by A. B. King
I hated to admit it, but Tracy could be uncomfortably right. Although I did not have a single shred of evidence to suggest that Pete had any part in this whole unpleasant business, neither was there anything to say that he hadn't. Was it really possible that Pete could actually be our mysterious Mr X? He had always been a bit of a lady's man from as early as I could remember, and certainly we had not seen a great deal of each other while I was at university so it was not impossible that he may have met Julia at some stage. He would have been a couple of years older than her at the time of the original tragedy, but that would have been no bar. I imagine the crucial question had to be; had he ever owned a Reagan?
I reached out and grabbed the list of Club members that had been downloaded from the computer and scanned through it. There were several 'Pete's' and 'Peters' listed, and looking at the dialling codes of the phone numbers, a few of them were comparatively local. I tried hard to remember what his phone number had been fourteen years ago and failed. I thought briefly of phoning each number in turn, but of course, even if he had owned a Reagan at the time, he certainly didn't now, quite apart from which I imagined that a lot of the numbers would have been changed over this length in time. It looked like a blind alley.
Unless?
The brain finally slipped into gear. I reached for the phone and dialled the first 'Pete' number. After a few seconds a mechanical voice told me that I had dialled a wrong number. I had the same result with the next, and the one after. On the third call, as Tracy came and deposited a mug of coffee in front of me the number rang briefly, and then the receiver was picked up and a man's voice answered me.
“Good afternoon,” I said at once. “I'm sorry to disturb you; I'm trying to contact a Mr Peter Lanscomb.”
“Sorry, you've dialled the wrong number,” said the man's voice.
“Yes, and I apologise for disturbing you,” I repeated, “I'm ringing because you are, or used to be, a member of the Reagan Owners club. Pete Lanscomb was also a member, and I wondered if you knew him?”
“Can't say I recall the name. Sorry.”
“Oh well, it was a long shot, thanks anyway.”
I hung up and dialled again. Three calls later I finally had a breakthrough.
“Hello?” said a woman's voice.
“Good afternoon,” I said once again in my well rehearsed speech. “Sorry to disturb you; I'm trying to locate a Mr Peter Lanscomb.”
“Sorry, there's no one of that name here.”
“I'm phoning because I believe you, or maybe your husband are, or perhaps were, members of the Reagan Owners Club? Peter Lanscomb was also a member a few years back, and it is important that I get in touch with him, so I was wondering if you had a telephone number, or if you knew him at all?”
“Peter Lanscomb, you say?”
“That's right. Well built sort of chap, bit roguish in manner.”
There was a protracted silence.
“Hello?” I ventured.
“Sorry,” came the woman's voice. “Yes, Pete. Yes, I knew him.”
There was something in the tone of her voice that rang alarm bells in my mind. “I see, do you have any idea where I might contact him now?”
“No, I'm afraid not.”
“Please don't misunderstand me; something in your tone of voice suggests that you don't like him very much?”
“I don't 'like' him at all!” she retorted savagely. “May I ask who you are, and what you want with him?”
“My name is Hammond, Neil Hammond. I was a friend of Peter's back in school days. I need to contact him now on a private matter of the utmost urgency.”
“Well, Mr Hammond, my name is Mrs Carpenter, and frankly, I cannot say that I much approve of your choice of friends. For your information, a good many years ago when I was single, and perhaps not quite so worldly-wise as I should have been I fell for ‘Pete’ Lanscomb's polished manner, believing him to be a first class decent sort of chap. You could say he dazzled me with his charm, and then having led me up the garden path, so-to-speak, with his honeyed phrases and romantic promises, he violently assaulted me at a club meeting when we chanced to be alone and away from the others, and he was only prevented from following the assault with rape by the timely advent of a passer-by!”
Even though I had been half expecting something unpleasant, her revelation still came as a complete shock.
“Mrs Carpenter!” I exclaimed, “I really don't know what to say, I'm so sorry-”
“It was a long time ago now, and I am both older and wiser. No doubt I should have known better than to allow myself to get into a situation where such a thing was possible. It was a narrow escape, but at least it taught me a valuable lesson.”
“Did you not report him to the police?”
“What was the point, they wouldn't have done anything; I doubt if anybody would have believed me if I had tried. In any case I was too shocked and embarrassed to even consider it. I watched him driving away from that meeting in his Reagan, laughing like nothing had ever happened. I never saw him again after that; I left the club and sold the car. Frankly, I had all but forgotten his existence until you telephoned.”
“Mrs Carpenter, I feel absolutely dreadful about reminding you of such a thoroughly unpleasant experience. I assure you I had no idea he was a man like that; none whatsoever.”
“Well, you have only my word for it of course, but to my way of thinking the man was, and probably still is, a menace and should be locked up. I'm sorry I cannot help you. If you should track him down, well, please don't mention me.”
