Fearless ; The Smoke Child

by Lee Stone

  One name stood out as soon as Rachel opened the attachment. It was the name of the man that Charlie Lockhart had warned her to watch out for. The man who he thought could have thrown Barr from the roof. He lived here in Pine Bluff. He must have known David Barr well. The fourth soldier on the list of twelve was Jason Tyler.

  Suddenly Rachel felt nervous. Neilson had warned her about Pine Bluff. Lockhart had warned her about Tyler. She’d walked straight into both of them. And yet the picture of David Barr’s family kept her focused. He had died on her show. She needed to find out why.

  She convinced herself that she was safe in a city of fifty thousand people. Not much chance of bumping into the one guy she was trying to avoid. Even so, it was probably not a good idea to drink in the bar he was most likely to walk into. Just in case. She realized that she had been dumb, shooting her mouth off on the TV yesterday. She’d told the world that she thought Barr had been murdered, and that she was coming to Pine Bluff. So now she needed to be smart. She should find Barr’s family and then get the hell out of Pine Bluff. Quickly.

  She called over to Raven, who put down a glass that she was drying and walked over to the table. Rachel was still impressed at how quick she was on her feet, considering the size of her belly. She was toned and athletic, which only worked to emphasize her bump.

  “Cheque?” she asked.

  “No,” Rachel faltered. “No, I’m after your help.”

  “Okay?”

  “I’m looking for an old school friend, and I thought you might have seen her. I think she might hang out here sometimes.”

  Rachel showed the waitress the picture on her phone, trying to put her thumb over the LAPD sign and failing badly. It was a lame story. Rachel knew it and so did the waitress. She didn’t pull her up on it, maybe out of kindness.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her,” she said. “She has pretty eyes though, doesn’t she?”

  Rachel agreed and smiled. “She was married to a soldier; I heard they hang out here?”

  “Well, some of them do,” the waitress said as she walked back towards the counter. “My husband used to work up at the facility years ago, he might know them. What’s her name?”

  Shit. It suddenly occurred to Rachel that she had no idea what David Barr’s wife was called. Maybe she should have listened to Neilson and stayed back home. The waitress was already picking up her cell phone. Rachel thought quickly.

  “It’s the Barr family I’m after,” she called over to Raven. “She’s David Barr’s wife, if that means anything to your husband.”

  Rachel wandered over to the counter so she wouldn’t have to shout across the room. The waitress had turned her back, partly because her cell was charging on the back shelf and partly because she wanted some privacy, Rachel imagined.

  “Hi baby it’s me,” the waitress cooed into her phone.

  Over her shoulder Rachel could see rows of hard liquor and a few postcards, and a staff rota. There was a mirror on the back wall; the waitress was checking her hair in it.

  “Baby, did you ever know a guy called Barr? David Barr?”

  Just above the postcards on the back wall was a picture frame with a bronze plaque underneath it heralding the Employee of the Month. Sure enough, there was a picture of Raven in the middle of the frame. She had been Employee of the Month, April 2009. Presumably she’d remained unchallenged since then, because the dusty frame was still hanging on the wall. Her picture had sat beaming away while she slaved below. But it wasn’t the smile that Rachel was staring at. It was the name below it.

  “Sure, sure, yeah I know,” the waitress was saying. “It’s just that a girl came in asking if they drink in the bar.”

  Underneath the fading picture, a small sign read:

  Lucky’s Employee of the month

  April 2009: Raven Tyler

  It was too much to hope that the name was a coincidence. Rachel’s blood froze.

  “Well, sure,” she heard the waitress say. “No problem. I look forward to it.”

  The waitress put the phone down and paused for a second before she spun round. She was still smiling. Even so, Rachel felt that it was time to go. If her hunch was right, and Raven had been talking to Tyler on the phone, she didn’t want to hang around to meet him. She fumbled in her purse to settle up for the coffee. By the time she looked back up, the waitress was between her and the door. Still smiling. Wiping down the table with a cloth. But definitely between Rachel and the exit.

