Lost Summer

by Stuart Harrison

He drove at walking pace with only his parking lights on and when he reached the lodge he drove around the back and switched them off. When he got out he took the new torch he’d bought earlier, along with a long-handled screwdriver.

  It was cold and quiet, though as he became accustomed to his surroundings it wasn’t so quiet after all. The night was full of a hundred small sounds. The hoot of an owl, the spooky shriek of a deer from the forest, the rustle of something moving through the grass close by. The breeze rattled in the branches of a nearby solitary pine and water dripped from a leaky gutter.

  He tried a door at the back of the building, testing his weight against it, but it was locked and felt solid and unmoving. He moved along to a window and though it too was locked there was a gap between the shutter and the window frame. He worked the screwdriver into the gap and after several good jerks the wood splintered and the lock snapped off. He peered through the window to see if he could get at the catch but in the end had to resort to smashing the glass. The noise it made was alarmingly loud and seemed to go on for ever as fragments fell inwards, sounding like the high notes on an out-of-tune piano. When it was over he waited for several long seconds before he felt for the catch and climbed inside.

  He bumped his hip painfully against a sharp edge. It was even darker inside and the air was stale. Casting his torch beam around he picked out boxes and chairs, a battered desk shoved up against a far wall. He was in a small storage room. He tried the door, which led out into a passage. Directing the torch towards the floor he made his way to the front of the building where there was an entrance hall and to one side of a counter a door marked OFFICE. On a desk inside there were some brochure holders, a primitive-looking phone system and a computer terminal. Several filing cabinets stood against the wall.

  Adam closed the door and pulled the curtain over the window before turning on the light. He sat down at the desk, wondering where to begin. Gordon King certainly hadn’t gone to a great deal of trouble to square things away before he’d closed up the lodge and bolted for the beaches of Goa, or wherever it was he’d gone to. A cardboard box minus its lid appeared to serve as a repository for the last of the incoming mail. It was overflowing with a mixture of bills, junk mail, the occasional reservation query, which appeared not to have been answered, and a complaint from a customer about the misrepresentation of the lodge facilities in a magazine it had been advertised in, along with several demands for payment from creditors King owed money to.

  He opened a drawer and found the mouldy remains of what might have been a Bounty along with the May issue of Penthouse magazine. A search of the remaining drawers produced several fishing magazines but not much else. Abandoning the desk Adam scooted the chair over to a filing cabinet. On top there was a large desk diary where King appeared to record his bookings. It seemed business had been slow that year, and a quick search around the beginning of September revealed nothing relating to Ben and his friends.

  He turned his attention to the filing drawers. If the accumulated bills and accounts he found inside had been filed according to some logical system it was a mystery to Adam. He heaved several bundles out onto the desk and began going through them. There were copies of guest receipts dating back three years, but they were arranged haphazardly. It took an hour of searching before he finally found what he was looking for. He shoved the rest of the stuff back in the drawer before he began to examine the account that bore Ben’s name.

  They had stayed at the lodge for two nights, sharing a single cabin between them, arriving on what must have been the day following the attack on the camp and leaving on the fifth of September, the night of the accident. What was interesting was that they had been charged for two and a half days, which Adam pondered for a while. The only other charge listed was for phone calls that came to a total of nine pounds twenty-seven, which seemed a lot. Unfortunately there was no breakdown of individual calls and with a groan Adam turned back to the cabinet. He found the phone accounts but nothing for September. He checked the box containing incoming mail and it wasn’t there either. He thought for a few moments and his eye flicked from the phone system to the computer monitor. Judging by the way Ben’s account was printed the lodge used some kind of rudimentary hotel accounting software, and it was logical to assume that phone calls were automatically itemized on some background program. It was worth looking anyway so he turned on the computer and waited for the screen to come to life.

