The Evil that Men Do

by Jeanne M. Dams

  TWENTY-FIVE

  ‘What do you mean, missing?’

  ‘I don’t know all the details.’ Well, I honestly didn’t know them all. ‘But she isn’t responding to her phone calls, which is most unlike her. She is neither at her home nor at her job with the women’s shelter in Cheltenham, nor anywhere else anyone can determine. Her friends are very worried about her.’

  ‘Hasn’t anyone called the police? How long has she been missing?’

  ‘Yes, the police are looking for her. But they can’t be everywhere at once, so I decided to have a go myself.’

  ‘What makes you think she’d be out here in the country? She could be anywhere!’

  ‘I don’t think she would be in the country, particularly.’ I had no intention of mentioning the abortive phone call. ‘It’s just that this is where I happen to be, with a dog who needs an owner, and I thought I’d see if I could find any trace of Jo while I was at it. I don’t suppose you’ve seen her, have you? I believe she liked to walk in the country, so she might—’

  I heard my mistake as soon as I uttered it, but it was too late to take it back.

  ‘Liked to walk in the country? Past tense? What are you saying?’

  I opened my mouth to claim a slip of the tongue, and then shut it again. ‘I hope it isn’t true. But I admit I’m afraid for her. I can’t go into details, but—’

  ‘Why can’t you? I’d think the details would make it easier to find her.’

  ‘Some of them are confidential, and not mine to disclose. I’m sorry. But there is reason to believe she might be in considerable danger, to put the best face on it.’

  ‘Only she? Or anyone?’

  And there was the root of it, and the question I couldn’t answer. ‘I don’t know, and that, Mrs Hoster, is the absolute and honest truth. I think probably the . . . the danger to Jo Carter is directed only at her, but I can’t say for certain. If I were in your position, with a child to look after, I’d make sure she stayed under very close supervision. And please, if you do see or hear anything of Jo, let me know. I don’t have a card, but my mobile number is . . .’ I pulled the phone out of my pack and punched a button or two, since I can never remember the number, and read it off to Mrs Hoster. ‘Do be extremely careful, please. There’s too much we don’t know, and there could be danger to you and yours if you approach the wrong person.’

  ‘I understand. But I do know several people who might be able to help. Gillie’s had quite a few therapists in her short life, poor dear, and most of them would know Jo Carter by sight. I’ll put out the word, shall I?’

  I thought about that. ‘I think that would be a good idea . . . so long as—’

  ‘So long as I’m careful whom I tell. I understand.’ She leaned forward. ‘And what you must understand is that I would never, ever say or do anything that might harm Gillie.’

  Somehow her flat tone of voice, sounding almost devoid of emotion, conveyed the ultimate in conviction. ‘I think I do understand.’

  She relaxed a little. ‘Well, then, I’ll phone you if I hear anything, and please phone me if you find her.’ She handed me a card. ‘There are both the numbers. Please do call. I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep until she’s found.’

  ‘And I brought this upon you. Mrs Hoster . . .’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, call me Helen. Now that I’ve told you my life story! You didn’t cause all this, you only told me about it. I suppose eventually I’ll be glad you did. But just now . . .’

  ‘Just now you’d rather I left you in peace.’ I realized I was holding a leash. Oh, good grief, where was the dog? If he’d run off . . .

  But he hadn’t. He was snoozing peacefully in the farmyard next to the empty water bowl. I clipped his lead back on, detoured into the kitchen to return the bowl, and set off at as brisk a pace as I could manage. I was quite sure that the sooner I was out of sight, the happier Helen Hoster would be. And I didn’t blame her in the least.

  When we were well away from the house I let the dog off the lead, found a convenient rock, and sat down for some lunch. The sandwiches were pretty well squashed, but I was starving, and apparently Buster was, too, for he ate his share with obvious enthusiasm. ‘I am going to have to think of a name for you,’ I said firmly. He cocked his head at me. ‘Even if we have you only for a few days, I can’t go on calling you Buster. It just won’t do.’

  He shook himself in vigorous agreement, and I had my first good laugh of the day.

