by Janet Tanner
In the event, I found the industrial estate more easily than I’d expected. It was on the outskirts of Stoke Compton, in a lane that followed a river valley which had once been quite a beauty spot, but was now marred by sprawling industrial development. Vast, ugly, prefabricated buildings sat behind yards where plant and machinery sprouted like ungainly carbuncles, and the revoltingly sweet smell of animal foodstuff from one of the units mingled with the odour from the nearby sewerage works and was drawn into my car through the air conditioning system. I drove on along the rutted lane, past an engineering works and what appeared to be the parking area and garage of a local coach firm, wondering if I’d got the right industrial estate. Then I saw a board at the roadside bearing the legend ‘Compton Auctions – Antiques and Collectibles’ and a large white arrow pointing straight ahead.
The lane curved over a river bridge and as I rounded the bend I saw it – just another big, faceless edifice fronted by a large parking area. Like the other buildings I’d passed, the plot was surrounded by a high wire fence, but there were overgrown hedges too behind the wire, masking the warehouse from the road. A sign, identical to the one I’d spotted further up the lane, was mounted on a post at the entrance.
OK, I could definitely find this again tomorrow. The lane was too narrow at this point for me to be able to turn, and the sensible thing seemed to be to reverse into the yard. I positioned myself close to the offside bank and swung carefully round until my bonnet was facing back the way I had come. Then, just before moving off, I glanced around – and did a double take as I saw the car drawn up in a corner of the yard, close to the building.
It was hardly surprising, I supposed, that someone would be here today, the day before the auction. It wasn’t that that had made my eyes widen, but the fact that for a moment I thought it was Josh’s car – it looked exactly the same. Then common sense kicked in. Why on earth would it be Josh? There must be dozens of blue Peugeot estate cars in and around Stoke Compton. Besides which, Josh would be on his way now to start his Cotswold Way walk.
I stuck the gear lever into ‘drive’ and headed for home.
Monday night, of course, was one of the nights the Compton Players met, and I had wondered if I would go along. But I rather thought I’d gleaned all the information I could from them, and after spending the afternoon visiting Dad, I was actually feeling very tired. In any case, I didn’t want to leave Mum alone too much and I’d be out tomorrow night at the auction. So I spent a quiet evening transferring my notes from my memory stick to my new laptop, and then sitting down with Mum to watch some television. But I didn’t know the characters or the storylines in the soap Mum followed, and soon my mind was wandering, running over all the details I’d just scanned through again, and wondering if I was ever going to get to the truth.
Was I chasing the impossible? Maybe I’d been wrong all along. Brian Jennings had started the fire, and Dawn’s death was just an unhappy coincidence. And if it wasn’t, did Josh have a point when he said I could end up like her? For the first time, the doubts crowded in around me.
With a huge effort I pushed them aside. I wasn’t a quitter. I was going to keep on going with this until I was sure whether or not Brian Jennings had been wrongly convicted. Whether Dawn’s death had been an accident, or whether there was a murderer walking free. This was more than just a diversion for me now, more than simply another story. I was on a mission.
Next morning I was in the bathroom washing my hair when I heard voices downstairs – Mum and a man. Anxious that it might be Sam with some problem on the farm, I wound a towel round my head and went to investigate. Halfway down the stairs, though, I recognized the voice – Jeremy – and was turning to go back up when Mum called to me.
‘Sally? Is that you?’
‘Who else would it be?’ I called back, laughing.
‘Come and see what Jeremy’s done!’
It was too late now to retreat. I struggled down the last few stairs and went into the kitchen, where Jeremy was bending over a laptop, open on the table. With a padded gilet over his Aran sweater, he looked more like a big bear than ever.
‘He’s an absolute marvel!’ Mum said wonderingly.
‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that.’ Jeremy looked up and smiled at me. ‘Morning, Sally.’
‘Morning.’ I felt a bit self-conscious, still in my dressing gown and with the towel wound into a turban over my wet hair. ‘What have you done, then, to earn such high praise?’