  The system was old with limited memory capacity and the billing program staggered to life. He found the software operating the phone system easily enough, but it took a little longer to bring up the itemized calls. When he did eventually find what he was looking for he entered the dates he wanted isolated in a field box that appeared and brought up a list of every outgoing call made from the lodge during that time. He assumed there must be a way to figure out which one applied to which room, but he couldn’t see how to do it, so he printed off a hard copy list of every number that had been called. A quick glance revealed that there were seventeen local calls in all, one to a mobile phone and one to a number with an international prefix. He ran his eye down the list until one caught his attention. It was the only number he recognized. He stared at it for several long seconds, then folded the printout along with the room account and tucked it inside his jacket pocket.

  As he did a sound alerted him to the fact that he was no longer alone.

  At first he wasn’t sure what it was that he’d heard, but whatever it was had started a shrill insistent alarm ringing in his head. He waited to see if it would be repeated but when it wasn’t he got up and switched off the light before opening the door to the hallway a fraction. There was nothing there. He crossed to the nearest window and peered between the crack in the shutters. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness again he wondered if the sound he’d heard was simply a rat or merely the settling timbers of an old building. When he still couldn’t see anything outside he returned to the office and working by the light of his torch put everything back the way he had found it. When he was finished he paused to take a final look around, and just then he heard the unmistakeable sound of a car door closing outside.

  He flicked off the torch. The car door had been closed quietly, the sound a muffled clunk. He went to the window again and peered outside but he still couldn’t see anything. He wondered if the Porsche had been discovered, and as if in answer he heard the splintered crunch of broken glass from the back of the building as somebody climbed through the window he had broken. A few moments later he heard stealthy footsteps coming along the passage towards the hall.

  Quickly he crossed to the front door but it was locked so he went back to the window and snapped the catch to raise the sash. It opened smoothly but the sound it made was unmistakeable. The footsteps in the passage stopped and then almost immediately started again, only this time whoever was there was running. Adam flipped the catch on the shutters and pushed but nothing happened. He felt in the dark for whatever was holding them while behind him the sound of running footsteps reached the hallway. Taking a few steps back Adam hurled himself at the window with his arms crossed in front of his face. He hit the shutters and felt a momentary resistance before they flew open with a crash and his momentum carried him over the ledge. As he hit the damp grass he rolled and a second later was on his feet and running. A sharp pain knifed through his knee and his run became a clumsy limp. From somewhere behind he heard a muffled curse followed by a thump and then he was around the corner and fumbling for the keys to his car.

  The engine exploded into life and dropped to a growl as he shoved the stick into first gear. In his haste he let the clutch out too fast and for a moment the wheels spun for traction then he eased off a little and the car shot forward, the back end slewing around as he fought the wheel. The end of the building rushed towards him and he swung hard left towards the track. He winced as the car hit a dip and the floor and the ground connected with a bone-shuddering crash. As he felt the wheels hit the track he changed up and
put his right foot down, throwing dirt into the air, then eased off again and aimed the car towards the road. As it straightened he glimpsed a flash in the mirror from the corner of his eye. Instinctively he ducked as the rear window exploded into a million fragments. There might have been a second shot but he wasn’t sure. The car leapt forward bouncing over potholes at speed and when he switched on the lights the gate was suddenly there and thankfully it was open. He hit the brake and turned hard to the left then floored the accelerator again. The back slid around and then the wheels connected with the tarmac and the Porsche was suddenly in its element, behaving the way it was designed to do. In moments he was hurtling down the hill.

  A bend curved round to the left; a line of trees stood out in the white light ahead. Adam changed down, the engine note dropping to a rumble before he touched the throttle again. The Porsche held to the road as he pulled it through the bend and as he did he glanced in the mirror and glimpsed a gleam of light. He grinned to himself, adrenalin surging in his veins. The seat held him snugly and the wheel was light in his hands. Catch me if you can, he thought.

