Hey, Sherlock!

by Simon Mason

  TEN FACTS ABOUT GARVIE SMITH

  Lazy, rude, golden-hearted, aggravating, economical with the truth, kind (to those who deserve it).

  Highest IQ ever recorded at Marsh Academy.

  Lowest grades.

  Best mates with Felix (cat burglar), Smudge (stupidest boy at school and proud of it), Alex (who’s been selling something he shouldn’t).

  Wouldn’t dream of telling his mother he loves her. Besides, she wants to move back to Barbados, and what’s the point of that?

  Smokes, mainly tobacco.

  Liked by girls.

  Hated by the police, teachers, other boring adults.

  Exceptionally good at maths.

  Scared of dogs.

  A GARVIE SMITH MYSTERY

  HEY, SHERLOCK!

  SIMON MASON

  For Gwilym and Eleri

  And in memory of Joe Nicholas (1951–2019)

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  Acknowledgements

  Also by Simon Mason

  Copyright

  1

  It was a wet and windy August night. A storm was coming. Rain from the east began to fall in ragged bursts out of swirling cloud. There was a low groan of thunder, a sudden fracture of lightning, and the deserted downtown streets jumped with water. The long, low suburbs of Five Mile and Limekilns blurred under the downpour.

  Up at Froggett, trees in the landscaped gardens of the elegant villas swung sluggishly in the wind. Froggett was the most expensive postcode in the city, a leafy enclave of tasteful old homes surrounded by woodland. None of the houses had numbers. They had names – ‘Meadowsweet’, ‘The Rectory’, ‘Field View’. It gave them personalities, standing at ease with a sort of plush modesty behind pink brick walls or copper beech hedges in grounds laid out with ponds and lawns, tennis courts and terraces. Now, in the storm, rain-mist boiled in their immaculate gardens, their ponds crackled and fizzed, their exotic trees clashed their boughs.

  It was midnight. In the living room of one of these houses – ‘Four Winds’, a late Victorian villa in biscuit-coloured brick, all gables and chimneys – Dr Roecastle sat alone working on her notes. She was a senior surgeon at City Hospital, a slender middle-aged woman with dark hair in a feminine cut and a narrow face that never relaxed. From time to time she sipped herbal tea with a look of careful concentration.

  The living room was a direct expression of her personal style. It was decorated entirely in monochrome: a white rug on the black japanned floor, a glossy black table on the rug, two sharply geometrical black-and-white sofas and a number of chairs receding towards the black glazed fireplace in the end wall, above which hung a huge silkscreen print of a black triangle against a brilliant white background.

  Hearing thunder, she glanced towards the streaming window as it flared suddenly with the shocking exposure of lightning. Irritated, she looked at her watch. Eleven minutes past twelve. At that moment, cocking her head, she picked out a different sound among the clatter of the storm – the muted opening and closing of the front door, and she pushed aside her laptop and sat there, waiting severely.

  Her sixteen-year-old daughter appeared, advanced slowly into the room, head down, and stood there, dripping.

  ‘I don’t call this ten o’clock at the latest,’ her mother said after a moment. ‘Do you?’

  Amy Roecastle said nothing. She had a beautiful, unruly face – blue eyes, heavy eyebrows, a wide, crisp mouth – and she stood there, soaked, in black bondage trousers, German-issue army jacket and drenched woollen hat pulled down over her forehead, staring at the floor, saying nothing while her mother talked. She was very still. Occasionally she trembled. Water dripped from her sleeves onto the white rug.

  ‘We had an agreement,’ her mother said. ‘Which you have broken. What’s the reason?’

  Her daughter remained silent. Blank-faced.

  ‘There is no reason, of course,’ Dr Roecastle said, watching Amy carefully. ‘I don’t know why I ask. Thoughtlessness is the reason. Selfishness. A complete disregard for anyone else.’ She thought she saw her daughter briefly smile. ‘Are you drunk?’ she asked sharply.

  Still Amy said nothing. Rain drummed against the windows, but the silence inside the room was very silent.

  Her mother got to her feet. ‘I’m going into the kitchen to get another cup of tea. You’re going to wait here and think about your behaviour. And when you’re ready, you’re going to come in and explain yourself to me.’

  Amy spoke. ‘All right,’ she said.

  Dr Roecastle scrutinized her daughter for a moment, then turned and left the room. On her way, she stopped at the front door to put on the night-time alarm, then went on to the kitchen.

  There was a bang of thunder and almost immediately another flare of lightning, and for a moment she thought she heard a cry somewhere, and muffled shouting, then a gust of rain clattered against the windows and the sound was lost. Sitting at the kitchen table, she pulled her collar round her throat and shivered.

  She made her tea. Several minutes passed.

  ‘I’m waiting,’ she called out.

  Waiting, she brooded. All summer Amy’s behaviour had been intolerable and, reviewing the situation now, she felt all the force of righteous anger inside her. Frowning as she picked a speck off the rim of her cup, she rehearsed what she was going to say.

  After a while, she called out again, more loudly, ‘Amy! I said I’m waiting!’

