Hot Blood (Bloodwords Book 1)

by Vic Marelle

  ‘Hello Kevin, I’m sorry to hear about your father,’ remarked Simon. Then turning to face the woman, ‘Mrs Johnson, how is your husband? Getting better I hope?’

  They both stared at him incredulously. Joan Johnson’s chin quivered and a tear rolled down her cheek. Comfortingly, Kevin took her elbow. She looked at Kevin, appeared to swallow hard before turning back to face Simon.

  ‘I am afraid that Mike has been attacked again Mr Charlton.’ She mumbled.

  ‘At the moment we’ve just buried Dad and Uncle Mike is critical in a side ward in Town Lane,’ added Kevin. ‘Do you two know each other then?’

  Wishing that the earth would open up and engulf him, Simon blustered out an apology. He was so sorry. He hadn’t known. Accept my apologies etc etc, all the while trying desperately to think up a strategy.

  ‘Actually, I was doing some work for Mike. We both use computers and I helped him on the technical side, but we haven’t met for some time. I didn’t know that he had been attacked again.’ Well all that was obvious anyway because if he had known he wouldn’t have made yet another major gaffe would he? Embarrassed, he stood and watched as Kevin escorted Joan Johnson to the car park where they exchanged a few pleasantries. Kevin stood and watched as she drove away. Then he turned around, said nothing as he passed Simon, and returned to the gathering.

  Walking back, Simon mulled over the events of the previous half hour. He had put his foot in it with both the young couple and then with Joan Johnson and Kevin, but quite apart from his inept remarks, something somewhere didn’t add up. Why did the young couple not leave together and why was Joan Johnson at her brother’s funeral when there was a bitter rift in the family? Had Joan told her nephew that they had paid Simon to spy on his newly buried father? He thought not. That would have undermined her own position so with the new found family closeness, most likely she would hide any involvement, if only out of embarrassment. And why had any of them left when there was a wake in full progress? He had managed to return the logbook to the workshop but with little more achievable given the circumstances, on reaching his plot, he started up the Olympic.

  Stopping at a junction, he waited while Mrs Weston passed in front of him on her way back to her caravan. Her scooter bounced up the kerb and the old woman appeared to hang on to the handlebars for grim death. With driving like that it wouldn’t be long before there was another funeral he thought as he waved. Taking one hand off the controls she waved back, then quickly grabbed for the handgrip again as the scooter veered towards a small wall. Chuckling to himself, Simon put the Olympic into gear and drove further on to a tee junction close to the site buildings. To leave the park he would have to turn left, pass the reception complex and then pick his way through the crowded car park. Across the road he could see that the big double doors to the workshop were now wide open and the car that had been under the cover had been backed out. Kevin and another man swung the workshop doors closed and chatted together while Kevin fixed the padlock.

  Simon sensed a movement at the side of him. Turning, he saw that Phyllis Weston was now coming back towards him. Oblivious to anything else around her she bumped down the kerb and drove around the front of the Olympic back towards the site buildings, her head down and elbows out in the wind like a cartoon motorcyclist. Turning back, Simon saw that a low-slung hot-blooded red sports car was moving away from the workshop. From his viewpoint, little could be seen inside the car and he couldn’t identify the driver, but there was nobody else around – even old Mrs Weston had disappeared. With a muted low down howl from it’s exhaust, the car turned at the end of the site buildings in the direction of the car park and main gates.

  With the sports car now out of sight, Simon put the Olympic into gear and made his left turn. Passing the reception building he scanned for familiar faces but could not see either Kevin or the young man. Not that the question of who was driving the car really concerned him. It was more intrigue, given his love of Italian engines and cars, that such a car would be at Green Fields in the first place.

