Gone in the Night

by Mary-Jane Riley

  ‘You can’t get away from me, can you.’ She gave a little laugh but the joke fell flat. Very definitely still in his bad books. She waved the picture of the man in the red jacket at him. ‘I have a photograph of one of the men seen talking to Rick Winterton before he disappeared. I want to see if he and his friend spoke to any of the others we can’t find at the moment.’

  David’s mouth made a moue of disapproval. ‘You’re not still chasing this, are you, Alex?’

  ‘Yes I am, David. I need to get to the bottom of it.’

  ‘It’s that sister of his, isn’t it? Goading you on? She’s a troublemaker, you know. How much do you know about her? Very little, I would say at a guess.’

  ‘I don’t need to know much about her. She’s hurting, I’m trying to help and I might get a damned good story out of it. In fact, I will get a damned good story out of it, one way or another.’

  David regarded her steadily. ‘Ask Cora about the Riders.’

  ‘She knows about the Riders. Why wouldn’t she? She was brought up here.’ Alex was determined not to let David get to her.

  He laughed. It sounded hollow. ‘She knows them better than you think. Ask her.’

  ‘What do you know, then, David? What do you know about the Riders and Cora?’

  ‘The Rider family are great supporters of Fight for the Homeless,’ he said, stiffly. ‘I count Marianne and Joe Rider as my friends. If they have reason to not want to engage with Cora Winterton then that’s good enough for me.’

  ‘Engage with – what the fuck are you talking about, David?’

  ‘Ask Cora Winterton.’

  ‘I will,’ she replied, frustrated.

  ‘And as for these two men you’re so keen to find, what do you think? That they kidnapped Rick? And Lindy? And Martin? And who else? Nobby? What, in broad daylight? Because they haven’t been seen for a while?’ His pompous tone grated on Alex.

  ‘No,’ she said, annoyed at his sneering. ‘Not necessarily kidnapped. I don’t know – maybe they offered them a job and—’

  ‘Well that’s just it, isn’t it? They were offered jobs, maybe picking lettuces—’

  ‘In January?’

  ‘All right, parsnips then.’ He spread his hands. ‘Anything. A lucky break.’

  Alex nodded. ‘Okay. Don’t you think it’s odd that they’re going around asking people? Why not put an advert out?’

  ‘An advert?’ scoffed David. ‘Come on, Alex. These people don’t read adverts.’

  ‘All right. But they came here and spoke to your clients.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  David turned to the tattooed young man. ‘Did you know about this, Tyson?’

  Tyson sniffed and pulled at his ear. ‘Er. Don’t think so.’

  ‘You don’t have any sort of register, do you?’ asked Alex.

  ‘You know we don’t. We do record people’s names though. Health and safety and all that. But we delete them the next day. We want this to be a safe space where our clients don’t feel hounded.’

  She steadied herself, she wanted to sound pleasant. ‘Can I go in and show the picture around? I mean, it is lunchtime and someone might have seen them.’

  David huffed and puffed. ‘Very well. But don’t pressurize anyone, do you understand?’

  ‘I won’t. Thanks David. And, as for the other night—’

  ‘That’s all in the past. I don’t want to dwell on it,’ he said stiffly. ‘As far as I’m concerned it’s all over and done with.’ He straightened his tie. ‘I’ll see you around.’

  Alex nodded. ‘By the way, David. Cora—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘She only wants to find her brother, that’s all. You can’t blame her for that. He’s her only family.’

  ‘Are you sure about that?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  David shrugged. ‘I’d be careful about her agenda if I were you, that’s all.’

  The dining room was alive with chatter and the smell of school dinners and sweaty feet. The chatter was coming mainly from the volunteers, dishing out the steaming mince and potato from large stainless steel dishes. Men and women, in various states of cleanliness, lined up to be served, taking their lunches over to communal tables where they ate with determination. Alex guessed it was probably the only hot meal they would get that day.

  As she went around the various tables she was greeted mostly with indifference – too busy eating to want to look at a grainy photograph.

  Until she reached the far corner of the room.

  A woman with hair that had once had highlights but was now peppered with grey took the paper from Alex. She squinted at it, then brought it closer to her face and tapped it with her finger.

