Fear the Past

by J M Dalgliesh

  “Wasn’t that days ago?” Hunter asked, frowning.

  Caslin sighed. “Yes. What are you, my ex-wife?” he retorted. She laughed. “What was he doing there?”

  “He drove around the outskirts of the town in the morning before backtracking in the afternoon. He stopped around here,” Holt indicated a section of the map where he’d drawn a circle to mark the range of the cell tower, “and the car was inactive for a little over two hours before he set off.”

  “Where did he go then?” Caslin asked.

  “Back to his hotel, sir.”

  “All right. Keep digging. What else have you got for me?”

  “I’m ploughing through his case files, sir,” Holt said. “I’m looking for a crossover between the names we have but nothing has flashed up in the database as yet. I started with the most recent and I’m heading back through his career. I’m viewing these as the quick wins because pre-late 1980s, the files were not computerised. I’ve submitted a request for the archives to be released to me. Ours are easy to come by but I’m waiting on those from Greater Manchester.”

  “Any idea when they’ll come over?” Hunter asked.

  “Should be tomorrow,” Holt confirmed. Caslin looked at his watch. It was late.

  “Okay, let’s call it a day and start afresh tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll head over to the hotel and check out his room. You two can go home and get some rest.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Hunter said. Caslin didn’t object as he stood up, pulling the coat off the back of his chair and putting it on. Holt collapsed his folder before rubbing at his eyes. He’d spent hours trawling through paperwork and was obviously happy for the respite. Caslin silently approved of his attitude. When accepting the offer to head up the unit, Caslin insisted on bringing his own team with him. Hunter’s inclusion was a simple decision whereas Terry Holt was a bit of a gamble. That in itself had a certain sense of irony to it, what with Holt’s background of borderline gambling addiction. The young detective constable had made a concerted effort to refocus on his career, making the journey from a struggling detective to an efficient and respected member of the team. The opportunity to prove himself was something he’d grasped with both hands.

  “I’ll close up, sir,” Holt said as Caslin and Hunter were ready to leave. They left him to shut the office down and entered the corridor. Fulford Road was deserted, their footfalls echoing on the polished floors.

  “Stephen won’t mind you working late again?” Caslin asked in passing. Hunter shrugged. “I know you’ve been pushing yourself recently.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” she replied, glancing at him and pursing her lips momentarily. He sensed there was more that she wasn’t saying.

  “Everything all right?”

  “Stephen left last month,” Hunter said, her expression remaining impassive. Caslin could have kicked himself. He had no idea.

  “I’m sorry I mentioned it,” Caslin said.

  “It doesn’t matter. Don’t worry,” she replied.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I will be,” she said, looking at him and smiling. She gently elbowed him in the forearm. “Honestly, it’s okay. I think it’s for the best. We’ve been hanging on for a while now. Both of us have been kidding ourselves, and each other, that it’s going to work.”

  “How’s Stephen?”

  “Relieved,” she said. “I think he was putting in far more effort than I was towards the end.”

  “I’m sorry,” Caslin said, feeling for her. “Anything I can do?”

  “Not talk about it,” she suggested, inclining her head.

  “Understood,” Caslin replied, with a smile.

  ***

  A quarter of an hour later, they pulled into the car park of the Royal Hotel and Spa a few miles outside of the city. The restaurant was open to the public and judging by the number of vehicles present, the establishment was doing a roaring trade. Bradley’s choice of a hotel made sense. With a two-hundred room capacity, he would be able to blend into the background rubbing shoulders with guests, diners and spa visitors. For a man not wanting to stand out it was a solid plan. He could come and go without anyone paying him much attention at all.

  Caslin had called ahead and upon showing his warrant card at the reception desk was ushered towards the duty manager’s office. They were greeted shortly by a young woman, Caslin assumed was in her early twenties. The thought occurred to him about how young management appeared to him these days, wondering whether it was just him getting older or the next generation developing faster.

  “Has anyone entered the room since we contacted you earlier today?” he asked her.

  “No,” she said. “There’s been no activity recorded since housekeeping did their rounds this morning.”

  “Did they report anything unusual after they went in?” Hunter asked.

  “Nothing was noted in the file,” she said. “The staff are off until the morning but I can ask them if you’d like?”

  “Thank you,” Caslin replied. “And he checked in under the name of Brian Jack?”

  “Yes, he did,” she replied, checking her register.

  “Can we see the room?” Caslin asked.

  The manager led them out of the office and across the lobby to the elevators. Minutes later, they stepped out onto the second floor. Approaching room 243, the manager produced a key card to grant them access. Caslin accepted it from her asking that she waited outside. Entering the card into the slot, the LED changed from red to green and the sound of the latch clicking came to ear. Caslin eased the door open. The interior was shrouded in darkness. Stepping forward, he placed the same card into another slot on the wall just beyond the entrance. As soon as he did so, the lights came on.

