Flesh And Blood (40 page)

Elder, throat dry, stopped short of the van as Loake tried the handle with the forefinger and thumb of his gloved hand. It was unlocked. He pulled the rear doors open and stepped back, motioning Elder forward. It was damp underfoot.

A single mattress, old and soiled, lay across the floor, edged upwards where it butted up against the front seats. Mattress aside, the interior was bare; there were no discarded items of clothing, no obvious clues, no – Elder held his breath – evident signs of blood.

Elder turned towards Maureen and shook his head.

Other vehicles could be heard arriving on the road below. Briefly, Maureen touched Elder’s arm. Loake had moved a few paces off and was talking into his mobile phone. Soon, the track would be cordoned off at both ends and Scene of Crime would set to work on the van; the inhabitants of several large houses, set back behind high walls along the track, would be woken with questions and the focus of the search would shift. The immediate area first, then spreading out along the course of the river, west towards Grosmont and the moor, east to where the estuary opened out into the sea.

Elder walked a short way up the track and looked back down across the rough grass of open fields towards the river bottom. The map, he remembered, showed the Esk meandering through a series of curves and bends, passing between pasture, woodland and high moor, farm buildings dotted in between.

Was that where Katherine was, somewhere there?

When he walked back down, officers in protective clothing were nearing the van.

♦

By mid-morning they had found nothing. The interior of the van had been wiped clean; no hair or fragments of clothing seemed to have been left behind, no prints. The mattress had been wrapped in plastic and removed for further forensic examination. Statements from residents in the area had established that the lane had been empty as late as one thirty; one elderly woman recalled the sound of a vehicle breaking her sleep at close to four. Two hours before the runner had made his discovery: two hours for Keach to move Katherine how far? And how? Could she still be forced to walk or would she have to be carried? Dragged?

The terrain was difficult in places, uneven and overgrown, thick with trees. Going east, back along the river towards the estuary, sudden patches of mist still made visibility limited.

Dispirited, Elder headed back to the town on foot, following both river and railway line to Ruswarp and from there a footpath that brought him close to the centre.

The young officer who had taken the call that morning was standing outside the communications room, finishing a cigarette. Seeing Elder, he stubbed it out and went back inside. Aside from two civilian clerks, one seated at the computer, the other at the phones, they had the place to themselves.

‘Couple on lunch,’ the officer said, feeling the need to explain. ‘Everyone else, you know, out searching.’

Elder nodded: he knew well enough.

He sat on a stiff-backed school chair at the side of the room, listening to the soft clicking of the computer keyboard, while three pairs of eyes avoided his as best they could.

The sound of the telephone made them jump.

The clerk listened briefly and turned, the receiver in her hand. ‘Mr Elder. It’s for you.’

They’ve found her, Elder thought, and the blood drained from his face. It was impossible to move.

‘Should I take a message?’ the woman said.

‘No.’ With difficulty, he got to his feet.

‘Frank Elder.’

‘Everyone busy, I hope. Chasing shadows.’ It was a voice, a man’s voice he didn’t recognise.

‘Who is this?’

He laughed and then Elder knew who it was. ‘I’d’ve sent a card from Port Mulgrave, only there weren’t any.’

And the connection was broken.

‘Port Mulgrave,’ Elder said. ‘Where is it?’

‘Up the coast. By Staithes.’

‘Show me. Show me on the map.’

The officer pointed to a small indentation in the coast, north of Runswick Bay and close to the main A174 road.

‘What’s there?’

‘Just a few houses. Not a lot more.’

Elder nodded and moved towards the door. ‘I think that was him, Keach, on the phone. Tell your boss. Port Mulgrave. Tell Maureen.’

The Ford was in the corner of the car park and it took him two attempts to engage reverse. He could feel the blood pumping back into his veins, a pulse alive at the side of his head. Far too fast into the roundabout that would take him across the back of town and out towards the coast road, he forced himself to slow down, but on the straight stretch past the golf course he pushed the accelerator to the floor. The slow gradient twisting up from Sandsend into Lythe seemed to take an age. The smell of his sweat filled the car. Runswick Bay. Hinderwell. The road to Port Mulgrave turned off just before a church. A pub and then a telephone box some little way along. The phone from which Keach had made his call?