  ‘I saw him,’ she said. ‘With another fella. They were talking to some of us—’

  ‘Did they talk to you?’

  She shook her head, and Alex’s mood plummeted. For a moment there she thought she was onto something.

  ‘Do you know what they were saying? To the others, I mean?’

  The woman shook her head. ‘Not really. Thought they were religious types. You know, trying to save our souls and that caper. Mine went black ages ago.’ She grinned, and Alex could see the mischievous light in her eyes that must have made her an interesting woman until misfortune took her life away.

  ‘I speak to them.’

  Alex turned to see a young woman of about twenty-five with long black hair and large, soulful eyes. Although she had the defeated air of someone for whom life had been too hard, she was clean and her threadbare clothes well cared for.

  ‘Really? This man?’ Alex showed her the picture.

  ‘Yes. It is they. I speak to him and another man.’

  ‘The other man, was he wearing a red quilted jacket?’

  She frowned, thinking. Her face cleared. ‘Yes, he was. And I speak to them because I am interested in their job. I hear them talk to another girl. I want a job. I did not come all the way from Lithuania to end up here.’ She looked at her surroundings with disgust. ‘But my boyfriend who brought me here, he ran away with someone else. I could not pay the rent on my flat. So.’ She shrugged. ‘I am here. For now.’

  ‘And what was the job?’ Alex was beginning to feel excited.

  She shrugged. ‘Cleaning. They said it would be good for me. And if I was interested they would be back.’

  Alex tried to sound nonchalant. ‘And did they say when they would be back?’

  ‘They say soon. Maybe in two days’ time.’

  Alex nodded. ‘Thank you—?’

  ‘Karolina.’ She drew herself up tall. ‘My name is Karolina.’

  ‘And are you interested in what they said Karolina?’

  Karolina bit her lip. ‘They promise me the work. They say it is good money and somewhere to live. They do not say where. I have heard stories about these things, where they take your passport away and don’t give you money. Where they say you have to pay your way out. Where you end up selling yourself. I don’t want that to happen. But I do need somewhere to live.’

  Alex saw the indecision in her eyes. ‘Karolina. Please don’t go anywhere with these men. Not until you’ve spoken to me. Please.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  Alex gave her a card. ‘My name is Alex Devlin and I’m a journalist. I’m trying to find out more about these two men. I’m not sure how genuine they are.’

  ‘I see. Thank you, Alex Devlin. I will try to speak to you. I will ring you. I still have my mobile phone. It is precious to me. It has pictures of my family on it.’

  Alex smiled. ‘I’m glad you’ve got reminders of home. Phone me, yes?’

  Karolina nodded.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  DAY THREE: LATE MORNING

  Alex drew up in her parking space and wondered what the hell she had done. Even though the window had been wide open all the way back, the smell in the car was indescribable – somewhere between rotten eggs and rotting meat with a sweet top note. S
he looked across at her front seat passenger.

  ‘So, Ethel. Is your stomach this bad all the time, or is it merely nerves?’

  Ethel looked mournfully straight back at her, all grey hair and brown eyes, a rope of drool hanging from either side of her jowls. She was shivering.

  Alex smiled and stroked the dog’s head. ‘Come on, let’s get you inside.’

  The people at the dog’s home had been only too glad for her to take Ethel away. They knew Alex from articles she had done about the shelter, and it was so full of abandoned dogs that they couldn’t wait to see Ethel go to a good home – at least temporarily. ‘Until we know where his owner has gone,’ Alex said to them.

  Now, armed with a large bed, a lead, a dog bowl and some dog food and biscuits, Alex led Ethel up the stairs to her apartment.

  Ethel stood trembling in the doorway.

  ‘Come on, sweetie,’ said Alex, proffering a biscuit in the shape of a duck, ‘let’s get you inside.’

  Ethel sniffed at the biscuit suspiciously, then opened her mouth to take it. Alex slowly pulled her hand away, willing Ethel to follow the biscuit into the apartment. Ethel took a step. Then another. And another. Until Alex gave her the biscuit and shut the front door quietly behind her.

  Ethel lay down by the door, putting her head on her paws, her ears cocked.

