Dead Reckoning

by Glenis Wilson

  We took our leave of Katie, promised it wouldn’t be long before we’d be returning and crunched our way over the car park. Away to our right, the sea boomed rhythmically under the early stars. The breeze carried a strong, salty tang and Mike sighed deeply with satisfaction as we reached the car.

  ‘Don’t know about you, Harry, but I’ve had a great day.’

  ‘And it’s not over yet,’ I replied, deliberately not commenting on the day itself.

  ‘It’s certainly not.’ He unlocked the doors and we climbed in. ‘Pity Samuel couldn’t join us …’

  Victor’s vehicle was still parked in the same spot on the end of his drive but now a dark blue people carrier was parked upsides. Paula and the kids, no doubt, ministering to the sick. Victor had missed an eventful day. I was glad she’d turned up. He’d just lost a son – commiserations were still needed from me – as well as a daughter. It was no fun being ill, very much worse being ill and alone.

  Southview Park Hotel was two or three miles out on the A158 road. It was an impressively big, four-star complex, boasting fishing lakes and golf course with spacious cabins and luxurious caravans, plus the massive hotel itself with its own conference centre, theatre, bars, swimming pool and gymnasium. We’d been once or twice before and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

  In no time at all we swung off to our right from the Burgh road and dropped to crawling speed past the landscaped grounds with clipped bushes and the wall of steps down which innumerable gallons of water flowed in a spectacular welcome for visitors. Just a short distance from the entrance, the hotel was visible on our left – a long building that stretched away, fronted by a lake. In the centre was a fountain throwing up a high spray of water in a big arc.

  Mike drove past and parked the car and we walked over to the separate entertainment centre, the Lakeside Showbar, where the cabaret and shows were held.

  ‘Anyone famous on stage tonight?’ I asked as Mike displayed tickets.

  ‘Hmm, that singer we saw once before – does a tribute to Adele.’

  ‘Ha, I see, the one you really quite fancied.’

  ‘Nonsense, I just like her singing, that’s all.’

  We bought drinks and found ourselves a seat near the front only a few yards back from the stage that was draped in heavy red curtains matching the swirls on the deep pile carpet.

  There were already a fair number of people in the auditorium and the atmosphere was light and carefree. It was such a welcome contrast to the tensions inside me that I’d hoped had been hidden from everybody else all day. I was not worried so much about Mike noticing but had had to make a real effort to conceal how I was feeling from Samuel.

  Here, of course, the audience was made up of holidaymakers for the most part who had put their everyday troubles to one side and were determined to enjoy themselves. I felt myself pleasantly, effortlessly, unwinding in the safe, happy environment. Good old Mike. Although he didn’t know it, and it had been arranged before we even arrived, coming to Southview Park for a laid-back evening of entertainment was exactly what my stressed-out system needed.

  Jake Smith’s threat against Annabel and the sniper’s attempt on my life melted from my consciousness as I followed the rest of the audience’s sound example and focussed on the present moment.

  The curtains drew back and I continued to unwind as the evening progressed, and by the time the singer was due on stage I was almost back to normal.

  After the initial introduction, however, the management had offered an apology for the non-appearance of Mike’s lady singer. Apparently she had succumbed to a virus and ‘couldn’t have sung to save her life’, quipped the compère, eyes flicking here and there, trying desperately to conceal his agitation in disappointing the punters.

  ‘We wish her well and hope she makes a full recovery soon,’ he said, his voice rising a little now to offset the groans from the disgruntled audience.

  ‘However,’ his voice rose a few octaves higher, trying to lift them all, ‘we have a fresh new face and talent in the perfect shape of Lizzie. She has been abroad and only just arrived back here in England. And she’s here tonight at short notice to help us out to entertain you all. I know you’ll give her a rousing welcome. Ladies and gentlemen … here she is … Lizzie!’ He practically yelled out the girl’s name. And led the clapping, which satisfyingly rose to a good-natured, welcoming roar as she stepped on to the stage.

  I had a quick glance at Lizzie. The singer who’d succumbed to the virus had been a blonde. Lizzie, however, was a brunette. I turned to Mike.