‘Saved our bacon, that’s what!’ Mum enthused. ‘He’s been through all Dad’s paperwork and put in on here – he’s going to lend us this laptop until Dad gets a new computer. I don’t understand it, of course, but you will. Show her, Jeremy.’
‘Well, basically, I’ve just set up a couple of simple spreadsheets for the accounts, and a directory of customers and suppliers,’ Jeremy said, flicking the cursor over the screen. ‘I don’t suppose it’s complete by any means but it’s the best I could do from Jack’s paperwork. It’s a good thing he kept hard copies, otherwise it would all have been lost for good.’
‘And to think I used to tell him he ought to be worrying about saving the rain forests when I heard his printer going,’ Mum said, shaking her head. ‘He always said he liked to be able to look at things in black and white, though.’
‘Well, there you are anyway.’ Jeremy straightened, switched off the laptop and closed it. ‘The best I can do. Jack will be able to fill in the blanks, I expect, when he’s home again.’
‘Let’s hope so,’ Mum said fervently. ‘Are you going to stop for a cup of coffee, Jeremy?’
He glanced at his watch.
‘I shouldn’t . . . but seeing as you’re offering . . .’
His eyes, with the hint of a smile, turned to me, and suddenly I was horribly conscious of my state of undress.
‘I really must dry my hair and get some clothes on,’ I said, and for the first time Mum seemed to notice and share my embarrassment.
‘She’s not normally in her dressing gown at this time of day . . .’
‘And why shouldn’t she be?’ Jeremy said easily, but I made my escape anyway.
By the time I came back down, hair dried, and fully dressed, Jeremy had gone.
‘He had to meet a client,’ Mum explained. ‘But what a good friend! Fancy doing all that work for your dad, and all out of the goodness of his heart! Oh – and he’s offered to take you to the auction tonight, too. I told him you were going and he was worried about you driving Dad’s car in the dark.’
‘Oh, for goodness sake!’ I was a little annoyed at my ability being questioned. ‘I’ve done it before.’
‘I did tell him that,’ Mum said defensively, ‘but he said he’d be quite interested to see what went on, and how much our bits and pieces fetched and, to be honest,’ she added, ‘I’d feel happier for you to have someone with you. I expect they get all sorts at a do like that.’
‘Oh Mum, it’ll just be the dealers and a few curious locals,’ I scoffed.
But actually, though I didn’t much care for being treated like a helpless little woman, a part of me was quite glad that I wouldn’t be alone. Too many bad things had happened lately, and I was feeling a little vulnerable. If I was with Jeremy I wouldn’t have to worry about strange cars following me in the dark lanes, and if Lewis Crighton had become aware that I was rather too interested in him, there would be no opportunity for him to see that I ended up like Dawn, tonight at least!
Whereas yesterday morning the parking area outside the Compton Properties warehouse had been deserted but for that one blue car, tonight it was already half full. Jeremy found a space between a couple of transit vans – obviously the dealers were here in force – and we crossed to the main door of the warehouse, which was standing ajar.
The first thing that struck me as we went in – apart from the smell of mustiness and portable gas fires – was the clutter. I’d never been to an auction before, and somehow the only image in my mind was the likes of Christi
e’s or Sotheby’s, seen on TV when some piece had gone for an amazing price – all rows of plush chairs and the auctioneer behind a lectern on a platform, and well-suited men gabbling into their mobile phones as they placed bids for absent buyers.
Compton Auctions was nothing like that. Pieces of furniture were banked along the bare walls of the cavernous room – worn easy chairs and ring-marked tables, a sixties-style sideboard, long and low, next to a little dressing table with triptych mirrors and carved legs that must have been at least a hundred years old. The smaller items were arranged along trestle tables at the rear of the warehouse, all marked with stickers showing their lot numbers. Prospective buyers were examining the various items and making notes, not on programmes, but in notebooks or even on the backs of envelopes, and chatting in groups in the open space in the middle of the warehouse. There wasn’t a single chair – apart from those in the sale – in sight. My heart sank at the prospect of having to stand for the next couple of hours.
