The Dead House: Fiona Griffiths Crime Thriller (Book 5) (Fiona Griffiths Crime Thriller Series)

by Harry Bingham

  There’s nothing on that right-hand edge though. The photo is a nice-ish one of my dad, close by a bay horse, with Howie Jones and, I think, the arm and half the face of Gwion Cadwalladr’s wife. On the right-hand edge of the pic, there’s nothing but the horse’s bum and a man’s arm in a blue Prince-of-Wales check. I take that photo as I take the others, with a bit of chat, a bit of daughter-ish interest in my dad’s old life.

  That photo and the ones that follow. These clues that are either not clues at all, or ones so deeply hidden as to pass my understanding.

  When I ask Em if I can take these photos to make copies for my dad’s Christmas present, he hesitates only a moment before telling me yes. Yes, of course.

  And, as evening twinkles from the street lamps, from this violet sky, I say goodbye to Em. Say my thank-yous, and drive over to my parents’ home in Roath Park. My parents: who love me and welcome me and care not a damn that I am an imperfect human struggling for goodness in this corrupted world. We watch Simon Cowell on the TV and I fall asleep amid the coppery burnish of my mother’s scatter cushions, the metallic cutwork of their brocade.

  31

  Monday. Carmarthen.

  Tuesday, Carmarthen.

  Wednesday, Carmarthen.

  For the first time, we have a proper inquiry, a proper incident room, a proper commitment of resources. I’m given a uniformed constable to direct, and set him to work completing my number-plate-sifting assignment.

  Meantime, Burnett and I dig into Gerraghty’s box of evidence.

  A wodge of emails: the ransom demand and the correspondence that followed.

  The proof-of-capture video.

  CCTV from the Mishchenkos’ Chelsea house, a recording that shows nothing on video, but might contain an audio recording of a taxi stopping, just outside the sweep of the cameras at 1.30 a.m.

  A few other bits and pieces.

  We jump on the emails first, hoping for an easy win from the IP addresses. Send our data to tech analysts at the NCA, who come back to us within the day with bad news. The IP addresses come from some proxy server based in Mexico. No particular reason to believe that the kidnappers have any physical presence in Mexico, just that, as the NCA analyst put it, ‘It’s an easily managed location. Chances are, if we could unpick this whole thing, we’d find there was a proxy server in Mexico, sheltering a proxy server in Gibraltar, sheltering a proxy server in Russia, and so on. Our chance of unpicking it? Oh, I don’t know. Somewhere between zero and none at all.’

  Better news elsewhere. We send the audio recording from the Mishchenkos’ CCTV to a specialist lab. They confirm that the beat of the engine is ‘highly consistent’ with that of a London taxi, and the guy who calls us with the news tells us that what they mean is, ‘It basically is a London taxi. We just can’t say so in case we’re wrong and some idiot ends up suing us.’

  We track use of Alina Mishchenko’s phone to see if, by any crazy stroke of fortune, her kidnappers forgot to turn the thing off when they grabbed her. But no. Her phone pinged the mast closest to her parents’ Chelsea house at about 1.28 a.m., then nothing further. Phone turned off, battery most likely discarded.

  Slim pickings, slim pickings.

  On the Tuesday, Burnett puts on a rain mac and does a televised appeal for information. He stands on the little hump-backed bridge above Llanglydwen. Two streams merge behind him, hurtle through the stone arch beneath.

  Kitted out in his long coat and serious, official face, Burnett narrows his eyes to gun-slits and tells a spatter of journalists that ‘some very significant breakthroughs have been made in relation to the very sad disappearance of young Bethan Williams, abducted from this village more than eight years ago. We also have to take seriously the possibility that Bethan’s disappearance is connected with the strange death of Alina Mishchenko, who may have spent a day or two in this area in the period immediately preceding her death.’

  He appeals for information. Promises total confidentiality, total commitment.

  I’m not there, but I watch his performance on BBC Cymru Wales and think he’s pitched it just right. The very picture of the dogged rural copper.

  Those media appeals always generate a surge of calls, or at least they do when both victims are reasonably photogenic young women, but we’ve had nothing helpful yet. May get nothing ever.

  In the meantime, we have another angle to explore, a dark, wet and dripping one.

