The Evil that Men Do (24 page)

‘All right, love, tell me about your adventures. How did you get into all that mud?'

‘Uh-uh. You first.' I was happy and comfortable, and I didn't want to recount my story quite yet.

‘I've nothing much to tell. I drove into town, Upper Pinnock, that is, to get the phone and see if anyone had reported a missing dog yet. No one had done, of course, so I went on to Broadway with more pictures to distribute, and stopped in at the police station. No joy there, either. No progress at all. Oh, and I did manage to reach Rose and Co. to call off the official hunt for Paul. They were not best pleased. Their Internet connection and phone lines have been jammed for hours with calls and emails. And of course I wouldn't tell them where he was, and that rather upset them, too. Then I went to Cheltenham to mention the dog, though that's rather far afield for the little chap, and then home to wait for you.'

And to fret, I thought but didn't say. I took another sip of wine. ‘You certainly covered a lot more territory than I did. I only made it to two farms. On the other hand, I learned something at both.'

‘Oh? No claim for Buster, here?' He nudged the dog, who snorted, licked Alan's shoe, and went back to sleep.

‘You know I'd have told you. No, I talked to one woman, who knew nothing about a missing dog.'

‘I thought you said two farms.'

‘Yes, but no one was home at the other one. In fact, it looked deserted. But at the first one, I met a very interesting woman. She told me a long story, but the short version is, she has an adopted child with major psychological problems, perhaps stemming from early childhood abuse. And she knows Jo Carter.'

Alan raised his eyebrows.

‘Only slightly, but  . . . well, Alan, I told her a little about the situation. Only a little, so she could be another set of eyes and ears.'

‘Do you think that was wise?'

‘I think she's trustworthy. I worry, of course, that I've put her in some danger, though I did warn her to be cautious. And the fact is, she might have been in more danger if she came upon Jo and/or her captor unawares. And Alan, she's going to spread the word about Jo among the therapists she knows. There are a lot of them, because her daughter has needed so much help. And she says they'll all know Jo, and will be on the lookout for her.'

‘Mmm.' Alan is very fond of those equivocal noises. I used to try to interpret them, but over the years I've realized they simply mean ‘I hear what you say. I may not agree, but go on.' So I went on. ‘It surely can't hurt anything, and it might help. With that many people looking  . . .'

‘You may be right. More eyes are a good thing. There are never enough police to do the job right, and never enough reliable members of the public to help. The characters in
The Thirty-Nine Steps
, the alert and vigilant citizenry who spot Richard Hannay all over the length and breadth of Scotland, do truly belong in fiction.'

‘It's an awfully good book, though. Anyway, that was the one farm. But what I learned at the other one was really important. Toss me my pack, will you?'

I rummaged inside, found the bit of hair, and reached over to hand it to Alan. ‘What do you think that is?'

He frowned over it, turned on the light beside him to see it better. ‘Too long to be dog or cat hair, too coarse to be human. I'd say it's from a horse's mane. Or tail, but somehow it looks more like mane hair to me. Where did you find it?'

‘That's the point. I found it in the shed where Jo Carter was recaptured.'

‘
What? Where?
How did you—'

‘It's all right. It's all
right,
Alan! Let me pour another glass of wine, and I'll tell you all about it.'

So I did, not even leaving out the creepy feelings I'd experienced. ‘The dog felt it, too, I'll swear he did. In fact, that's actually why I went into the shed to begin with. The dog was uneasy, and I wanted to see why. You know I've always believed in atmosphere, Alan, and the atmosphere in that place was thick with menace.'

I waited for him to smile away my fancies. He didn't. He studied the single strand of hair. ‘So your theory is that Jo was taken away on a horse?'

‘There weren't any tyre tracks, or tracks of anything wheeled. I'm sure the police noticed that. What was their theory of how she was taken away?'

‘I didn't ask. Were there hoof prints outside the shed?'

‘After yesterday's rain? There was a lot of mud everywhere. I brought quite a lot of it back with me, as you noticed. So stupid of me to fall that way, but I was  . . .'

