Dead and Gone

by Tina Glasneck

  Jones pointed to the sergeant and asked the obvious question.

  Jean-Luc smiled with pride. “We have a mobile communications system that will give us access to our internet facility in Brest via satellite, and through it, the national police database. Sergeant Brunö is my best communications officer, but it will take a few minutes to make it operational. In the meantime we will assist my men with the search, yes?”

  Jones took another sip of water, rinsed his mouth, and spat into the unfortunate rosebush. He’d recovered a little but couldn’t ignore the rumbling in his stomach.

  The sun dipped closer to the western hills and the resulting shadows provided a welcome respite from the cloying heat. Jones caught the ripe smell exuding from his armpits and considered dragging his jacket on again. What wouldn’t he do for a long hot bath, or at the very least, a shower. He pumped his shirtfront but the resulting air movement acted only to push his body odour into his nostrils. He stopped.

  To take his mind off personal hygiene, Jones headed towards the campervan in the barn. Jean-Luc followed in close attendance.

  “Would you mind answering a few questions for me?” Jones asked.

  “Bien sûr. Please continue.”

  “What’s the quickest way to get from here to England?”

  The Frenchman pursed his lips. “You want to return home, perhaps?”

  “Not at all, I’m wondering about Flynn’s accomplice, the elusive green-eyed man. Assuming he wanted to return to the UK, what are his options?”

  “From here, he could drive to Roscoff and take the ferry-boat to Plymouth, or go further east along the coast road and take the St Malo, or Caen routes to Portsmouth. The alternative to a long drive through to the ports in Normandy would be to fly from Brest, Dinard, or Rennes Airports. Brest is the closest. There are a number of direct flights to the United Kingdom, but only one per day to Birmingham. Brest has a small airport. Also, flights from Dinard go to London-Stanstead, East Midlands, and Scotland.”

  The warning mechanism in Jones’ brain, which had been mercifully silent for an hour, decided it was time to wake and jab him in the back of the eye. “Are you able to check on the progress of your search for Flynn’s second vehicle?”

  Jean-Luc paused for a moment. “I have alerted all the gendarmeries along the most obvious escape routes. As soon as the communications system is operational, I will check on the progress of the vehicle licence authority.”

  “You’ll be able to do that from here?”

  Jean-Luc stood tall. “David, when Sergeant Brunö initialises the satellite system we will be able to contact the whole world from this courtyard.”

  Jones smiled. The wonders of the blessed IT.

  Despite the lowering of the sun, the debilitating heat showed an aging, fatigued Jones no mercy. It boiled his weary brain and with the cottage out of bounds, only the barn and a couple of outbuildings promised deeper shade. There were the woods of course, but Jean-Luc’s men took care of that search.

  Jones wanted to see the camper. He’d followed it hundreds of miles but had yet to lay eyes on the blessed thing. Flynn used it to transport Hollie, and perhaps others, and for that reason, he suggested they search the area near the campervan first.

  He and Jean-Luc turned the corner at the side of the house, passed the water butt and woodpile, and approached the big open-sided barn. It ran east-to-west at ninety degrees to the cottage and parallel with the stream.

  The cool, fresh smell of the water proved too much of an enticement. Jones excused himself and made a quick detour. He strode right up to the flat banks and stared into the fast-running water. Shards of sunlight shot through the trees and diffracted on the surface to form starburst flashes that sparkled and danced in the shade of the trees. Jones had rarely seen running water so clear and never so inviting. So beautiful.

  Must be the fatigue. Eyes playing tricks.

  Jones licked his lips with a powder-dry tongue and dropped to his knees. He dipped Jean-Luc’s handkerchief into the water, wrung it out, and pressed the cool, damp cloth to his face. He held it there and breathed in the moist air. The freshness revived him better than a shot of adrenaline. He would never underestimate the recuperative power of cleanliness.

  Jones lifted his face to the sky and took another breath—in through the nose, out through the mouth.

  Wonderful.

  He dipped the hankie again and dabbed the back of his neck. The cool air on his face made him feel, well, if not like a new man, then a very much improved one.

