Black Flowers (16 page)

Because she had no choice. If she lost her father – not just physically, but her good memories of him – then she lost everything she’d ever taken for granted about herself. And it was too late to forget about it or pretend. Now, she needed to know.

But she also needed to start looking after herself a bit more. She should get back to the department and see if Neil Dawson had returned the message she’d left. If not, try to chase him up. In the meantime, there were a hundred other things she should be doing in terms of the two bodies found.

Keeping up appearances, all of them.

But appearances were important.

Hannah indicated, waited and then pulled out. The road
wasn’t too busy, but there was traffic. If she was going to investigate here, it would be better to wait. As she drove away, starting back to the department, she watched the broken farmhouse recede away behind her.

Later
, she thought.

Maybe later we’ll have a proper look at you
.

I arrived in Whitkirk along the coastal road. It ran down from the cliff-edge to the north, and I had to drive through the smaller villages first, with their little green squares and holiday cottages and closed-up craft shops. The sky was dull but clear, the clouds like half-hearted smears of paint over the sea. Inland, the hazy sun was already settling down in the distance, already beginning to drape itself in the steam of evening mist rising off the land at the horizon.

The town of Whitkirk had gathered itself together slowly over the years, on a gentle slope that curled around a bay, a jaw-bone shape of mismatched buildings. Before the road descended properly to the seafront, I could see the whole village: an intricate, terracotta spread of houses, uneven, angled rooftops, and cobbled streets. On the opposite cliff, the spire of the abbey was coal-black against the sky.

So here it was. From what I’d read, this was the town on which Robert Wiseman had based parts of the
The Black Flower
, and driving into it now felt like entering a place that was half real, half fiction: somewhere I’d been before, but only in my mind’s eye. In the real world, of course, it was the former home of the Carnegie Crime Festival, and the place where both Wiseman and my father had ended up. Two writers, both staying at The Southerton, both researching the same material. Both dead.

I wasn’t a writer in the same way, but now I was going there too.

The quickest way to the hotel was along the seafront itself. There was a wooden promenade on the left, and, having read the description in
The Black Flower
, I made the association. But I guessed that, without the book, Whitkirk would have just seemed like any other seaside town. I passed cafés, bars and hotels, painted pale pink and yellow, all vaguely reminiscent of summer holidays in entirely different places. There were the usual dark amusement arcades, with their gangs of kids inside, shadowy as ghosts, leaning into the machines. The sounds drifted across: the occasional chatter of money, the forlorn whoop-whoop noise of failure. Along the pavement, there were toy aeroplanes and trains, blaring and lurching, for younger children to sit in.

The Southerton was obvious when I reached it. It was an old-fashioned, five-storey building made of enormous red-stone blocks, and markedly different from the smaller Neapolitan-coloured bed and breakfasts I’d already passed – much grander and far more ornate. Out front, wide steps led up under a glass-domed entrance, with disabled ramps curling up to either side. The name of the hotel was painted on the dome, in a curling script that reminded me of the Paris Metro system. It made me think of inscrutable black cats and
Amelie
.

The turning for the car park was just after the building. I drove into a stretch of tarmac behind the hotel. Mostly empty, which was good, as I was going to need two parking spaces.

I pulled up and checked my phone. Nothing from Barbara Phillips. I slipped it back into my pocket.

There was no entrance to the hotel from the car park, so I walked back round the front. The doors at the top of the steps slipped sideways automatically, releasing the gentle sound of classical music.

I stepped inside.

In contrast to the old-fashioned exterior, the reception was
glamorous and modern, filled with plasma screens and plush settees. The floor was black marble, polished so clean that my reflection hung down below my feet. The whole area was built on slightly different levels, giving it the feel of a lavish bathing room that had been drained of water. There were plants everywhere – great elaborate fronds fanning up from large earthen pots – and plump, black, leather sofas around glass coffee tables. All but one were occupied by groups of suited businessmen, communicating over laptops, tethered to mobile phones, drinking tiny foam-tipped cups of coffee with handles the size of rings. In one corner, a fountain was tinkling and trickling.

Very posh, Dad
.

The reception desk was to the side, fashioned seamlessly from the same black marble as the floor, with large round clocks on the wall behind giving the times in London, Paris, Sydney, Tokyo and New York. The man and woman on duty were both dressed in smart grey suits, the man on the phone, writing something down as I approached. The woman smiled at me, but the smile faltered slightly as she took in my cheap jeans, shirt and trainers, all of it slept in. To be fair to her, she hid any disapproval quickly. I couldn’t entirely blame her anyway. The cheapest room here cost two hundred pounds a night, and I didn’t look like I could afford that because I couldn’t.

‘Good afternoon, sir. How may I help?’

‘I have a reservation. Neil Dawson?’

‘Okay. Let me check for you.’

But worrying about the cost of a hotel room was an everyday thought. I was past that now. Money no longer mattered. I’d spend what I needed to. I’d sleep on the fucking beach if it came to it, or in the car, or not at all.

‘One adult for three nights?’ she said.

‘Yes.’

‘Can I take a swipe of your credit card, Mr Dawson?’

I slipped it out of my wallet. As she dealt with the paperwork, I glanced around the lobby.
Very posh, indeed
. The cost was
something, wasn’t it? Because I didn’t imagine my father could afford this place either. If he was simply researching a book, there must have been cheaper places to stay that would have done just as well – and yet he’d come here. Why? Just because the Carnegie Crime Festival had been held here? To be closer to Wiseman, in some way?

What?

The woman tore some paper off a strip, folded it, and slipped a keycard into it. ‘Would you like the porter to show you to your room, Mr Dawson?’