‘A trifle out of countenance?'

‘Just a trifle.'

We sat silent, considering the implications. At last Alan stood and stretched. ‘You'd better try to lead me there in the car. I need to see exactly where the hair was. Did you mark it?'

‘What kind of detective do you take me for? I left half of it there, of course. And it's firmly attached to splintery wood. It isn't going anywhere for a while. So what you are going to do is phone the Broadway police and tell them about it, and then I'll put on some slightly fancier slacks and you will take me out for a bang-up dinner. I think I deserve it.'

TWENTY-SIX

W
e took the dog with us. There was never any real question about that. Ostensibly we wanted as many people as possible to see the dog, in case his owner turned up.

Most fine restaurants don't allow dogs, even in England where dogs are welcomed almost anywhere. So we searched out a pub in Upper Pinnock that had a terrace and a promising menu. Buster settled down under our table with no fuss at all, though he remained alert to the possibility of falling titbits.

‘We're not going to feed him under the table,' said Alan sternly.

‘Of course not.' Accidentally dropping the occasional bite of steak doesn't count as feeding.

We didn't discuss Jo's situation over dinner. There were too many people around, and we both needed some time to think. But on the way home, a replete dog fast asleep in the back seat, Alan said, ‘I've been thinking about the implications of what you found.'

‘Me, too. What have you come up with?'

‘Well, let's assume, for a start, that Jo was being held prisoner somewhere in the country.'

‘Yes, because if she were in a city or town, or even a village, and she managed to get free, she would have gone to a neighbour, or straight to the police.'

‘Right. Also because it's harder to hide someone in a place where there are lots of other people around. Even bound and gagged, a person can make some noise.'

‘And except in very large cities, neighbours notice unusual activity. One of the things I've always liked best about England is the way neighbours know each other, and look after each other.'

‘It isn't that way in America?'

‘Not except in the very smallest towns. Back in Hillsburg, I knew almost everyone casually, but it would never have occurred to anyone to ask me, in the grocery store, how my Aunt Susie was coming along after her operation. Here that sort of thing is a commonplace.'

Alan slowed for a nasty corner, our headlights sweeping a hedgerow and illuminating for an instant the eyes of some wild creature on its nocturnal business. ‘You surprise me,' he said. ‘Americans are such friendly people.'

‘Yes, in a way, but  . . . well, anyway. We're supposing Jo was kept somewhere out in the country. And that means  . . .'

‘That means, among other things, that she must have escaped either at night or at some time when her captor had left the premises for some reason.'

‘How do you  . . . oh. Because she would have had to take off across country, and would have been highly visible in the daytime.'

‘Exactly. Now. You're Jo Carter. You've been abducted and mistreated. We'll not think about how. You see your chance to get away. You get out of the house, or wherever you're being held, and  . . . do what?'

I shut my eyes and thought hard. Somewhere on the other side of that hedge, a horse whinnied. The dog sat up and gave a sharp bark, and then subsided.

‘I would try to think how to get the farthest away in the shortest possible time,' I said, thinking aloud. ‘Let's say it's night, and he, the villain of the piece, is still around. I don't have the car keys, and even if I did, starting it would make too much noise. The country is very quiet at night. So I suppose I'd start out walking. Or no. You said she was barefoot.'

‘The smaller footprints the police found outside the shed were barefoot. It's reasonable to suppose they were hers.'

‘So she didn't start out walking. Some of the footpaths are very rocky, and some of them cross stubble fields. Clever of the guy to take away her shoes.'

‘Oh, we're dealing with a wily one. But go on. You're doing fine.'

Suddenly I smacked my head. ‘Oh! Of course! What an idiot I've been. The horse!'

‘I think so, don't you?'

‘That's how she
got
there!. Maybe that's how they took her away, too, but she arrived on horseback. Either it belonged to her captor, or she stole it somewhere along the way. She could have walked a little way barefoot, I suppose.'

