she demanded.
“North Wales Police. He’s found us. The game’s up. Still it was worth a try, wasn’t it?”
The little girl spun around too at the sound of voices. She jumped to her feet and rushed to her mother. “Have they come to take me away?” she wailed.
“Hush. No, love. You’re quite safe.” Her mother stroked her hair as the child clung to her leg.
Now that Evan had a chance to look at her, he saw that she didn’t bear that strong a resemblance to Sarah, apart from the hair. She had a rounder, flatter, more Eastern European face, like her father.
“Don’t worry, Ashley,” Evan said, smiling down at her. “Nothing bad’s going to happen to you, I promise.” Even as he said it, he wondered if this was a lie. Shirley would almost certainly be charged with parental abduction and custody could well be handed to the father, as soon as they located him. Which of them would be better for her? he wondered. It was hard to tell.
“I suppose you’d like a cup of tea?” the old woman asked in a broad Yorkshire accent. She pronounced it coopatee.
“Thanks. I would. I’ve been up a mountain and down looking for this place.” Evan sat at the bench at the kitchen table, glad that the whole thing was going to be civilized. D.I. Watkins would have no complaints about the way he’d handled it until the local police got there. A cup was put in front of him. He hadn’t even taken his first sip when he heard the sound of an engine straining as it climbed the track toward the cottage. So the local police had got here quickly after all. Shirley pulled back the curtain, then ran to open the front door.
“It’s all right, Mrs. Sholokhov, don’t be alarmed,” Evan started to say, then heard Shirley shouting, “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I came to warn you,” the voice shouted back. “There’s some damned copper nosing around the house today. He said he wasn’t leaving until he’d seen you. I think we may have a problem if you don’t—”
Evan came to stand beside her at the door. “If she doesn’t what, Mr. Bingham?” he asked.
Joe Bingham reacted quickly. “Shit. How did he get here?”
“You and your big mouth, I expect, Joe.”
“I swear I didn’t tell him nothing, Shirley.” He came up to them, not taking his eyes for a second off Evan. “Still, no matter. He’s all on his own, is he? I didn’t pass a car as I came up here. They send out one lousy constable
on foot? That was rather stupid, wasn’t it? We’ll just get rid of him like we did the other one.”
And with a mighty shove, he pushed Evan back into the house. Evan was unprepared for it and fell against the kitchen table, knocking over crockery and making the little girl cry out in alarm.
“Get her out of here,” Joe Bingham instructed to the aunt.
Evan had regained his balance. “Don’t be so bloody stupid,” he said, fighting to keep his voice calm and reasonable. “You’re in minor trouble at the moment. You touch a police officer and you’ll be away for life.”
“He’s right, Joe,” Shirley began, but Bingham cut her off.
“Who’s to ever know, eh? We dump him down a pothole, and they’ll never find him. I’ll get his car and drive it back to Wales and leave it somewhere. They’ll never know he’s been here.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, Joe,” Evan said, still amazed that he could sound so relaxed when his heart was racing a mile a minute, “but I called in my location just a few minutes ago. We’ve got squad cars on their way right now.” A thought suddenly struck him, with such remarkable clarity that it was almost like having a vision. “And you’re wrong about something else, too. They found a body in a pothole today. I’d like to bet it turns out to be Johnny Sholokhov.”
He was satisfied to see the look of alarm that passed between them.
“It wasn’t me. I didn’t want to do it,” Shirley said quickly. “It was his idea.”
“Shut your mouth, woman. Of course you wanted to do it. You begged me to get rid of him. Come on. Let’s take our chances again. We get rid of this bloke, and we can be out of here before the rest of them turn up.”
“You won’t find me so easy to get rid of,” Evan said.
“Won’t find you easy?” Joe Bingham laughed, opened a kitchen drawer, and produced a long carving knife. “I’ll slice you to ribbons, mate.”
“And how will you clean up the blood before the police arrive? You’re cooked, Bingham. Your fingerprints are all over the room—yours and Shirley’s and Ashley’s, too. The smartest thing you can do now is come quietly.” As he spoke, he was backing, inch by inch, toward the front door. To his great relief he heard the sound of an approaching car engine. “Looks like my backup just arrived,” he said. “Now why don’t you put down the knife before someone gets hurt.”