I snuck a quick glance over my shoulder. But I couldn't see much. It was dark in the wood, but nowhere is ever completely black. I couldn't see much ahead of me.
I seemed to be standing on a rough track which had been trodden down over the centuries by the passage of feet. Perhaps Cromwell's Roundheads had marched this way. Perhaps the Conqueror's Normans. Maybe even a Roman legion. This was an old path. It had to lead somewhere. And Zach would need to find a way through the woods. I had nothing else to go on. I had to hope he'd fled this way.
I strained my ears to hear any feet pounding on ahead. But the whistling wind was like white noise deadening other sounds. In a Hollywood movie, this would be the point where our hero hears a twig snap so he knows where to sneak up on the villain. But I wasn't in a Hollywood movie. I was living a real-life nightmare. And there was no snapping twig.
I pushed on up the track more slowly than before. The side of my face was still sore from the sapling whiplash.
About a hundred yards further on, the track forked. The main track led off to the right, a narrower track to the left. Zach could have taken either of them. I had to choose one or the other. A fifty per cent chance of getting it right. Or wrong.
I needed Robert Frost here. But the poet had died two years earlier. He would have advised me to take the path "less travelled", just like he did in his verse. But then he wasn't chasing Zach.
I paced around in a circle wondering what the hell to do. I kicked at a fallen branch in frustration. For a brief moment the wind eased up and I heard running water off to my left. When Shirley and I had followed the muses, there'd been a brook chuckling alongside us. Perhaps this was the same one.
Christabel had said something about the brook feeding a well. If there was a well, perhaps it was used by another cottage. If there were another cottage, perhaps Zach held Barbara Goldsmith there. It wasn't a very convincing argument, but I didn't have a better one.
I took the path less travelled - the left fork - and followed the sound of the burbling brook. I hoped it would make all the difference, as it had for old Frosty.
After a few yards, I began to wonder whether I'd made the best choice. The track was much narrower than the other one. It was overgrown with brambles. They snagged my trousers. Figgis wasn't going to be pleased with an expense claim for a new pair of Marks & Spencer's finest.
I stumbled on in the darkness.
Low-hanging branches brushed my face.
I tripped over a tree root.
My hand was stung by a nettle.
I trod in something squelchy.
I hoped Zach was having worse trouble.
The track twisted sharply to the right and came out into a glade. Moonbeams bathed the place in a pale yellow light.
It wasn't the kind of glade you'd expect to see fairies prancing around. In fact, I was doing it a favour even to call it a glade. It was more of a clearing in the woods - and one that had become overgrown over the years. Broken branches littered the ground. Little clusters or toadstools grew in leaf mould. The new season's stinging nettles had sprouted.
A fetid stink hung over the place. As though the body of a dead badger festered in the undergrowth.
But I had taken the right path. (Thank you, Robert Frost.) The clearing held a tiny dilapidated cottage. Its thatch had long rotted. The glass in the windows had fallen out. The door swung unsteadily on its hinges. They added a high-pitched squeal to the threnody of the wind.
And there was a well.
Not, it's true, a well that looked like the one in a picture book I'd had as a kid. The one with the "Ding, dong, bell, pussy's in the well" nursery rhyme. Any pussy in this well would have turned to bones long ago. There wouldn't have been any Tommy Stout to pull her out.
The well had been built out of narrow red bricks which had crumbled with age. Some had fallen out. Lumps of mortar were strewn on the ground.
There was an iron winding arrangement over the well. It would have once held a bucket suspended from a rope. But the bucket had long gone and the iron was rusted.
To the far side of the well, there was a narrow building that reminded me of the outside privy we had at our house when I was a kid. It was built out of breezeblocks and looked more modern than the cottage. It had a sturdy wooden door which fitted tightly into its frame.
I stood on the edge of the clearing and listened.
The wind wailed in the trees.
The swinging door squealed.
The winding mechanism creaked.
I advanced slowly into the glade and walked towards the cottage.
The place looked deserted, but I had to check inside. I stepped up to the front door and pushed it gently. The hinges howled as the door lurched inwards.
I stepped over the threshold. It was darker inside the cottage. Little moonlight penetrated the tiny windows. But there was enough to see it had been long abandoned.
I moved forward.
And a hand reached out from behind the door and grabbed my neck.
It was a big hand with strong bony fingers.
The hand squeezed and I yelled in pain. I tried to struggle free but the hand squeezed tighter. I could feel the tendons in the fingers and thumb tightening around the back of my neck. I tried to kick backwards at my attacker but my foot flashed through air.
Then the hand pushed hard and I stumbled forward. I crashed into something hard - it was a table. I turned around as a dark shadow loomed over me. The faint moonlight glinted on something metal which hurtled towards me. I leapt to one side as the head of a woodsman's axe smashed into the table.
The dark figure wrestled with the axe's haft but the blade had sunk deep in the table and it was hard to free.
While he tugged at his weapon, I nipped forward and let fly with another kick. This time my left foot connected with his ankle. Just where I wanted - on the point where there's little flesh and the nerves are close to the skin.
The dark figure screamed in pain and I knew I'd found Zach. When the bruise blossomed, he'd walk with a limp for days.
