Never Go Back (8 page)

Harry never got the chance to ask Dangerfield if he would be prepared to put him up. Geddes did the asking for him, before leaving the hospital. In the circumstances, Dangerfield had little choice but to agree. He was also obliged to pass on a message from Wiseman to the effect that he was too tired to see anyone else. Harry found himself turned away by one fellow Clean Sheeter and foisted on another. For this last he could only apologize, which he attempted to do as he and Dangerfield stood outside the main entrance to the hospital, watching Geddes hurry away towards his car.

‘The bloody man’s got it into his head that Barry and I are involved in some sort of murderous conspiracy. I’m sorry you’ve ended up with me as a house guest because of it, Danger. But it won’t be for long. I’m sure of that. Once they establish the car crash really was an accident, he’ll have to drop it.’

‘What if they establish it wasn’t an accident, Harry?’

‘You surely don’t believe Magister’s car was sabotaged.’

‘Magister believes it.’

‘What? And that I was responsible?’

‘He didn’t come out and say so. But when I told him you were waiting to see him, he pleaded with me to stop you going in. He seemed… frightened.’

‘Frightened? Of me?’

‘I know. It’s crazy. But what with Jabber dying in front of him and Geddes banging on about Chipchase Sheltered Holdings

‘You didn’t invest in that, did you, Danger?’

‘No. I’d never heard of it before yesterday. Besides, Barry’s been staying with me. Do you think I’d have put him up if I’d been one of the punters he ripped off?’

‘Point taken.’

‘Personally, I don’t think either of you has what it takes to kill anyone.’

‘Thank God for that.’

‘Unfortunately for you, my opinion doesn’t count for much.’

‘Perhaps I should go back in and try to make Magister understand how—’

‘Leave it for now, Harry. He’ll probably be thinking more rationally after a night’s sleep. We probably all will.’

—«»—«»—«»—

They agreed to say nothing to the others about Harry’s status as a suspect, at least for the moment. The atmosphere at Kilveen Castle for the rest of their stay promised to be strained enough without that information being added to the mix. It meant Erica had to be kept in the dark as well, which obliged both men to guard their tongues during the drive back. But when she suggested diverting to see the site of the crash, Harry did not object. He welcomed a postponement of their arrival at the castle — and the torrent of unanswerable questions it would set in motion. He was also curious to see the stretch of river where his alleged plot against Wiseman was supposed to have reached its climax — and where poor old Jabber had stopped jabbering for all time.

—«»—«»—«»—

Blue and white police tape fastened to stakes marked out a cordon round a set of wheel ruts cutting across the narrow grass verge between the road and the riverbank. It was the only sign of the earlier accident. Otherwise all was much as it had been during the brief stop Dangerfield had made there during his minibus tour the previous day. The Dee was a cold, grey, speeding mass of water, with dull green fields on its other side and dark, whale-backed mountains forming the western horizon. The road hugged the line of the river, hemmed in by a wooded hillside. There was a fishermen’s hut tucked away under the trees and a pull-in for cars, where they stopped and gazed at the empty scene in silence for a minute or more before climbing out.

‘You’d never know, would you?’ murmured Dangerfield.

‘It looks so… peaceful,’ said Erica. ‘I can understand why you fish here.’

‘I don’t think I ever will again.’

‘That’s a pity.’

‘It’s all a—’ Dangerfield was interrupted by the trill of his mobile. He yanked it out of his pocket and answered. ‘Hello? … Oh… Yes, hello.’ Then he waved an apology to Harry and Erica and walked away out of earshot.

‘Is it my imagination, Harry, or does Johnny hold himself in some irrational way responsible for everything that’s gone wrong this weekend?’

‘I guess that’s inevitable. The reunion was his idea, after all. But none of this is his fault.’

‘He’ll be left to cope with the aftermath, though, won’t he, when you all go your separate ways tomorrow.’

‘Actually, I’m not leaving the area. Not tomorrow, anyway. Danger’s putting me up for a few days.’

‘Good. That’ll be a help. It was kind of you to suggest it.’

‘I didn’t. It was Inspector Geddes’s idea.’

