Upon A Dark Night Read online

  ‘How do you know, petal?’

  She said, ‘For God’s sake, don’t keep saying that to me, Ada. Look, I’m really grateful for what you did down there. I am, honestly. But if you think that gorilla had anything to do with me, you can’t have much an opinion of me.’

  ‘He must have had something to do with you, petal,’ persisted Ada. ‘Okay, he didn’t treat you like precious goods, but he knew what he wanted. He was waiting there for you.’

  ‘How did he know? Oh,’ she said, answering herself, ‘the paper. It was in the bloody paper. I suppose it said I was staying here.’

  ‘Even if it didn’t, any guy with half a brain could find out,’ said Ada. ‘There aren’t that many hostels in Bath for drop-outs like you and me.’

  ‘He started by calling me “love” and telling me he was taking me home,’ Rose recalled. ‘Trying to sweet-talk me into going with him.’

  ‘Optimist,’ said Ada.

  ‘Bastard,’ said Rose. ‘One look at him told me he was phoney. That horrible grin. What is he – a maniac? He was trying to abduct me, Ada.’ the word sounded positively Victorian and the moment she spoke it she expected Ada to mock, but she didn’t.Abduct:

  ‘No argument, petal, but I wouldn’t put him down as a nutter. He had a driver in that car. Nutters are loners. They don’t hunt in pairs.’

  ‘It’s not unknown.’

  ‘This wasn’t a casual pick-up. These two were organised. They must have been waiting there some time.’’

  Rose shivered. ‘That’s ugly.’

  ‘Sinister.’

  ‘Why, Ada? Why would anybody want to snatch some unfortunate woman who loses her memory and gets her picture in the paper?’

  There was a longish pause from the other bed while Ada weighed the possibilities. Up to now, her advice had always been sensible except when it touched on kleptomania. ‘If it was one bloke, I’d say he was after the usual thing. Two makes it different. There’s got to be advantage in it. Money.’

  ‘Kidnapping?’

  ‘Here’s one scenario. They – or someone they work for – saw your picture in the paper and recognised you. Let’s say you come from a wealthy family. They could demand a good ransom. You’re an easy target.’

  ‘If my face is so well known, why didn’t my own people come and find me?’

  ‘Maybe they will. Let’s hope so.’

  Rose said, ‘I’m going to go to the police. What happened just now was a crime, Ada. They could easily try again.’

  Ada’s reluctance to have any truck with the police was well known. she said dismissively, ‘That’s your decision, petal.’

  ‘Well, I can’t bank on you being there to beat off the opposition next time,’ Rose pointed out.

  ‘Is that what you think the fuzz will do? Supply you with a personal bodyguard?’

  ‘No, but at least they’ll pursue these thugs who attacked us. I can give them a description.’

  ‘What description?’ said Ada, becoming increasingly sarcastic. ‘Some white guy between twenty and thirty, average height, with black hair, a grey suit and stubble, accompanied by someone else of uncertain age, height and sex, who can drive a car. I’m sure they’ll comb the West Country looking for those two.’

  ‘We know the colour of the car.’

  ‘We know it was a Toyota, but I could point you out a dozen red Toyotas without walking five minutes from here. I didn’t take the number – did you?’

  Rose shook her head. ‘But someone else might have noticed them waiting.’

  ‘And taken the number?’ Ada heaved herself into a sitting position. ‘Listen to me, dreamer. All you have to do is change your address. Those goons won’t know where to look for you.’

  ‘How can I do that? I don’t have any money.’

  ‘But I have chums. I could find you a squat.’

  One stage closer to sleeping rough. Rose didn’t care for that one bit. ‘I’ll think it over,’ she said.

  ‘Feel any better now?’ asked Ada.

  ‘I’m not shaking so much, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘Good. Let’s eat. It’s okay…’ Ada held up her hands in mock self-defence. ‘…we don’t have to go to the shops. I have a stack of pork pies in the fridge.’

  Nine

  Ada was right about one thing. To move out of Harmer House was Rose’s top priority now. She had no liking for the place. She wanted to leave right away; but not to enter a squat, as Ada had suggested. She would ask Avon Social Services to relocate her. She called their office to make an appointment, and was told that Imogen was in court. The earliest she could manage was next morning.

  After an uneventful night, she walked alone all the way down to the office in Manvers Street, nervously eyeing the stationary cars she passed, yet feeling better each step of the way for showing some independence. She was not ungrateful to Ada, who had offered to come in support, but this time it would not have been wise. Ada knew everyone at Social Services and boasted that she could get some action out of ‘that lot who never get off their backsides except to switch on the kettle’- an approach that might have achieved results, but not the sort Rose hoped for. Besides, her own experience of Imogen was fine; she couldn’t fault her. She had thanked Ada warmly and said she felt this was one matter she had to sort out for herself.

