Who Dares Wins

by Vince Vogel

  “You lived here your whole life?” Dorring asked as the old man clipped away.

  “Ma whole life. Sseventy-eight yearss. Been barber for fifty-three o’ those. Took over from ma pa, an’ he had it from his.”

  “So you know this island better than most?”

  “Could say I do.”

  “What can you tell me about Appleby?”

  “Lord Appleby?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you need to know?”

  “Just general stuff. What’s he do with the flowers?”

  “Makes medicine outta them. Ssome pill that ssells real well in America. Made the island real rich. Before, we wass on our knees wi’ people desertin’ tha place. Now no one leaves.”

  “What about the fishing trade?”

  “Pah! What fishing trade? There’s nay enough fish to keep a thousand souls in food. Y’know how fishing is these days. Everyone in Europe fighting over depletin’ stocks. No, the fishermen do alright, but they don’t contribute anywhere near what Appleby Pharmaceuticals does.”

  “So he’s a bit of a hero?”

  “You could say. And it’s a shock too.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, he spent so long away from the island—nearly twenty years—that we thought he’d ne’er come back. But when his auld man passed over, he come back an’ set up the lab. Set the whole island up. Invented this medicine using the Gordon’s Heather and well, we’ve nay looked back since.”

  “What type of medicine is it?”

  “Helps treat sseizures. You know, kids with real bad epilepsy and stuff. Helps the world. Ay! Tha Lord’s a real hero ’round these parts.”

  “Then why’s he need all the security?”

  “Wha’do ya mean?”

  “I mean, he’s using ex-armed forces to protect him.”

  “Well, he’s ex-army himself. Has contacts there. So you can see why he’d employ men he trusted. An’ what with the patents he has at the company being worth so much, someone might steal their research.”

  “So it pays to guard it?”

  “Exactly,” the old man said, pointing his scissors at the mirror.

  The bell over the door went and the two men turned. An old woman with an exhausted face adorned with several loose chins stood in the doorway. It looked like she’d run there as fast as her short, fat legs could carry her.

  “George,” she said, trying to catch her breath. “Have ya… Have ya heard aboot ol’ Chalmers?”

  “Nay. What aboot him?”

  “They just… pulled his remains out o’ his burning hoose.”

  The barber crossed himself and so did the old woman.

  “How’d it happen?” he asked.

  “They don’t know. His barn caught fire too. The poor horses have perished.”

  More crossing.

  “They think it’s suspicious?” the barber asked.

  “Stevie McDonald’s there, but he won’t say. I can’nay think o’ why someone would do such a thing if it were on purpose.”

  “Terrible news,” the old man muttered as he crossed himself for a third time. “Terrible news.”

  “Anyway,” the old woman said, “I’ve got to be headin’ away.”

  With that, she was gone. Dorring gathered that she had many more doors to pop her head through and disseminate the news.

  “Poor Chalmers,” the old man said as he resumed with the haircut.

  “Was he a friend of yours?” Dorring said.

  “Nay really. But I knew him hiss whole life. He were ten years younger than me. Only bloody retired from the police ssix months ago.”

  “He was in the police?”

  “Yeah. Here on thiss island. Forty-ssix years too. Forty-ssix years keeping the peace an’ he getss to enjoy just ssix months of retirement. An’ it’s sso sstrange, too.”

  “What makes it strange?” Dorring asked curiously.

  “Well, you ssee, twenty-two yearss ago the ssame thing happened to the previouss police detective. Only he weren’t retired like John Chalmers.”

  “The previous detective?”

  “Yess. The man that John took over from. John were only a police constable back then in ’95. They made him detective when Simon Mclaughlin passed away, along with his wife and daughter. Another bloody hoose fire. Got them in their ssleep.”

  Mclaughlin, Dorring said in his head. Why does that name mean something to me? Then he spelled it in his head and it became clear. The name on the gravestone. The remaining letters were ‘hlin’. That makes Mclaughlin. Died 1995.