‘No, thank you.’ I took the card. ‘I’ll bring my bag in later.’

‘Okay. Is there anything else we can help you with today?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You could book me a taxi please.’

‘Certainly, sir. Where are you going?’

I did my best to smile.

‘Huntington Police Station, please.’

Although my father’s body had been found closer to Whitkirk, the vehicle forensic unit was based at Huntington, and so his car had been waiting there for me to collect: parked up amongst the corpses of vehicles that were more obviously crashed and ruined, but not more sad. There were also his belongings, retrieved from The Southerton. I’d received a phone call midweek to advise me they were available for collection. At the time, it hadn’t seemed like a priority, but it felt more urgent now. If the old man on the phone was telling the truth, and my father really had found his grown-up daughter, maybe there would be some clue in his belongings as to how he’d done it.

But that evening, standing at the reception desk of Huntington police department, I learned it wasn’t going to be that simple.

‘I don’t have permission to release the car,’ the desk sergeant told me.

I shook my head. ‘I was told it would be okay.’

‘Well, it seems it’s not any more.’ He rattled his fingers over a
few more keys. ‘There’s a block on the system. That normally means the release has been held back for some reason.’

‘Some reason like what?’

‘Let’s see. I probably won’t be able to tell you precisely.’

Except I didn’t really need him to.
Some reason like reopening the investigation
. That was the only explanation I could think of, and it meant something had changed. Recently too, as I was pretty sure Hannah Price would have tried to get in touch with me. She didn’t have my mobile, and I hadn’t been home in the last twenty-four hours to take the call.

The desk sergeant nodded to himself.

‘Yeah, as I suspected. You’ll need to talk to DS Price’s team at Whitkirk. She’s the lead on this one. There’s no notes on the system as to why.’

‘Okay.’

It was frustrating; I wasn’t sure what to do next. An avenue of investigation had just been closed to me, and I wasn’t sure what others remained open. Barbara Phillips still hadn’t called me. There wasn’t much else I could think of left to follow up.

‘Thanks anyway,’ I said.

I turned to leave, still uncertain about what I was going to do, beyond finding a taxi and getting back to Whitkirk, when he said:

‘Don’t you want them, then?’

I turned back. ‘Sorry?’

‘Your father’s belongings?’ he replied. ‘There’s no block on them. It’s only the vehicle.’

It’s only the vehicle
. What the fuck was going on here?

Regardless, the possessions were something.

‘Yes.’ I walked back. ‘Sorry. I’ll take them please.’

By the time I’d signed for everything and found another taxi, night had fallen. The driver took us on a different route back to Whitkirk, through the countryside. The car bumped and rattled, and my body moved absently with each motion. I felt too tired
worn out both physically and emotionally – to fight it, and the driver didn’t make any real attempt at conversation. He must have sensed the mood I was in.

Because it had turned out that my father’s scant possessions weren’t actually
something
after all.

They were beside me on the back seat now: bagged up unceremoniously in rubbish sacks. When he’d brought them out to me, even the desk sergeant had seemed a little embarrassed by the sight of them; the way the police had dealt with them, it was as though not simply throwing them away altogether had been an afterthought. There was one bag of bundled clothes, gathered from his room at The Southerton, and a second containing toiletries and the usual, bog-standard items that had been left in the car itself: a battered, ring-bound road atlas; a can of de-icer, rusted around the rim; a cloth. There was also a small selection of random CDs, some of which I recognised and imagined I’d never be able to listen to again. And that was everything he’d brought with him, except for the clothes he’d been found in and the missing laptop. All of it was itemised on a printout. I’d scanned down, stared blankly at it for a while, and then signed.

There was nothing there.

No clue as to how he’d found the woman I was supposed to be looking for. Slumped there beside me, the bags contained the bare minimum of everyday items, ones he’d never use again, and which just seemed terribly small.

Keep it together, Neil
.

It was hard. There was nothing there but sad memories of my father; it felt like I could even smell the clothes slightly, reminding me of him, and making my chest ache from the loss. So for most of the journey, I forced myself not to look at them, not think about him. I just stared out of the taxi’s windows. There was little to see there either. The fields to the left were entirely dark except for occasional farmhouse lights dotted here and there, while, to the right, the woods were dense and black: a wall of constantly shifting static, flashing past.

Until, up ahead, there was a sudden bright glint of yellow.

On a subconscious level, I recognised it immediately: a policeman’s jacket, catching the headlights. And as we got closer, I made out more details – grey shapes parked up along the side of the road. The taxi driver didn’t slow down, and so I turned in my seat, watching out of the side window. There was one officer standing there, hands clasped in front of him, and two vehicles just past him. One was a standard police van, while the other was much longer, more like a caravan.
Some kind of incident vehicle?
I caught a flicker of blue and white tape. But then we were past, and it was all receding away behind. I craned my neck round and stared out of the back window. A few seconds later, the road curled, and the scene swung away out of view.

The viaduct.

I’d been too distracted to think about the route we’d taken, but that had to be it: the dirt track that led through the woods to where my father had been found. Not only were the police keeping hold of his car, they were still investigating the scene itself.

So what else had they found there? What were they looking for?

Maybe they know he wasn’t alone there that day
.

I turned forward again, staring at the back of the passenger seat. Trying to think. Up until yesterday, when I’d been convinced his death wasn’t suicide without knowing it for certain, I’d probably have welcomed a new investigation. But now it complicated things. The old man on the phone had warned me not to tell the police anything about him or his daughter, or about what had happened to Ally. He didn’t want them to know. But what if Hannah Price had discovered the woman had been with my father? If she was actively looking for her, there was a real danger our paths would collide, and I’d have to talk to her whether I liked it or not.