“You need have no fears on that score. Good-bye, Mrs Carpenter, I'm really so very sorry to have disturbed you.”
I hung up and looked across at Tracy who was sat the other side of my desk watching.
“I gather she knew him?” she said rather than asked.
I nodded. “It has to be him,” I said grimly, still thinking of what the woman had said to me. “She confirmed that he was a member of the club. Not only that, according to her, he assaulted, and attempted to rape her.”
“Then what more proof do you need?”
“That's the trouble” I sighed “It isn't proof! For all we know it may be a co-incidence of name, but even if it was him, all we know now is that he owned a Reagan at the right time, and that he allegedly became carried away with one of the lady members. We still don't know for certain he was the man on the bridge, it could have been one of the other club members.”
“Then why did he bother to break in here and fiddle with the print-out?”
“Tracy, we are only assuming it was him. I grant you that it is scarcely likely to be anyone else, but it’s still not proof!”
“Be honest, Neil,” she observed sagely. “The real truth is that you don't want it to be him, do you? You just don't even want to think that your old friend could ever be involved in such a situation?”
She was right of course. I just couldn't get my head round the possibility that Pete, the lovable rogue of my school-days, my benefactor in my hour of need could be someone who had killed, killed again, and maybe was already preparing to kill for a third time. It was just too fantastic to be possible, but how could I be sure?
“Perhaps you're right,” I sighed reluctantly, “I suppose it’s fairly obvious that he has to be the man we are looking for, proof or no proof!”
“So, what are you going to do?”
“I think the first thing must be to alert Danny.”
I picked up the phone and put a call through to her mobile. There was no response. I left a message asking her to call me as soon as possible. I didn't have a number for Pete, so I rang the solicitor to see if he had a number or even a forwarding address. Some minutes later I learned that all the legal work, including the transfer of the business had been done through the office address and phone number. There was no point in ringing his previous home number because I knew that he had only come back to pull out prior to his wedding. I simply had no means of contacting him at all. But even
if I had, what could I say to him? 'Hi Pete, are you Mr X'? For a few moments I toyed with the idea of ringing Grayson, but the thought of how Danny would react, particularly if I was completely wrong, caused me to stay my hand. Unless Danny picked up my message and phoned back in the interim it looked as if I was going to have to sit on this unexpected development until I met up with her at four. I looked at my watch. It was already past two, and I was absolutely dead on my feet.
“Tracy,” I said wearily, standing up from behind the desk, “Danny is due back here at four o'clock. I'm going home to get an hour's rest before I fold up. Will you phone me at about 1545 so that I can get back here looking at least partially awake?”
“I'll do that.”
“And phone me if anything else crops up you think I ought to know about.”
I don't think I have ever felt quite so drained in my life. The combination of a night without sleep, and the stresses of the last twenty-four hours and everything else were all proving too much. I drove home like a man in a dream, too tired to focus my brain on anything. I let myself in and went and sat on the edge of my bed, wondering if I ought to take my shoes off. I lay back for a second or two just to get a breather, but of course no sooner was I horizontal than my brain finally switched off completely and I fell into a deep sleep.
It was the strident clamour of the phone that eventually bullied my reluctant brain back to a semblance of consciousness. I kept wondering what the sound was, cursing it; demanding it to stop, but eventually I dragged myself off the bed and mumbled unintelligible into the mouthpiece.
“Neil, it's a quarter to four,” came Tracy's voice, “and this is the third time I've rung you, I was beginning to think something had happened?”
“Sorry,” I grunted, “I was in a deep sleep; in fact I think I'm sleep-talking even now.”
“You certainly sound like it. Anyway, I've got something to show you before Danny gets back here if you can make it on time?”
“Like what?”
“I'm not sure; wait until you get here.”
“Ok, I'll be with you as soon as I can.”
I put the phone down, staggered through to the bathroom and splashed cold water all over my face, grabbed my coat and lurched out of the back door and into my car. Ten minutes later I was back in the office where I sank once again into my chair with a slight feeling of relief that Danny hadn't beaten me to it.
“You,” Tracy observed, “don't look any better for an hour or so's rest.”
“Thanks. What was it you wanted to show me?”
“This.”
She pointed to something on the far side of my desk that was out of my line of vision. I stood up and walked round, crouching down to see what she was pointing at. Once my weary eyes had focussed I found myself gazing at a small round metallic object fixed under the overhang of the desk and completely invisible if one wasn't actually crouching down looking for it.
“I was tidying your desk and knocked the 'Reagan Owners' file onto the floor,” she explained, “I saw this as I picked it up.”
Just for a moment I looked at that thing in puzzlement, and then with a crash the penny dropped; the office was bugged! What I was looking at was a tiny radio-microphone. It ws obviously what Tracy suspected it was, hence her odd remark about picking something up off the floor. That clinched it; it had to be Pete! I stood up and looked full at Tracy, putting my finger to my lips to caution her.
