Dead and Gone Page 5

  Betrayed then by his employer, a man he had mistakenly trusted to stand by him when things got tough. Even when the signs of trouble ahead were unmistakably clear, he hadn’t thought for one moment that the man he called his friend would sacrifice him on the altar of expediency. How wrong could he be?

  Then there had been the betrayal of those he thought of as his close friends. They had vanished like flies in December, at a time when he needed their support.

  Worst of all, the betrayal had been that of the woman he loved; the woman he thought loved him. Discovering her affair with a man he loathed had been bad enough. Facing her with this knowledge had made bad far worse. Hearing her admit to her infidelity and recognizing a total lack of guilt, shame or embarrassment had been dreadful. And when she told him how much she enjoyed her liaison and stated her intention to continue it; that had been the last straw.

  Desperate to free himself from a situation that had become intolerable, he had taken a reckless gamble with money he could ill afford to lose. Ignoring the gambler’s maxim of only staking what you won’t miss, he had plunged deeper and deeper into the mire of debt, ever hopeful of one slice of luck to reverse his fortunes. That didn’t happen; all his foolhardiness achieved was to advance the unstoppable march of the inevitable.

  Now, sitting on the summit of Stark Ghyll, he stared at the dale set out below. Over to the east, early morning mist gave the promise of a beautiful day to come. It hung over the land bordering the River Helm, all but obscuring the towns of Netherdale and Helmsdale. It was a strange sensation to be above the mist, almost like flying at an altitude above cloud level. Elsewhere, to the west and south, the fields and woods provided a widely contrasting pattern of colours and shapes, like a badly designed patchwork quilt thrown over an enormous bed.

  He reached for his sole companion. The whisky bottle was already half empty; he had downed most of it since reaching his destination from the hotel. Prior to that, it had been the rented cottage. He laughed and shook his head. A week’s break ‘for the sake of the kids’ had taken the last of his meagre hoard of cash. His wife was unaware of quite how desperate their plight had become. Unaware – or uncaring? He wasn’t sure which, and it no longer mattered. That way, he had been able to pretend that things were somewhere near normal.

  Normal? The word made him laugh aloud again. He took another deep swig from the bottle, then a second, then a third. After that he lost count. His mind went further back, to all that he had lost. ‘Downsizing’ they called it, and ‘the inevitable and regrettable outcome of the recession and the nation’s severe economic woes’. Glib phrases that concealed the misery that was to follow. With no job, no income and no prospects, events had followed with unstoppable force, like an express train out of control.

  At some point in the next few hours, bailiffs would enforce the repossession order on their family home. ‘Take it,’ he muttered to himself, ‘take the bloody lot. Why not, I’ve lost everything else. Except the car,’ he added, almost as an afterthought, ‘you can’t have that. I need it.’

  As if spurred into action by the thought, he started the engine and engaged reverse gear. He manoeuvred slowly and carefully until the car was at right angles to the single-track road. Inching the vehicle back, he was conscious of the drainage ditch behind him. He must take care not to let the rear wheels slide into that. It would be the anticlimax of all time.

  He shifted the gear lever into neutral and examined the land beyond the road. There was a broad verge of sparse moorland grass. He remembered the previous time he had come up here. Sheep had been grazing on that verge. Luckily they had moved on since then. Beyond the verge was a rotting post-and-rail fence. Beyond that; nothing.

  He engaged first gear, revved the engine, let the clutch out and pressed the accelerator. The high-powered saloon surged forward, gaining momentum rapidly as it raced across the tarmac, the broad swathe of grass, and demolished the wooden fence. For a brief second the huge machine soared forward through the clear morning air, until gravity dragged it down, sending it tumbling end-over-end as it fell. It struck the rocky limestone slope once, twice, three times before coming to rest, its roof crushed against an outcrop of rock close to the base of the sheer cliff.

  The noise of the collisions echoed through the early morning silence like a series of gigantic gunshots. After the engine died, the only sound was the alarm call of a pair of grouse, their slumbers rudely interrupted.

