by Gwen Moffat
‘Where was it posted?’
‘I didn’t look.’
‘Have you still got it?’
‘No. I lost it.’
‘Lost it!’
‘I put it in my handbag and it just disappeared. I must have burned it one night. I hated the sight of it.’
‘Did you have more letters?’
‘No; after that it was telephone calls: telling me when he wanted money and where to leave it.’
‘Where did you leave it?’
‘It was always under a cushion in the car but sometimes he changed the place where the car was to be parked; it was always a place in Carnthorpe though—one of the car parks.’
‘Did you watch to see who came to the car?’
‘No, dear; someone follows me to make sure I leave the car park. There’s a gang of them.’
‘Is that what he told you?’
‘Yes. Don’t you believe that?’
‘How does he talk?’
‘A London accent, I’d say: rather common; not like anyone round here.’
Chapter Twelve
On her way up Sandale’s lane she met a car coming down and pulled into a passing place. The other car stopped and George Harper wound down his window. He looked as if he hadn’t slept for several nights and his eyes were shocked. His mouth worked before he could speak but when he did, he sounded almost apathetic.
‘I need your help. Caroline’s been snatched and they want money. I suggested you, and they’ve agreed to it.’
‘You suggested me for what?’
‘To hand over the money.’
Her eyebrows rose a fraction. ‘Now? In broad daylight?’
‘It’ll be tonight, I expect. We must go back in case the phone rings.’
She said steadily: ‘You seem remarkably cool for a man whose daughter has been kidnapped.’
He nodded once. ‘I’ve known since yesterday lunch-time; the call came through at one o’clock, not long after you left me.’
A red Aston Martin slid to a halt behind Harper’s Cortina and Cole put his head out of the window, looking very dashing in a peaked leather cap.
‘We meet again, Miss Pink! Will we see you this evening?’ He was arch.
‘I’m not sure of my commitments, Mr Cole. We’ll let you pass.’
‘He’s going to Storms,’ she told Harper, ‘let him through. I’ll go on to your place.’
At Burblethwaite Harper drew in behind her and they walked up the path to the front door which he unlocked. There was no fire in the living room, and the remnants of a meal, including a tin which had contained baked beans, and a milk bottle were on the table. The place was cold and squalid. They didn’t sit down.
He said: ‘It’s Jackson Wren.’
‘How do you know?’
‘He’s missing, and you know it. I saw you over there with Rumney this morning. He must have gone with her and he’s holding her somewhere.’
‘Have you any idea where the telephone call came from?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve had two: a second one this morning asking for someone to drop the money; that’s when I suggested you. Yesterday I thought the call came from a kiosk on a road or from a room on a busy street; there was heavy traffic in the background.’
‘You don’t normally have windows open in winter time. Did he have an accent?’
‘Not a northern one, just ordinary.’
‘Wren’s got a Cumbrian accent.’
‘There’s more than one in it. Forget that now; I don’t care who it is. We’ve got to get Caroline back safe. I don’t care, I told Wren that—or whoever he is, I said I wouldn’t go to the police, I wouldn’t do anything; just give me Caroline back, I said—’ He was starting to shrill.
Miss Pink interposed firmly. ‘How much are they asking?’
He gulped. ‘Fifty thousand.’
‘You can’t raise that!’
‘I’ve got it.’ He went to the bedroom and, returning with a suitcase, opened it. It was crammed with bank notes and Miss Pink had never seen so much money in her life.
‘You’ve had that in the cottage all along?’
‘Yes, that’s why I had the new locks put on. We haven’t got much time left; he said he’d ring about one o’clock. Will you do it?’
‘The police—’
‘No, no, no! They’ll kill her if I get outside help. I’ve promised them: that’s a condition. No police, no one at all, except you.’
‘Did he suggest me?’
‘No, he said someone. I suggested you. I thought you’d help me.’ He was pleading. ‘Will you?’
‘If it’s true,’ she said slowly, ‘if she’s really been kidnapped, then I’ll do it.’
‘Thank God.’
