by James, Henry
‘And then what?’
‘There was a kerfuffle, and some other fellas – big lads – came along, so the two soldiers scarpered. Just like that.’ He clicked dry fingers.
‘Did you get a look at the others?’
‘Nah. I didn’t hang around, like. I just wanted to get home for me tea.’
‘What time was this?’
‘About seven.’
Lowry tapped his pencil against his notebook. ‘When you say a “fancy jacket” – what do you mean? An overcoat?’
‘No, a jacket. Piping down the lapels, like him off the telly.’
‘Who? Doctor Who?’
‘No . . .’ The man’s face creased with the effort of trying to recall. ‘No, he were in something else first . . . Oh, can’t remember that neither. This other one, I couldn’t understand a word of it; me and the wife gave up on it.’
Lowry pondered for a second. ‘The Prisoner?’
‘Aye, that were it.’
There was only one man who dressed like that in Colchester.
‘And one more thing – how many big fellas were there?’
‘Three.’
He thanked the man for his time, and left the hotel. Before heading back to Queen Street he paused to consider two things. The first was curious and troubling. In his mind’s eye, the two soldiers had been pursued by a gang – perhaps four or five men. But the witness claimed there had only been three men. Why run? Would they not stand and fight? The second was more a matter of annoyance: the man in the suit with the piping sounded very much like the man who’d tipped him off in the first place. Tony Pond.
3 p.m.,The Fingringhoe Fox, Fingringhoe, five miles south of Colchester
What the hell? What the fucking hell? That was all Felix could think as he sat alone at the bar of the almost deserted pub. He could barely speak, nor stop his fingers from shaking; he sat with his hands firmly clasped, one over the other on the bar. He removed his left hand slowly to pick up his pint and straight away his right began to tremble as though he had the DTs. Plus, there were cuts and blood all over both hands. Blasted brambles. He was in the right place now, though; the phone box was there, just over the road. He drained his glass.
‘Another one, please.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Eh?’ He looked up to see the round, kindly face of the landlady.
‘I mean, you look washed out,’ she clucked. ‘A good night’s sleep is what you need.’
He scanned the bar furtively. There was only an old duffer at the far end and a dog, flat out on the floor under the bar stool. Keep it together, he said to himself. ‘Nah, I’m fine for one more. And another pack of Monster Munch.’
‘Another pack?’ She frowned.
In front of him were the twisted remains of three empty packets. The biggest snack pennies can buy. The TV ad flashed through his head. He was in the right place. Something was missing, but he was in Fingringhoe . . .
‘Yeah, one more, then I’ll be off.’ But off where? That’s right, to make the phone call. Gotta keep it together. That shit they’d taken – God knows what it was – it was giving him flashbacks. Flashbacks! You don’t get them from speed. This stuff had messed with his memory. He wasn’t even sure how long he’d been in the pub. One hour? Two? He did remember waking in the shack in Donyland Woods but was unclear on how he’d got there. And where was Jason? He had made it here on his own, having lost the others outside a curry house in Colchester. He shovelled a handful of crisps into his mouth. A curry. He’d kill for a curry right now. But that had been last night. Shouldn’t Jason be here by now? Where had he got to? Fucked if he knew. But he did know the time to call – that, at least, was written down for him; yes, that he did know.
‘There you go, luv,’ said the landlady, her brow creased with concern. He must look really rough. He glanced at the dog, which was now sniffing his feet, which he realized were covered in mud. The dog looked up at him. Its strange, floppy face, with flaps of skin hanging over a drooling jaw, was too unpleasant to countenance in Felix’s chemically unbalanced state. ‘Fuck off!’ he hissed. He absently scraped the mud off his shoes on to the bar stool as he suddenly recalled trekking through the woods last night to the abandoned shack. He clutched his head – what had happened to his train of thought? The woods – yes, that’s right, he remembered now – roaming around in the dark, off his knockers. The headache was coming back. He needed another line, to keep his focus; otherwise he’d go doolally. He finished the crisps and popped the bag. The biggest snack pennies can buy. He started laughing.
