The Retreat

by Mark Edwards

  ‘What was I hit with?’ I asked.

  ‘Hmm.’ He consulted his notes. ‘A rock, I think. But the police will be able to tell you more.’

  ‘What about Max Lake? Is he here?’

  The doctor frowned. ‘Not that I’m aware of.’

  Half an hour later I was lying with my eyes closed, replaying what had happened, when I heard someone say my name. I opened my eyes to see a woman with short, dark hair standing over me. She introduced herself as Detective Constable Carla Hawkins.

  ‘Are you feeling up to answering some questions?’ she asked, pulling up a plastic chair.

  ‘Of course. But can you answer one of mine first? Max Lake? Where is he? Is he okay?’

  She formed a fist with her hand and put it to her lips, clearing her throat. ‘I’m afraid Mr Lake’s body was recovered from the River Dee early this morning.’

  ‘Oh Jesus.’

  I wasn’t shocked. Since waking up I had been steeling myself for this news. The same thing that happened to me had clearly happened to Max, except he hadn’t managed to get out of the river. Had he even woken up and struggled? I hoped not. Better to be oblivious than to struggle against drowning and fail.

  ‘Were you close?’ DC Hawkins asked, studying me, obviously trying to read my face and body language.

  ‘No. I’ve only known him a couple of weeks. But . . .’ Guilt squeezed my insides. ‘It’s my fault. I brought this upon us, and I’m alive and he’s . . . dead.’

  ‘What do you mean, you brought this upon you? Do you know who did this?’ She had a notepad ready in her lap, pencil poised.

  Just as I had with Julia last night – my God, what a long twenty-four hours it had been – I ran through the whole story, keeping it as succinct as possible. DC Hawkins interrupted every so often to ask questions. I didn’t mention any of the weird goings-on at the retreat and I tried to avoid straying into conspiracy theory territory.

  At the end, I said, ‘It’s Glynn Collins. He did this.’

  DC Hawkins tapped her pencil slowly on the pad. ‘Did you see him?’

  ‘No, it was too dark, but I’m sure it was him. Who else could it be?’

  The look she gave me was inscrutable.

  ‘Do you know him?’ I asked. My head throbbed and I winced as I spoke. ‘Everyone says he’s a pillar of the community.’

  She shook her head. ‘I’m based in Wrexham.’

  ‘One of your colleagues had a relationship with Zara Sullivan, the private detective I hired. I don’t know his name but maybe Zara spoke to him between talking to me and disappearing.’

  ‘We’ll look into it,’ she said.

  There was a long silence. I broke it by saying, ‘So this is a murder investigation?’

  Her expression was grim. ‘We don’t get many of those around here.’

  ‘Just missing children.’

  She stood up. ‘Two in forty years. It’s hardly an epidemic.’ She handed me her card. ‘We’ll be in touch. If you remember anything else in the meantime, any details that can help us identify your assailant, please call me.’

  ‘What about protection?’ I asked. ‘For me, I mean. He tried to kill me. What if he comes here to finish the job?’

  She spread her palms to indicate that I was surrounded by people. ‘You’ll be safe here, Mr Radcliffe. Try not to worry.’

  I woke up later to find Julia sitting by the bed.

  ‘I brought you some snacks,’ she said, gesturing to a couple of bags on the bedside cabinet. ‘And some magazines. I brought your phone too.’ She handed me the phone I’d bought to replace my lost one. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘I think I’m in shock. About Max, I mean.’

  She brushed a hand across her forehead and sighed. She looked terribly sad. I realised the whole thing must have taken her back to the terrible events two years before, when she watched Michael drown in that same spot.

  ‘Thank you for saving me,’ I said. ‘I probably would have died of hypothermia if I’d been left there by the river. I expect you were tempted to let me.’

  She exhaled. ‘I understand why you did it. And I know you were trying to help.’

  I smiled at her.

  ‘I’m still angry with you.’

  My smile faded.

  ‘But I’m glad you didn’t drown.’

  I guessed that was the best I was going to get.

  ‘So you didn’t see anyone? By the river?’ she asked.

