The Hawkshead Hostage (22 page)

She could feel herself inching towards a theory. Better than a hypothesis, according to Ben, a theory made use of known facts and constructed a viable picture that could be tested. She went over it carefully, finding new details to support it.

She had to speak to Melanie. Then she had to go into Hawkshead and summon all the courage and quick-thinking she could manage. She must be prepared for anything. And she had to do it all by herself.

Melanie answered after several long moments. ‘Yes? Bonnie? What do you want?’

‘Three questions. It won’t take long.’

‘Where are you? What are you doing?’

‘Never mind. Where are
you
?’

‘At work. Busy.’

‘Okay. Listen. First – what’s that big room at the hotel used for? The one upstairs.’

‘Groups. It’s kept clear, with just chairs and the equipment for presentations. People rent it at weekends mostly, in the winter. We can do banquets in there if we have to, as well. There’s a shiatsu woman who does special sessions in there sometimes. She brings lots of mattresses and cushions.’

‘Is it fully booked for this winter?’

‘No way. In fact, nobody’s used it for the last month. Dan was trying to get somebody for October, but I don’t know who.’

‘Thanks. Second question – is the front door locked at night? What happens if a guest comes back at midnight? Is the reception desk manned round the clock?’

‘No, it’s not. There’s a keypad by the door and we give them the code. They can let themselves in and out, as they want.’

‘Right. And what happens after breakfast? I mean – do they have to go out so the room can be cleaned, or can they stay in all day if they want?’

‘God, Bonnie – haven’t you ever stayed in a hotel? They put a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door and nobody goes in. They’ve paid for the room – they can do what they like, when they like.’

‘I haven’t, actually,’ said Bonnie quietly.

‘Sorry. Is that everything, then? Am I allowed to ask what this is all about?’

‘Not yet. Just one more thing – are there any rooms on the ground floor? Guest rooms, I mean.’

‘Yes. Two. The Lillywhites have got one, and the other’s empty at the moment.’

‘Thanks, Mel. That’s great. Bye now.’

‘No, but—’ Too late. Bonnie had ended the call with a decisive press of her thumb.

None of Mel’s answers had done anything to dent her theory, but neither had they confirmed it in any concrete way. The rest was up to her. With a deep breath she stood up and went back to the gate. Climbing over it was easy enough, although she wobbled slightly at the top. She had never been good at gymnastics or athletics or any of the sporty stuff they forced you to do at school. She generally ended up bruised and sore and resentful.

It took six minutes to walk back to the centre of Hawkshead, trying her best to look purposeful and old enough to have business to attend to. With every step, she had a new thought, ranging from a recitation of virtually everything Ben had ever said to her, to an awareness that there were no school-age children anywhere to be seen. Barnaby and his family must have stood out a mile, taking their kids away in term time. If the muddy-jeans guy had been on the lookout for a schoolboy, he would have had very slim pickings. And who else but a younger boy would have done as he asked? No adult would have gone along with it. What would he have done if no suitable kid came along?

Do it himself, of course. So why hadn’t he, anyway? Yet again, she rehearsed the whole peculiar scenario. Maybe that had been the plan, but the appearance of Barnaby had given him a new idea. If he was the son or brother of the kidnappers, he’d want to stay in the shadows, doing nothing worthy of notice. Had he assumed that the holidaying family would disappear before anyone could question them? Was it a major glitch in the plot that Bonnie had actually spoken to the boy? Surely it must be. She was merely intended to read the note and stop worrying about Ben. So did they
know
she’d met Barnaby? Had they been watching? Was that even possible? The idea made her shudder.

She was passing the upmarket gift shop with its pricy china, and taking a left turn into the crooked little square at the heart of the town. The National Trust shop was one of the few things she remembered from her last visit to this part of Hawkshead, some years earlier. She looked
around, trying to work out directions and landmarks that she and Ben had used in the game. Everything had been on paper, gleaned from Google Earth and maps. The buildings were accurately positioned, but the reality was unsettlingly different. Everything was much closer together than she had realised. The road surfaces, the sounds from the pub, the way the shadows fell on this sunny July day – none of them had been factored into their embryonic storyboard. Ben had talked about the need to make an actual film of the place when it came to the final stages. He had admitted to a lack of detailed knowledge as to how that was done, airily dismissing it as a technical issue that could be delegated to somebody else when the time came. Bonnie had been more than happy to go along with that approach. For her, the interest was in the history and the secret messages and the way the whole thing fitted together.

