The Darkness and the Deep

by Aline Templeton

  It was frustrating, though. Without numbers to guide you, and with ground plans so irregular, it was difficult to work out which house might be hers. He knew the rough location and most houses by now had lighted windows. If Davis had returned, he could assume she would be cowering in the dark.

  Provokingly, in the approximate area there were two houses in darkness, side by side, each with a garage built across the end of the garden. He tried the doors of both, but they were locked.

  Certainly, even now a sheriff somewhere would be granting a warrant – might have granted it already, in fact. It wouldn’t bother him to jump the gun and break into Davis’s property; on the other hand, only a copper who was tired of life would risk kicking in the wrong door without a warrant clutched in his sweaty fist.

  He’d need to go back to the High Street and count down from the top. ‘The idiot race’, as he scornfully termed the onlookers, should have gone back inside by now, reluctant to miss the unfolding drama of Neighbours or EastEnders or whatever other brain-rotting soap they were addicted to, not having the patience to wait for the final act of the much more riveting drama being played out right on their doorsteps.

  As MacNee reached the junction of the lane with the main road, a blue Honda on the farther side slowed down as if to turn in, then speeded up again and drove off before he could read the number plate. His suspicions aroused, MacNee made to follow it, but was prevented first by two cars coming along on his side of the road and then by another going slowly in the opposite direction. By the time he got out of the lane, there was no sign of his quarry. He swore, and pulled into the side of the road.

  Perhaps it hadn’t been Davis, trying to get into the back of her house. But he was getting as bad as the boss – he had a feeling that it was. But where did you go from here?

  The panic that had made Enid Davis’s head feel like a pinball machine, with lights flashing and thoughts like random balls banging about, subsided once the police had driven away with the evidence that would damn her. Instead, an unnatural calm descended. She had heard this happened in near-death experiences: detached, you found yourself looking down on your body from a great height. She could see herself now, a small, huddled, frightened woman in a darkened car in a dark place. A very dark place.

  She had no coherent plan beyond heading for the sanctuary of home, forgetting to stop at the turn on to Shore Street, lurching out in front of a car which was forced to stop with a screech of brakes. That brought a grim smile to her face; it would have been an ironic fate, if she too had perished in an accident like Timmy’s. But she hadn’t. She drove on, into the High Street.

  It was only as she turned the corner that she saw the police cars, right outside her front door. It had crossed her mind that they would come looking for her quite soon, but the reality was more shocking than she could have imagined; for a moment her foot hovered disastrously close to the brake. With a gasp of fear she lifted it again; they couldn’t have her number yet, surely, and they hadn’t stopped the car ahead of her. As long as the drum-like beating of her heart wasn’t audible outside the car, she would be all right provided she didn’t draw attention to herself. She drove normally, looking straight ahead, until it occurred to her that a normal person would turn curiously to look at the police car; she managed that too and reached the top of the High Street without provoking any reaction.

  Enid turned randomly left on to the main road, towards Fuill’s Inlat, where this had all begun. She drove blindly, mechanically, trying to think what she could do, fighting against the answer that was screaming inside her head – nothing.

  She had to get into her house. She had only a few pounds in her purse. She didn’t believe in credit cards, but in one of the drawers of her desk she had a passbook with her nest-egg in it, a couple of thousand pounds. They’d put a stop on her current account immediately but this one was in her married name; she’d likely be able to withdraw most of it before they traced it, enough to establish herself in Birmingham, say, or London, even, where it was easy to disappear. People were always looking for someone respectable to clean their house while they were out at work, cash left on the table, no questions asked.

  But she hadn’t a moment to lose. Enid stopped suddenly, to more screeching of brakes and a blare on the horn from the car behind, which swung out to pass her with an obscene gesture from its shaken driver. She didn’t even register the sound.

  A gateway offered a turning space. They were watching the front of the house but there was a chance, just a chance, they didn’t realise there was a lane behind. And surely they couldn’t have a warrant yet. Her spirits rising just a little, she drove back.

  A glance down the High Street as Enid passed the T-junction was encouraging. The cars were there, of course, but the house was still in darkness. She slowed down to turn into the lane. Perhaps her luck was changing at last?

