Almost Love (46 page)

Chapter Sixty-Four

Armed with the photographs, Tim returned to the police station. He put out a search request for sightings of the motorbike to all the police forces within a fifty-mile radius. He decided that it would be better to search intensively in a small area at first and extend the radius further if this didn’t work. He also asked local radio stations to broadcast descriptions of it. Edmund’s photograph had already appeared on regional news programmes and their websites. Tim asked them to re-run, adding photographs of the motorbike as well. Then he contacted the police at Sleaford and asked them to search the dykes around Star Fen.

The last of these initiatives was the first to bear fruit. Towards the end of the afternoon, he received a call to say that a dark red Saab had been found almost submerged in a deep dyke about half a mile from the hamlet. Checks with the DVLA showed that Edmund Baker was the owner. It was not possible to say whether the vehicle had been pushed into the dyke deliberately or whether it had crashed as the result of an accident, though the force with which the front of the car had hit the bottom, the crumpled state of the driver’s door and the fact that it had been left open suggested the latter. There was a sharp bend in the road at the same place which a driver not familiar with the area would have found difficult to negotiate if going at speed.

“But there’s no body?” said Tim.

“No, we don’t think so. We’ve walked along the bank for several yards with nets and poles and we’ve not found one. We’d have to have the dyke properly dredged to make sure.”

“Do that, will you?”

Tim was also perturbed by Alex Tarrant’s kidnapping. Unless Alex was withholding key information – which he doubted, after she’d come clean about Edmund – he couldn’t understand why she’d been taken. Alex herself said that she’d been told that if she co-operated she’d be held prisoner only for twenty-four hours, but that afterwards something had seemed to go wrong and she’d been convinced that her captors would kill her. How could holding her – or killing her – possibly have made any difference to what he knew of their plans?

He decided to ask Alex if they could meet again. He knew from Juliet that she was still staying with her friends at Holbeach, although the blood splatter – which analysis had shown was from a pig – had been cleaned from her kitchen wall and she’d been told that she could return to the flat if she liked. He wasn’t surprised that she was reluctant to do so, especially while Tom was still a patient at the Pilgrim Hospital. He called her mobile and, when she agreed to the meeting, offered to send a police car to fetch her.

“It’s all right – I’ll come on the bus. I want to call in at the Archaeological Society, anyway. I’ve got the doctor to sign me off today – I’ll start back to work next week – and I’d like to pick up my mail.”

Chapter Sixty-Five

They agreed that she would come to his office at about 3 p.m. Shortly after 2 p.m., she called his mobile. He recognised her number and answered it immediately. As soon as he pressed the green button, she mumbled: “DI Yates?” The rest of her words were engulfed by a burst of sobs.

“Mrs Tarrant? Alex? Are you in danger?”

He could hear her swallowing air, as if trying with great effort to compose herself enough to speak.

“Not in danger – no – but the Society . . .”

“Are you there now?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be there in five minutes. I’ll bring DC Armstrong with me.”

When Tim and Juliet arrived at the Archaeological Society, the door to the street was gaping open. They rushed in and saw immediately why Alex Tarrant was so upset. The whole place had been ransacked. There were papers scattered everywhere: in the hallway, on the stairs, in Alex’s office. Alex’s desk had been upturned. It looked as if the contents of all the shelves on the wall behind it had been swept to the floor in an act of fury.

They found Alex in the library, where the scene of devastation was even worse. Several of the glass doors on the bookcases had been smashed and the books that they contained tossed in all directions. Shards of glass were everywhere. Only one of the sightless marble busts remained in place. Tim noted with grim humour that it represented Cicero. He doubted that he had been spared for his eloquence.

Alex was sitting at the massive table on the only upright chair. She was clasping her forehead, almost pinching it, with the fingers of her right hand. At first, Tim thought that she was merely surveying the many acts of vandalism with which she was surrounded. As he moved nearer, he saw that she was looking at something in particular. At her feet lay a massive, twisted heap of green metal that he recognised. A thick slew of papers spilled like a crude sunburst from beneath it. Various trinkets lay half in, half out of a sizeable cardboard box, some of them smashed.

She looked up as Tim and Juliet approached.

“Mrs Tarrant? Are you all right?” said Juliet.

“Yes, I’m all right.” Her voice was immensely weary. “I guess I don’t have to wonder what my life’s work will be now. It will take years to restore all of this.”

Alex rose to her feet and gestured at the mound of metal, papers and nineteenth-century gewgaws.

“It’s like a curse,” she said. “The curse of Jacob Sparham. That was the box that Edmund had borrowed. Someone was desperate to get into it. They must have thought that it contained that diamond swastika that Oliver told me about. I wonder if they found it.”

“I very much doubt it,” said Tim. “I imagine that whoever it was wrecked the place in a fury when they found that it wasn’t there.”

“Oliver always thought that it was an invention.”

“Perhaps it was – or perhaps it wasn’t . . . and Edmund Baker got to it first.”

