by Shaun Baines
Chapter Thirty-Three
Holly lingered by Derek’s newly erected shed, a cup of hot coffee in her hand. The steam rose ghost-like, fading to nothing in the early morning light. Birds flitted between trees, singing as they flew, but turning silent when they landed amidst the growing foliage.
She had never been this close to the shed before, sensing her presence wasn’t welcome. It was Derek’s shrine to their failing marriage or a folly he’d erected in memory of it. She could no longer claim it was a waste of money. Derek spent more time in it than in the house. The door was bolted shut and she listened to him shuffling around inside.
“What are you doing here?”
She jumped at the voice. Derek stood behind her, tightening the belt around his dressing robe. His skin was the colour of clay, his face baked hard in the heat of another hangover.
The shed was as silent as the birds in the trees. Holly glanced at it and then at Derek, motioning the coffee cup toward him.
“Thought you could do with some,” she said.
Derek took it, looking at it suspiciously. “Thanks.”
A mist had settled over Knock Lake, masking the dark waters beneath. A disembodied duck’s head cut through it as it made its way to a muddy bank. Gliding to a stop, it dipped through the mist and water with a splash. Holly waited for it to re-emerge, but it was lost in the murk.
“So what are you doing today?” she asked Derek.
“Do you have to?”
Holly’s stomach sank. “What do you mean? What are you talking about?”
Derek lowered the coffee from his lips. “I can organise my own day.”
“I was only asking.”
“Well, don’t. I don’t need the extra pressure, thanks.”
“I won’t ask again, okay? Do what you want.”
“I will,” Derek said, pouring his coffee to the ground. “I suppose you’ll be out with the gamekeeper?”
The duck re-appeared, pondweed trailing from its beak. Some things were meant to float, Holly thought. Others destined to sink.
“I told you, there’s nothing going on, honey,” Holly said.
“Honey?” Derek asked, arching an eyebrow. “Now, I am worried.”
“Forget it,” Holly said, throwing her hands in the air. “Forget it.”
“That’s right. Walk away. Like you always do.”
Holly jabbed a finger at Derek. “I was going to spend the day here. See if we could talk like adults, but you make it impossible to stay.”
Their argument was interrupted by the sound of a groaning engine. Mr Winnow and his olive-green delivery truck trundled into view. Holly saw him through the windscreen. His face was puce and sweaty as if he had run up the hill rather than driven up it.
Holly went to the truck and Mr Winnow wound down his window, sending a sideways glance at Derek.
“Can I have a word, Mrs Fleet?” he asked in a low voice.
“This won’t take a minute,” Holly said to Derek, expecting him to leave, perhaps disappear into his shed.
But Derek adjusted a gap in his dressing robe and waited.
“What is it?” she asked Mr Winnow.
He picked at the window’s rubber seal. “Do you remember our last chat? You didn’t tell anyone about it, did you?”
Holly shook her head. “We said we wouldn’t. Why do you ask?”
Finished with picking at the window, Mr Winnow began peeling flecks of reindeer paint from his fingers.
“I got another email,” he said. “Asking for a delivery.”
“Of bulbs?” Holly asked.
Mr Winnow nodded and opened the passenger door. “Might be good if you come with me this time. Make sure I don’t get into any trouble.”
Holly looked to her husband. “I won’t be long. I promise.”
Derek forced a smile and sloped into his shed.
A cold wind whipped around her shoulders and Holly climbed into Mr Winnow’s truck. “The email? I’m guessing they didn’t give a name this time either?”
“It was from Crockfoot again,” Mr Winnow said, attempting an eighteen-point turn in the small driveway.
Holly kept watch on the shed’s door, picturing Derek’s glowering face behind it. It was all his fault anyway, she thought. He’d been abrasive and unpleasant. Who would want to spend time with him?
An unexpected pang in her chest answered her question and Holly’s hand went to the door handle, ready to leap out.
Deadbolts on the shed door shimmered in the morning light. They looked new and Holly couldn’t remember seeing them before.