If it had been Keach and not a hoax.

If he had not lied.

Elder drove on to where the road stopped, petered out into a footpath leading off across ploughed fields. The last of the mist had cleared and in its place dark cloud was bulking to the west. Slowly he reversed back, then turned. On the coast side of the road a deep saucer of land had been scooped out or fallen away and it lay there thick with bracken and patched with mud, criss-crossed by broken tracks. Beyond that the tide had rolled back to reveal slabs of grey-black rock and, pushing out above a mesh of sand and shale, the remains of two short piers that seemed to be crumbling into the sea. Huddled close by them, fast in against the cliff, was a ramshackle collection of huts.

Cautious, Elder began to make his way down.

Gulls careened raucously overhead.

Ten metres from the bottom, a flurry of small stones spun out from under his foot and he slithered, balance gone, his left ankle turning painfully beneath him as he fell.

For several moments he stayed crouched down, massaging his ankle, listening. Gulls aside, there was nothing but the shuffling fall and rise of water and his own jagged breath.

Backed up against the cliff, the huts leaned precariously against each other like an ill-assorted deck of cards. Raw planks and sheets of treated timber, patched and covered here and there with heavy plastic and tarpaulin, held with nails and rope. The walls of some were painted weathered reds and blues but most were bare. A jerry-built tin chimney poking from the roof of one; a rusted hasp hanging down from the door of another, the hinges having given way when the padlock held.

A fire had been lit on the beach close by, its embers faintly warm.

Slowly, Elder eased the door back, waited for his eyes to adjust, and stepped inside.

There were more ashes, soft shades of grey close against the corners. Drawings, crude and simplistic, fading on the walls. His ankle felt better now, no more than a twinge of pain when it took his weight.

Standing there, shadowed, quite still, he heard, or thought he heard, a sound from beyond the wall where two broad lengths of wood seemed to have been levered slightly apart. He leaned his weight against one and it gave a couple of centimetres, then refused to budge. Again, the slightest scuffling sound and now a rank smell, feral and damp. He pushed again with no response.

Stepping back, he raised his right foot and drove the sole of his shoe fast and hard against the wood.

It gave and the cats leapt past him, hissing, a mass of moving fur, and as he stumbled back, one jumped at his face, its claws scratching deep into his cheek.

When he touched the side of his face, his fingers came away smeared with blood.

I know this, Elder thought: I know where I am. Like the pulse of an engine, his brain was beginning to misfire and throb.

Ducking his head, he stepped through the space he had made.

An old cupboard stood close, a nest of ageing newspapers on top. Through gaps in the roof, light spilled, weak, across the floor. The bed was where it should be, pushed up against the furthest wall. So much else was right but wrong.

Elder walked slowly forward.

The blanket was not grey but the colour of weeviled flour. The air was thick with the salt-sweet stink of rotting fish and drying blood.

Elder stood by the bed, staring at the shape that lay covered and curled inwards, fearing what he would find. Steeling himself, he gripped the blanket’s edge and slowly pulled it back.

Katherine lay turned in upon herself, naked, blood blisters on her arms and legs, bruises discolouring her shoulders and her back.

Elder’s heart stopped.

Face close to hers he could hear the rattle of her breath.

‘Katherine,’ he said softly. ‘Kate, it’s me.’

When he touched her gently she whimpered and pulled her knees still closer to her chest. Her eyes flickered and then closed.

‘Kate.’

He bent his head to kiss her hair. ‘You’ll be all right. I’ll get help.’

Straightening, Elder had half-turned before he was aware of someone else.

The iron bar swung for his head and at the last moment he threw up an arm and blocked its path. Pain jarred deep and keen from his elbow to his wrist, so severe he was sure the bone was broken.

Adam Keach wore a black T-shirt, work boots and black jeans; the muscles of his arms well-defined. His hair was thick and dark, his eyes, even in that dull space, bright blue. A smile scarred his face.

