Changelings

by Jo Bannister

  Liz sniffed. ‘Well, we may not have studied him in quite the same way, but we know something about blackmailers in general. They’re loners. They may occasionally take a partner, they may employ peripheral players as hired help, but essentially they’re loners. It’s the safest way.’

  Shapiro regarded her. ‘Safest?’

  Liz nodded. ‘More than most criminals, the extortionist lays himself open to discovery. He can’t hit and run: he has to deal with his victims. Approach them, talk to them, collect his ransom. Protecting his identity is vital to success, and no secret is entirely safe once it’s been shared. Two blackmailers might keep a secret, because if it got out both of them would know who was responsible, but more than two and somebody’s going to blow it.’

  ‘Fair comment,’ agreed Shapiro. ‘So we’d prefer a single blackmailer but we’re willing to consider a partnership of two. Does Tony Woodall know Miranda Hopkins?’

  Liz blinked. She hadn’t considered the possibility. She considered it now. ‘Their kids go to the same school, they’re both into sport, there’s just a year between them … yes, it’s quite likely they hang out together. And if they do the parents probably do know one another. All the same … ’

  ‘You don’t like them for it.’

  ‘I quite like Woodall,’ said Liz judiciously. ‘He could have produced the first two episodes very easily. He has form of a kind. And he was very keen to get the money handed over. I don’t much fancy Hopkins.’

  ‘But Hopkins could get hold of the cholera for him. It’s hardly a standard line at the cash and carry.’

  But Liz wasn’t convinced. ‘I really don’t see Miranda Hopkins being involved. She’s … not the type.’

  Shapiro elevated an eyebrow. ‘The type?’

  Liz found herself blushing. ‘I know, I know: in the right circumstances almost anyone can commit almost any crime. But the relevant word here is Almost. Blackmail is such a cold, calculated offence. I’ve known otherwise nice people who committed murder, but I’ve never known any who went in for blackmail. Blackmailers, when you finally track them down, you feel you should have known all along.’

  ‘That’s the ones that you do finally track down. What about the ones that you don’t?’

  Somehow, today it wasn’t working. They weren’t resolving anything; they weren’t even thinking anything fresh. They went to break up.

  But Liz hovered in Shapiro’s doorway. ‘Er … ’

  He shook his head. ‘No, still nothing from the mere. It’s a lot of water to search.’

  She nodded. ‘I know. I’m not even sure why it feels to matter. It’s pretty obvious what happened. I don’t know why it feels less real because there’s no body.’

  ‘Completion,’ suggested Shapiro. ‘You can’t draw a line under the thing until you’ve had a funeral. It’s not a religious ritual, it’s a human one. You need an X marks the spot somewhere to show what happened and give you a point to move on from. Otherwise you’re waiting for something that never comes and it’s hard to get on with your life.’

  ‘I hadn’t even thought of the funeral.’ Liz’s eyes widened. ‘Somebody’d better tell his family.’

  ‘What family?’ asked Shapiro dourly. ‘There’s a couple of dotty aunties in Glencurran, they just about exchange Christmas cards.’

  Liz found herself smiling. ‘No, they send him a postal order for his birthday as well. They’ll have to be told, Frank. They mustn’t read it in the papers. Speaking of which …’

  He sighed. ‘I prepared a press release earlier. I was putting it off, but you’re right, we can’t wait until the Courier asks Lucy Cole why she’s walking his dog. I thought we’d stick to the basics for now – boat found drifting, Donovan missing. If we say we think he had cholera this town’ll tip over the edge into hysteria.’

  ‘What about the boy Tyler rescued? Is he going to be all right?’

  Shapiro shrugged. ‘He’s a drug addict so the term’s comparative. Yes, he’ll recover. He’s got five broken bones, they really laid into him, but he’ll mend. He’ll live long enough to die of an overdose.’

  ‘And Tyler himself? Have we heard any more from him?’

  Shapiro shook his head. ‘Either he’s jollied off for a day’s sightseeing, which seems a little unlikely, or he’s pursuing his own enquiries.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s cornered Woodall again.’

  ‘If he has I expect we’ll hear about it, from Woodall. He seems to think it’s our job to protect him from his company’s troubleshooter.’