  The room was a familiar layout for a high turnover chain hotel. The bathroom was off the entrance hall to the left. A few metres further they entered the bedroom consisting of a double bed, a small two-seater sofa and a workstation fixed to the wall with a chair underneath. A television was mounted on the wall above the desk. A suitcase lay open beside the bed with the top leaning against the wall. Caslin knelt alongside and inspected the contents indicating for Hunter to look around. The suitcase proved not to be of interest with only a few changes of clothes folded neatly and stacked atop each other. Hunter returned from the bathroom shaking her head in response to his unasked question.

  “Nothing in there,” she said, crossing the room to the workstation and continuing the search. “Here we go…” she said in a tone that caught Caslin’s attention. He had just come across a passport in the exterior pocket of the suitcase. He brought it with him as he crossed to join Hunter, flicking through the pages as he walked. It was in the name of Brian Jack. The photo matched.

  “What have you got?” he asked.

  “Laptop,” she said, glancing at what he held in his hands. “Is that legit?”

  “It’s genuine,” he replied, holding up the passport. “It was issued four years ago, so it’s pretty much up to date regarding the components. The anti-counterfeit foils and digital biometrics are present. This means he’d been planning his demise for a minimum of two years prior to the fire onboard the yacht.”

  “We’ll have to get this back to the station,” Hunter said, pointing at the computer. “It’s locked but… this is interesting,” she said, drawing Caslin’s attention to a folder that she’d found alongside the laptop. Opening the flap, she withdrew the first sheet and passed it to him. Caslin scanned the document. It was a print out of a spreadsheet. There was a list of countries down the left-hand side of the sheet with the corresponding columns representing months of the year. The spreadsheet was populated with figures represented in sterling, some lodged in red, others in green. The passage of the charted figures went back for the previous twelve months. What the figures related to however, was totally lost on him. “Did you check out the source?” Caslin noted the small print at the head of the page.

  “SLG Exchange,” Caslin read aloud. “What’s t
hat?”

  “A trading company,” she explained.

  “Trading what?”

  “Not that kind of trading,” Hunter said with a smile. “They facilitate trading on the markets. That looks like one of their market reports. You can pay them and they’ll produce these for investors. For a fee, obviously.”

  “I didn’t know you were into commodities?” Caslin asked. Hunter grinned.

  “Stephen is a FOREX trader,” she said. “Didn’t you know?”

  Caslin shook his head. “Can’t say I remember. What are the figures relating to? Any idea?”

  “No, sorry. It doesn’t say,” she said. “Perhaps his browsing history will tell us.” Caslin focused on the figures seeing them in a different context. They appeared to be documenting the rise and fall of a certain commodity recorded in a dozen countries around the globe. Making a basic assumption that red denoted falls and green, rises, he noted the rough trend saw this commodity’s value on the increase in the previous six months.

  “On its own it may as well be written in hieroglyphics,” Caslin said.

  “Then there’s this,” Hunter said, passing him a copy of an ordnance survey map. Caslin put the copy of the spreadsheet down and took the map. It had been opened and refolded in such a way to leave certain sections of the map facing to the outside. The first location that leapt out at him was Flamborough Head. The area was circled in ink with some handwritten notes alongside but Caslin struggled to make out what they were, such was the writing style that made it almost unreadable.

  “Holt said telematics put Bradley out at the Flamborough lighthouse, didn’t it?”

  “Yes, for several hours.”

  “Fancy a day out at the coast?” he asked under his breath.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The surrounding landscape was flat with barely a tree in sight as the sea came into view in front of them. The sky was clear and brilliant sunshine forced them to lower their visors as they drove along the appropriately titled Lighthouse Road. A line of single-story dwellings lay along the route, all facing out to sea. To the left of them was a golf course hugging the coastline that stretched north towards the Flamborough Cliffs. The village of Flamborough itself lay behind them a short drive inland, safe from the aggression of the sea battering the area.

  They passed the original lighthouse, an octagonal structure built from chalk hundreds of years previously. The line of residences retreated inland as the road opened out into the approach to the point. A beacon stood proudly at the side of the entrance to the grounds of the lighthouse, it’s brazier empty and now only lit for ceremonial purposes at certain times of the year. The approach road narrowed again with open ground to either side of them, less so on their left as the land slipped down towards the water below. The popularity of the site for tourists was reinforced by the first building they came to. It was wide, squat, and two-thirds of it given over to a cafeteria whereas the remainder was occupied by a shop selling souvenirs. The lighthouse was a visitor attraction as were the coastal paths heading north up the Heritage Coast or south west, back towards the larger population centre of Bridlington.

  Caslin passed the café and followed the pitted tarmac road around to the rear and the parking situated closer to the lighthouse itself. This building stood in excess of eighty-five feet towering above the attached ancillary buildings and dominating the landscape. This section of the UK coast proved treacherous for shipping with many wrecks falling foul of the combination of violent North Sea storms and the hidden dangers beneath the surface. Caslin pressed the start/stop button and the engine died. A whirring sound continued for a few seconds as the systems set themselves and then all was quiet. The sound of the bitter north-easterly wind hammering the outside of the car was all that could be heard. Hunter looked around. Clearly, she had never been here before. Caslin had, many times.