  But she was reminded of Ada’s remark when Imogen, seated in the office, said it was one of those days that sapped her energy. ‘It’s so heavy again. The air isn’t moving.’

  And neither are you, blossom, Rose found herself thinking as if by telepathy.

  ‘Shall I make coffee?’ Imogen suggested.

  Rose told her not to trouble. She gave her account of the incident outside Harmer House.

  Imogen became more animated, fingering her beads and saying, ‘That’s dreadful. Deplorable. What a brute. We can’t have that happening to women in our care. You didn’t know the man?’

  ‘I hope not,’ Rose answered. ‘I really hope not.’

  ‘You poor soul,’ said Imogen. ‘You still haven’t got your memory back?’

  Rose shook her head.

  ‘What a bind.’

  ‘You’re telling me.’

  ‘Look, there’s got to be something wrong here,’ said Imogen, shifting the emphasis in a way Rose was unprepared for. ‘They were very confident at the hospital that you’d be all right in a matter of hours.’

  ‘Well, it hasn’t happened.’

  ‘Harmer House was just an arrangement to tide you over. There was no intention you should become a resident there.’

  ‘Can you find me somewhere else, then?’

  ‘I can certainly try. More important than that, I think we should get some fresh medical advice, don’t you?’

  This wasn’t what Rose had come for, yet she had to agree it was sensible.

  Imogen picked up the phone and proved her worth by taking on the formidable appointments machinery at the Royal United Hospital and winning. ‘Two-fifteen this afternoon,’ she told Rose. ‘Dr Grombeck. Cranial Injuries Unit. Would you like me to come with you?’

  Rose said she could manage alone.

  The desk sergeant at Manvers Street hailed Julie Hargreaves over the heads of the people waiting in line to report lost property, abusive beggars and complaints against their neighbours. ‘Inspector Hargreaves, ma’am, can you spare a moment?’

  She looked at her watch. She was about to slip out for a quiet coffee with Peter Diamond, away from the hurly-burly, as he called it, meaning John Wigfull and his henchmen. Diamond had asked for the canteen gossip and he would be waiting for it in the Lilliput Teashop at ten-thirty.

  Julie had some sympathy for the sergeant. She had worked the desk in her time and knew the pressure. ‘Just a jiffy, then.’

  ‘It’s the old problem. A tourist. No English at all. I don’t know if she’s lost, or what. Could you point her in the direction of the Tourist Information Office? They’re more likely to speak her language than I am.’

&nbs
p; The woman’s eyes lit up when Julie approached her. Clearly she was as frustrated as the sergeant at the lack of communication. Before Julie had taken her across the entrance hall to a quieter position, she asked, ‘Spricht hier jemand Deulsch?’, and Julie knew she would not be of much more use than the sergeant. She had a smattering of German, no more.

  This was no schoolgirl looking for her tour-leader. She was about Julie’s age, around thirty. Her worn jeans and faded grey tracksuit top were too shabby for a tourist. She could easily have come from the queue outside the job centre. The face, pale and framed by short brown hair, had deep worry lines. She was in a state over something.

  Without much difficulty, Julie established the woman’s name. Hildegarde Henkel. She wrote it down. But progress after that was next to impossible without a German/English dictionary. It wasn’t even clear whether Ms Henkel wanted to report an incident or register a complaint. Sign language didn’t get them far.

  Julie ended up speaking to herself. ‘I really think the sergeant is right. We’ve got to find someone who speaks your language.’ She beckoned to the woman and walked with her to the Tourist Information Office in Abbey Chambers.

  She left Hildegarde Henkel deeply relieved and in earnest conversation with one of the staff. It seemed to be about some dispute in the street the previous afternoon involving a car. The German-speaking information officer said she would phone the police station with the salient details.

  More than ten minutes late for coffee with Diamond, Julie cut through York Street to North Parade. He was seated with his back to the Lilliput’s bow window, making inroads into a mushroom omelette. ‘You didn’t see this,’ he said when she got inside. ‘I’m supposed to be watching my weight. Haifa grapefruit and some toast for breakfast. I was fading fast.’

  ‘A diet?’ said Julie, surprised.

  ‘Nothing so drastic.’ He forked up another mouthful. ‘Just being sensible. Doctor’s orders.’