  Burnett makes contact with one of the people who runs the South Wales Caving Club. Tells him we want to investigate a cave in Llangattock – a good distance from our actual location – and can he recommend someone to guide us. Also: can we borrow whatever equipment will be needed. The answers to those questions are yes and yes. Not even just yes, but yes certainly. Yes, definitely. Yes, nothing would be easier.

  Burnett, who was expecting a boring negotiation over consultancy fees and risk assessments and insurance arrangements, is surprised by this. I would be too, except that last year I worked with a couple of rock-climbers on an assignment and they had the exact same attitude. One of genuine surprise that someone might want to offer them cash to do something that they’d enjoy doing in any event.

  ‘They’re nuts,’ I tell Burnett. ‘That’s the thing you have to understand. They’re crazy people. We should probably lock them up for their own safety.’

  He doesn’t let me lock anyone up. We do, however, meet a guy called Rhydwyn Lloyd at the SWCC hut in Penwyllt, a row of old stone cottages that’s been converted into a base for cavers returning from the dark below.

  Lloyd is brightly cheerful, like a spaniel puppy. He has an open smile and blond curls over a broad forehead. An instantly likeable man. He riffles through a cupboard full of kit, adding junk from his own collection when needed.

  Helmets are easy enough. Mine comes in fetching yellow, Burnett’s in dayglo-green. When I tell him he looks like a radioactive apple, he tells me to find a mirror.

  Boots are also easy. The ones I have, the ones I used when I was doing all my night-time digging, are fine. As Lloyd comments, ‘They’re trashed already.’

  It’s not hard kitting Burnett out with all the other bits and pieces. Except that his waistline has a comfortable midde-age swell, he has a fairly regular build and Lloyd doesn’t have a problem finding stuff to fit.

  I’m a bit more of a problem. Lloyd finds me a fleecy one-piece undersuit in ‘Small’, but it still flops down below my ankles and hangs in bags around my waist. Lloyd picks at the flaps as though that’ll make them vanish. Then looks at me as though I’ve done something wrong.

  The oversuit, a waterproof thing in blue and black, fits a bit better and by the time Lloyd has found a belt and punched an extra hole in it, we find a way to pluck, fold and buckle me into shape.

  Lloyd adds gloves, neoprene cuffs, and torches to a mounting pile.

  I tell Burnett he looks like a sewer maintenance guy.

  He tells me I look like I had a fight with a tent and came out second.

  Lloyd shows us our lamps, how they work. Gives us each a ‘dry bag’, in which we’ll carry food and anything we might need for police work: latex gloves, cameras, evidence bags. Fills a couple of bigger tackle bags with ropes, karabiners, belay devices, ascenders, spare torches, batteries and other stuff I don’t recognise. The bags look heavy and I’m happy to leave them to the men.

  Safety.

  Lloyd talks us through the basics. Keeping contact. What to do in case of injury. Keeping warm. How to avoid getting lost.

  ‘The main thing is a Disaster Alert Plan. Basically, we need to tell someone where we’re going, how long we’re going to be gone for, what to do if we don’t come back.’

  Burnett shrugs. Starts to say he’ll just tell his boss, but I intervene.

  I say, ‘I’m not sure,’ which is me-code for, ‘I think that’s a terrible idea.’

  Burnett says, ‘Fiona . . .’ in that warning voice of his, which is him-code for, ‘Do you remember I’m the boss?’


  ‘Sir, these kidnappers got inside Mike Kennedy’s unit. Or had a mole planted in the Met. Or had the systems expertise to hack into police systems remotely. Do you really want to bet that Dyfed-Powys is proof against attack?’

  That pauses him, so I whack him with my follow-up while he’s still reeling.

  ‘Or, to put it another way, do you want to be crawling around a tiny little hole in the ground, uncertain about whether a highly professional kidnap gang might know exactly where you were? And if that gang knew you were on the hunt for Bethan Williams, a girl who might still be alive and who might, in that case, still have evidence that could compromise the entire kidnap operation, would you feel confident that they would not attempt any countermeasure?’

  Burnett thinks about that.

  Thinks about that, scratches his jaw, and says, ‘Ah.’