  ‘Tough luck, Mike,’ I murmured. Then froze in my seat.

  Slowly, I glanced back at the girl in the spotlight on stage.

  Today had been bloody strange from the get-go. And now the strangeness was compounded. Although we weren’t sitting on the front row, our chairs were just yards away. We had a perfect view. I stared intently.

  I’d been staggered when Jake produced the photograph of the girl posing in the stable yard. Now, I was looking straight at her. Lizzie was definitely the girl in the photograph.

  She was also one very good singer. One that you only had to listen to once to remark, ‘That girl’s going places.’ She sang all the hits made famous by Adele and each song was received with enthusiastic stamping and catcalls as the crowd revelled in them.

  Her last song was ‘Rolling in the Deep’.

  I was thrown straight back to the last time I’d heard the song played – at Lucinda’s wedding. It brought up all kinds of feelings within me. I could see Lucinda there in the centre of the dance floor at North Shore Hotel after the wedding ceremony, wearing her long white wedding dress and twirling around, ecstatically happy.

  The memory spoke to me and said, Remember Lucinda – make the most of each moment. Well, I was remembering, and I was also remembering the sound of the bullet being fired and the swift passage of wind as it zipped past my left ear.

  Lizzie finished singing. The crowd went mad. They were all on their feet now, clapping, shouting, whistling. Lizzie had commandingly swept them away.

  I stood and clapped appreciatively with the rest of them. At the side of me, Mike nearly deafened me with his ebullient whistles.

  ‘What a girl!’ he enthused.

  ‘You know your trouble, Mike?’

  ‘Eh?’ He frowned.

  ‘You’re fickle. Not two hours ago you were sold on the blonde girl.’

  He laughed out loud. ‘But this one is something else, isn’t she?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ I said. ‘She’s certainly something else.’

  TWENTY

  The storm of applause lasted a long time – too long. Before it began to die away, I was looking over my shoulder, trying to see a way through the crowd.

  ‘Hello, gentlemen. Did you enjoy the show?’

  Mike and I swung round as one. It was Mark and Gavin, the management boys, who we knew from previous visits.

  ‘Certainly did,’ Mike said.

  I’d been going to eel through the holidaymakers and intercept Lizzie backstage, but it wasn’t going to happen. The crowd was so tightly packed it would take too long to fight my way through to the rear doors.

  Lizzie had been the last act on, was no doubt even now changing clothes and leaving before the emptying out of the crush clogged the road. I gave up the idea.

  ‘Where did you find her?’ I asked innocently, ‘Is she local?’

  ‘More local to you than us,’ Mark said, ‘Leicester … I think. A very much last-minute sub.’

  ‘We were lucky to get her,’ Gavin said. ‘She certainly saved the day, or rather the evening. Got a good voice, hasn’t she?’

  We agreed she was a ‘find’.

  ‘I shall be booking her again.’ Mark nodded enthusiastically.

  ‘You have her telephone number, then?’

  He laughed and wagged a finger at me. ‘Data protection, Harry. Can’t tell you.’

  ‘Perhaps you could tell me her surname.’ I raised an eyebrow.
/>   ‘Oh, yes, don’t see why not. It’s Hibbertson.’

  Disappointment ran through me. I’d been expecting him to say her name was Goode.

  ‘Not very showbiz, is it?’ Mike commented.

  ‘Not really.’ Gavin smiled. ‘But she likes using just the one name, Lizzie. Says nobody else is using that so she’s a one-off.’

  ‘She’s certainly that,’ I agreed.

  As yet, I’d had no chance to tell Mike Lizzie was the girl in the photograph. He was unaware of the importance of seeing her on stage, had merely enjoyed her singing.

  There was now a gentle exodus of revellers and we filtered in, heading for the door. We said our goodbyes to Mark and Gavin and walked back to get the car.

  Mike drove, branching off the A158 and hitting the A52, the road leading home. Leaving the last of the Lincolnshire villages and bendy roads behind, he put his foot down and made nonsense of the seventy-odd miles.

