To Die Alone (2 page)

‘So what do you think, Hawk?’ asked Bob Crowther as he unscrewed the lid of his flask and poured out a cup of steaming tea. ‘Is chummy up here?’

Crowther, the leader of Levton Bridge search and rescue team for more than fifteen years, glanced over at his companion, a large man who stood on the edge of the copse. Chewing on a chocolate bar as he looked silently out over the valley, Detective Chief Inspector Jack Harris did not appear to have heard the question and for a few moments, the only sound was the insistent patter of the rain on the swathe of bracken stretching down to the stream. Bob Crowther, well attuned to his friend’s silences after so many years, took a couple of sips of tea and glanced behind him. He frowned at the sight of his fellow team members sheltering among the trees, appreciating the rest after the afternoon’s battles against the gale. The realization that their search was getting them nowhere prompted him to try again with his friend.

‘I mean,’ said Crowther, ‘if Meredith was out here, I would have expected us to have found him by now. Or at least turned up something to suggest which way he went.’

‘Indeed.’ Harris did not turn round.

‘It would not have been the first time we’ve searched the hills for someone who was sitting at home watching Countdown, would it? Remember that bloke who turned up at the B and B in—?’

‘He’s here.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘He’s here,’ repeated Harris in a firm voice that brooked no argument as he finally turned round and looked his friend in the eye. His voice softened slightly. ‘He’s here, Bob. I can feel it.’

Crowther inclined his head slightly and Harris stared out over the valley again. He had been experiencing a growing sense of unease as the afternoon had worn on, a sense as he and the team trudged through the rainswept hills that something was badly wrong beneath the brooding north Pennine skies. Jack Harris had never been able to explain his instincts but always maintained that they stretched back to his days as a soldier when his life relied on a sixth sense, the sudden feeling that made you turn round without knowing why. Harris had seen comrades die because they hadn’t turned round and the experience had heightened his awareness of the world around him. That’s what he had said on the very few occasions when he would talk about his life before the police.

On this occasion, he had been struggling for several hours to rationalize what exactly he was feeling. He tried once more. Danger? Was it danger? No, not danger, too strong a word, rather an uneasy feeling nagging away at the back of his mind, a growing concern that whatever had threatened Meredith – and he was convinced that something was threatening him – may still be out there. He also had a feeling that whatever it was, was close. Very close. Perhaps, thought Harris grimly, danger was the word after all.

‘I don’t suppose,’ ventured Crowther, after watching him for a few moments, ‘that your instincts happen to tell you where he is?’

‘Sorry, Bob. They’re never that specific.’

‘I guessed as much,’ sighed Crowther. ‘Well, whatever has happened to him, I keep coming to the same question: why would he head across the hills when his car broke down? He’s lived up here long enough to know that if he’d gone back on the road, he could have been in Levton Bridge in an hour or so.’

‘Indeed so.’

‘And where was he going anyway? If it’s right that he told his office that he was going to an appointment at Ramsgill, whichever route you take, it’s north. And Trevor Meredith was driving East. Towards Roxham.’

‘He was,’ said Harris, finishing his chocolate and stuffing the wrapper into his backpack.

‘So what you thinking?’

‘I’m thinking how dangerous complacency can be.’

‘You can’t keep beating yourself up about it. These things can catch us all out.’

‘Yes, but we lost precious time,’ said Harris with a shake of the head. ‘I tell you, Bob, I’ve got a bad feeling about this one.’

It had been, he recalled, the opposite scenario earlier in the day. A detective chief inspector in the market town of Levton Bridge, Jack Harris had been in a rare cheerful mood as he passed the control room in the Victorian house that served as divisional headquarters. The previous Friday, he had been in Carlisle Crown Court to see three travelling criminals from Merseyside jailed for stealing £95,000 of quad bikes from farms in his area. One incident had seen a farmer threatened with a baseball bat, the man subsequently suffering a mild stroke and now unable to work, his farm still on the market the best part of a year later. Acutely aware that the raids had sent fear rippling through the area’s hill communities, Harris and his team had been after the gang for months and they had all received a judge’s commendation at the conclusion of the trial. Not that Jack Harris put much store by commendations but it was nice to be recognized.