  Just as she did so, a car came nosing its way along the lane towards her, a car she knew wasn’t one of her neighbours’ cars. It wasn’t a police car, but she saw the driver sit forward and stare at her and knew with absolute certainty who it must be. Her last chance had gone.

  ‘Roadblock!’ Tam MacNee was shouting into the police car’s radio phone. ‘Priority – get one in place on the Glasserton road. Old blue Honda Civic, last seen heading south out of Knockhaven. If we can move fast enough we might get her. I’ll speak to HQ about more blocks if we don’t have a result in ten minutes. OK?’

  He switched off and set it back in place. ‘Even if she slips past that one, we’ve got her bottled up. That’s the good thing about this place – you can seal it tight as a drum.’ He spoke with exaggerated conviction.

  ‘Unless she finds a wee back road, or dumps the car and goes on foot,’ a plump, lugubrious uniform said. ‘Or public transport. Or maybe even kills herself, now she knows she’s had it.’

  MacNee glared. ‘Do you not get tired of Ingles always being so cheery?’ he said acidly to his partner, who grinned.

  ‘Are you heading back to tell Big Marge then, Tam? She’ll not be best pleased,’ he said, helping matters along.

  He was spared MacNee’s verbal vengeance by a message coming in that the warrant had duly been granted. PC Ingles’s heavy face lightened.

  ‘Here, Sarge, can I get to kick in the door?’

  ‘Be my guest. Though you’ll most likely dislocate your knee. Or break a toe. Or topple over backwards and dunt your head on the kerb. And then of course,’ his generous gesture included the other patrol officers, preparing to follow on behind, ‘you lot’ll be here till midnight, going through everything with a fine toothcomb. Later than that, probably. If you’re lucky you’ll get ten minutes off for your tea, but the chipper here’s rubbish. Famous for its soggy chips.’

  He got back into his car and drove off. ‘It’s never worth it with Tam. He aye gets his own back,’ one officer said gloomily. ‘Come on, Keith, swing the boot.’

  Her stomach churning, looking fearfully in her rear-view mirror, Enid drove through the maze of small streets in the old part of the town, taking a right, then a left, making arbitrary choices to shake off any pursuit.

  It was a shock suddenly to find herself in a narrow lane between high walls, a lane she knew all too well from her troubled dreams. Shuddering, she could almost hear Willie Duncan’s scream as if it were still reverberating from the walls. She had come full circle, back outside Katy Anderson’s house again. And, with Shore Street a dead-end once you reached the lifeboat shed, there was no other way out except past the police in the High Street. She dared not risk that again.

  No, her only alternative was to drive back up Baker’s Brae, just as she had done that night which now seemed so long ago. Her hands clammy on the steering wheel, she forced herself to turn the car and retrace her route, past the wilted pile of flowers lying at one side.

  The flashback was so vivid that she braked abruptly, gasping. The car slewed on the cobbles, greasy from the damp night air, and the wing scraped against the wall
. It didn’t matter now, but she gave a cry of dismay, as if it did. It took all her strength to restart the car and drive on. A minute later she was on the main road again, heading south. She was shaken, but she had escaped.

  Escaped – to what? Without money, she had no escape. Soon they would have her car registration. They would search her house. Rummage through everything, her desk, her chest of drawers in the bedroom . . . Her eyes widened in horror. How could she have forgotten the little notebook, the one where she’d written down her meticulous research on the harbour lights and the tides, and the timings for getting to Fuill’s Inlat and setting the lights in place? How could she have been crazy enough not to destroy it? Fear seeped through her again, like a cold finger stroking slowly down her spine.

  Enid drove more and more slowly, then stopped in a lay-by just outside the town, tears of self-pity standing in her eyes. It was so unfair! She had been the victim, after all. It almost made her want to put an end to it, though she’d never been able to understand how people could actually harm themselves.

