Never Go Back (7 page)

Back at Kilveen Castle, Harry met Dangerfield in reception, looking far from happy. He was cross-questioning Bridget about something — or rather someone.

‘Is that all he said?’

‘I’m afraid so, Mr Dangerfield. Back as soon as possible. Those were his words.’

‘But we’re— Oh, Harry.’ Now, just like Barry’s, Harry’s nickname had deserted him. ‘Thank God you haven’t run out on us.’

‘I walked into the village. Magister passed me in his hire car on my way back. Jabber was with him.’

‘Jabber too? This is bloody ridiculous. I told everyone yesterday we’d start at eleven. Well, I’m not waiting on that pair. They’ll just have to catch up with us at the pub if they’re not back by the time we leave. Can you tell them where we’ll be, Bridget? The Lairhillock Inn.’

‘Certainly, Mr Dangerfield.’

—«»—«»—«»—

Harry stepped back outside with Dangerfield, whom he judged to be in need of a calming breath of fresh air. Wiseman’s unexplained jaunt with Lloyd had clearly stretched his patience. He tried to raise Lloyd on his mobile, but got no answer. And he had no number to try for Wiseman.

‘I’m beginning to wonder if organizing this reunion was a good idea,’ he complained as he snapped his phone shut. ‘Nothing seems to be going the way I’d planned.’

‘Perhaps Magister just wanted to show Jabber some of the sights he missed yesterday.’

‘You’d think he might at least have consulted me in that case.’

‘That would have been rather out of character, wouldn’t it?’

‘You can say that again.’

‘I went to the post office to try and buy a camera,’ Harry remarked in an effort to brighten Dangerfield’s mood. ‘Thought we ought to take a few commemorative photographs.’

‘Before there’s no-one left to photograph, you mean?’

‘I’m sure it’s—’

‘No, no. It’s a good idea. I should have thought of it myself. Get one?’

‘No such luck.’

‘Never mind. We’ll stop in Banchory. Should be able to buy a camera there. Smith’s will be open.’

‘Great. Oh, and I, er, bumped into Stronach.’

‘Stronach? You’re having me on. He must be older than Methuselah.’

‘Looked well on it.’

‘You should have asked him to join us.’

‘I did.’

‘And is he going to?’

‘No. But then he always was a miserable so-and-so.’

Dangerfield sighed. ‘We don’t seem to be too popular, do we, Harry?’ Then he summoned a smile. ‘Well, we’ll just have to put a brave face on it.’

—«»—«»—«»—

Dangerfield’s plan for the day comprised a visit to another well-preserved old castle, Crathes, near Banchory, a leisurely lunch at a country inn, followed by tea back at Kilveen. In the event, he delayed their departure by more than half an hour in the hope that Wiseman and Lloyd would return. But they did not. The subsequent stop in Banchory to buy a camera ate further into their schedule and a decision was taken to proceed straight to the Lairhillock Inn, several of the party freely admitting to having had their fill of castles.

—«»—«»—«»—

Much of the conversation over lunch naturally concerned the absence of Wiseman and Lloyd. Erica, who had joined them today, while Dr Starkie rested up at Kilveen — ‘He’s not as fit as he pretends,’ she explained — wondered if their sudden departure, destination unknown, might be connected with Lloyd’s strange turn on the castle roof the evening before. He had, after all, been talking to Wiseman at the time.

‘And to me, my dear,’ said Tancred. ‘But, as you see, I was not invited along. I suppose it’s possible Magister suggested a drive to Jabber in an effort to jolly him out of his fit of the blues.’

‘That would explain why he left you out of it, Tapper,’ laughed Judd, who was putting away the Lairhillock’s beer at an impressive rate. ‘Probably reckoned a succession of snide cracks by you wasn’t what Jabber needed.’

‘This weekend’s been a positive revelation to me, Judder,’ Tancred responded. ‘I’d quite forgotten how side-splittingly funny you could be.’

Harry attempted to head off an exchange of insults between the two by describing his encounter with Stronach. Astonishment that the gruff old gardener was still alive and well was the general reaction. But Erica took a more probing and disturbingly perceptive line.

‘Did you think of asking him about how easy it was to get onto the roof back then, Harry?’

‘Yes. As a matter of fact… I did.’

‘And?’

‘He said the Urquhart family furniture was stored on the upper floors. That’s why they were strictly off limits to the likes of us.’

‘No exceptions?’

‘None.’

‘He was positive about that?’

‘Yes. He was.’

