by BILL KITSON
All her senses were at fever pitch. Her ears strained for any sound that might not be connected to the storm. Was it her imagination, or did it seem a little colder in the room? Had a door been opened letting in the cooler air? There! What was that? A footstep? Something moving outside? Or inside? She became aware she was gripping the arms of her chair, her eyes fixed on the lounge door as fear escalated. She glanced down; saw the knuckles white with stress. This is ridiculous, she told herself.
She looked back at the door. Fear turned to terror. The handle was moving. The door opened. As she saw the figure standing in the doorway, her terror multiplied. She screamed. ‘Who are you?’ she screamed and screamed again.
Nash glanced across at his companion. The boy was small, fair, almost angelically so, with blue eyes. Anyone seeing them together couldn’t doubt their relationship. Many had commented on the fact but Nash himself couldn’t see it. To him, Daniel was so much like his mother, although time was beginning to blur Monique’s memory. When he’d mentioned this to Mironova, he’d been taken aback by her laughter. ‘Nonsense, Mike,’ she’d told him briskly. ‘Daniel is like a miniature version of you. Hair, eyes, shape of face, that’s only part of it. He’s even picking up your mannerisms.’
‘Such as?’ Nash was intrigued. Like everyone else, he wasn’t aware he had any.
‘Staring off into the distance as if you’re not listening, when in fact you’re picking up every word, is one. Tilting your head slightly when you’re puzzling something out is another.’
Nash recognized that one. Not from himself, but from his son.
He looked at the clock. ‘Time to go, Daniel,’ he told him gently.
The boy looked up from the book he’d been pretending to read. The antics of the mouse and the Gruffalo were fun, but not at the moment. ‘Must we, Papa?’
‘You know we must,’ Nash’s voice was quietly firm. ‘I promised tante Mirabelle you could spend this holiday with her. Remember? She’s not well, and she’s old. You wouldn’t want to deny her the chance of seeing you, would you?’
France, the place of his birth and his home for all his life until his Mama had died, suddenly seemed a long way away, alien almost. ‘No, Papa, but I don’t want … I mean … it’s a long time.’
‘A fortnight will soon pass when you get there. Don’t forget, I’ll be taking you there and coming to bring you home again.’
Daniel got to his feet and looked round the room. His new home, the home he’d shared with his papa for the last few months had come to mean a lot to the child. ‘Come on, son.’ Nash stretched out his hand. Daniel held it tightly, his small fingers gripping those of his father. ‘You’re sure you’ve got everything?’
Daniel nodded, too choked-up to speak. His small suitcase was already in the back of Papa’s new car. One of the first things Nash had done after Daniel’s arrival was to sell his motorbike, his beloved Road Rocket. In its place in the garage was a Range Rover. The car had become important to the small boy. He felt sure his papa had bought the car solely for his benefit.
He cast a wistful glance back at the flat as they drove away. It was all right Papa saying it would soon pass, but two weeks seemed an awfully long time to the six-year-old.
Friday is the worst day of the week on the roads. Especially if your journey is a long one. Everyone wants to get away, to get home for the weekend, to get to that last business appointment, to get to the supermarket, to get to school and pick up the children. The main roads and motorways are clogged with heavy goods vehicles and a host of others whose journey must be completed before close of business on Friday evening.
That is without taking the weather into account. If the weather is good, Friday is still a difficult day to travel. If it’s bad, Friday on the roads is a nightmare. For Doctor Johana Grey, travelling from Cornwall to North Yorkshire, all these elements combined to make her journey close to impossible. There may be worse routes to contemplate taking on such a day, but off the cuff, Jo couldn’t think of one. She was miserably reminded of the punch line to an old joke, ‘If you’re heading for Yorkshire, I wouldn’t start from here.’
However, she had no choice in the matter. Free time was hardly in plenteous supply. It never is when you start a new job. The problem with taking up a new position late in the year is that everyone else has already booked their holidays, so you have to fit your own in as and when you can. She could have pulled rank, but that was not her way.