3.15 p.m., Police Social Club, Queen Street
‘I am not a number, I am a free man?’ Kenton repeated.
Lowry had opened up the social, and he and Kenton sat alone in the basement bar, contemplating a large, sweaty pork pie that was under a Perspex dome. The question was how long it had been sitting there, basking in the warm glow of the sunken bar lighting. Neither man had eaten today and this was all there was to be had.
‘Indeed.’
‘Never heard of it.’
‘The Prisoner. I never watched it, but I know for a fact that the Prisoner never had a handlebar moustache.’ Lowry picked up his pint. ‘But Tony Pond does.’
‘But that’s the chap who tipped you off in the first place.’
‘Yes. He mentioned three men from out of town arguing with our boys, but omitted to say he’d been arguing with Jones and Daley himself.’
‘So, the argument he mentioned – did he say what it was about?’
Lowry considered his answer. ‘No. People like Pond only ever help by degrees, but he knows I’ll be back for more if necessary.’
‘Do you have a theory on what it might’ve been about?’
‘Directions to Castle Park?’ Lowry quipped, and reached for the pork pie. ‘No, no, not yet . . . Of course, when I tried calling Pond again just now, there was no answer.’
‘Hence a restorative pint.’ Kenton beamed.
‘And some lunch,’ Lowry said, attempting to divide the pork pie with a plastic knife. The utensil flexed uselessly. Kenton felt his appetite slide.
‘Rock hard; like those Paras, so we’re led to believe. Why didn’t they stand their ground and fight it out? These guys are famed for their fearlessness. You don’t expect them to leg it down the high street at the first sign of trouble.’
Kenton laughed softly as his boss continued to fight with the obstinate slab of pie, finally succeeding in slicing it. He was genuinely excited by the course of events and the gradually unfolding mystery, and hoped to have a hand in solving it.
‘Ah, there you are!’ came a familiar bellow. The chief’s sudden entrance caused Kenton to dissolve into hiccups. ‘Got time to lounge around, eh?’
‘It’s my lunch.’ Lowry spoke through a mouthful of pie.
‘It’s gone three. What’ve I told you about the importance of regular mealtimes?’ Sparks tutted. ‘Hmm, just time for a fast large one.’ He went behind the bar and reached up to the optics.
Kenton looked at Sparks, taking in his five o’clock shadow and the sprinkling of dandruff on his navy pullover. The chief turned, clutching his drink. He was smiling, but not in a friendly way, Kenton could tell, even though he didn’t know him well enough to gauge all his moods. Sparks drank heavily from the glass then clunked the tumbler carelessly on to the bar and wedged himself between Kenton and Lowry.
‘Now then, Nick. Please explain something to me. Exactly why did you advise the captain of the military police that we’re holding an inquiry into Private Daley’s death, when the idea has never so much as been raised? And given that we’re supposed to be working with the military, not against? Of all the people to lie to, that stiff—’
‘It was that stiff’s office who fobbed us off about Jones’s whereabouts. You can bet they didn’t even check.’ He brushed crumbs from his palms. ‘They hold us accountable, yet don’t lift a finger to help.’
‘All the same, don’t go making stuff up t
hat only complicates matters.’
Lowry seemed unperturbed by Sparks’s outburst and remained sitting stoically on the bar stool.
‘And get that fucking tooth fixed – you look like Bill Sikes.’
‘Err, don’t you mean Fagin, sir?’ Kenton suggested.
‘You trying to be funny?’
‘I can’t get an appointment,’ said Lowry, wearily tossing a pound note on the bar for the drinks and the pie. ‘Hardly surprising when half the town has spent the weekend fighting – there’s probably a queue the length of the high street for missing teeth. I assume you told the Beard that those lads at Castle Park weren’t chased by locals—’
Granger burst into the bar, making a beeline for Lowry and cutting him short.
‘Sorry to interrupt, sir –’ he gave a cursory nod to Sparks – ‘but the landlady at the Fingringhoe Fox has called asking for Detective Inspector Lowry. Says it’s urgent. There’s a man in her pub, early twenties, covered in blood and clearly on something.’