Harry had shied away instinctively from admitting just how ambiguous an answer Stronach had given. But he instantly regretted misrepresenting the old man, not least because the expression on Erica’s face suggested she did not quite believe him. Dissembling never had been his forte.

—«»—«»—«»—

Dangerfield tried Lloyd’s mobile several times during lunch without success. It was not even ringing now, a circumstance which bred a number of wild theories about where he and Wiseman could be that was blocking the signal. They were evidently not en route to the Lairhillock Inn. A phone call to the hotel confirmed nothing had been seen or heard of them.

—«»—«»—«»—

This was still the case when they returned to Kilveen in mid-afternoon. Dangerfield’s exasperation had run its course by then. He suggested it was now or never where group photographs were concerned, so Matthews was drummed into service as cameraman, Dr Starkie was lured down from his room and they all assembled in grinning formation on the castle’s front lawn. Gregson, it transpired, had brought his own camera, which he had been too diffident to mention. That too was put to use. It was agreed more photographs could be taken later when Wiseman and Lloyd condescended to rejoin them — assuming they did so before nightfall.

—«»—«»—«»—

Sarcasm about the pair’s mystery jaunt camouflaged an underlying anxiety. Harry felt sure everyone was thinking what he was thinking. It began like this with Askew. Would it end the same way? There was more going on over this weekend at Kilveen — far more — than the simple, light-hearted reunion Dangerfield had proposed. But Harry for one had not the remotest idea what it was.

—«»—«»—«»—

The photographic session over, the party dispersed, some to their rooms, others to tea in the lounge. Harry took himself off for a walk around the grounds, transformed from the wilderness Stronach had presided over into artfully landscaped lawns, hedges, shrubberies and rockeries, with a winding path beyond tracing a circular route through the surrounding woodland, which Harry followed for a quarter of an hour or so.

Returning via the extensive kitchen gardens, he heard the clink of mallet on ball from the croquet lawn as he was climbing the steps leading to it. At the top, he saw, to his surprise, Dr Starkie lining up a shot — and looking fit enough while he was about it — with Erica Rawson watching from the sidelines, leaning on her mallet. A less likely pair of croquet players he would have been hard pressed to imagine.

Erica saw him a second before Starkie, who was stooped in concentration over the ball, talking as he squinted towards the targeted hoop. ‘We should beware of connecting events simply because they coincide,’ he said. ‘It’s a classic—’

‘Harry!’ Erica shouted, cutting the doctor short.

‘Barnett,’ said Starkie in muted surprise, unravelling himself stiffly from his stoop.

‘Hi,’ said Harry. ‘Who’s winning?’

‘No clear leader so far.’

‘He is,’ said Erica, with a rueful smile. ‘It’s just that one of his tactics is not to admit it.’

‘Aye, well, I have to try everything to compensate for the age gap.’ Starkie ventured a rare smile of his own.

‘I should have thought this was one sport where age wasn’t much of a factor,’ said Harry.

‘It’s always a factor,’ Starkie responded. ‘Surely you’ve—’

‘Erica!’ The voice slicing through their conversation was Dangerfield’s. They looked up to see him hurrying along the flagstoned path from the castle towards them, his face clouded with concern.

‘What’s the matter?’ Erica called.

‘Is there any chance you could drive me into Aberdeen in your car? I honestly don’t feel up to taking the minibus.’ He arrived breathlessly at the edge of the lawn. ‘It’s… an emergency.’

‘What’s happened?’ asked Harry.

‘What? Oh, Harry. I didn’t… see you there.’ Dangerfield wiped some sweat from his brow. ‘Sorry. I ought to… It’s… bad news. There’s been an accident. Magister’s in Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. They’ve just phoned. I, er, think I ought to go and see him. The thing is, er…’

‘What about Jabber?’

Dangerfield did not answer. His mouth shaped words he seemed unable to speak. His gaze met Harry’s grimly across the lawn. Then, slowly and decisively, he shook his head.

Dangerfield told Harry and Erica the little he knew as soon as they had started for Aberdeen. Wiseman’s car had run off the B road somewhere between Aboyne and Ballater around midday and had plunged into the river Dee. Wiseman had scrambled free, but Lloyd had been trapped inside, unconscious, and had drowned.

‘It sounds like that stretch I showed you yesterday, Harry, where I sometimes fish. The road runs right along the river-bank. If you lost control travelling in either direction, you could easily end up in the river. There’s simply nothing to stop you. You’d have to be gunning it, though.’

