Days Without Number (21 page)

'Butcher's Row?' The barman gave a reasonable impression of thinking. 'Not sure I know it.' He thought some more. 'Hold on. The row of cottages out beyond Tregatta, off the Camelford road. Isn't that called Butcher's Row?' He looked at the blank-faced pair, who responded in their own good time with a slow, synchronized nod of confirmation. 'Yeah. That's it.'

Night had fallen by the time Nick drove clear of the village. The B road to Camelford was a busier route than the one he had arrived by, with the modest local version of the rush hour cranking itself up. Tregatta was a hamlet about half a mile south of Tintagel and according to the barman Butcher's Row 173

was about another half-mile further on. But this was the only road to it. If Andrew was set on revisiting Davey, Nick should be able to overhaul him on the way. He was in no state to have covered a mile in the time that had passed since their parting.

But there was no sign of him. For that Nick was in one sense grateful, because beyond Tregatta there was no footpath and not much of a verge. The roadside was no place for a drunken pedestrian.

Butcher's Row was down a minor road just past the first bend after Tregatta. Nick slowed to a crawl, getting horned by the car behind. But he succeeded in spotting the lane in time and turned off along it. A terrace of four low-roofed slate cottages fronted directly on to the lane. Nick pulled over as far as he could opposite it under a straggling thorn hedge, jumped out and headed for the Daveys' door.

There was only the dimmest of lights visible through the front window, behind thin curtains tightly drawn. Nick gave the knocker several loud raps and heard a shuffling approach on the other side of the door.

'Who's that?' came a female voice.

'Nicholas Paleologus,' he shouted.

'Who?'

'Mrs Davey?'

'Yes.'

'I'm Nicholas Paleologus. Is my brother with you?' %

~, ^

The door was suddenly wrenched open, to reveal two f

figures standing in a narrow hallway. Fred Davey looked shorter than Nick remembered him from the funeral and his wife Margaret was shorter still. Their clothes were threadbare and there was no gust of warmth from the adjoining sitting room, only a faint, musty chill. But there was no hint of frailty in their expressions. The Daveys were a well-matched pair, worn by hard lives to stony old age. J

'Your brother's been and gone, Mr Paleologus,' said Fred. 'A couple of hours since.'

'I thought he might have come back.'

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That he hasn't.'

'We're glad to say,' put in Margaret. 'I thought there'd be violence done, the bait he was in.'

'I'm sorry if he caused you any trouble.'

'So Dr Farnsworth said,' Fred responded. 'We've just had him on the blower, saying as you'd be taking your brother home out of harm's way.'

'So I will, once I find him.'

'Given you the slip, has he?'

'Something like that.'

'He wants to be careful, carrying on like he did. It'll get him into bother.'

'I can only apologize on his behalf, Mr Davey.'

'Maybe your father's going has sent him cranky.'

'Maybe.'

'Well . . .' Fred pushed out his bottom lip thoughtfully. 'See him home and we'll say no more about it.'

'I'll do my best.'

Nick reversed out awkwardly on to the main road and headed back towards Tintagel, reckoning Andrew must simply have gone to another pub after leaving the Sword and Stone. There were several to choose from. Perhaps getting roaring drunk was a sensible policy in the circumstances. Sober deliberation had certainly failed to net Nick any reward.

Then, as he accelerated away, he suddenly saw Andrew on the roadside ahead, blundering towards him, one arm raised to shield his eyes. Nick braked sharply to a halt, earning a horning and a flash of lights from behind. The offended driver sped past, nearly taking off the door as Nick edged it open.

'What the hell are you doing, Andrew?' Nick shouted, darting out and round to the front of the car. 'It's me. Nick.'

'Why should you care what I'm doing?' Andrew stopped and squinted at his brother through the glare of the headlamps, his face distorted by shadows into a Hallowe'en mask of rage.

'Because we've got to stick together.'

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'You stole my car keys. Funny bloody way to--' The rest was lost in the roar of a passing lorry.

'You're in no state to drive.'

'Maybe not. But I'm in a good state to squeeze the truth out of Davey.'

'Don't be stupid. Get in.'