  The farmer gave his wife a cheery wave as he pulled the Land Rover out of the yard and set off along the winding country road. He turned the volume up on the Land Rover’s radio. He wasn’t a particular fan of the music being played, but it served to mask the constant rattling and banging from the empty livestock trailer he was towing. He hummed along to the tune. He was looking forward to the next couple of days. Spring lambs had been fetching a record price at auction recently. A trailer-load should fetch him somewhere in the region of £4,000. Better to get those that were ready to market now before supply became more plentiful and the price dropped accordingly. He would start with the flock he grazed on Stark Ghyll. He had checked them over the previous day and knew they were in good condition.

  It took him a quarter of an hour to reach the summit. As he swung the Land Rover round the final bend, with the trailer protesting loudly, the farmer automatically glanced to his left, to where the flock had been grazing. He wasn’t surprised to see that they weren’t there. Experience prepared him for the fact that sheep wander. His glance didn’t at first register that there was anything amiss, but when he took a second, closer look, he noticed the broken fence.

  He stopped the vehicle and stared at the splintered railings with the huge, yawning gap in the middle, his face registering both alarm and dismay. His first thought was that something had panicked his sheep and they had crashed through the fence to a certain death below. The area was popular with the RAF as a place to train pilots in the art of low flying. He muttered something extremely impolite about the aerial branch of the armed forces and got out of his vehicle to investigate. If he’d lost this flock, or even part of it, it would be disastrous. He hurried towards the cliff edge.

  He was halfway across the grass verge when he saw the tyre tracks. Once again, his thoughts went immediately to his flock. There had been increasing numbers of livestock theft cases reported recently in the farming press. Then he saw the direction of the tracks and a sick realization hit him. He reached the edge of the precipitous slope and peered cautiously over. Two raw, jagged scars across the rocks gave him his first clue, and then he saw the car, or what remained of it. Upturned like some giant dead insect, wheels twisted at impossible angles; the bodywork so battered it was impossible to discern the make or model. He felt certain whoever had been inside the car could not have survived such a fall. He reached into his pocket and took out his mobile.

  The signal was poor, but he managed to get through to the emergency operator, and with some difficulty passed his message.

  ‘What service do you require?’ he was asked.

  ‘That’s a good question. Ambulance, I reckon, although a hearse might be more appropriate. Maybe fire brigade as well; and mountain rescue. There’s a car gone over the edge on the summit of Stark Ghyll. It’s fallen a few hundred feet, and it’s in a lousy spot to get to.’

  The farmer gave his name and agreed to wait at the scene for the emergency services to arrive. He ended the call and walked slowly back to his vehicle, staring morosely at his trailer. There was no need to hurry. One thing for sure, he couldn’t guarantee to be taking any lambs to mart this day, and that meant they wouldn’t be accepted for the following day’s auction. Then he thought about what he’d just seen and his gloom vanished. He was a hell of a sight better off than the poor soul inside the car. He tried his mobile again and rang home. His wife answered and he could hear the kids bickering in the background; all reassuringly normal. He told her what had happened, and, uncharacteristically, ended the call by telling her he loved her. He
wasn’t sure why, but for some reason it seemed the right thing to do.

  Mike Nash was usually first to arrive in the CID suite at Helmsdale police station. He had been in his office a little over twenty minutes when Sergeant Mironova walked in, bearing two coffee mugs. Nash looked up from the report he was reading concerning a drink-fuelled fight outside one of the pubs in the town the previous weekend. ‘Morning, Clara,’ he greeted her. ‘All quiet last night?’

  Mironova had been on call. ‘Yes. At least I wasn’t dragged from my bed in the early hours; in fact there’s nothing to report. It was a lot quieter than it is at the moment downstairs. There’s a real panic on. From what I can make out somebody’s gone off the road at the top of Stark Ghyll.’

  ‘I don’t give much for their chances,’ Nash commented sombrely. ‘It’s a heck of a drop. Is that all you know?’

