by Eva Hudson
“Never been in there. It doesn’t do for members of Security Forces to fraternize with servicemen. Or rather, if any of us showed up, the place would clear in two seconds flat.” He smiled at her. Ingrid could have sworn she saw the hint of a twinkle in his eye.
Was Jack Gurley starting to enjoy this mission?
They returned to the jeep and Gurley’s sergeant drove them to a large parking lot behind Gurley’s quarters. Gurley’s car was a brand new maroon Oldsmobile. Ingrid would have guessed he’d had it especially imported if she hadn’t seen a few of them on the streets of London. She couldn’t understand the appeal of something so solid and cumbersome. Until she climbed inside. It was like stepping into an air conditioned ranch house. She sank into the gray and maroon upholstery of the passenger seat and did her best to keep her eyes open.
The eight mile drive into the village took no time at all. Gurley parked on the street rather than using the parking lot of the Hare and Hounds. How he thought the Oldsmobile was any less conspicuous than a regular US Air Force issue jeep, Ingrid hadn’t been able to work out during the ride over. On the street or in the parking lot, the car positively glowed with its American credentials. They might as well have made an announcement on a bullhorn when they drove into the center of the village.
“You ready for this?” Gurley asked as he put on the handbrake.
Why was he even asking her that? She wondered if maybe she had fallen asleep at some point during the trip from the base—after all, she’d only managed a couple hours’ sleep the night before. “Me? Ready for anything. Always.”
“That your personal motto?”
Ingrid smiled. She hadn’t thought about it that way before, but maybe it was. Maybe she should get some bumper stickers printed.
When they got inside the Hare and Hounds they found a young bearded man serving drinks. The place was pretty empty—but then it was only eleven-thirty a.m. Ingrid scanned the room. It was decorated in a traditional English country style, horse brasses and leather tack hung from the dark, wooden beams and silver-colored tankards lined high ledges around the walls. She thought it was trying a little too hard to look authentic and wondered if maybe the pub had opened just a few years ago.
“We’re looking for your boss, Yvonne Sherwood?” Gurley said.
The man gave him a wry smile. “She’s not my boss.” He came from behind the bar and hollered into the adjoining room. “Mum! There’s some tall bloke asking for you.”
“Is he dark and handsome too?” came the muffled reply.
“Well, he’s not my type—you’ll have to judge for yourself.”
Gurley shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He cleared his throat.
The barman returned to the bar. “She’ll be with you in a minute. Can I get you a drink?” He glanced at Ingrid and smiled broadly at her, as if he hadn’t noticed her before. He leaned his elbows on the bar and rested his chin on a fist. “Now my day just got a whole lot better. What can I get you?”
“Nothing, we’re fine, thank you,” Gurley said.
A forty-something petite woman with a nice smile and a pink flush to her cheeks appeared at the bar, drying her hands on a dish towel. “You are tall.” She looked up into Gurley’s face. “And handsome enough, I suppose.” She smiled more broadly. “What can I do for you?” She laid her bony hands flat on the bar.
Ingrid stepped forward, her badge already in her hand. “Good morning, ma’am. I’m Agent Skyberg from the US embassy and this is Major Jack Gurley—he works in Security Forces at RAF Freckenham. We’d like to speak to you about Kyle Foster.”
The nice smile disappeared so quickly it was as if it had been slapped off the woman’s face.
“Why? Has something happened?”
“You know the police are looking for him?”
“Yes, of course I do. I mean has anything new happened. Is he all right?”
“Is who all right, ma’am?”
The two old men drinking nearby had stopped their conversation and shuffled a little closer.
The woman hesitated. “Well, Tommy, of course. Do you have news about Tommy?”
Ingrid stepped right up to the bar and rested her hands very close to Sherwood’s. “Is there some place a little more private we can speak?”
A flash of panic flitted across the woman’s face. “Something has happened, hasn’t it?” She lifted a hand to her mouth. “Oh my God!”
