Dead of Winter (30 page)

He drove up next to it and tried the driver’s door; it was locked, of course, but it took him less than a minute with a bit of thin wire from his toolbox to open it. After that it was easy to load up his gear and dump the girl on the floor in the front, still gagged and bound hand and foot. All he had to do now was park the Mondeo away from where the Land Rover was so there wouldn’t be an immediate link.

He was driving along the A27 less than seven minutes after hearing the TV broadcast. His hands were shaking but he kept the speed steady and slowly his heart stopped its ridiculous hammering.
It was easier driving the old Land Rover, with its four-wheel drive. Although the steering was heavy he didn’t mind as it was
feather-light
compared to the wreck that was Dan’s van. He pulled into a small lay-by and untaped her mouth. She didn’t ask him why they had changed cars; in fact she said nothing at all other than to confirm directions when asked.

There was a tattered Ordnance Survey map of the area in the car and she located the farm for him. It was as she said, less than ten miles away but the last part of the journey would be on B roads and single-lane tracks and he realised they would never have made it in the Mondeo. As they turned off the A27 onto a minor road signposted Berwick he felt ice beneath the snow under his wheels. There was no other traffic. Even though the snowfall was lessening the conditions were treacherous and it was growing dark.

‘It’s on this side of the Downs; there’s only a bit of a hill to climb before we turn off onto the track and that’s fairly level so far as I can remember,’ Issie said as if reading his thoughts. He didn’t like that and taped up her mouth.

It took him half an hour to do the last two miles, crawling along on roads thick with packed ice. Twice he had to steer around abandoned cars, his heart hammering in case their occupants were still inside and needed help. Both times they were empty and his panicked breathing slowed to rapid as they neared their destination.

‘You said it’s called “Abbott’s Farm”?’ He didn’t want to stop and consult the map in case the car wouldn’t start again.

Issie replied with an affirmative grunt.

‘And the turning’s on the right just after the sign to Well’s Farm?’

‘Ngh.’ Yes.

He switched the lights to full beam and scanned the hedgerow.

‘Here it is!’

He couldn’t believe it; on his left was a signpost for Well’s Farm; to his right twenty yards further on a hand-painted board read ‘Abbott’s Farm’. He had been convinced that she would try and trick him but she hadn’t, bless her. He manoeuvred into the turning but the way was blocked by a five-bar gate. Snow piled deep
round it and he could see a chain looped through to the gatepost padlocked shut.

‘How do we get in? It’s locked. You never said it would be locked.’

Issie shrugged her shoulders.

Mariner pulled on his hat and scarf and stepped into the night, locking the doors out of habit. The snowdrift reached above his knees, soaking his jeans. It was very dark beyond the cones of light from the headlights and the trees moaned in the wind. He shivered but took comfort that he wasn’t on his own. The girl was there, his lucky white albatross, and soon they’d be toasty warm inside. The toolbox with his bolt cutters was wedged between a spade and the sleeping bags.

Cutting through the chain was a piece of cake but there was no way of opening the gate without shifting the drift so he started to shovel. His gloves were soon soaked through and his back started to ache as he bent to shunt the snow aside. It was difficult work and he was soon sweating inside his coat. Very slowly he cleared the way.

He had almost finished when out of the corner of his eye he saw the beam of car headlights swing around the bend. A four-wheel drive Lexus eased pass at a snail’s pace, the male driver merely glancing at him without curiosity, too intent on the road to pay him much heed. Red tail lights glowed as the car drove on and he relaxed slightly.

‘BLAAAAAAAAR! BLAAAAAAAAAR!’

The deafening noise of a car horn shattered the silent night.

‘Shit!’

He stumbled back, almost falling over, in a desperate attempt to reach the car and stop her. Down the road the other car’s brake lights came on.

‘Shit fuck!’

He unlocked the doors and pushed her away from the steering wheel, the force of his gesture knocking her head on the dashboard before she slumped back into the footwell on the other side.

‘Everything all right?’