  ‘Except that Jack Binns is trying to organize an ambulance crew, emergency doctor, the fire brigade and mountain rescue, in between talking to traffic division and putting air-sea rescue on standby, together with the air ambulance.’

  ‘If it’s at the top, just reaching the vehicle is going to be a nightmare, let alone recovering anyone inside it. Still, it’s not something we’re going to be involved with, so we’ll leave it to others to sort out.’

  Nash was fond of warning his colleagues about the dangers of tempting fate, ‘invoking Sod’s Law’ as he referred to it. This time, it seemed that he had ignored his own advice. Something that Mironova was to remind him of later.

  The farmer had been waiting for what seemed like an age before a set of flashing lights signalled the imminent arrival of an emergency vehicle. It proved to be a Volvo estate car from the police traffic division. Any remaining faint hope the farmer might have entertained that he would somehow be able to load his lambs into the trailer and take them to market soon began to disappear after the officers surveyed the crash scene.

  ‘This road will have to be closed to all but emergency vehicles,’ one of the officers stated. He glanced around. ‘That shouldn’t cause too many problems, though. You’ll be needed to give a statement as to what time you found the car, and what weather, road and traffic conditions were like at the time.’ A faint smile flickered across the officer’s face as he mentioned traffic conditions. This was obviously part of a well-rehearsed script. ‘You’re the nearest we’ve got to an eyewitness to the accident.’

  The second officer, who had been talking on his radio, joined them at this point. ‘Sergeant Binns has ordered paramedics and a mountain rescue team. They’ll be here as soon as….’ His voice tailed off as he stared at the verge near the farmer’s vehicle. ‘Would you mind driving fifty yards further up the road?’ he asked.

  ‘Look, officer,’ the farmer replied, ‘I came up here to gather some of my sheep. I’ve got to get them to mart today, otherwise I’ll miss the sale and it could be costly for me – and my family,’ he added by way of an afterthought to emphasize his situation. ‘I only came across the accident, I didn’t actually see anything. If I give you my name and address, can I come to the station in Helmsdale this evening and make a statement then? That way, I might still get my sheep in the sale.’

  ‘I’m not sure. What do you think?’ The officer turned to his colleague.

  ‘I don’t see why not. But you can’t go to Helmsdale, the station will be closed. Let me check with my sergeant.’ Reaching for his radio, he moved away.

  While he waited, the farmer gave his details to the remaining officer and confirmed when he had driven up the hill; he was conscious of time slipping by and the fact that, as yet, he hadn’t actually found his sheep.

  ‘It’s OK, but the sergeant says you’ll have to go to Netherdale to give your statement.’

  ‘Then I can go?’ he asked hesitantly.

  ‘I suppose so. But make it quick before we close the road. You’ll have to go down the far side of the Ghyll.’

  As the farmer hastily drove away, the officer signalled to his colleague. He pointed to the tyre tracks he had spotted on the verge, obscured by the farmer’s Land Rover. ‘What do you make of them?’

  The second man stared at the tracks at the far side of the road, then turned to look at the ones close to where the vehicle had gone over the edge. ‘The car was being driven across the road, not along it.’

  ‘Yes, but it looks as though it was parked there and then manoeuvred before it went over: look at the ruts. Not even someone blind drunk would do that accidentally. It doesn’t make sense, unless it was done deliberately, and that means….’

  ‘It means that depending on the condition of the car’s occupant we’re looking at either suicide, murder or an attempt at one of the two. And that means we’ll have to get CID involved. I’d better get back onto Jack Binns.’

  chapter six

  The chambermaid at the Golden Bear Hotel in Netherdale enjoyed her work. She had lived in England for over two years, having been encouraged by her sister to move from Gdansk. She had been dubious at first, although she liked England and English people. She had heard some bad stories from other Polish migrants about people having to take menial jobs such as washing cars, but soon discovered that they were well rewarded for the work. Nevertheless, she preferred her job, especially when it rained or snowed, which she found it did a lot in England. She was halfway through her morning stint and was looking forward to sitting down with a mug of coffee. She reached the second floor and carefully steered her trolley out of the lift. She glanced at her worksheet: only one room to service on this floor then she could take her break.

