Disorder (Sam Keddie thriller series Book 1) (11 page)

Chapter 31

The Lake District

Sam and Eleanor approached reception just before 9am. Sam’s fatigue felt like a heavy coat. His body was begging to stop, to collapse on to the nearest seat and sleep. Eleanor, by contrast, was chomping at the bit. She asked for the manageress and the man behind the desk made a call. A moment later a woman with curly red hair emerged from a nearby doorway.

   ‘Ah!’ she said, ‘our late-night visitors.’ She extended her hand. ‘I’m Fay, the manageress. How can I help?’

   ‘It’s about my father,’ said Eleanor. ‘I believe he was a guest here recently.’

   ‘OK,’ said the manageress, toning down her enthusiasm. ‘Can I take his name?’

   ‘Charles Scott.’

   The woman looked up at Eleanor and then her eyes darted to Sam.

   Eleanor rooted in her bag and retrieved her driver’s license, which she showed to the manageress.

   ‘I’m sorry,’ said the woman, ‘but this doesn’t prove you’re his daughter.’

   ‘Oh for Christ’s sake,’ muttered Eleanor. She fished in her bag again and pulled out her wallet. She opened it and flashed the inside to the manageress. Sam caught a brief glimpse of a photo of Eleanor and her father.

   The woman smiled sympathetically.

   ‘I’m so sorry for your loss, Miss Scott. You can understand the last thing I want to do is discuss your father with someone from the press.’

   ‘Of course,’ said Eleanor tersely.

   ‘So,’ said the manageress, some reserve still evident in her voice. ‘What would you like to talk about?’

   ‘Can we go somewhere more private?’ asked Eleanor.

   The manageress led them out of reception into a snug, panelled bar. She directed them to a table well away from the only other person in the room, a waiter polishing glasses at a curved, chrome-top bar.

   ‘Can I get you anything – some coffee perhaps?’ she asked.

   Sam and Eleanor shook their heads. Sam had the distinct sense that the woman was delaying Eleanor’s questions.

   ‘When my father stayed here recently,’ said Eleanor, ‘he came with a woman he was having a relationship with.’

   The manageress looked uncertain. ‘To be fair, I’m not certain that’s the case.’

   ‘They shared the Keswick Suite,’ said Eleanor, flatly.

   ‘I’d have to check.’

   ‘Please,’ said Eleanor, not bothering to hide her irritation, ‘don’t feel the need to protect me. I know my father was having an affair. I also believe that something happened here that might shed some light on his death.’

   The woman looked at Eleanor and sighed. She then nodded gently. ‘Your father was a guest here earlier in the month – and he brought a woman called Jane Vyner as his guest.’

   ‘Do you always manage to remember your guests’ names so easily?’ asked Sam.

   The manageress looked down at the table, then up at Sam and Eleanor, smiling uncomfortably. ‘Certain guests.’

   Sam and Eleanor exchanged glances.

   The manageress paused, the discomfort written all over her face. ‘Your father and Jane Vyner had rather a public row – in this very room, in fact – that was overheard by pretty much everyone in the bar at the time.’

   ‘Go on,’ said Eleanor.

   ‘It was around seven in the evening and guests were drifting in for a drink before dinner. It’s normally such a relaxed time at the hotel, but that night the atmosphere changed in an instant.’ The manageress’s eyes moved between Sam and Eleanor, as if begging them to ask her to stop.

   ‘I was in the room at the time, ensuring the staff were looking after guests, drinks were refilled, that kind of thing. Your father,’ and here the eyes again dropped to the table for a moment, ‘was sitting in one of the booths with Jane Vyner. I have to say, they didn’t look that happy when they walked in, as if they’d just had a row. Anyhow, whatever was on their minds soon resurfaced.’

   The manageress looked at Eleanor, her eyes almost pleading. ‘Are you sure you want to hear this?’

   Eleanor’s face was set rigid. ‘Tell me everything.’

   ‘It’s an exchange I can remember almost word for word,’ continued the manageress after a pause. Sam sensed her gathering momentum, keen to get this over with.