  At last, exasperated, she got up and went back into the living room.

  Her daughter was no longer there. Just a wet patch on the white rug where she had been standing.

  Dr Roecastle strode out of the room into the hall and stood at the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘Amy!’

  No answer. Only the rain trying to crack the windowpanes.

  ‘Amy!’ she shouted once more. ‘I’m not chasing after you. I can wait as long as necessary. You will come down and explain yourself.’

  A long rip of thunder reverberated round the house, and in the quiet aftermath Dr Roecastle heard the wind-bent trees shudder and moan. There was no sound anywhere in the house, but again she thought she heard a cry outside, immediately swept away by the crashing of the storm. She looked at her watch. It was half past twelve.

  She went back into the living room and sat down at her laptop to wait.

  2

  Branches whipped Amy’s face, and she slipped and fell with a cry, and got up wet, and staggered on again through the roaring trees. Rain blinded her. She ducked and skidded along the path as the storm boomed and crashed around her like a surging sea.

  From time to time she paused, panting, to look behind her anxiously, wiping her eyes with a muddy sleeve and squinting through the darkness, before hurr
ying on again, drenched and shivering. Twice she cried out at shadows flung towards her by the wind. Thunder made a noise like cliff faces breaking apart; she fell again, hauled herself up and stumbled on.

  She was already deep in the woods. In the heaving darkness she stopped and looked behind her. Her house was lost to view; there was nothing but the chaotic darkness of the wood. A sudden noise nearby made her spin round, looking frantically from side to side. Through the trees ahead there was a gap of moonlight flickering with rain, and she shielded her eyes and peered towards it. There was something there. What was it? Was it … a van? A van parked in the middle of the wood?

  She stood in the shadows, dripping. Then one of the shadows lurched forward and grabbed hold of her.

  3

  As arranged, Smudge’s brother picked them up in his Ford Transit at the corner of Pollard Way, a little after 6.00 a.m. He was a dark-haired man with a distracted face, and he said nothing, just glanced round once, as Garvie and Smudge settled in the back among the tools. The other men in the front said nothing either. One was a baby-faced giant with corkscrew hair and a missing front tooth. His name was Tar. The other was a pale Welshman called Butter. All three wore dust-caked boots, baggy sweat pants and hooded tops crusted and stained like the clothing of victims of violent crime.

  It was a shiny, tranquil morning after the storm, nauseatingly early. All along Town Road it looked as if the tide had just gone out, leaving behind the naked city exposed to daylight: puddled pavements, flooded parking lots and glittering streaked windows of empty showrooms. They drove east into the rising sun, a second van following, towards the dual carriageway. On the radio were sports results, jingles and a news report on a riot in Market Square the night before: extensive damage to property, a fatal shooting, an injured policeman and a police horse with a broken leg.

  Smudge paid it no attention. He was seventeen and had just passed his driving test. He lovingly patted the armrest of his seat and said, ‘What I like about the Custom is the rear air suspension. Don’t you? Like gliding.’

  He grinned. He was a morning person.

  Garvie said nothing. He was not.

  ‘Though to be fair,’ Smudge added after a moment, ‘I like it all. Adaptive cruise control, parking distance sensors. Auto high beam.’

  Butter turned in the front seat. ‘Intelligent all-wheel drive.’

  ‘Rain-sensing wipers,’ Tar said, also turning. ‘Everyone loves a rain-sensing wiper.’

  They all looked at Garvie.

  Butter said to Smudge, ‘Doesn’t say much, does he? This genius friend of yours.’

  ‘Vans not really his thing,’ Smudge said apologetically.

  Tar said, ‘What’s your thing then, brainbox?’

  Garvie looked at him. ‘Listening to van lovers talk,’ he said. ‘Luckily.’

  There was banter in the van. It washed over Garvie like the radio, which twittered on with other news stories. Two people critically injured in a collision on the ring road. An arson attack on an office block. Further delays to the police enquiry into money-laundering at the Imperium casino: they still hadn’t traced the principal ‘smurf’ – the runner who had been colluding with the club to exchange dirty money for gambling chips.

  On the ring road they hit the early morning commuter traffic and went slowly in convoy as far as the Battery Hill exit, then picked up speed climbing the shallow hill towards Froggett Woods.

  ‘Well,’ Smudge said, peering out of the window, ‘it’s another great day for fencing.’

  Garvie reflected on this. It was a fresh, sunny morning in August, that much was true. It was also his ninth straight day of working for Smudge’s brother, of weekend overtime, early morning starts, jolting rides and chit-chats about vans. And, of course, fencing. Two months ago he had been at school; now he was in the world of work. He wasn’t sure about this world yet. It got up too early for his liking.

  The van went slowly now along a single-track lane, rocking slightly, between high green banks frilly with hedge parsley, the houses a rumour of roof tops and gables beyond hedges and walls. Turning by an ornamental bus shelter with a thatched roof into a recess, it pulled up in front of the gates of ‘Four Winds’, home of Dr Roecastle FRCS. Before Smudge’s brother could speak into the entrance intercom, the automatic gates trundled open, and both vans accelerated up the long sweep of driveway towards the house.