‘Geddes?’

‘I’m his prime suspect.’ Pretence on the point seemed suddenly futile. ‘Me and my supposed co-conspirator Barry Chipchase.’

‘You’re joking.’

‘I wish I was.’

‘But that’s ridiculous. Co-conspirators in what? A man kills himself. Another dies in a car crash. The police surely don’t think

‘I’m afraid they do.’

‘Christ.’ Erica frowned. ‘I’d no idea.’

‘It’s not true, by the way.’ Harry smiled gamely. ‘I didn’t do it. I didn’t do anything. Nor did Barry. You can trust me on that. I’d be grateful if you didn’t mention this to the others just yet, though. I don’t want them petitioning to have me turned out of the hotel.’

‘Now you are joking, right? Anyway, don’t worry. I won’t breathe a word.’

‘Thanks.’

‘You haven’t got a cigarette, have you?’

‘I don’t smoke.’

‘Neither do I. Usually.’

‘I stopped when my daughter was born. Before she was born, actually.’

‘What about pen and paper? Got either of those? I want to write something down for you.’

‘Here.’ Harry produced a Kilveen Castle ballpoint and the copy of Dangerfield’s letter about the reunion Lloyd had given him. ‘Use the back of that.’

‘My mobile number. Call me if you need any help.’ Erica smiled. ‘I’m sure you won’t. The police will soon come to their senses. But just in—’

She broke off and handed the letter and ballpoint back to Harry as Dangerfield headed towards them, grim-faced.

‘That was Jabber’s daughter,’ he announced. ‘The hotel put her onto me. I should have phoned her earlier. She was… pretty cut up. She’s travelling up with her mother tomorrow. There’ll be a lot to arrange. I said I’d give them as much help as I could, of course, but…’ He gestured helplessly. ‘That’ll amount to sod all, won’t it? I can’t bring him back.’

‘No-one can,’ said Erica softly.

‘No.’ Dangerfield’s gaze drifted to the river. ‘But if I could only turn back the clock…’

‘No-one can do that either.’

‘That’s a shame.’ He kicked a pebble off the bank into the water. ‘A crying bloody shame.’

News of Lloyd’s death and Wiseman’s hospitalization killed off what little remained of the celebratory nature of the Operation Clean Sheet reunion. Toasting the memory of absent friends who had died young years in the past was one thing. Drinking in remembrance of two people who had been alive and well only a couple of days ago was an infinitely more sombre and dispiriting experience. It was possible to believe Askew had killed himself for reasons unconnected with the reunion and that Wiseman’s car crash was a pure and simple accident, albeit a tragic one. But coincidence preys on the mind, whether rationally or not. Tancred summed up the feeling of all in his own Wildean style. ‘To lose one old comrade may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness.’

Initial resolve to visit Wiseman in hospital before leaving diminished when Dangerfield pointed out that they would not be able to do so until Monday afternoon and would therefore miss the direct train to London they were booked on. They would also be in danger of meeting Lloyd’s wife and daughter, a prospect none of them relished. With Harry volunteering to stay on and give Dangerfield what support he could, the others rapidly came round to the idea that there was no sense in delaying their departure. They had families to return to, lives to resume. They were, in truth, though no-one said so, eager to be gone. They might even have wished that they had never come in the first place. The reunion had been ill-fated. They wanted no more to do with it.

Dangerfield did not mention he had provided the police with all their names and addresses and, oddly, no-one asked if he had, perhaps because doing so would imply they believed Wiseman’s crash might not have been an accident, Askew’s death perhaps not suicide. Those were doors no-one wished to open. Accordingly, by unspoken mutual consent, they remained closed.

Nor did anyone question Harry’s selflessness in staying on the scene to lend Dangerfield a helping hand, though Tancred came close. After they had adjourned to the bar following a dinner nobody had shown much of a stomach for, he eyed Harry over the rim of his whisky glass and remarked, ‘You’re an example to us all, Ossie, you really are.’

‘Just doing my bit, Tapper,’ was Harry’s lame response.

‘Unlike Fission. If only your partnership had endured, perhaps then he wouldn’t have ended up fleecing the likes of poor old Crooked.’