  “The fire killed his whole family?” Dorring asked.

  “Yeah. The wee girl, Kate, was only five.”

  He crossed himself again and gazed up at the ceiling when he did.

  “And Simon Mclaughlin had no other daughters?” Dorring asked.

  “No other family. Hiss ma and pa had died not long before that and Ssarah—tha’s the wife—well, her parents lived on the mainland. They came for the funeral, but we have’nay sseen them ssince.”

  Then who was the woman with the mole to Simon Mclaughlin? Dorring asked himself.

  “Who’s the detective now on the island?” he asked the barber.

  “Oh, that’ll be Abigail Pritchard. Pretty wee lassie, if ya don’t mind me ssayin’ so.”

  Dorring smiled. “Not at all,” he said. “I found her very attractive myself.”

  The toothless grin appeared once more on the old barber’s face.

  “Ay, she’s a beaut,” he commented. “But very sserious.”

  “Yes, I found her that way too.”

  “Sserious and not afraid to sstep into a fight.”

  “I’m sure she isn’t.”

  The barber continued with the haircut and the two were silent for a moment. As he had since yesterday when he’d watched her lament over the photograph on the ferry, Dorring couldn’t help thinking about the woman with the mole. Abigail, he said to himself. Abigail Pritchard. It felt good to know her name. To have a name to the face. But not Kate.

  Then he wondered once more what Abigail Pritchard was doing at the untended and damaged grave of former detective Simon Mclaughlin.

  “Is Abigail a local?” Dorring asked.

  “Nay. She’s from the mainland. They would’nay let uss choose our own thiss time. Had her ssent to us ssix months ago.”

  “Did that upset the islanders?”

  “Well,” the barber said with a shrug, “folk get sstrange when it’s just them. Solitude doing sstrange thingss, you could ssay. Certain prejudices rise up. One iss that we like our own here. Prefer when it’s our own doin’ the policing.”

  “So she doesn’t have the respect of the island?”

  “Oh nay, I weren’t ssayin’ that. Like I ssaid, she does’nay mind a fight. She ssoon earned respect when she fust got here. Broke the arm of one fella, too. Big fisherman by the name of Wattss. Old Wattss tried it on when she went to arrest him for hitting his wife one night in the Mermaid. He refused to leave an’ mocked her in front o’ the whole pub. But she twisted old Wattss around an’ broke the fella’s wrist in the process. He couldn’t ssew nets on his vessel for nigh on ssix weeks. Ssoon taught men not to mess with the wee lassie.”

  “So she has no connection with the island other than arriving six months ago?”

  “That’d be right. None until she came here. Why’d you ask?”

  “No reason.”

  11

  The haircut and shave were cheap. Four pounds. With his rucksack hugging his shoulders, Dorring left the barbershop and made his way out of the town, followed all the way by the watching eyes of the locals.

  He joined a country lane leading out through fields of plastic tunnels and farm workers seeing to the crops of Gordon’s Heather. Those close to the fencing would stop and stare at him as he strolled past. On the horizon, yet another storm was brewing and the wind was picking up.

  A vehicle approached from behind and from the sound of its engine, Dorring could
tell that it was a pickup of some sort. It slowed down as it approached and when it was crawling along beside him, he turned to the driver’s window. A large man with a shaved head unwound it.

  “You okay there?” the man asked.

  “Yes,” Dorring replied curtly.

  “Where ya goin’?”

  “I need to see Conner Jones. He works for Lord Appleby at the manor.”

  “I’m goin’ that way. Jump in.”

  “I’d rather walk.”

  “That storm’ll catch you before you make it to the manor. Plus, they might not let you in when you get there.”

  “And I’m taking it I can get in there with you?”

  The guy swiped his hand across the door. Appleby Pharmaceuticals was written on it in fancy lettering.

  Dorring stopped and so did the pickup. He gazed at the vehicle. A Toyota pickup with thick tires.

  “Okay,” he said, before walking around and getting in the passenger side.

