Frozen Grave (40 page)

He knocked at the door and waited, being buffeted by the gales.

‘Hello, gorgeous. Romantic . . . candlelight, just for us.’

‘Yes, perfect, isn’t it?’

He put his bottle up next to the other wine as he came in and put his bag down. ‘Ah . . . you had guests, I see.’

Megan closed the door behind him and locked it.

‘Not
had
– have.’

‘Huh?’

‘We have guests.’

Harding, Paula and Emily appeared in the archway that separated the kitchen from the sitting area and lounge.

‘Oh . . . I see,’ said Ellerman. ‘I get it now – what’s this, a lynch mob?’

‘More of a support group,’ said Megan.

‘I’m surprised to see you here, Jo,’ he said to Harding.

‘I couldn’t resist it.’ She smiled.

‘Well, forgive me if I don’t intend to play ball but I have better things to do with my time. Paula, I thought you and I had an understanding. Everything’s in place. You let
yourself be dragged into this. It’s just mindless.’

‘You lied to us, JJ,’ Paula answered. ‘You lied about so many things. I can’t believe anything you say.’

He shook his head in disbelief. ‘Emily? You can’t be seriously expecting me to explain myself to you? Out of all the women here, I thought we knew one another. I’ve been a good
friend to you – supportive – picked you up after your disastrous marriage ended. Now you turn on me?’

Emily didn’t answer.

‘You may as well sit down and have a glass of wine,’ said Megan. ‘We just want to talk. Every woman here deserves the right to speak her mind to you.’

‘Who says?’

‘We do.’

‘You’re speaking for everyone here now, are you?’

‘Yes, I believe so.’

‘What gives you the fucking right to do that?

‘Emily?’ Megan said. Ellerman was staring at her. She didn’t look at him.

‘Emily, could you show JJ the agreement, please?’ said Megan. Emily placed it on the table. Ellerman picked it up and speed-read it.

‘Huh . . .’ He threw it down in contempt. ‘I won’t sign this – even if I did, it would mean nothing.’

‘Not strictly true,’ said Harding. ‘We are all witnesses to it.’

‘Oh, shut the fuck up, you nasty bitch.’ He glared at her. ‘This has nothing to do with you. I don’t even know why you’re here. Pathetic – all of you. I
won’t answer to a bunch of lonely, frustrated gold diggers who deserve everything they get. None of you mean anything to me. You can all go to hell.’ He went to open the door and
couldn’t. ‘Open it . . .’ he hissed into Megan’s face. Harding stepped forward to support her and speak to Ellerman.

‘Sit down. You’re losing control. Sit down, for Christ’s sake. There is no harm in talking to us.’

‘Fuck off.’

He pushed Harding. She fell backwards and flinched as she hit the side of the kitchen table.

‘Who the fuck do you think you are? All of you?’ He turned and wrenched on the handle of the door. He caught hold of Megan by her arm. ‘Open the fucking door. Get me the key to
this door or I swear someone will get hurt here.’

‘All right. Let her go,’ Harding said coldly and precisely as she walked to the shelf and got the key to the back door and gave it to him. Ellerman pushed Megan back out of the way.
He put the key in the door and unlocked it before turning to them.

‘Never, I repeat, NEVER let me see your faces again. I am warning each one of you. I will come for you. You think you know me. You know nothing about me or what I’m capable
of.’

He opened the door and left. Seconds later, they saw the lights of his car as he was reversing.

‘Fuck that,’ Harding said as she reached for her bag. ‘No one speaks to me like that. No one threatens me and gets away with it.’

‘Please – let him go.’ Megan was still looking dazed and frightened.

Harding didn’t wait to see who would join her as she went out of the door.

‘We can’t let her go on her own,’ said Megan. ‘We said we were all in this together. We have to make sure she’s all right. All of us.’ She opened a kitchen
drawer and took out three torches. Paula and Emily looked at one another. ‘Okay . . .’ said Megan. ‘You two stay here. We’ll be back as soon as we can.’

She caught up with Harding at the back of the house and got into her car. Harding got to the top of the village and took a right. They saw Ellerman’s car at the side of the old granite
tramline that led up to the quarry. It looked as if it had spun off the road.

The rain sprayed like gravel on their faces as they got out of the car.

