‘Of course. You don’t think Willow, Theo and I could have run this place on our own, do you?’
‘So Shapasnikov’s behind it?’
‘No,’ said Amber, affronted. ‘It’s our project. After the vegetables failed, Willow was dismantling the infra red lamps and it occurred to him that they could have another use. It started small, genuinely our own personal supply, and grew from there. Once it began to take over we had the problem of distribution. Cannabis isn’t the kind of thing we could openly sell at the markets. But then Nikolai moved into the Hall. Willow knew about his nightclubs and how nightclubs operated, so there it was, our distribution network.’
‘So Shapasnikov contributes his manual labour and takes a cut,’ said Mariner, seeing how it all worked.
‘Exactly,’ said Amber. ‘We couldn’t manage without him, especially in situations like this one.’
‘And the land dispute?’
‘Oh, Mr Shapasnikov’s historian really did turn up some contestable paperwork. But in truth no-one could care less about who owns Plackett’s Wood.’
‘Behaving like arch rivals with an outward display of animosity was a good cover for the operation,’ said Mariner.
‘We’ve got quite good at subterfuge,’ Amber admitted. ‘And now Dmitri will be able to make you disappear.’
‘Oh, he’s a magician too, is he?’ said Mariner.
‘Not exactly, but we still have the lime pit, left over from when this farm was decimated by foot and mouth. Perhaps your friends won’t find you after all.’ She turned to Dmitri. ‘We should get this over with, before Willow gets back.’
Dmitri started down the stairs past Amber. If Mariner was going to get out of this he needed to do it now. Backing away slowly to begin with he chose his moment, then suddenly ducked down behind one of the long trestle tables of trailing plants. Dmitri fired a deafening shot, but it was a split-second too late, allowing Mariner to scramble along the ground, putting as much distance between him and the gunman as he could.
‘You’re wasting your time,’ Amber called out, her voice echoing around the chamber. ‘You won’t be able to get out of here.’
Rationally Mariner knew she was right. As long as Amber stood guard at the only escape route, it was just a matter of time before Dmitri would catch up with him. But his survival instinct wouldn’t let him give up just yet. In the unbearable heat, Mariner could feel his shirt sticking to him like a second skin. Crouching uncomfortably, he strained to maintain his concentration, though he was beginning to feel faint and light-headed, the blood roaring in his ears. He stuck in his fingers to try and clear them and the roaring temporarily stopped. The roaring wasn’t in his head, it was in the cellar and it was getting louder. The floor trembled and from somewhere deep at the back of the cellar came a gust of blissfully cool air followed by a foaming, solid wall of water that blasted through the main tunnel. Mariner caught a last glimpse of Amber part way up the staircase, before there was a bang, the electricity shorted out and everything went black, and Mariner was hit by a slab of icy water that slammed him against the wall, before dragging him into the swirling maelstrom. Submerged in choking blackness, Mariner thrashed his arms in a blind panic, pounded on all sides by rocks and debris. For what seemed like an eternity he was churned around in a muddy, freezing washing machine. Some years ago his life had almost ended in an underground tomb, and now it seemed that it was about to happen for real.
THIRTY-FIVE
Kicking against the powerful current, Mariner realized abruptly that the rush of water was slowing down and he was able to force himself upwards. Surfacing, he choked out a mouthful of gritty water and simultaneously cracked his head on the solid rock of the cellar roof. He’d found an air lock, the surface of the water only inches from the roof. In the pitch darkness Mariner could feel the water swirling and settling, lapping over his chin. Flotsam and jetsam bobbed by and he cried out as what felt like felt human hair fluttered over his face, before he realized it was only plant matter. With the immediate danger over, cold was setting in, numbing his limbs, and he had to work his arms hard to prevent the weight of water in his clothes from dragging him under. Somehow, working in short bursts, he managed to discard his heavy fleece and shirt, and at once his buoyancy increased. By turning his head to one side and banging it along the roof of the cellar, he could manage to gulp in air, but for how long?