  Jones struggled to his feet and turned to face the barn once more. “Sorry, Jean-Luc. Couldn’t resist. Not used to such clear water where I come from.”

  “Brittany is beautiful. It is a pity we have this to contend with.” Jean-Luc waved a hand towards the cottage.

  The huge Dutch barn, little more than a slate-tiled A-frame roof on stilts, had a fifteen-by-ten metre footprint. At some stage in the recent past, someone had fitted a wooden tool-shed the size of a single garage into the far gable end. The big white campervan was the only other thing underneath the well-maintained roof.

  “It was a clever thing to use the parking alarm on the camping-car as a distraction. I applaud your ingenuity.”

  “Thanks.” Jones gave him a tired smile. “Worked well enough.”

  As they closed on the barn, the camper’s strange orientation caught Jones’ eye. It sat skew-whiff on the wrong side of the entrance. The fresh tyre marks showed that the driver chose a difficult entry route. He had chosen a line with little room for manoeuvre between the woods, the edge of the cottage, and the banks of the stream.

  Why?

  It would have taken quite a bit of skill to reverse the camper into the hangar, yet the big vehicle had been edged to one side and didn’t line up flush with the six-inch square oak roof supports, or the barn opening. Jones raked his fingers through his hair. Why had Flynn parked the camper awry? Was Jones being his usual hyper-pernickety self again? It probably didn’t mean anything.

  The camper stood on a slab of grey concrete, caked in mud and carpeted with piles of blown leaves, some of which were skeletal and had been ground into the dirt.

  Fresh tyre tracks told him that a small car once occupied the space on the far side of the camper, but the tracks were far enough away not to have affected the camper’s parking position. He drained the last of his water. The liquid gurgled in his stomach and made almost as much noise as the creek.

  Jones studied the ground again and something else caught his attention. Numerous scuffed footprints trailed in front of the vehicle. They started at the driver’s door, tracked to the passenger’s door and back again, and then moved towards the cottage. He made out two sets of shoe-prints, one with ribbed soles, the other flat. The ribbed ones matched Flynn’s training shoes. The others had to have come from Green-eyes. A third set of prints, barefoot, belonged to Hollie. Scratches and ridges in the dirt showed she put up a fight when they dragged her from the cab. Only two tracks lead away, and the ridged ones were slightly deeper than before. Flynn must have carried Hollie to the cottage.

  Bloody animals.

  A fourth set of prints, fresher than the others, and slightly more distinct, appeared from the back of the van. The clear, crisp tread of Alex’s walking boots, led to the driver’s door and from there, headed to the courtyard. Her tracks stayed well clear of the others. The trail showed a clear chronological order of events.

  Jones almost missed them, but other impressions didn’t make sense. Shallow holes, the diameter of a five-penny coin, dotted the tracks at irregular intervals. He had no idea what had made them, or whether they were important, but it annoyed him not to be able to complete the picture. What the heck were they? His fatigue-muddled brain didn’t provide him with the answer.

  Stop worrying away at it. Let it percolate. It’ll come.

  “Jean-Luc, could one of your men take photos of these tracks? There’s no telling what sort of a mess the helicopter will make of them.”
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  If the damn thing ever arrives.

  While Jean-Luc issued the instructions, Jones turned his attention to the structure of the barn. It didn’t take long for something else to bother him.

  “Tell me, Jean-Luc, do these open buildings always have concrete floors?” He pointed to the ground beneath the camper.

  “Oui, David. Today all such buildings are built with cement floors.”

  “But the weathering of the oak struts and the jointing of the cross braces attaching the roof beams to the legs suggests the barn is old. Fifty to a hundred years, maybe more. Would they have poured concrete in the 1960s or earlier?”

  “You understand construction?”

  Jones hesitated. He was lost and vulnerable, tired and dirty, but relieved too. He didn’t like to talk about his background, but after the support he’d received from Jean-Luc, the friendship, he felt the need to open up to someone. Perhaps a foreigner would be the ideal confident; they’d hardly be bumping in to each other very often. “One of my foster fathers was a builder. Taught me a few things,” he replied.

