by Dan Clark
Chapter Fourteen
The sat-nav takes Carolyn to the Lloyds’ address, the message Arrived filling the screen before turning itself to standby. The road is long and winding, with trees at each side. There are no signs of a home. She turns the sat-nav back on, and punches in the postcode to make sure she entered it correctly. Arrived flashes again before turning itself off. Carolyn slips the car in gear and proceeds down the road. It’s now almost half past four, and the sun is setting slowly, hiding behind the trees, causing her to flick on the headlights. Up ahead there are two cars parked on the side; both have lights, bonnets, doors and radiators missing. Just past the cars is an opening, a dirt road leading up towards a farmhouse and some large sheds. A wooden sign at the start of the dirt road reads Lloyd, Green Lane Farm.
Carolyn turns the car to head up the road and stops, hesitating. She wonders if it’s best to leave it till another day, maybe earlier in the afternoon, and possibly bring someone with her. But who? She remembers what the skinny redheaded cashier told her, the shop girl – Sophie. She’d said to be careful, not to get in the way of Frank Lloyd. “He wouldn’t think twice about beating you to a pulp…” And then there’s the unpleasant scar across Julio Alcala’s face.
She sits, watching the house in the distance.
Maybe he isn’t home. Maybe it’s just the wife, Gwen. I can try to get her to understand that I’m here to help, she tells herself. Deciding she can’t delay any longer, she drives up towards the house.
The path is cluttered with rusting cars, now nothing more than shells hoisted up on logs and bricks, with parts missing from all of them. The pickup truck is parked at the side of the house. She remembers it humming past her in the car park of Llanbedr Convenience.
“Shit,” Carolyn says out loud. Her heart begins thumping hard as she approaches. Her palms begin to sweat, and she comes to a stop again, thinking about whether to go back down the path and return another day. But she’s already too far up. She gives her pockets a feel for the stress ball. Empty. She’s left it at home, not that it does much to calm her any other time.
The doors of the largest shed are open, and inside is a black van. Sparks are flying out from behind it as the man welds on a replacement panel. The man stops, takes off his helmet and heads towards the entrance of the shed. He’s young. His face is dirty, oil stains are smeared across his acne-scarred cheeks, and his forehead is damp with sweat. He smiles an ugly smirk at Carolyn, showing a mouth full of yellow teeth, and watches as she exits the Polo and approaches the front door to knock.
The combined stench of animal urine, rotting food and body odour can be smelt from outside the door. A dog barks loudly, jumping up at the glass and smearing its wet nose along it, leaving streaks.
Carolyn begins to think it’s a bad idea, and turns around to leave. She hears a man’s voice inside, shouting and swearing at the canine to quiet down and move away from the door. The young man from the outhouse is still staring at her and wiping his hands on an oily rag. From the look in his eyes, Carolyn knows he is thinking rude, grotesque thoughts.
The door swings open and Frank Lloyd stands in the frame. He is wearing blue jeans, battered black boots, and a crinkled green shirt that has food stains down the front. The stench is now revolting.
“You must be fucking kidding me. You’re the crazy bitch from the shop,” he shouts, the smell of beer strong on his breath. He steps forward. The dog, a tall black German Shepherd, is standing behind its owner, ears tilted back, cautiously watching the stranger at the door. It begins barking again, loudly and furiously. Frank Lloyd’s eyebrows lower and his forehead creases. He moves back into the house and grabs the dog by the collar. Carolyn steps aside as he pulls it out into the front. The dog runs down the path. “Put that thing on the leash!” he yells toward the young man – his son, Carolyn presumes. He looks back to her. “I said, are you fucking kidding me?”
Carolyn takes a step back to escape the sour smell of old beer. “Mr Lloyd, I’ve come to apologise for saying what I thought I saw the other day. I’d like to have a chat, and possibly ask you some questions about your son.”
Frank stays quiet and only stares. Carolyn keeps his gaze.
“Well, go on then. Apologise to me.” He stands upright and folds his arms, and a small smirk appears at the corners of his mouth.