  We have a brief discussion of alternatives, but Rhydwyn Lloyd knows this territory well and calmly proposes a solution. We’ll simply act like any serious caving party, and leave a detailed plan here at the caving hut in a sealed envelope. If we’re not back by 8.00 p.m., Lloyd will ensure that one of his fellow cavers opens the envelope and organises a rescue. Simple, sensible, foolproof.

  A plan that can’t possibly go wrong.

  32

  Friday morning.

  A shallow frost crisps the fields and hills. A blue and yellow light falls over a sparkle of silver, white and the palest winter green.

  Burnett and I arrive at Penwyllt first. Smoke outside in this frozen dawn. We ask each other about our Christmas plans. Our answers are absent-minded, distracted. Knocked off course by the anticipation of what lies ahead.

  It’s not long before Lloyd rolls up, driving a much-travelled Ford Fiesta in muddy claret. He says no to a ciggy and stands as the two of us blow smoke upwards into the rising light.

  ‘So,’ he says. ‘The big mystery. Where we’re going.’

  Burnett says, ‘Not far,’ and waves his DAP envelope in the chilly air.

  We go inside. The boys get changed in the changing area. I change alone in the long common room. Twenty easy chairs, a pile of mags, a cast iron stove. Two or three tattered boxes containing board games. I undress as far as my knickers. Then climb into my undersuit, which feels furry and nice. Waterproof oversuit. Nylon belt. Thermal socks. My already trashed boots.

  To my dry bag, I add a tin which holds twenty roll-ups and a lighter. Half the roll-ups are tobacco only. The other half aren’t. Not standard caving equipment, but I like to be prepared.

  I join the boys, who are already dressed.

  Lloyd leaves the envelope in the hut’s little office. We put our names, the date, and an ‘Is it after 8.00 p.m.? Please check our DAP!’ message in huge red letters on the whiteboard.

  Burnett adds ‘Don’t forget us’ with a picture of a Christmas tree. That’s a bit girly for him, so I know he’s nervous too. Lloyd promises that he’s got two separate cavers charged with checking whether we’re back on time, adding, ‘Cavers are serious about that kind of thing. They won’t forget.’

  He sees we’re nervous. I like that.

  We drive up into the mountains. Lloyd’s car, because it’s the one with all the kit. Burnett gives directions. I sit silent in the back.

  A pale sun starts to tackle the frost. The lines of white are hardest and deepest in the north-facing shadows of walls, hills and hedges.

  We get to the Llanglydwen valley, its mud and its mists lost beneath this scattering of diamond.

  Climb up to our little hole. Our underground burrow. The little trickle of silver water spilling out.

  ‘Oh cool,’ says Lloyd, seeing the entrance we’ve uncovered. ‘That’s really cool.’

  He wants to take a quick recce before committing us and dives into the hole, feet thrashing briefly in the light.

  ‘Crazy,’ I say to Burnett. ‘Locking them up would actually be kinder.’

  Ten minutes go past. Fifteen. Twenty.

  Burnett says, ‘Do you think he’s OK?’

  ‘No, I think he’s crazy.’

  Another fifteen minutes pace anxiously past, before we hear a dim echo, stone on stone, followed shortly by Lloyd’s helmet and excited face.

  ‘OK,’ he says, ‘it goes. I mean, really goes. This isn’t one of those things that just goes a few yards then peters out to nothing. It’s a biggie and it’s a goodie. That’s the good news. The bad news – bad if you’re you, good if you’re me – is that the entrance crawl is fairly tight. Four, maybe five hundred yards before you get to a real chamber. Basically, it’s on your face and belly to start with. Proper caving. Now, how we’re going to approach this is . . .’

  Confident and in command, Lloyd lays out the plan. He’s going to escort us on the entrance crawl, then come back for the tackle bags. ‘We’ll establish base camp, basically. If the system looks really big, we can bring sleeping gear and food and set up shop.’

  At that phrase – ‘sleeping gear’ – Burnett and I exchange glances. Ones that mean, no way, no chance, you can completely one hundred per cent forget that idea.

  We say nothing.