  “So, I need to pay for the coffee?” Rachel said, trying to stay calm.

  “Sure, leave it on the counter,” Raven Tyler replied, her voice still light and airy. “Don’t you want to know what my husband said?”

  “Sure, yes. Sorry.” said Rachel, caught off guard. If the whole thing got physical, she was wondering how hard she could push past the waitress without damaging her baby. Shoving a pregnant woman was not a good idea.

  “Well, he thinks he can tell you what you want to know,” she smiled. She took the sad-looking flowers from the vase on the table she had just cleaned. She poured the water from the vase onto the table and then mopped it up with the cloth in her hand. It was sopping.

  Rachel was edgy. Things felt weird. The waitress was pregnant and smiling, but she was behaving oddly. It was time to make a break before things got worse so she said, “I’d love to talk to your husband, but it’ll have to wait.”

  She didn’t bother with excuses. They both knew that Rachel wanted out, and they both knew that Raven wanted her to stay exactly where she was. Raven turned to the door and turned the sign in the window to “closed.”

  The gloves were off. But it was tricky. Rachel figured that if she shoved the waitress hard near her shoulders, she wouldn’t risk damaging the baby. She didn’t want that on her conscience. She walked towards Raven Tyler.

  Suddenly the waitress put her hands up.

  “Wait a second,” she breathed. Rachel only hesitated for a split second, but that was all it took. The waitress smashed her fist hard into Rachel’s face. Rachel felt the woman’s engagement diamond rip into her cheek, and then numbness as the full force of the blow hit her square in the face. She’d never been hit like that before, and for a split second everything went black. Like her brain had rattled around in her skull and taken a second to reboot.

  Then too much was happening at once. As she began to realize that blood was trickling from her nose, Rachel felt herself being pulled backwards. Raven Tyler had grabbed a fistful of her dark hair and was dragging her along the floor by her scalp. Moving quickly. Rachel felt the woman’s hand reach round from behind her and clasp the sopping wet cloth across her mouth. She could see the blood running from her nose down across the slim fingers of her captor. Her head was tilted back. She was drowning on the water from the vase. She complied as she was marched choking and spluttering through the doorway into the back room.

  It was hard to say how strong the waitress was, but she was lithe. Always twisting, always moving, always better balanced than Rachel. Rachel lashed out at her, no longer caring about the baby inside her. More concerned about herself. Raven Tyler threw her into the storeroom and she hit the floor hard. The waitress stood in the doorway and Rachel sprang back to her feet ready to fight. She hadn’t hit anyone in anger since high school, but it wasn’t in her nature just to lie down defeated.

  She staggered to her feet and grabbed at a couple of bottles from the crates which had scattered as she fell. She smashed them against the concrete floor, and looked up, ready to slash out at the woman who had broken her nose.

  Raven Tyler was a step ahead though. She’d grabbed the shotgun from behind the bar and swung it into the storeroom. Her stance was great. Legs just more than shoulder width apart, leaning into the room. It looked odd with her pregnant belly.

  The weapon was high, and she was looking straight down the barrel. The smile had gone completely from her eyes. They’d turned dead and gray, like wolves’ eyes. Raven Tyler’s shape told Rachel that she kne
w how to handle the weapon. Her eyes told Rachel that she’d be happy to do it in a blink. Rachel put the smashed bottles down meekly, coming back to her senses and realizing how quickly the situation had gone wrong.

  The waitress was considering giving Rachel a barrel to teach her a lesson when the door out in the bar rattled. Could be Tyler. Or it could be trouble. The waitress dropped the shotgun behind her back and went to investigate.

  As the pregnant silhouette disappeared from the doorway, Rachel realized that she had a few seconds to save her life. She looked about for a weapon but there was nothing to match the shotgun. No exit and nowhere to hide. So, she did the only thing she could think of. She hit redial on her phone and hoped to God that Neilson was the last person she’d spoken to. Neilson would know what to do.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Woodridge, The English Cotswolds, Winter 2010.