Perhaps he'd need a walking stick. Or a wheelchair.
Right now he was hopping on his good leg and yelling like a banshee. Any louder and his old drug-dealing mates in New York would hear him.
I didn't wait to find out what Zach would do next. I nipped smartly out of the cottage door and ran towards the far end of the glade. By the time I'd taken a dozen steps, I knew I'd made a big mistake.
In a tight corner, always head in the direction of a known escape route.
I'd assumed the track led out of the glade on the other side to where it had come in. It didn't. Instead, I ran up against a thick patch of brambles.
I turned to retrace my steps, but Zach had hustled out of the cottage. He wasn't limping as much as I'd hoped. He didn't have a walking stick. But he did have his axe. He didn't look like a man planning to invite me to chop some firewood.
His head swivelled back and forward searching for me.
I ducked down behind the well, but he spotted me. He limped in my direction. The bruise must already be forming. I hoped it would be one of those bright red ones with a big bump.
I waited until Zach decided which way he was coming round the well. He moved to the right. I moved to the left. If I was going to save myself from Zach, the mad axeman, I'd have to get past him. If I could do that, I was confident I could outrun a limping man on the track back to Gingerbread Cottage.
He wouldn't want to pursue me now the cops were in residence.
We faced each other off on either side of the well.
I said: "Right now the cops are putting two and two together. After they've spent a bit of time making five, three and three-quarters, and the square root of nothing, they'll finally get to four. Then they'll come down the same track I did to arrest you."
I moved to the right.
Zach swerved to cut me off and I dodged left.
He said: "I had you down as a limey smartass right from the start. The cops haven't
come to arrest me. Not before I've sunk this axe into your head. Not ever."
I feinted to the left and said: "You've got to catch me first."
Zach lumbered closer to the well. He said: "And you've got to get past me. There's no other way out."
He had a point. Getting past him would be a bit like swerving around a back to score a try at rugby. Except that a rugby back wasn't usually wielding an axe.
I said: "What have you done with Barbara Goldsmith?"
"Is that the Aussie broad?"
"My girlfriend's mother."
"She caused me big trouble right from the time we grabbed her."
"Where is she?"
"Somewhere you're not gonna find her, sucker."
I dodged left. Took a couple of steps. Zach moved to cut me off. But at the last minute I sold him the dummy. I skipped to the right and ran hard.
Zach turned, but he'd committed himself to cut off my left move. He turned around but the axe and the ankle slowed him down.
I pounded around the well. I was going to make it. And then my shoe hit a tree root. I took off and flew three feet. I crashed into the ground. The fall knocked the wind out of me.
I pushed myself up on my arms as Zach lumbered around the well. I was on my feet as he took the last step towards me. He swung the axe in a vicious arc. I ducked and felt the air ruffle my hair as the axe flashed over my head.
Zach had put so much energy into the blow, the weight of the axe carried him round in a circle. And the guy had worked up a sweat, too. I could see it glisten on his forehead.
Zach stumbled to regain his footing just as the axe flew from his sweat-slippery hands. It sailed five feet through the air and plunged into the well.
We were both so astonished we gaped while we waited for the splash as it hit the water. The distant sound came two seconds later.
"You won't get that back," I said.
"Don't need it to croak you," he said.
He lunged towards me. I skipped backwards but too late. Zach grabbed my arm in his powerful fist. I struggled but I couldn't free myself. His other hand grabbed at me and he lifted me off the ground. I tried to hit him, but he'd pinioned both my arms to my side.
He lifted me and stepped towards the well.
He said: "You can join the axe."
I said: "If you ever give up drug smuggling, you could become a circus strong man. Why spoil a promising career with murder?"
He said: "Quit your yowling. In two seconds, you'll be a pile of flesh and bones and I don't even need to bury the evidence."
I struggled hard, but he leaned forward on the brickwork around the well and held me over the gaping hole.
I glanced down into the blackness.
I said: "Don't I get any last words."
"Make them 'goodbye cruel world'."
"I was thinking something more upbeat."
"Like what?"
"Like those rotten bricks you’re leaning on are about to give way and if you don't watch out you'll follow me down."
"Try another one, loser."
But then two bricks came loose and tumbled into the well. Zach slipped forward. He let go of my right arm to steady himself.
My arm shot up and my hand grabbed the crossbeam of the winding gear above the well. I prayed the rusted old iron would hold my weight.
More bricks gave way and Zach leant dangerously forward, His hold on my left arm slipped and I grabbed the crossbeam with both hands.
It was like clinging to a trapeze. Except that I had a two hundred feet drop into water (not forgetting the axe). The rust of the iron rasped my hand. The contraption creaked under my weight.
But Zach was in more trouble. He'd leaned forward too far to hold me over the well. Now the wall was collapsing under his weight and he couldn't regain his balance. He looked up at me. His eyes were filled with terror. But there was nothing I could do to help.
There was a deep rumble as a section of the wall came away and tumbled into the well. Zach fell forward so only his knees leant against the outside of the well. He grabbed at some bricks to steady himself but they came away in his hand. He slipped further towards the hole.