“I’m sorry for causing you or your… wife, I presume, trouble. I’m here trying to find out what happened to Dylan. If you want me to go… I will,” Carolyn says, a small part of her hoping he orders her to piss off. She doesn’t want to be around these people, on their isolated property, where they could easily beat the life out of her, and where nobody would hear her cries for help. A chill runs down her spine, and for a second, she feels faint, as the realisation hits her that she hadn’t told anyone she was coming here. That could have been a mistake. The look she’d encountered in the eyes of the son tells her he’d probably enjoy inflicting pain on her.
It’ll be easy to find a spot to bury her body out here. Or would they drive her back into town and throw her from the pickup truck?
Gwen appears at the side of Frank. Her eyes narrow as she looks Carolyn up and down.
“Mrs Lloyd, I’m not here to cause trouble. I don’t mean to bring up the past. If you don’t mind answering a few questions, it would help. I’m looking into the disappearance of your son.”
Carolyn stands upright, waiting for the tired-looking woman to slam the door in her face. She imagines scrambling back to her car as the Lloyd family watch from the windows, laughing. Maybe they’d even set the dog on her. But instead, the woman with the straw-like bleached hair steps aside and beckons for her to enter.
Inside the house the smell is even worse. The carpets are faded and torn. Their patterns have been replaced with oil, grease and mud stains, and they look as though they’ve never been hoovered or cleaned since the day they were laid. The furniture is damaged, and splinters hang off the wooden tables, possibly from the dog chewing the legs. Carolyn is led into the kitchen. The sink is rusted and worn, and looks almost as old as some of the cars out at the front. Every cabinet surface is piled high with dirty plates, cutlery, takeaway plastic containers and beer bottles, all balancing on top of one another like a bad version of Jenga. The bare concrete floor is littered with beer bottle caps and cigarette butts.
Carolyn resists pulling a sour face. She steps over piles of clothes which are full of black dog hairs and yellow piss stains that she hopes are from the dog. The stench of urine is multiplied in here, and it takes all of her willpower not to cover her nose. She can taste the smell and wonders why the man and woman standing in front of her seem not to notice. The kitchen table is small and square, clothes half-folded on top. It’s hard to tell if they were clean or dirty, though it doesn’t matter as Frank Lloyd pushes the pile onto the floor with the rest of the piss-soaked garments. Carolyn takes a seat and Gwen Lloyd sits opposite, the chair next to her left empty. Frank remains standing and leans against the sink.
“Thank you for agreeing to speak with me. I know we didn’t—”
“Did you actually see a body or not?” Gwen interrupts. Her face is stern and unblinking. Carolyn looks from her to the man by the sink. She notices they both look tired and worn out.
Before Carolyn answers, she tells them about the deaths of Simon and Ryan, and how much stress she has been under lately. She wants to say it could have been her imagination playing tricks on her that day, or that she was drunk or extremely tired. But she doesn’t. She tells them the truth, that she saw a body. She hopes this will stop Frank Lloyd thinking of her as the crazy bitch he insisted she was.
The man and wife both look at each other in amazement, exchanging looks of sorrow.
“How come you’re looking into this? Are you a private investigator?” Frank Lloyd asks, standing a little taller, furrowing his eyebrows. His arms are folded against his chest again and he’s stroking the end of his grey moustache. “Did the parents of the other missing boy
hire you?”
Carolyn shakes her head and tells them she hasn’t been hired, that she feels passionate about finding out the truth, and that in any case she would like to help. She’d like to think somebody would do the same for her son.
The young man from outside walks in, pulls out a chair from the table making a dreadful creaking noise along the kitchen floor, and takes a seat.
“And I believe,” Carolyn says, looking from one to the other, “that the police haven’t done nearly enough. They don’t seem to care or want to help.” This sends Frank into a blubbering frenzy. The words pigs, lazy and fat are used numerous times, and not necessarily in that order. Gwen also joins in with the insults. Carolyn nods and smiles as if in agreement, knowing that this will probably get them to open up to her. After all, she is here to help them. What’s a little white lie?