‘Why isn’t he in his car?’ she said to Megan as they looked around in the dark for him.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Where does he think he’s going? Is he trying to get away from us on foot? Maybe his car has broken down?’

‘He’s going the wrong way. He’s going up onto the moor. He must think this is a lane. We have to follow him.’

Harding followed Megan as they made their way by the light of the moon. The clouds were chasing fast and the moon came in bursts of light, reflecting off the granite road.

They reached the quarry but there was no sign of Ellerman.

Megan led Harding round to the back entrance of the quarry and they started their descent inside. High above them on the opposite side of the quarry, at the cliff edge, they saw a light and they
heard something fly past them in the air and hit the brush.

She turned to see Megan holding the back of her hand against her face. ‘What is it? Have you been hit?’

‘Yes.’

‘We need to get out of here,’ Harding said as she saw the wound open up on Megan’s cheek.

‘This way.’ Megan turned and they squatted low and moved under cover of the brush.

‘Christ!’ A missile glanced across Harding’s back and another banged into the stone beside her. ‘I can see someone up there. There’s something moving. How can he
see us? It’s pitch-dark.’

They kept the granite off-cuts for cover as they made their way back up round the quarry.

‘What the hell is he doing?’

‘He’s trying to kill us,’ Harding said as they emerged from the cover of the banks and the wind battered them again.

A light flickered on the other side of the quarry.

‘We’re too exposed here. We have to run,’ Megan said, turning her face from the wind so that she could talk. ‘I can’t see the light any more. We need to get back to
the house and phone the police.’ They looked down the way they had come.

‘Do you have your mobile?’ asked Harding.

‘It won’t work up here.’

‘I must have left mine in my bag in my car.’

They kept close to the ground as they hurried down towards the village. Harding crouched by her car. Ellerman’s car was still there.

‘Why hasn’t he left?’ she hissed as she opened the back door. The light from inside the car flooded out. Harding reached inside and pulled her bag off the back seat. She found
her phone and dialled Willis. She shouted into the phone as she crouched beside the car for cover.

‘We’re in trouble. I’m on the moor near Megan Penarth’s. Ellerman’s gone mad. He’s trying to kill us.’

‘We’re half an hour away from you,’ answered Willis.

‘Hurry.’

Willis dialled Tucker’s number.

‘We need you to get out to Megan Penarth’s. We just had a panic call from Jo Harding. Ellerman has turned up and he’s trying to kill them. Can you get a rescue helicopter up
there?’

‘No way. We’ve got storms causing havoc here,’ he answered. ‘Where are you now? How far away?’

‘We have just turned off the dual carriageway towards Bovey Tracey and are heading up to the moors.’

‘You’ll never make it that way. The river has burst its banks and there’s widescale flooding and trees blown down. Turn round before you get caught in it.’

Carter swerved to avoid a tree that had fallen across the road. The sheets of rain pounded the windscreen and debris snagged on the wiper as it bounced off the bonnet. Willis looked across at
Carter for an answer.

‘We don’t have any choice – we have to try,’ he called out as he slowed the car down and put it into first. The narrow lane had become a river.

‘Turn round and I’ll pick you up on the dual carriageway in a four-wheel drive,’ said Tucker.

‘How long?’

‘Half an hour.’

‘Too long.’

‘You’ll never make it, Carter, listen to me; I know those roads.’

‘Okay. Okay. We’ll wait by the turn-off.’

Willis looked across at Carter, who didn’t seem to be turning.

‘Guv?’

‘I know, Eb. I’m doing it. It’s not that easy turning in floodwater. This road has changed into a river in the last few minutes.’

‘Can we reverse?’

‘No, we’ll stall. The water will go up the exhaust. We have to go on and see if there’s somewhere safe to turn round.’

‘How can it just all happen so quickly?’

‘The ground’s saturated. We’re caught in a flash flood.’ Carter kept the car going in first gear as the floodwater rose up onto the bonnet. The car began to slide
backwards.

‘Christ – we’re getting washed away.’ They slid sideways down the lane. The back of the car was pushed into the hedge. The fallen tree stopped them moving any further as
the water surged up as far as Willis’s passenger window.

Carter revved the engine as he inched forward in first and then turned the wheel hard as he got past the tree trunk. Then he accelerated hard and the car sped back down the lane, carried with
the fast-moving water. When they reached the pooling floodwater at the bottom they saw the lights of a four-wheel drive opposite them.