Chapter Sixty-Six

Alex contacted Francis Codd, now the most senior of the trustees, to tell him about the ransacking. Tim had wanted to send in the SOCOs straight away, but Alex persuaded him that they would have to be accompanied by an expert in antiquarian books as they carried out their work, to make sure that the Society’s library was not damaged further. He agreed to wait until the next day if she could find a suitable person by then. She made other calls, to the museum at Peterborough and to the Heritage Society. Eventually he persuaded her to return to the police station with himself and Juliet. She had just accepted his offer of tea when she suddenly caught sight of his clock.

“It’s almost four-thirty! I need to catch the 16.45 bus to get to the hospital for visiting time.”

“Don’t worry,” said Tim. “Someone will take you. We’ll make sure that you get there. It will give us a few more minutes to talk.”

Alex nodded her thanks and clasped her tea-cup in both hands.

“As I’m sure you know, we haven’t managed to locate Edmund Baker yet. Do you have any idea where he might be?”

Alex frowned.

“No,” she said. “And I don’t think that I can help you. For a brief period, I thought that I . . . understood Edmund, but clearly I was wrong.”

“He didn’t confide in you? Tell you perhaps of favourite places that he liked to visit, or to which he might plan to retire?”

“No . . .” Alex stopped suddenly.

“You’ve thought of something?” asked Juliet, gently.

“Yes . . . although it seems too far-fetched for words. And it isn’t a place where he would be able to hide for days at a time. He might choose it to hide possessions in, though. We were together one evening in Peterborough a few weeks ago – we’d both been to a meeting at the Museum and decided to go for a drink afterwards. Then we picked up some fast food from somewhere, and instead of eating it in the car, Edmund wanted to take me to a secret place that he’d known about since he was a boy . . .”

Because it was getting dark and Alex had to leave for the hospital, Tim decided not to follow up on the information that she had provided about Edmund’s ‘secret place’ until the following day. Although she knew that it was part of a bridge that crossed the River Nene at Peterborough, her memory of its precise location was vague. They would probably have to drive around quite a bit before they located it. Alex had agreed to accompany them the next day, but she stressed that she didn’t want to enter the secret room itself. Tim wondered whether this was because it would provoke unpleasant memories, or perhaps because she had some premonition about what they might find there now.

After her departure, he asked the Peterborough police if they would search the river bank for abandoned motorbikes. Their response was that they would prefer to do this in daylight, so he had no option but to contain his impatience and go home. It was the earliest he would have arrived home for weeks. Although he was not keen to embrace the opportunity, he knew that the time had come to talk to Katrin.

The fragrant smell of Pichelsteiner hit him as soon as he let himself into their small hall. The stew was one of Katrin’s specialities. He found her in the dining-room, in the act of placing a small bunch of flowers on a table laid with white damask and their best cutlery. She was wearing a black silky top and dangling silver earrings. She appeared to be serene and was looking very pretty. She turned to kiss him.

“You look lovely,” he said. “What’s the occasion?”

“You said you’d be home on time tonight. That’s worth celebrating in itself.”

Tim tried not to look guilty. The conversation they had had that morning had completely slipped his memory. He had had a narrow squeak: if Alex Tarrant had not been visiting her husband in hospital, he might have been pacing the towpaths of the Nene with her now.

“Would you like a drink?”

“Yes please! I’ve just opened a bottle of Pinot Noir. It’s in the kitchen.”

He went to fetch the bottle and poured wine into the two delicately-wrought crystal glasses that she’d put on the table.

“Cheers! And thank you for all your help with the McRae case. We’d never have got to the bottom of it without you.”

She chinked her glass very lightly against his own.

“It was Juliet as well as me. Joint effort.”

“Katrin, I’ve been so worried about you. You seem your old self now, but I need to know why . . .”

“Don’t, Tim. It’s too painful. Don’t spoil a nice evening.”

“OK, but what if it happens again? What if I ..?”

“Don’t,” she said again, in a tone that brooked no contradiction. “It was nothing to do with you. Not your fault in any way. Can we just leave it at that?”

Chapter Sixty-Seven

The police at Peterborough kept their word. They began searching for the motorbike as soon as it was light the next morning. By 10.00 a.m. they had called Tim to say that they had found it, propped out of sight of the road against the river-facing fence of a small electricity substation on the river bank. There was a bridge nearby and evidence that someone had been sleeping rough underneath it, but from the state of the heap of rags they’d left it didn’t look as if they’d been there recently. The policeman who’d found it e-mailed Tim a couple of photographs of the spot.

Alex Tarrant arrived shortly afterwards. Tim showed her the photographs.

“I’m not sure about the bridge,” she said. “It was dark and raining when I was there. But the power-station looks familiar. And there were signs that a tramp had been sleeping under the bridge. Though I suppose that isn’t unusual.”

“No,” Tim agreed, “but it looks as if this might be the place. Are you still up for coming with us?”