  “What would Bradley be doing all the way out here?” she asked, appearing perplexed. “Not coming for a round of golf?” she half-heartedly suggested. Caslin smiled. There were some hardy souls venturing out on the course, visible to them from the approach road. The sun was shining and that was all the invitation some people needed.

  “Let’s go for a walk and see if we can get an idea of what he might have been here for,” Caslin said, cracking the door open and being hit by a blast of cold air. Getting out of the car, Hunter joined him, wrapping her coat about her and squinting as she faced the sun, sitting low in the sky.

  Caslin looked around. The residences stretched behind them in a crescent shape some distance away. There was the possibility Bradley had visited any one of these places but they’d failed to find any associations, loose or otherwise, with the registered occupants. Heading over to the lighthouse, the compound of which was encircled by a five-foot-high boundary wall fashioned from brick, Caslin noted the side road running behind it and down almost to the cliff edge. There were a handful of minor structures present on a prominent outcrop and by the look of the attached antennae, he guessed they were monitoring equipment related to the fog warning system. As for the lighthouse itself, the tower was fully automated, dispensing with the need for a traditional keeper as were almost all of those in the UK network. The wall offered them a little respite from the prevailing wind but that passed as they came around to the northern side.

  A path led away from them with a signpost revealing the route of the Way Marker Trail. Caslin glanced about them. The business selling souvenirs was closed. A brief inspection of the sign indicated they were operating out of season opening hours. Unsurprising as footfall was light at this time of year. However, the café was open and they passed through a gate to the adjoining garden seating, an assortment of picnic benches, and entered the building. A handful of people were present. A small group of ramblers by the look of them, taking a winter hike along the coast. They approached the counter, Hunter producing a photograph of Philip Bradley. The lady staffing the counter was in her forties with dyed hair that was growing out to reveal grey shoots against the fading blonde.

  “Have you seen this man around here recently?” she asked, offering up the picture. The woman looked at it closely, turning the corners of her mouth downwards and shaking her head.

  “Not that I recall,” she said, eyeing them curiously. “Are you police or something?”

  “Yes, we are,” Hunter explained with an apologetic smile producing her identification.

  “Thought so,” she replied. “You all walk funny.”

  “Is that right?” Hunter said, inclining her head. “Are you sure you haven’t seen him? It would have been three days ago.”

  “Not me. Hang on a second,” she said, stepping away and looking back into the kitchen area, standing on tiptoes as she strained to see over the coffee machine. “Geoff!” she called. Moments later a man appeared from the rear. He was short, barrel-chested and balding. He approached them warily giving Caslin the once over as he got closer.

  “What is it, Mary?”

  “Police,” she said to him. He raised his eyebrows in response.

  “What can I do for you?” he asked.

  “Have you seen this man?” Hunter asked, sliding the photo across the counter towards him. “He would have been here a few days ago.” The man eyed the picture but he didn’t register a notable response. His gaze lingered enough for Caslin to think it was worth a nudge.

  “He would have been driving a red Mercedes,” Caslin said.

  “Yeah, now you mention it. I think he was here.”

  “Are you sure?” Hunter pressed.

  “He parked in front of the lighthouse, over there,” Geoff said, looking out across the tables and chairs and through the large picture window. “That’s restricted parking and he didn’t have a permit.”

  “You checked?” Caslin asked.

  “No, don’t be silly,” he explained, “if you work here long enough you get to know the cars and who owns them. It doesn’t really matter this time of year but he’d be screwed in the summer. Traffic war
dens love coming up here.”

  “Did you see him with anyone?” Caslin asked.

  Geoff shook his head. “No. I mean, he may have been with someone but he was on his own when he came in here.”

  “Did you speak with him?”

  “Only to serve him. He had a coffee and sat down over there,” he said, pointing to a table by the window.

  “What did he do?” Hunter asked. “Did he speak to anyone?”

  “Not that I saw. He just drank his coffee, staring out of the window.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then nothing. He left.”

  “That’s it? You saw him drive off?”

  “No. I remember seeing the car was still there when I went out for a smoke but I didn’t see him again.”

  “Any idea where he might have gone?”

  “No, sorry. He could have gone for a walk. He was dressed for it,” he said. Noting both Caslin and Hunter’s interest, he continued, “You know, casuals. Decent all-weather coat. I presumed he was going along the trail. Some people prefer it in the off season, fewer people to get in their way.”

  “Thanks for your help,” Hunter said and they turned away from the counter. Crossing the café, they went to where the proprietor said Bradley had been seated. Looking out of the window all that was visible was the coastal scenery, the lighthouse and the associated car park. “Meeting someone?”

  “Possibly,” Caslin said, following her line of sight. “Maybe he was early or arrived to check the area out.” Returning to the service counter, he drew both Geoff and Mary’s attention. “Do you have any CCTV?”

  “No,” they replied in unison.

  “What about outside, to the car park?”

  “No,” came the reply, only this time from Geoff alone. “Why would we need it out here? There’s nothing worth stealing.”

  “Fair enough, thanks,” Caslin said. Taking out one of his contact cards, he passed it to Mary who accepted it, scanning the details printed on the front. “Just in case anything comes to mind after we’ve gone,” Caslin explained.