She picked up a bundle of notes. Used fivers. She held one to the light; there was the watermark and the plastic strip.
‘Oh, it’s real,’ he said sardonically.
‘Where is it to be handed over?’
‘He’ll tell me in this next phone message.’
She sat down. ‘Was it you who broke into Coneygarth?’
‘Yes. Last night.’
‘Did you find anything?’
‘Nothing. No trace of her. And nothing to show where he’d gone. Did you find anything?’
‘No.’
He sat down facing her and for some moments they were silent, then she asked: ‘How was it the money wasn’t stolen on Friday night?’
He shot a quick glance at her. ‘It was well hidden.’
‘That’s what they were after,’ she mused. ‘It’s not your money, is it, Mr Harper?’
‘It’s winnings on the horses; I’m a professional punter. I’ve been lucky lately but you know how it is on race tracks: I ran foul of someone and I had to lie low for a while.’
‘Could it not be that person who’s got Caroline, not Wren after all?’
‘Does it make any difference?’ He was listless. It occurred to her that he wouldn’t have slept last night. ‘I don’t care who’s got her as long as I get her back safe.’
‘It was one o’clock when you had the phone call yesterday, and she left here after breakfast. What time would that be?’
‘About nine.’
‘How far could she have travelled in four hours?’ She calculated. ‘Half an hour to Penrith, then she could have done roughly two hundred and fifty miles on the motorway. Surely she’d be almost in London by one o’clock?’
‘I’m no good at distances,’ he admitted miserably.
‘That’s assuming doing seventy all the way,’ she murmured. ‘Suppose she had to go more slowly? Two hundred miles would bring her level with Northampton.’
‘Who knew she was coming? If Wren was with her, it’s different, see? If she was alone no one would know when she left here; she didn’t know herself what time she was going to leave. Why, on Friday night she arranged to climb with Wren. No, I reckon he left the dale in front of her and stopped her somewhere on the road.’
‘Then his van must still be in the area; they’d hardly go away in two vehicles. I suppose she’d go willingly in the first place?’ She was really asking the question of herself.
‘What happened at first—’
The telephone rang and he leaped up. She followed and was beside him when he lifted the receiver.
‘Harper,’ he said unsteadily. He tilted the instrument towards her.
‘What does she say?’ A cold neutral voice came over the wire: just a voice.
‘She’ll do it.’
‘I’ll ring you tonight at eight. Repeat that.’
‘You’ll ring at eight—tonight at eight. Let me speak to Caroline—please will you put Caroline on? Let me talk to her.’ He turned to Miss Pink, his hand clutching the receiver. ‘He’s rung off.’
It was true then; no one could simulate such suffering as showed in his eyes. She touched his arm and guided him to a chair, then started to look for tea things.
‘Have you any brandy in the cottage?’
‘I don’t want a drink.’ There was a pause. ‘Have one yourself,’ he added absent-mindedly. He said nothing else until she’d made the tea and brought him a cup, then he asked hopelessly: ‘Make anything of it?’
‘The call? No. Not a northerner, anyway. A trace of London, I’d say. I couldn’t hear anything in the background at all.’
He drank his tea. ‘The Rumneys will be wondering where you’ve got to.’
‘Won’t you come over with me?’
‘How could I?’
He was right. One look at his face and they’d know something dreadful had overtaken him.
‘And you . . . I can’t tell Rumney?’
‘Look, my girl’s life is at stake!’
*
The Rumneys were in the kitchen, Zeke reading the Observer, his womenfolk putting the last touches to Sunday lunch. Apparently she hadn’t been seen at Burblethwaite and they attributed her present air of constraint to Sarah Noble’s troubles. Rumney followed her to the living room.
‘Was it you who wondered why no anonymous letters had been found?’ she asked. ‘I think I know why. Sarah put hers in her handbag. If Peta did that as well, then I’d make a guess that they were both retrieved by the sender, and I think I see how he did it. It’s simple really. The door at High Hollins isn’t kept locked, nor the one at the hotel, of course. So far as the Nobles’ place is concerned, he had only to hide in the woods, as he did at the doctor’s house before he broke into the surgery. The big windows make those places like glasshouses. He’d nip into Sarah’s drawing room when she went to the kitchen or the lavatory. And then Wren frequented the hotel.’