  Rounding the site buildings, Simon drove into the still crowded car park. While he hadn’t paid attention on his arrival, he was now conscious that with just a few 4x4 vehicles and the odd up-market Jaguar or Mercedes, most of the parked cars were family saloons and hatchbacks. Green Fields was definitely not Ferrari country. Taking a right turn out of the main gates, Simon edged the little coupe onto the lane. This was a route he enjoyed. These were roads for enthusiastic drivers and usually there was very little traffic, the flowing bends a sheer joy to drive in the perfectly handling Olympic. Snicking through the gears and with a light touch on the steering wheel to round each bend in a continuous flowing movement, he was soon passing the Johnson’s house, then up the hill and out of Crosshill Village, through Halsall and well on his way home.

  Exhilarated, Simon slowed as he approached the turn to his canal side house, then caught a glimpse of red in the distance as a car some way ahead crested the canal bridge. Instinctively, he cancelled his indicator and accelerated forward. Reaching the bridge, he could see that the road ahead was completely clear, so the Ferrari must have turned off. Something stirred in his memory. Casting his mind back a few days he recalled watching from his balcony as a similar red sports car had turned off after the bridge and followed the lane on the other side of the canal. It had then disappeared towards Ormskirk.

  For no real reason other than curiosity and the enjoyment of driving the Olympic on empty roads, Simon turned off the bridge and onto the side lane. Accelerating, he was soon alongside the canal and could see his own house on the opposite bank. Eventually he caught a glimpse of red up ahead – so knew that his guess had been correct. Sweeping through the bends he gradually closed the gap on the car in front, eventually turning a corner to find that the red Ferrari had stopped at a junction. Still not having identified the driver – and both Kevin and Rick Worth would recognise the Olympic – Simon pulled onto the grass verge, noting the car’s registration in a small notebook. As the red car pulled out onto the main road, Simon again pulled out into the lane and up to the junction, allowing two cars to pass before he slipped into the traffic.

  Keeping the two cars between them, Simon followed at a distance, regularly losing sight of the car around bends and corners before it reappeared on the straights. The road bore gently to the right and a truck pulled out from a wood yard, slotting in between the two cars in front of Simon. They drove on in convoy past a pub and a road down to the old airfield on the left, then between rows of Victorian terraced houses flanking the main road. The truck stopped at a pedestrian crossing, then a little further on, turned into a small industrial complex on the right, the hatchback in front of Simon picking up a little speed as they took a fork to the left. The road was now clear and a few hundred metres away he could see three or four cars stopped at a junction controlled by a set of traffic signals but there was no sign of the Ferrari. Slowing to take his place in the queue he considered the options. He had been unsighted by the truck and held up when it had stopped for the pedestrians, so he had no idea which direction the sports car had taken at the junction. Straight on or right would take him past numerous turnings into small streets, housing estates, and other roads and the car could have taken any one. With his quarry lost and the game over, Simon decided that he would take a left at the junction to aim for an industrial estate built on the edge of the old airfield and from where he could pick up a small lane that led back home. The trip wouldn’t have been productive, but then neither would it have been a total waste of time either. Putting miles on the Olympic was always a pleasure.

  The lights changed and the queue moved forward, Simon taking a left when he reached the junction, and then another to skirt the industrial estate. After a couple of miles he turned onto a winding road that would take him in the general direction of home. He was enjoying himself again. Up ahead was a section with a farmhouse on one side and a long low stone wall on the other, before which he always opened his side wi
ndow, slowed slightly, dropped a gear and floored the accelerator. Known affectionately by enthusiasts as the Alfa howl, the roar of the engine as the melodic noise bounced off the hard stone walls, amplified and tuned like an Italian tenor, was mesmeric. Entranced, he snicked the gear lever back into top and fed the coupe through lazy bends in a smooth flowing action, finally braking hard as he approached a small hump over a drainage gulley, then accelerating again as he flicked the car alternately left and right through a series of bends.