  The lights lit a long downhill stretch ahead, at the end of which was the edge of the forest. Overconfidence made him take the first curve at dangerous speed and cold sweat popped on his brow as the back of the car began to slide towards the edge. He overcorrected, instinctively hitting the brake too hard, and the wheels locked. Rubber screeched and a pungent stench rose from underneath the car. The lights swung wildly out into the void beyond the road. He took his foot off the brake and even though it went against instinct he touched the throttle and the car leapt towards darkness. For an instant it seemed as if he’d acted too late but a fraction of a second before oblivion the car responded and came around. It was over in moments, but he’d been a foot and a half away from plunging off the road.

  He glanced in the mirror but there was nothing there. At the approach to the next curve he dropped a gear and braked smoothly, then powered out the other side, hugging the tarmac with room to spare. A long straight opened up and he put the pedal to the floor. Still no light behind. He was in control and nothing short of another Porsche was going to catch him now.

  He wondered if this was a scene that had been played out before; only then it had been three kids in a beat-up old Vauxhall on this same stretch of road. The straight ended in a long curve left which was sharper than it looked. He passed by the place where the Vauxhall had gone over the edge and it was easy to see how it could have happened. He experienced some echo of what Ben and his friends must have felt. The gut-wrenching inevitability of impact following a brief illusion of weightlessness. Headlights plunging down, lighting the tops of trees as the car began lazily to turn. They would have known they were about to die. They had probably screamed in terror. In his mind’s eye he saw the doors pop open as two bodies were flung against the trees with bloody ferocity. He saw the wreck bounce and roll and a shaft of metal pierce Ben’s body like a sword. When it came to rest there would have been silence, the ticking of hot metal, the smell of petrol and the ebb of warm thick blood from a ruptured artery. And above, on the road, had a vehicle stopped? Had somebody climbed out and stood watching and listening?

  Adam came to and realized he’d taken his foot off the throttle. The engine note changed as the Porsche slowed. He rounded the bend and changed down through the gears, and then barely idling he waited, his eyes on the rear-view mirror.

  Half a minute passed and then headlights appeared behind. The Porsche was captured and held in a growing beam of light. He heard the sound of the approaching engine made louder by the missing rear window and as it drew closer he kept his eyes glued on the mirror until the lights dazzled him as the angle changed. He glimpsed a dark shape, a big vehicle and an indistinct figure behind the wheel. It was a dark-coloured four-wheel drive but he couldn’t see the make. He squinted as it headed straight for him, showing no sign of slowing. He looked back over his shoulder trying to get a better look and suddenly it was almost on top of him. Another second or two, that’s all he needed. The lights grew rapidly into a blinding glare. Just one more second. Then suddenly he didn’t have any time left and he jammed his foot down hard but he already knew he’d timed it too finely. The Porsche responded. The acceleration pressed him back against his seat as he changed into second gear but at the same time he felt the impact behind and heard the crunch of metal on metal. The wheel was wrenched from his hand. He shot forward and was brought up by the belt across his chest and his head snapped back against the rest. A tree loomed in front and he grabbed the wheel. The smell of rubber and hot oil filled the air. For a second the other car was alongside, seeming huge beside the little Porsche. He glimpsed a figure behind the wheel, a blurred pale shape as their eyes met. The driver swung hard right meaning to shove him over the edge but the Porsche leapt clear.

  This time Adam didn’t slow down. He took the curves fast, braking hard as he had done before and powering out the other side. Whatever damage had been done to the car it still handled responsively and the engine seemed unaffected. Trees and dry-stone walls flashed past in the white beam of the lights.

  By the time he was down in the valley the vehicle behind had vanished. A mile from Castleton he pulled over and switched off the engine. He didn’t move for several minutes. Then his hands began to shake and sweat flowed across his body.

  It was past midnight by the time Adam pulled up outside the house. There were no lights on inside and the garage door was closed. He went over and shone his torch through the gap. He could see Angela’s Renault but not David’s Land Rover. When he went back to his car he used his mobile and eventually she answered.

  ‘Angela. This is Adam.’

  ‘Adam? What time is it?’ She sounded groggy.

  ‘Where’s David?’