  “Tony,” the guy said, offering a hand across the vehicle.

  “Dorring,” Alex said, taking it.

  The manor wasn’t far. Two miles at most. The rain hit them not long after they set off. They sat in complete silence the whole way. At the gate to the manor, Tony turned off and flashed an ID card over a sensor on a post. Two CCTV cameras, one mounted on each red-brick post of the gate, swiveled on their fixings and stared through the windows.

  “Who’s that with you?” crackled through a speaker on the same post the sensor was on.

  “This here is the stranger everyone’s so rattled aboot,” the guy said. “Wants to see Conner.”

  “Why?”

  Tony turned to Dorring and made a face that expressed the need for some sort of answer.

  “We’re old friends,” Dorring said without turning from the view of the large iron gate.

  Tony shrugged and turned back to the speaker.

  “Says they’re auld friends.”

  “Okay.”

  The gates made a clinking sound and then opened outwards on mechanized runners. Tony put the Toyota in gear and they entered a winding strip of shingle that passed through manicured lawns, the rain pelting it hard and forming puddles.

  At the end was a carriageway. In front of it stood a giant redbrick manor with latticed windows, columned front and ivy covered facade. It stood at the top of a slight hill so that it was raised above the surrounding land. Like a lion gazing over its savannah, it appeared to stare out across the rain drenched island.

  Around the carriageway, several Toyota pickups were parked, and Dorring realized that the lead with the tire tracks only brought him as far as Appleby Manor, but not to a specific vehicle or person. All around, men marched about, some of them with pistols attached to their belts, and they looked at Dorring with suspicious eyes.

  When they got out of the pickup, Dorring glanced down at his companion’s boots. They looked the right size. Ten. But then, so did a lot of the other boots that trampled about the place and it appeared that all of the men there were wearing them.

  Tony led Dorring to the front of the house. A large man who appeared to be standing guard stepped forward as they walked through the main entrance into a lavish hallway.

  “This him?” he asked.

  “Aye,” Tony replied.

  “Gotta frisk you, mate,” the gorilla at the door said, his pistol sticking out of his hip so that Dorring couldn’t mistake its presence. “The bag too.”

  Tony glanced sideways at him and shrugged. Dorring had no other choice but to remove the bag. There was a scanner to the side, the type you see in airports. The big guy took the rucksack and shoved it on the conveyer belt of the thing. Then he came around a monitor and sat down, ogling it as the bag moved through the scanner.

  Dorring took the chance to look about the place. It was a tall ceilinged hallway with staircases of red carpet coming down on either side of a balcony that stuck out in a semicircle. He stood within the shadow of a large chandelier that hung above their heads. Hanging from the walls were oil paintings of men in wigs and aristocratic uniform. On one painting that hung above the balcony, he recognized the man at the pub: Lord Bruce Appleby.

  He was standing proudly in the red tunic of the British army, surrounded by hillsides, one raised knee, his foot on a rock, a sword held in his right hand, a serious look on his face.

  Nevertheless, apart from the paintings, the gold gilding on the ceilings and walls, the marble flooring, the ancient red carpets and the priceless chandelier—for all of that, it didn’t really look like a manor. Because people walked about it in business suits with serious looks on their faces. On the balcony, they hung out talking, paperwork clasped in their hands. Others answered phones, chatting away while they went along, and the place resembled a house of business. Not one of aristocracy.

  No, it didn't look like a manor to Dorring. It looked like the lobby of an office block.

  “Okay, mate,” the gorilla said, making Dorring turn. “You can’t take the knife with you.”

  He was holding it in his hand.

  “Sure thing,” Dorring said.

  “You’ll have to keep the bag here with us, too.”

  “Sure.”

  The big guy got up and came over. Dorring knew by instinct to face forward, spread his feet and raise his arms. The big guy began patting him down.

  “So you’re a friend of Conner’s?” he said as he went about checking Dorring over.

  “Yeah, and you’re from London.”

  “Born and raised.”