The very heart of the village was comprised of a big, oddly shaped three-storey building that was actually two separate establishments. They were connected by a single wall, and one was an abandoned bookshop. Its windows were blank and the two doors firmly rendered impassable with padlocks and stout chain. It did nothing for the look of the place and she found herself fantasising about opening some sort of shop there herself. Something artistic, brightly coloured and enticing. Like Persimmon Petals in Windermere, but far larger and more ambitious. And in keeping with the rest of Hawkshead, she thought ruefully, as she recognised two art galleries close by. There were people sitting at tables on the pavements, just a few feet away, laughing and boasting about their good sense in coming here when the sun was shining.

She crossed the square and examined the shop again from a different angle. The upstairs windows were grimy. It must have been empty for ages. What a waste. She meandered a little way along the pavement, in front of the well-remembered National Trust shop, until another face of the empty shop was visible and tilted her head back to look at the upper windows. She saw it immediately. Etched into the grease and dust of a high window were four numerals. Impossible to miss; impossible to mistake their import.

It stood bright and clear in the sunny July day. And only one person in the entire universe would have written those numbers in that way.

‘I’ve found him!’ she muttered aloud, scanning the window feverishly for any sign of life. Then she turned cold and still at the thought that someone might be in there watching her, realising what she was thinking, plotting how to escape again. And if they could not escape safely with their hostage, they might murder him, just as they’d murdered Dan Yates.

Her options were essentially twofold. She could slip away out of sight and call the police, telling Moxon what she had seen and assuring him that Ben either was in the shop now or had been very recently. She could almost trust the trained officers to break down the door, surge up the stairs with guns drawn, and grab Ben from his captors before they could inflict any harm on him. It would probably work. There would be no advantage, at that point, to killing Ben. But then, neither would there be any
worse outcome than could already be expected as penalty for killing Dan. They had nothing to lose.

And, of course, they might not be in there, anyway. Her beloved might be lying in a dusty corner, trussed and starving, barely conscious, just waiting to be released from his bonds. All the police would need to do was to walk in and collect him. But they would not do that – because they’d be expecting a trap, an ambush. A bomb rigged to go off, perhaps, or a gun that would fire when a door was opened. They would go through a whole rigmarole of safety checks before they could place any of their team at risk. If they thought someone could be in there with a weapon, the rigmarole would be tenfold.

So there really was only one option. Bonnie herself had to get into the building, dodge any traps and bring Ben out again, without the kidnappers ever knowing it had happened.

He must be upstairs. She walked all around the three accessible sides of the shop, counting doors and windows, wracking her brains for any scrappy little hint she might have picked up from Ben in their discussions about crime and chases and how to solve a mystery. They had watched every single episode of
Spooks
together, with its innumerable tricks for following people and blending into the landscape. They had stolen a few ideas for their game, building on them until they’d made them their own.

How had the kidnappers got in? If they’d done it during the day, in full view of people in the streets, they must have some tricks of their own. All the local shopkeepers would know the building was empty and unlikely to be visited by two adults and a teenaged boy. So what had they done? She
walked around it again, trying to look as if she was waiting for a friend who was late. She pretended to make a call on her mobile, and then spent two full minutes admiring the window display in one of the art galleries. Inside she was growing increasingly distraught. Ben might be dying, just a few feet away. And here she was dithering about, wondering how to get into a disused shop. How tight was the security going to be? There was nothing in there to steal. There must be loose window catches or a forgotten back entrance. It was an old building, probably with a cellar. That might have its own entry.

Architecture was another new subject that Ben had begun to teach her. Not because his mother was an architect, but because buildings played such a vital role in human life. He had a special interest in the way that doors opened – inwards or outwards, and which side the hinges were placed. ‘Just take note,’ he’d told her, ‘and see if you can work out why they’ve been placed as they are. Sometimes you can see it’s been done all wrong.’ They’d made a note for their game, to include some unwisely designed doors that would impede the player’s progress.

Oh Ben
, she howled inwardly. In the short time she’d known him, he had filled her with inspiration and confidence and a whole new view of the world. If there was anything at all she could do to save him, then she must do it. And quickly. No more hanging around, agonising about it. A dawning sensation of being watched was nagging at her, too, as she stood there. Was there someone inside that building, monitoring her movements and getting ready to hit her if she caused trouble? Never mind if there was. She
had absolutely no choice in the matter. She
had
to act.

She was afraid she would be noticed if she took yet another walk around the same route. So she crossed the street away from the shop and made a crooked path through another small street containing a pub and one or two houses. Everything was suddenly in a different time zone, with cobbles underfoot and only a handful of parked motor vehicles in sight. Ahead the street fizzled out into a country lane, which climbed up into the higher ground that eventually became Hawkshead Hill.