   ‘I was close to the table when I heard your father raise his voice for the first time, saying “just drop it, will you?” Jane Vyner snapped back with “Drop what exactly? You haven’t told me anything.” Your father began speaking louder, his tone, if I’m going to be honest, was dripping with sarcasm. He told Jane Vyner to stop being “so bloody clever”. They had the full attention of everyone in the room now and whatever conversation anyone else had been enjoying had halted. In fact, when your father and Jane Vyner weren’t talking, you could have heard a pin drop. I’d had enough at this point and headed over to their booth to ask them to either pipe down or leave the room. But as I was about to intervene, Jane Vyner’s voice became more of a shout. She was ranting about how it was impossible to drop the issue, and that nothing had been the same since he’d got back. Your father then slammed the table with a fist and shouted “Enough”. As you can imagine, that was it. I asked them to leave.’

   There was a sudden scrape of chair legs and Sam turned to see Eleanor walk out of the room. He’d been listening to the manageress so intently, he hadn’t noticed Eleanor’s state. This was clearly much harder than she’d anticipated.

   The manageress sighed heavily. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said.

   ‘It’s not your fault,’ said Sam. ‘She asked to hear it.’

   ‘I’m sure this isn’t how she wants to remember her father.’

   Sam turned back to the table. ‘To be honest, I doubt she knows him at all any more.’

   Sam found Eleanor sitting on the terrace at the back of the hotel. It was a bleak day, the clouds gun-metal grey and low over the lake below them. The far side was obscured, so the view appeared nothing more than an oppressive bank of fog. He sat down beside her.

   ‘You OK?’ 

   ‘That was too much for me,’ said Eleanor, her voice cold, ‘the idea of my father ranting in a hotel bar.’ She combed both hands through her thick hair. ‘But at the same time, I want to know everything. I need to understand him.’

   Sam could see now that he had to give Eleanor the case notes – the pieces of paper he’d willfully held back. To protect her from making assumptions about her father’s actions, and his feelings towards her. But also because it hadn’t suited him at the time.

   But before he could reach for the sheets of paper in his pocket, she spoke.

   ‘He took 28 Co-proxamol, you know,’ she said. ‘They found the boxes by his chair, and some barely digested pills he’d vomited. He’d had the tablets for years. He’d been prescribed them for a bad back. They must have been in his bathroom cabinet all that time. Just waiting.’

   Sam said nothing, letting her speak unimpeded.

  ‘He left a suicide note too. The police gave it to us. It just said “So sorry to let you both down”. Pathetic, don’t you agree? How could he leave us this way, with a huge bloody mystery, guessing why in God’s name he decided it made sense to abandon his wife and daughter.’

   She started to cry, her head resting on her knees. Sam placed a hand on her back.

   ‘I should show you these,’ he said.

   Eleanor looked up. ‘What?’

   ‘Your father’s case notes.’

   The tears had stopped flowing and Sam could see the rapid calculations going on in Eleanor’s head. ‘You kept these from me,’ she said. ‘Why?’

   ‘Because,’ Sam replied, searching for words that wouldn’t inflame the situation. ‘I kept them from you because I didn’t want to upset you any more than you were already.’

   The words were true, but Sam was acutely aware that he was still not being entirely honest.

   ‘But these amount to some of my father’s last words.’ She snatched the papers from Sam. Hastily wiping her tears with the back of a hand, she began to read.

   ‘I’m sorry,’ said Sam.

   Eleanor did not look up. She was no longer with Sam, but intently studying the pieces of paper in her hands.

   Sam slipped away.

   A little later, he was sitting in the hotel foyer, a cup of coffee going cold before him, when Eleanor approached.

   ‘I’m going home,’ she said, barely looking him in the eye. ‘I need to be with my mother. If the Government wants to kill me they can come and get me. I’ll give you a lift to the station. I think it’s best we part ways.’

  Sam stood. ‘Eleanor –’

  Her eyes locked on to his, cutting his words dead. Sam knew what was haunting her. It was the short, poisonous phrase Scott had used when he briefly talked about Eleanor, the kind of phrase that would torture any child who’d just lost a parent.
She wouldn’t understand
. Eleanor would now be convinced that she’d let her father down, just when he needed her most.