She seemed to shrink inside herself.

“I’m . . . not sure. If the motorbike has been abandoned, where do you think Edmund is?”

“I don’t know, but I think that it’s likely that he’s left the area. We just want you to show us where this hiding-place is to see if he’s left anything there, or traces of having been there himself.”

“All right. But when I’ve pointed it out to you, I’d like to wait in the car.”

“Of course.”

Tim decided not to take the BMW. Instead, they all travelled together in a police car. Tim was in the front passenger seat and Alex sat with Juliet in the back. He chatted to the driver, but Alex and Juliet were silent.

Even before they had arrived, Alex knew that it was the right place. She recognised the back streets through which Edmund had driven that evening. Their police car drew in behind another already parked against the bank. There was a large object lying beside it. Two policemen were standing there. One of them was fumbling with a tarpaulin that he was trying to spread over the object.

“Is that the motorbike?”

“Yes, sir. There’s a breakdown lorry coming to pick it up.”

“This is Mrs Tarrant. She’s going to show us a place under the bridge that Edmund Baker brought her to once. When she’s pointed it out, I’d like one of you to bring her back here before we take a closer look.”

“I’ll come back with you,” said Juliet quickly, speaking directly to Alex, who shot her a quick look of gratitude.

They proceeded along the muddy path in single file. Tim led the way, with Alex following. Juliet came too and one of the policemen. The other waited with the motorbike. At the foot of the path, Alex paused and screwed up her eyes so that she could see into the shadowy area under the bridge. She could almost visualise the chip paper blowing along the towpath, almost smell the cigarettes of the man who had frightened them by patrolling up and down.

“Are you OK?” asked Juliet.

“Yes,” said Alex, with a shiver. Tim had gone on a few paces and she now followed, stepping over the sodden mass of old blankets and sleeping bag as she had on her previous visit.

Once they were standing under the bridge Alex looked up at the ledge that had been built high in the support wall. The ledge seemed higher, and the wall steeper, than she had remembered. She could see the grille clearly, about three quarters of the way along. It appeared to be tightly shut. It was flush with the surrounding masonry.

“That is the entrance,” she said, pointing to it. “It looks more inaccessible than I remember, but I’m sure you’ll be able to cope.” She looked at Juliet. “I’d like to go back to the car now.”

She turned and picked her way back across the wet rags until she reached the path. Juliet followed silently.

They’d been sitting in the back of the car without speaking for some minutes when Juliet said quietly, “Alex? Are you sure you don’t know anything more about what happened to Edmund Baker? You seem very jumpy.”

Alex met her gaze unflinchingly, her eyes clear and candid.

“No, I don’t know any more. I’ve no idea what he did or had planned after the last time I saw him at the Archaeological Society. The day that he returned the metal box, when DI Yates helped to carry it in. The day I was taken . . .” She looked down at her hands. “I know it sounds corny, and perhaps you won’t believe me, especially if you do find something hidden up there. But I’ve just got a horrible feeling about this place. It’s not entirely owing to imagination. Someone followed us the night that Edmund brought me here. Someone he was afraid of.”

Tim twisted his head round and squinted up at the grille. The ledge looked damp and was plastered with bird-droppings. He turned to the Peterborough policeman.

“Fancy scrambling up there?” he said.

“Not really, sir, but I will if you want me to. I’m better shod for it than you are.” He shot Tim’s brown leather half-brogues an amused look. Tim looked down self-consciously. He was aware that his footwear betrayed the dandy in him.

“Be careful. I’ll come up if you need me. Try not to fall on me, though!”

The policeman grinned. He was a tall, heftily-built man who had appeared quite clumsy when he was fixing the tarpaulin around the motorbike. However, he shinned up the wall quite nimbly now and had reached the ledge in a few seconds. He edged along it towards the grille. Establishing that its hinge was on the left, he seized hold of the vertical bar opposite and gave it a pull.

“It looks as if this is going to be tough to open, sir. It’s been well rammed into the wall.”

He pulled out a penknife and worked it round the edges of the metal. He pulled hard again.

“You need something to lever it with,” said Tim. “Are there tools in the panda car?”

The policeman shrugged. “Just the normal breakdown tools.”

“Throw me the keys; I’ll go and see what I can find.”

Tim returned from the car with a tyre lever.

“Can you catch this?”

The policeman held out his hand in response. Tim tossed the lever into the air and he caught it. He set to work on the grille again.

“I can feel some give in it now,” he said, after several minutes’ hard work. Tim couldn’t see him sweating, but he could sense it.

“Careful!” he said again.

The policeman gave the grille a final yank and pulled it open. He shone his torch into the aperture he had just revealed.

“Fuck!”

“What is it?” said Tim quickly.

“There’s a body in here.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m definitely sure. I’m surprised you can’t smell it; it stinks!”

“Push the grille to without shutting it completely and come down as quick as you can. There may have been a build-up of toxic gases in there.”