There were alleyways between the houses, leading back into the town square. There were square openings designed for a horse and carriage to go through. Many of the streets were too narrow for a modern car to pass along. Very probably there were underground tunnels connecting them all up, but she had no way of knowing that. All she knew was that the core of the town dated back well over five hundred years and during that time a lot of politics and conflict had happened. If there weren’t tunnels, there certainly
ought
to be.

Too much thinking, she chastised herself, and too little action. She’d been ten minutes faffing about, probably making herself stupidly conspicuous and putting Ben in even more danger. She knew, really, what she was going to have to do. She had done it before, though unwillingly. Kicking and screaming, in fact. It was the one part of her early years that she had not yet fully confided to Ben. It was almost always kept shut away and ignored. But now it came roaring out, filling her head with panic.

Because she had seen outside the abandoned shop the only possible way in. It was close enough to a childhood
experience to bring back all the terror of being forced into a space leading to a dark, stifling cellar. She knew she had to do it, while at the same time knowing she could not.

She knew because she had once been pushed down a filthy, dark coal chute into a cellar by a drunken immature boyfriend of her mother’s, who thought it would make a good game.

Simmy had seated herself near a window in the Queen’s Head pub, with a glass of wine and a ploughman’s. Her view of the street was patchy, and there was no way she could be sure of Bonnie’s movements from there, but she was content for the moment to be close enough to be of some use if there was trouble. In a few minutes she would phone the girl and ask if she was all right, without revealing how nearby she was. It was a poor compromise, she supposed, but better than nothing.

Her car was in the main car park, which was full to bursting with visitors’ vehicles. It seemed they routinely left the car there and went off in all directions on foot. A great many of them were in the town, messing about in the shops and pubs instead of climbing the fells as might be expected.

Bonnie had leapt ahead of her in the search for Ben, putting her to shame for her lethargy and hopelessness. She must have discovered something from that Barnaby boy
which sent her into the middle of Hawkshead, because Simmy had seen the girl walking the quarter-mile from Colthouse into the village, and felt a pang of frustrated remorse that she wasn’t at least driving her. She had been told to go away, it was true, but she ought not to have obeyed the order. Bonnie was little more than a child, unable to grasp the real danger she would be in if she tried to tackle the unknown murderers.

Simmy drained her glass, thinking she ought to indulge in wine a bit more often. It made her feel relaxed and optimistic. The ploughman’s included the nicest chutney she’d had for ages, and there was a very pretty girl behind the bar. In the midst of violence and worry, she found herself in a momentary oasis of calm. It was her nature to do so, she supposed. Never tempted to see herself as a rescuer, she was content to be the bringer of delight in the form of flowers. And even though the occasion was not always a happy one, the flowers themselves gave pleasure.

Then she saw people she recognised outside. It was the couple from the hotel, the Lillywhites, walking briskly along the pavement towards the village centre. The wife was in front, which seemed at odds with the relationship Simmy had observed on Tuesday. She was throwing remarks over her shoulder at the husband, who looked mutinous, but not nearly as domineering as Simmy remembered. They certainly did not look like carefree holidaymakers.

She watched them out of sight, wondering whether she ought to follow. The idea was both exciting and ridiculous. They would see her in no time, because she was tall and unskilled and Hawkshead was a very small place. That would be embarrassing. So she finished the last of her
cheese and sat back for a moment, asking herself exactly what she thought she was doing.

Then another familiar figure passed by the window. This time it was the smart woman in high heels, head held high and tight skirt emphasising the curves of her posterior. The word
streetwalker
flashed disconcertingly into Simmy’s head. The wiggling walk was provocative, and quite out of place amongst these wholesome fell walkers and their friends. Except, she supposed, nobody was altogether wholesome. In ordinary life, they were quite likely to be addicted to gambling or online pornography or be cruel to animals, or conducting dishonest transactions of one kind or another. Bad people went on holiday just as much as good ones – possibly even more, spending their ill-gotten profits.

The woman teetered away, the heels of her shoes surely lethal on the cobbled streets.

And this time, Simmy got up and followed.