   Eleanor broke her stare and walked away.

   A little later, Sam was waiting outside the hotel entrance. The air was dense with small particles of mist that swirled around him, coating his face and clothes with a light film of water.

   Sam heard footsteps behind him and turned to see the manageress.

   ‘Safe journey,’ she said, an apologetic smile on her face.

   Sam nodded. As the woman turned into the hotel, Sam realised that, despite Eleanor’s clear intention to stop digging, he wasn’t finished.

   ‘One other thing,’ he said.

   The woman turned.

   ‘When you asked them to leave, was that the end of their argument?’

   The manageress shook her head. ‘There was a little more unfortunately, none of it pretty. Jane Vyner said he’d been unrecognisable since Marrakesh. Scott then bellowed “Enough” again. Jane Vyner stormed out, shortly followed by Scott. A little later she came down alone with her suitcase and asked the receptionist to order a cab. I didn’t see Scott until the following morning, when he paid up and left.’

   Just then Eleanor emerged from the hotel – her face like thunder – clutching her bag.

   They climbed into the car in silence. As she reversed the Peugeot hard, sending gravel spinning away from the car’s wheels, Sam knew that any further discussion about her father – or indeed anything else – was not welcome.

Chapter 32

The Lake District

At the top of the hotel’s narrow drive, Eleanor looked briefly both ways and then accelerated into the road. The car was moving fast – too fast – into a bank of mist. The vehicle’s lights were little help, the beams swallowed up by the murky haze.

   ‘You should slow down,’ said Sam.

   Eleanor shot him a withering look, continuing down the road at the same speed.

   The car turned a corner and the windscreen was filled with a bright, blinding light.
Sam pushed back into the seat, as if his weight might slow the car. Eleanor slammed on the brakes but the car didn’t stop. She yanked on the handbrake, but again the car didn’t react.

   Sam’s arm instinctively shot out to protect Eleanor from being flung forward into the steering wheel and windscreen. The futility of the gesture was soon made sickeningly clear.

   In the seconds that followed, Eleanor lost control of the vehicle as it spun right, crashing through a low-lying stone wall. There was a tearing, crunching sound, as the chassis of the Peugeot ground over the stones at high speed. Sam’s other arm was at his side, clinging to the car seat, even as he felt the vehicle take flight.

   The next thing he knew, the car’s motion came to a sudden halt as it landed in water. Their heads were flung brutally forward into the cushion of an airbag. The sense that they’d escaped being slammed into the dashboard or windscreen was little comfort. The car was now listing violently from side to side.

   Ahead, the mist briefly cleared and Sam saw the waves rippling around them, an indifferent expanse of lake ready to draw the car and its passengers into a cold, wet embrace.

   Eleanor pulled frantically at her door, muttering ‘Christ, oh Christ’ between rapid breaths.

  Sam could feel his own breathing becoming faster, his lungs desperately gasping for oxygen as his body began to panic. The claustrophobia was closing in. He experienced a sudden flash of memory from his childhood – of the dark featureless walls of a cupboard below the stairs – before he shook the thought from his head. Focus, he had to focus.

   He lunged across Eleanor, pressing the window switch on her door.

   ‘You can’t open the doors,’ he said. ‘The pressure of the water’s too great. The window’s our only way out.’

  But the switch did not respond. The window remained closed. Sam pressed again, punching it with his finger. He tried his. That too refused to budge. The electrics had gone. The water’s first victim.

   ‘Fuck.’

   He was just about to release his seatbelt and wind down the rear windows when they both heard the dull metallic groan, as if the car was protesting. The Peugeot’s front was dropping rapidly below the water’s surface. Icy liquid had made entry and was pooling around their ankles.

   Sam watched, with a feeling of intense dread, as the bonnet angled downwards, the Peugeot’s windscreen dropping fast below the waterline. The liquid inside had now risen to waist level, a dark mass of freezing water that threatened hypothermia as well as drowning.

   It was as if they were being buried alive. The dim light of the day was quickly being extinguished and Sam could already feel the air in the car being eaten up.