  Would a women’s prison be so bad? She remembered Muriel Henderson complaining about their luxurious accommodation after seeing a documentary, and the women there would be mothers too; they would understand that if the State wouldn’t do its job, there were times when you’d no alternative but to take the law into your own hands. There might even be public anger when it came out that the police hadn’t taken action over Timmy. She’d read about cases like that in the papers . . .

  It was no good. It didn’t convince even her. One death, perhaps, while the balance of her mind was disturbed by tragedy. But they would say she was responsible for the deaths of four – no, five, people, even though the last one was just an accident. No one would listen to her. They would throw away the key.

  She bent her head down to the steering wheel and sobbed. It wasn’t how she’d planned it, how she’d seen it in her head. She was a loving, grief-stricken mother, a respectable woman. How had she become – this? There was a sort of darkness round the edge of her mind, a fog of despair that threatened to engulf her.

  She fought against it. It was his fault. None of this would have happened, if it hadn’t been for the Bastard. Because of him, she’d lost her son, her home, her friends. Anger began to replace misery, anger and hatred. That was better; it warmed her, made her feel somehow less helpless.

  They couldn’t do worse to you than lock you up for life. When you thought about it like that, it gave you a strange but wonderful sense of freedom. They said she was a killer? Then a killer she would become, instead of a woman seeking the justice the law had denied her.

  She had nothing with her that she could use as a weapon and she couldn’t get into her house. What she did have, though, were the keys to the surgery. Enid turned the car and drove back into Knockhaven.

  ‘We’ll need one just before Wigtown on the A746 and another at Auchenmalg on the A747. If we don’t get her there in, say, forty minutes, move from Wigtown to the A75 between the turn-offs for Shennenton and Benfield and send the other car to the Glenluce crossroads. We’re guessing she’s most likely to head for Stranraer, but we don’t want her getting through to the M74 either. You’ve traced her registration? Good.’

  As Kingsley, across the CID room, arranged with Traffic for the roadblocks to be put in place, Fleming and Kerr waited uneasily for developments. Kerr was fidgety, aimlessly picking up files then putting them down again; Fleming, sitting uncomfortably in a swivel chair, was just feeling deathly tired. Having thought they were entering the home straight, she hadn’t the energy left to start tackling obstacles again. She hadn’t broken the bad news to Donald Bailey yet either and she was going back, fretfully, over their procedure in the failed attempt at arrest. The woman’s incredible good luck was still holding; she must have been walking home from the surgery by some back route when they’d gone there to pick her up, and spotted the car waiting for her. Yet she’d have had to have fetched her car – when had she done that? Unless she’d had it at the surgery already, which seemed unlikely given that it was barely a five-minute walk . . .

  When a phone rang, Fleming nodded to Kerr to pick it up, with the negative thought that this was probably some fresh piece of bad news. But the message from the officers searching Enid Davis’s house was encouraging: they had found Davis’s cheque book, Switch card and a passbook in her desk, and there was no record of any credit card.

  That was, undeniably, a huge bonus. Fleming perked up again. ‘She can’t have a lot of money on her. So there’s no point in heading for the Irish ferries. And even driving south—’

  She broke off as Tam MacNee came in, looking crestfallen. ‘Sorry, boss. I don’t know how she was on to us – she’s made a pact with Old Nick, that one – but we shouldn’t have lost her. I’m pretty sure I saw her car but she got a head start and I didn’t see much point in chasing after her when she could easily have turned off and got behind me.’

  ‘Cheer up, Tam!’ Fleming said bracingly. ‘As you said to me once, “You never died a winter yet!”’

  He gave her a dirty look and she said, ‘Yes, it irritated the hell out of me too. Here, listen – they’ve found she’s no money on her, to speak of. What’s she going to do?’

  ‘Kill herself,’ Kingsley said. He had been subdued since Fleming had taken him off the work he was doing on the Elder file and brought him back into the case, but he delivered the suggestion now with a certain satisfaction.

  That had occurred to Fleming, of course, and to the others too, no doubt, but saying it bluntly made the possibility more real. It might be perfectly understandable that someone should prefer death as an alternative to permanent incarceration, but from a professional point of view the suicide of any suspect was serious bad news. There was a silence which no one seemed keen to break, then Fleming said suddenly, ‘I’m going to see if I can get hold of Laura.’ She picked up the phone.