  I lay back in the passenger seat, closed my eyes and let the details of the day spool through my thoughts. I didn’t come up with the sniper’s name but one thing did become clear: whoever had squeezed that trigger had known we were going to North Shore to play golf. Must have, because they were in place, hidden in the trees on the ridge before we arrived on the fifth green. It gave me a cold feeling down my back to realize we were being watched and our movements monitored. No, that wasn’t quite right. We weren’t, I was. The bullet had been meant for me. It was now definitely a case of not only needing to find Alice’s killer to save Annabel’s life, but also of finding the person stalking me before they made another murderous attempt on my life.

  The question I needed to answer was did Alice’s killer also take a pot at me? Or were there two killers on the loose? Debating this unpalatable possibility took care of the rest of the way home and it was with surprise I came out of my reverie to find Mike was swinging into the stable yard at his place.

  Flicking off the heater, he rolled his shoulders and ran down the window, letting in the cold night air, taking deep breaths.

  ‘No wonder you fell asleep. Didn’t realize how warm it was in here.’

  ‘I wasn’t asleep, Mike.’

  He chuckled. ‘If you say so.’

  ‘I was trying to work out who it was that took a shot at me.’

  He stopped chuckling abruptly, hesitated. ‘I think I heard that … but could you repeat what you just said?’

  ‘Hmmm, on the fifth green, when you and Samuel had walked on and I was trying to find the lost golf ball, someone fired a gun at me. Damn nearly took me out too. If I hadn’t just bent down at that exact second to pick it up’ – I took the golf ball from my jacket pocket where I’d left it – ‘I’d be in Skegness morgue right now. Assuming they’ve got one.’

  His mouth was wide open in shocked astonishment. ‘Good God!’

  ‘Yes.’ I nodded. ‘He is … otherwise I wouldn’t be sitting here telling you.’

  With visible difficulty, he closed his mouth.

  ‘I wasn’t going to tell you – well, not at the time, especially as Samuel was with us.’

  ‘But for goodness’ sake, why not? It needs reporting to the police.’

  ‘Exactly, Mike.’

  I watched recognition of the implications spread over his face.

  ‘Oh, bloody hell, I see …’

  ‘Last thing I need right now – police investigating.’

  He nodded gravely. ‘What a bastard of a situation.’

  ‘I’m not going to disagree.’

  He blew his cheeks out explosively. ‘So, where do we go from here?’

  His choice of the word ‘we’ warmed me more than I could say.

  ‘Personally, Mike, I’m off home to the cottage right now, but tomorrow I’ll be following up the whereabouts of a certain lady.’

  ‘Really?’ He perked up. ‘Do I know her?’

  ‘I think you could say so – her name’s Lizzie. She’s a singer.’

  For the second time, his jaw dropped floorwards. I took pity on him.

  ‘I went to Burton Lazars you know, last night? Had to feed Jake and stock him up so he would last for a couple of days.’

  Mike nodded, recovering.

  ‘Last thing I expected to see when I got there was that photograph with the girl posing in the stable yard. I thought Jake had simply looked at it then put it back in Alice’s bag. That’s what he’d told me. Seems he tells lies as well. He also photographed it on his mobile phone. Which, by the way, Leo found under my settee at the cottage. I took it over with me and gave it back.’

  ‘Hmm … yes, he turned up at your place when you’d just got out of hospital, didn’t he?’

  ‘That’s right. We ended up rolling around on the floor when he was giving a very good impression of trying to throttle me.’

  ‘And there we were throwing a party on Wednesday night to try to find this girl …’

  ‘And now we know who she is.’

  ‘Yes, a bloody good singer.’

  ‘But we don’t know where she is.’

  He beamed widely. ‘I shouldn’t worry about that, I’ve already decided I’m going to ring Mark and ask if I can book her to sing at the party. A good idea or not?’

  ‘Yes … a very good idea.’

  Sunday morning, sharply cold with a piercing wind that snatched at the car door as I got out in Mike’s stable yard. The stable lads were scurrying around mucking out and replenishing water buckets. That had a two-fold result: the horses got looked after and the lads worked up a sweat to offset the weather. They’d had the luxury of a lie-in, it being Sunday – all of an extra hour.