Sherwood’s son supported her arm and led her into the other main room of the pub—a dining area. He indicated to Ingrid and Gurley to follow. Gurley glanced at Ingrid. Ingrid shrugged back at him. The woman’s response had seemed a little extreme, in the circumstances. They hadn’t actually explained what it was about Foster they wanted to discuss. She was leaping to her own negative conclusions. Ingrid wondered if that meant the woman had a guilty conscience.
Once they were settled at a corner table, well away from any curious customers, Ingrid started over. “We’d like to speak to you about Kyle Foster because we believe he may try to contact you.”
The woman said nothing. Her gaze was focused in the middle distance.
“Has he made contact with you since yesterday morning?”
Yvonne Sherwood’s eyes opened wide, her lips parted slightly. After a beat she seemed to recover. “Why would he contact me?”
“We have reason to believe you know First Lieutenant Foster quite well,” Ingrid said, not wanting to reveal the details of Glen Cooper’s sighting just yet.
“Who told you that?”
“Do you know him?”
“He comes in for a drink now and then. But that’s true for a lot of men from the base. Doesn’t mean I know them all.” She started to scratch her forearm as if something was irritating her skin.
“We believe he may try to return to the area.”
“Surely he knows this is the worst place he could come.”
“Can you explain what you mean by that?”
“If he doesn’t want to get caught, why would he come back here?”
“Perhaps he wants to give himself up.”
Sherwood shook her head. “Why would he?”
“But surely that would be better for Kyle, better for Tommy. Better for everyone. Don’t you want to see him safely in custody?” Ingrid did her best to keep her expression as neutral as possible. She didn’t want to influence the woman’s response.
The bar manager swallowed. “Of course. We all want to make sure Tommy’s safe. But I was just trying to put myself in Kyle’s position.”
Gurley leaned back in his chair. His gaze hadn’t left the woman’s face.
“Can you think why he might come back here?” Ingrid continued.
“I can’t imagine, that seems like a stupid thing to do. Are you sure you’ve got your facts straight? Who told you he was going to come back?”
“We can’t share that information with you, I’m afraid, ma’am.” Ingrid leaned in a little closer. “How well do you know Kyle Foster?”
Sherwood stopped scratching her arm. Her nails had left long red marks. “I told you. I don’t really know him at all. He comes in here every Saturday with some of the other dads from football. They have a couple of drinks. Maybe play some pool. The kids amuse themselves outside—we have a climbing frame and swings in the garden. My son plays in the team too.”
Ingrid glanced over her shoulder toward the bar in the other room.
“Not Marcus! My youngest, Luke.”
“So does your husband take Luke to the match every week? Maybe he knows Kyle a little better? Maybe we should speak to him.”
“I don’t have a husband.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“No need to be sorry—he’s not dead or anything. A dead weight, maybe. That’s why I got rid of him. Useless lazy sod.” Her nostrils flared slightly. “I take Luke to football, Marcus looks after everything here.”
“Did you ever get a sense from Foster or Tommy that there might have been problems at home? Anyt
hing that might have indicated a recent change in Kyle Foster’s state of mind?”
“No, I’m sure everything at home was fine. There’s nothing wrong with Kyle Foster’s mind.” She answered emphatically, without a moment’s hesitation.
Ingrid wondered how Sherwood could be so sure if she hardly knew Foster. She glanced at Gurley.
“I know what they keep saying on the news about all that post traumatic whatnot, making a big thing of it,” Sherwood said, unprompted. “I heard one of the other dads talk to Kyle about it once. There’d been documentary on the television about PTSD. How it was under-diagnosed in the army. Kyle said he’d seen a few of his Air Force buddies really get it bad.” While she was talking about Foster the expression on her face had softened. It was obvious to Ingrid that she liked the guy.
“Kyle Foster was seen in the village early this morning.” Gurley blurted, no doubt getting impatient with the way Ingrid’s questioning was going. “There’s no point in protecting him, it’ll only make things worse. Did he contact you?”
What the hell did he think he was doing?
“I’ve already told you that he hasn’t!”
Ingrid glared at Gurley.
Sherwood stood up. “I think I’ve answered enough of your questions. I’d like you to leave now.”