He backed out of the Land Rover, closing the door firmly, and moved a step closer to the car where the man had opened his window and stuck his head out into the bitter air. Mariner could see Issie scream against the tape and raised his voice in a shout.

‘I’m fine, thanks. It’s the snow; it’s got into the electrics. Keeps shorting the horn; sorry. Terrible weather!’

‘Awful. Well goodnight, then.’ The man closed his window as Steve shouted after him.

‘Goodnight! Thanks again.’ He waved as the car pulled away.

He rested his shaking hands on the icy roof of the car, before returning to the back-breaking work of clearing the gate. After another ten minutes he was able to push it wide enough to drive the car through. He needed to shut the gate and regretted cutting the chain as he couldn’t secure it properly to keep out intruders and nosy parkers but he looped it around the post anyway to give some semblance of security. Issie was crying noisily, almost choking into the tape as her tears blocked her nose and streamed down her face. He bent down and hit her hard on the back of her head.

‘You little bitch,’ he said, betrayal sounding thick in his voice.

The sobs turned to muffled screams as he hit her again. With the gate shut behind them he pulled Issie up roughly from the floor and pushed her into the passenger seat.

‘Don’t you ever do that again, d’you hear?’

She kept moaning so he shook her hard. The tears turned to hiccoughs. He held her face tight between his palms, squeezing until he could feel her teeth grate.

‘We’re in this together, you and me.’ He pulled her close for emphasis, so close he could smell stale milk on her breath. ‘What happens to me will happen to you, got that? Good luck, bad luck. What’s mine is yours and you’ve no way out. Understand?’

She squeezed her eyes shut and turned her face as much as she could within his grip. He pressed her face harder.

‘Answer me. Say, “yes Steve”. Another hard shake. ‘Say it.’

‘Mmmh.’

‘What? I couldn’t hear that.’

‘Mmmh!’

‘You be a good girl, now.’ He felt her nod between his palms and he smiled. ‘Come on, let’s you and me get inside.’

There was a long rutted track beyond the gate that forked sharp right under overhanging trees that screened the farm drive from the road. In five minutes the headlights picked out the side of a barn. He drove around to an irregular-shaped yard with a half-timbered, thatched house on the north side. Mariner opened his door and stepped into the night.

His legs were shaking, his back was on fire, his stomach a twisted acid mess but he had made it. Sanctuary. Slowly, careful of his footing through the deep-packed snow, he walked towards what appeared to be the front door. Bright lights flashed on without warning.

‘What the f—?’

He dropped instinctively into a crouch and looked around but they were on their own.

‘Bloody movement-sensitive lights,’ he said to himself and ran the last few steps.

The keys were where she had said they would be and he relaxed. Not a trick, then; but as he breathed on them and waited for them to thaw so he could prise them out, he wondered. If there were lights there might be a burglar alarm. What if it was connected to the local police station? Dan had been caught like that once breaking into Mrs Beale’s general store. Nothing had happened when he broke a back window. No way he could’ve known he’d triggered the contact alarm and hidden camera that had him on tape. It was only when he stepped into the backyard and found himself held fast by two uniformed coppers that he realised he’d been fooled.

A house like this; an absentee owner … Of course there would be an alarm. Little cow; that’s why she hadn’t bothered to try and trick him on the way here. If he opened the door even with the keys but didn’t punch in the security code in time it would automatically set it off. There would be a pad to enter the code somewhere. Question was, where would it be and what was the code?

Mariner strode back to the car and yanked the passenger door open.

‘Ow!’ Issie yelped as he ripped the tape from her mouth.

‘That’s the least you’ll get from me if you don’t tell me how to turn off the alarm.’

‘What alarm?’ But her eyes slid away and he knew at once that she was lying.

‘If you don’t tell me I will beat you, d’you hear? And if you still don’t, I’m going to dump you here, tied and taped up and leave you to freeze to death. We either turn off the alarm and go in that house together or you die here. Your Nana will find you in a month when she comes home. Won’t that be a nice late Christmas present!’