‘I doubt it. He never took much notice of me.’

‘Ah. Do I take it that Barnchase Motors might not have had a whiter than white reputation even before its lamentable collapse?’

‘Put a sock in it, Tapper, for God’s sake,’ Judd interrupted. ‘Ossie’s doing us a good turn.’

‘Isn’t that exactly what I was saying?’

‘Didn’t sound like it.’

‘Then you should listen more carefully.’

‘Oh Gawd.’ Judd rolled his eyes. ‘I’ve got seven bloody hours of this kind of malarkey to look forward to on the train. No wonder you’ve opted out, Ossie. Smart move.’

‘It certainly won’t be a happy journey,’ said Gregson mournfully.

And no-one disputed that.

—«»—«»—«»—

Harry had peddled the same line to Donna: that he was staying on for Dangerfield’s sake. It was almost true. He might even have suggested it, if he had been left any choice in the matter. It would certainly do Donna no good to be told he was a suspect in a double murder inquiry, particularly since he fully expected the crash to be confirmed as an accident and Askew’s death accepted as suicide in short order. All he had to do was hold his nerve and bide his time. There had been no murders. The inquiry would soon be abandoned. And he would be free to go.

—«»—«»—«»—

So he told himself, anyway. His subconscious remained unconvinced. He slept poorly, falling into and out of dreams that swiftly became nightmares. In one, something dark and menacing and vaguely familiar pursued him up the spiral stairs of the tower, across the roof and over the battlement. In another, he was in the back of Wiseman’s car as it plunged into the river. Chipchase was sitting beside him. They started arguing about ‘alterations’ to the steering — ‘You altered it.’ ‘No, you did.’ — as it sank, down and down, into the ever darker water. Then they were sitting opposite each other on a train, speeding through the night. As Chipchase dozed, Harry pulled his friend’s bag from the rack, eager to see what it contained. It was an old leather suitcase, just like Askew’s. He slipped the latches silently and raised the lid. And there, inside—

But he could not remember, when he woke, with a jolt and a cry in the greyness of dawn, what he had seen — and why it had terrified him.

—«»—«»—«»—

They left Kilveen Castle straight after breakfast, seen off by Erica Rawson and Dr Starkie, who could afford to make a more leisurely departure later in the morning. It was a stilted farewell, a thick, chilling drizzle encouraging no-one to linger on the driveway. ‘I’m sorry this hasn’t worked out as you men must have hoped,’ Starkie told them. ‘Try not to let it prey on your minds.’

—«»—«»—«»—

‘I think he means he isn’t going to let it prey on his,’ said Fripp, as they loaded themselves into the minibus.

‘It’s good advice, nonetheless,’ said Tancred. ‘I for one intend to follow it.’

‘Yeah, but you’ve always been a cold-hearted bastard, Tapper,’ said Judd. ‘That makes it easier for you than for the rest of us.’

Before Tancred could respond with more than an icy smile, Dangerfield turned to them and said, ‘You can spend the whole train journey taking digs at each other if you want. I don’t care. But do you think you could lay off until we get to the station? I’m not sure I can take much more.’ Then he started the engine and pulled away. And no-one said a word.

—«»—«»—«»—

Their departure at the end of Operation Clean Sheet, on a June morning in 1955, had been very different. All fifteen of them had squeezed into the back of an RAF lorry driven by WO Trench and been ferried to Lumphanan station in time for the first train of the day to Aberdeen. A mood of ‘school’s out’ jollity had prevailed. Their laughter had filled the carriage. They were young and carefree, their futures alluringly uncertain. The only thing they could probably have agreed did not lie ahead of them, under any circumstances, was a return to Kilveen Castle. Yet now, fifty years later, six of them were leaving it again, its turreted bulk a receding image in the minibus’s rear window. The mood was subdued. There was no laughter. But surely this time it had to be true. They would never go back.

—«»—«»—«»—

The Northern Lights express pulled out of Aberdeen station on the dot of 9.55 that morning. Fripp, Gregson and Tancred were already in their seats, but Judd was still leaning out of the window, arm raised in farewell, as the train cleared the platform and picked up speed.