“Oh, that's nothing,” I said in a casual tone, “it's just the mascot off my key-ring I dropped on the floor. Look, will you just nip along to the newsagents and pick up that magazine that Danny ordered, she will be here at any moment and you know what she's like. There's not much more we can do here tonight anyway, so I'll lock up, and you can bring the magazine to the car, and I'll give it to her when she arrives. After that, you might just as well slope off home.”
I'll give Tracy her due; she was very quick on the uptake.
“Ok,” she said, “I can do with an early night anyway.”
We trooped out of the office, and once we were well away from the vicinity I cautioned her once again to silence and made my way to my car. As I reached it, I again warned her to be silent as I unlocked it and carefully searched the interior. After about ten minutes I was as sure as one could be without dismantling the entire vehicle that there was no bug in there.
“Ok, get in,” I said. “I think it is safe to talk in here.”
“So my suspicions were right; he's bugged the place?”
“Yes, he probably did that last night as well. That means that he is almost certainly aware of everything that Danny and I have said and what we believe. Not only that, he knows exactly what she is planning to do tonight. There's nothing for it, I have to stop her.”
I pulled out my mobile phone but again I drew blank. I left a message stressing the urgency of her immediately contacting me, but knowing what I now did I started to wonder if she had switched if off herself, or if Peter had already made a move on her! I cringed at the thought.
“Right, what's the next move?” Tracy asked.
“The next move,” I said with determination. “Is to get you back home!”
“What?”
“You heard. It's way past four now, and she isn't coming. This is no game, and you will be far better off out of it. No arguments. Once you are home you can keep trying to contact Danny, and while you are doing it, get on to her office, discover which particular security company she owns and get on to them and see if she has been there. Phone me on my mobile with the results, and phone me if you are lucky enough to contact her.”
“What will you be doing?”
“I'm going to see if I can track her down. I'll start with her home. If neither of us have had any luck within the hour, you are to ring Grayson and put him in the picture.”
I started the car without waiting for her to answer as I made for her home. She was a great help, but I just didn't want her under my feet if I came face to face with Pete. As I drove I felt a cold clammy feeling in the pit of my stomach as I realised that I might already be too late. If Pete had been listening in to what Danny and I had been saying then he must know that he had had to act swiftly to forestall us. It only took a matter of a few minutes to complete the journey, and although I was distracted by the enormity of trying to accept that not only was Pete the man on the bridge, but that he might actually at that very moment be dealing with Danny. As I saw it, my only hope was the fact that he wouldn't have twigged that I had rumbled the bug in the office! If he once realised that, then Danny's life wouldn't be worth a moment’s purchase, and probably not mine either for that matter.
“Let me know at once if there are any developments I should be made aware of,” I repeated as I pulled up outside her home, “and if you've heard nothing from me by five o'clock, then phone Grayson and put him in the picture about everything we know and suspect.”
“Where will you go now?” she asked as she undid the safety belt and prepared to step out of the car.
“Like I said; her home first, then on to the security company if you phone me to say she has been there.”
“And if I discover that she never made it that far?”
It was a question I had been shying away from ever since I'd learned what was likely to be happening.
“I just don't know,” I admitted. “He could be anywhere, I may already be too late, but I've a feeling that he may take Danny to Willows End.”
“You mean, to finish the job that was started fourteen years ago?”
“It's possible; she has already made it known that she intends going back there. Maybe he intends to do away with her and make it look like an accident?”
“But he knows that you know, or at least suspect, that he is involved. If he goes back there and murders Danny, then he will need to silence you as well. For God's sake be careful!”
“Don't worry, I will be.”
“Good Luck Neil, I'll be in touch.”
She exited the car a
nd I drew away immediately, my insides churning and the remains of my brain whirling in sympathy.
Chapter Twenty Four.
As I drove away I ignored the law about using a mobile phone whilst driving as I tried yet again to rouse Danny. There was simply no response and that in its-self set alarm bells clanging away in my mind. I was by now convinced that something had already happened to her; she had neither phoned me nor put in an appearance, and that wasn't like her at all. I tried to tell myself that I was imagining things, that her phone was out of action, or her car had broken down, that she had been taken ill, or that she had gone home and fallen asleep much as I had done. I didn't believe any of it of course, yet I had to cling to the hope that she was at least still alive, and all I had to do was find her. When I finally pulled up at her home I saw at once that there was no sign of her car, yet with a mounting feeling of desperation I tried the buzzer for her apartment not once but several times. She wasn't there, and probably hadn't been there since the day before. As I was about to walk away in despair my own phone buzzed and I almost snatched at it in the hope that it was Danny.