  ‘Okay old girl, you stay there for now, I’ll take the bed through and make it cosy for you.’

  She walked into the main room and put the bed down on the wooden floor in the corner of the sitting area, near the balcony. It was light and airy there, the room always flooded with the early evening light that was reflected off the River Deben, and she thought Ethel would be happy. She wondered how well house-trained she was, and thought probably not very, considering she had been living on the streets with Martin. She would have to remember to put some newspaper down when she went out and hope for the best.

  She sighed, wondering at the wisdom of her actions.

  Going over to the balcony doors, she opened them and went outside, hugging herself against the biting wind. The boats were bobbing up and down, and the sky was salmon pink. She breathed in the air, the smell of the river, a mix of vegetation and mud – a great improvement on Ethel’s smell – thinking how much she loved the wide East Anglian skies, the sense of space and freedom. The day was fading fast, the clouds in the distance looking like a dark mountain range.

  A sharp bark brought her back inside. Ethel was standing, watching her, her long ragged tail swishing back and forth. She trotted up to Alex, nails clicking on the floor, and nuzzled her, the smell of old dog wafting around her. Then she went into her new bed, turned around several times before flopping down and closing her eyes. She didn’t exactly fit in the bed, her legs, head and tail all hung outside of it, but she looked contented enough. A few seconds later she was snoring. Loudly. Alex looked at her expensive scented reed diffuser and wondered if it would cope with the dog’s odour.

  Glancing at the old railway clock on the wall, Alex realized she hadn’t got long before she had to get ready to go to Riders’ Farm. Jamie’s driver was picking her up in – what – an hour, an hour and a half? She wanted to make some notes about what she had found out since she had let Rick Winterton disappear with the two men at the accident.

  She opened the door of her study and stopped. There was something … something not quite right. A sense of the air having been disturbed. Something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

  Stepping into the room she did a quick check. There was her computer, in front of the window with a view past the Tide Mill and across the river. By the side of it her notebook. Pens, one with the lid on, two with lids off. A dirty coffee cup. Two stacks of books precariously balanced. Sheets of A4 paper on her desk by the keyboard with recipes downloaded from the Internet. Nigel Slater’s three onion soup and an Australian blogger’s chicken shawarma. Had she taken those papers off the printer, or left them on there because she couldn’t be bothered to bend down and get them? Think. She shook her head with frustration. No, she couldn’t remember. Though—

  There were her shells from Shingle Street. Had they been disturbed? Normally they were grouped together on the windowsill, now they were in a straight line. Had she done that, and if so, when? She shivered. Was she imagining all this? Becoming paranoid? She felt a wet nose against her hand: Ethel had come to investigate.

  ‘What do you reckon, old girl?’ said Alex as she fondled the dog’s ears.

  Ethel let out a sigh and a fart and turned back into the living room. A malodorous smell filled the air. Alex laughed and felt the tension leach out of her. If there had been a different smell to her study, disturbed air or whatever, Ethel’s wind had certainly put paid to that fanciful notion. Mentally she shook herself. There was nothing to worry about.

  Going back into the kitchen, Alex opened the bag of dog food and put some in the new dog bowl. She had no idea how much was enough for a dog of Ethel’s size, so she made an educated guess. If it was too much then either the dog wouldn’t eat it or she would put some meat on that thin old frame. Alex filled another old bowl with water and put them both down.

  She called Ethel, who came towards her slowly, her tail wagging low between her legs, her ears back.

  ‘Here you are, gorgeous,’ said Alex. ‘Some food for you. I know you’re missing Martin, but he’ll be back soon and you’ll be together again.’

  He would be back soon, wouldn’t he? Had he been taken by the man in the red jacket and his friend, as it seemed Rick had been? Or was it the lure of a job that had tempted him, and if so, what sort of job was it?

  Her phone buzzed.

  ‘How did you get on today? Any progress?’

  Cora. Straight to the point.

  ‘I’ve got a picture of one of the two men seen talking to Rick, and quite possibly to the others.’

  Cora gave a sharp intake of breath. ‘How?’

  ‘I managed to get a look at the CCTV from the solicitors. It seems as though Rick was taken away in a white van by two men—’

  ‘The two who have been talking to the people on the streets?’