  Lloyd says, ‘Smallest first, Fiona. Then me, then Alun. I’ll help out if either of you have trouble. About a hundred and fifty yards in, we’ll have to pass through a choke. That’s an area of unstable rock, the result of a breakdown in the passage itself. Don’t worry too much about that. The breakdown might have happened a hundred years ago for all you know. This is geology we’re talking about. Just move carefully and stay focused.’

  We enter the cave.

  I squirm on my belly through that narrow entrance. Remember that Bethan Williams did this once at night and through a barrier of cold water. What she could do then, I can do now.

  The light changes as soon as I duck into the tunnel. The light and colours. The walls here are a deep blue-black, crossed with lines of wavy red stylolites. The voices and colours from outside are immediately lost, or so dwindled that they might as well be from another world.

  I crawl far enough down the tunnel, as far as the first bend, that the others can follow in after me. I wait in a kind of crouching kneel as Lloyd adjusts the settings on Burnett’s torch. My head is bowed under the roof above and I think: this is how people kneel in those hostage videos. Waiting for the jihadist’s axe.

  Behind me, I hear Burnett say, ‘Fuck.’

  Lloyd says, ‘It gets better.’

  It doesn’t get better. It gets worse.

  The dark roof lowers, pressing me down. Mostly, I’m able to look ahead, following the line of my torch beam forwards. Black rock. A trickle of water. The incipient white of stalactites. But there are times too when my helmet bangs against the rock, forcing my face down and flat. When it’s like that, I thrutch forwards like those soldiers on their mud-and-wire assault courses. My torch illuminates nothing except wet stone, my moving arms. And all the time, my head and back feel the scrape of rock, the press of mountain.

  I started out wearing my dry bag, the one with food and other bits, over my shoulder. But this new posture means it keeps catching and I have to shuffle it down, clipping it to my belt, and wriggling my hips to free it any time it catches on the stone above.

  Back in Penwyllt on Wednesday, Lloyd asked me if I wanted knee guards, a kind of hard-compound neoprene thing. I said no because I didn’t want to look wussy, but my knees are already beginning to question the wisdom of that decision.

  No corpses.

  No Bethan Williams.

  No trace of previous passage.

  Onwards.

  Because I can’t turn, I can’t even turn to see the others are still following. I do sometimes catch the dart of their torchlight. Lloyd’s, ‘OK, doing good.’ Burnett’s peppery fucks.

  We get to a place where the passage is blocked by fallen stone, its largely smooth walls interrupted by a crashing intrusion from above. My instinctive thought is, ‘Oh, that’s stupid, it’s a dead-end after all.’

  I shout something to that ef
fect, but Lloyd just says, ‘Yep, don’t worry, this is the start of the choke. It’s a bit of a dog-leg here. There’s an opening up and to the right, but then you’ve got to fold over on yourself and go back down and to the left.’

  My helmet scrapes the ceiling as I try to figure it out. I can’t get used to the fact that my eyes can’t see anything outside the line of my torch beam, which means I’ve got to skew my head sideways and flat to get my torch pointing the right way. There is an opening, yes, but fiercely tilted, like a shark bite angling in from the side.

  The stone looks ridiculously loose – a pile of tumbled packing cases – and Lloyd is asking me to plunge down into it. I’m hopelessly aware that even the smallest of these rocks could, if they slipped just a little, kill me or trap me beyond hope of recovery.

  I have those thoughts and can feel my breath coming stupid-fast and have to remind myself what Lloyd already told us: that passages like this form over millions of years. Collapse over thousands. Nothing I do will leave more than a temporary thumbprint on either of those processes.

  So I do as Lloyd tells me. Sideways and up. Then fold over and down. Diving down into stone. A wilderness of rock. The one time I get a proper view of the tunnel above, I see it’s a mass of sharp edges and hanging masses.

  The three of us kick, slide and pant our way through. There’s a moment when one of the two men behind accidentally shifts a rock and we hear that terrifying sound of stone moving on stone. A sound that, blessedly, soon ceases, leaving the tunnel echoing in its own silence and Burnett’s swearwords.

  When we break into open tunnel again, the relief, at least for me, is tremendous. There’s only one other moment of real tension. A place where the passage is half-filled with water, or more than half. A ‘duck’, Lloyd calls it. Cold stream water slops to within two or three inches of the roof, and only a narrow ginnel of air snakes over the top.