‘You were on the London train with most of the others fifty years ago,’ said Dangerfield to Harry as they turned and walked away. ‘Bet you wish you were today as well.’

‘Most of the others, Danger? Weren’t we all on it?’

‘No. I was heading further north. To Kinloss. And somebody — Babber, I think — was on his way to the Shetlands. They had some radar station way up there. Saxa Vord. That was it.’

‘You’re right. I’d forgotten.’

‘No reason why you should have remembered.’

‘I was bound for Gloucester. Barry was for Tangmere. Several were going to Germany. Nobody to the same place, though. They seemed determined to split us up.’

‘Yes.’ Dangerfield nodded thoughtfully. ‘Maybe they knew best.’

Sweet Gale Lodge was, by Dangerfield’s own admission, absurdly large for one man to live in. A terracotta-tiled, snow-white-rendered villa with a domed conservatory attached to one side and a triple garage big enough to accommodate the local Fire Brigade to the other, it sat starkly in an avenue of older, mellower, more discreet residences on the southwestern fringe of the city. A career in the oil industry, Harry concluded, had left Dangerfield well provided for.

The presence of a decrepit old Renault out front indicated that the cleaning lady was on the premises. Dangerfield led Harry through the vast, open-plan lounge, half of which was double-height, overlooked by a gallery landing, to the modernistic kitchen. There they found a broad-hipped, bustling woman of about fifty, with short, grey-streaked hair and apple-red cheeks, dressed in jeans and a Fair Isle sweater, heaving a load of shirts and underwear into the washing machine.

‘This is Harry, Shona,’ said Dangerfield. ‘He’ll be here for a few days.’

‘You never said you were having another of your old soldiers to stay,’ Shona good-naturedly complained.

‘We were airmen, Shona, not soldiers,’ Dangerfield retorted. ‘And Harry’ll cause you no problem. He can take Barry’s room.’

‘What about when Barry comes back?’

‘If he comes back, we’ll both be happy to stall him with a host of questions while you make up another room.’

‘Och well, I suppose…’

‘Good. I’ll leave Shona to show you where everything is, Harry, while I drop the minibus back. I won’t be long.’

—«»—«»—«»—

Barry’s room was as generously proportioned as the rest of the house and as minimally furnished, with a king-size bed, a pair of bedside cabinets, and a walk-in wardrobe ready to swallow Harry and his few belongings.

After dumping his bag and stowing his toothbrush and shaving kit in the equally oversized en-suite bathroom, Harry made his way down through the parqueted wastes of the lounge back to the kitchen, where Shona had promised him coffee.

She was talking on the telephone when he entered, explaining that Dangerfield was out. Then she mentioned Harry’s name, which surprised him more than a little. And then she crowned his surprise by offering him the receiver.

‘It’s the polis,’ she said, telegraphing her irritation that no-one had warned her she might have to field calls from the boys in blue.

Reluctantly, Harry took the receiver. ‘Harry Barnett here.’

‘Ah, Mr Barnett. Excellent. Detective Sergeant McBride here, Grampian Police.’ He sounded brisk and businesslike. ‘Detective Inspector Geddes of the Tayside force gave us to understand you’d be staying with Mr Dangerfield on this number.’

‘Well, so I am.’

‘Indeed. Now, would you be willing to call in at the station here in Aberdeen later today? This afternoon, perhaps.’

‘What for?’

‘We were hoping you’d agree to be fingerprinted.’

Fingerprinted? This sounded ominous. ‘Why, Sergeant?’

‘For the purposes of elimination, sir. We may be able to lift some prints from Mr Wiseman’s car, you see.’

‘I never went near his car.’

‘Then you’ve nothing to worry about.’

‘I know,’ Harry said, trying to drain the terseness out of his voice.

‘Good. So, you’ll come in?’

‘Well, I—’

‘Oh, our colleagues in Tayside would appreciate a DNA sample as well. Likewise for elimination purposes. It’s a very straightforward procedure.’

‘That may be, but—’

‘Inspector Geddes said you were keen to help in any way you could.’