By the time she reached the Midlands, Jo had already been on the road for over five hours. The traffic bulletins were warning of a host of problems ahead but there was no way she could avoid these. The westerly gales that had struck that morning had brought with them prolonged torrential rain. Flooded roads had already caused her a couple of detours. Now, with no sign of the rain slackening, let alone ceasing, and the wind, to the dismay of the forecasters, strengthening rather than abating, the rest of her journey looked like prolonging her frustration.
She pulled into a motorway service area, as much for a rest as the coffee. As she waited for the drink to cool to a point where it didn’t strip the skin from the roof of her mouth, she took the opportunity to phone her sister. There was no response from the landline. Jo frowned, Vanda was aware that she would be en route, why was she not answering the phone? She glanced at her watch. Perhaps Vanda had gone into Helmsdale. Good Buys supermarket was one of Vanda’s favourite haunts. Maybe she’d gone there to stock up for their girlie weekend.
Not that this was the only reason for the visit, in fact, it wasn’t even the main one. Jo had arranged it earlier in the week. It would give her chance to collect the personal possessions she’d left with Vanda following her transfer a few months back. Even then, she wouldn’t have made the journey if Vanda’s husband had been at home. But that was only because Jo detested him.
She tried Vanda’s mobile. It went straight to voicemail. Jo’s frown deepened. That was unusual. No, she corrected herself, not unusual, more like unheard of. Although she was over thirty, Vanda had embraced mobile phone technology with all the eagerness of a teenager. Jo settled for leaving a message. She returned to her coffee, which was by now approaching drinkable temperature. As she was sipping cautiously at it, she reflected on the message telling Vanda about the delays, warning her that she would phone again when she got nearer. She did a quick mental calculation and reckoned she would probably reach one of the service areas around Sheffield somewhere close to 7 p.m.
Unfortunately, her sums did not allow for the carnage the weather was about to cause on the motorway ahead and it was past 8.30 p.m. before she pulled into the service area south of Sheffield. By then Jo was unutterably weary as she reached for her mobile. All tiredness fell away however, when she again failed to get a response.
It was at this point that the concern turned into heightening anxiety. Where was she? Was she ill? Worse still, had she suffered some form of accident? Jo thought about Vanda’s house. Its location, in the centre of woodland was remote, too remote for someone who might be in difficulty. Suppose the gales had brought one of those massive trees down on the house. She thrust that thought firmly away. Undeterred, it returned. She tried to recall how close the trees were to the house. Too close, she felt sure. A hundred nightmare scenarios flashed through her mind. Ignoring her own weariness, she buckled her seat belt and turned the ignition.
As she drove, her thoughts centred on the possible reasons for Vanda failing to answer. If the power was out, the phones wouldn’t work. And if Vanda had been without power, she’d have no means of charging her mobile. Even if it was charged, the nearest cell might have had its mast damaged. All logical reasons, all perfectly feasible. None of them easing her anxiety in the slightest.
As she approached Netherdale at the gateway to the dale, a series of bright flashing red and blue lights warned her of yet another incident. A tree was blocking the road.
‘I’m afraid this road will be closed for several hours,’ the police officer told her. ‘Your only
alternative is to turn round, go back to the last junction and take the Bishopton road. That is, if you want to reach Helmsdale before morning.’
‘I’m actually heading for Wintersett,’ she told him. ‘Have you any idea how conditions are the other side of Helmsdale?’
The officer scratched his chin thoughtfully. ‘I don’t know about that, not for certain,’ he told her apologetically. ‘My information is a couple of hours out-of-date and, the way the weather is, things are changing almost minute to minute. I’m not sure if Winter Bridge is passable. The Helm is running about five metres higher than normal in places. If that’s the case, all the low-lying ground near Winter Bridge could be under several feet of water by now.’
‘I shall have to risk it. I’ve driven all the way from Cornwall and I must get to my sister’s house tonight, somehow or other.’