Outside the court building when the trial ended, the inspector had given several media interviews, during which he went out of his way to warn other gangs considering coming into the area that Levton Bridge Police were waiting for them. He had even looked into the television camera, pointing a finger somewhat dramatically into the lens and revealing that he was already well advanced in the planning of the next operation. Given that he wasn’t planning anything of the sort, Harris had spent the weekend coming up with ways to thwart the gangs and by the Sunday evening, he was satisfied that he had enough in place to divert any awkward questions from the top brass when he returned to work the next morning.

But there hadn’t been any awkward questions and Harris had spent the first hour of the day going through all the weekend newspaper reports, delighting in headlines that made for good reading. Never a great politician, Jack Harris was nevertheless shrewd enough to know that things like this played well at headquarters down in Roxham. He knew the high-ups would be reading the same articles, basking in the reflected glory, and Harris had already pinned up the best of the cuttings on the CID room wall to encourage his small team of detectives. HR would like that, he reckoned. Staff motivation, that’s what they were always banging on about in their memos.

Now, staring over the valley and gloomily turning the events of the day over and over in his mind, the inspector realized that his good mood had coloured his reaction when the call came in about Trevor Meredith shortly before lunchtime. He knew that he should have immediately sensed that something was amiss. The call had come from one of Trevor Meredith’s concerned fellow workers at the town’s dog sanctuary, reporting that he had not turned up that morning, that there was no sign of him at his home and that he was not answering his mobile phone, that he was a conscientious man and that such behaviour was out of character.

The inspector, who happened to be passing the control room at the time, stepped in to listen in on the conversation, his initial instinct being to take no action. Jack Harris had long regarded it as a man’s inalienable right to be able to disappear for a few hours if he so wished. He had spent enough years concocting spurious inquiries as an excuse for heading out into the hills to think any different, and everyone at Levton Bridge Police Station knew it. A man was entitled, he had announced as he left the room, to walk his dog without having half the police force out looking for him. The control operators had smiled at the comment: they knew to take advantage of a good Jack Harris mood.

The inspector’s viewpoint changed when his desk phone rang some time later. His mouth full of ham sandwich, he had taken the call to be told by control that a traffic officer heading along the moorland road between Levton Bridge and Roxham had spotted Trevor Meredith’s estate car. There was no sign of the driver and no note on the windscreen indicating where he had gone. A quick check had revealed a broken fanbelt. A quick call to Jasmine Riley’s workplace revealed that she had taken the day off, citing a family emergency. On hearing the news, Harris instinctively sensed that something was wrong. He had cursed then telephoned his old friend Crowther. The inspector, who had been a member of the search and rescue team ever since his return to the area several years previously, knew how dangerous the hills could be, especially in brutal weather like the storm battering his office window. Within minutes, the volunteers were leaving their jobs and heading for the organization’s hut on the edge of a small patch of open grass behind the police station, Harris among them, struggling into his waterproofs as he went.

Once out on the hills, Crowther divided them into teams to cover as much distance as possible, meticulously retracing Meredith’s possible routes. The teams – Crowther’s working their way along the wooded valleys, a second one crossing the moor and the third moving their way steadily along the ridge – had been searching for more than three hours now but had produced little to suggest Meredith’s whereabouts. Few people were out on the hills and none of those the team had encountered, a shepherd and a couple on a hiking holiday, had seen him except for one vague report of a man with a dog, seen in the distance for a fleeting moment or two before they disappeared into the mist.

By the time late afternoon arrived, the winds had dropped slightly and Crowther had called a short halt as the searchers entered the copse. As the volunteers sat and talked in low tones over snacks and hot tea, their mood continued to darken: they were starting to suspect that they would not find Trevor Meredith. Everyone knew that the forecast was for the storm to renew its energies as the evening wore on. Several of the rescue team were already allowing their gaze to wander to the new batch of dark clouds gathering on the horizon.

‘I think we have to face facts,’ said Crowther, mindful of their mutterings, ‘either he’s dead or, instinct or not, he was never here. What if his girlfriend picked him up when the car broke down?’

‘Then why did he not leave a note?’