  A silence descended, a moment of contemplation of the day’s fencing ahead. And into this silence, Garvie said calmly:

  ‘Something’s wrong.’

  Smudge looked at him blankly.

  ‘It’s a non-sequential term,’ Garvie said.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘You know what she’s like. The woman whose house this is.’

  ‘Yeah. Bit uptight. So?’

  ‘Always ready for us when we get here. All the blinds up. Door open. Waiting for us with our instructions.’

  ‘Yeah. So?’

  ‘Every day so far she’s asked who we were before she buzzed us through. Today she didn’t ask. Just opened the gates straightaway. Non-sequential term. It breaks the sequence.’

  After he finished speaking there was a moment’s silence, then, except for Smudge, they all broke out laughing.

  They drove up the rise until the house came into view, and then Smudge said, ‘Oh, look, the blinds are still down.’

  Now they fell silent, looking up at the house as they drove slowly along the front and parked. It was true. All the blinds in all the windows were still down.

  Dr Roecastle was not waiting at the door.

  Everything was still and quiet.

  There was a moment of awkward silence. Butter said, ‘Come on, man. It’s not exactly hardcore. What do you want us to do, call emergency?’

  ‘No need,’ Garvie said. ‘If it’s bad enough, she’ll have done that already. She’s that sort of woman.’

  Even as he spoke, a squad car came into view round the drive behind them.

  Getting out of the vans, the men stood there warily, watching it approach. They were not the natural friends of law enforcement; Smudge’s brother was just coming off the back of a charge – or, as he preferred, ‘mistake’ – about stolen property. The car came at speed up to the house and stopped, and a policeman got out. He was a small, trim, bearded man of about thirty wearing a correct-looking uniform and bulletproof turban, and he carefully adjusted both before setting out towards the house. As he went, he glanced over at the eight men standing awkwardly by their vans in their sloppy sweat pants and creosote-smeared hooded tops – and stopped in surprise, staring at Garvie.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.

  ‘The fencing.’

  For a moment Inspector Singh’s mouth remained open, but it seemed that he could find nothing else to say, and at last he collected himself, gave a curt nod and made his way to the front door, which was abruptly opened as he approached by Dr Roecastle, still wearing her clothes from the night before, who said in a critical voice high-pitched with emotion, ‘At last!’

  She showed him into the house and shut the door behind them, and all the men outside turned as one to stare at Garvie, who was smoking quietly, looking at his boots.

  4

  In the black-and-white living room Dr Roecastle sat on one sofa and Detective Inspector Singh of City Squad sat on another with his recorder.

  ‘So,’ he said, in his usual careful manner, ‘tell me what has happened.’

  She told him her daughter had disappeared.

  Speaking with emotion, much of which was anger and irritation, she described Amy coming in after midnight, their conversation, and how she’d waited for Amy to continue it.

  ‘At first I didn’t realize she’d left,’ she said. ‘I’d just put the alarm on, I would have heard her if she’d deactivated it, so I searched here for an hour before it became clear. How she left the house I don’t know. Then I waited for her to return for two more hours before calling the police. I haven’t bee
n to bed at all.’

  ‘And, understandably, you are now very anxious,’ Singh said.

  ‘I’m furious. I’m extremely busy and I frankly don’t have time for this.’ She looked at him critically. ‘And now that I’ve reported her missing, I’d like to know what happens next please.’

  Singh outlined standard procedures. A risk analysis would be run and the police would coordinate with other services to develop the appropriate strategy; local support would synchronize with national networks. Dr Roecastle did not appear to be listening.

  He moved on to practical details. Could Dr Roecastle remember what Amy had been wearing when she left the house? Could she provide him with a recent photograph?

  Abruptly, Dr Roecastle raised a hand to silence him. Getting up, she went to the door and looked out into the hall before returning to her seat.

  ‘I have workmen on the premises,’ she said, ‘not all of them well-behaved, and I have to keep an eye on them when they come in for a toilet break. There are valuable artworks in the hall. Please go on.’

  She listened to him with a distracted air while he asked about Amy’s movements the night before.

  ‘She spent the evening in town with a friend,’ she said. ‘When she got in, frankly I thought she was drunk.’

  ‘She’s sixteen, you said?’

  ‘Seventeen next February. She’s at Alleyn’s studying for her A levels.’

  ‘She’s very young to be drinking in town, isn’t she?’

  ‘I can tell you don’t have children of your own,’ she said drily.

  He hesitated, then went on, ‘Who was the friend she was with?’

  ‘Sophie Brighouse. A friend from Alleyn’s. She lives at Battery Hill. She’s the same age as Amy. Of course, they can both look much older when they want to. Suddenly they think they’re adults.’

  ‘Do you know where they went?’

  ‘Sophie will be able to tell you. You’ll want to talk to her, I assume.’

  He nodded. ‘I’ll go there on my way back to the station.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Has anything happened recently to prompt Amy to leave? Trouble at school? An argument with a boyfriend?’