Evil Turn
Douglas Watkinson
© Douglas Watkinson 2015
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
First published in Great Britain
All paper used in the printing of this book has been made from wood grown in managed, sustainable forests.
ISBN: 978-1-78003-850-6
Printed and bound in the UK
Pen Press is an imprint of
Author Essentials
4 The Courtyard
South Street
Falmer
East Sussex
BN1 9PQ
A catalogue record of this book is available from
the British Library
Evil Turn is the fourth novel in the Nathan Hawk series.
Other titles are:
Haggard Hawk
Easy Prey
Scattered Remains
www.douglaswatkinson.com
I used to be a high-ranking English copper until my temper got the better of me and I broke a fellow officer’s jaw. I was ‘required to retire’ as the British police so delicately put it.
I should’ve learned from the experience but no, I still blow the odd fuse or ten. When my wife was alive she used to rein me in, but since her death there’s been no one to do that. My good friend, my more than good friend, the elegant Doctor Laura Peterson, tries her best but it’s a tough call.
I’ve got four grown-up kids, by the way, who live thousands of miles away – Nepal, Japan, Haiti and Los Angeles. They’re all impetuous by nature and they worry me, usually with good reason. Thanks to e-mail and Skype it often feels like they’re in the same room with me. Is that good or bad? I’m not sure...
When I first came to live in this truly beautiful English village I thought early retirement would be a breeze. Wrong! But just as I was about to go mad with boredom a neighbour did me the courtesy of being murdered and suddenly it was ... like the old days. Without the paperwork. Without a boss telling me to be careful.
The local police didn’t like me poking my nose in and made that pretty clear, but they got over it once I’d solved their crime. It also gave me a reputation which brought other people to my door with crimes the police couldn’t solve. Nice to be wanted.
Before I became involved...
Joe Flaxman had seen the man three times now. It hadn’t bothered him to begin with, since over the years several down-and-outs had used the barns and outbuildings to doss in and so long as they didn’t mess up the place, steal things or stay too long, they were welcome. There was something disturbing about this man, however, and Joe couldn’t quite put his finger on it...
The first time he saw him Joe was out in the yard at dusk watching the bats wheel and swoop on their insect prey, which meant he was standing in the shadows, perfectly still. The man emerged from the old grain store on the other side of the yard and was clearly annoyed about something, mouthing and muttering his complaints. He was better-dressed than most of them were: anorak over a jumper, jeans and boots. Hair tied back in a ponytail. He wasn’t carrying a bag, though, the usual rucksack or Tesco carrier, so maybe he’d already settled in...
Joe stepped forward into the half-light; the man saw him, turned and fled, off into Speaker’s Wood. Fast on his feet for a dosser, Joe thought, as he went over to the grain store. It was now a place for storing long-dead machinery, mementoes of the past when his father and grandfather farmed the land: old tractors, ploughs, rollers. He found no evidence that the man had bedded down there and assumed he must have been checking the building out as a possible home for the coming winter.
About a week later, Joe saw him for the second time. Again it was dusk and this time the man was up on the roof of the grading shed where, thirty years ago, small potatoes were separated from large ones; cabbages, sprouts and cauliflowers were trimmed, then packed into sacks and boxes. Joe used it as a garage these days. His own Chevy Silverado was there, alongside his wife’s runaround Peugeot, so it wouldn’t have been a safe place to bed down in anyway, but the man seemed to be examining the ventilation turret.
Joe called out to him and the stranger grabbed at the weather vane which for the last twelve years had pointed north towards the prevailing wind. It creaked and gave way, causing him to lose his footing momentarily. A slate came away, rattled down the roof and broke into several pieces where it fell. For a few seconds the man was outlined against the fading sky, arms outstretched, the unfastened anorak like the wings of a bird waiting for the wind to lift it into the air. There was no wind. The man turned, slithered down the other side of the roof and disappeared. But why the hell had he been up there in the first place?
The third time they crossed each other’s paths was inside the house, and that gave Joe cause for concern. Carrie spent most of her time at home on her own and if the man was getting bolder and hungrier, where might it end?
It was six o’clock in the morning; Joe had been up for half an hour and was eating a bowl of cereal, thumbing through Farmer’s Weekly, a ritual, not a pleasure, these days. Bella, an elderly German Shepherd, always at his feet, suddenly sat up and growled, her nose pointed at the door through to the rest of the house. Joe didn’t question her. He hurried to the door, out into the corridor and followed Bella down to the middle back room, as they called it. He entered in time to see the man exiting through the French windows. He turned to Joe, their eyes met for a split second, Bella ran at him as he side-stepped between the long glass doors and slammed them behind him. Joe didn’t think it worth pursuing him for the very good reason that he had youth on his side.
He talked it over with Carrie when she came downstairs in response to the hullabaloo. He hadn’t bothered her with the first two sightings; she would’ve brushed the incidents aside and continued with whatever she was knitting at the time. But the man had been inside the house on this occasion. That was different. Carrie still seemed fairly relaxed about it, though.