-31-
3.35 p.m., Monday, The Fingringhoe Fox, Fingringhoe
It took them less than fifteen minutes to get there.
‘Which way did he go?’ Lowry gasped, surprisingly short of breath after a ten-yard dash from the car park to the pub.
‘Don’t rightly know.’ The woman coughed and banged her chest sternly, as if to dislodge a small amphibian. The air in the pub smelt of woodsmoke and was hard to breathe. The fire was unable to draw in the damp, oppressive atmosphere. ‘He was just sitting there, laughing. When I saw all the blood on his hands, I went to call you lot, and when I come back, he were gone.’
‘What was he wearing?’
‘One of them coats with the furry hoods, you know.’ She flapped her hand round the back of her wide neck.
‘An anorak?’ Kenton offered.
‘’As a funny name – it were a blue one.’
‘Snorkel jacket.’
‘Yes, luv, that were it.’
‘Anything else you can tell us about him?’
‘’E just sat there, rocking and laughing to ’imself,’ she said, pulling on a ceramic beer pump, ‘and eating crisps. Packet after packet. Like some sort of loon.’
‘Told Dougal to fuck off ’n’ all.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Lowry turned to see a red-faced man in a flat cap perched at the far end of the bar.
‘Me dog.’
Lowry switched back to the woman. ‘How long ago did he leave?’
‘Ten, fifteen minutes ago. Like I said, ’e were still ’ere when I called. Something weren’t right.’
‘Because he had blood on his hands?’
‘All over his fingers. I did right, though, didn’t I? You came running, eh?’
‘Yes, madam, we did,’ Kenton said kindly, ‘but what did you think was up?’
‘Eh?’
‘Other than the blood on his hands – was there anything else?’ Lowry added quickly.
‘Oh. He was filthy and looked as though he’d not slept in weeks. And . . .’
Lowry looked around. There wasn’t a soul to ask other than this witless landlady and the beetroot at the far end of the bar.
‘And what?’ he prompted.
‘His eyes. His eyes was glassy, like he were on something. And, you know, I read in the paper about that awful business in town.’
‘Thank you. You did well to call us. It might be nothing to do with that, but we need to rule it out. If only we knew where he was heading.’
‘Follow his trail!’ the florid drinker hollered.
‘Excuse me?’ said Kenton.
‘Mud from ’is shoes. Look!’ He pointed. ‘Ain’t that what you detectives do?’
*
Outside the Fox, the cold bit deep. The adrenalin rush of the dash from Queen Street had subsided, and Lowry felt the beer he’d drained resurge uncomfortably. He’d not been to Fingringhoe in many years. It was a small village, made up of little more than a church, a manor house and the pub. Its sole contribution to the local economy was shipping sand out of the quay along the Colne.
‘Think about it, guv; he’ll surely be making his way back to Mersea, where he came from.’
‘Yes, across country, I know. But it doesn’t make sense. Why, if he’s our man, would he go to all the trouble of travelling rough and staying hidden only to stop at a pub halfway? It’s not as if he’s on a nature ramble.’
‘Maybe he developed a thirst?’
‘Or was waiting for someone.’ Lowry looked across to the folly, a brick tower attached to the grounds of the old manor house. According to folklore, it had been built to disguise a bear pit, though his grandfather maintained that it had been used by the army as a lookout for smugglers because of the view it commanded of the Colne. He ran to the gate and along the path towards the folly door.
‘Do you think he’s the man we’re after?’
‘Covered in blood and on drugs? I think it’s more than possible, don’t you?’ The folly was shut, the entrance overgrown.
‘What’s between here and the island?’ Kenton called breathlessly behind him.
‘Fields, marshland and frozen mud.’ He rattled the heavy wooden door – locked – and, stepping back, squinted despondently at the top of the tower, from where a spray of doves now fled.
‘Helicopter would spot him easy enough.’
‘Not in this fog.’ Lowry paced the gravel, annoyed. ‘It’s sitting too low. Got any cigarettes?’