  ‘Actually, it is.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s why he was so keen to get the ransom paid,’ mused Shapiro. ‘Perhaps he knew that, if this went on long enough, he’d have Mitchell Tyler on his back.’

  ‘But if Tyler scares him that much, why start a course of action that would inevitably have that result?’

  ‘Maybe it’s a double bluff. Maybe he isn’t that scared – he just wants us to think he is so we’ll rule him out.’

  Liz sniffed. ‘If we’re getting into maybes, maybe Scobie’s granny did it all along.’

  When Harrison Ford woke up in similar circumstances, Donovan reflected philosophically, it was to the sight of Kelly McGillis who promptly began to disrobe. Why did it not surprise him that when he woke in a strange bed his guardian angel was old enough to be his mother?

  This was sophisticated thinking for a man who’d been unconscious for three days.

  The woman felt his eyes and turned with a smile. ‘Mr Donovan. Back in the land of the living, I see.’

  He took that as a good omen. He doubted it was something dead people said to one another. ‘Looks like it.’ His voice was a croak, a husk of a thing, dry and without strength.

  ‘How do you feel?’ She had silver hair curling over the collar of her checked wool dress, and the rosy cheeks of her youth had paled and shrunk a little, leaving the bones of her face prominent. It gave her a certain nobility which the clear gaze of her blue eyes did nothing to diminish.

  Donovan felt like a clumsy stable boy being picked up by the owner of the horse that kicked him. ‘I’ve felt better.’

  ‘You’ve been ill. Do you know where you are?’

  Unable to lift his head, he looked round by swivelling his eyes. Even that hurt. He was in a room of sprigged cottons and substantial furniture. Nothing about it looked familiar. He shut his eyes. ‘No.’

  She’d been about to explain but he was too weak to listen. ‘Don’t worry about it now. You’re safe here. Go back to sleep, you’ll feel better tomorrow.’

  But he wasn’t ready to return to the blackness. Somehow he knew he’d been there too long already, had found it hard to leave. He forced his drooping lids apart by sheer effort of will. ‘What happened? Where’s my boat?’

  ‘Close by. Everything’s all right. There’s nothing that needs your attention right now.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m Mrs Turner – Sarah Turner. This is my house. You’ve been our guest for a few days, since Elphie found you. You’ve had pneumonia.’

  It took time for him to absorb that. Pneumonia? – and he’d lost whole days to it? ‘What day’s today?’

  ‘Friday. If you’re not going to sleep, perhaps you should try to get some food inside you. Start with this’ – she filled a glass with water, propped up his pillows so he could drink it – ‘and if you keep that down I’ll make you some soup.’

  He wasn’t aware that he was hungry, but sipping the water made him aware that he was thirsty. He emptied the glass, passed it back for a refill. ‘Elphie?’

  ‘My granddaughter. Well – my stepson’s daughter. She found you. It’s as well somebody did.’

  ‘Pneumonia?’

  ‘People die of pneumonia, Mr Donovan. If they don’t get help they do.’

  ‘I think I passed out.’

  ‘You must have been ill for days. Why on earth didn’t you call someone?’

  He thought back. But the past wasn’t just a foreign country, i
t was a foggy one. ‘My phone’s up the left.’

  Mrs Turner was obviously an educated woman but that education had not extended to Ulster vernacular. ‘You couldn’t get through?’

  ‘Guess not, or the cavalry’d have arrived by now.’ His eyelids were drooping again, his voice growing slurred. ‘I saw a fairy … ’

  Sarah Turner smiled again. ‘Go to sleep now, Mr Donovan. I’ll explain properly when you wake up.’

  3

  When Donovan surfaced again the fairy was back, perched on the window seat and watching as if she expected him to do something interesting. It was the sheer intensity of her gaze which roused him. He groaned and rolled over, shielding his eyes against the light, and she was sitting there cross-legged, a few feet from him.

  ‘You’re Elphie.’

  Her bright gaze sparkled with delight. Donovan knew nothing about children but he supposed she was about six years old. ‘You’re a policeman.’ The little piping voice chimed exactly with the pointed face, the slender limbs, the floss of ash-blonde hair. Even now he had more of his wits about him, he was still inclined to look for the gauze of wings tucked behind her shoulder-blades.