His first thought was to try to swim back to the cellar entrance, but he had no idea which direction that might be. Inch by inch he began to propel himself blindly in what he thought to be the right direction, but suddenly the ceiling that he was pressing against disappeared, and he felt cool air moving around his head. The cave had opened out. Working his arms and legs to stay afloat, he strained his ears to listen; running water was trickling in from somewhere to his right. Turning his head towards it, Mariner struck out in that direction, encouraged by the faintest movement of air, before he came up against a solid wall. Reaching out his hands, he felt an opening in the rock directly above his face that sloped away from him upwards at an angle. Wedging his numbed fingers into a crack in the surface, he heaved himself upward and his head struck solid stone. For a few seconds, dazed, he managed to cling, shivering, to the ledge he had found, conscious that at any time another deluge could wash him back to the cellar or worse.
Groping his way around the opening he identified it as some kind of narrow tunnel, through which a strong draught blew. Inch by inch he dragged himself up the slippery rocks, his progress agonizingly slow, his numbed fingertips bruised and starting to bleed. The icy water combined now with the chill breeze, causing him to shake uncontrollably and, overwhelmed with exhaustion, it suddenly all felt like too much effort. Laying his head down on the cold stone, he closed his eyes for a moment. So much easier to just stay here …
A splash of water in his ear made him open his eyes, and he noticed a subtle change in the light. He could see now the faint definition of the rocks around him, a clear contrast of black and grey. Lifting his head he saw high above him the tiniest chink of daylight. It looked impossibly small. Energized nonetheless, Mariner stiffly resumed his crawl, breathing deeply to try and control the violent shivering. Bit by bit the tunnel began to open out until he found himself at the bottom of a sloping scree-covered cave. He scrambled up towards the chink of light, sliding on the loose boulders and knowing, after all this, that if the gap at the end was too narrow, he was finished. But as he got nearer, the area of light expanded, turning into an opening that was wide enough for him, bent double, to step through. The water continued to lap over the rim into the passageway but with profound relief Mariner scrambled out into the dazzling daylight, emerging at the foot of a rocky crag that rose up from the river. It was the pool where he and Suzy had swum.
In any decent movie Mariner would have been greeted by a welcoming committee of armed bandits, guns trained on him, but in this case his only welcome was from a noisy mallard, indignant at being disturbed. He waded across to the far side of the pool to climb out of the icy water and onto the rocks, where he sat for a moment to try and summon some energy. Bruised and battered, his body ached and he was frozen to the marrow. He wondered if Dmitri and Amber had survived. Although there was no real way of knowing how long he had been in the cellar, or how long it had taken him to find his way out, he estimated that at most it could have only been a matter of an hour or so, meaning that if they had escaped they couldn’t yet have got far. He was frozen and exhausted and needed to do what he could to avoid setting off in the wrong direction. The valley closest to him was the one adjacent to Caranwy. Mariner followed the course of the river in that direction, through the gorge, until it began to level out. The river emerged sooner than he could have hoped and he rounded a bend and into meadows, flooded by the high water, and there ahead of him were farm buildings.
His clothes were sodden and filthy and he could see the cuts and bruises on his bare arms, so knowing how bad he must look Mariner approached the buildings with caution. As he
got nearer, dogs started barking, then he became aware of human voices and next saw a small group of men standing in the farmyard, chatting. As Mariner limped towards them they turned as one and stared. ‘There’s been an accident,’ was all he could manage before collapsing on to the ground. He felt himself being helped into the farmhouse. ‘I need to use a phone and then get back to the White Hart at Caranwy as soon as I can,’ he said, as he started to come round again. Revived with brandy and swathed in blankets, Mariner dialled 999 and insisted he be put through to Ryan Griffith. He summed up what had happened as best he could. ‘You need to get over there. It’s a mess, but all the evidence you need is there. I don’t know what happened to Amber or Dmitri.’
Mariner would have been content to wait for a taxi, but one of the farmers was heading home in the direction of Caranwy, so took him in his battered Land Rover. The twenty-minute journey did little to soothe Mariner’s sore and aching limbs and he felt obliged to offer the farmer, Jim, at least some explanation. He kept it simple; he’d been down in the cellar with two others when it had flooded.
‘You had a lucky escape,’ observed Jim, with some understatement.