‘Beautiful, isn’t she?’ he said. ‘At least she was.’ And he laughed. ‘Sleeping Beauty. That what you were thinking? Waking her with a kiss?’

Elder moved fast, reaching for the bar, but not fast enough.

Keach swayed back, lifted both arms high, then brought them down. This time he struck Elder across the top of his left shoulder and forced him to his knees.

‘Not bad for an old man.’

Keach kicked him in the chest and Elder fell back; a second kick, the toe of the boot hard against the breastbone and Elder’s head jerked forward, choking.

Keach side-swiped him and pushed him flat, kneeling over him with the bar tight across his neck, knees holding it down leaving his hands free. Vomit caught in Elder’s throat.

The knife that Keach drew from the sheath at his back had a slender, slightly curving blade. A skinning knife, Elder thought.

‘Quite a catch,’ Keach said. ‘You here. You and her.’ He laughed again and when Elder tried to raise himself from the floor he increased the pressure with his knees and rested the knife above the bridge of Elder’s nose.

‘Alan’d like that. The one who locked him up, put him inside. And of course he’ll read about it now, everyone will. How I fucked the daughter half to death and then finished the pair of them, side by side. Famous, eh? Fuckin’ famous!’

The tip of the blade slid beneath the skin and pushed against the bone.

Elder roared and rocked backwards, grabbing the underside of the bar with both hands. Blood flooded one of his eyes.

Pushing the bar up, he rolled sideways, swinging his elbow full force into Keach’s face even as Keach’s knee drove down into his side.

Adrenaline brought Elder to his feet first.

The knife on the floor between them.

Keach cursing, tasting blood.

From outside, unmistakable, the sound of a helicopter approaching, police sirens.

As Keach glanced down, reaching for the knife, Elder aimed a kick between his legs which Keach partly parried, turning now, the knife forgotten, heading for the open door.

The helicopter hovered low overhead, the updraft from its blades tugging at Keach’s hair and clothes. From inside its cabin, an armed officer in dark overalls aimed a semi-automatic rifle at his chest.

‘Jesus!’ Keach exclaimed. ‘Jesus fucking Christ!’ His words all but lost. And he started to laugh.

Officers, Loake amongst them, were scrambling down the bank.

Staunching the flow of blood from his head with his sleeve, Elder stood outside the hut and watched as Keach, still laughing, raised his hands above his head.

‘Crazy, that’s what they’ll say,’ Keach was shouting above the noise. ‘Stark raving, got to be. Unfit to plead.’

Rob Loake punched him in the face and when he fell, pulled his arms up high behind his back and cuffed him and still Keach laughed.

Elder turned away, Maureen hurrying to his side.

‘Katherine…?’

‘She’s alive.’

‘Thank God!’

He winced when she touched his arm. The ambulance had arrived on the road above, paramedics with stretchers running.

‘Frank, you’ve lost a lot of blood.’

‘I’ll be fine.’

As they stood over Katherine, Elder swayed and Maureen steadied him.

‘Kate,’ he said. ‘It’s going to be okay. I promise.’

He kissed her then, but she didn’t wake, not till they were in the ambulance and he was sitting beside her, holding her hand.

‘Daddy,’ she said, opening her eyes. ‘Dad.’ Then closed her eyes again while Elder cried.

They took them, Elder and Katherine, to Leeds Infirmary. Keach, under tight guard, was taken to York. Maureen informed Joanne the first moment she had and Martyn drove her north.

Katherine lay pale beneath white covers, amidst the quiet humming of machinery and muted light, a nurse watchful at her side.

Joanne found Elder in a side room of A & E, a temporary dressing taped to the front of his head.

‘Don’t worry,’ Elder said. ‘She’s okay.’

Joanne looked at him, incredulous, anger firing the dark shadows around her eyes. ‘Okay, Frank? Is that what you call okay?’

‘You know what I mean. She’s…’

‘I know what you mean. You saved her. She’s alive. She’s alive and you’re some great hero, your picture all over the papers, all over the screen every time you turn on the bloody TV.’