  ‘Donovan,’ he said. ‘My name – Donovan.’

  ‘Nana says I’ve got to call you Mister.’

  Donovan gave a gruff chuckle. ‘Nobody calls me Mister, and you’re not big enough to start.’

  She recognized it as a joke. The pale triangle of her face spread in a beam. ‘I’ll tell Nana you’re up.’ Wings or not, she flew from the room and down the stairs beyond.

  Her departure gave Donovan the opportunity to explore his circumstances. A glance under the bedclothes confirmed his suspicion: he was naked, someone had been tending him like a baby. He had no recollection of it, none at all. He remembered being in the saloon on Tara, too weak to try the phone again, then waking up here. Nothing in between. The woman said it was Friday. He’d lost three days.

  She said he’d had pneumonia. His chest felt bruised. He’d never really been ill before. Injured – he knew the Accident & Emergency wing at Castle General better than some of the people who worked there – but not ill. Pneumonia was an old man’s disease!

  Another, slower, footfall on the stairs and Mrs Turner – that was the name he’d been looking for – appeared with a tray. ‘Elphie says you’re feeling better.’

  ‘I must be. I can keep my eyes open’ But he found it difficult to look at her. A man unused to dependency, to whom the very thought was anathema, he was appalled to realize he’d been utterly dependent on a stranger for three days.

  But if Donovan was embarrassed, Sarah Turner wasn’t. She smiled. ‘Let’s see if you can eat as well.’ She put the tray in front of him.

  He couldn’t work out what time of day it was, had to ask. ‘Three o’clock in the afternoon.’ And, anticipating his next question: ‘Still Friday.’

  She’d made him chicken soup – what Shapiro called Jewish penicillin – and toast. He began sipping it to please her, found appetite came with the eating. It was four days since he’d had anything solid.

  Satisfied, Mrs Turner left him to it. ‘When you want a wash, the bathroom’s next door on the left. Simon brought your shaving kit from the boat.’

  ‘Simon?’ Donovan mumbled through the toast.

  ‘My stepson. Call if you need anything.’

  The food put some life back into him. His chest still ached, his limbs felt heavy and his head light, but these were the aftermath of illness rather than illness itself. He’d slept his way towards recovery.

  After he’d eaten he tried getting up. It took him two tries to reach the dressing-gown left thoughtfully at the end of the bed. Simon hadn’t brought that from Tara: Donovan didn’t own one. Mostly, if he wasn’t asleep he wanted to be ready for whatever little surprises the day had in store.

  So that, washed and shaved, his next priority was to track down his clothes. He found them in the wardrobe, washed, pressed and hung up. Almost, they looked too clean to be his. He put them on anyway and, already feeling more in control of his situation, headed downstairs.

  The rattle of pots led him to the kitchen. Sarah Turner was baking. She looked round in surprise when he cleared his throat. ‘Mr Donovan! You shouldn’t be up and about yet. Sit down’ – she pulled out a kitchen chair – ‘before you fall down.’

  She was right: his knees were trying to bend both ways. He slid gratefully into the chair. ‘Listen, I – er—’ He tried again. ‘Thank you for looking after me. I’m sorry to have imposed on you.’ Since he didn’t ask much from other people he didn’t get much practice at thanking them. Even to himself it sounded an absurdly formal way to address a woman who’d stripped the damp clothes from his unconscious body and put him to bed.

  It did to her too, but she was too well brought up to giggle. ‘You’re very welcome, Mr Donovan: I’m only glad you’re all right. We were a bit anxious about you that first night. Then the antibiotics got to work, and after that it was really only a matter of letting you sleep it off.’

  ‘Have I put someone out of their bed?’

  She beamed. ‘Heavens, no. This is a big house, we’ve more than enough room for guests. Don’t even think of leaving tonight. See how you feel tomorrow, but stay as long as you need to. Elphie’s enjoyed having you here. She doesn’t see many new faces’

  He snorted. ‘I can’t have been too entertaining out cold!’

  ‘Well, it’s quiet out here. There are no children in the village now: she has to make do with me, her father and any stray puppies, sick lambs and orphan chicks she can find. I’m afraid she sees you as the ultimate in sick lambs, Mr Donovan.’

  He scowled. ‘I wish you wouldn’t call me that.’