DC Debra Fielding was waiting for Mariner at the Hart. ‘My God,’ she said, gaping at him. ‘You took a beating. Are you sure you don’t need a doctor?’
Mariner shook his head, regretting it instantly. ‘It’s just superficial,’ he said. ‘Mostly I just need to lie down.’
‘You need some food inside you too,’ fussed Josie Symonds.
Fielding waited while Mariner showered and changed into dry clothes, then while he ate she took notes on what had happened at Abbey Farm. ‘DI Griffith is there?’ Mariner asked.
‘Yes, like you said, the cellar is still awash. There’s no sign of Dmitri or Amber, but we don’t know yet if that’s because they’ve drowned or escaped. They’re waiting for Willow to get back from the market so they can rearrest him.’
‘What about Shapasnikov?’
‘Not there. We’ll bring him in for questioning, of course, but without Dmitri there’s nothing to link him directly with Abbey Farm so my guess is that he’ll deny any involvement.’
THIRTY-SIX
That evening Ryan Griffith came down to the White Hart. Mariner stood him a pint and the two men settled into one of the snugs. Mariner talked him through what had happened in the cellar.
‘And it didn’t occur to you to call for some support before you went in there?’ said Griffith mildly.
‘What would you have done?’ asked Mariner. Griffith’s slight dip of the head was answer enough. ‘So we know now who killed Theo Ashton,’ Mariner went on. ‘But we can’t say the same for Jeremy Bryce.’
‘Not yet, no,’ Griffith agreed. ‘But we have a powerful motive, along with a limited group of likely suspects.’
‘Is there any news on Amber or Dmitri?’
‘The water in the cellar subsided pretty quickly to a couple of feet deep. We’re dredging the rest, but a man’s body was recovered an hour or so ago.’
‘Suit and tie?’
Griffith nodded. ‘We’re assuming that’s Dmitri. But there’s no sign of Amber.’
‘She was halfway up the steps when it flooded. She could easily have got out.’
‘There’s a car missing from the farm,’ said Griffith. ‘We’ve put out an alert for it.’
‘Do you think she could have killed her father?’ Mariner asked.
‘I don’t know. You spoke to her.’
‘There’s a lot of hatred there, just underneath the surface,’ Mariner said. ‘But to cut a man’s throat? I honestly don’t know.’
‘I think there are people who would help her,’ said Griffith, carefully.
‘Willow treats her like his daughter,’ Mariner agreed.
‘And she’s close to Elena Hughes.’
Mariner stared at him. ‘You think Elena would …?’
‘Approaching it from a purely pragmatic perspective, aside from you, Elena was the one with the perfect opportunity. The post-mortem on Bryce found traces of a sedative in his bloodstream.’
‘He had a cold,’ Mariner said. ‘Elena gave him some Night Nurse to help him sleep.’
Griffith shook his head slowly. ‘Doc says it’s more than that.’
‘Maybe he was taking some other medication,’ Mariner frowned, ‘though I didn’t notice anything.’
‘It was in your bloodstream too,’ Griffith added.
‘What?’
‘When we took the sample of your blood for elimination purposes, the same sedative was found. Were you taking anything?’
‘No.’
‘But you drank something at the hostel that evening.’
‘Elena offered me a night cap.’ They both paused to let that sink in and Mariner thought back to the sluggishness and blinding headache he’d had the next day. Another random thought swam into his head. ‘The washing machine was running,’ he said. ‘When I went over to Elena’s kitchen after finding Bryce, she was doing a load of washing. Why would she have been doing it at that time in the morning?’
‘At the very least it’s likely that Elena aided and abetted a criminal offence, and I wouldn’t confidently rule her out from committing it. She’s pretty skilled with a butcher’s knife, and she doesn’t have a very high opinion of some men. Did she tell you much about her ex?’
‘Only that he was a git,’ said Mariner.
‘That’s an interesting way of putting it,’ Griffith said, with a humourless smile. ‘I got to know Elena when I first joined the service; we were called out to her place on a regular basis. Her old man was a psychopathic, manipulative control freak with anger management issues. Quite a respectable one, mind – good job, nice manners and all that – but underneath the veneer was an aggressive bully, who routinely took out his frustrations on his wife.’