  Halfway along the corridor, she paused and stared at the door of one of the rooms. Something was wrong. Someone had splashed something on the door. It looked like paint. The ‘Do not disturb’ sign was hanging from the doorknob. It had been there since the previous evening. She remembered it distinctly, thinking that the man in that room must have gone to bed really early. Either that, she remembered with a giggle, or he was…. Well, as a chambermaid, you get to witness a lot of human behaviour that others don’t see. She wondered if he’d gone out and forgotten the sign. Alternatively, he could be unwell. She didn’t think so. She’d seen the man a couple of times, either entering or leaving his room, and he looked quite young and fit. Still, she ought to check. And at the same time ask about the paint.

  She tapped lightly on the door. ‘Room service,’ she called out, but got no response. Perhaps he had gone out after all. She glanced at her watch. It was after 10 a.m. He couldn’t still be asleep, surely? Unless he’d been, what was the English word? ‘Bonking’, that was it. Unless he’d been bonking all night. She giggled and knocked again, louder this time. Still nothing from inside the room.

  Without conscious thought that she might be intruding on an intimate encounter, she took out her master key card. The room was in darkness, the curtains closed. ‘Room service, Mr Jennings. Are you all right?’

  There was no reply. She groped for the switch and turned the light on. At first, everything seemed to be in order, except that the bed didn’t appear to have been slept in. She reached behind her and took the sign from the doorknob, intending to replace it on the small dressing table under the window. As she approached the table, she noticed a pair of feet protruding from alongside the foot of the bed. She stood still, and as her gaze travelled to the rest of the body she let out one long, shuddering breath. The pool of blood that covered the man’s chest had flooded the carpet alongside him and splashed in liberal quantities across the wallpaper and curtains as well as the bedlinen. It was only when she regained her breath that she turned and ran from the room.

  Sergeant Jack Binns strode into Nash’s office without knocking. For him to do that meant trouble; the look on Binns’ face merely confirmed it. In a few terse sentences, Binns explained what the traffic officers had found at Stark Ghyll.

  ‘OK, Jack, we’ll head on out there. Any word on who was in the car?’

  ‘Not yet. Mountain rescue have arrived. They’re rigging
some form of block and tackle; reckon it’s the only way to reach the vehicle. They’re going to send one of their men down first – they’re all first-aid trained – and then hopefully, if needed, lower a paramedic.’

  ‘There’s no chance this is someone disposing of an old banger, I suppose? And that the car was empty when it went over the edge?’

  ‘No such luck. The traffic guys say that although it’s now only fit for scrap, it appears to be a late model BMW. I suppose it could have been stolen and dumped. I’ll check it out when I’ve got the details. But just to be on the safe side I’ve got an air-sea rescue Sea King and the air ambulance on standby, although the traffic officers reckon that’s a wasted effort.’

  Binns had just finished speaking when Nash’s phone rang. He signalled to Binns to remain. ‘Morning, Jackie,’ he greeted the caller. The uniformed sergeant exchanged glances with Mironova. They saw Nash’s expression change as he listened to Superintendent Fleming’s opening words.

  ‘More trouble,’ Binns whispered to Mironova. ‘They say troubles come in threes; I wonder what the third will be.’

  They listened as Nash was speaking. ‘Yes, we’ve a suspicious incident at Stark Ghyll. The first thought was that it was an accident, but the traffic officers reckon it was deliberate. However, in view of what you’ve told me, I’ll send Clara and Viv Pearce out to deal with that. I’ll head straight to Netherdale and meet you at the Golden Bear.’

  He put the phone down. ‘A chambermaid at the Golden Bear found one of the guests with his throat slashed from ear to ear. I’m off to meet Jackie and Lisa there. Clara, you know what to do. Take Viv and go to Stark Ghyll. See what you think.’