‘I don’t see Magister as a careful driver,’ said Harry.

‘No. Neither do I.’

‘And which direction was he travelling in?’ asked Erica.

‘They didn’t say. We can ask him. He’s not in bad shape, apparently. Basically just cuts and bruises. But shaken up, of course. And shocked. He was too confused at first to get a message to us.’ Dangerfield rubbed his eyes. ‘What a bloody awful thing to happen.’

‘At least this time we can be sure it was an accident,’ said Harry. But, even as he said it, he realized they could not be sure. Of that or anything else.

At the Royal Infirmary, Erica suggested she wait in the car, reasoning that three visitors — one of them a woman he hardly knew — might be too much of a strain for Wiseman. So Harry and Dangerfield went in without her, following the signs through a warren of stairways and corridors to the ward where he was being kept under observation.

‘The doctor thinks there may have been some concussion,’ the sister explained, ‘so we’re keeping a careful eye on him. It’d be best if you didn’t go straight in. The police are with him.’

There was a small seating area halfway back along the corridor leading to the ward. There Harry and Dangerfield perched on plastic chairs and toyed listlessly with dog-eared magazines while the late afternoon ticked slowly by.

It had not in fact ticked very far when an unpleasant surprise materialized in the form of Inspector Geddes. Harry had assumed the sister meant a local constable was noting down Wiseman’s recollections of the crash. Instead, here was Geddes, all the way from Dundee, this time sans Sergeant Crawford.

‘Mr Barnett and Mr Dangerfield. That’s handy.’

‘We’ve come to see how our friend’s doing, Inspector,’ said Dangerfield levelly.

‘Not so bad, considering. Why don’t you go on in and see for yourself, Mr Dangerfield? I’d like a wee word with Mr Barnett in private, if that’s all right with him.’

‘Fine,’ said Harry, as casually as he could manage. ‘Send Magister my best wishes, Danger.’

‘Will do.’ Dangerfield headed for the ward. He cast Harry a cautioning, sympathetic glance over Geddes’s shoulder as he went.

‘There’s a room down here the sister said we could use,’ said Geddes, leading the way along the corridor.

It occurred to Harry that he and Dangerfield had not given their names to the sister, so there was no way Geddes could have known he would have the opportunity of a ‘private word’. Yet he had already arranged a venue for it. He must have been more or less certain Harry would be one of Wiseman’s visitors, though in reality that had been largely a matter of chance. Vindicating the inspector’s guesswork was a good way to attract suspicion, however — whether inadvertently or not.

The room was small and cheerlessly furnished, with a window looking out onto a loading bay. This, Harry surmised, might be where relatives of a patient were brought to receive bad news. And bad news, he already felt certain, was coming his way.

‘I’m liaising with the Grampian force on this, Mr Barnett,’ Geddes began. ‘In view of the obvious connection with Mr Askew’s death, they’re happy for me to take an interest in what happened today.’

‘Is there an obvious connection, Inspector?’

‘It’s obvious to me. How much do you know about the crash?’

‘Not much. We were hoping Magister — Mr Wiseman — could tell us more.’

‘Aye, well, he’s told me as much as he seems able to, so I’ll sum it up for you. Apparently, he left his fountain pen at the hotel bar in Braemar you all visited yesterday. The Fife Arms. Remember it?’

‘Yes. That is, I couldn’t swear to the name, but—’

‘He phoned them this morning. They said they’d found the pen. So, he decided to drive over there in his hire car. He met Mr Lloyd on his way out and invited him along, Mr Lloyd having missed the trip yesterday. They got to Braemar, collected the pen and started back. He took the B road from Ballater to Aboyne, on the southern side of the Dee. He began to notice some play in the steering. Nothing too serious at first. Then it got worse. He should have stopped. He should certainly have slowed down. But he wanted to catch up with the rest of you, so… he didn’t slow down. Just where the road runs close to the river, as he was approaching a bend, the steering failed completely. They went straight into the river. At some speed. Mr Lloyd wasn’t wearing his seatbelt. He probably knocked himself out on the windscreen when they hit the water. Plus the car keeled over onto his side in the current. Mr Wiseman got out. He’s not exactly sure how. He reached the bank and flagged down the next car. The driver helped him pull Mr Lloyd out, but it took a lot of doing. And by then it was too late.’

‘Terrible,’ Harry murmured.

‘You said it. Especially for Mr Lloyd. He had a wife and grown children, I’m told. There’ll be a lot of grief going around.’