Reluctantly, Ingrid rose to her feet. She held out a business card to Sherwood, who folded her arms and looked away. Ingrid slipped it onto the table instead. “If he should contact you, it really would be in his best interests if you told us about it. Or the police.”
They left the bar and Ingrid strode back to the car. For once, Gurley ambled. Then he turned around and stared at the doorway of the pub, where Yvonne Sherwood and her son were standing, defiant expressions on their faces. He walked the remaining few steps backwards, keeping his gaze fixed on them.
“Thanks for your input,” Ingrid said, using all her will power not to raise her voice. “I think we really made some progress with her.”
“You know as well as I do she’s lying. You saw how uncomfortable she got. Foster could be holed up in her basement right now for all we know.”
Ingrid watched Sherwood and her son turn away from the door. There was definitely something about the woman’s demeanor that didn’t feel right. She seemed too eager to come to Foster’s defense. “OK—let’s say you’re right. Let’s say she has heard from Foster.”
“You’re actually agreeing with me?”
“If you are right, there’s only one option open to us.”
“I can have a half dozen men here in under fifteen minutes.”
“That’s not the option I had in mind.” Ingrid retrieved her cell from her purse. “I’m calling the local cops.”
23
Ingrid and Gurley were waiting outside the Hare and Hounds when the detective sergeant heading up the search of the pub appeared at the door, his head down, his hands buried deep in his pockets.
“Nothing,” he said as he approached them.
The search warrant had been arranged quickly. Ingrid and Gurley had stayed in the Oldsmobile, watching the exits of the pub while they waited for the police to arrive. The search itself had taken less than thirty minutes.
“Nothing at all?” Gurley said.
“I did spot a couple of pork pies in the kitchen well beyond their ‘best-before’ date that environmental health might want to know about. But I don’t suppose that’s something you’d be interested in.” He wrinkled his nose as if the aroma of the offending pies was lingering in his nostrils. “You still haven’t told me—what made you think Foster had come back to the area in the first place?”
Gurley shot Ingrid a look. He really should learn to trust her. As if she would say anything to contradict him. She waited with anticipation for his reply.
“A policeman’s hunch. I guess you get them all the time too, huh? The key thing is to determine which ones you should pay any attention to. On this occasion I called it wrong.”
Ingrid could see Gurley struggling to maintain a light tone. She knew he still thought he was right about Yvonne Sherwood harboring a fugitive.
“Is it possible something could have been missed? Another room inside that your men haven’t seen? You were awful fast in there.” Gurley asked.
“Do you know how much pressure is on us to track Foster down?” The cop’s previously jovial tone disappeared in an instant. Ingrid couldn’t blame him, Gurley was more or less accusing his team of being incompetent. “Are you seriously suggesting we wouldn’t do a thorough job?”
Gurley held up his hands. “OK, OK—you made your point already.”
“We’re sorry to have wasted your time on this,” Ingrid said, hoping a little polite interjection might diffuse the tension between the two men.
“Do you think maybe I could take a quick look around inside before you pack up and go?”
Gurley just wouldn’t quit.
“Unless the proprietor invites you in especially, you’re not getting anywhere near the place.” The detective shook his head in disbelief and walked away.
“What were they looking for in there? A man hiding in a closet?” Gurley said when the cop was still well within earshot.
“They know what they’re doing. Can you just admit that maybe you misjudged Sherwood?”
“And you didn’t?”
Ingrid watched the last of the cops trudge out of the pub and back to the police vehicle. “OK—I admit there was something about her that didn’t feel right. Maybe she’s importing liquor without paying taxes. It’s possible she was hiding something. It just wasn’t Foster.” Ingrid walked around to the passenger side of Gurley’s car.
“Are we going somewhere?” he asked her.
“Back to the base.”
“What for?”
“There’s something I want to take a look at.”
*
Back at RAF Freckenham, Gurley parked up behind his quarters. The jeep was already waiting to convey them to the family quarters on the far eastern side of the compound.
“I had my team search the house yesterday, as soon as I was told what Foster had done. They didn’t find anything.” Gurley said as they stepped inside the Fosters’ dinky little two-story house. “What are you looking for?”