‘Glove compartment.’ Kenton didn’t question his chief’s need for a smoke, but he did wonder on the call for a helicopter; surely it would be more effective. And the fog did appear to be lifting over the marshes, slightly. Lowry walked back to the car, still in front of the Fox, and bent over the Spitfire door to get the cigarettes. Having lit one and taken a deep drag, he stepped across the narrow country road to a break in the hedgerow, next to a telephone box. Kenton followed, mindful of the drainage ditch, which his boss had just effortlessly leapt.
‘Or maybe he’s heading for the channel from the quay,’ Lowry said, thinking aloud. ‘Either way, Mersea will have a better vantage point. We’ll catch him there, and anyone who’s helping him.’
Lowry weaved through the brambles, thorns catching on the sleeve of his coat. They studied the landscape for signs of a possible fugitive. The ploughed field on whose perimeter they stood eased gently towards the salt marsh several pastures beyond, and the channel itself was just discernible, a dull glint in the distance under a swirl of mist which encompassed the land like a protective covering. Kenton pulled his anorak tight as they made their way back.
‘Hey, what’s that?’ A bright red, rotund bird flickered in front of him through the hedgerow.
‘That I do know – a bullfinch. As a lad, I saw them everywhere here,’ Lowry remarked. ‘Funny, they’re here all year round but they’re only seen in winter, when the landscape is leafless. If only a man in a snorkel jacket was as easy to see as a bird.’
‘Is Mersea really our best bet?’ said Kenton. ‘It’ll be tricky to cover the beach with any degree of accuracy . . .’
‘We don’t have much choice. It’ll be dark soon.’ Lowry turned to face him, front tooth missing and unlit cigarette hanging from his bottom lip. ‘Of course, it’s a gamble. Everything is.’
*
Felix watched the men retreat through the hedge. Weird, that – men in suits, in a place like this; not farmers, surely. Policemen, maybe? Nah, he was just being paranoid again. Drug-induced paranoia had already led him to the field. He hadn’t liked the looks he was getting from the landlady in the pub.
He gave an anxious chuckle, which caused a pain in his side. Oooh. He did feel funny. Very funny. He looked towards the bleak horizon, trying to steady himself. A wave of exhaustion began to consume him, taking his legs first, which turned to jelly, and passing straight through to his head. He dropped to the ground and allowed sleep to take him, feeling safe in the knowledge he was in the right place, if not in the rig
ht circumstances – but that could wait until he’d had a little rest . . .
-32-
3.50 p.m., Monday, Colchester General Hospital
Jacqui drifted through her shift on autopilot, in an inattentive fashion, which was not her way usually – she was a good nurse, and the one thing she did care about was her patients. She wheeled the washing trolley into the next bay, preoccupied with the events of Saturday night; or, more specifically, her inability to recall them. The report about the two dead men in the paper had shaken her up, but not enough to awaken her memory. Not since her teenage years had she experienced such a complete void. She played back the night’s events as best she could: the drink with the girls at Tramps, the walk up North Hill, being attacked by the drunk soldier who had followed them up to Head Street, Nick intervening, telling her to go home, and her indignantly (and foolishly) deciding to go on, then the trip to Aristos . . . What time had that been? It had still been early, she was pretty sure of that, as it had been practically empty apart from those guys at the bar. She remembered the dance floor, the revolving lights . . . then going to the loo, giggling with that young fella, who promised her a high she’d never experienced before – that glint in his eye, manic, out of control. It should’ve been a warning, but it had only served to entice her; that temptation to escape—
‘. . . Excuse me, nurse. Ow! Not so hard. Oww!’
This. To escape this. Just for a night. Jacqui was suddenly back on the ward with her hands underneath a seventy-five-year-old man, his creased face crumpled further by discomfort.
‘Sorry, Mr Moore, sorry,’ she soothed. ‘Nearly done.’ She turned back to the trolley. One thing she was fairly sure of: she hadn’t slept with anyone. She’d had her knickers on when she got home and they were as pristine as when she’d slipped them on before going out. She sighed, and pushed the trolley out into the aisle. Paul had entered the ward. Though he could at times be annoying, he was safe and reassuring, like the hospital itself, just so long as he didn’t get too serious. She mustered a half-smile and moved to the next bed.