  ‘Quite possibly. Kate Able, from the solicitors, she printed out a copy and—’

  ‘I have to see it.’ Cora’s excitement was palpable. ‘Can you email it over?’

  ‘I’ll scan it and email it in a minute. I’ve also got a memory stick with the CCTV sequence on it, I’ll try and upload that file to you as well. And I’ve talked to a woman – Karolina – at the hostel in Magdalene Street, who said she’d had a conversation with them. They’re going back there in a couple of days. She said she would tell me what they say to her. Tiger’s also got a printout of the photo and he’s going to pass it around. Cora, if we can find out who the men are, then I reckon we can find out where Rick has gone.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘I do. I really do.’

  ‘Alex, when you hear from Karolina you will tell me?’

  ‘Of course. Cora—’ Alex hesitated.

  ‘What is it?’

  Alex was about to ask Cora whether she knew the Riders better than she was letting on, but if she did that, she would be letting David Gordon get to her. He was probably talking out of his backside anyway. For now, she trusted Cora, and besides, asking her about her past would be better done face-to-face. After all, they hardly knew each other, not really. ‘It’s nothing, don’t worry. Anyway, I’ve got to go. I’m going out tonight.’

  ‘Ooo, hot date?’

  Alex laughed. ‘Hardly. A bit of an obligation. Look, I’ll talk to you when I’ve heard from Karolina.’

  ‘Then we can go and talk to her together?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Alex put the phone down with a niggle of disquiet. She really needed to get to know Cora better, find out about her relationship with the Riders, how she really knew Boney was Nigel Bennet.

  Nigel Bennet. Another look at the clock and she knew she ought to type up her notes and get
ready for the evening, but instead she sat down at her computer and typed Boney’s real name into Google Images once more. At least she had a proper screen to look at the pictures, rather than her phone.

  The page loaded and Alex’s heart sank. There were dozens and dozens of Nigel Bennets. There would be, wouldn’t there? She began scrolling down. Guitarist. No. Bankers – several of those. A fashion designer. Entries for ten Nigel Bennets in Wikipedia. No one remotely like Boney, if, indeed she would be able to recognize him without his piercings and sharp teeth.

  She was just about to give up when a word jumped out at her. Suffolk. She stopped scrolling. It was a photograph of all the rugby teams from a Suffolk school, The Alderton School, and Nigel Bennet was on the front row, fourth from the right. Under 13s. Could that be him? Alex couldn’t be sure, she thought she could see a likeness; but what was really interesting was the name of the boy second from left at the back. The under 17s rugby team. Lewis Rider. Well, well, well. She sat back in her chair. Did it mean anything?

  Ethel snored and snorted in her sleep. Alex looked up The Alderton School. Co-educational. Independent. Pictures of clean-cut boys and girls in clean and tidy uniform. All smiling. Fees and charges. Eye-watering. She went back to the Google Images tab. There were more photographs. Nigel Bennet in the debating team. Nigel Bennet in the swimming team. Nigel Bennet in Bugsy Malone. With Lewis Rider. Simon Rider. Jamie Rider. And then: the school cross-country team, with Lewis Rider and scholarship student Rick Winterton.

  Rick Winterton.

  She didn’t believe in coincidences.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  DAY THREE: LATE MORNING

  Rick had slept part of the day away, but his sleep had been punctuated with alternate bouts of wakefulness and vivid dreams.

  Now he was awake and walking, he was hurting and shivering from the cold and damp. Why hadn’t he taken more than one jumper from the farmhouse? Because he wasn’t thinking straight, that’s why. He could hardly think at all, never mind in a coherent way. His head ached, and he thought if he wasn’t careful he would overdose on paracetamol. A couple more wouldn’t do any harm. He eased the blister pack out of his pocket, taking care with his hands that were, like the rest of his body, still sore. Fuck. None left. He shoved the empty pack back in his pocket. No point in leaving any clues as to where he’d been. A shiver ran up and down the length of his spine. And the way he was shivering he would probably die of pneumonia before a brain haemorrhage. There. He was making jokes. Perhaps he was getting better.