  “Ah, interesting. I am afraid I know little about practical matters. My wife handles all the doing-it-yourself chores. I leave painting to artists like Monet and Matisse, you understand?” The moustache twitched again and stretched even thinner. It seemed to have the job of emoting, or punctuating, Jean-Luc’s words. Jones appreciated the man’s self-deprecation. The colonel appeared to be a man who knew his limitations and didn’t try to bluster.

  “Hate DIY, eh? I bet you’ll get on well with my sergeant,” Jones said, but shook his head when Jean-Luc pursed his lips in confusion.

  “But to answer your question, David, long ago it would have been unusual to put concrete floors in this part of the country. Cement is très cher, expensive, and a place this old would normally have boue, mud floors? They are prepared with calcaire, powder of lime. Neighbours and friends come around to compact the ground. It is where the origin of our Breton dancing comes from. A great party is made of the day. But recently, concrete floors have become more affordable.” He sighed. “The advancement of the modern age. I regret its arrival sometimes. But with the new times comes technology, no? A useful aid to police work as I’m sure you will agree.”

  Jones managed a grudging nod. “In that case, this floor is a recent addition. Why did Ellis Flynn or his father go the expense of laying concrete?”

  Given that he’d used a whole bunch of alcohol swabs to clean his hands, Jones hated the idea, but dropped to all fours to look under the camper. What he saw confirmed his suspicions.

  Damn it!

  He scrambled to his feet and steadied himself against another dizzy spell. “Jean-Luc, can you drive one of these big things without destroying any forensic evidence?”

  The Frenchman waggled his head. “But of course,” he said. “I have a camping-car. Not as big as this one but it will not be a problem and I will be careful.”

  Jones took the keys he’d used to release Hollie from the chains and lobbed them to Jean-Luc who snatched them out of the air left handed. “What did you see?”

  “Something that has no right to be there. If you move the camper, I’ll show you. But I don’t think we’re going to like it.”

  Jean-Luc shot him a questioning look but pulled on a fresh pair of latex gloves and climbed into the cab. A few seconds later, the camper juddered as Jean-Luc struggled to find the biting point of the clutch, and then inched out of the barn.

  As soon as the vehicle cleared the building, Jones scooted around the side. He stared at the open space and sighed. The defence mechanism in his head fired off a two-claxon alarm.

  “Jean-Luc,” he yelled. “I’ve a horrible feeling things just become a whole lot worse.”

  16

  Friday afternoon - Observations

  Time since Flynn’s death: five hours, thirty minutes

  Jean-Luc rounded the side of the campervan, and approached Jones. Like Alex before him, he avoided the footprints. “What is it? What do you see?” he asked.

  Jones scuffed at the concrete to clear the build-up of mud and dead leaves from the newly exposed floor. His boot hit a raised lip and stopped. “This shouldn’t be here.”

  “What?”

  “None of this is normal.” He swept his arm at the floor of the open bay. “Flynn positioned the campervan to avoid driving over this area, but there’s too much dirt to see the surface.” He pointed to the tool-shed. “There might be yard-broom in there.”

  “A yard-broom?”

  Jones mimed brushing the floor and Jean-Luc raised a finger. “Ah, un balai.”

  Jean-Luc strode to the wooden hut, and without breaking stride, turned sideways and snapped out a leg. The kick demolished the z-framed door.

  “Impressive, Jean-Luc. Breton martial arts?”

  The tall gendarme shrugged and ducked into the hut. He reappeared a moment later with a stiff-bristled broom and a crowbar. “This will be useful I think.” He started to pass the broom to Jones, but hesitated. “But will you not disturb the evidence, David?”

  “Probably, but what if there are other girls down there? Do you really want to wait for the forensics team?”

  Jean-Luc gave Jones the broom and he set to work clearing a six-metre square patch. Two dozen hearty sweeps had Jones breathing heavily and sweating hard. Leaves and dirt billowed aside exposing two rectangular aluminium sheets lying flat, set into a thin flat-bar frame.