  With adrenaline running high, Simon progressed onto a long straight section and approached a crossroads. Masked by dense trees, the junction was a known danger spot but instead of just easing off and using his brakes, Simon used the gears to slow the little coupe, changing down early each time to again savour the howl of the engine on the overrun. Sitting at the junction, Simon checked for traffic and engaged gear to move forward. Accelerating hard, half way across the junction he swung the wheel to his right. The rear wheels lost grip and the tail of the coupe slid out just missing the kerb, before he brought the car back under control. Accelerating down the road, he thought that perhaps the red blob that had caught his eye in the distance might just be the car he had been following. But then it might not either. Whether or not, another excuse to drive wonderful country lanes almost devoid of traffic was not to be missed, and with his foot planted to the floor he sped off after the car, whatever it was. This was a new route for him and his heart rate went up a notch as he negotiated blind bends through unfamiliar territory, until at last he made up sufficient ground to see the red car in front.

  Yes! It was the same car. Easing off to keep a safe distance he followed the car for several miles until it slowed and turned into an entrance between huge gateposts. Holding back, Simon stopped close to the entrance. There was some sort of gatehouse that appeared to be empty, then a long drive that just disappeared into a wall of trees. Turning between the gate posts he drove slowly down the drive and past a side track, stopping where a lake could be seen through the trees. Ahead was a huge building that looked like some sort of stately home or country retreat. He parked the Olympic on a grass verge, shielded by a row of trees.

  Keeping to the grass verge, which would be quieter than the gravel driveway, he walked towards the building. It seemed far too big to be a single building, more likely long wings arranged around a central courtyard. Approaching, he could see two wings, each four stories high under pitched roofs with castellated towers at the corners, giving a grandiose presence not far removed from that of a university in Oxford or Cambridge. One of the wings could have been used to film Brideshead Revisited, for with a Palladian style porch under a clock tower at it’s centre accessed from the gravel approach by twin flanking stone staircases, it looked out over the lake with the appearance of a stately home. In direct contrast, the other wing he could see was much simpler, separated from an immaculate lawn by a row of perfectly tended shrubs, with just a simple open archway at mid section, presumably leading through to some inner sanctum.

  The grounds appeared to be well tended and the building itself perfectly maintained, but the whole place was strangely silent and empty. There were no vehicles, no people, and the red brick conglomerate was deadly quiet. If indeed the property were some sort of stately home, then he would have expected a public car park and visitor signage, some visitors admiring the grounds or daintily bedecked waitresses from a teashop. But instead it was just a huge, empty, eerie building.

  At the far end of the Palladian frontage and linked to it, stood another building. Unlike the main wings of the property, it was altogether more gothic in style. If the main property was a stately home of some sort then perhaps this could be a private chapel. But he could also imagine monks in their habits, walking along the corridors of the more simple main building, to matins or evening prayers in the chapel – and at other times, silence.

  Like now, when a ghostly silence pressed down like a forgotten cloud. The gravel path turned around the gothic building and back into the main property which he could now see was indeed a number of wings arranged in a rectangle, with an open area the size of a tennis court and a few smaller buildings next to the gothic building. Large doors in the gable of one of them were open, through which he could just make out the fronts of a line of about eight cars, while outside was the red car he had followed. From his vantage point, little more could be seen, but while he watched, a figure squatted down and removed the registration plate from the front of the red car before backing it into the building and closing the doors.

  Retracing his steps back to the Olympic, Simon turned the coupe around as quietly as he could, made his way back to the road, and drove home.

  ……….

  This was beginning to become a habit. Switch on the coffee machine, switch on the Mac and wait for it to boot up. Run a search, make a phone call, then pour out a coffee and take it onto the balcony to ponder. How many times had he done that recently? Too many for comfort, that was for sure. Too much pondering. And too much coffee.

  Although none of the cars Simon had been able to make out inside the gloom of the outbuilding had matched the registration plates hung in the Green Fields workshop, he had struck gold with the car he had followed; its registration had definitely been one of the plates hanging on Kevin Archer’s workshop wall. Simon had again phoned the registered owner – an architect in Kent – and been assured that yes, his car was still outside on the drive. Was he sure? Of course he was sure. Actually, he could see it from where he was standing talking on the phone.