‘So there will.’

‘Your reunion’s beginning to look jinxed, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. It is.’

‘But I don’t believe in jinxes, Mr Barnett.’

‘No?’

‘Absolutely not. Our pathologist couldn’t establish whether some of Mr Askew’s head injuries were inflicted before he fell out of the train. But he couldn’t rule out the possibility either. It’d be as easy to shove an unconscious man through an HST window as for a conscious man to crawl through, don’t you reckon?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Well, I’m sure. And that’s what matters. It’s only a theory. I grant you that. But if we find evidence that the steering on Mr Wiseman’s car was tampered with, it’ll turn into a betting certainty.’

‘Really?’

‘Take my word for it. Now, whoever sabotaged the car was obviously out to get Mr Wiseman. They couldn’t have known Mr Lloyd would be along for the ride. And they got lucky in a sense, with Mr Wiseman taking that riverside route and the Dee being in spate after all the rain we’ve had. Of course, they also got unlucky, because he survived. Maybe they were just chancing their arm. Making use of their… expertise… and seeing what might happen. You see the variables in all this, don’t you?’

‘Yes. I suppose so. But why—’

‘Why? I don’t know, Mr Barnett. Why should one of you old airmen — if that’s who the culprit is — take it into his head to start murdering people he hasn’t seen for fifty years? It’s a good question. But it assumes you haven’t seen each other for fifty years. And that isn’t strictly true, is it? You and the absent Mr Chipchase, for instance. Close friends and business partners throughout that period, I gather.’

‘You gather wrong.’

‘Do I?’

‘I haven’t seen Barry in ten years. And our business association ended more than thirty years ago.’

‘What kind of business was that?’

‘A garage. Car sales and repairs.’

‘Repairs? So, you know all about… steering mechanisms, for example.’

‘Since you ask, no. I don’t know anything about them.’

‘Perhaps Mr Chipchase handled that side of things.’

‘As a matter of fact, he did.’

‘But he’s attending his sister’s funeral in Manchester, so we can rule him out. Or can we? Where exactly did his sister live, Mr Barnett?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘But he did have a sister?’

‘I… don’t know.’

‘You’re going to tell me you don’t know anything about Chipchase Sheltered Holdings Ltd as well, aren’t you?’

‘It’s true. I don’t.’

‘A nasty little scam. Investors thought they were buying into a chain of exclusive nursing homes, with guaranteed rights to see out their days in one free of charge if they needed to. But it was Mr Chipchase’s old age they were subsidizing, not their own. It looks like he suckered Mr Askew into investing. Maybe other old RAF chums as well. Maybe some of them were hoping to settle a score with him this weekend. Him and his… partner.’

‘Ex-partner.’

‘Aye. Of course. Ex.’ Geddes moved his face closer to Harry’s. The suspicion that the inspector had been eating pickled onions earlier in the day became a stomach-turning certainty. But Harry’s stomach was turning for other reasons as well. ‘A lot of the money was never recovered. Salted away with a trusted friend for safekeeping while Chipchase served his all too brief prison sentence. That’d be my bet.’

‘Barry went to prison?’

‘You didn’t know that either, of course.’

‘No. I didn’t.’

‘Eighteen months. He got out last autumn.’

‘I had no idea.’

‘Just like you had no idea Mr Wiseman and Mr Askew were investors in Chipchase Sheltered Holdings.’

‘Magister’s confirmed that?’

‘He was too embarrassed to admit being taken for a ride when Mr Lloyd handed round the notice I gave him. But a dip in the Dee’s cured him of that. Yes, he’s confirmed it. How many others are there, Mr Barnett? You may as well tell me.’

‘I don’t know. I had nothing to do with it. I don’t even live in this country any more. I was thousands of miles away when Barry was setting up his nursing home fraud. He’d have known better than try to involve me, anyway.’

‘So you say.’

‘It happens to be true.’

‘Looking forward to flying home to… Vancouver, is it?’

‘It is. And, yes, I am.’

‘Pity. I’m going to have to ask you to put that on hold.’

‘What?’

‘In fact, I’d like you to stay in the Aberdeen area, at least for a few days. Until we can draw all the forensics together and see where they lead. Perhaps Mr Dangerfield could put you up. I gather he has a guestroom going begging.’

Harry took a long, deep breath. ‘Is that really necessary, Inspector?’

‘It’s purely precautionary, Mr Barnett.’ Geddes smiled. ‘But I find precautions are very necessary in my line of work.’