by Jake Barton
"That's when the records would have gone missing," Dexter said, with an air of absolute certainty. "He would have been planning his death even then, or at least setting the scene out in readiness for staging his death."
"That’s not how Hawkes sees it. Administrative cock-up, pure and simple. We’re still working on the basis that the body is that of Marcus Green."
"Sure. I would do the same on the evidence you have in front of you. Only I’m working to a different agenda these days. A bit more scope for lateral thinking."
"You always were a clever bugger," Abbott chuckled. "Do you have anything for me?"
Dexter gave him details of Donna’s findings, giving no hint of the doubts he’d expressed to her. Abbott said he’d put it through the system and if the manpower wasn’t available he’d work on it himself.
Dexter replaced his telephone. "Right then. I’ll brief everyone else and get things moving. Estate agents, that’s the next step. Find that island, if it exists. Why don’t you see what you can get off the Land Registry? They’ll have details of all properties sold. Find that island. Simple."
"He’s still out there, isn’t he? Marcus?"
Dexter nodded. "I reckon he could be. I don’t buy that lost records crap for a minute."
Donna punched the air in triumph. "I bloody well knew it. He’s too clever to let someone like Clive Hutton take advantage of him."
"Don’t get too excited. I tell you one thing; I really hope the bastard actually is dead. I’d be a lot happier if we knew for certain we’d seen the last of him. Whether it’s him or some other poor sod in the morgue doesn’t change what we have to do now. I’m off back to work. Are you intending to sit on your arse all day or can we expect some graft from you sometime soon?"
"Right," Donna said over her shoulder. "You’ve made your point. I’m on my way."
"Donna," Dexter called after her. "Keep in touch, and I’ll see you at Kate’s place later."
Donna waved a hand to show she had heard him and got into her car, feeling a surge of excitement running through her veins. This was more than just a job; it was taking over her life. After initial doubts as to whether she was cut out for the work, this case had transformed the way Donna thought about things. The absence of a set routine or anything other than the absolute minimum of set rules was what attracted her. She’d been learning fast that there was no such thing as a right way and a wrong way of carrying out an investigation. Mostly, it was all down to what came up at the time. Plenty of scope for individual thought when you’re Johnny on the spot – Donna on the spot in her case. You build up your own contacts, follow your instincts.
Even when Roper or his old bat of a sister pissed her off, Donna thought of the alternatives and counted her blessings. She could be packing biscuits on an assembly line, selling fruit and veg, or sitting at home with a couple of snot-noses watching TV all day. Not very tempting. Instead, she was a free spirit, relatively speaking, allowed even encouraged to work a case in her own way.
With a lot of help from the likes of Dexter, and a bit of good fortune, Donna really was beginning to feel she could make a success of this job. She was actually feeling good about herself, a rare and very precious feeling.
Then she spoilt it all by remembering Paula and Celine Dobson, whose fate may very well rest in her hands, and came crashing back to Earth with a bump.
*****
Out of the hard bright sky, a few desultory drops of rain pitted the pavement. Donna had trouble parking as the driver at the end had stuck his bonnet in at a sharp angle and subsequent drivers had slavishly followed suit. The single remaining space was almost twice as wide as her car on one side, but tapered to almost nothing on the other.
She squeezed in somehow and was standing outside the offices of the Land Registry, wondering how they rated such a posh building, when an elderly dosser approached – tall and gaunt, his extreme slenderness exacerbated by a huge beaked nose and a shiny 1950’s style pin-stripe suit.
Various scrofulous lumps and bumps on his features all added to the general picture. His voice had all the appeal of an iron bar being dragged across rusty iron railings.
"You going in there?"
Donna nodded. Why do I always attract these people? Even more to the point, why did she invariably feel obliged to respond to their inane ramblings?
"You don’t want to have anything to do with them in there. Bastards they are."
"Oh, thanks for telling me."
He looked affronted. "I mean it, girl. You watch yourself."
"I can look after myself."
"You’re a cool one."
"I’m insouciant," Donna smirked.
"Oh, fuck off."
"Okay, be like that."
Donna left him on the pavement, railing against the world in general, and her in particular, and pushed open the main doors. Following the signs to the enquiry desk was easy enough and she only went wrong twice. When she finally found it, there was a queue of people waiting. Shit!
The man in front of her was picking his nose. Bad enough on its own, but he was also examining the results of his excavations with great care. A gigantic bogey perched on the very tip of his forefinger. What was he going to do when he’d finished looking at it?
Donna shuddered and looked away. Next time she looked it had gone. Were these people permanent residents of Government buildings? Did they doss down here after dark? These sad, desperate margarine heads off the sink estates. It looked like she was in for a long wait.
She just knew Dexter would have marched straight up to the desk and demanded to be seen straight away, but she couldn’t do that. What if the rest of the queue challenged her? No, Donna wouldn’t risk showing her arse in public. She wasn’t Dexter, so she waited her turn.
When Donna finally got to the front of the queue, she was already pretty pissed off at waiting, and just about ready for a battle. Just as well. She didn’t know who came up with the idea of calling a woman like the one behind the desk a civil servant. She was nobody’s servant and neither was she civil, quite the opposite.