   He knew that if the lake’s bottom was deep – and he prayed to God that at this close distance to shore it wasn’t – they were both dead.

   Within seconds, they were below the surface, a murky, diffused light all around. A dull thud, a sound muffled by a thick wall of water, interrupted Sam’s dark thoughts. The car had stopped. The water was around their chests, and rising fast. It was now a question of waiting.

   Eleanor had given into panic and was pulling frantically at her door again.

   ‘You will not be able to open that door until the car is full of water,’ he barked.

   Eleanor blinked rapidly, struggling to take in what he was saying.

   As he spoke the next words, Sam could feel his stomach tighten. ‘The car needs to fill with water to equalize the pressure. Do you understand?’

   This time Eleanor nodded. He felt a hand grab one of his, Eleanor’s fingertips digging into his skin.

   As the water reached Sam’s chin, he shouted out to Eleanor: ‘In a couple of seconds you need to release your seatbelt and then take a very deep breath.’

   Eleanor, her face white, nodded.

   A moment later Sam gave Eleanor the signal and they released their seatbelts with hands that were already numbing with cold. Their bodies were gently pushed upwards till their heads nudged the car’s roof. There were about three inches of air to spare, their heads at sharp angles to allow their mouths to take a last gasp. He blinked at Eleanor. The message was clear. They simultaneously drew in the deepest breaths they could, before the water consumed the last drops of oxygen in the car. 

   The car’s interior was now full of water and they wasted no time. Eleanor reached for the handle of her door. It eased slowly open and she swam out and upwards. Sam’s door was stiffer and, as he finally emerged from the car, there was another groaning sound and the vehicle began to drop again, this time faster than before. Sam shot forward but the door frame caught his left leg. He felt the metal scrape against his skin and was then swimming upwards, his lungs close to bursting.

   His head broke through the surface, his mouth drawing in great draughts of air as he looked round for Eleanor. He saw her just feet away, a pale face framed by dark wet hair that clung to her skull.

   Her teeth were chattering, the hypothermia gradually taking hold. Suddenly the effort of escaping the lake felt monumental. His wet clothes seemed to have doubled his body weight. Simply attempting to swim was exhausting.

   But then he saw a light sweep across the surface of the water, and a shot of adrenaline raced through his system.

   ‘We need to get out of sight!’ he said to Eleanor. ‘Dive down and swim to the bank.’

   Eleanor didn’t need persuading. The last thing Sam saw before he dived under was her head disappearing.

   A moment later, they were huddled together under a small knoll at the water’s edge. They watched the bright beam – without doubt the same one that had driven them off the road – move slowly and methodically across the water’s surface, the light dense with minute spots of mist.

   A few agonising minutes later, the beam cut out and Sam heard footsteps and then the sound of a car door slamming. An engine started and a car accelerated away, the sound slowly becoming more distant.

   To his side, Eleanor’s body was shaking violently. He could feel his jaw tightening and teeth beginning to rattle. His body had started to shiver. He suspected they had minutes to go before they were both in danger of slipping into unconsciousness.

   Climbing the bank to the road was out of the question. It wasn’t just the steep gradient. They’d seen how little traffic passed by. No, the only possibility was to walk back along the shore to the hotel.

   ‘We need to go back,’ said Sam. He heaved himself up, the wet clothes like an anchor, and helped Eleanor to her feet. Pulling her close to him he began to walk. The wound his leg had suffered exiting the car now made itself known, a pain that shot up his left thigh with every step.

   They hobbled slowly round the headland, clinging to each other to stay warm, their progress slowed by wet clothes, exhaustion and, in Sam’s case, the excruciating pain of his left leg.

   Finally they rounded a corner and the white sweep of the Burn Banks Hotel emerged from the mist. A figure was standing in the near distance. Sam called out but he could barely hear the words himself. They dragged themselves up a shallow slope that felt more like a mountain and then Sam attempted another cry for help. This time the figure – a man digging a flowerbed – turned in their direction. He discarded his spade and ran towards them, just as Sam and Eleanor collapsed to the ground.