Jo watched sympathetically as the officer fought his way to the next vehicle in the waiting queue, staggering as each fresh gust blew him off course. She put the Mercedes into gear and swung into an adjacent gateway leading to a farmer’s field, before turning to head back for the Bishopton junction.
She reached Helmsdale without further mishap, although several times she had to inch her way through puddles that threatened to meet in the centre of the country road. On two occasions, her headlights failed to pick up the danger in time and the steering wheel bucked and twisted in her hand, almost breaking free as the Mercedes ploughed into the floodwater at too high a speed.
She pressed on, switching the radio on, partly for comfort, but mainly to try to catch local news and traffic information. She blessed her own laxity. She had not retuned the set following her move to Cornwall, and Shire FM was still one of her pre-set stations. She was in time to catch the eleven o’clock news. The bulletin contained little else but reports of the great storm and its effects nationwide. From the local section of the bulletin, she learned that the River Helm had indeed burst its banks as the traffic officer had predicted, but that it had happened further downstream. The overspill had flooded a wide area of farmland and threatened homes in three or four villages. Although Jo felt momentary sympathy for those affected, she was thankful that the incident had relieved the pressure on Winter Bridge and the surrounding land.
Chapter Three
It was nearing midnight when Jo turned into the lane leading to Vanda’s cottage. The drive meandered for almost half a mile before sweeping round behind the property. Beyond it, the stream that served as a tributary to the Helm ran within fifty feet or so of the house. Jo was crawling forward now, her speedometer registering no more than five miles per hour. She tried to remember if there were trees alongside the drive. She could only recall high hedges, but wasn’t in the mood for taking chances. As she neared the end of the drive she passed the old mill. The business had closed long ago, the mill itself was little used, but the property Vanda and her husband had bought still bore the name Mill Cottage.
As she pulled to a halt at the rear, before she even got out of the car, one glance at the house told her something was wrong. The place was in darkness. Complete, inky-black darkness. Her headlights reflected back from the double-glazed windows, mocking the darkness beyond, taunting her mind to fresh levels of fear and concern. Aware of her impending arrival, Vanda would have left the outside light on. More than that, the kitchen, which stretched over half of the back of the building would have been ablaze with light. Even if the power was out, Jo knew her sister would have lit a collection of candles. Living out in the sticks, they always had a good stock to hand for precisely an event such as this.
She switched the ignition off and got out of the car. Her first impression was of noise. The roaring of the wind through the bank of high trees at the far side of the stream was amplified by the rushing torrent of water over the weir above the mill. Rain splashed spitefully into Jo’s face as she bent against the gale and forced her way to the dim outline of the large porch at the back of the building.
She knew the approximate position of the doorknob, yet the darkness was so absolute Jo had to fumble for several seconds to locate it. She cursed her stupidity in not leaving her headlights on. The knob moved easily and she stepped into the porch, shutting the outer door with some difficulty against the wind. She groped for a light switch and after a couple of seconds found it. The porch light barely rewarded the effort. The globe above the kitchen door provided little more than a dim glow for a few seconds. This gradually strengthened and Jo realized Vanda must have fitted energy-saving bulbs.
She reached forward and grasped the kitchen door handle. It was then she noticed the first sign of trouble: the glass in the pane next to the handle was missing. Or rather, most of it was. The pane had been smashed. By accident, or something more sinister? Steady, Jo, she told herself, Vanda might have locked herself out, nothing worse than that. The handle turned easily and a second later, she was in the kitchen, blinking in the sudden brightness of the dozen or so ceiling lights. The room was empty, although there were the components of a meal on one of the worktops.
As she moved swiftly across the room, panic gripped her. Whatever straightforward explanations there might have been, had all been dismissed. There was power, therefore, the phone would work. The house was warm and dry, therefore the gales hadn’t brought any trees down on it, nor had the stream flooded the building. With the outer and kitchen doors closed, the sound of the gale was muted to a whisper. Inside, the house was silent. She opened the door into the hall. Apart from reflected light from the kitchen, it too was in darkness.