‘Wren? He wrote the letters?’
‘Who else? Who is left? There’s Quentin Bright and his wife—but you vouch for them.’ She paused and he didn’t rise to the bait. ‘Then there’s Denis Noble. Why should he blackmail his wife and his mistresses? He could get all the money he wanted legitimately from Sarah, far more than the hundred pounds she’s paid to the blackmailer since September. As for Mossop, Sarah and Lucy, they are all victims. That leaves you and your family, and Wren. And the Brights.’
‘And Harper.’
‘Oh no, not Harper!’ He was surprised at her assurance. ‘He’s got no drive,’ she added lamely, ‘his only passion is for his daughter, besides—’ now she was on firmer ground, ‘—he just didn’t have the local knowledge.’
At this point they were interrupted by Arabella to say that lunch was ready. During the meal conversation was general but Miss Pink caught a speculative look in Rumney’s eye and knew that he would want to spend the afternoon in discussion. Imagining his proximity in that small warm office she panicked; she felt it would be impossible to remain silent about Caroline’s disappearance all afternoon. Was there nothing she could do at least until milking time? If she shut herself in her room they would come inquiring to see if she were unwell. Almost aggressively she announced that it was essential she get some fresh air; she would go for a walk.
After lunch Rumney stood in the porch with her and sniffed the wind. She took a torch from her rucksack and put it in the pouch pocket of her cagoule.
‘You’re going to the caves?’ he asked disapprovingly.
‘What caves? I’m going up to Dalehead to look at the barn. It’s cruck-framed, isn’t it?’
‘That’s so. I thought you were going to Shivery Knott; it has a cave system, rather like the Rat Hole in Borrowdale.’
‘It would be better underground than outside on a day like this,’ she muttered, feeling overwhelmed by water and the noise it made, and the need to get away from him before she blurted out the whole story. ‘But I’ll have a brisk walk and be back for tea.’
White water was everywhere. A beck rushed down the outrake and the erstwhile pasture on the river bank was swamp. The track wound between long whalebacks of moraines where rain swept across their gravelly slopes with a sound like sleet. Far above, cloud drifted across the face of High Cat Crag.
A roof gleamed on the other side of the river: the barn which was all that was left of the former farmstead of Dalehead. The house was in ruins: two gable ends above a tumble of slates and rotted timbers.
The bridge was humped, and only the hump kept it clear of the water. Upstream of it the path climbed in zig-zags to Sheepbone Moss and Rannerdale. Water was pouring off the plateau and down the headwall in long white cascades and the noise was awe-inspiring.
She trudged across the bridge and splashed towards the barn. It was still in good condition, but no doors hung in the wide entrance on the stream side. She would have expected to find stray sheep sheltering but the structure appeared empty. The floor was composed of droppings, muddy towards the entrance, and in the mud the marks of gumboots going in but not emerging.
She stopped and stared past the great arched crucks to the farthest recesses. In places daylight showed where a slate had slipped but the afternoon was too gloomy for the holes to come anywhere near exposing the interior. Then something moved and there was a click of metal, audible because so alien in this place.
Her hand went to her pocket and found the torch. She brought it out, feeling her hand catch on the wet plastic, taking a last-ditch comfort in the weight of the heavy rubber cylinder. She pressed the knob.
A hooded figure in waterproofs stood against the end wall, its hand in its own pouch pocket and, at its feet, a bundle of what looked like clothing.
She asked coldly, ‘Am I disturbing you?’
‘Why, it’s Miss Pink!’ It was Daniel Cole. He stepped towards her exclaiming happily: ‘What a romantic place to meet you again! What are you doing here?’
‘Stretching my legs.’ She wasn’t impressed. She had been frightened, had summoned all her reserves to cope with the fear, and now must endure a fulsome anti-climax. ‘I didn’t know you were a mountaineer, Mr Cole. What’s that on the ground?’