  But only fifty per cent of Mike’s labour force was required. The other half had disappeared to wherever their respective boltholes were, making the most of their ‘weekend’ off. All of Saturday afternoon and Sunday – once a fortnight. The lads would be back at work the next morning at six a.m. You had to want this lifestyle or you’d never stay the course.

  It was the non-glamorous side of horseracing. The side that most racegoers had no idea about: what hours were worked and the hardships it involved.

  For many of the young lads, it was the dream of one day race riding that kept them surviving through the hardships that, on mornings like today, were multiplied by the harsh weather.

  I knew what it was like. I’d been there a good many years ago, but I’d been among the tiny number of lucky ones. The ones who began riding winners, then more winners and then started climbing up that slippery ladder to, if not heaven, something close to it – the top jockey’s title.

  I wrested the door closed and locked the car before going over to let myself in through Mike’s kitchen door. The contrast inside was heart-warming as well as physically thawing. Perking coffee filled the kitchen with a tantalizing aroma and Pen, stirring porridge on the Aga, smiled a greeting and waved her wooden spoon.

  ‘His Nibs is on his way. We were pretty late to bed last night.’ She poured a mug of coffee out for me and passed me the jar of honey. I laced it with a good spoonful.

  ‘Thanks. Did Mike tell you about the new singer?’

  ‘He’s talked of nothing else.’ She shook her head. ‘Whoever she is, she’s made a big impression on him.’

  ‘You could get to meet her. Mike reckons he’s going to book her to sing at the party on Wednesday.’

  ‘Hmm … I know.’ She looked thoughtful.

  ‘Your position’s unassailable.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Sure of it.’

  Laughing, she resumed porridge stirring. ‘Since you’ve known him from the arc sailing days, I’ll take your word for it.’

  The door opened and Mike came into the kitchen. Pen passed him a cup of coffee.

  ‘Morning, Harry. Thanks, my sweet.’ He dropped heavily on to a chair. ‘It was a great day but the late night’s found me out.’

  ‘Getting too old for it.’

  ‘Cheeky bugger.’

  I grinned.

  ‘W
hat’s on your agenda then, Harry?’ Pen finished her drink and poured a second.

  ‘Morning stables … then …’ I waved a hand. ‘Lunch, whatever.’

  ‘Have Sunday dinner with us. We’re having it in the middle of the day for a change.’

  ‘No racing, you see,’ Mike said.

  ‘Rare, extremely rare. And I’m making the most of it,’ Pen said very firmly.

  Mike and I exchanged smiles. It was rare Mike had an opportunity to indulge her. Racing was a hard mistress. I was pleased he was acknowledging his good fortune in having Pen as his partner. She deserved it.

  I thought of the emptiness of the cottage on Sundays. For me, definitely the worst day of the week. It was on Sundays when I wasn’t racing that I felt Annabel’s absence most. The rest of the week was usually busy, very often frantically busy, driving to all ends of the country besides the actual time spent on the racecourses. It went some way to anaesthetizing her absence – not entirely, but it helped. Sundays, however, were different.

  Before the cost of living with me outweighed the pleasure for her, we’d savoured my race-free Sundays; they didn’t happen often. We’d wake, make languorous love, often continuing again under the warm water of the shower, before taking mugs of tea back to bed and lazing our way through the day.

  ‘We’d love you to join us,’ Pen pressed, studying my face.

  With maximum effort, I dragged my thoughts back to the moment. How much she’d seen from my expression was disturbing. She was a sensitive woman.

  ‘Thanks, Pen, I appreciate the offer but I’ve already promised Uncle George and Aunt Rachel I’ll meet them for lunch at the Dirty Duck at one o’clock.’

  ‘Not to worry.’ She smiled. ‘Let’s take a raincheck on it, hmm …?’

  ‘Definitely.’

  No racing was scheduled today but, come Monday, White Lace was entered for a race at Nottingham.

  I cursed under my breath as I kicked on and brought her upsides Marauder on the gallops. She responded with eager neck-reaching urgency, drawing level with gratifying ease before going on with a fluid ground-eating stride and beating him by three lengths.

  The curse was because I, personally, was grounded right now; it wouldn’t be me sitting in the saddle tomorrow and, most probably, winning the race.