“He’s come in for food,” she said, as if that were all the explanation needed. Joe wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d suggested they leave some out for him.
“If it’s for food, why the middle back?” he said. “Why not the kitchen?”
She shrugged. “French windows, easy to open. How old is he?”
“Young. Thirty. Something mean about him.”
“What d’you mean, ‘mean’?”
“A look in his eyes.”
She laid both hands on the table and tapped out a rhythm with her splayed fingers. It was a sign that she was thinking and about to come up with a suggestion. When it came, Joe didn’t like it.
“Why don’t you go see the doctor?”
He hadn’t seen a doctor for ten years or more. He didn’t trust them. “What for?”
“Check-up. You’re nearly sixty. Things happen. They can nip them in the bud these days...”
“Hang on a sec,” he said, rising from the table. “What things, what bloody bud...?”
He suddenly realised what she’d been referring to. Her Aunt Jane had died a couple of months ago from the effects of dementia. The last few years of her life she’d ‘seen things’. People.
“Jane was ninety-two,” he whispered, fiercely.
“It’s no respecter of age.”
“What isn’t?” he demanded.
“Well, nothing is...”
The conversa
tion was about to spiral into him pushing, her side-stepping, the pair of them ending up not speaking for a week. The dog had already recognised the signs and slunk away under the table.
Joe knew what he’d seen: an intruder he didn’t like the look of, but to keep the peace he made an appointment at the Health Centre for a consultation with Doctor Harris.
When his name was called by the terrifying receptionist, Joe made his way nervously down the passage to Doctor Harris’s office. The door was slightly ajar from the last patient and he knocked on it.
“Come in,” said a bright voice from the other side.
He stalled. It was bad enough that he’d come to see a doctor. But a woman doctor? He entered; she smiled and gestured for him to take the chair beside her desk while she finished off notes from the previous appointment, then brought up Joe’s records on her screen.
“My word, Mr Flaxman, the last time we saw you was twelve years ago for a cut on your arm.” She turned and smiled at him. “It seems redundant to ask you how it is.”
Harris was short, overweight and bossy. They were the three characteristics her patients took away with them, but, as any of her colleagues would have testified, she was a fine doctor. Even so, she threw Joe immediately.
“How would you like me to address you, by the way? As Mr Flaxman or Joseph?”
“I answer to both. Mainly Joe.”
“Right, Joe, my name is Clare. How can I help you today?”
Because of how the chair was placed he was facing slightly away from her. She leaned forward to correct that.
“My wife wanted me to see you,” he said.
It won’t have been about sexual problems or difficulties with conception, Harris thought, but she checked all the same. “How old is your wife?”
“Same as me. Fifty-nine.”
“And why did she want me to see you?”
“She’s worried that I’ll turn into Aunt Jane. She died recently...”
He wound his finger round, close to his right temple, to indicate Jane’s loopiness in the months leading up to her demise. This wasn’t going to be the quick in-and-outer Clare had hoped for. It was her last appointment of the morning and she’d promised to go riding with a friend that afternoon.
“Is Aunt Jane your mother’s sister, or your father’s?” she asked.
“Neither. She’s Carrie’s aunt. My wife’s.”
Clare nodded and tried to explain that, though it might be genetic, you couldn’t catch dementia like a cold. Joe either didn’t understand or didn’t believe.
“Is there a history of mental illness in your side of the family?”
“No!” he snapped.
“Joe, I’m going to take your blood pressure. No one has done that for twelve years and we do like to have a record. Would you take off your jacket, roll up your sleeve for me?”
The need to stand up, to move, to do something with his hands loosened him a little, and as Clare took the reading she recalled another patient whose wife had sent him to see her. He had turned out to have bowel cancer which he’d been too embarrassed to seek help about and had died, unnecessarily, a year later. For all his apparent fitness, Joe Flaxman needed careful handling.
“Your blood pressure is 130 over 82,” she said.
“Is that good?” he asked.
“Put it this way: I wish mine was and I’m half your age.”
He blurted it out. “She thinks I’m seeing things. I know I’m not. Well, I am, but they’re real.”
His directness caught Clare on the hop. She wasn’t overly keen on being the referee in a who-saw-what contest. She asked him to explain and he told her about the young down-and-out. She listened with care and his account sounded remarkably feasible. Nevertheless, she was aware that farmers had their own particular problems, especially in the current economic climate. She referred back to his notes on her computer screen.
“Speaker’s Farm. Yes, I’ve ridden through the wood once or twice. Yours will be the large house...”
He nodded.
“Is business going well?”
“Business is fine,” he said.
He gave her a compelling résumé of how he’d turned from Brussels, cabbages and cauliflowers to egg farming, fifteen years ago. She seemed fascinated so he went into detail. ‘Free-range eggs from birds who live happy lives’ was the company slogan. The birds were housed in high-tech sheds, went outside in the day, came in at night, everything automated: feed, water, droppings, egg collection, grading. She asked how many birds he had, expecting the answer to run into hundreds.