Issie started to cry; it sounded pathetic so he clipped her round the ear. He wondered briefly if she would get the smarts eventually and learn how to stay silent the way he had but he pushed the thought away as soon as it surfaced.

‘I’ll leave you to die. Lucky bird or not; I mean it.’ And he did.

Two hours later he lay in a hot bath full of muscle-relaxing bubbles sipping a glass of red wine from the well-stocked wine store he had found in a room off the kitchen. Issie was washed and retied in the master bedroom, a clean gag in place. The idea of her waiting for him, lying helpless and naked under the duvet, was incredibly arousing. He stroked himself lazily as he thought back over the previous hours.

Once he had deactivated the alarm he had prowled around, leaving her tied up on the hall floor despite her protests that she needed the toilet. He had found a bathroom upstairs with no windows that could be locked from the outside. Once he had checked it for potential weapons he had locked her in there, untied, with instructions to do whatever she needed and have a shower while he unloaded the car.

In addition to the little food he had brought at the petrol station, the kitchen had a well-stocked store cupboard and a full freezer. There was a fireplace in the lounge laid ready, no doubt to welcome the owner after Christmas. He had found matches and lit the fire,
putting a guard around it from habit, and then searched upstairs until he found a dressing gown that would fit Issie.

She was still in the shower when he unlocked the door. The wet pure white slipperiness of her body, clean and shiny like a virgin’s, was too erotic to resist so he’d had her on the floor, her wet back slip-sliding across the tiles. At one point he thought she might be crying and he was about to smack it out of her but he realised it was more likely water from her wet hair. Afterwards he told her to take another shower while he made them supper. This time when he came back she was wrapped up in the dressing gown, the pink frill tight at her neck. She looked so cute he had kissed the top of her head.

They ate baked beans on toast in front of the fire with no lights on, just some candles he found, so that was romantic. She asked for second helpings so he had tied her hands up with the dressing gown cord and pulled her behind him into the kitchen. Once there he secured the free end of the cord to a radiator next to a pine table, as far away from the working end of the kitchen as possible. She had sat down and laid her arm carefully on the table, easing away the fabric of the dressing gown.

He glanced over as he buttered the toast and was shocked by the sight of her wrist. It was a real mess, making him feel sick to look at it. There was no way they’d be going to A&E so he realised he would have to sort it. There was a first-aid kit in the main bathroom and memories of bandaging up his mother’s various self-inflicted wounds guided him through disinfecting and cleaning Issie’s injury with a level of practice he hoped impressed her.

‘Thank you, Steve,’ she said quietly after he had finished.

‘Do you want some painkillers?’

‘Yes please.’

He gave her two and a cup of hot chocolate with a shot of whisky. Then he led her up the stairs, regagging and binding her to a king-sized brass bed, before covering her with the duvet and running his bath. As he lay now in the water, savouring the wine, thinking of her waiting for him, his mind went over the day:
receiving the warning letter; starting that woman’s car; taking her money; ditching the Mondeo; finding this house; fending off the do-gooding driver; remembering that a place like this would have an alarm. It had been a great day!

He couldn’t afford to lose her now. Looking back he realised that she had come close to being really ill, what with the cold, lack of food and septic wrist. He had probably saved her life he realised, smiling. Now she owed him everything. Her stepfather was still there: loaded, waiting for his next call. As long as he had her with him, everything was going to be all right. She really was his lucky charm.

During the tortuous drive to Surrey HQ Fenwick rang Bernstein to let her know he had some evidence for immediate processing. She was in a meeting but Bazza answered and recognised his voice immediately.

‘It’s good to hear from you, sir,’ His words dropped to a whisper. ‘The chief constable is away at a police authority meeting all day.’

‘I’ll bring the item in personally, then. And Deidre; is she around?’

‘No, sir. There’s a coordination conference with Sussex and Hampshire but she’s due back this afternoon.’

‘Thank you, Bazza, very helpful.’