I looked around for Alice, but couldn’t see her. Sarah was there, though, leafing through a pile of paperwork at a table from which I imagined Lewis Crighton would be conducting the auction, and the man himself was moving between the groups of customers, stopping to speak to a heavily made-up woman in a tatty fur coat here, a weaselly looking man in an anorak there.
When he spotted Jeremy, however, he made a beeline for us, extending his hand.
‘Jeremy, my friend! We don’t often see you here!’
Jeremy shook the proffered hand, but he was smirking.
‘You don’t really have anything here that would interest me, Lewis. I’ve chauffeured this young lady, who wants to make sure the items she’s selling go to a good home. And that you’re not doing her out of what’s due to her, of course. Sally Proctor. I expect you know her father, Jack.’
Lewis nodded in my direction, but there was a certain frostiness in his manner – whether because he was annoyed at the suggestion that he might be cheating clients out of the true proceeds of the items they were selling, or because he recognized me as the girl who was asking too many questions about Dawn, I didn’t know. Certainly he gave no indication of having ever seen me before, though he’d spoken to me in the office on my first visit to Compton Properties, but that didn’t mean a thing. It was always possible he didn’t want me – or Jeremy – to know that he’d taken notice of me.
‘Right, old chap, must get on,’ he said to Jeremy. ‘I’ve got a busy night ahead, and I’m an assistant down. One of my young ladies has gone AWOL. Simply hasn’t turned up for work this week. Probably sunning herself in Ibiza. You just can’t get the staff these days, you know.’
‘Which is why I prefer to operate solo,’ Jeremy said easily.
But I was all ears. ‘One of my young ladies’ was undoubtedly Alice – she and Sarah were his only employees, as far as I was aware. She’d missed her appointment with me, and now Lewis was saying she hadn’t turned up for work this week . . .
Alarm prickled on my skin like tiny electric shocks. Alice had been afraid of something – or someone. But she’d plucked up the courage to speak to me and arrange a meeting anyway. Now, it would seem, she was missing. Was this yet another coincidence? Or had something happened to her?
I’d lost all interest in the auction now – I could think of nothing but Alice and what the implications of her disappearance might be. But at the same time I was registering everything about Lewis – his immaculate appearance, his smooth demeanour, the competent way he handled his duties as auctioneer – and the intimate little glances that passed between him and Sarah, which I might never have noticed had I not seen them leaving the office together after hours. Was it possible that this suave man was a murderer who cold-bloodedly disposed of anyone who threatened to expose him? It seemed utterly preposterous, and yet the evidence against him was stacking up. Once I’d talked to Dawn’s mother, I thought I would really have no alternative to going to the police with my suspicions. Otherwise, as Josh had predicted, I might well be the next to disappear, or be run down by a hit-and-run driver.
Preoccupied as I was, I almost missed the moment when the apostle spoons and the candle snuffer came under the hammer until Jeremy nudged me, beaming. Both items had been snapped up by the dealers – they hadn’t made a fortune, but they’d exceeded their reserves.
‘At least it will buy a decent bottle of champagne to welcome Jack home,’ Jeremy said with a smile. ‘I hope you’ll invite me over to share it with you.’
‘Dad would rather have a pint of bitter, if I know anything about it,’ I retorted.
At last the auction was over and people began to drift away. A beefy-looking youth with the bulging muscles of a weight lifter, tattooed arms and an earring was helping one dealer to carry out his acquisitions, which included the sixties-style sideboard, and he managed to back into me as he passed.
‘Careful!’ Jeremy warned sharply. ‘You’re going to injure someone if you don’t watch what you’re doing!’
The lad, wearing only jeans and short-sleeved T-shirt in spite of the chill in the warehouse, muttered something under his breath and continued backing towards the door.