  I shared with him the bottle of water I’d brought along. He didn’t particularly enjoy drinking out of a bottle, but I managed to get a little water into him before I stood up. ‘Now what?’ I asked. ‘Home, admitting utter defeat, or the next farm?’ I unfolded the map, wishing, not for the first time, that they were smaller and easier to manage. At least it wasn’t raining. Trying to read a large and floppy map in the wind and rain is no fun at all.

  ‘The next farm looks to be a couple of miles away,’ I informed the dog, ‘and there’s supposed to be a good footpath. Then from there it should only be a mile or so to get home. Shall we try it?’

  Buster smiled and bounced a little, eager to be off. I folded the map to the relevant bit, consulted the compass in my stick, and set off.

  For once the path was well-marked and easy to follow. The dog trotted along with me quite happily, running off to explore matters of importance to him, but always returning before I could be anxious about him. In only a little over half an hour we were nearing the stile that led into the farmyard.

  There had been a purposeful, occupied feel about Helen’s farm. This one felt different. I slowed as we approached the stile, and Buster stayed closer to me, whining a little. The sun went behind a cloud, and I felt a chill that wasn’t entirely external.

  ‘Maybe we won’t stop here, after all,’ I whispered. ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this.’ I felt foolish, quoting movie lines to the dog, but I’d have felt sillier talking to myself. It was, in fact, nice to have him along. He was far too friendly to make a good guard dog, but just his presence was reassuring. I began to hope we wouldn’t find his owner.

  I climbed warily over the stile while Buster crawled under, and then put him back on his lead. ‘You stick with me, boy,’ I said as we walked slowly on.

  The front door of the farmhouse was shut tight, and no one answered my tentative knock. I was just as happy about that. I was being silly, I told myself, but I genuinely didn’t like the feel of the place, and neither did the dog. He whined. He was probably just reflecting my own impressions, but for whatever reason, I was eager to get away from there.

  ‘You couldn’t be from a place like this, little friend,’ I said to the dog. ‘You’re much too nice to belong to whoever lives here.’ He tugged at the lead, pulling me down the path. ‘You’re as eager to get away as I am, aren’t you?’

  And then he stopped dead and began to growl, low in his throat. He took a stance that looked threatening even to me, unaccustomed to dogs, and refused to move.

  ‘What? What is it? What’s the matter? You’re scaring me, dog.’

  And then he began to creep towards one of the outbuildings, belly low to the ground, still growling. I had no choice but to follow. I wasn’t about to drop his leash when he was acting so strangely.

  It was a shed that hadn’t seen much use for a while. It was empty. No cat lurked inside, no fox, nothing I could see to disturb the dog, but he came to a stop in the doorway and stood there trembling.

  I saw the tiny shards of plastic first. There were only a few of them, in the angle of the wall and the floor, and I wouldn’t have seen them at all if a ray of sunlight hadn’t struck just there. They were a silvery colour. Just like the casing of the mobile phone in my pack.

  Then I saw the dark stains on the door frame.

  My legs turned to jelly. I reached for my stick, but it couldn’t hold me; I slid to the ground.

  This was the place. Had Alan known it was so close? Was that why he had been so opposed
to my little expedition?

  No. He would have told me. Protective as he was, he would never have left me to find this unwarned. I was a muddy mess, I realized after sitting there for a while. The dog was standing over me unhappily, whining. ‘Yes, well, me too, old boy,’ I said. ‘The trouble is getting up. It’s not as easy as it looks. I’m going to have to roll over on my knees, and that’s going to hurt.’

  I had little choice. I couldn’t call Alan, because I had foolishly not noted the number of the landline at the cottage. I made a resolve then and there to get a mobile of my own. However, that didn’t help in this situation. I could hardly call 999 and ask the emergency forces to come and give me a hand standing up. What I needed was something sturdy to lean on, but the only thing available was the dog, and while willing, he wasn’t anything like big enough to bear my weight. I sat a little longer, working up my nerve, and then, with a series of grunts, worked myself around to my knees and then to one knee.