Afterwards, she could not properly account for the way time telescoped. Events felt to be passing in a flash, from that moment when she left the pub, even though there were long minutes in which nothing happened and she felt mad with frustration and indecision. The little procession proceeded the few yards into the centre of Hawkshead, where there were cafés, galleries and a big abandoned bookshop. Simmy loitered uncomfortably, keeping the dark figure of the high-heeled woman in view and hoping not to be noticed herself. The woman went around the disused shop, where there was an open area in front of the King’s Arms pub. A shop selling fancy jams and cheeses
was the main attraction. A steeper street led up to the church. Simmy wondered if she could walk briskly past as if going up there, without being recognised. It would give her a useful vantage point. So she gave it a try, rounding the corner and trying not to catch the eye of any of her three quarries gathered together outside the bigger and more handsome building attached to the empty one. The two women were speaking, while the man stood a little distance away.

Clumsily, Simmy walked by. A large man was walking towards her, and she stepped around him, so he would hide her from sight. Then a woman pushing a baby buggy provided a similar screen. By the time she dared take another look, the trio had closed up and were apparently heading back the way they’d just come.

This was stupid, Simmy told herself. The people were just chatting. She ought to call Bonnie to check she was all right and then get back to work. Nothing here would help to find Ben or catch Dan’s killers. She got her phone out and turned it on. It felt good to have the means to connect to a friendly voice. Perhaps she’d call her mother, or Ninian or even Helen Harkness, before Bonnie. Ninian never answered his phone, though. It had surprised Simmy to learn that he even had one. Helen might not be in any mood to chat, and her mother was likely to have nothing but depressing things to report about her father.

She looked up again, thinking about her options, her gaze on the big picture window of the empty shop. Something inside moved. Something light-coloured, barely visible against the sunny glare of the street. It was impossible to be sure what it was, but the way it moved
indicated a person, darting unnaturally fast across the open space. When she blinked, it had gone, and none of the handful of people close by showed any sign of having seen the same thing.

No longer caring about remaining concealed or conducting her idiotic shadowing of the hotel guests, she went to the window and peered in. There was a dusty blue carpet on the floor and a door was open in a corner. Nothing moved. There was every reason to think she’d imagined the ghostly figure that had looked so worryingly like Bonnie Lawson. And even if she had seen something, how could it possibly be of any significance? No reason, and yet she knew in her guts that something climactic was happening. Then her phone rang.

‘Simmy? It’s Bonnie. Where are you?’

‘Standing outside a big empty shop in the middle of Hawkshead.’

‘I thought I saw you just now. I’m inside it.’

‘Oh.’

‘Listen. You’ll have to call the police for me. Call Moxon – I haven’t got his number, and my battery’s almost flat. We’ve got to go carefully, or they’ll get away. Do you see? Tell him … tell him …’ Her voice broke and there were no more words for a moment. Simmy peered desperately through the dusty window, forgetting the Lillywhites and the smart woman just the other side of the building.

‘Bonnie? What’s the matter?’

‘Ben’s here. He’s almost unconscious. But he won’t let me call an ambulance until the criminals are caught. Do
you understand? We have to have evidence, and catch them now, before they get away.’

‘That sounds like Ben,’ said Simmy, still not fully convinced of the reality of the situation.

‘Right.’ The voice choked again. ‘He’s got to have water,’ she said. ‘Can you get some to us somehow?’

‘How?’

‘Put a bottle through the broken window, round the back. Low down behind a parked car. Just drop it in.’

‘All right. Yes. I’ll do that first.’

‘Thanks.’

‘I don’t know what else we can do, though. Moxon’s not going to just arrest them on my say-so, is he? They’re right here, right now. They must be coming in. They must have a key or something. How did
you
get in?’

‘Don’t ask.’ Bonnie sounded faint and weak. ‘How many of them?’

‘Three.’

‘Okay. Let them come in. I’ll hide. They might be bringing water for Ben. He hasn’t had any for ages. He thinks they meant to leave him for dead, but maybe they’ve changed their minds about that. Or they might be planning to take him somewhere else. We need to keep them here until the police come.’

‘Oh, Bonnie. That’s not going to happen, is it?’

‘You can help. It’s great you’re here. You can lock them in. Or create a diversion or something.’

Simmy felt useless and wholly lacking in any sort of initiative. She couldn’t see the three apparent criminals, so had no idea what they were doing. They might even have moved away, never to be seen again. If they had spotted her,
they might have guessed she was following them. ‘How will they get in?’ she whispered. ‘All the doors are padlocked.’

‘They’ve got a key to one of the padlocks. They must have scammed it off the agent or something. They’ve been walking in and out as if they owned the place, Ben says.’

‘So he’s all right? Talking and everything? Just thirsty – is that it?’

‘He’s not all right,’ said Bonnie, also in a whisper. ‘Not at all. He can only say a few words at a time.’

‘How long have you been in there?’