As he finished the call he caught Tate observing him from the rear-view mirror. He broke eye contact immediately but Fenwick said, ‘Are you curious?’

‘Yes, sir!’

‘One of the teachers has found something of Issie’s that might be evidence of the abuse we suspected on viewing her A-level artwork.’

‘But that theory’s been dismissed, sir, as low probability.’ Tate frowned.

‘Has it? Well I always have the option of including it in the
wrap-up of Flash Harry.’ He scratched his cheek, realising he hadn’t shaved. ‘Yes; that would work.’

Tate escorted him up to the detectives’ room. It was almost empty and the few there did an amazing job of not seeing him.

‘I can arrange to have the item sent securely to the lab if you like, sir,’ Tate volunteered and Fenwick accepted gratefully.

Only later did he think to ask him what case reference he had given it.

‘Both, sir; and I’ve made sure the receivers on Goldilocks noted the shirt before it left here.’

‘Thank you, Tate; that was smart.’

The lanky red-head beamed.

‘Your car will take a few hours to get here, I’m afraid, sir. I could have had it sent to Lewes but then I thought you’d need a driver.’

‘You did the right thing, thanks.’

That gave him time to go out for a decent coffee during which he could think how best to introduce the meeting with Lulu Bullock in his case file and call Big Mac to chase up his report. He downed a double espresso while making sketchy notes of inquiry thinner than the napkin he was writing on. He ordered another espresso and called home on the spur of the moment.

Alice was pleased to hear from him but that was all that could be said for the call. His mother was due later and as the children had finished school for the Christmas holiday he asked Bess to make sure her room looked nice. It was a monosyllabic exchange.

After his call with Big Mac he started to feel restless. He would be missed at MCS soon. He felt disorientated but he told himself sleeping over at Lulu’s was innocent – well, all right, not entirely but nothing had happened really. He had been obliged to stay at the school anyway so it wasn’t as if he had wasted any time and as for their almost encounter … it didn’t mean anything.

That wasn’t what was really eating him, though. It was the morning after; that statue, the self-portrait with an unnerving
resemblance to Nightingale. As he replayed each fragment of the evening he became increasingly uneasy. He drank the espresso at the counter and walked back, oblivious to the eerie quiet of the streets.

In the small waiting area by the lifts on the ground floor he recognised Jane Saxby and his unease vanished in a wave of remorse and sympathy.

‘Lady Saxby, what are you—?’

‘Jane, please Superintendent, I’ve told you before.’

She tried to smile but her face collapsed on the effort. She had aged even more since he had last seen her.

‘Are you waiting for someone?’

‘Yes, you.’

‘I’m not involved any more; surely you’re aware of that.’

‘I know, but Bill’s decided you’re the only man for the job and I agree with him.’

Despite the tragic circumstances Fenwick was embarrassed. How had she known he was still at HQ? He glanced around; one of Saxby’s private detectives must be watching the place.

‘I’m sure it would be better to see Chief Constable Norman when he returns.’

‘I’ve come to see you,’ she insisted as he hesitated, ‘please?’

He sighed. This was very risky. At least he had to find somewhere out of sight. He asked and was buzzed through to an empty interview room on the ground floor.

‘Please sit. Would you like something to drink?’

‘No thanks. You’re wondering why I’m here taking up your time.’

‘No, it’s just that …’

‘I know there’s no news of Issie. If there were, Tony would have told us. He’s a godsend, even Bill appreciates him. I realise that he must be due some leave by now but still he stays. Are all family liaison officers the same?’

‘It sounds like you have someone special.’ Fenwick scribbled a note to mention Tony to Bernstein. ‘So …?’

‘Why am I here? Well it’s simple; I had a dream about Issie last night. Please don’t look like that; I know I sound pathetic …’

‘I didn’t mean to appear dismissive.’