  I repeated what I’d told DC Hawkins and half expected Julia to be sceptical, as she’d been earlier. But this was different, wasn’t it? There was no way this could be put down to natural causes or an innocent explanation. Someone had attacked me. Someone had murdered Max.

  ‘You really think Glynn knows something about Lily?’ she asked. Her voice was full of longing and terror.

  ‘Hopefully the police will be talking to him now,’ I said. ‘Have they been to your house? Did they look at what happened to the electricity?’

  ‘Oh yes, they’ve been round. Two of them came and interviewed Ursula and Suzi and me, looked around. They took Max’s computer. Yours too.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sorry, I couldn’t stop them. They said they needed to check it. They didn’t say why.’

  My novel was on that laptop, and although it was backed up to the Cloud I didn’t have access to another computer here. Still, it hardly seemed like the most important thing at the moment.

  ‘And the electricity?’ I asked.

  ‘It came on before I got back to the house,’ she replied. ‘I told the police about it and they said they’d look into that too. They’re frustratingly vague. They were like this when Lily disappeared.’

  My headache was coming back with a vengeance now. My vision was soft around the edges, a steady pain pulsing out from the back of my skull. I needed whatever drugs the doctors were willing to give me.

  ‘How are the others? Suzi and Ursula?’

  Julia shook her head. ‘Ursula has taken to her bed. I can’t get any sense out of her. Suzi . . . well, she’s really upset. She locked herself in her room after she heard about Max, but I could hear her crying.’

  ‘Max told me there was nothing going on between them.’

  ‘Did you believe him?’

  I thought about it. ‘Yeah, I did. God, I’m glad I managed to apologise to him before . . . it happened.’

  Julia shifted in her seat. ‘Ursula told the police about your argument.’

  ‘Oh, great.’

  ‘It’s been like a circus at the house. As well as the police, the media turned up. We’ve had photographers and video crews outside.’ Her face darkened. ‘The bastards mentioned Michael and Lily on the news reports. Tragedy strikes again in beauty spot, all that bullshit. Apparently, Max’s wife is on her way too, to collect his things and see where it happened. I haven’t been down to the river, but I’ve heard it’s teeming with rubberneckers.’

  Without warning, she grabbed my hand.

  ‘I’m so . . .’ She stopped, then forced herself to continue. ‘I’m so glad you got out of the water.’

  Taken aback, I tried to make light of it. ‘Me too.’

  ‘When I saw you lying there, on the stones, I thought you were dead.’ To my surprise, tears filled her eyes. She continued to hold my hand, but gazed into space, into the past. ‘I don’t think . . . I don’t think I ever mourned Michael properly. I was so fixated on finding Lily. Even his funeral . . . I was numb. Not able to grieve. I’m told I cried, but I don’t remember. I hardly heard a word of the service.’

  I squeezed her hand and waited for her to continue.

  ‘I miss him,’ she said. ‘I was angry with him for a long time, once the numbness passed. Angry for his drinking, blaming him for the argument that meant we weren’t watching Lily. Our marriage hadn’t been good for a long time and we were probably going to break up. I mean, we’d been in and out of the last-chance saloon a dozen times. He’d promised he was going to give up the booze be
cause it was destroying us . . . But he didn’t. And I realised, that day, he never would.’ She produced a tissue and blew her nose. ‘Five minutes later, he was dead.’

  I waited for her to continue.

  ‘There was another thing too . . . Another woman. I never found out for sure, but I think Michael was cheating on me with this woman in his office. Lana. Maybe they were only emotionally involved, I don’t know. But there was something going on. He probably would have ended up with her after we split up and I wonder, sometimes, if he kept drinking because he wanted me to chuck him out. It was his passive way of ending our marriage.’

  She blew her nose again. ‘He loved Lily, though. I guess she’s the other reason he hung around.’ She wiped the tears from her cheeks and sniffed. ‘Oh God, you’re lying there with a massive bandage on your head after someone tried to kill you, and here I am, going on about my woes.’

  ‘Julia, don’t be silly. It’s good. You should talk about it.’