‘Some old rags. Am I really a mountaineer because I got this far? That’s nice; I’ll dine out on that for weeks in Hampstead.’ His voice changed, became businesslike. ‘I want this barn; I can’t say its exterior is up to much, but I must have pictures of these cruck blades. How old is the place?’
She passed him and went to the end of the building, playing her torch on the ground. Someone—hikers probably—had brought in flat stones for seats and draped them with a disgusting overcoat which might have been discarded by a tramp. She wandered round the interior; there was nothing but the trampled floor of sheep droppings, the odd and very old cigarette packet, a rusty tin or two.
‘How old?’ she repeated, returning to him in the doorway. ‘Rumney will tell you exactly; cruck frames were used until quite late, but these look so good that they could be two or three centuries old. Have you not seen a cruck barn before?’
‘No, that’s why I came up here; Mossop said that there were whole tree trunks in this barn. Isn’t that bridge exquisite?’ He pranced out of the doorway, extracting a very expensive camera from his pouch. He took several photographs from different angles and came back. ‘No good, of course; the lens will be covered with water, but one can’t resist it.’
They splashed down the track: the opposite one from that by which she’d come up the dale. Cole was wearing olive waterproofs the drabness of which accounted for her not seeing him ahead on the other side of the river. Now, with the rain at their backs, they could talk more or less comfortably.
‘But what are you doing?’ he persisted, the dark eyes warm and intent through the water that streamed down his face.
‘I’m taking exercise. In London people walk on commons; it’s tamer there but done for the same motive.’
‘I frightened you in the barn.’
‘No.’ She stopped and regarded him sternly. ‘I frightened you.’
‘Oh, you did indeed! This is a totally strange world to me; it would be weird enough without this awful rain, but with all the water and the noise and the gloom, and the complete absence of people, my nerves are at the end of their
tether. And as if it wasn’t horrifying to think that I’d stumbled on another body, you walk in on me with no clue as to your sex or intentions, dear lady, until you spoke. . . . You appear in the doorway: a hooded figure full of menace, and you stare straight at me as if you can see in the dark and pull out a gun.’
‘I didn’t—’
‘At a distance, dear, that remarkably massive torch looked just like a pistol, even—with all that black rubber—like a silenced pistol, or are silencers made of rubber only on children’s toys? I’ve seen them somewhere.’
‘Why did you say another body?’
His eyes widened and he wiped water from his lashes. ‘Mossop’s wife being the first, of course. Or don’t we talk about that in Sandale?’
Miss Pink asked carefully, although in the circumstances, and splashing through bog, little could be deduced from a tone, all concentration being on the footing: ‘Has he taken you into his confidence?’
‘Impossible to say,’ he was objectively cheerful, ‘not knowing the extent of his knowledge.’
‘As a journalist you must be interested in the crime.’
He made a detour round a stretch of water-logged peat. ‘Of course I am!’ He said it as if he were confessing a misdemeanour. ‘I might even be able to sell a story on it: spinoff from the main assignment.’
‘Have you any theories?’
‘Concerning the identity of the killer? None. I don’t know anyone here, you see. But do you think there’s a connection between the different crimes?’ He regarded her earnestly. Ahead of them loomed Burblethwaite’s barn and beyond it there was a light in Harper’s living room.
‘Which crime?’ she asked.
‘Extortion, blackmail—whatever you like to call it—and the murder.’
They were passing a clump of ancient yews and she stepped aside to halt under the matted branches. He came round and faced her.
‘A connection between her being blackmailed and her death,’ she said. He waited expectantly. ‘How did you know she was being blackmailed, Mr Cole?’
His expression didn’t change. ‘Mossop told me.’
‘How did he know?’ She watched a flicker in the deep eyes shape itself into bewilderment.
‘You mean,’ he said slowly, ‘you knew she was being blackmailed but he didn’t?’ He had changed; he was still curious and alert but now she could feel a determination in him. There was no more frippery. Still holding her eye, he said: ‘She was stealing from the tills and from his wallet. He didn’t tell you that.’ It was a statement, not a question.