There’d been noises in the shed this morning. Holly was sure it had been her husband. Who else could it have been? But Derek had appeared behind her, leaving Holly pondering over the new locks.
Mr Winnow made the last of his wrenching yanks on the steering wheel and they faced downhill to Little Belton.
“Judy’s done a new spoken word cassette, if you fancy it?” he asked. “This one’s a Stephen King.”
Holly shook her head. “Tell me more about the email.”
Jamming his foot on the accelerator, Mr Winnow careened along the road. “Well, they said, there was no more point in hiding.”
“Who did?” Holly asked.
“A guy called Arnold. Do you know him?”
Chapter Thirty-Four
“Where are we going?” Callum asked.
He was wedged in the passenger seat next to Holly, his knees locked together, his arms folded on top of one another.
“The email said to go to Hamley village,” Mr Winnow said.
“Why? What’s there?”
They’d decided to collect Callum on the way. He’d been involved in this from the beginning and Holly wanted to take his mind off losing his home. Mr Winnow didn’t argue and was probably pleased with the extra help. His face was still puce. He fiddled with the broken radio, pressing the buttons over and over again, receiving nothing but static.
The seatbelt latch bit into Holly’s right hip. Callum was too close, pressing in too hard. She gave him a shove, angling for extra room.
“I can barely move here,” Callum said, shoving back.
“Stop it,” Holly said.
“No, you stop it.”
“Both of you stop it,” Mr Winnow said, “or I’ll turn this van around. Understand?”
Callum and Holly lowered their heads. “Yes, Mr Winnow.”
Holly stared out of the windscreen as they traversed the A69 to Hamley village. There was no traffic to distract her. The fields by the road were empty. This was the Northumberland she remembered as a child. Rolling green hills of nothingness, studded with crumbling farmhouses. There was no life to be had, no adventure.
“Why does he want us to go to Hamley village?” Callum asked.
“To pick up a delivery of his bulbs from the pub,” Mr Winnow said.
The Vallum pub was the only one in the village. Holly recalled it was named after a nearby Roman earthworks, but couldn’t be sure. According to her Dad, the Romans stayed for seventeen years before being driven mad by the woad faced Picts and their superstitions.
The pub was a two-storey building made from local stone. Its slate roof was pitted with green moss and smoke drifted from the chimney.
Mr Winnow parked away from the main entrance and scanned the walls of the pub.
“What are you looking for?” Holly asked.
“CCTV cameras,” Mr Winnow said. “I don’t want any record of me being here.”
Callum wiped condensation from the passenger window for a better view of the car park. “For a poacher, you’re pretty nervous about getting into trouble.”
“I’m not a poacher,” Mr Winnow said. “I’m an entrepreneur.”
“An entrepreneur who steals fish from the estate,” Callum said.
Holly held up her hands. “Guys, we’re all a little nervous. This is a nervous situation. Can we just go over what we’re doing here please?”
Mr Winnow reached for the
broken radio and Holly slapped his hand away.
“And stop playing with that,” she said.
“I was told to come to the Vallum pub car park,” Mr Winnow said, rubbing his hand. “I’d be approached by someone I didn’t know and be given another package to deliver to Black Rock Manor. This time I have to make sure it arrives.”
“Originally, you were supposed to deliver the bulbs to the manor,” Holly said, “where Arnold Salting was waiting for them. When you didn’t arrive, he went looking, but he couldn’t have known they were washed up on a beach.”
“And if he did,” Callum said, “it was too late because I’d already cleared them away.”
Holly tugged on her fringe. “One day, he returns from searching the estate to find Regina there. A fight ensues and he disappears before the police show up.”
“But according to them, there’s no evidence of Regina being a victim of foul play,” Callum said, “so they don’t immediately search the manor, giving him plenty of time to collect his things and abscond.”
Holly turned to Callum, her heart rate speeding as the pieces of the puzzle came together.
“He asks around the village,” she said.
