Burn Out (Dr. Anne Vernon Book 1)

by Alan Scholefield

  It was not a day to be out. She remembered toasting muffins in Tom’s house, the roaring fire, and Hilly’s look of wonderment as she stroked the dog.

  It was that sort of day.

  Tom had been pressing her to bring Hilly out again but she was unsure. There was a sense of creeping involvement which made her uneasy. It would be simple to have an affair with him, very simple, but the consequences could be dire. She had never become emotionally attached to someone she worked with, and hoped she never would.

  Thinking about Tom brought back the last conversation she had had with him. Inevitably it had been about Jason and what her father had discovered. Tom had not been impressed.

  ‘Bad behaviour on court is almost de rigueur these days, isn’t it? I mean it doesn’t show any form of psychosis. I suppose one could argue the reverse; the path to victory begins with bad behaviour.’

  ‘Not all all. Not everyone behaves badly. But I wasn’t really thinking about that, rather of what happened afterwards.’

  ‘What you really mean is what Stegman said happened afterwards. We haven’t any idea whether he’s right or wrong. Aren’t there girls called tennis groupies who would give their right arms to go to bed with a tennis star?’

  ‘Indeed. I knew a couple.’

  ‘So . . . you win a major tournament. You go to a beach party afterwards. You’re on a high. You meet a young girl who throws herself at you.’

  ‘Young is fifteen in this case.’

  ‘Would you agree that some fifteen-year-olds look eighteen?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘And then her father finds out or she simply says she’ll report him to the police for having sexual intercourse with a minor – something neither he nor Stegman would want because of the scandal and the rubbishing of his reputation. So money changes hands.’

  ‘You’re very cynical.’

  ‘This job makes you cynical.’

  Now, as she thought over their conversation she realised she had been taking the prosecution view, Tom the defence. Yet earlier he had asked her to plead devil’s advocate. The role reversal worried her. Was he simply putting a male viewpoint and she a female? Or had she really lost faith in Jason?

  She remembered her own life at fifteen. Then, all she wanted was to appear to be eighteen. Wasn’t it natural? Understandable?

  That had been her father’s word. That what Jason might have done – the ‘might’ was important – was understandable, if undesirable. But should she approach it in that way? What of the girl? But the girl wasn’t her problem; she was the state’s. Jason was hers and it looked as though she had failed him.

  The phone buzzed behind her. ‘Front gate, Dr Vernon. There’s a Mrs Melville to see you.’

  ‘To see me? You must mean Dr Melville. He’s in London today.’

  ‘No, she said you, doctor.’

  ‘What does she want?’

  ‘She hasn’t said. She’s a bit . . . nervy, if you know what I mean.’

  She put a mac over her white coat and ran across the open space to the main gate.

  ‘She’s in the shelter, doctor,’ one of the prison officers said. ‘Wouldn’t come in.’

  The building was like a large bus shelter opposite the main gates in which visitors could wait out of the rain. Stephanie was by herself. Again she was dressed in black and white: black trousers, a white polo-neck sweater, and a black trench coat flung casually over her shoulders. In the grey light her face looked drawn, almost haggard.

  ‘How can I help you?’ Anne said.

  There were deep shadows under her eyes but the eyes themselves seemed to blaze like an animal’s. She was smoking a cigarette and now ground it under a stiletto-heeled pump.

  ‘I’m afraid Tom’s gone to London,’ Anne went on. ‘He has a meeting at the Home Office.’

  Stephanie lit another cigarette. There was something unsettling about her eyes, her whole demeanour.

  Suddenly she said, ‘Why are you doing this?’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Don’t pretend. You know what I mean.’

  The French accent was stronger than it had been the first time they had met.

  ‘Look, is there anything I can do to—’

  ‘Please do not patronise me!’ She began to pace up and down. ‘Do you think I do not know what is going on?’

  ‘Is there something going on?’

  ‘Between you and Tom.’

  Anne gave a small laugh. ‘I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake.’

  ‘Don’t lie to me! I know. You think you can hide behind a child? You think I don’t know what goes on?’