  “Oh, the weather outside if frightful, but the fire is so delightful, and since we’ve no place to go, let it snow let it snow let it snow.”

  – Dean Martin, Let it Snow.

  The young couple at the top of the hill took a deep breath and then opened the door. They ran full pelt across the courtyard to the door opposite. It took about thirty seconds to reach it. The bigger of the two banged hard on the door with his flat hand.

  “For God’s sake open up!” he yelled as the smaller squeezed around him to get some shelter.

  As Diane Reed flung open the door, her neighbors spilled into the hallway. Before she could close it, another couple flung themselves in, crashing into the first. The woman behind was screeching, but by now the first couple had burst into fits of laughter. One of them was blowing the water away from his lips and the end of his nose.

  The house was warm and homely, and as Diane pushed the door hard against the wind and the hammering of hailstones, the couples ripped their coats off quickly. Diane fussed about with them, helping people out of coats and ushering the couples through. Several other sets of wet clothes were already hanging from the coat rack. She had laid out newspaper underneath them on the stone floor to catch the drips.

  Woodridge was a community of about twenty families with a handful of children. Most of the families had been in the village for generations, working the worn-out land. There were a few wealthy newcomers, but mostly the fifty or so residents had been born and bred in Woodridge by parents who had been born and bred there too.

  The houses were clustered around an old stone farm. The farm was built in the shelter of a small copse at the top of a steep hill. It had been built on the remains of an old Roman settlement next to a track that connected two ancient towns. Opposite the farmhouse was a public house which served the same purpose as the original settlement; to provide rest and shelter for travelers between those towns.

  It looked like time had forgotten Woodridge. The exteriors of the stone buildings hadn’t changed for hundreds of years. Inside, they had been converted into fairly modern living spaces. The newer families had re-plastered and double glazed and centrally heated the places; the more established residents made do with cozy rustic interiors.

  The heart of the village was the old stone manor house. When it had come onto the market recently, it had sold quickly. A brusque Spaniard had snapped the place up and taken to living inside the place like a hermit. He said his name was Lockhart, but apart from that, the other villagers had learned nothing about him at all.

  The villagers thought the other new arrival was altogether better. He had moved into the village at almost the same time as the Spaniard but had immediately gone to the trouble of getting to know people. He was a friendly guy. Introduced himself as Ryan Birch. Birch had been the first name that had popped into the real Lockhart’s head when he arrived in the village.

  Lockhart and the journalist had stuck to the plan they had agreed in Baku. The Spaniard holed himself up in the impressive manor house and used the name Charlie Lockhart. The real Lockhart moved in to a small cottage next door and introduced himself as Birch. At first it had seemed strange, but it had soon become second nature. It worked fine. It was simple. Life was easy. Time dragged like hell.

  Most of the villagers lived in the stone barns huddled around a graveled courtyard behind the manor house. In the summer, the gray stone walls provided a simple backdrop for explosions of blossoms and flowers which had been carefully designed over the years. Today, the yard and the roofs and the streets were blanketed in snow. The village sat at the highest point for miles around and as a result it got cut off from the world whenever the snow arrived.

  By tomorrow, the settlement would be impossible to reach in anything but a tractor, and nobody was stupid to attempt to go down the hill in any sort of vehicle at all. So, when they knew the snow was coming, the residents stocked up their firewood and their larders and made the most of their splendid silent isolation.

  Diane Reed’s barn had a huge hearth right in the center of the full height lounge, the flames licking away as they flashed heat out into the room. Her neighbors had gathered on the plump deep sofas surrounding the fire.

  The group was all rosy cheeks and steamy spectacles, still laughing about the weather outside. Most had taken up Diane’s chirpy request that they help themselves to mulled wine. The room smelled of oranges and cloves. Conversations had broken off into small groups, but everyone knew each other well.

  Diane’s husband Peter jammed another sturdy log towards the heart of the fire and turned to address his neighbors.