  Laura greeted her with enthusiasm. ‘Bill said you’d something on so I didn’t like to call you direct, but I’d a good chat with Cat this afternoon. Incidentally, she confirmed that Kylie was with Nat on the night the boat was wrecked, so—’

  ‘That’s academic now, in fact,’ Fleming said briskly. ‘Laura, we’re looking for Enid Davies. I’ll explain later, but it looks almost certain that she’s our killer. The thing is, she seems to know we’re looking for her. She’s disappeared in her car but doesn’t have much money with her. We think she knows she’s trapped. What’s she going to do?’

  Laura was taken aback. ‘Hey! Crystal ball time again? Marjory, how can I tell you that, off the top of my head? I haven’t so much as met the woman.’

  ‘Take it from the other end. From what you know about the Wrecker, is she likely to kill herself?’

  There was a moment’s silence from the other end as Laura gave it consideration, then she said slowly, ‘Don’t take this as gospel, but my instinct would be that it’s unlikely. That sort of egocentricity involves considerable self-love, and if you think about it self-love and self-harm are fairly inimical. She was prepared to kill ruthlessly to save her own skin, after all. That’s just a guess, remember—’

  ‘Yes, of course. But it’s useful to know that’s your opinion. Our problem is that we’ve got to move on. I can see you can’t tell me what she’s going to do, but what’s she going to be feeling at this moment?’

  Again there was a thoughtful pause. ‘She’ll have a burning sense of injustice – because she sees everything from her own point of view she will believe her actions were justified and blame external agencies for what has gone wrong. She certainly won’t be repentant. She’ll be feeling sorry for herself, and angry, probably – very angry. I’m not sure there’s much I can add to that.’

  ‘Thanks, Laura. That gives us a focus, at least. Speak to you later.’

  Fleming put down the phone and related what Laura had said.

  ‘So she’ll be looking for a way out,’ Kerr said thoughtfully. ‘I can’t see what, thoug
h. She’s no money, she can’t hide out for long—’

  ‘Steal a boat?’ Kingsley suggested, but even he wasn’t impressed by the idea; he shrugged when Kerr said, ‘And then what?’

  MacNee had been conspicuously silent. Now he said, ‘Hmmm.’

  Fleming turned to look at him hopefully. ‘You’ve got an idea, Tam?’

  ‘It may be daft,’ he said slowly. ‘Look, I’m Enid Davis. I know, somehow, that you’ve fingered me. I ken fine that if you investigate you’ll find something. I’m going down for years, probably for ever. I’m angry. What am I going to do?’

  ‘You’re stretching our imagination here, but you’d better tell us.’ Kingsley’s attempt at flippancy fell flat.

  ‘Go on, Tam,’ Fleming said.

  ‘I’ve nothing to lose. If the world was against me, I’d punish it. Take someone out as revenge. Several people, given half a chance.’ He smiled his wolfish, humourless smile. ‘I’m nasty that way, see?’

  ‘Remind me not to put you in that position,’ Kingsley said lightly, but Fleming felt suddenly cold. She and Kerr looked at each other.

  ‘Muriel Henderson.’ They spoke at the same time.

  ‘Muriel Henderson,’ MacNee echoed, getting to his feet. ‘As sure’s a cat’s a hairy beast, Davis hasn’t left the town. We placed the roadblocks on the assumption that she would be trying to get away.’

  ‘Take Tansy with you, Tam. Police car, blues and twos. Jon, contact the lads at Davis’s house and send a car over there immediately.’

  It went against the grain for Fleming to stay here, stuck uselessly in a chair with her crutches by her side, but she would be a liability. A moment later she heard the two-tone siren start and she knew she wouldn’t even have reached the car by now. She sighed, following them in her imagination as, blue lights flashing, they sped down the familiar road.

  Kingsley came back over to her. ‘I’ve set that up. Do you really think our Tam’s on to something? Or has he just got us dashing madly off in all directions to make it look as if he knows what he’s doing?’