Sleepwalk (27 page)

‘Don’t you dare speak to me like that! How could you? After all the teasing and taunting you’ve done and stealing from my log pile. You have made my life a misery.’

‘You make your own life a misery because you see
bad
in everyone. That first time I came to you because I saw you had that massive pile of logs all getting wet in the rain and it was in the winter and we were so cold; me and Jonk and Bernie and the colonel. I found the barrel and spent ages cutting it up with me penknife so I could make a fire in it but all the sticks were wet and wouldn’t burn. So I come to you to see if I could do a bit o’ work for you in return for some logs, you remember?’

Vanessa remembered. He had spent the whole morning there building her a covered log store and then stacked the logs securely into the store to keep them dry and she had made a deal with him. She would give him a bag of logs and two loaves of bread fresh from her bread oven but it had all gone wrong. She’d had a call from her sister in America to say she wouldn’t be coming to stay at Christmas after all which meant she’d be spending Christmas on her own again, and she’d been on the phone so long trying to convince her to change her mind; to no avail, that by the time she got to the oven the bread was ruined because she’d had the heat too high and forgotten to turn it down before the phone went. Seeing red she’d put all three loaves of bread in the bin and told him there wouldn’t be any bread after all. He’d grabbed a sack and started to fill it with logs and told her he didn’t care if it was burnt; they were hungry he’d said. But she’d insisted he wasn’t having burnt bread and he could just take the logs and have done with it.

‘We had a bargain.’ Said Slim and he looked at her with his eyebrows raised as if he were expecting an explanation.

‘You’ve had that bag of logs tenfold since you’ve been stealing from me Williams; you know you have.’

‘We were hungry Vanguard. You made a promise. I kept my part of the deal; you never kept yours.’

She hung her head, his words starting to penetrate the tough exterior of the idealistic world that was Vanessa Gordon.

‘Bernie died that winter. He was ex army too, like the colonel. Me and Jonky, they used to tell us stories about the war. They never had a good time in the war you know.’

‘I …… I know……’

‘And then the colonel……. and ……. and now Jonk……. It’s just me now. Me and Bits. But I had to come. She told me…… she always told me I should come and talk to you…… saw the good in you, she did. Said you needed a friend, that’s why you was bitter. But I never had the guts see; but now she’s gone I…….’

‘Jonky …. the girl ……. the hippy girl with the stripy socks?’

‘Dead; killed; same as the colonel…….. by some woman in a black car. Jonky called her
the angel of d
eath
.’ He placed Jonquils scrap book on her lap. You see Vanguard; if it hadn’t been for you turning up that day we would probably still be sitting under that bridge now, and I woulda looked out for her………. and she’d probably still be alive. I want you to help me find her killer……….. I want you to help me find
the angel of d
eath’
.

London
, Gatwick. They were here at last. It was very busy. There were people everywhere dragging cases along behind them; rushing in every direction and the queues were long. They’d been cutting it fine to check their bags in before the desk closed but had just made it and now had only thirty minutes left of the usual two hours to kill before their flight. Abi was pleased to see Ellie so excited. She had been that way for the last few days and Abi hadn’t had the heart to quiz her anymore about the articles in the paper. If she had, Ellie wouldn’t have known anything about them anyway. If she’d had anything to do with the fire or these hit & run killings, surely the police would have been on to her by now? Abi had been half expecting them to turn up and ruin their holiday. No; this was their first holiday together and they were going to have a ball. Ellie had slept really well lately which was a bonus; apart from last night when she’d found her up bright and early with the washing machine going again. She’d been so excited about the holiday she hadn’t been able to sleep she’d said. They were in the departure lounge sitting near gate 11, passports and boarding passes at the ready. You could see clearly through the high glass walls that
London
was looking grey and cloudy and then it started to rain.

‘How cool is this Ell?’

‘It’s amazing Abs. I can’t wait to get on that plane.’

‘I know; me too. It’s especially good when you’re leaving
London
and its all grey like this because
Crete
is going to be so hot.’

‘Well, that’s not entirely guaranteed Abs. It could be cloudy the whole two weeks.’

‘Unlikely. We might get a couple of bad days but at this time of year I suspect we’re in for some really hot weather.’

‘Lets hope so eh? Come back all tanned up.’

‘Mmm …….Oh listen!’

‘
Pas
sengers on flight no ZY6250 depart
ing for Crete please go to gate 13……not gate 11, as previously
announce
d
…….’

‘That’s us, come on.’

The girls grabbed their hand luggage, raced to the next terminal and joined the queue which had already formed at their gate.

‘Gate 13; that’s unlucky’ whispered Ellie.

‘Ell, for the next two weeks we’re having nothing but good luck..... and love...... and sunshine.’

Abi could just make out the two uniformed police officers at the far end of the terminal building talking to an airport security guard who was pointing in their direction. They waited in the queue for a few more minutes and eventually the gate was opened and the queue began to shuffle forward, slowly at first and all the time the two policemen were getting closer and her adrenalin was rising. She knew then that their focus was on Ellie who was standing, oblivious to all this amongst several small children, her tall blonde physique standing out like a poppy in a field of clover. Abi took a large pink sun hat from her hand luggage bag and pulled Ellie to her side mingling amongst the tall people.

‘Put this on, Ell……. let’s get in the holiday mood.’ She pulled the hat over Ellie’s head just as the two officers had reached the back of the queue and were bobbing up and down searching the crowd. The queue began to move more quickly, and then they were through the boarding gate making their way along endless corridors that led to sunshine……. and freedom.

DI Carter slammed the phone down. Nothing was going right today.

‘They didn’t manage to catch them then?’ Claire was sitting at his desk. She’d been adding her latest report to the Breen file.

