Safe House (7 page)

‘So?’ I asked, cupping my elbow to ease the weight on my shoulder.

‘The van was white, Rob.’

‘And?’

She sighed. Shook her head. ‘You were concussed, right? Dizzy? And you saw something that looked like an ambulance. But did you see any flashing lights? Hear any sirens?’

‘You think I mistook a white van for an ambulance?’

She pointed back up the road towards the entrance to the plantation. ‘If they parked it here, you wouldn’t have seen it properly. Maybe they pulled out after the crash and you caught a glimpse of it then. You’d barely have been conscious.’

I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t sure there was anything to be said.

‘And one, or maybe two of them, must have been hiding up there in that ditch, behind the hedge. They used a cable or some kind of concealed obstacle to burst your tyre and knock you from your bike.’

‘You think?’

It was all sounding a bit far-fetched. I’d wanted someone to believe me. Now I was having doubts myself.

‘Skidmarks,’ she said.

‘Sorry?’

‘There aren’t any. No sign that you braked. You’re going fifty.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘Maybe fifty-five miles an hour. If you’d spotted something, you’d have tried to avoid it, wouldn’t you?’

‘The back wheel kicked up.’ I shuddered. ‘I remember that much.’

‘So it kicked up because of the obstacle your front tyre hit. Only explanation.’

‘You believe me, then? About Lena?’

Her head jerked back and she gave me a curious look with her soft brown eyes. ‘Why wouldn’t I?’

She led me back to the Fiesta and spoke to me across the roof of the car. ‘Listen, a road accident like yours. A story like yours. The police wouldn’t send two senior detectives to quiz you in your hospital bed. They’d send uniform. Maybe later, if you persisted, you’d get to speak to the cheap suits. But if that happened, we’re talking a worthwhile investigation. Something that digs below the surface. But Shimmin and Teare didn’t do that. Whatever happened here, someone wants it to stay buried.’

She climbed inside the car. I opened my door and ducked down gingerly. Stared over at her.

‘And there’s something else,’ she said. ‘Shimmin claimed there were no witnesses. That nobody responded to their appeals for information.’

‘So?’

‘So it doesn’t make sense. Somebody called an ambulance for you. We just don’t know who it was yet.’

Chapter Eight

My van was parked by the lower gate to the plantation, just as Shimmin had said. It was tucked right in against the bushes and trees. There was no way I would have left it like that. I wouldn’t have risked the sign work getting scratched by branches and thorns.

Rebecca peered in through the front passenger window, her hands cupped around her eyes.

‘Spot anything out of place?’ she asked me.

I opened the driver’s door. It was unlocked, which didn’t surprise me very much. A lot of people don’t bother to lock their cars on the Isle of Man and Shimmin was obviously one of them – especially when the vehicle didn’t belong to him.

‘Nothing here,’ I said. ‘Let me look in the back.’

I threw the rear cargo doors open and scanned the stale and dusty interior. I’d lined the van with quarter-inch ply and fitted cubby-holes and shelving for my tools along one wall, opposite the sliding load door. The space in the middle was for storage and there were two wooden planks on the floor. I’d used them as a ramp when I was wheeling my bike into the garage up at the cottage. It made me remember something.

‘I had a spare helmet and leather jacket,’ I said to Rebecca. ‘They belonged to an ex of mine. I loaned them to Lena.’

‘That’s good. Anything else?’

‘I don’t think so.’

I closed the doors as Rebecca considered the wooden gate and the rutted pathway beyond. The poster about the missing dog was still there, curling in the afternoon sun. But the rusted security chain and the combination padlock were gone.

The ground had baked dry in the days since I’d been there last. I could smell pollen and warm sap, hear the
crick
of insects from the grass at my side. A cloud of midges had settled over the Fiesta and I batted them away as I opened the door and released Rocky. He jumped out and stretched his back with a long groan of satisfaction.

Rebecca popped the boot, took a seat on the lip and began to lace up a pair of stout walking shoes. Then she grabbed a backpack from the parcel shelf. The backpack was compact and made of tough black nylon. It had padded straps and multiple compartments.

‘It’s really not far,’ I told her. I was flexing and clenching the fingers of my bad arm as I spoke. It was good to get my blood pumping every now and again to ward off the pins and needles that had been bugging me since I’d been wearing the sling. ‘You won’t need supplies.’