  “This metal was covered for a long time, I think.” Jean-Luc pointed at the piles of rubbish either side of the frame.

  “Unless Flynn spread this stuff as camouflage.”

  Grey, and with a diamond embossed pattern, the metal plates looked fairly new. Three heavy steel hinges, rust-free and riveted in place, attached each panel to the frame. A large clasp and a padlock secured the two panels together.

  “Not much pitting or tarnishing on the aluminium. And this padlock is new.” Jones looked at Jean-Luc. “I don’t like the look of this one little bit.”

  Heavy furrows etched into Jean-Luc’s forehead and the moustache concertinaed into a crooked arch. “D’accord. I think we need to be careful here, mon ami. There is no telling what we will find down there.”

  Bile returned to Jones’ throat.

  Jean-Luc spoke into his personal radio and a couple of moments later one of his men arrived carrying a camcorder. Jean-Luc spoke a few terse words and pointed to the hatch.

  The camera operator pressed a button on the device and a halogen light illuminated the area at his feet. The man signalled his readiness. Jean-Luc placed the forked end of the crowbar into the clasp of the padlock and leaned on the handle. The sinews on his neck bulged and he grunted. For a moment, nothing happened. Jones took a pace forward, and was about to add his weight, when the lock snapped apart. A sonorous metal ding echoed in a hollow space below the aluminium sheets. Jean-Luc shifted his balance to avoid toppling, and allowed the crowbar to drop from his hands. It landed on the aluminium with another loud clang.

  Jones reached for the shattered clasp and tried to raise one of the door flaps. It didn’t budge. “Lend a hand here, mate. This thing’s heavy.”

  While Jones tugged on the handle, Jean-Luc levered at the join with the crowbar. Again, it took more force than Jones expected, but after another metallic snap, the hatch rose silently on well-oiled hinges. Jones released his hold on the panel and it continued to rise.

  “There must be a spring or a weight below counterbalancing the door to make it rise.”

  When the metal flap reached vertical, it stopped with a soft click. Jones gave the door a shake and nodded in satisfaction. “Something’s holding it in place.”

  “A safety catch?” Jean-Luc offered.

  Jones nodded. “What the hell do we have down there?”

  Jean-Luc shook his head. “We must investigate.”

  A metal bar, attached by two bolts to the underside of the aluminium plate hung down, bent and broken. It matched a correspon
ding piece of steel protruding from a metal housing below.

  “Hell,” said Jones, “will you look at that.”

  “What is it?”

  “I’ve seen these before. It’s a trapdoor opening mechanism.” He scanned the barn. “Somewhere around here, above ground, we should find a switch to open the doors automatically.”

  “There is an electrical panel inside the cabanon. But I would like some backup before we search the place, agreed? What if somebody is still down there?

  “Doubt it. Somebody padlocked it from the outside. There could be another entrance, I suppose, but …”

  Jones considered the possibility. What if Green-eyes didn’t escape in a car at all? Could he be hiding down there, having accessed it through another entrance? A young gendarme arrived at the jog and stood next to Jones, weapon drawn and index finger resting along the trigger-guard.

  Jean-Luc entered the tool-shed, and snapped a loud switch. Two seconds later, a diesel generator somewhere in the background coughed twice, and fired up. Lights, suspended from the barn roof flickered, cut out, and then bloomed into brilliant life.

  A moment later, the second aluminium door rose to the accompanying hum of an electric motor. Once it reached vertical, it too locked in place. Both doors stood open but hardly inviting. Cool, stale air and the pungent smell of damp and rot rose from the depths. Jones sniffled. There was another smell too. Bleach?

  Concrete steps, one and a half metres wide, tumbled into the black.

  The camera operator, silent until this point, whispered, “Putain!” The guard shuffled his feet, preparing for action.

  Jones’ heart rate leaped and the pulse boomed in his ears. The horrors of the cellar had been left more-or-less in plain view and little had been done to clean the congealed matter in the freezer. Yet Flynn and Green-eyes spent a hell of a lot of effort camouflaging this opening. What had they hidden down there? Jones and Jean-Luc stood over the opening, looking down.