‘Maybe he forgot. And she still hasn’t turned up, has she?’

Before the DCI could reply, his mobile phone rang. Fishing it out of his pocket, he glanced at the name on the screen:
Gallagher
.

‘Perhaps our resident Cockney can shed some light on the proceedings,’ said the inspector: Matty Gallagher was the detective sergeant at Levton Bridge.

‘Hope so.’

‘Matty, lad,’ said the inspector, ‘I do hope you’re not going to tell me that we’ve got wet-through for nothing and that Meredith and his young lady have been enjoying a cream tea in Roxham?’

‘Now that,’ said Gallagher’s voice, ‘sounds nice. Better than the muck they served in the canteen at lunchtime. No, we have not found them. The name and address in Meredith’s diary for the appointment turns out to be fake.’

‘Jasmine Riley still missing?’

‘Yeah, but we’ve tracked down her old mum in Chester. The story Jasmine told her workmates on the phone this morning? Absolute cobblers. Fabrication from start to finish. Mum does not have cancer  – in fact, she is really upset that her daughter would tell anyone she had – and she has not been rushed to hospital. What’s more, she hasn’t heard from her daughter for the best part of a week and was starting to get concerned.’

‘Intriguing.’

‘Well, if you think that’s intriguing, get this. You know I said no one at Levton Bridge railway station had seen Jasmine? Well, we tracked down a bloke who got off further down the line at Maltby – he was visiting his grandmother – and he remembers someone who looked like Jasmine sitting in the same carriage. Caught her staring at him a couple of times. Wondered if she fancied him, the arrogant git. According to Butterfield, he’s no oil painting.’

‘We can assume that Jasmine was on her way to Roxham then. It’s the next stop.’

‘And chummy’s car was found on the Roxham road, remember.’

‘Indeed it was,’ said Harris. ‘Look, are we a hundred per cent sure they weren’t travelling together?’

‘The witness did not see anyone else with her. The train got into Roxham just as the Manchester service arrived, so the station was busy, but no one among the platform staff remembers seeing them either. I’ve got the Roxham plods checking things out but they’ve not turned up anything yet. Not sure they will now.’

There was a brief silence.

‘What you thinking?’ asked Gallagher.

‘I don’t know, but whatever it is, it’s not good. I take it there’s still no word from the chopper? We could do with some help.’

‘Control talked to them an hour ago – they reckon it’s still far too bad to fly.’

‘Try again, will you? Everything else quiet?’

‘Not the word I would use. Uniform have been called twice to punch-ups at The King’s Head. There’s a load of locals in for a sesh by the looks of it. Been there since opening time.’

‘Anyone hurt?’

‘Na, it’s all been a bit handbags.’

‘What are the fights about?’

‘Uniform are not sure. I’m keeping out of it, to be honest, we’ve got enough to do compiling those bloody burglary statistics that the super wants for his meeting. See you wheedled yourself out of that one.’

‘Sometimes it’s OK to pull rank.’

‘So it would seem. Oh, some old fellow called Harry Galbraith has been on for you three times. He’s getting all aeriated, says it’s urgent. Who is he?’

‘The Farmwatch guy. Lives up at Sneets Edge. I rang him over the weekend to suggest we do an op tonight.’

‘For why?’

‘Thought it would play well after my comments about travelling gangs after the case on Friday. We were going to put a press release out about it later in the week. Show that I was not talking hogwash.’

‘As if,’ said Gallagher. ‘What do you want me to tell him?’

‘Well there’s no way I can do it now. Ask uniform if they can spare a couple of bodies. All they need to do is park up somewhere in case the farmers need them. Shouldn’t happen, mind – they’re not supposed to get out of their cars. All they have to do is take registration numbers.’

‘I’ll ask but don’t hold your breath.’

‘In which case, make sure that Galbraith does not go out on his own if we haven’t got anyone available.’

‘Surely he knows that.’

‘Yeah, but he tends to get a bit over-enthusiastic. Give him a walkie-talkie and he thinks he’s Rambo. Daft bastard even asked me if we should be blacked up and did I have any spare camouflage trousers? It’s all rather
Cockleshell Heroes
.’