Dave rested his right forearm on the bent side of his instrument and nodded. The festival hadn’t started yet, had it? He glanced at his watch. No. Just under thirty minutes. So why was a fan here so early?
McLaren introduced himself, then nodded at the guitar. “That’s a nice instrument you have. I probably should have stayed with nylon strings, but I changed to silk and steel a few years ago.”
“Folk, right?”
“Yes,” McLaren said, clearly astonished.
“Popular choice among folkies. I use nylon since I play mainly early music.” He stopped, wondering why this man had popped up before the festival opened. Surely not to talk about guitar strings!
In the brief silence a teenaged boy walked up to them. He hung back, looking at McLaren and Dave, unsure if he were intruding or not. When Dave noticed him, he nodded. “Hi, Fraser. What’s going on?”
The boy took a few steps closer before stopping a yard away from Dave. He cleared his throat nervously, then asked if Dave had time to help him with a problem.
“Not right now,” Dave said, glancing at the clock backstage. “I go on soon. See me after my session, though. Ta.” He nodded as Fraser thanked him and walked over to the nearest row of chairs in the audience section.
“He a pupil of yours?” McLaren eyed Fraser as he selected the perfect spot to watch the concert.
“No. Not really. He’s a wannabe. Real full-blown wannabe. Got Big Time aspirations and no talent. But I help him when I can. He wants to play guitar and sing. But between you and me…” He scrunched up his mouth and shook his head.
“He’s not Aaron Unsworth’s son, is he?”
“Yeah. You know him?”
“No. Just that his name sounded familiar. Not many Frasers around.”
“I think I’m his last resort.”
“Oh yes?”
“He had wanted Kent to help him on the road to fame, but when that didn’t work, well…” He shrugged, as though suggesting any port was good in a storm.
“Hope he makes it.”
“It’s an awful tough career. Not many make it.”
“Kent seemed to be on the verge. If you’ve got another minute, I’d like to talk to you about him.”
Dave’s right arm straightened and laid across the body of the guitar, pulling it nearer to him, as though it were a wall to ward off unpleasantness. “What about Kent?” he said, his eyes narrowing and examining McLaren’s face. “If it’s about his death, I already talked to the coppers last year. I didn’t know anything about it.”
“I understand you discovered him approximately twenty-four hours after he went missing.”
The man straightened, his voice tightening. “What of it?”
“Nothing. I’m just trying to get the facts correct. You’d been ringing his home and mobile phones prior to that, though. Beginning Sunday night when you left the Minstrels Court, correct?”
“All that was in the newspaper account at the time, but yes, I tried getting him on both phones but he never answered. I finally went out looking for him Monday night.”
“And you found him in the wood near his village.”
“I was lucky.”
“I agree. It was half past ten at night, dark. Dark enough in the village and the field, darker still among the trees. How’d you find him?”
“What do you mean how did I find him? I looked for him. I saw him. He was lying next to that big boulder.”
“Just like that? You didn’t hunt in the village or get someone to let you into his house?”
“What are you hinting at?” Dave scooted to the ground and stood up, his hands around the guitar’s neck and holding the instrument vertically in front of him, as though he were about to dance with it. “He—I couldn’t get him on either of his phones so I went to his house. I knocked and rang the doorbell. There was no answer, which I thought odd because his car was parked in his driveway. I asked his neighbors if they’d seen him. They said no. I went back to my car and got the torch from the glove compartment and started looking around, wondering where he might be. I knew he liked to walk in the wood, so I went there. He could’ve gone there after our gig Sunday night, to clear his mind and think, or he could’ve gone Monday some time. I didn’t know, of course, but I knew it was a favorite spot of his. So I looked. He— I saw him right away. He wasn’t hidden; he was in plain sight, like he had just dropped over dead. Maybe he had, for all I knew. Heart attack or stroke. I didn’t know but I was scared. I rang up the police and they came and took over.” He had related this while still holding the guitar upright, his words coming quickly in his agitation. Now that he was finished he merely stood where he was, waiting for McLaren leave.