“No one has secrets in Little Belton so it doesn’t take long,” Callum added.
“He follows me around and finds out we have the bulbs. He spots our trap and calls the Reverend.”
Callum drew a church on the window. “The Reverend can’t tell if it’s a man or a woman on the line. But because he’s a good man, he takes the call at face value.”
“While we’re distracted, Arnold steals the bulbs from the Defender.”
“Which I should have locked.”
Holly dug her elbow into Callum, but gave him a smile. “That has to be the answer. That has to be it.”
Holly and Callum threw their arms around each other, pulling in close and laughing. Holly was shaking, aware that Callum felt the same. She’d done it, despite her faults and insecurities. She’d pieced it together.
“I knew you could do it,” Callum whispered in her ear.
Mr Winnow cleared his throat and they broke their embrace.
“Something the matter?” Callum asked.
Mr Winnow picked at his fingernails. “I’m sure you’re right.”
Holly swallowed, but couldn’t force the anxiety down. “Do you have something to say?”
Staring into his steering wheel, Mr Winnow cleared his throat again. “If Arnold has his bulbs already, what are we doing here? Why does he need more?”
“Well…I mean…” Holly said with nothing more to add.
“And you seem to have forgotten about Nancy. Where is she? Has Salting kidnapped her? And what about poor Regina?”
Holly looked at Callum and he shrugged in her direction.
“And why all this cloak and dagger stuff?” Mr Winnow asked. “We’ve already established the depths to which I’ll sink for money. Why keep me in the dark? And why isn’t Arnold collecting these bulbs for himself?”
Out of the windscreen, Holly watched a minibus pull up. A hen party poured from its doors, staggering toward the pub on prosecco and high heels. Their dresses carried L-plates and condom balloons. The bride-to-be emerged last, already the worse for wear. Her L-plates were askew and her single balloon was wrinkled, deflating rapidly, like Holly’s sense of achievement.
“Did you say that spoken word tape was Stephen King?” Holly asked.
Mr Winnow gave a nod and pulled it from the glove compartment, inserting it into the player. His wife’s softly spoken voice recounted the tale of a car possessed by a demon. They watched the car park empty and refill. Visitors didn’t stay for long, stopping only to use the bathroom on their journeys elsewhere. The driver of the minibus sat in the stairwell eating limp sandwiches and reading a newspaper.
Callum cranked the window open when the truck grew stuffy. “He’s taking his time.”
“Maybe he got lost,” Mr Winnow said.
Holly listened to the tape and allowed her mind to wander. She thought about the tribe of Picts driving out the regimental Romans using superstition and faces painted in blue. The Picts had been thought of as savages, but their unruly ways confounded and scared an entire army. Arnold was like a Pict, living rough on the estate, but always staying one step ahead. He was using her regimental mind against her, compelling her into situations where he had the upper hand.
Holly sat rigid in her seat. “What if this is a trap?” she asked. “What if Arnold lured us here for an ambush? The same way we tried to lure him with the tinned salmon?”
Callum stretched his legs, accidentally kicking Mr Winnow in the shin. “I doubt it,” he said. “Why drag us all the way out of Little Belton?”
Mrs Winnow’s storytelling suddenly stopped, but the tape kept playing.
After a moment of static, another voice began speaking.
“By now, you should be sitting in a car park wondering where I am.”
Holly shivered with a sudden chill. “It’s Arnold,” she mouthed to Callum.
Arnold’s voice was high-pitched and could easily have been mistaken for a woman’s if the line was bad enough.
“No one locks their doors in Little Belton,” Arnold said. “I recorded this message for you, Mrs Fleet, guessing Mr Winnow would play it on his journey to Hamley village. I’m also guessing he brought you along for the ride.”
Holly wafted her hand in front of her face, feeling nauseous.
Callum straightened and put an arm around Holly’s shoulders.
“He won’t harm you,” he whispered. “I promise.”