She unzipped the main compartment and I caught a glimpse of the backpack’s contents. A heavy-duty torch, a notepad and pen, and a pack of disposable plastic gloves. She burrowed deeper, checking for something, and I saw her remove a blue, elasticised plastic overshoe, the kind forensics officers wear. She dug further, until she found a matching one. Then she swung the backpack over her shoulder and locked the car.

‘Let’s go,’ she said.

Rocky ran on ahead, squirming on his belly to force his way beneath the gate. There was a pedestrian swing-gate at the side, and he could have fitted through if he’d shown a little patience, but that wasn’t his style.

Warm air shimmied above the dusty rock path. The spruce and pine trees pressed in around us, adding insulation we didn’t need, and bees droned around the flowering yellow gorse.

‘About your theory,’ I said. ‘There’s something I don’t get.’

‘Go on.’

‘The idea that someone was waiting for me on the road. That they’d planned to knock me and Lena off my bike. How would they know to do that? How would they know we’d be coming?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Right.’ I listened to the beat of our shoes on the path. ‘Isn’t that a problem?’

Rebecca nodded. ‘A big one.’

‘So what does it mean?’

‘It means we need to find some answers. They taught us that at detective school, too.’ She winked at me, then rummaged around in her pocket, removing a mobile phone and holding it high above her head. ‘Good,’ she said, squinting at the screen. ‘I still have reception.’

‘You should be OK at the cottage, too. I was the other day.’

She closed the phone in her hand. ‘Why don’t you tell me again about the men you saw with Lena?’

We’d already been through it once, but I went through it a second time. I told her about Mr Shades – the way he wore his sunglasses when he answered the door, despite the gloom at the cottage. I mentioned his foreign accent, his prickly attitude. Then I described his companion. His peroxide hair and tattoos. His muscles.

‘And when Lena invited you into the kitchen, you were only there for a couple of minutes?’

‘If that. The atmosphere was pretty strained. So we went back to the garage.’

‘It could be she wanted you to see them,’ Rebecca said. ‘You told me the guy who answered the door wasn’t wearing his sunglasses when you went inside. Would you recognise him if you saw him again?’

I thought about it. Tried conjuring his image in my mind’s eye. ‘I think so.’

Sweat was beading on my face and neck and the air felt thick and hot when I inhaled. It might have been a warm day, but this wasn’t the tropics, and the walk was hardly strenuous. It made me realise that the accident had probably taken more out of me than I might have liked to believe. Yes, my bruised leg was stiff, and my chest and shoulder sore, but my energy levels and stamina were down, too.

We climbed the rise and approached the three-way fork in the path. Rocky was waiting ahead of us, looking back.

‘The middle one, Rock,’ I said, and pointed. He dropped his head and trotted forwards. ‘It’s not far now,’ I told Rebecca.

The trees closed over our heads, a green canopy stretching far above us, as if we were deep underwater. Daylight twinkled through the foliage, dancing like sunshine on the sea.

I looked towards the open gate with the slate sign on it.
Yn Dorraghys.
The darkness it referred to felt more appropriate than ever.

‘Their car’s gone,’ I said.

Rebecca followed me to the pull-in where I’d seen the red Micra. Tyre treads were still visible where it had been parked, the muddy ground formed into ridges that were soft and spongy underfoot. She reached for her backpack, unclipped a pouch on the side and removed a small digital camera. She fired off photographs from a couple of angles while I caught my breath, the flashes throwing the tree trunks ahead of us into bright relief.

‘Anything else look different?’

I circled around, searching for signs of change. There was nothing. The cottage appeared just as sad and uncared for. Maybe the tall grass was a little taller. Maybe a few more branches and pine leaves were blocking the gutters.

‘I don’t see anything,’ I said.

Rebecca paced towards the cottage. She removed a pair of surgical gloves from her backpack and snapped them on over her wrists. She tried the door handle. Locked. She looked in through a darkened window, flattening her gloved hand on the glass. She went up on her toes to study the sash lock. Rattled the fitting.

‘Wait,’ I said. ‘I have a key.’

‘You do?’