  I paused to get my breath, and that was when I saw it. The sun was getting lower, and shining more directly into the shed. The doorway faced south-west, so the frame was illuminated as if by a spotlight. It was rough wood, and I saw, caught on the jamb, a single long blond hair.

  Jo’s hair was short and grey. Moreover, this hair was coarse and dry-looking, not shiny.

  It was, I was quite sure, not human hair at all, but a hair from the mane or tail of a horse. Not Gillie’s pony Coco; she was black.

  I had with me my trusty Swiss Army knife, without which I never stir. Ignoring the pain in my knees, I got to my feet, pulled out the tiny scissors, cut off a bit of the strand of hair, and stuffed it carefully into my pack. Then the dog and I were off home as fast as our respective two or four legs could carry us.

  Alan wasn’t quite pacing the floor when we walked in. He did, however, give the impression that he had just sat down. The newspaper in front of him was open to the sports pages, which he never reads. ‘Ah, there you are,’ he said with the utmost casualness.

  ‘Here we are, safe and sound,’ I said, equally casually. ‘And I have something for you.’

  ‘And I have something for you.’ He pointed to a small plastic bag on the end table. I dropped the dog’s lead and picked it up, expecting chocolates, the traditional ‘I’m sorry I was unreasonable’ gift.

  Instead . . . ‘Oh, you are the most wonderful man!’ I bent over and kissed him, smearing mud on his clean shirt.

  ‘Goodness, what is this about? It’s only a phone.’

  ‘Oh, it’s just that I was so wishing we both had one. And I’m sorry I got you all dirty. I need to go and change.’

  ‘You fell.’ It was almost an accusation.

  ‘Not exactly. And I’m perfectly all right, so don’t fret. Just give me a few minutes.’

  I took the time for a lovely scented bath. I needed to wash the impressions of that day away. When I had soaked until I was pink, I put on corduroys and a sweater against the cooling late afternoon and joined him in the front room.

  He was sitting in front of a small fire, the dog by his side. Both were comfortably asleep and snoring. It was such a sweet picture, man and dog relaxing at the end of the day, that I hated to disturb them.

  I tiptoed to the kitchen, poured two glasses of wine, and waited for at least one of them to return to consciousness.

  It didn’t take Alan long. He sleeps like a cat, after long years as a policeman required to be awake and alert at a moment’s notice. He gave me an appreciative smile. ‘You look clean and scrubbed, like a nice baby.’

  ‘And here I was trying for sultry and seductive. Alas for jilted hopes. Cheers.’ I raised my glass.

  ‘All right, love, tell me about your adventures. How did you get into all that mud?’

  ‘Uh-uh. You first.’ I was happy and comfortable, and I didn’t want to recount my story quite yet.

  ‘I’ve nothing much to tell. I drove into town, Upper Pinnock, that is, to get the phone and see if anyone had reported a missing dog yet. No one had done, of course, so I went on to Broadway with more pictures to distribute, and stopped in at the police station. No joy there, either. No progress at all. Oh, and I did manage to reach Rose and Co. to call off the official hunt for Paul. They were not best pleased. Their Internet connection and phone lines have been jammed for hours with calls and emails. And of course I wouldn’t tell them where he was, and that rather upset them, too. Then I went to Cheltenham to mention the dog, though that’s rather far afield for the little chap, and then home to wait for you.’

  And to fret, I thought but didn’t say. I took another sip of wine. ‘You certainly covered a lot more territory than I did. I only made it to two farms. On the other hand, I learned something at both.’

  ‘Oh? No claim for Buster, here?’ He nudged the dog, who snorted, licked Alan’s shoe, and went back to sleep.

  ‘You know I’d have told you. No, I talked to one woman, who knew nothing about a missing dog.’

  ‘I thought you said two farms.’

  ‘Yes, but no one was home at the other one. In fact, it looked deserted. But at the first one, I met a very interesting woman. She told me a long story, but the short version is, she has an adopted child with major psychological problems, perhaps stemming from early childhood abuse. And she knows Jo Carter.’

  Alan raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Only slightly, but . . . well, Alan, I told her a little about the situation. Only a little, so she could be another set of eyes and ears.’