“Why’d you wait so long to look for him? He was a business partner of sorts, you two were friendly enough…”
“I already talked to some woman about this,” Dave said, slightly annoyed. “Why are you bringing this up again? Didn’t she tell you?”
Great. Dena’s little jaunt into Sherlock Holmesland is already messing up my investigation. He decided to try to gloss over Dena’s sleuthing. “I assure you, Mr. Morley, I’m not working with anyone. My inquiry is entirely on my own.”
Dave eyed him as though he didn’t quite believe McLaren.
“So, if you don’t mind telling me…never mind this woman…why did you wait so long to look for Kent? You know how it looked to the police. To most everyone,” he added, thinking Dave Morley had earned his premier position beneath the spotlight. If McLaren had ever sensed a suspicious action before, this was it.
“Yeah, I know. But we weren’t brothers. Or Siamese twins. We liked each other well enough, but we weren’t best mates. So what if he didn’t answer his phone Sunday night? I thought it a bit queer, since he’d told me to ring him up, but stuff happens. Life gets in the way. Maybe he had something else that came up, or there was an emergency. I didn’t know. I don’t have a copy of his calendar. We didn’t do things together, like pub crawls or take in a film or walk the Tissington Trail. We led separate lives. It was no big deal. I thought I’d talk to him on Monday.”
“Did you eat together when you were performing?”
Dave frowned, pulling in his bottom lip as though trying to decipher the proper answer. “You mean, did we picnic together or go to a pub afterwards?”
“Just what I said. Did you eat together? I don’t know about you and Kent, but I’m always ravenous after a performance. All that energy goes right to my stomach, I guess. I’m ready for a sandwich or steak—something more substantial than beer. You didn’t have a sandwich together, perhaps backstage, or grab something from one of the food vendors here at the castle?”
“I guess we must have done sometime. Sure,” he said, more certain of himself. “Why wouldn’t we? I can’t recall any specific times, but we probably picked up fish and chips or a pastie along the way.”
“You’re awfully vague about it.”
“It’s not something I put in my diary, for God’s sake! If we were hungry, we got something to eat. I didn’t perform all the time with him, you know. He was the main draw; I just appeared infrequently. We were friends but not that close.”
McLaren seemed to be considering something, then said rather angrily, “I’d think even an acquaintance—and you were more than that—would be concerned about his absence that Sunday night. Forget the partner angle. You weren’t exactly enemies. Didn’t you have the least bit of human decency to be worried about him, about anyone who hasn’t answer his phone for twenty-four hours?”
“It’s not as easy as you make it sound! Nothing’s that black and white.”
“Really?” McLaren’s voice took on an edge. Of all the self-centered, unfeeling berks he’d ever encountered… “You hiding something, Mr. Morley?”
“What?”
“You’re hard of hearing as well as forgetful?”
“You’ve no call—”
“I’m talking about a murder, Mr. Morley. The murder of your friend and occas
ional singing partner. Though from the impression I’m getting from talking to you, I’d phrase it as the murder of your occasional friend and singing partner. What really happened? You two have a dust-up? You fight about billing or repertoire or something?”
“No! We never—”
“Is that why you don’t want to admit you followed him Sunday after leaving the castle, continued the argument, and killed him? Were you that bloody cheesed off that the argument escalated into murder?”
“You’re wanting me to carry the can for Kent’s death. Well, I’ve news for you, mate. I’m not about to. Because,” he added quickly as McLaren began to speak, “I didn’t do it. I loved Kent, as a friend. Why would I want to kill him?”