‘Jason Barlow,’ Jeremy said dismissively. ‘He came to my farm manager for a job once, but was given short shrift. Lewis must have been desperate to give him a job.’
Jason Barlow. The name sounded vaguely familiar to me, though I couldn’t for the life of my think why. It was only as we were driving home that it came to me where I’d heard it before, and even then I couldn’t be sure I wasn’t imagining things.
The minute I’d filled Mum in on what had happened with regard to the items we’d sold, I went up to my room, switched on my laptop, and pulled up my notes on Brian Jennings’ trial. And as I scanned quickly through them, I realized I’d been right.
Jason Barlow. A Jason Barlow had been one of the witnesses who’d claimed to have seen Brian Jennings hanging about outside Dawn’s flat on the night of the fire. And now here he was, working for Lewis Crighton.
Sixteen
Really the whole of the next day – Wednesday – is a blur to me. I went through the motions, but my thoughts were spinning around and around. Everything kept coming back to Lewis Crighton and my suspicion that he was a cold-blooded killer.
He’d been having an affair with Dawn, I felt sure, just as he was having one with Sarah, and for some reason he’d wanted rid of her, not just an end to their relationship, but something far more permanent. But it couldn’t be, as I’d first thought, simply that he was afraid she’d spill the beans about their affair – that had already been common knowledge. Mention had been made at Compton Players of the trouble that Dawn had caused between Lewis and Bella, his wife. There had to be more to it than that, perhaps some kind of shady goings on at Compton Properties: tax evasion, false accounting, offshore bank accounts. Certainly Lewis wasn’t short of a penny or two, and the property business had been very flat these last few years.
Had Dawn wanted the affair to continue when Lewis wanted it to end, and threatened him with what she knew? Had he set the fire – or got someone else to do it – and when that didn’t work, arranged for her to be mown down by an unidentified vehicle? Whatever he’d been hiding, it must have been something pretty big to go to such lengths. Or, then again, perhaps not – just something that seemed very important to him.
And now Alice was missing. She hardly seemed to me to be the sort of girl to play hookey from work and jet off to the sun, as Lewis had suggested, and I felt very sure that her disappearance was actually connected to her decision to talk to me about what she knew. It could be, of course, that she’d been so frightened that she’d gone to ground of her own volition – I certainly hoped it was that. I’d never forgive myself if something dreadful had happened to her; I wouldn’t be able to help feeling it was my fault for asking questions and, perhaps, stirring her conscience. But whatever the reason for her disappearance, it pointed once again to something big – something Lewis was determ
ined to keep hidden.
‘You’re very quiet today, Sally,’ Mum said, but I simply made the excuse that I was tired. No way was I going to worry her by telling her the turn my investigations had taken.
Josh telephoned me in the evening, and I didn’t tell him either. It wasn’t a long call – he and his friend had landed up in a B & B somewhere along the Cotswold Way, and dinner was going to be served shortly. He was tired, footsore, and in need of a bath, he said, but he was enjoying himself, and there was a cold beer waiting for him downstairs. I didn’t mention that I was going to Dorset tomorrow – time enough to tell him when I saw him at the weekend. Perhaps by then I would have some answers. For now I absolutely did not want to face his disapproval of what I was doing.
To be honest, I was beginning to wonder just what I’d got myself into, but until I could gather enough evidence to take to the police, I couldn’t see that I could give up.
But I was going to be very careful indeed. I didn’t want to end up another victim.
Rachel arrived to pick me up as soon as she’d taken the children to school. She loaded Grace Burridge’s address into the satnav, and we set off.
To begin with the journey was far from pleasant. Thick fog hung in the valleys, making driving slow and difficult, and Rachel’s incessant chatter was wearing on my nerves. I wished she’d be quiet and concentrate on what she was doing, and I really didn’t feel like talking myself – I was too strung up at the prospect of having to talk to Dawn’s mother and try to elicit what information I could without upsetting her unduly.