  So the car driven from the workshop at Green Fields to the wonderful residence out in the country must have a different real identity. Who had been driving it was also a mystery. Never able to get close enough to make any identification, he had no real idea, but with only Kevin Archer and Mick Worth anywhere near the workshop at the time, it had to be one of them. As for the strange premises to which it had been taken, the plot thickened. He’d no idea what it was or who lived there.

  Intending to go directly home after leaving the country property, he had actually diverted to Green Fields Caravan Park, finding that most of the cars had gone and the parking area was almost empty. Half a dozen mourners remained in the reception room but not Kevin or Rick Worth. Kevin wasn’t in the office either but when Simon checked the workshop he found that the padlock was again unfastened and just hanging on the staple. His curiosity running wild, he’d checked the registration plates on the wall, and sure enough, one set was missing. Just to convince himself that the registration was one of those he had checked earlier, he had then taken down the logbook and found the page where its number had been jotted. Flicking through the pages before he returned it to the shelf, he had then noticed a couple more entries since he had borrowed the log and made copies. Two more dates with PA detailed. Why would the workshop be reserved for Archer senior after he had died?

  Sitting on his balcony later with a coffee, he could see neither reason nor connection, but instinctively knew that there must be both.

  Going back inside to the Mac, he opened Firefox and studied Google maps for the area. Eventually he found what he thought was the stately home in the country. From the satellite image, the rectangular building with central grass courtyard looked correct, there was a lake in the right position, and the driveway from the road seemed to be white or light grey gravel. But from the aerial view he couldn’t be sure. Dragging the Street View icon, he waited for the screen to refresh. But it didn’t. Google didn’t have a street view for the property. Switching to Bing maps, he again located the premises and clicked on Birds Eye View. This time he was in luck. An angled view displayed on which he could identify the Palladian wing with some certainty. He could see that the smaller building with the garage doors, though lower than the others at just a single storey, was actually quite long, almost half the length of a full wing in fact. But more interestingly, the satellite image showed two windows in the solid gable, which meant that the garage style doors must have been
fitted later.

  But how much later? If the satellite images were up to date then converting the building to a car storage facility must have been done recently. Typing in new search criteria, Simon brought up the imagery for Southport Promenade. Blast it! According to the display on his screen, what had for several years been the Ramada Plaza, a rather upmarket hotel, casino and restaurant complex overlooking the Marine Lake, still showed up as the Floral Hall Gardens. On that basis the garage doors at the country property could actually have been installed at any time and for any purpose over more than a decade.

  Returning to the Google imagery he checked the property and its surroundings. Golf clubs and even some small pubs were identified with names but not the buildings in which he was interested. There were a few road names and locations; Dean Wood, Roby Mill, and College Road among others. Often, names indicated historical facts so could that be the case here? Had the owner of Roby Mill built himself a huge country residence nearby? If the property was a monastery, then had Dean Wood been named after a clergyman? Or did College Road link the building to some long defunct educational establishment that the local council could no longer afford to run? They could all be possibilities. Or none, the college idea being possibly the least probable given the huge sums poured into upgrading the nearby Edge Hill Teacher Training College – a much less impressive building - to university status.

  Simon was confident that the chosen tools of his trade gave him an advantage over his contemporaries. He believed that his Mac was head and shoulders above a normal PC, that his beloved Bewleys coffee was superior to Douwe Egberts, and that his Alfa Romeo engined Rochdale Olympic eclipsed the Porsche it resembled. Whether that was real or psychological, the facts were that either side of a death there had been two brutal attacks on the same man. And an expensive red blooded Italian sports car in a workshop on a decrepit caravan site had been driven by a driver with no chance of being able to afford it – whichever of the two it had been – to a location that was stranger than a set in a Hammer House of Horror film. Turning to fill up the coffee machine yet again, he was no further forward with the Johnson case.