“Sixteen thousand,” he said.
“Good God! That’s an awful lot of breakfasts.”
She still hadn’t worked out why his wife had sent him to her, if indeed there was a medical reason. She turned to the ever-reliable subject of stress. The business must put a strain on him, she said. When did he and Carrie last take a holiday? That was thirty-two years ago, their honeymoon. Since when, Clare discovered, Joe had worked seven days a week, rising at six in the morning, rarely finishing until five in the evening. And as she began to express her concern at the relentless nature of his lifestyle, her patient cracked, quite unexpectedly, and revealed the possible underlying explanation for his visit.
“What’s it all been for?” he said. “Money? We got piles of that, we don’t spend any. It was all meant for my son, Aaron, but he doesn’t want it either. He’d rather go killing people.”
“I beg your pardon?” said Clare.
“He shot two men he’d been in business with. Shot them dead. He’s on remand in Stamford. Carrie says he couldn’t have done it. I know he did. I also know you can’t run a business from a prison cell.”
Clare was shocked. She’d heard about the two bodies found on the edge of Speaker’s Wood and she couldn’t deny that since then she hadn’t fancied riding near there. But at least she now understood why Joe’s wife had wanted her to see him. She feared the repercussions from her son’s horrendous crime.
“That is a dreadful thing to have happened to you, Joe. The effect of it will run deeper than you know and Carrie, being a woman – your wife of ... thirty-two years, did you say? – can see the toll it’s taking.”
He looked at her and she passed him a box of tissues. He pulled out a couple and dabbed his eyes, then turned away to blow his nose.
“I don’t think there’s anything physically wrong with you, Joe, but I would like to see you again in, say, two weeks’ time.”
She was the first person he’d ever revealed his true feelings about Aaron to, and even then he hadn’t said much. He hadn’t needed to. The story, from his side anyway, was in the tissues Clare Harris had handed him and he’d used.
“So, I’m not seeing things, then, Doctor ... Clare?”
“You may well be seeing things, but I’d bet money they aren’t a figment of your imagination. You should tell the police.”
When he arrived home, Carrie was anxious to hear how he’d got on with Clare Harris.
“You never told me she was a woman,” he said.
“I thought it’d be a nice surprise for you. Did she give you anything?”
“To stop me seeing things, you mean? No need.”
She nodded. The doctor was always right in Carrie’s world, which raised the question: who was the man Joe had seen in the grain store, on the garage roof and in the middle back room? Joe had no idea, but he’d be ready for him next time. If there was a next time.
Carrie prodded him. It used to be her invitation to whisk her upstairs for an hour or two’s love-making. These days it usually conveyed her delight at what was on television that evening.
“It’s Strictly Come Dancing. Only two more weeks to go!” she said. “We’ll have supper on our knees, shall we?”
For some reason he suddenly felt very old, as if time had passed him by on so many things while he’d been building up the business.
“Nice idea, love,” he said.
They sat watching Strictly, se
ated on the new sofa. It was the size of a double bed. Joe preferred the old one they’d had, the big leather Chesterfield he and Carrie had picked up for a fiver when they were first married. It had been black with grease, worn through in some places, but at least it fought back when you sat in it. This one swallowed you whole the moment your backside touched it and it carried on digesting you throughout the evening. You had to rock back and forth to get on your feet again. But Aaron had thought it was high time his mother had a new sofa and bought her one, so Joe reckoned it was here to stay.
As Strictly started, they tucked into the steak and kidney pie which Carrie had bought from Newitt’s specially that afternoon. There were four couples left and, as usual, Joe fancied the girl with the best figure while Carrie rooted for the lame dog, some old lady politician who could hardly move, let alone tango. As she came on to do her bit, Bella raised her head from the flat-out position she’d been in at Joe’s feet and growled. She’d heard something in the distance, beyond the house, out in the yard or in the woods.
“Steady, girl,” said Joe.
He handed Carrie his plate and stood up.
“You think that’s him?” she asked. “Talk about picking his moment.”
“I’ll go see. You carry on watching and keep the dog from barking.”
He went through to the kitchen without turning the light on and at the back door slipped into his wellingtons. His work jacket was hanging on a hook in the alcove. He put that on and checked the pockets for cartridges. Then he reached back into the alcove for the Purdey, loaded both chambers and stepped out into the yard, the shotgun broken over the crook of his arm.
There’d been no rain for a couple of days, so it was firm underfoot. He paused and looked round and just as he was about to blame Bella for her wonky hearing he saw a flash of white, up by the attic window of the old barn where his grandfather used to stable the horses. He knew immediately what it was. It was one of the barn owls that returned most years to raise a family and live off the rats. He wasn’t sure if it was the male or the female but the flight was silent, not panicky like other birds. Then he saw its mate follow. Something had disturbed them.
Evil Turn (Nathan Hawk Mystery) Page 1