'Don't tell me I'm stupid.' Andrew stumbled forward and prodded Nick in the chest. 'I'm going there whether you like it or not. Now, get out of my way.'

'Listen to me, Andrew.' Nick grabbed his brother by the arm. 'We need to--'

'Let go of me.' Andrew was the stronger of the two by far. He pulled Nick off him and shoved him towards the car. Nick fell back across the bonnet, while Andrew, carried off balance by his effort, reeled against the offside wing.

What happened next was compressed into a second, though, to Nick, as he pulled himself upright, it seemed more like a minute or more of slow, unfolding chance. Andrew's already shaky sense of his own bearings deserted him. He took three staggering, stooping steps out into the middle of the road and was lit for an instant by a clash of headlamps from both directions. A horn blared. There was a squeal of skidding tyre on tarmac. Then the dark, barely glimpsed shape of a van closed on him.

There was a thump, a blur of tumbling shadows. The tyres squealed on. The horn jammed and the wheels bounced and juddered. Something was crushed, snapped, spattered, in the mangling darkness; something that had been, until that second, Nick's brother, but was now . . .

No more.

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INTERLUDE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The video ended. Detective Inspector Penrose rose and removed it from the television, activating a brief flash of

Teletubbies on the screen before he pressed the off switch. He slipped the video into a large manilla envelope and handed it to his colleague, Detective Constable Wise.

They made a contrasting pair. Penrose was fortyish and shambling, with the face and build of a rugby prop forward, his voice gravelly and Cornish-accented. Wise, on the other hand, was slim, smart and sharp, his thinning hair fashionably shaven, his eyes clear and bright. He darted a swift glance at each of the other three occupants of the room as he placed the envelope next to the coffee-cup on the table beside him.

Sunlight was filtering through the windows of the room, casting a pattern of shrub shadows on the opposite wall, but the sunlight brought no warmth with it. A fire would have been a help, but the grate was empty. Trennor was without a permanent resident and that lack too imparted its own particular chill to the occasion.

The audience for the video show comprised Irene Viner and Basil and Anna Paleologus, bunched somewhat awkwardly on the sofa so that all could have a good view of the television. A momentary silence elapsed, then Basil cleared his throat and a look passed between the two sisters.

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'What should we make of this, Inspector?' asked Irene.

'I'd hoped you might be able to tell us that, madam,' Penrose replied, sitting down heavily. 'The registration number visible on the video corresponds with the registration number of your late brother's Land Rover.'

'It's the same vehicle,' said Wise.

'Indeed,' Penrose resumed. 'Now, a positive identification of the two figures is difficult, I know, but--'

'They could be anyone,' said Anna.

'We're assuming one of them is Andrew.'

'Just because it's his Land Rover.'

'It's a good reason,' said Wise.

'Granted,' said Irene. 'But where does that get us? How exactly did this video reach you?'

'It was mailed to me,' Wise replied. 'Posted in Plymouth on the thirty-first of January - the day after your brother's death.'

'You see a connection?'

'We see a coincidence. Sometimes they can be meaningful.'

'It might help if we knew what took Andrew to Tintagel that day,' said Penrose.

Irene frowned. 'I thought we'd established that.'

'To see this old fellow Davey, yes. But it seems . . . odd, it has to be said. The way Mr Davey tells it, Andrew wanted to ask him what he remembered of your father. But they'd met only the day before. Why couldn't he have asked him then? It's not as if Mr Davey knew your father well.'

'Grief can be ... discombobulating,' remarked Basil.

'Indeed, sir.' Penrose sighed and shifted in his seat. 'Naturally, we've shown the video to your brother Nicholas and questioned him about all this, but, as you know, his memory of the period leading up to the accident is still very patchy.'

'Shock, according to the specialist,' said Irene. 'Seeing Andrew killed in front of him like that...' She shook her head.

'And I understand he does have a history of ... psychiatric problems.'

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'Yes,' said Irene briskly. 'But isn't that beside the point? Surely the sequence of events is clear enough. Dr Farnsworth telephoned Nick because he was concerned that Andrew was . . . overwrought. Nick drove up to Tintagel and found Andrew in a pub, drinking heavily. He took his car keys away, to stop him driving while under the influence. He visited Mr Davey and met Andrew on the road as he was driving back to Tintagel. Then . . . the accident happened.'