‘Depends on the terrain around wherever she was kept, but it's possible. I'm inclined to think, though, that the horse belongs to the villain of the piece, because if she could walk as far as a nearby pasture, she could have walked on to the farmhouse and sought help. I think we're looking for a fairly isolated farm where at least one horse is kept, though I'd prefer two.'

‘So he could ride the other one after her. And one of them is palomino, or at least has a blond mane and/or tail. Where are we, by the way?' I peered out into the unrevealing darkness. ‘I may be completely turned around, but shouldn't we be back at the cottage by now?'

‘We're going to drop the horsehair, and our hypothesis, off at the Broadway police station.'

‘Broadway? Not Cheltenham?'

‘Broadway's closer, and it's the same force. I'll ask that they get in touch with Superintendent Davids.'

Alan was tact itself when he presented our bit of evidence, and our conclusions, to the police. Even so, the sergeant on duty was not exactly overjoyed. ‘Very pretty piece of reasoning, Mr Nesbitt,' he said, with a geniality that didn't quite conceal his annoyance. ‘Quite the Sherlock Holmes, your lady wife, is she?'

I bared my teeth in what may have passed for a smile.

‘I'll certainly see the inspector gets this in the morning, first thing,' the sergeant went on. ‘He has your number if he needs more information?'

Alan murmured something and got me out of there before I exploded.

‘They're not going to do a thing about it!'

‘Oh, they will. They don't just discard leads, even if they are the product of amateurs.'

‘Amateur! You're a chief inspector! You're a famous policeman!'

‘Easy, love. Not any more, I'm not. I'm a doddering, interfering old busybody, with a wife who's even worse, and American, to boot.' He grinned to tamp down my fury.

‘Well, I think they're being extremely stupid. Here we've come up with this brilliant idea, which is more than they have, and they patronize us.'

‘I told you from the start that we had to be careful about stepping on official toes.'

‘They need to be stepped on,' I grumbled. We were back at the car by that time, where Buster was still asleep. He roused at my tone of voice, though, and whined a little.

‘No, it's all right, dog. I'm not upset with you. You're a fine boy. You led me to the most important find in a week. You're a real  . . . Alan, that's his name! Watson! We'll call him Watson.'

‘He is not,' said Alan as he backed out of the parking space, ‘our dog.'

Alan and I have not always agreed on how to approach the unravelling of a problem, or even whether we ought to try. In the morning, though, we were as one. We didn't even need to discuss it. We all ate breakfast, Watson went out briefly, and then we all piled in the car. It was Sunday, but for once there were more pressing duties than church. I had the OS map at the ready, along with our road atlas and a pencil.

It was another glorious day, what we used to call, back in Indiana, Chamber of Commerce weather. We would have enjoyed it more if it had not been for the urgency of our quest.

‘All right,' I said briskly, unfolding the map. ‘Here's the centre of our circle.' I tapped my pencil on the location of the shed I'd found, the shed where Jo Carter had hidden, however briefly. ‘What kind of a radius do we want to use?'

‘We don't actually know, do we?' said Alan, negotiating an especially tricky curve. ‘We can't speculate about the distance the horse might have travelled, because we know neither when Jo might have left her place of captivity, nor when she arrived at the shed.'

‘We know when she made that call from her mobile, though. I mean the mobile she had with her. I suppose the police told you the time.'

Alan consulted his capacious memory for a moment, and said, ‘Twenty forty-two.'

‘Eight forty-two p.m.,' I translated. ‘Now, I think we're safe in assuming she made that phone call the very first moment she could. So she arrived at the shed around eight thirty.'

‘No, I'm afraid we can't make that assumption. She had to find a phone, don't forget. That may have taken her some time.'

I chewed on that for a bit and then started to think out loud. ‘OK, let's go back to our little scenario of yesterday. I'm Jo. The bad guy  . . . can we call him Ben for the moment?'

Alan shrugged.

‘OK, Ben, then, has left me alone for a while. I think that's more likely than our other hypothesis that she left at night. Because on a horse, if it took her almost twenty-four hours to get to that shed, she would have had to be very far away indeed. Agreed?'