  She shuddered. ‘I’m scared, Lucas. I can’t even express exactly why. But I’m scared.’

  I tried to find the right words, but before I could locate them someone said my name. ‘Mr Radcliffe?’

  It was DC Hawkins. This time she had another cop with her, a middle-aged man in an ageing suit. She introduced him as Detective Inspector Garry Snaith.

  He nodded at Julia. ‘Mrs Marsh.’

  He must have met her at Nyth Bran. I wondered if he’d also been involved in the search for Lily two years ago.

  ‘Do you mind if we have a word with Mr Radcliffe on his own?’ he asked.

  She was flustered. ‘Yes. I mean, no. I need to get back anyway. I’ll call you later, Lucas.’

  As soon as she’d gone, DC Hawkins said, ‘We spoke to Glynn Collins. He was at home all night, with his girlfriend.’

  I pushed myself up in the bed. ‘Girlfriend?’

  DI Snaith smiled. ‘Perhaps “lady friend” would be a better term. But yes, seems there’s life in the old dog.’

  I wondered if this was the woman he’d been talking to at the funeral; the one with the cleavage.

  ‘Mr Collins’ lady friend is an insomniac,’ Snaith continued. ‘She was awake most of the night, with her gentleman friend lying beside her, snoring.’

  ‘So whoever attacked you,’ Hawkins said. ‘It wasn’t Glynn Collins.’

  Chapter 32

  The two detectives stayed for ages, conducting what they called an informal chat. They wanted to know everything about me. Did I have any enemies? Did Max? They’d heard Max and I had a fight yesterday – could I tell them more about that? Why did we decide to follow the person we’d seen down to the river? Had we been drinking?

  ‘Why are you asking if Max had enemies?’ I said. ‘I told you – I was the target.’

  ‘So why kill Mr Lake?’ DC Hawkins asked.

  ‘I think he saw their face.’

  As I was answering their questions, my mind whirred. If it wasn’t Glynn who attacked me and killed Max, who the hell was it? Did this mean he wasn’t responsible for everything else? Had I been completely wrong?

  ‘Are you sure Glynn Collins’s lady friend isn’t lying for him?’ I asked.

  ‘You can never be one hundred per cent,’ Snaith responded. ‘But she, Margaret, is the ex-wife of one of our retired chief inspectors. He told us she’s the most honest woman he’s ever met and there’s no way she’d protect a criminal. Also, Mr Collins has this app on his phone that records his sleep patterns.’

  I nodded. Priya had used one of those.

  ‘He showed it to us. According to this app, he slept like a baby while Margaret tossed and turned beside him.’

  ‘Maybe he has someone helping him,’ I said. Even as the words came out I realised how desperate I sounded.

  The two detectives exchanged a look. DC Hawkins spoke. ‘The two deaths you told us about, Malcolm Jones and Shirley Roberts. There’s nothing suspicious about either of them. Mr Jones was taking medication for a heart condition. It appears he forgot to take his tablets.’

  That seemed strange to me, but I let her go on. ‘And by all accounts, Ms Roberts was inebriated when she left the wake. Those stairs are steep. I don’t want to pre-empt the coroner, but there’s nothing to indicate it wasn’t an accident.’

  ‘So we are looking at the attack on you and Max Lake as an isolated incident,’ DI Snaith said.

  ‘But what about Zara Sullivan? Have you tracked her down?’

  Again, they exchanged a glance. ‘You’re a writer, aren’t you, Mr Radcliffe?’ DC Hawkins said. ‘Highly imaginative. Always looking for hidden motives and meanings. Well, let me tell you, as someone who deals with reality every day . . .’

  ‘The simplest explanation for something is almost always the right one.’

  She raised an eyebrow. ‘Exactly.’

  My head was pounding again. I had wanted to talk to them about the strange goings-on at the retreat, but what was the point? They had me marked down as someone who makes shit up: a novelist with an overactive imagination.

  A nurse came over. ‘I think the patient needs to rest now.’

  ‘Sure.’

  The detectives got up, DI Snaith grunting as he rose from his plastic seat. DC Hawkins studied me for a moment and I wished I could read her mind, because I was certain there was suspicion in her eyes.