'But why was Andrew overwrought, madam? That's the question. Because of his father's death ... or because of what we've seen on the video?'

'Nick's told us Andrew was too drunk to make any sense.'

'As he's told us. But it's possible, given his memory lapse, that there's something he's forgotten.'

T'm sure he'll tell you if he remembers anything significant.'

'Until and unless he does,' said Wise, 'all we have to go on is this video, sent to us anonymously, apparently to alert us to the disposal of a body.'

'You don't know the . . . object ... is a body,' said Irene, with a moue of distaste.

'Right size and shape. And a couple of people going to some lengths to get rid of it. We were bound to take it seriously.'

'Yet you found no body in the shaft,' remarked Basil.

'That's true, sir,' said Penrose. 'Which in one way makes it all the more puzzling.'

'Maybe it was just a hoax,' said Anna. 'You know, some mischief-maker giving you the run around.'

'Using your brother's Land Rover,' Wise pointed out. 'With - or without - his permission.'

'Why do you say the fact that you found nothing in the shaft makes it more puzzling?' asked Irene. 'Surely it solves your problem. There seems - literally - to be nothing for you to investigate.'

'My Chief Super will probably see it that way,' said Penrose. 'But the video shows a heavy cylindrical object being

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dumped in the shaft. The position relative to Caradon Hill pinpoints it as Hamilton's Shaft, north of Minions, one of the few round there not capped for safety reasons. We searched the shaft and found no body, as you say. In fact, no heavy cylindrical object at all. Why not, I wonder?'

'Because it was never there?' suggested Anna.

'Perhaps, madam.'

'Or perhaps because it was removed before the search,' added Wise.

'That seems an extraordinary notion,' said Irene.

'Indeed, madam,' said Penrose. 'It does, doesn't it?' He looked from one to the other of them. 'Can any of you recall anything your late brother said or did in the weeks before his death that suggested he might be mixed up in something like this?'

'Something like what exactly?' countered Irene.

'He was worried about the farm,' Anna put in. 'And about Dad.'

'We all were,' said Irene, with a fleeting frown at her sister. 'I doubt that's what the Inspector means, though.'

'It isn't, madam.'

T'm afraid there's nothing else.' A glance from Irene induced nods of confirmation from Anna and Basil. 'Nothing at all.'

'What about your nephew, Tom? Do you think he might know something?'

'Tom's had very little contact with his father these past few years. It was something Andrew regretted, I know. His divorce from Tom's mother didn't help, but . . . there you are.'

'Was Andrew seeing anyone?'

T'm sorry?'

'Did he have a girlfriend?'

'Not that I know of. In fact, no. Definitely not.'

'Once bitten, twice shy,' murmured Anna.

'Can you be certain?' asked Wise. 'I get the impression you didn't see that much of him yourselves.'

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'I'd put a lot of money on it,' said Anna. 'And I don't have much to spare.'

'The sale of this house will be quite a windfall for you in that case.'

'Is that relevant?' Irene asked sharply.

'No, madam,' said Penrose with a forbearing smile. 'It isn't.'

'Do you have some particular reason for asking about girlfriends, Inspector?' Basil enquired. 'For the record, I don't have one myself.'

Penrose smiled, as if in sympathy. Tell them about the phone call, Dave.'

'Right.' Wise nodded to his superior. 'We searched the shaft four days after receiving the video, on Monday the fifth of February. As you know, we found nothing, aside from rocks and general rubbish. A local farmer said he'd seen some . . . activity . . . around the shaft at the end of the previous week. He couldn't be specific, but we think what he saw may have been someone else searching the shaft - and removing what the video shows being dumped into it. The day after our search had drawn a blank, a woman telephoned me at the station. She wouldn't give her name. Part of the conversation was taped. I'll play it for you.'

Wise took out a pocket recorder and pressed a button. A crackly female voice cut in. '. . . at the shaft yesterday. What did you find?'

'Did you send me a video last week?' came Wise's recorded reply.

'What did you find?'

'Can I have your name please?'

'What have you done with it?'

'Done with what?'

'What you found in the shaft. '

'We found nothing. '

'I don't believe you. '