  ‘Mrs Melville, I really can’t stand here arguing with you about something like this. There is nothing between Tom and me. Nothing at all. Whether you believe that or not is up to you but I don’t want you coming here and accusing me, or Tom for that matter, of something that isn’t true.’

  Stephanie walked away a few paces and then turned to stare at her. ‘Tom is no good for you. He can never love someone like you. This is a warning, you understand, next time things will be different.’

  In the distance, behind Stephanie, Anne saw a female figure struggling up the hill. She passed the security barrier and entered the car park. It was Ida Tribe and she had a heavy shopping bag in either hand. A gust of wind blew down the hill and caught her sideways and she stumbled. Stephanie was still talking but Anne’s whole attention now was fixed on Ida. The next gust was stronger and it turned her around. She clung onto the bags, stumbled, and fell.

  Anne ignored Stephanie and ran to Ida.

  ‘Oh, my goodness,’ Mrs Tribe said. She had gone down full length and was trying to push herself upright.

  Anne knelt beside her. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Oh, my goodness.’

  ‘Don’t move.’

  ‘Doctor, is it you?’

  ‘Yes, it’s me.’

  ‘I’m so embarrassed!’

  ‘There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.’

  ‘My frock. It isn’t up is it?’

  ‘No, no, nothing like that.’

  Anne smoothed down the skirt. ‘Don’t worry about your frock, are you all right?’

  Ida Tribe felt her limbs and said, ‘I think so. It was the wind. Can you give me a hand up?’

  Anne helped her to her feet and watched her anxiously. She held onto her arm and took a few steps. ‘Nothing broken,’ she said. Anne could feel her trembling with the shock. She picked up one of the shopping bags. It was heavy.

  ‘You shouldn’t be carrying these,’ she said.

  ‘I haven’t had a chance to shop in the past few days. I wanted to give Billy some things.’

  ‘He’s not here. He’s gone to court.’

  ‘They going to try him already?’ There was sudden apprehension in her voice.

  ‘No, it’s just for a remand. But he could be there for hours. It depends on whether the courts are busy or not.’

  She helped Ida to the shelter and only then realised that Stephanie had gone.

  Ida was limping and tears were running down her cheeks. Anne said, ‘We’ve got to get you home.’

  ‘There’s a bus in an hour or—’

  ‘No, I don’t mean by bus. I’m not having you going by bus, you’re not in any fit state.’

  ‘I’ll be all right. It’s passing now. It’s just that I was shook up.’

  ‘You wait here on the bench. I’ll be back in a minute.’

  Anne went into reception and asked if there was any transport available. There was none. She rang through to Jenks and told him she would be away for an hour or so.

  ‘But what about your—?’

  ‘Whatever it is I’ll see to it when I get back. Anyway I’ve got my bleeper. You just hold the fort.’

  She returned to Ida. ‘Come on, Mrs Tribe, I’ll run you home.’

  *

  The farm huddled against the slope of the hill. Once sheep had lambed here and cows had been milked. Fields had b
een ploughed and sown and reaped. Now, where corn had grown, there was only tangled grass and weeds. The barns were empty, slates were gone from the roofs, windows were broken, and doors were swinging on their hinges in the gale.

  But there was activity. Two police cars, their blue roof lights flashing, their radios crackling, stood outside the main house. A knot of people, some in uniform, stood in the porch out of the wind.

  ‘Jesus!’ Jason said. ‘It’s the police.’

  ‘’Course it is. Didn’t I say they’d come? Didn’t I?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Didn’t I get us here? Didn’t I bring us back safely?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Okay. So I was expecting the coppers. Had to come.’

  They stopped behind a hedge. Both were wet through and covered in mud.

  Jason was feeling terrible. They had come several miles through fields and dense bush and he was badly out of training. But it wasn’t only that. He had been feeling physically ill ever since they had got out of the taxi and Billy had gone berserk. He had held the needle-sharp shiv to Hall’s eye while he had ordered Prosser to remove their handcuffs and use them on themselves. He had cuffed the two escorting officers to the grab handle of the taxi and had then tied up the driver with a pair of jump leads.