‘Yes. Of course. But—’

‘So, shall we say about three o’clock?’

Harry’s mind raced. He really did have nothing to worry about. He had not touched Wiseman’s hire car. He had not laid a finger on Askew. Why, then, did he feel he was being lured into doing something he would come to regret?

‘Sir?’

‘OK, Sergeant.’ Harry sighed. ‘About three.’

As he put the phone down, Shona plonked a steaming mug of coffee on the marble-topped breakfast bar beside him. ‘There you go.’

‘Thanks.’ Harry sat on one of the stools spaced around the bar and took a sip from the mug.

‘This all about the car crash near Aboyne — and the fellow who fell out of the train down Carnoustie way?’

‘You heard about them, then?’ Harry was not surprised. Everyone seemed to have heard.

‘It was all on the local news.’

‘Yes. Of course it was.’

‘Your reunion didna’ exactly go to plan.’

‘Far from it.’

‘Heard from Barry?’

‘No. Has he phoned here?’

‘It’s no for me to check Mr Dangerfield’s answering machine. He’ll likely do it himself later.’

Mr Dangerfield, then, but not Mr Chipchase. To Shona he was Barry. ‘Barry and I…’

‘Are old friends. Aye. He said so.’

‘Did he?’

‘“It’ll be good to see my old mate Harry again.” Those were his very words. Sat where you’re sat now, drinking coffee, just the same. Then he got a message about his sister, so Mr Dangerfield tells me, and had to rush off to Manchester.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Must have been a shock. Did you know the woman?’

‘Far as I know, Shona, Barry’s an only child.’

Shona frowned. ‘An only child?’

‘Both his grandmothers died at least twice while we were in the RAF. Looks like he’s still pulling the same stunts.’

‘But… why?’

‘That’s what the police want to know.’

‘They surely don’t think… he had anything to do with…’

‘They do. And they’ve roped me in as a suspect as well, on account of Barry and me being old friends and former business partners.’ Harry shaped a mock-courageous smile. ‘But don’t worry about it.’

‘I shan’t.’ Her frown deepened. ‘Maybe you should, though.’

—«»—«»—«»—

Dangerfield evidently agreed with Shona. He suggested Harry should consult a solicitor before pitching up at Aberdeen Police HQ and offered to put him in touch with one. Harry demurred. The best way to demonstrate his innocence was to arrive sans legal adviser, co-operate fully and keep smiling throughout.

‘Innocence isn’t far from naivety,’ Dangerfield counselled as he leafed through a copy of that morning’s Press and Journal: the Voice of the North, then swivelled the paper round on the breakfast bar for Harry to see and pointed to an article on page 7. ‘Read that. I’ll be straight back.’

MYSTERY OF FATAL DEESIDE CAR CRASH

Police are investigating the circumstances that led to a car crashing off the B976 near Aboyne yesterday into the river Dee, killing one of its two occupants. The dead man was named as Mervyn Lloyd, 69, from Cardiff, who was attending a RAF reunion at Kilveen Castle Hotel, near Lumphanan, along with the driver of the car, Neville Wiseman, 71, from London. Mr Wiseman survived and is reported to be in a satisfactory condition in Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.

Detective Chief Inspector Graeme Ferguson of Grampian Police said he was not ruling out a connection with the unexplained death of another participant in the reunion, Peter Askew, 69, also from Cardiff, whose body was found beside the main East Coast railway line near Carnoustie on Friday. He went on to pay tribute to a passing motorist who came to Mr Wiseman’s aid and appealed for anyone who had information relating to either of the deaths to contact him in confidence.

‘Spot the missing words?’ Dangerfield asked as he returned to the kitchen.

‘What d’you mean?’

‘They don’t say it was an accident, do they? Or that Crooked’s death was suicide. That’s because they don’t believe they were.’

‘They’ll have to, in the end.’

‘Maybe. Meanwhile, you ought to watch your back, Harry. I don’t like how this is panning out. I’ve just checked the answerphone, by the way.’

‘Anything from Barry?’

Dangerfield rolled his eyes. ‘What do you think?’