  “Let’s get the Residents’ Committee business out of the way,” he paused for effect as the neighbors listened up. “And then we can get on with the important stuff, like dinner!”

  There was laughter and then general rummaging about for clipboards. The committee met once a month to discuss the mundane business of the village. It was mostly an excuse for a friendly get together.

  “I think we are all here, except for our friend, Mr. Lockhart.”

  The journalist hadn’t turned up once. He didn’t particularly want people knowing that he was Spanish. He was trying to keep a low profile. But mostly, he didn’t want to make new friends in a village he was hiding out in. He had taken on Charlie Lockhart’s name but assumed none of his affable personality.

  In contrast, Lockhart himself had been involved in everything. The bank in Baku had worked out fine, and he now had a huge amount of money which didn’t belong to him. Money that should be building schools and hospitals in a broken country, but was instead sitting in a bank account with his name on it.

  He set up a bank account for the Spaniard. Called him Lockhart. Transferred enough money for the Spaniard to buy the manor house. The cottage came as part of the manor’s estate, but Lockhart didn’t move in until a month after the journalist to ensure that nobody thought they were together.

  With three hundred million in the bank, the interest alone was growing at a staggering rate. Lockhart had spent months sitting at the top of the hill trying to work out how to make sure the money ended up in the right place. Doing the right thing. His feet were itching. He wasn’t a man designed to stand still. He wanted to get back out and see that the money was given to the people who needed it. But he remembered the sailor’s story from the Baku ferry. So, he stayed on his hill and waited for his enemy, but nobody came. Summer had become fall and still he waited. And still nobody came. Then fall became winter and now Barr jumped of a building. And somebody was coming.

  Peter Reed had rattled through the village agenda while his wife Diane stood behind his mouthing “beef or chicken?” to their various guests. Everyone was hungry and so business was swift.

  “Finally, it’s good to see the school in such good order,” he said. “It looks like our newest resident has been a guardian angel in recent weeks.”

  “It must be time for dinner,” Lockhart said, deflecting the attention. “Diane, how’s that chicken coming along?”

  Everyone laughed. He really hadn’t done much. The cash in Baku was meant for schools and hospitals
and he had tried to distribute some of it while he was waiting in Woodridge. He had started by helping one teenager in the village. She was interested in becoming a farmer, and he offered to take her on as a gardener to pay her way through a famous agricultural college nearby. The school fees cost far more than her family could afford, and far more than a gardener would ever earn. Lockhart paid them anyway.

  Since then, the man they knew as Ryan Birch had been one of the best things that had happened to the village. He was courteous and convivial, but private about his affairs. He never took credit, but the villagers started to notice that he was a man who made things happen.

  The local school was threatened with closure because of a lack of funds, and three families began to make plans to move house to another village with a more stable school. Within weeks a mysterious benefactor came forward and secured the school funds. There was also money to rebuild the classrooms over the summer break. Ryan Birch himself had turned up on site several times to help with the laboring.

  He never took credit. He felt like a fraud. The money in his account should have been saving lives. Educating kids. Helping local kids get a decent school seemed like a tiny gesture compared to what he would need to do once he’d wrapped up his business in Woodridge.

  Lockhart had stepped in when the brewery tried to evict the landlord of the local pub because he wasn’t making enough profit. The guy had a wife. He had kids. So, the brewery signs had come down, and news that a private buyer had taken over swept through the village. It was Lockhart. He went for a drink once a week and complimented the landlord on the taste of his beer and the shininess of his horse-brasses. He mentioned nothing about owning the place.

  But the neighbors seemed to have got wind of what had happened and as they gathered for the residents meeting they seemed determined to let Lockhart know how much they appreciated it. So, he was pleased when his ringing phone gave him a chance to escape. He answered and began to head out towards the entrance hall where the wet coats and boots were stacked. Diane began to usher the others to the dining table. The call was muffled and he couldn’t make out what the person on the other end was saying.