  ‘Right,’ he had said. ‘It only remains for us to say a big thank you.’ And he had kicked Prosser. He had aimed at the groin but Prosser had jerked backwards and the kick had landed in his stomach. For some seconds Billy lost control of himself. He had picked up a branch and smashed it into Prosser’s face and when Hall had objected he had beaten him, too.

  ‘Don’t!’ Jason had said, and held his arm.

  ‘Leave go!’

  ‘You want some, too?’ he had said to the driver.

  ‘God no. Please. Listen. I’ve got some cash. You want the cash? Take it.’

  So Billy had taken more than thirty quid and then he had led Jason away at a fast trot.

  ‘Bastards!’ he had said as they went through the dark woods. ‘Fucking screws.’

  They had stopped only once to drink at a stream. ‘You okay, Jason?’

  Jason thought that if he opened his mouth to speak he would vomit.

  ‘Listen, they deserved what they got. Don’t worry about it.’

  He looked broodingly into the river. ‘I could have killed them, you know. Anyway, would you rather go to the madhouse?’

  A little further on they passed the blackened ruins of a barn. Billy stopped and looked at it. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I remember that one.’ He turned to Jason. ‘I used to plan it like a military operation. Had maps of the whole county. I knew every barn. Come on.’

  It had taken all of Jason’s strength to reach the farm. Now, using the hedge as a shelter Billy moved closer to the group of men. Jason followed.

  Snatches of conversation came to them on the wind.

  ‘. . . Dangerous?’ Major Gillis was saying. ‘No, no, he’s not dangerous. A bloody pervert, yes, and a stupid bugger but no, not dangerous . . .’

  The wind blew the next sentence away.

  ‘Oh, Mr Gillis,’ Billy whispered. ‘Poor Mr Gillis.’

  ‘. . . Not to me . . . I’ve dealt with him before . . . I’ll deal with him again . . .’

  Gillis held up a blackthorn stick.

  One of the police shook his head violently, ‘. . . Law in your own hands . . . Anyway, there’s two of them . . . give us a call, sir . . .’

  ‘Won’t come here, anyway.’

  ‘. . . Never tell, sir. Trouble is the dogs are useless in this weather. We took them up to Fernham Hill after the forestry worker released the captives. Couldn’t smell a thing and . . .’

  ‘Fucking forestry worker!’ Billy whispered. Then he giggled. ‘God, he must have had a shock!’

  ‘. . . A taxi?’ Gillis was saying. ‘A black cab? What the bloody hell next? Make ’em walk, the sods.’

  Two policemen got back into their cars. It was cold in the wind.

  ‘. . . Leave someone with you if you like. We’ve told the local police and warned the village bobby. It’s not as though he’s dangerous, but if . . .’

  ‘. . . Leave him to me . . . Oh, all right, all right, I’ll phone.’

  The police cars started up and drove off down the farm track, their rear lights winking in the misty rain. Gillis limped back into the house and slammed the door.

  ‘Come on,’ Billy said, ‘let’s get out of this.’

  He led Jason along the track the police cars had taken, past the ruined barns, to a little knoll a few feet above the level of the road, hidden both by barns and by a stand of hawthorn. From a distance the place looked like a farm graveyard but instead of gravestones there were, among the docks and nettles, a small concrete emplacement and what looked like the end of a large drain pipe filled with cement, which cleared the concrete by about two feet.

  They climbed through the fence. Billy pointed to a heavy steel plate the size of a large square man-hole cover secured by a heavy brass padlock.

  ‘You just hang on one sec, Jason, old sport. You’ll feel better once we get into the dry.’

  He lifted a roofing slate hidden in the grass, brought out a key, opened the padlock and raised the steel cover.

  ‘I’ll go first,’ he said. A black hole yawned in front of them. A steel ladder disappeared into darkness. A gust of air, dank and reeking, came up to meet them. The smell of it made Jason feel worse.

  ‘Okay, Jason, you can start down now.’

  The light, dim at first, grew stronger as Billy turned up the wicks of a couple of oil lamps. Jason descended into a small room about fifteen feet by ten. In it was a narrow steel-framed bunk on which there was a mattress and blanket, there was a pile of books along one wall opposite a notice board on which there were a dozen or more drawing pins still holding corners of yellowing paper – all that was left of notices ripped off in times past. There were some serial numbers in black paint on the thick walls, a small shaving mirror, and on the floor was a highly coloured cheap rug.