‘No; useless lot. They’d already boarded the plane.
Thames
Valley
’s hands were tied without a warrant they said. I ask for a twenty minute delay off the record; enough time to make them miss their flight and they can’t even do that. The best we can do now is to take a drive up there ourselves once the search warrant comes through and if we find what we’re looking for in the car we’ll have to wait till they get off that plane in two weeks time because I don’t think the East Barton Constabulary funds will stretch to a couple of days vacation in the Greek Islands.’

‘Shame. Can’t we liaise with the Greek police Sir?’

‘More funding Claire; it costs to employ an interpreter. How’s your Greek?’

‘What’s the opposite of fluent?’

‘Non existent?’

‘That’ll be the one.’

As soon as the search warrant came through Carter took Claire Peters with him and they set off to Gatwick airport where the car park attendant eventually handed over the keys to Ellie’s blue Fiesta. Carter asked airport security to come with them as independent witnesses to the search and they followed the two officers to parking area ‘C’ and pulled up behind the Fiesta. Donning his surgical gloves, Claire and the security officers watched as Carter opened the boot.

‘Well, well. Surprise, surprise.’ A small red petrol can was clearly visible at one side of the boot. Carter went to the boot of his car and took a large clear plastic bag, turned it inside out and put his hand inside, then scooped up the can carefully pulling the bag up over it and sealed the strip at the top. ‘For the record, It’s empty’ he stated and shook the can to prove his point. ‘There’s a strong smell of petrol in here.’ He lifted the carpeting inside the boot to reveal a jack and a pack of car tools. He replaced the carpeting carefully and then started to look inside the car but found nothing of importance. DC Peters had been looking around the outside of the car at the damage to the driver’s side.

‘Ok. Well we’ve found what we were looking for. I’ll get a team over to collect the car. It’ll need to be taken back to our forensics for testing.’

One of the airport security officers looked aghast.

‘You can’t do that can you? These people are on holiday and they have entrusted their car to us. Surely you…..’

Carter gave him a wry smile.

‘This is a murder investigation sonny. We can do what we bloody well like.’ He slammed the boot closed and locked the car then put the keys into another clear plastic bag. ‘Oh, and when your people get back from their sunny little holiday, I think they’ll be going for a much longer one; where the sun don’t shine.’

On the way back to Devon Claire, who had been quiet for a while suddenly spoke.

‘The girl who was killed sir, Jonquil?’

‘Yes. Bit of a waste of life wasn’t it?’

‘Yes........... I was reading her statement earlier.’

‘Oh. The ‘angel of death’ statement. She was right about one thing. She came for her in the end didn’t she? Poor kid.’

‘Yes. Her statement said that the car was reversing quite fast toward her and that she climbed through the fence just as the car hit the bridge but I don’t remember the scenes of crime saying anything about it……..’

‘…….actually hitting the bridge’ finished Carter. ‘Nice work Claire. We’ll go straight there while it’s still light.’

As they turned onto the wasteland some time later they could see the flickering light of the barrel fire under the viaduct where their friend Williams must have been having a barbecue. Carter killed the engine on his car and let it roll to a stop a little way up from the bridge. The weather had changed and there was a fair breeze this afternoon so their approach had gone unnoticed. They crept quietly through the long grass and almost made it into the clearing before the little dog appeared and began to bark ferociously at them. Slim was up from his car seat and ready to run at the first sound from his dog.

‘Ah…… the veritable rainbow I presume. It’s alright Williams. We’re not here to bother you. We’ve just come to take a look around, that’s all. You can assume your comfy position in your little stolen car seat.’

‘It’s not stolen; I found it.’

Claire Peters came to the barrel and warmed her hands while Carter looked all along the wall of the bridge. Slim studied the girl suspiciously. She wasn’t very old. Not much older than him, he thought.

‘Sorry to hear about your friend Stephen; Jonquil, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’ll miss her I guess?’

‘Yes.’

‘Were you very close?’

‘I looked out for her; yes.’

‘I’m sorry. You’ve got quite a sheltered little place here haven’t you? I thought it would be quite drafty under a bridge but it’s actually not. I suppose the fenced off area provides you with a bit of a wind break?’

‘Yes.’

She stooped down beside the boy and rubbed her hands together. ‘Funny isn’t it? It’s like the end of July and yet when the weather changes and it rains, it gets quite cold; or is it just me?’

Slim gazed at the flames leaping around inside his barrel. Her voice was soft and kind. Just for a second it felt like Jonquil was there beside him, then he looked at her face; her sophisticated clothes, and saw an ulterior motive for her kindness and realised it wasn’t Jonky at all. A stray tear escaped from his eye and he sniffed.

‘Why did he call me that?’

‘DI Carter? Call you what?’

‘Very something rainbow; he called me a rainbow.’

‘Ah. We interviewed your friend Jonky before she…. before she died. She said, ‘
Slim is like a rainbow; he watches over us
.’ I think she had a lot of love for you Stephen.’

The boy was smiling now as tears ran down his cheeks. Claire Peters put a hand on his shoulder then stood up and turned away. It was best to leave him now.

‘You have to find her.’

‘Sorry?’

‘The woman who did this; Jonky’s angel of death. You have to find her. Long blonde hair……….. she’s got long blonde hair and…… and mad eyes.’

‘That’s what we’re working on Stephen, but we need all the help we can get; so if you think of anything…….. anything at all that you think might help; here’s my card….. phone me. Ok?’

The boy nodded, took her card and held it in both hands. Carter was calling her.

‘Claire! Claire, come and look at this!’ He was at the far end of the bridge support. He had worked his way all along the underside of the bridge and found nothing and now he was around the corner at the far side of the wall.