  ‘What?’ Her voice was clearing. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Outside the house.’

  She didn’t say anything, then a light went on in an upstairs room and he saw the curtain twitch before she came back on the line. ‘He isn’t here.’

  ‘I know that. What I want to know is where he is.’

  ‘I don’t know where he is. Do you know what time it is? For Christ’s sake …’

  ‘Let me in.’

  ‘What? Why should I let you in? I told you …’

  He cut her off. ‘Let me in Angela. I want to show you something.’

  ‘You can show me in the morning.’

  ‘I’m not waiting until morning. Somebody just tried to kill me for fuck’s sake.’

  His voice broke and shook. When he looked at his hands they were trembling. He thought it must be shock and he leaned forward and rested his head on the wheel. His neck was aching and he had a piercing pain in the back of his skull. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to do that.’

  He thought she had hung up. He wished he hadn’t called her. What he wanted to do was rest. Light spilled out into the yard as the front door opened. Angela was clutching a robe about her body with both arms. She came towards him, her face pale. ‘You better come inside,’ she said.

  His neck ached badly and a lacework of pain extended upwards into his skull and down across his back from the impact against the headrest. He was limping again. ‘Do you have anything to drink?’ he asked.

  Angela brought a bottle of Scotch and a glass and they sat at the kitchen table. He poured himself a measure, clinking the bottle against the glass. He felt strange, light-headed. ‘Delayed shock,’ he said, as Angela watched him. The Scotch helped, burning its way down into his gut. He glanced at the clock on the wall and remembered Angela’s daughter, though for a second her name eluded him. ‘It’s late.’ He glanced towards the door and the stairs beyond. ‘Did I wake Kate?’

  ‘She’s staying with a friend.’

  He thought she had already told him that, and nodded.

  ‘Are you alright? Do you need a doctor?’

  He was rubbing the back of his neck. ‘I’m fine, just a bit of whiplash
I think. Have you got any aspirin?’

  She went to a cupboard and came back with a packet of Panadol. He swallowed three.

  ‘Are you going to tell me what happened? You said somebody tried to kill you.’

  He told her about the lodge, how he’d thought Ben and the others might have stayed there, but when he went to see what he could find out it was closed for the season.

  ‘The owner spends the winter in India apparently. So I went back there tonight.’

  ‘You broke in? Why? What were you hoping to find?’

  ‘I wasn’t sure. A record of their account. At least then I’d know where they went after they left the camp.’

  ‘And did you find it?’

  ‘Yes. They arrived on the third of September, the day after the attack, and stayed for two nights. They left on the fifth. The night they were killed.’

  Angela looked away. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking. ‘You said that somebody tried to kill you.’

  He told her what had happened. When he mentioned the gunshot she almost flinched. ‘Somebody must have followed me there.’ He told her whoever it was had come after him. ‘He caught up with me in the forest. He rammed me. Tried to shunt me over the edge.’

  ‘Did you see who it was?’ There was a note of dread in her voice as if she was afraid of the answer.

  ‘Not clearly. A dark-coloured four-wheel drive, that’s all I can say for certain.’

  There was a glimmer of relief in her eye, though a dark-coloured four-wheel drive could mean a black Land Rover like the one David drove. He knew she was thinking about that, and about the fact that he had come here looking for David.

  ‘And then you came here?’

  ‘After a while. I stopped for a few minutes. I was shaken up.’

  ‘But the other car?’

  ‘Must have turned off somewhere.’

  She got up and went to the kitchen window, keeping her back to him while she thought.

  ‘What happened tonight,’ he said. ‘Maybe the same thing happened before. Only Ben and his friends weren’t so lucky.’ It didn’t explain why Ben was driving, or the fact that he’d been drinking, but it was a theory. ‘The account shows that they were charged for two and a half days. I wondered about that. It could mean they left late on the fifth, instead of staying the night. Why would they do that? What was the big hurry all of a sudden?’ He had his own ideas. Maybe they had been scared.