  Jason felt like he was entering a catacomb.

  ‘Home from home.’ Billy lit some sticks of incense. ‘You know what this place is? This is a reservoir, that’s what it is.’

  Jason shook his head confusedly.

  ‘Yeah. You look at any map. Says reservoir. But it ain’t a reservoir. It’s a secret place and there are six hundred places like it round the country, and hardly anyone knows about them. This is a nuclear bunker, old sport. This was for the army in case Mr Gorbachev fired his missiles at us. This was where they were going to check the radioactive fallout and keep in touch with other bunkers by radio. The signal corps people used to come here and exercise every two weeks or so. See that door?’ Jason made out the dim lines of a door against the far wall. ‘Chemical toilet. Nasty, dirty lot the army. That’s where the smell’s coming from so if you need to go, then go outside, okay?’

  Jason listened numbly.

  ‘Anyway,’ Billy continued, ‘Mr Gorbachev didn’t fire no missiles. Didn’t do nothing, so these became what’s known as surplus to requirements, Jason, old bean, and the government said we don’t want this no more, we’ll sell it to you. So old man Gillis said, you dug it on my land, you fix it all up like it was before and they said we’re the real army, not the friggin’ territorials, so shut your face.

  ‘They said you can have the bunker. You can use it for anything you like. But what could he use it for? With his arthritis he couldn’t even climb down the ladder. But yours truly did. Oh, yes.’

  Jason sat down on the bed and began to shake with cold.

  ‘What we got to get is some dry clothing,’ Billy said. ‘You hungry?’

  Jason shook his head.

  ‘Well, I am. I dunno whether I got any clothes that’ll fit you but I’ll find something.’

  ‘Don’t leave me.’

  ‘I’m not going to leave you. It’s only for a few minutes.’

  ‘I don’t want to be al
one here.’

  ‘What is it? The smell?’

  Jason nodded. ‘That. And the cold.’

  ‘If the two of us go out we’re more likely to be seen. Now you just be a good tennisplayer and wait here and Billy is going to look after you.’

  He put his arm round Jason’s shoulder. ‘Who loves you, baby?’

  But Jason did not reply.

  Billy climbed up the ladder and disappeared. Jason looked about him. It was a terrible place, worse than the cells. His mouth was full of saliva and tasting of copper. He lay down on the bed and pulled the blanket over him.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Billy Sweete stood in the shelter of a barn. The drizzle had strengthened and heavy black clouds smothered the daylight. Loose windows and doors kept up a continuous banging in the wind. The two houses, Ida Tribe’s cottage, and Gillis’s more substantial farmhouse, leaned against the sky and the wind. There were lights on upstairs in Gillis’s house. Billy thought he knew what the old man would be doing, either playing with his toy soldiers or watching the races on tv.

  It was the soldiers which had first got Billy into those upstairs rooms. He was a kid then. There must have been a thousand soldiers; two armies, both equipped with tanks and armoured cars and signalling units, everything. The old man liked to fight the World War campaigns over again, especially El Alamein.

  Billy had never seen anything as beautiful as those soldiers; had never lusted after anything quite as much either before or later, not any artefact, that is. Gillis had guessed. ‘Don’t you want some of your own?’ he’d said, and Billy had nodded. Then Gillis had said, ‘We’ll be friends, good friends. I’ll show you what really good friends are like. Secret friends. And then you can have a soldier.’

  That’s how it had started. Up there, in the spare bedroom.

  Keeping to the shelter of the barn walls as best he could, Billy circled the houses until he came to the rear of his grandmother’s cottage. It was locked and dark but he knew where she kept the key. The smell inside was the smell of his childhood, of his whole life almost as far back as he could remember; the smell of cheap coal and frying. Smells seem to have got caught up in the cottage. The windows didn’t open, the heavy thatched roof kept everything in. There was a toilet down in the garden, with a septic tank that overflowed. That had reeked, too. He’d grown up with smells.