“Not a man in a closet.”
Ingrid headed for the living room first. A worn couch and armchair took up most of the space, both were angled towards a forty-eight-inch flat screen TV. Framed pictures of the two children adorned the walls. A large plastic crate stuffed with kids toys was shoved in a corner. Beyond the living area was the kitchen. It was big enough to incorporate a small dining table and four chairs. A refrigerator stood in one corner, so tall it almost reached the ceiling. Ingrid pulled open the door. It was pretty much full of groceries. Strange that the Fosters had such a well-stocked fridge when they were planning to go away for a few days. Ingrid wondered if the trip was a last minute decision. Something else they should ask Carrie Foster.
Ingrid opened up the ice box. Apart from the usual cartons of ice cream and frozen vegetables, containers of what she supposed was frozen breast milk were stacked inside.
“How old is Molly?” she asked Gurley.
“Fourteen months,” he said quickly.
“Isn’t that a little old for breast feeding?”
“Hey—don’t ask me. I’ve managed to avoid that kind of knowledge my whole life.” He pulled out one of the containers and held it up to the light as if it might yield some clue. “It looks almost green. Maybe it’s really old.”
Ingrid checked another container for a date. Stuck on the bottom was a little strip of tape with the digits 07-24 written in thick black Sharpie. “Last month. I guess it keeps frozen as long as any other kind of milk.” She screwed up her face. She felt sorry for Carrie Foster having to express the stuff, then label up the container and carefully place it in the ice box with the frozen dessert. Ingrid’s mom had given her formula just as soon as she could. She grabbed the pot from Gurl
ey’s hand and shoved both containers back in the ice box. Then she turned around and headed toward the front door. She paused at the foot of the stairs leading up to the second floor. “Are you OK?”
Gurley nodded back at her unconvincingly.
“Your face looks a little pale. Was it handling the breast milk?”
“Not at all. Just remembered the sight of little Molly lying in that hospital bed.”
“We should check to see how she’s doing—it’s possible Radcliffe wouldn’t bother to keep us informed.” Ingrid pulled out her cell. She needed to call Radcliffe anyway to give him an update on the local situation. Better that he heard it from her rather than the Suffolk cops. Just as she opened her contacts list the phone vibrated in her hand. An out of area number. She looked at Gurley.
“Hey—you go right ahead. It’s not as if we have a man to hunt down here.”
Ingrid hesitated for a beat. Screw Gurley. She answered the call. Thankfully her gamble paid off: it wasn’t Svetlana. “Hey, Mike. I’m in the middle of something right now, can I call you back?”
“It won’t take a minute, I was just checking you got the mp3 files I sent you.”
“You did?”
“Yep—audio interviews of the two women. I finally got a hold of them. Thought you’d want them right away.”
“Thanks Mike. I’ll check my email account later. I really appreciate your help.”
“Hey—glad to be of service.”
She said goodbye and hung up.
“You all done?”
“It’s another case I’m working on—I can’t just drop everything else.”
“You should feel free to go right back to it. I have everything under control here.”
Ingrid decided not to remind him about the fruitless search of the Hare and Hounds. She wasn’t sure he had anything under control at all. She bounded up the stairs. At the top, straight ahead of her, was the open door leading into the bathroom. The room was small by US standards, but big compared to the tiny shower rooms she’d seen in people’s apartments in London. There was a bathtub and a separate shower cubicle, and a sink beside the toilet. Above the sink was a mirrored cabinet. Ingrid opened the door. Inside were the usual items: shaving paraphernalia, deodorant, painkillers, and a small unlabeled bottle of pills. Ingrid reached in for it and checked the reverse—no label there either. She opened the childproof cap and shook a few pills into her hand. Small blue and white capsules rolled around her palm. She returned all but one of them to the bottle and screwed on the lid. She held the capsule between thumb and forefinger, trying to read what was printed in tiny letters on the side. After some serious focusing, she made out a manufacturer’s name, a four digit number on one side and a dosage: 30mg, on the other. There was no indication what the drug was called.