The man sitting next to his mother is in his late twenties. His skin is blotchy and oily, and his thick hair looks uncombed and unwashed for God knows how long. His eyes are dark and slightly too far apart. Carolyn can feel him leering at her, undressing her in his mind. She avoids eye contact. Feeling his eyes on her skin is bad enough. She ignores him and proceeds with her questions, now that Mr and Mrs Lloyd seem to have relaxed a little.
“So what can you tell me about that day?” Carolyn asks. “Do you have any enemies, anyone who might have wanted to see Dylan hurt?”
The Lloyds look puzzled, scratching their heads.
“Can you imagine anyone, Owen?” Frank asks his son, who is now smirking at Carolyn and licking his lips. She keeps her feet firmly under her chair, after feeling his boots rub against her ankles one too many times for it to be an accident. His glare is making its way from her eyes down to the opening of her shirt.
Owen answers in a bored tone without blinking or shifting his gaze. “Nope. I can’t think of anybody.”
“He would sometimes be out for hours on his own,” Frank begins, unfolding his arms and placing his hands in his pockets. “He wasn’t interested in learning how to fix cars or anything else I tried to teach him. He would just pick up and take off. We were out that day at a family party; we’d left the boys at home. And when we got back, well, we thought maybe at first, he might have been staying with one of his friends. Maybe he’d told us, but we forgot or something. We drove around all of the friends’ houses we know of, and the police did too. Nothing.”
Carolyn makes some notes, imagining that’s what a private detective or even DS Hughes would do. Had done.
“You want to write down my number, sexy, and maybe we can talk in private?” Owen sneers at Carolyn. His mother brings her arm up so fast Carolyn almost doesn’t see it happening. The slap echoes off Owen’s cheeks.
“She’s trying to find your brother!” Gwen shouts. Owen stands, pushing his chair away with his legs, and it hits the grimy counter behind him. Beer bottles fall to the floor, clinking against the concrete. Owen clenches his fists.
“What the fuck do you thi—” the young man snaps as Gwen flinches away. Frank takes his hands from his pockets and grabs Owen by the top of his shirt, pulling him out of the kitchen and through the front room, out into the garden. Carolyn can hear the two of them arguing outside. The dog starts barking again.
“Does he do that a lot? Is he usually violent towards you?” Carolyn asks.
Gwen doesn’t answer. Her head is resting in between her arms on the table, and she is silently crying.
“What can you remember about that day?” Carolyn continues. “Anybody around that you hadn’t seen before? Any strange vans or cars?”
The woman lifts her head and wipes at her face using the sleeve of her top.
“It wasn’t unusual for Dylan to be out on his own. He and Owen would argue all the time, and Owen would end up hitting him and going too far, really hurting him. Dylan isn’t like Owen, he’s a good boy. He wanted to study. He was respectful. He had dreams and ambitions, not like him,” Gwen snarls, looking towards the noise of the men arguing out at the front.
“Did he ever talk about friends he might have gone to?” Carolyn asks, unsure what else to ask. What good she thought she was going to achieve, she didn’t know, but she knows she needs answers – and that, corpse or no corpse, she isn’t crazy. Whatever the internal voice might say.
“No, he never had many friends. Owen would make sure of that.” Gwen reaches for a box of cigarettes that lies hidden between a pile of plates and glasses. Carolyn stares bemused at how Gwen knew they were there. Gwen lights one and blows out smoke, the hand holding the cigarette shaking slightly.
After writing down the events of that day, Carolyn decides there isn’t much left to ask and stands to leave.
“If you find anything… anything at all, will you let me know? I’m not sure how much longer I can wait,” Gwen sobs. She stands and searches through some papers next to the toaster, pulls out a yellow flyer and hands it to Carolyn. “I need to know… I… I can’t stay here forever.”