‘You didn’t, Superintendent, dismissive I can cope with. Pity is more difficult.’ Her voice caught.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. Bill said I was stupid to come but when we heard you were here I just had to. This wasn’t an ordinary dream. It was as if I was in the room with her, right there, really strange. Can I tell you about it?’

‘Of course.’ He took out his notebook and found the day’s page, so far with little noted.

‘Firstly, I know she is still alive. She’s being held by that man Mariner. He hasn’t hurt her exactly,’ Jane Saxby’s face twisted with the effort to remain calm, ‘but he has abused her. She’s tied up a lot of the time but it’s somewhere warm – at least now it is. At first I think she was very cold, in fact I’m sure she was, that’s the only reason I can think why I was freezing all the time. Now it’s better and she’s fed too.’

‘Do you have any idea where she might be?’

‘No, I’m sorry. In the dream all I see is her face. She’s been crying, I can see that, but she looks more determined now and – what’s the word? – resourceful, like she knows how to cope. That’s good, isn’t it?’

She looked at him hopefully. Fenwick took a moment to finish what he was writing.

‘It was a dream – I can’t really comment on what it might mean.’ If he wasn’t allowed pity then honesty would have to do.

Jane Saxby gave him the collapsing smile again that made his heart ache.

‘The point is, Mr Fenwick … Andrew … the point is that I want you to think of her as very much alive. If anyone could survive this it’s Issie. Just because it’s been over two weeks doesn’t mean she’s dead. You have to believe me. When she was just a little girl she ran away into the forest – playing survival games that made
us sick with worry – but she turned up the following morning, not even hungry.

‘This is a girl who never left home without her emergency kit and iron rations; who went with her father into central Africa at the age of eleven and came face to face with a bull elephant that wandered into their camp. She thought it was “cool”. When she came home she decided she would adopt a whole herd and started a collection at school to fund their protection. She is the most amazing child, Andrew, someone special. She will not give in to this – so please, don’t give up on her.’

Fenwick kept his eyes on the notebook until he was confident of his expression and then looked Issie’s mother square in the face. He was rewarded with a proper smile.

‘I can see you feel it too,’ she said, ‘that’s good.’

‘She’s the first thing I think of every morning and my last thoughts at night are of her.’ He said the simple truth without emphasis but now it was her turn to look away.

‘You must keep looking for Issie, Superintendent.’

‘But I—’

‘You’re a resourceful man and the investigative team sits in this building. I’m begging you, please get involved. I know you’ll find her. You’re the only man who can.’

He heard himself explain to her that the chief constable had taken the lead; that there were seventy officers still working around the clock looking for Issie; that there was a nationwide hunt … but as he saw her out he knew that, somehow, he would do as she asked.

The major incident room for Goldilocks was on the same floor as the detectives’ room. Fenwick strolled down and found only the receivers and a researcher there.

‘I’d like to see the listing of all reports of sightings of Mariner and Issie following the offer of the reward.’ His remark was met with looks of astonishment. ‘There may be a link to an unresolved aspect of the Flash Harry case.’

‘But there are hundreds, sir,’ one of the receivers objected.

‘Today would be good.’

He settled himself at a desk out of sight from the door and started to read. After the first half-dozen the reading changed to scanning but he had developed a system. There was a large-scale map of Surrey on one board and of Sussex on another, with smaller maps for the other counties dotted around. By referencing the maps he started to put the sightings in order based on a widening geographic circle with the caravan at the centre. After thirty had been placed in that way he ran out of space and removed them to another desk before starting on the next pile. He lost track of time.

‘I said excuse me, sir, only I noticed what you were doing and it’s just …’ The young woman clerk standing above him had flushed an unattractive pink that made her neck blotchy.

‘Go on, out with it.’

‘Well, the system you’re using, sir, I’ve done it already. I’ve got a computer program that can simulate the pattern of the sightings by any noted criteria.’

‘Noted criteria being?’

‘Time and date of receipt; location; details of the witness; notable features …’

‘Such as?’