And then the rest of the wall gave way under his weight.
He screamed as he fell.
A long ululating wail of terror.
The scream chased him to the bottom of the well.
There was a splash followed by a crunch and then more pieces of wall collapsed into the well.
I realised that if more bricks fell the winding mechanism would come lose and slip into the well. I swung backwards like a trapeze artist. Put every effort I could into my legs as I swung forward and jumped.
I landed on the wet grass.
Behind me, the winding gear collapsed and followed the bricks down into the darkness.
I lay on the grass gulping in air. I was shaking - and not from the chill wind. I felt like I wanted to vomit. My stomach churned round and round like a washing machine in a laundromat. It was like I had the week's wash - shirts, socks and dirty knickers (ugh) - turning over in my belly.
I belched with the force of a foghorn. Out at sea, ships' captains would race to the bridge and put telescopes to their eyes.
I sat up and looked around. I'd landed inches from the edge of a ragged hole which marked where the well had once stood.
I staggered to my feet. I needed three efforts to do it.
I looked around trying to understand what had just happened. My mind couldn't take it all in.
But I was still alive.
And I still had a mission.
I had to find Shirley's mother.
I walked across the clearing towards the building I'd called the privy. The wooden door was secured on the outside by two sturdy bolts.
I shot the bolts and opened the door.
And looked into the face of a woman with a bouffant blonde hair-do. Strands of loose hair, some still with hairpins, hung around her face. She had a graze on her forehead and a bruise on her chin. Her mascara had run in streaks across her cheeks. She had smudged lipstick and angry eyes.
Her right arm circled towards me like an attack from a king cobra.
Her fist connected with my face. I jolted backwards.
And then everything went black.
Chapter 20
"Shirley never told me her mother was a female wrestler," I said.
Ted Wilson grinned. "Apparently she fights under the name of Battling Babs, the Bash 'em Beauty."
"She certainly laid me out for the count."
It was three hours after my encounter with the Battling Beauty in the woodland glade. Ted and I were in an interview room at Brighton Police Station.
I had a bruise the colour of a ripe tomato on the side of my face.
Owen Griffiths was sulking downstairs in one of the cells.
Christabel and the muses had been told by the cops not to leave Natterjack Grange as they'd be needed for questioning.
Stanley had broken another string on his sitar during the raid. He planned to sue Holdsworth for brutality.
Barbara Goldsmith was reunited with Shirley. Neither of them wanted to see me.
Ted said: "I feel I ought to charge you with something, but I can't think what."
I said: "That's rich coming from you. When I called you from Griffiths' room at Steyning Grammar School to tell you I was heading for Natterjack Grange, you swore blind you'd keep a low profile. That was important because I'd promised Shirley I wouldn't call the cops. You made me look like I broke my promise. Now Shirley thinks I'm a heel and she's dumped me."
Ted shook his head. "It's not what you think."
"What was I supposed to think?" I said.
"After I got your message, I planned to pick up a couple of uniformed plods and drive quietly to Natterjack Grange. We were going to sit out of sight somewhere until we were needed. You'd never have caught Zach yourself. But one of the plods blabbed and my boss got to hear about it."
"Detective Chief Superinte
ndent Alec Tomkins?"
"The very same. He decided we couldn't intervene without the local cops being present. It was a territorial thing. As the Grange is in the West Sussex police division, and we're in Brighton, Tomkins insisted I inform Holdsworth out of courtesy."
"And Holdsworth roared in with all bells ringing. Just what was needed to warn Zach so he could make a run for it."
"Some officers make up in energy what they lack in brains," Ted said.
I said: "Energy, brains - Holdsworth has neither."
"Anyway, under the circumstances, the chief in West Sussex has asked me to take over the case," Ted said.
"The Spencer Hooke murder?"
"No, the drugs smuggling. We still have the Hooke case down as a hit-and-run."
I thumped my fist on the table so hard a coffee mug fell off and smashed on the floor. "You must know that's nonsense," I said.
Ted looked at the mug and said: "It's an offence to damage police property. Besides, I haven't seen any evidence to contradict the hit-and-run finding."
"If Zach did it, we'll never know now."
"From what I've heard of him, I don't think Zach would've confessed anyway," Ted said. "Now Griffiths might cough to killing Hooke. He strikes me as the timid type. And he had the motive - he was being blackmailed."
"And he lied to me about being at a chemistry society meeting. I found out it had been cancelled."
"What about Tom Hobson? If Hooke knew about his role in the smuggling, he'd be into him for some blackmail cash?"
"I've had an officer at Shoreham harbour looking for Hobson. He's vanished and so has his boat."
I said: "He'll turn up in a few months in Spain pretending to be Pedro the Fisherman."
Ted nodded: "Yes. Somewhere with no extradition treaty with Britain. We'll never get him."
Ted drummed on the desk with his pencil. "It's going to be difficult to get the drug charges to stick without a confession - especially as none of them were caught with drugs on them. Even Griffiths could walk if he gets a clever lawyer to explain away his late-night experiments. To get a conviction, we need to find the drugs."
The Mother's Day Mystery Page 17