‘Never mind that now. You have to
do
something. We’re trapped in here until you do.’

‘All right. Hang on. Leave it to me.’ She had no idea what made her say that, but it sounded reassuring, and Bonnie most definitely needed reassurance.

‘Wait,’ came Bonnie’s small voice. ‘Don’t call me, okay? If the phone goes off, it might give me away, if I’m hiding. Do you understand?’

That little detail had to have come from Ben, thought Simmy. Even in a state of delirium, his brain was functioning better than hers. ‘Got it,’ she said. ‘Bye for now.’ She almost ran round to the Co-op on a parallel street and bought their biggest bottle of water. This was the shop, of course, where that Barnaby boy had met Ben. But … that made no sense, if Ben had been tied up inside that building since Tuesday. She shook her head, and went to find the broken window.

It took a little while to see it. Was this how Bonnie had got inside, then? It looked dreadfully small and tight. What a brave girl she must be! And when she bent over and peered in, the floor looked a long way down. Wouldn’t
the bottle crack when she dropped it, spilling the precious water?

But she could see no other alternative but to do as Bonnie had asked. Glancing around, seeing that nobody was watching, she pushed her arm through and let go. It sounded all right, as it landed, just a plastic thud, with no suggestion of cracking. She wanted to wait and speak to Bonnie, down there in the gloom, but she had other tasks to perform, and it was foolish to linger near the window, risking giving away what Bonnie had done.

Before she could start keying in Moxon’s number, she wanted to rehearse what she should say for the best effect. She knew so little about what the police would do, once they were told where Ben was. There had to be procedures for rescuing kidnap victims, and those procedures had to be trusted.

She would keep it simple, then. Just that she’d spoken to Bonnie who was hiding inside the empty shop with Ben, afraid that his captors would return and be dangerous.

Her thumb was actually on the first key when the phone tinkled in her hand, indicating an incoming call. The screen told her it was Melanie.

‘Mel? Sorry, can you wait a bit? I’ve got to call Moxon.’ She glanced around, wary of observation or even attack, if the Lillywhites and their friend really were the criminals. Why hadn’t she asked Bonnie to confirm their identities when she’d had the chance? But of course, they must be. Why else would they be there, just the other side of a wall from the suffering Ben?

‘Why’re you calling him?’

‘I can’t explain now, but we’ve found Ben.’

‘What? Wow – that’s brilliant!’

‘Yes, but—’

‘And I’ve got news for Moxon, as well. I think there’s something dodgy being planned for the upstairs room. I can’t work out what exactly, but it’s to do with that Sheila woman you told me about …’

Simmy went cold. How could she tackle the people she’d been following when she had no idea which, if any, had evil intentions? ‘Thanks, Mel,’ she said. ‘I’ll get back to you the minute I’ve made this call. I promise I will. But I’ve got to go now.’

What were the three people
doing
, she wondered. It seemed unlikely that they would stay in the doorway attracting attention to themselves for no good reason. Warily, she walked back around the corner for a look. They
were
still there, but the body language had changed dramatically. The woman in the tight skirt was plainly angry, stabbing a finger at Mr Lillywhite and glaring into his face. Mrs Lillywhite had her arms folded, feet planted firmly on the pavement, the image of an immovable object.

Crazily, Simmy saw this as an opportunity. Suddenly decisive, she walked up to them and smiled. ‘Hello!’ she chirped. ‘Remember me?’

It seemed for a moment to have been an inspired thing to do. The three shifted awkwardly and glanced at each other. ‘Um …’ said Mrs Lillywhite.

‘You know – the florist at the hotel. I found Dan Yates’s body on Tuesday, with Melanie Todd. It was terribly traumatic for her, you know. And me, of course. A dreadful thing.’ She prattled confidingly, throwing random smiles at them in turn.

‘Of course,’ said the man. ‘You poor thing.’

‘Yes. Well, nice to see you. I’d better get on. Things to do.’ She looked up at the blank window beside them. ‘Time they got someone to take this place on, don’t you think? It spoils the look of the village like this.’ She tilted her head in a poor show of ingenuousness. ‘Or are you thinking of taking it on yourselves? Are you in business?’

It was too much; far too much. All three gave her strange looks. But they did start to move away from the building, which struck Simmy as a positive development, even if it contravened Bonnie’s order that the kidnappers not be allowed to escape.

‘Bye, then,’ she said, and gave a fatuous little wave. This reminded her that the phone was still in her hand, and she was still supposed to call DI Moxon as a matter of extreme urgency. How many minutes had she wasted already?