  “That how you know Conner?”

  “I know him same as you.”

  Same as you, Dorring repeated in his head. So Conner has mentioned me to his friends.

  “Armed forces?” Dorring asked.

  “Yeah. I was in the Special Boat Service.”

  “Ah! One of our so-called brothers.”

  “Not much brotherly love though,” the big man complained. “Your lot was always takin’ credit for SBS operations. Everyone always knows the SAS, but us lot get forgotten.”

  “Sod’s law, I’m afraid.”

  “Yeah.”

  He found Dorring’s mobile in his jeans pocket.

  “You know this don’t work here, right?” he said, holding the old Nokia out.

  “Yeah. I use it for the time.”

  The big man narrowed his eyes as he gazed at the watch on Dorring’s wrist.

  “Old style,” he said, referring to the phone. “You don’t see many of these about.”

  “I like to think of a phone as just that: a phone.”

  “I guess. At least it means I can let you keep it on you.”

  “Why’s that?” Dorring had to ask.

  “You can’t take any photos with it.”

  He finished frisking Dorring and then left Tony to lead the visitor up one of the staircases. They traveled along a balcony, passing people with busy faces as they went along. They entered a corridor where people walked in and out of rooms, the sounds of deep conversations going on inside.

  “The bossman in his office?” Tony asked a man they passed.

  “Yeah,” the guy replied, eyeing Dorring suspiciously as he did.

  They reached a door with a sign saying: Conner Jones, Estate Manager. Tony knocked.

  “Come in,” a voice called out on the other side.

  Tony opened the door. Stepping inside, they found Conner busy going over some papers behind a large mahogany desk. His eyes narrowed when he saw Dorring.

  “Alex Dorring to see ya, boss,” Tony said.

  “Cheers, Tone,” Conner said, taking the papers from his desk and tucking them into a drawer. He then leaned back in his office chair and laced his fingers, resting them on his belly.

  “You okay fa me to leave?” Tony asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Okay then.”

  Tony nodded at Dorring and then left him standing in the middle of the room, closing the door behind.

  “Take a seat,” Con
ner said, signaling the chair opposite with his hand.

  Dorring took it and sat staring at his old comrade.

  “I told you to behave yourself,” Conner said. “I hear there was some bother with the local PD.”

  Dorring didn’t say anything straight away. The rain lashed against a latticed window behind Conner and its sound was all there was until Dorring said, “Who else from our old unit is here?”

  Conner narrowed hawkish eyes at him. “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “Today I found a body. I did the right thing and called it into the police. Brought the copper out to the beach and guess what?”

  “What?”

  “The body was gone.”

  “I heard,” Conner said. “They think you’re nuts.”

  “I’m not,” Dorring said instantly. “I pulled a man out of the water and when I lay him down on the sand, I found mutilations I haven’t seen for fourteen years.” He gazed sternly at Conner, right into his eyes, penetrating his skull with the look. “So I ask you again,” Dorring added, “who else is here?”

  “No one from back then. And that’s the God’s honest. After what happened back in Helmand, I didn’t want anything to do with the old unit. That time spoiled it.”

  “You’re telling me the truth?”

  “The God’s honest.”

  “But the killer is here. Were any of the men working here in Afghanistan during that time? In Helmand?”

  “Off the top of my head, I don’t know. I’d have to look into it.”

  Dorring grinned to himself. “Okay,” he said.

  “What?” Conner said, leaning forward, annoyed by the grin. “Come on. What is this? You’re telling me that that bastard is here on McGuffin? You’re mad, man. He’s long gone. Why would he be here of all places?”

  “The dead body in the water didn’t lie.”

  “You mean it had Who Dare Wins scored into it?” Conner asked.

  “Yes.”

  “But now it’s gone?”

  “The killer came back for it,” Dorring replied calmly. “Someone must have tipped him off. I suspect the cop. I think he radioed it in as we were driving out to the beach.”

  “Why would Stevie McDonald of all people have someone move a dead body?”