Carolyn thinks about asking what she meant by how much longer I can wait, but the woman’s expression looks as if she didn’t want to repeat it – and in any case Frank Lloyd has just walked through the door and taken a seat at the square table. Carolyn looks down at the flyer. It reads, Frank Lloyd, Auto Repair Centre in a thick bold font, along with pictures of cars that are no longer in production and the address and phone number of Green Lane Farm, the same as Carolyn had found online. She nods and makes her way to the door.
Outside, the fresh air hits her, and she wishes she could lean back against the front door and take in as much of the glorious clean air as her lungs will allow. Instead, she sucks in what she can as she heads for the car.
The visit leaves her feeling dirty and in desperate need of a shower. In the car, she pulls out the flyer. It has ketchup and grease stains on it. She adds the number to her phone memory and crumples the paper for the bin. As she turns the car round before heading down the long driveway towards the dirt road, she hears whimpering and looks around. The black German Shepherd is on a long chain leash, attached to one of the dismantled cars. Owen stands a couple of feet in front, a safe distance from the dog’s snout, holding a long thick branch and poking at it. The dog is going berserk, running the length of the chain in an attempt to defend itself and attack back.
Owen watches as Carolyn turns the car round. He continues to prod the branch into the dog harder and harder until it stops barking and accepts defeat. It cries in low scared squeals, curling in between two of the vehicles in an effort to shield itself.
The enjoyment on Owen’s smiling face upsets Carolyn. How is he feeling joy from torturing the family dog? She wonders if he could be involved in the disappearance of his brother. Perhaps he’s not a killer, but is it possible he’s done something evil enough to have made Dylan want to leave home? His own mother cowered away from him in the kitchen. Gwen did say the two used to argue a lot, and now here he is prodding their dog and enjoying its cries of pain.
Carolyn stops the car, takes off her seatbelt and opens the door. She wants to snatch the stick from him and shove it somewhere it belongs. He’s watching her, his mouth twitching with every strike of the stick, taunting her to get out of the car. His dirty face is begging her to. But Carolyn leans back in against her seat and closes the car door. She doesn’t want to ruin the progress she has made by getting the Lloyds to trust her. Any good she has done by offering an apology (which they seem to have accepted and welcomed her into their home) would all have been for nothing.
These last few months have been really hard. First she’d lost her family, and now some insane killer is out there, toying with her. She’d enjoy nothing more than to take out some of that anger and frustration on a low-life like Owen Lloyd. She breaks her gaze and drives out of the Lloyds’ property, praying that the chain breaks and the dog finds it within itself to tear him to pieces.
Chapter Fifteen
Excitement and fear rush, simultaneously, through Carolyn. She looks at herself in the
mirror again and again, to make sure she looks like a normal customer. Today she will go back to P’s Party Accessories, step inside and scope the place out. She doubts that Julio has described her to the owner, and even if he has, she’s pretty average-looking, with no distinct physical attributes that might cause her to stand out.
She’ll have a look at the place from the inside, and try to see if it has a back room or any other kind of storage. The unit itself is small, so if the body of a young boy is in there, it shouldn’t be hard to find. She guesses the killer hasn’t brought the body back there, though the shop might provide other evidence. After all, she has nothing else to go on.
Carolyn drives into the industrial unit and takes a parking space next to the door of the party shop. She leaves the car facing the exit, to make a quick getaway if needed. Clouds are starting to form, and the atmosphere has a grey and miserable feel to it.
Carolyn figures the place might have looked gloomy and depressing the other night because of the time of day and circumstance. The sign above the door looks bleak, dull and worn. Nothing that screams ‘party’ at all.
Inside, the unit is even smaller. Boxes of new stock haven’t been opened or stacked on the shelves that run along the walls. And with the amount of unstacked items, you wouldn’t get more than two customers in at a time.
At the back, placed on the counter, is an old-style cash register. The overweight owner is sitting on a stool, and behind him is the fire exit Carolyn tried the other night. The owner looks up from his newspaper and nods hello to Carolyn before he returns to circling horses’ names.