All the doors leading off the hall were closed. She opted to try the lounge first. As she opened the door, a sudden noise startled her. Jo was weary, her nerves, already stretched. Then she recognized it. She took a deep recuperative breath. It was the sound of a phone ringing. Four times it shrilled before Jo reacted. She started forward, flicking the light on as she passed, hurrying towards the sound. As she did so, it stopped, there was a short silence, then a voice said, ‘Who are you? Who are you?’
Jo strode forward and yelled at the room’s sole occupant. ‘You bloody stupid idiot! You frightened the shit out of me! Where’s Vanda?’
‘Where’s Vanda? Where’s Vanda?’ he mocked her.
She glared at the speaker, her gaze travelling from the black, razor-sharp beak to the brilliant flash of red on its tail that contrasted with the grey body and wings. ‘Shut up, Coco, you bloody moron.’
The African Grey parrot blinked nervously and shuffled from foot to foot on his perch. Jo looked round. Her gaze dropped to the floor. She looked in horror at the carpet. The biscuit-coloured pile was disfigured with a large stain: a large red stain. Panic overcame her. She turned and bolted back to the kitchen. She snatched the phone off the wall, stuck it against her ear and began to dial 999. It was several seconds before she realized something was wrong. Several more before she worked out what. There was no ringing tone. She jiggled the receiver rest; no dial tone either. She fumbled in her coat pocket and pulled out her mobile phone, her hands shaking so violently she almost dropped it in the process.
She took a deep steadying breath. If she had dropped the phone on the tiled floor, it would have smashed. That would have been the last straw. She took several more deep breaths. Only when she was calmer did she start to dial once more.
After several fumbling attempts, she heard the ringing tone, and waited for the emergency operator. It seemed an age before the call was answered. She asked to be put through to the police and explained the nature of the emergency. After some intensive questioning, which Jo guessed hid their reluctance over what was likely to prove a false alarm, she was asked to hold whilst they connected her to Netherdale police station. Why not Helmsdale, Jo wondered? Then she realized, a small town station would probably be closed at night.
The early hours of the morning were agreed upon as the best time to send and receive messages. As part of the terms of his incarceration, the prisoner was kept in solitary confinement. That suited him fine, f
or he was not in the slightest bit anxious to fraternize with other inmates. Not only that, but with the acquisition of the mobile delivered by Eddie Michaels, he was able to communicate with his lieutenant as freely as the prison service would allow. The pre-arranged time for receipt of texts was 1 a.m. It was a couple of minutes after that on the Saturday morning when the message arrived. The prisoner studied it with subdued excitement. The plan was to be carried out that evening. The lieutenant promised to report again on Monday night. The prisoner smiled in anticipation. It looked like his men were in for a busy weekend.
DS Mironova wasn’t sure what had woken her. She could hear the gentle breathing of her companion. Her fiancé David, usually the lightest of sleepers, a habit that stemmed from his military background, had not been disturbed. Then she heard a muted throbbing sound. She frowned, trying to work out where it was coming from. Not the central heating. She glanced at the clock, no, definitely not the heating. The sound stopped, then started again. She sat upright and thrust the duvet back. Alongside her, David mumbled a protest in his sleep.
Clara got out of bed and switched the bedside lamp on. She’d not rest until she located the source. She dragged her dressing room from the chair, wrapped it round her and opened the bedroom door.
Behind her, David sat up. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, more curiosity than alarm.
‘I heard a noise. Can’t work out what it is. I’m going to find out.’
He yawned. ‘Probably a couple of cats fornicating in the street.’
‘Men! One track bloody minds, the lot of you.’
As soon as she entered her sitting room, she located the source of her disturbance. She’d left her mobile on the table by her armchair. Although the phone was set to silent, she’d put it into vibrate mode when they’d got to the restaurant. One of the penalties of being on call. After the meal she’d forgotten to change the setting back. As she approached it, the phone lit up and began to dance around the circular tabletop. Clara seized it before it nose-dived on to the carpet and pressed receive. ‘Mironova,’ she grunted.