  Her head tilted to one side. ‘You prefer Sergeant?’

  ‘I prefer Donovan.’

  She shook her head crisply. ‘I don’t call my employees by their surnames, I’m certainly not addressing a guest that way. I presume you have a Christian name?’

  He nodded, reluctantly. ‘I never use it.’

  ‘Why ever not? If it’s good enough for God, it’s certainly good enough for you. What is it?’

  ‘Caolan.’

  In thirty years, the only pleasure his first name had ever given him was the way it made Sarah Turner stop and blink. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Caolan. It’s Irish.’ He relented a little. ‘People who insist on doing call me Cal.’

  She looked relieved. ‘Very well. Cal. Now, we have a sort of farmhouse tea at six. If you’re well enough I suggest you join us, then have an early night. Or if you’re tired before that I’ll have Simon bring you up a tray.’

  ‘I’m OK,’ he grunted, embarrassed by her kindness. He chewed on his lip. ‘Mrs Turner – can you tell me what happened?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ She dusted flour off her hands and sat down facing him. ‘On Wednesday morning Elphie found your boat moored on the towpath. She insists she knocked; when she got no answer she peeped through the window. She saw you on the sofa, thought you were asleep, thought she’d wait for you to wake up.’ She watched him, gauging his reaction. ‘That must seem very rude to you. She doesn’t mean to be, she just doesn’t understand that people like their privacy. And in the event, it’s probably just as well. You really were very ill.’

  Donovan nodded slowly. ‘I’m surprised they left me here. It wasn’t your job to look after me, they should have taken me to hospital.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Well – the doctor, whoever you called. Did he think I lived here?’

  ‘Dr Chapel lives in the village. He didn’t think you needed to be in hospital, and I was happy to look after you. It was a dreadful night, and the road out here is so long and so bad we thought you’d be better tucked up in a warm bed than bouncing around in the back of an ambulance. Dr Chapel put you on antibiotics, he said that and a bit of care was all you needed.’ She smiled brightly. ‘And he was right.’

  ‘What village? Where are we, exactly?�
�

  ‘East Beckham. It’s a bit pretentious to call it a village – there are a dozen houses and Mrs Vickery runs a general store in her front room. Everyone else works for The Flower Mill.’

  Donovan was still thinking in terms of baking. ‘You mill grain?’ He knew East Beckham as a dot on the map north of the Thirty Foot Drain. He didn’t know there was any industry out here.

  ‘Flower with a W,’ said Mrs Turner. ‘It’s a family business. We grow bulbs: cut flowers for the spring, bulbs for the garden centres.’

  Of course, bulbs. Donovan had seen the fields in April, great splashes of primary colour like a child’s painting. In many ways the fens are more like Holland than the rest of England.

  ‘What happened to my dog?’

  ‘He’s all right. We left him on the boat but he’s got food and water, he’ll keep until you’re fit to go and see to him. Tomorrow, maybe. Tonight you really should stay indoors.’

  He didn’t need persuading. The towpath had to be half a mile from here, he’d have collapsed in an abject huddle within the first hundred metres. He couldn’t believe how weak he felt.

  Mrs Turner smiled again, sympathetically. ‘So Cal, what brought you out this way? We’re a little off the hire-boat circuit. Surely you don’t suspect a major crime in East Beckham?’

  For a moment he sounded quite offended. ‘Tara isn’t a hire-boat, she’s my home. But no, I’m not here on business. I had some leave, I thought I’d get out of town for a week.’

  ‘Sick leave?’ Seeing his surprise she quickly apologized. ‘I’m sorry, I saw the wound in your side. It’s quite recent, isn’t it?’

  After a moment he nodded. ‘I was shot.’

  ‘In the line of duty?’

  One dark eyebrow rocketed. ‘Well, it wasn’t a social occasion!’

  ‘I don’t mean to pry,’ said Mrs Turner. ‘But I read about it in the papers. I thought that was you.’ She pursed her lips. ‘You were very brave.’

  Donovan shook his head. Like every born outsider, he both craved acceptance and couldn’t take it when it was offered. ‘That’s not what it is. You do what you have to – what the situation requires. Afterwards someone says “That was brave” or “That was stupid”, but at the time you’re just trying to get through. To get home.’