Carter wound down his window and shouted across.

‘Is it too deep, do you think?’

Tucker put his head out of the driver’s window.

‘Give it a go. If it doesn’t work you can wade through and I’ll get ready to help.’

Carter looked at the swirling water ahead and then across at Willis.

‘Open your window and get ready to jump out if you have to.’

‘Guv, there’s a steep drop my side.’

Carter leant across to have a look out of Willis’s window.

‘The trees will stop us going far. We can give it a go or get out and wade.’

‘Okay. Let’s try it, guv.’

‘Willis – remind me never to come back to the countryside.’

‘I definitely will.’

Carter kept the revs high and the car moving as he tried to find the lowest point of the flood, but the water was over the headlights. They shone in the muddy-brown river water.

‘Christ, I’m relieved to see your ugly mug.’ Carter got out of the car, onto dry land, and shook hands with Tucker. ‘I thought you were going to have to send a boat not a
Land Rover.’

‘Yeah, I didn’t want to panic you but there wouldn’t have been much I could do if you went over the edge. You all right?’ Tucker asked Willis, who was quiet.

‘Just want to get going.’

‘Okay. You get in, Willis, and, Carter, if you drive back to the main road and pull in at the lay-by, we’ll collect your car as soon as we can. We’ll take the other road up to
the moor and hope we can get through the other way.’

After Carter had parked up he got into the cab of the Land Rover and sat next to Willis. He looked at the dashboard.

‘Christ – this thing’s got everything.’

‘Let’s hope so,’ Tucker said as hail started pelting the windscreen. He drove down the dual carriageway and took the next turning off towards the moor.

At the hospital, Detective Constable Zoe Blackman looked at the time – it was 9 p.m. She went to the vending machine in the hallway for some chocolate.

She was halfway back along the corridor when she noticed that the louvre blinds to Toffee’s window were closed. She couldn’t see him. She dropped the chocolate and ran the last few
paces. As she opened the door she saw Simon’s back to her as he leant over Toffee. He was holding something over Toffee’s face.

‘Simon?’ He didn’t look at her. He stayed leaning over Toffee. Everything about the way his shoulders were hunched and the tension in his neck told her that something was
wrong.

‘Simon, step away from the bed, please.’

Zoe took a few steps to come level with him and she reached out to hold his arm. She looked at Simon’s face. He’d been crying. Toffee’s eyes were open and staring at him.

‘Sorry – I was just helping him get a drink.’

Zoe could tell they’d been talking.

‘Toffee?’ She looked at his face. He blinked.

‘Yes . . .’ His voice was croaky and it came out as a whisper.

‘Is everything all right in here? Is Simon bothering you?’

Toffee didn’t answer.

‘I only wanted to say something to him, that’s all.’ Simon took a step back from the bed.

‘What? What did you want to say to him?’

He didn’t answer. Toffee’s machines began squealing and within ten minutes he was pronounced dead.

Harding left her car where it was as they raced back to the house.

‘Whose car is that?’

There was a green Mini Cooper parked outside Megan’s house.

Megan opened the door to see a short-haired blonde woman sitting at her kitchen table.

‘Where’s my husband?’ Dee Ellerman looked behind them, as if she expected him to walk in as well.

‘We don’t know.’ Harding came forward. ‘We think he went up onto the moors.’

Megan got some kitchen towel and held it against her cheek to stop the bleeding. ‘Where are Paula and Emily?’ she asked, looking around.

‘No one was here when I got here. The door was open,’ Dee replied.

Megan looked at Harding. ‘Perhaps they followed us? Maybe they decided to go and look for us?’ Megan stared at Dee. ‘Jo and I will go and take a look towards the moor if you
stay here in case they come back. The police are on their way.’

Dee shook her head. ‘Don’t involve the police. You shouldn’t have done that.’

‘Why did you decide to come, Dee?’ asked Megan.

‘To see for myself, to face it all. But I don’t want the police involved.’

‘Stay here, Dee. We’ll get back as quickly as we can.’

Outside, the wind buffeted them as they ran up behind the back of the house to the pony’s field. Harding went one way, Megan the other as they looked for Paula and Emily. After fifteen
minutes they met up again outside the house. The door was open slightly.