‘Is that how she got into counselling?’
‘Yes, and that, in turn, was where she built her relationship with Amber. Incidentally, Amber isn’t her real name either. The lab ran DNA tests on blood samples from Bryce and that hair from the locket. We didn’t get anything on Bryce, or Bruce, but the hair sample hit on a fifteen-year-old girl on the missing persons database, who disappeared from Bristol ten years ago; Ruby Bruce, reported missing by her family.’
‘The ruby on the locket,’ said Mariner. ‘She just changed her name from one precious stone to another. Do you know what Bryce said to me? He said: “you do what you can to keep your children safe”. He had a pretty warped idea of what that was. He got his own daughter pregnant.’ Mariner took a sip of his pint. ‘Nearly thirty years in the job and you think you have a reasonable grasp of humankind. You think it would get easier to spot the deviants.’
Griffith snorted. ‘But they’re the cleverest; the ones who work hard to disguise it. He wasn’t quite the incompetent orienteer that he led you to believe either. Turns out he was twenty years in the Territorials.’
‘Played me like a violin, as they say,’ said Mariner. ‘I can’t get over how easily I fell for it. He seemed such an ordinary man.’
‘Which, in many ways, he was,’ agreed Griffith. ‘But the family has history. Shortly after Ruby eloped with Theo Ashton, Bryce’s wife left him and moved away along with the older daughter, who herself suffers from mental health problems.’
‘Chances are she was abused too,’ said Mariner.
‘Bryce hasn’t worked at a university for years, and even then he didn’t teach. He was a glorified lab assistant. He quit his job after Amber ran away and has spent all his time since looking for her.’
‘So how do you think it played out?’ Mariner asked.
‘Well,’ said Griffith. ‘I think that when Bryce got Theo’s letter he hired Hennessey to check it out, perhaps with a view to reconciliation, but I think it’s more likely that he had a more specific outcome in mind. Having confirmed Amber’s presence at Abbey Farm he set off on his across-Wales walk, choosing the Black Mountain Way quite deliberately. If th
en it later emerges that he’s been in the area, he has a valid explanation and has put down a series of alibis nearby – including, conveniently, you. Bryce arranged, through Hennessey, to meet Theo in Plackett’s Wood. We still have no murder weapon, nor can we guess its origins, so we don’t know if Theo’s intention was to kill Bryce, or if Bryce had the same aim. In any event, for one of them, something went wrong. Perhaps Theo wasn’t strong enough to overpower Bryce, who then turned on him and killed him before escaping back to the abandoned byre.’ Griffith looked at Mariner. ‘I think it’s safe to assume that it was in fact Bryce who was hiding out there, and had been since shortly after you got to Caranwy. Telling you about it at the time when McGinley was back on the radar just confused the issue. What we’ve got from here on in is pure speculation, but it seems to me that Hennessey, when he found Theo Ashton, guessed what had happened, and arranged to meet Bryce. Having killed Ashton, Bryce had no choice but to kill Hennessey too, leaving him in his abandoned car. We have a witness who recalls having seen Bryce setting off in the direction of where the vehicle was found on Monday afternoon.
‘Knowing he’d got to get away, Bryce had probably hoped to pass back through the village unnoticed, when you spotted him on Sunday night and persuaded him to stay at the hostel. He probably felt relatively safe; he could be fairly sure that no-one except Theo and Hennessey had known he was there, and to refuse your invitation would have been to blow his cover as a bumbling incompetent. But Amber must have found out, perhaps from Elena, what was going on, and when Bryce turned up as an extra guest at the hostel, the chance to end it all was presented to her. What we have no way of knowing, of course, is whether Amber carried out the execution herself or had someone do it for her, which brings us back to those suspects. Incidentally, given the relationship with Gwennol Hall, we can perhaps also add Dmitri or one of his buddies to that list. Forensically, we’ve turned up nothing that places anyone other than Elena, Bryce and you in the hostel, but that doesn’t mean that Willow, Amber or Dmitri couldn’t have been very careful. We haven’t enough evidence yet to make any fresh arrests.’
Blood and Stone Page 28