McLaren eased off, having accomplished his objective. “Surely, if he didn’t answer his phones by the next morning—”
“I couldn’t do anything. You’re got to understand this,” David practically whined. “I was stuck, unable to do anything further. Well, not what I wanted to do, not right away. I-I’m a clerk in a music shop,” he said, fumbling for the right words. “We I don’t have the luxury of taking off work whenever I like. I started my shift first thing in the morning and worked all day Monday, until I left the shop for the Minstrels Court. I figured Kent would be there for our set. He wasn’t. It was the first time in the four years we’d sung together that he missed a gig. I was anxious and panicky. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if I had enough material to fill an entire slot. I could hardly think. It was late by that time—Monday night, eight o’clock. We were supposed to go on at any minute. All I could do was get through a solo set, hoping Kent was just late, that maybe he’d had a flat tire or had been sick or something. I finished the set three quarters of an hour later and he still wasn’t there. It was so odd, so unusual for him to forget a performance date. By that time I was convinced he was sick. Maybe too ill to get to a phone. He was my pal and I cared about him. When I’d finished talking to some fans, had changed from my costume into my regular clothes and had driven to his house, it was ten o’clock.”
“And then you talked to the neighbors, looked around the village, and then went into the wood.” He said it with a hint of skepticism in his voice.
“Yes. The wood was dark—no bonfire or candles or torches anywhere. But he sometimes sat in the dark like that. You know…stargazing, looking at the moon and waiting for the night birds to sing. He was like that. Loved the natural world. So I didn’t really think the police or anyone would imagine it odd that I would go to the wood to look for Kent, even look at night.”
McLaren nodded, relaxing in the mental image. It would seem strange to an outsider or someone wrapped up in city life, but he often sat outside on his stonewall or on the grass, looking at the night sky, listening for owls or nightjars to cry into the stillness.
Dave cleared his throat before continuing. “Anyway, that’s why I went straight way to the wood when I couldn’t rouse him at home. I had tried ringing Kent up again after the set ended, like he asked me to. I still didn’t put his absence in any serious category right then. Just that he was sick, maybe, and had ignored the phone. I sure didn’t expect to find him dead.” His tone had softened and the volume had decreased to hardly more than a whisper as he finished his narrative. The eagerness McLaren had seen in Dave’s eye when introducing himself had died, replaced by a dullness that spoke of sadness.
Dave removed his hat and crushed it in his hands. Showing reverence during prayer. Or hanging onto a floating bit of wreckage.
McLaren let the silence drop between them as he considered Dave’s account. It sounded reasonable, something a timid or indecisive person might do. But was Dave Morley a timid or indecisive person? He didn’t seem like it now—merely a sad individual, perhaps regretting that he hadn’t acted more quickly at the offset, perhaps fearful that McLaren was stirring up trouble. But McLaren knew many people who sported a Jeckle-and-Hyde personality—soft-spoken, perhaps timid, when at work or in public; self confident and personable when performing…or doing something he loved. So Dave still was not eliminated as a suspect. He may have needed Kent to boost his own career, but jealousy sometimes doesn’t take long range plans into account.
FIFTEEN
Dena wondered what his long-range plan might be as she finished the last of the meal. He had to have one; he couldn’t keep her here forever. Wherever she was… She put the cling wrap, paper serviette and juice container into the paper bag and crushed it into a heap before depositing it in the waste bin. The meal had been a homemade affair—the cling-wrapped sandwich, mismatched plastic utensils and juice carton spoke of items from someone’s kitchen cupboard. Spoke of her abduction as a more impulsive rather than a planned event. But if so, why? What had she done to instigate this? More to the point, she thought, getting up, had her captor negotiated with her father over her release? Was he holding her for a kidnapping payoff?
The thought did little to cheer her. Did kidnappers always release captives unharmed after they were paid?
An icicle of fear pricked her back. She saw herself left in the room, no food, no air, no light. She was tied up and thrown from a car, left to freeze in the wintry wilds of Kinder Scout. She was knocked unconscious to breathe in carbon monoxide fumes in a deserted garage. She was shot in the head as Michael ran up to her.