Rude cow would be much more appropriate. Donna was well aware that she was maligning an entire body of well-meaning and industrious people, but she spoke as she found.
Civil servants belonged in the same category as Doctors’ receptionists, namely someone with whom Donna was destined to have an argument. Why did she always pull out the bad apple?
Ms Rude Bitch gave Donna a hard stare and repeated the meaningless piece of doggerel that she presumably hoped would drive her away. If the woman had told Donna to piss off the minute she’d walked through the door, she’d have been annoyed and offended, but would probably have pissed off as requested and tried her luck elsewhere. This way, she’d wasted half an hour and the end result was exactly the same.
This was hard work. Juggling with sand would be more difficult, eating powdered glass less pleasant, but in both cases it was a close call. She’d waited bloody ages for the dubious pleasure of seeing this woman in the expectation that she would be able to help. Some chance of that! Forward-slanting cheekbones, a thin mouth below a nose that was almost dainty, and jet black hair combed severely back from a widow’s peak. Her clever brown eyes were alive with the knowledge that she was driving Donna to distraction.
Donna lost it in the end.
Spectacularly.
Bellowing like a fairground barker and insisting on seeing the supervisor. The woman’s small mouth pinched as if outraged at this request. The shrewish expression was probably habitual, but Donna persevered and eventually got her own way.
When the supervisor eventually appeared, he was nothing like she’d expected. A wide square face, clean-shaven cheeks a vivid contrast to the neat goatee beard and swirling copper ringlets cascading down from his temples. Donna wouldn't have called him handsome, but he certainly had something. On a woman, his hair alone would have guaranteed a second glance. He was wearing a chocolate-coloured blouson in gloriously distressed leather that
looked thirty years old, but was almost certainly manufactured with that very effect in mind. Donna broke yet another commandment – the one about not coveting her neighbour's ox, or his ass, or his leather jacket.
Donna told him what she needed, as politely as she could muster, having exhausted her reserves of patience long ago. He, in turn, had given out all the usual crap about confidentiality and really pissed her off. She’d used up all her powers of persuasion, and as they sat there looking at each other, Donna realised he didn't give a shit, one way or the other. Her request and the reasons behind it meant nothing to him, a big fat zero.
He abruptly stood up and left the room without a word. Seated in a tiny cubicle, the only natural light coming from a small pane of toughened glass set into the door, Donna wondered if she’d been abandoned. She decided to stay put and wait for something to happen, having had enough affirmative action for a while, it didn’t suit her.
After twenty minutes or so, the door opened and leather jacket came back. He sat down in the chair opposite and thrust a bundle of files on the table.
"All I can find for now. The type of property you specified, over a three year period dating from 1986." Donna stared blankly at him as he cocked his head on one side. "Nothing leaves this room without a Court Order, but you can take notes. You may want to say thank you at this stage."
"Thank you," Donna stammered.
He smiled thinly and left her alone in the room with the files.
*****
The long vigil was unproductive, but not without value.
He knew the area surrounding the house now and he was confident in his ability to return, even in darkness, without difficulty. In the event of a problem, all the likely escape routes were committed to memory.
He stretched in silence, easing the kinks out of his joints, and then moved silently away. It would be necessary to put his alternative plan into effect.
~ Chapter 21 ~
It had been a long day. After four hours work, Donna had found three possible sites and taken exhaustive notes. Her points of reference were the features on the painting drawn by Marcus on the wall of his den.
She knew without being told that she was taking a chance by following this line of enquiry so slavishly, but what else did she have? None of the three possible sites were particularly local, but she’d already guessed that.
An estate in Lancashire, a Cheshire farmhouse and an area of moor land in the Peak District.
All very different, but each had one thing in common, a lake was included in the sale details. Donna found no references to islands or houses in the lake, but took notes of everything she thought at all relevant. There were details of a larger property group, houses on the shore of a lake, but Donna thought them unlikely as they were not on an island. Nevertheless, she took brief details of each. She couldn’t afford to be wrong.
Finished at last, Donna sat in her car for another hour, making sure all her notes were in order, and then dropped everything off at the office, together with a page of her own thoughts. Dexter was out and about somewhere, so Donna left the papers on his desk, together with a note to say she’d see him later at Kate’s house.
As a safeguard, she also e-mailed a copy of everything she’d done over to Kate, no use expecting Dexter to do that. Dexter and new technology were mutually exclusive.
Roper came out of the side door and Donna groaned inwardly as he walked in her direction, beaming a smile of welcome and revealing his spectacular dentures.
Roper smiling? Very off-putting.
"Miss O’Prey. There you are."
"Yes, here I am."
"You’ve earned your spurs over the last day or two and no mistake. Glowing reports I’m getting. Yes indeed."
Donna smiled wanly. Roper paying compliments was even more unsettling than the smile. On balance, Donna preferred him objectionable. She explained about the information she’d left for Dexter and he beamed even more.
"Splendid, splendid, I’ll see he gets everything. I believe you’re due to meet up with Mister Dexter later on."
"Yes, that’s right."
"Well, the best thing I can suggest is that you toddle off home and get some rest before then. All work and no play and all that."