  ‘We’ll talk again,’ she said before they walked away.

  The hospital discharged me the following afternoon. The doctor gave me a self-help sheet listing symptoms I needed to look out for: drowsiness, poor tolerance of light, feelings of disorientation, confusion. I tried to make a joke about always feeling confused, but the doctor wasn’t amused.

  I didn’t want to bother Julia by asking her to pick me up, so I called Olly Jones. It was a long way for him to come but I thought he’d appreciate the fare. And it wasn’t only that I didn’t want to bother Julia. I wanted to talk to Olly.

  ‘Look at you: the walking wounded,’ he said as I approached the taxi and got into the back seat. It was a lovely day, mild and bright, and it was warm inside the cab. For the first time in months, I felt the prickle of sweat beneath my armpits.

  ‘I heard about what happened,’ Olly said, starting the engine. ‘Shocking. Do you have any idea who did it? Who whacked you over the head, I mean?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I bet the police haven’t got a bloody clue either, am I right?’

  ‘They don’t seem to.’

  He turned on to the main road. ‘Shocking to think two people, probably three, have drowned in that same spot in, like, two years.’ He swore at a driver who swerved in front of him. ‘That Lily was a lovely girl, you know. I hope she’s still out there somewhere.’

  I sat forward. ‘You knew her?’

  ‘Yeah. I live a few doors down from her friends, Megan and Jake. I know their mum pretty well.’

  Of course. Everyone round here knows everyone else.

  ‘And my dad was good friends with Wendy’s dad. Have you met Wendy? She’s lovely. Plus Megan’s a little character and Jake . . . well, Wendy does a brilliant job with him, considering his issues.’ He paused. ‘I feel a bit guilty, actually. I told Lily and the others this story about how I’d seen the Widow when I was a kid. I was just winding them up, having a laugh, but I think they believed me. I always picture Lily with this frightened look on her face. I should have told her it was a joke.’

  I tried to get a grip on the conversation. ‘I didn’t get a chance to talk to you properly at the funeral. I told you about our dads being friends, didn’t I?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He laughed. ‘Weird to think we might have played together when we were little, before you moved away.’

  ‘I know. So . . . what happened with your dad? Someone told me he had a heart condition.’

  ‘Yeah, and the silly fool forgot to take his medicine.’

  I feigned ignorance. ‘Surely forgetting for, what, one day wouldn’t cause you to have a heart attack? I mean, I’m no
expert but . . .’

  ‘No. But the doctor told me he must have been under a lot of stress the day he died. And the fact he’d forgotten the medicine didn’t help. God knows what he was stressed about. I mean, he was at home watching TV. I guess he must have been worried about something.’

  I felt bad. The topic was clearly distressing Olly. But I pressed on anyway. Despite what the police said, I was still convinced Malcolm’s death was connected to everything else.

  ‘Did you see him . . . the day he died, I mean? Did he seem worried?’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’ He fell quiet. I thought maybe I’d pushed him too far. He was still grieving, the wounds raw. ‘I spoke to him on the phone, though, and he was acting a bit weird.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Just, you know, being more emotional than normal. He said something about how he’d let my mum down, how it was too late to make amends now. I had no idea what he was going on about. To be honest, I wondered if he’d been drinking. Or if it was, like, the first signs of dementia.’ We had stopped at a red light. Olly rubbed his eyes with his fist. ‘Then he said something really odd. He asked me if I would forgive him if he’d done something terrible.’

  The hairs on my arms were standing on end.

  ‘No, hang on. What he said was, would I forgive him if he’d kept a terrible secret. I asked him what the hell he was talking about and it was like he chickened out, started saying it was nothing to worry about, just the ramblings of an old man.’ His jaw was clenched and I was worried Olly was about to start crying. He prevented himself from doing so by changing the subject. ‘You’re into books and stuff, aren’t you? Of course you are. My dad had thousands of the bloody things and I’ve got no idea what to do with them. Maybe you could pop round, take a look and see if there are any you want. Take them off my hands.’