  ‘Do you think that was wise?’

  ‘I think she’s trustworthy. I worry, of course, that I’ve put her in some danger, though I did warn her to be cautious. And the fact is, she might have been in more danger if she came upon Jo and/or her captor unawares. And Alan, she’s going to spread the word about Jo among the therapists she knows. There are a lot of them, because her daughter has needed so much help. And she says they’ll all know Jo, and will be on the lookout for her.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Alan is very fond of those equivocal noises. I used to try to interpret them, but over the years I’ve realized they simply mean ‘I hear what you say. I may not agree, but go on.’ So I went on. ‘It surely can’t hurt anything, and it might help. With that many people looking . . .’

  ‘You may be right. More eyes are a good thing. There are never enough police to do the job right, and never enough reliable members of the public to help. The characters in The Thirty-Nine Steps, the alert and vigilant citizenry who spot Richard Hannay all over the length and breadth of Scotland, do truly belong in fiction.’

  ‘It’s an awfully good book, though. Anyway, that was the one farm. But what I learned at the other one was really important. Toss me my pack, will you?’

  I rummaged inside, found the bit of hair, and reached over to hand it to Alan. ‘What do you think that is?’

  He frowned over it, turned on the light beside him to see it better. ‘Too long to be dog or cat hair, too coarse to be human. I’d say it’s from a horse’s mane. Or tail, but somehow it looks more like mane hair to me. Where did you find it?’

  ‘That’s the point. I found it in the shed where Jo Carter was recaptured.’

  ‘What? Where? How did you—’

  ‘It’s all right. It’s all right, Alan! Let me pour another glass of wine, and I’ll tell you all about it.’

  So I did, not even leaving out the creepy feelings I’d experienced. ‘The dog felt it, too, I’ll swear he did. In fact, that’s actually why I went into the shed to begin with. The dog was uneasy, and I wanted to see why. You know I’ve always believed in atmosphere, Alan, and the atmosphere in that place was thick with menace.’

  I waited for him to smile away my fancies. He didn’t. He studied the single strand of hair. ‘So your theory is that Jo was taken away on a horse?’

  ‘There weren’t any tyre tracks, or tracks of anything wheeled. I’m sure the police noticed that. What was their theory of how she was taken away?’

  ‘I didn’t ask. Were there h
oof prints outside the shed?’

  ‘After yesterday’s rain? There was a lot of mud everywhere. I brought quite a lot of it back with me, as you noticed. So stupid of me to fall that way, but I was . . .’

  ‘A trifle out of countenance?’

  ‘Just a trifle.’

  We sat silent, considering the implications. At last Alan stood and stretched. ‘You’d better try to lead me there in the car. I need to see exactly where the hair was. Did you mark it?’

  ‘What kind of detective do you take me for? I left half of it there, of course. And it’s firmly attached to splintery wood. It isn’t going anywhere for a while. So what you are going to do is phone the Broadway police and tell them about it, and then I’ll put on some slightly fancier slacks and you will take me out for a bang-up dinner. I think I deserve it.’

  TWENTY-SIX

  We took the dog with us. There was never any real question about that. Ostensibly we wanted as many people as possible to see the dog, in case his owner turned up.

  Most fine restaurants don’t allow dogs, even in England where dogs are welcomed almost anywhere. So we searched out a pub in Upper Pinnock that had a terrace and a promising menu. Buster settled down under our table with no fuss at all, though he remained alert to the possibility of falling titbits.

  ‘We’re not going to feed him under the table,’ said Alan sternly.

  ‘Of course not.’ Accidentally dropping the occasional bite of steak doesn’t count as feeding.

  We didn’t discuss Jo’s situation over dinner. There were too many people around, and we both needed some time to think. But on the way home, a replete dog fast asleep in the back seat, Alan said, ‘I’ve been thinking about the implications of what you found.’

  ‘Me, too. What have you come up with?’

  ‘Well, let’s assume, for a start, that Jo was being held prisoner somewhere in the country.’

  ‘Yes, because if she were in a city or town, or even a village, and she managed to get free, she would have gone to a neighbour, or straight to the police.’