‘As prioritised by DC Bernstein, sir,’ she saw him open his mouth and rushed on, ‘those include petrol stations, lock-ups, garages, anywhere close to a cashpoint, food shops; plus any of the known addresses that Issie might have gone to.’

‘Can you show me?’

Once seated at her terminal the researcher relaxed into her role as helpful educator. She brought up screen after screen of data, then maps showing plotted sightings. Fenwick’s knee started aching and he pulled up a chair.

‘Go back to the beginning again, would you? I’d like to look at the maps based on sightings from the first two days after they left the pump station.’

When the first map came up Fenwick took time to study it carefully. Despite receiving more than a hundred calls in the first twelve hours after the reward was offered, not one sighting came
from the same place. The same was true for the next twelve hours, but as the maps moved into Sunday the tenth, a cluster of four points appeared along the A272 between Midhurst and Billingshurst.

‘We looked into that one especially, sir. DS Bernstein sent two officers together to interview the witnesses.’

‘Can I see the statements?’

‘Of course!’

With a flourish she entered a few keystrokes and three documents appeared on her screen, linked by unique reference numbers to the location reports. Fenwick read them quickly.

‘Can I see the fourth one, please?’

A look of confusion filled her face.

‘Ah, could you just give me a minute, sir?’

Fenwick leant back and watched the increasingly frantic taps of her fingers as she searched the electronic files. After five minutes he stood up and walked over to the map, realising that breathing down her neck probably wasn’t helping. Within a minute he was back, patience not being his strong point. The receiver and second researcher had given up any pretence of working and were offering helpful advice to their colleague whose face was now crimson.

‘And?’

‘It’s not here, sir. I have the call reference linked through to the map but the witness statement isn’t logged.’

‘Maybe it’s because the call came more than a week later?’ the other researcher suggested. ‘Perhaps it’s filed elsewhere?’

‘That’s what I thought, but I still can’t find it.’

‘Who was the call from?’ Fenwick asked.

‘It was from … a Ms Nicholls from Engleworth and Rodgers, a firm of estate agents. Ms Nicholls rang on the sixteenth on her return from a week’s holiday – she had missed the original media coverage but recognised Mariner when she saw a reconstruction this weekend.’

Fenwick had a vague memory of Bernstein saying something about a call from an estate agent. Surely she would have looked into it?

‘Bring up the record of the call would you?’

The researcher opened the document and Fenwick read it out loud.

‘It says Ms Nicholls rang to report seeing a man answering Mariner’s description hovering outside the estate agents the previous Saturday … that would be the 9th. He picked up one of their flyers from the rack outside before walking away. She didn’t see the announcement about Mariner being wanted in connection with Issie until she returned.’

‘What sort of flyer was it the man picked up?’

‘Sir?’

‘It’s not a difficult question.’

‘I, ah … if it doesn’t say, then I don’t know, sir.’

‘Could you give me Ms Nicholls’ number? Now, please.’

In the privacy of the farthest desk in the detectives’ room his hand hesitated over the handset. Then he dialled.

‘Yes?’

‘Deidre? It’s Andrew. Are you somewhere you can speak privately?’

‘Hang on …’ He heard the sound of footsteps and a door closing. ‘OK, what is it?’

‘Deidre, I don’t know how to say this but …’ He paused and took a deep breath. ‘I’ll be blunt. I think there’s a sighting of Mariner that needs looking into ASAP.’

‘And this would have come to your attention how, exactly?’ The weather outside had nothing on her frostiness.

‘Does that matter? Look, this isn’t easy. Jane Saxby came into Guildford HQ this morning.’

‘Oh great, and you took the chance to see her while I was out.’

‘No; she came in looking for me. I can’t help that, Deidre; I tried to avoid it and persuade her to talk to someone else but she wouldn’t.’

‘So nothing to do with your ego, then.’

‘For God’s sake, just listen, will you? I’ll grovel and apologise some other time but right now surely our shared priority is Issie’s welfare.’

‘A
shared
priority, Andrew? I thought I could trust you, but it just goes to show I should have known better.’