‘To the garage.’ I dug my free hand into the pocket of my jogging trousers and showed her.

Rebecca stared at me. ‘Why didn’t you say so before? Why didn’t you tell Shimmin?’

‘I only just remembered.’

Rebecca stared at me a little harder.

‘That’s the problem with head injuries,’ I told her. ‘Unpredictable.’

‘Uh huh. Or maybe you were planning to come back here and snoop around for yourself.’

I glanced down at my fingers poking out of my sling. I didn’t confirm or deny it.

‘So tell me about the key,’ she said.

I did. I told her how Mr Shades had tossed it to me on that first day and how Lena had asked me to hold on to it for when I returned the following morning. I explained that I’d had the key on me while I’d worked on the boiler and when we rode away on my bike. I told her that someone at the hospital must have found it among my clothes and stored it with the rest of my things.

‘So we caught a break,’ I said. ‘We can get inside the garage and access the cottage through the door into the kitchen.’

Rebecca plucked the key from my palm. ‘Not
we
.’ She shook her head. ‘You might think you’re pretty slick, but I’m going in alone. Your parents hired me to investigate. I’m a professional. This is what I do. And I don’t want you or your dog contaminating anything.’

My dog. Now that she mentioned it, where was Rocky? I hadn’t seen him since he’d run on ahead of us as we were nearing the cottage. An image of little Chester, the missing terrier, raced through my mind.

‘I won’t touch anything,’ I said.

‘That’s right.’ Rebecca fitted the key into the lock on the garage door. She compressed the handle and hauled the thing up. It made a loud metal screech. ‘Because you’re staying out here.’

She bent down and stretched the plastic bootees over her walking boots. Then she clicked on her torch and swept the room with the beam.

‘The boiler?’ she asked.

‘Over there.’ She pointed her flashlight in the direction I’d indicated. The boiler looked just as I’d left it. The front plate fitted back into position. The exterior wiped clean. ‘The door to the kitchen’s on your left. There’s a light cord next to it.’

She reached above her head to yank the garage door closed. It was at knee height when she ducked down and peered out from below.

‘I think I could have worked that one out for myself,’ she said.

The door slammed with a shudder. I cradled my bad arm, grinding my heel into the dirt.

‘Rocky?’ I called, my ribs smarting with the effort. ‘Rocky?’

I knew my dog. I knew he wouldn’t come right away. This was his first adventure in days and he’d want to savour it.

I took a moment to think about where he might be. I’d watched him pass through the gate and trot towards the cottage. I hadn’t kept track of him once Rebecca had started taking photographs but I’d have noticed if he’d stayed close.

I walked behind the garage to the oil tank. The grass was as high as my thighs, laden with pollen and cuckoo-spit. Full of bugs too. Mites and ticks. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d treated Rocky’s coat with something to repel them. Odds were, he’d have plunged right in, picking up an entire colony of new friends.

A rough path had been beaten through the grass to my right. It looked Rocky-sized and led to the back corner of the garden, where a wire fence had been pushed flat against the ground by the encroaching treeline. I waded through the grass. Stepped over the fence.

‘Rocky?’

I heard a bark. Coming from ahead.

‘Rocky?’

More barking.

I brushed branches and spider webs clear of my face. Brambles snagged on the legs of my trousers and the cotton material of my sling. I stepped over ditches and around briar patches, my feet sinking through layers of decaying pine needles.

Rocky’s barking was louder now. I squinted through the tree trunks until I caught a blur of golden hair. He was barking with such vigour that his front paws were bouncing up off the ground.

‘What is it?’ I asked. ‘What is it, boy?’

Rocky didn’t answer. He just kept barking. Then he hunkered down and growled. Then he barked some more.

I clambered over a fallen log and seized him by his collar. He barked one final time, like the full stop on the end of a sentence, and nuzzled into my hand with a whimper.

That’s when I heard the buzz for the first time. A low droning. Long and persistent. It repeated itself. Repeated again.

I gazed down and saw a bluish glow. A mobile phone. I picked it up just as the ringing stopped. A message flashed up.

64 Missed Calls
.

I glanced towards the tree cover, pinpricks of light filtering down through the watery green. Then I stepped backwards and felt something crack under my heel. I raised my foot, expecting a branch. But I found something else.