Donna nodded dumbly and went back to her car obediently. Roper waved her off, his silhouette a looming presence in the rear view mirror. Driving down the hill, Donna scanned her mirrors carefully, still unable to shake a vague feeling of unease. Nobody appeared to be following, but the feeling persisted until she parked outside the house.
Donna went upstairs and gave Peg a hug. Gary was still not back from work, but Peg was in full flow, giving it loads on all the latest catastrophes that had befallen her vast circle of ailing friends. It was a relief when the phone rang.
"Donna?"
" Yeah." It was Dexter. Who else?
"I’m at the office. Got your stuff here. I’ll follow up on it now and then shoot off to see Kate."
"Roper told me to take a break," Donna said, a tad defensively. Should she be back at work if Dexter was going to work through?
"Good idea. Take a couple of hours off and come back fresh. I’ll see you at Kate’s later."
"Right." He rang off, leaving her feeling slightly guilty. She knew she’d been working hard on this case, and that she’d be able to work even harder later if she took a break, but she kept thinking about Paula and Celine Dobson. What if they were trapped somewhere and every hour was precious? Donna was on the point of ringing Dexter back and telling him she was coming to work, and had even started to dial the number, when she had second thoughts. Both Senior Partners had explicitly told her to take a couple of hours off. Who was she to question a direct order? Once again she was reminded of how she habitually deferred to figures of authority. She’d go for a run and then get back to work. Time off, but not lazing around. Perfect.
Outside, in the pale half-light, the roofs of the distant houses resembled a deserted film set. A few streetlights stood out clearly, but the rest was all vague shapes and shadows.
As Donna got into her car, she felt the hairs on the back of her neck rising. She got out again and looked both ways, still having the sensation of someone out there. The road was clear. Neon blurred into the sodium streetlights, blanking out detail, but if there’d been anyone there Donna felt sure she would have seen them.
She shrugged and got back into the car. The sky was a deep purple bruise about to turn black, a half-crescent moon barely discernible through the cloud layer, but with a lovely fresh feeling in the air. A quick run followed by an hour in the gym should set her up for whatever the evening was to bring.
Twenty minutes later, most of her good intentions had evaporated. She’d set off to run around the sea wall, relying on the moonlight to see where she was going, but half-way round she had to slacken the blazing pace she’d set for herself as her lungs were on fire and she felt like she’d suddenly gained three stones excess baggage. She’d slowed almost to a jog by the time she reached the slipway and could justify stopping. Hands linked behind her head, Donna drew in great ragged gulps of air and considered a long lie down. Preferably in her own bed.
As she walked towards the road where her car was just about visible, Donna rated her present fitness levels at no more than six out of ten.
Pathetic.
The ground underfoot crunched beneath her trainers, more crushed shells than sand, white, cream, and the odd hint of pink. As a child, she’d delighted in this very spot, sifting through the broken shells for the occasional perfect specimen and treasuring it like a precious jewel. She shrank inside her damp sweatshirt at a sudden cold blast from the shore. The tide was turning, bringing a shift in the weather pattern as was common by the coast. What would tomorrow’s tide bring with it? She didn’t know, but thought it unlikely that she’d be digging out her bathing costume.
As Donna reached her car, the feeling came back. The black sea at her back was still and silent, its movement constant but undet
ectable in the darkness. If Donna strained her senses, she could hear it lapping faintly at the sea wall and the experience the smell of brine and exposed weed that was always strongest when the tide was on the turn.
Somebody was watching her. She could sense it – that inexplicable certainty that caused the hairs on the back of her neck to rise. A tingling no more, yet she knew it to be a fact.
She was being watched. She whipped around, casting her gaze in all directions, but saw nothing, heard nothing. Yet the feeling persisted, and Donna felt the icy chill of fear creeping over her with the relentless slow certainty of rust forming on a tin can left in the open air.
Pull yourself together, she thought, there’s no one there.
She remembered the scary man with the beard who’d asked about Dexter with a momentary feeling of panic before shaking her head firmly. She worried too much. Still doubting her own optimism, but going ahead with the pretence of defiance, Donna shrugged her shoulders and even managed a faint smile as transparently false as a bad boob job.
Donna gave one final stretch as she reached the car, then got in and fired up the engine. As she drove towards the town, a flickering streetlight revealed the bizarre sight of a seagull perched on the handlebars of the paperboy’s mountain-bike as he rode slowly along the promenade. He waved and shouted something or other, but his voice was lost in the noise of the engine.
The car felt strange, heavy and unresponsive, and Donna vowed to take it back to the garage in the morning to see if they’d messed up something else while fixing the original fault. The steering was all over the place now and Donna eased to a stop and jumped out to investigate.
The first thing she saw was flat tyre. Right down on the rim. How didn’t she spot that when she got in? A head full of confused thoughts was the answer she gave herself. It was dark now, hardly ideal for changing a wheel, but it had to be done.
She walked to the boot, opened it and rummaged inside, pushing the accumulated crap to one side so she could lift up the cardboard panel covering the spare wheel. She was finally getting somewhere when she became aware of another car pulling alongside.