Dena trembled, her mouth quivering as she fought to control her imagination and emotions. Of course this was absurd. She watched too many films, read too many novels. He was feeding her, wasn’t he, whoever he was? He hadn’t thrown her into an abandoned, filthy warehouse or kept her tied up. For whatever reason, he was treating her well, with respect, keeping her alive. She pushed back a strand of hair, somewhat comforted by this explanation, and wandered over to the window.
Although the view was virtually obliterated, Dena got on the chair and strained to see outside. Whether the car park was deserted or filled, she couldn’t say, and she found herself disappointed in not knowing if others were nearby or if she were alone. The light had lessened, a faint yellow tinted with hints of pink. The flowerpots appear more three-dimensional than they had earlier, Dena thought, the sunlight lingering on the western-most sides and leaving the opposite sides in shadows that would slowly advance to hide everything. The thought of night suddenly frightened her and she eased off the chair, plagued again by the fear of the unknown. I’m supposed to sleep here? Without a blanket? She wrapped her arms about herself, shivering, unsure if the thought of a cold night on a cold floor bothered her more than spending the time alone in a vacant building.
She sat, scooting to the edge of the seat, unwilling to let the cold of the metal seep into her back. She would be cold enough lying on the floor without hurrying her discomfort. Leaning forward, she tried to think—of the reason for her kidnapping; of her father, at his home in Manchester and who was blissfully going about his daily routine; of Michael, who might be unaware of her predicament, yet would be dangerously obsessed to find her.
Despite her previous caution to avoid the chair’s cold metal, she slid backward and sagged against the chair back. She was aware of nothing: no cold, no sound, no shifting of light as McLaren’s face floated before her. His hazel eyes held her gaze, caring and concerned, intense in his love and determination to find her. She heard him speak, though his mouth remained smiling. Words that reassured her of her rescue, that whispered of his love, that offered her an anchor of hope in the storm had threatened her sanity and spirit. He moved, and the sunlight caught a flaxen streak in his dark blond hair. His arms went out to her, offering her refuge and warmth and healing. She got to her feet, ready to go to him, when the door to the room opened. No sound came to her from the space beyond the door; no voice or footstep or running machinery. She seemed to be floating in a bizarre landscape where time had ceased to function and the sole inhabitant stared mutely at her. For, framed in the open doorway, silhouetted against the florescent light in the hallway, stood a tall figure, dressed in dark coloring. A rubber ma
sk of a smiling Margaret Thatcher covered his face. His hands were gloved, the left hand holding a coil of rope, the right hand holding something dark that glistened in the light. He stepped into the room, not speaking, yet making his desires known with the gesture of the gun.
* * * *
This nightmare can’t last, Dena reasoned, straining to see in the new darkness that surrounded her, clinging to her like a spider’s web. That dream she’d be able to see through; this blackness was absolute. Thick.
And yet, not quite. As her eyes became accustomed to the dark, pinpricks of light wriggled into her space. The gloom lessened slightly and she could distinguish less dark shapes around her.
She tried to move but found her arms and legs bound with rope. A rectangle of duct tape secured her mouth. Like a lamb. A lamb ready for the slaughter.
Did a lamb know where it was heading when it was led from its pasture? Did seeing make any difference to it, calm it? She had been blindfolded for her trip to the new location. Her captor had done it neatly, thoroughly, taking no chance she would see where she was being led. And swiftly, perhaps fearing he would be discovered in his shameful deed. The blindfold had been augmented, a fabric bag thrust over her head. That darkness had been complete but not as terrifying as the blackness that now engulfed her. Perhaps it had been the ride here, the knowledge that another living person—no matter if it was her captor or not—was within several feet of her, that she was not alone. Perhaps it had been the smell of the July night, warm and sweet with the scents of still warm earth, watered foliage and blooming honeysuckle. That blackness had given her hope that he still wanted her alive, still had a use for her. The gloom that invaded her new prison hinted at danger.
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