“You’re in no danger from me,” Arnold said, “especially with that lump of a gamekeeper around. Why are the pretty ones so dumb, eh? Did he think he could fool me by leaving my bulbs by the side of the road?”
Callum grunted and looked away.
“So I decided to use your idea against you,” Arnold said. “I’m not showing up. I won’t be in Hamley village. I have more pressing matters to attend to, but I will offer this warning. If things don’t go my way, the blood of Little Belton will be on your hands.”
With that, the tape stopped and ejected itself from the player, as if possessed by a demon of its own.
Mr Winnow quickly turned it over to play side two, but it was his wife’s voice that greeted them, continuing her tale about a Plymouth Fury.
“Time to go home,” Holly said.
Mr Winnow fumbled with the ignition, working the key too harshly for it to catch. When the engine fired up, he tore out of the car park.
“I need to check my wife is okay,” he said, almost knocking over the drunken bride, who had left the pub for a breath of fresh air. She waved her L-plate angrily as they passed.
“I don’t get it,” Callum said, testing the security of his seat belt. “Why did he want to waste our time?”
Holly stared out of the window, watching fields of nothing blur by.
Tricked again, she thought. Not of Arnold’s design, but of their own. They’d given him the idea of placing the cheese in the trap. Mr Salting had described Arnold as deranged, but Holly saw him as calculating. Whatever Arnold was doing, following her was no longer his priority. It was a relief until she began to wonder why.
Holly barely noticed when they arrived by the kerbside of The Travelling Star.
“I could do with a drink,” Callum said. “Anyone else?”
“Not for me,” Mr Winnow said. “I’m putting new locks on my doors.”
Holly and Callum slipped from the truck, waving goodbye to Mr Winnow as he drove ten feet up the road to his shop.
“To be honest, I don’t have the money to get the kind of drunk I want to,” Holly said to Callum. “Another time?”
“I’ll pay,” Callum said, “but let me nip upstairs first. This whole thing makes me want to change my clothes.”
Callum climbed the stairs to his rented room while Holly sloped into the Lounge, dropping into a stool by the bar. She hoped to see welcomi
ng faces, but the room was empty.
“What’ll you have?” Big Gregg asked, appearing from nowhere. Without waiting for an answer, he pirouetted to the optics and drained gin into a glass. “Feels like a gin day, doesn’t it?”
He poured one for himself and added tonic to both of their glasses. As the tonic water drained from the bottle, so did the humour from his face.
“I’ve got some bad news,” he said, gulping down his drink.
“Please, Big Gregg. Not today. I’ve had my fill of bad news,” Holly said.
“We all have.” Big Gregg smacked his lips, glancing at the gin optic, but resisting the urge for a second glass. “I had to get rid of my computerised till. Couldn’t afford to keep it, but they won’t let me out of the contract.”
“What do you mean?” Holly asked.
Big Gregg twisted his damp bar cloth in his large hands. “I was stupid. Never read the small print, but with all the new tourists, I thought it was a good investment. I’m paying a fortune for something I no longer have and with that bleedin’ hub out there, I’m not making any money.”
Holly hung her head, her hair trailing into her G&T. “I know what you’re going to say.”
“I’m sorry,” Big Gregg said. “I can’t afford to keep you on.”
Footsteps boomed through the ceiling and down the stairs. Callum burst into the Lounge, his face as thunderous as his feet.
“I know why Arnold Salting wanted us at that car park,” he said and disappeared back to his room.
Taking Big Gregg’s hand in hers, Holly pressed it against her lips.
“We’re going to be okay,” she said, jumping from her stool.
She followed Callum up wooden stairs that creaked with every footfall.
Callum was waiting outside his room, pointing inside. “I’ve been burgled.”
It was a single accommodation with a single bed. An IKEA wardrobe stood with its doors open, its contents strewn on the floor. Callum’s bags had been emptied, tipped out and ransacked. Even his rifle case was open, his rifle discarded, but its inner pockets were inside out.
“What was he looking for?” Holly asked, venturing into the room.