  ‘I see.’ Really, she didn’t see at all. Diamond kept away from doctors. And missing his cooked breakfast was on a par with the Pope cutting Mass. She explained about the detour with the German woman.

  ‘Probably wanting to find Marks and Spencer,’ he said amiably. The omelette was improving his mood. ‘They come over here and buy all their underwear at M and S, Steph informs me.’ He wiped his mouth. ‘Coffee and a scone, is it?’

  ‘Just the coffee, thanks. She wasn’t a tourist.’’ Student, then.’

  ‘Different age group.’

  Immediately the order had been taken, he dropped the subject of the German woman. ‘What’s the inside story on the dead farmer?’

  ‘You’re going to be intrigued. According to the blokes who drove out there, the place is really isolated. Only a few acres, a couple of fields. The farmhouse is a tumbledown ruin. He’s lived there all his life, just about.’

  ‘I got most of this from Wigfull,’ he muttered.

  ‘Don’t shoot the pianist – she’s doing her best,’ Julie countered. ‘There’s something he didn’t tell you.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I’m coming to it. I haven’t even got my coffee yet. The old man has lived at this dump all his life, just about. He used to work the land and keep a few animals, but he gave up the heavy work a few years ago, when he got arthritis of the hip. Now there are a few pathetic chickens, and that’s all. The lads are not surprised he decided to end it all. They say there’s no electricity or gas. Damp everywhere, fungus growing on the ceiling.’

  ‘You don’t have to be so graphic. I just had a mushroom omelette.’

  ‘Some time last week, he sat in a chair, put the muzzle of his twelve-bore under his chin and pulled the trigger.’

  ‘I know that. Did he leave a note?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Any family?’

  ‘They’re checking. His name was Gladstone, like the old Prime Minister.’

  ‘Before my time.’ He leaned back as the waitress placed a toasted teacake in front of him and served the coffee. When they were alone again, he said, ‘But what’s the ray of sunshine in this squalid story? What brought John Wigfull hotfoot from Bath?’

  Julie added some milk to her coffee, taking her time. ‘They only discovered that by chance. It was pretty overpowering in the house while the pathologist was doing his stuff. One of the constables, Mike James, felt in urgent need of fresh air.’

  ‘A smoke, more like.’

  ‘Anyway, he went outside and took a stroll across the field.’

  ‘Found something?’

  ‘As I said, the land hasn’t been farmed for some years, so it was solid underfoot. He hadn’t gone far when he noticed his feet sinking in.’

  ‘Moles.’

  ‘No, Mr Diamond. Digging had taken place.’

  ‘Ploughing, you mean?’

  She shook her head. ‘This was definitely done with a spade.’

  ‘The old boy buried something before he topped himself?’

  ‘They’re not sure. This was recent digging. It could even have been done after the farmer’s death.’

  He paused in his eating. Julie, is that likely?’

  ‘You know what freshly dug soil is like,’ she said, as if Diamond spent all his weekends in gumboots. ‘After a few days the top hardens off and gets lighter in colour. Some shoots of grass appear. This wasn’t like that. Anyway, with his arthritis the old man was in no condition to dig holes.’

  ‘Are you saying there was more than one?’

  ‘Mike found another patch, yes.’

  She had his full attention now. ‘I can’t picture this, Julie. Is it just a spade’s depth, like a gardener turning over the soil, or something deeper?’

  ‘I’m only reporting what they said. I wasn’t there. From the look of it, deep digging. Holes that had been dug and filled in.’

  ‘What size?’

  ‘I got the impression they were large. They think something could be buried there.’

  ‘Or someone.’ This was the head of the murder squad speculating.

  Julie said, ‘All I know is that when it was reported to John Wigfull he drove out especially to look.’

  ‘If these are graves, I should have been told,’ said Diamond.

  A couple of heads turned at the next table. ‘I think we should lower our voices,’ Julie cautioned.

  ‘What’s Wigfull playing at, keeping this to himself?’

  ‘Give them a chance. They haven’t dug anything up yet. They’ve been too busy inside the house. There are only two of them. He’s talking about sending some more fellows out with spades.’

  ‘Sod that for a game of soldiers.’

  Overhearing the sounds of displeasure, the waitress paused at the table and asked if anything was wrong.

  ‘It is, my dear,’ Diamond said, ‘but it has nothing to do with the food. That was not a bad omelette, not bad at all.’

  When the waitress was out of earshot, Julie said, ‘Unless they find human remains, he’s within his rights, surely. He is head of CID operations.’

  ‘There’s such a thing as consultation.’

  Wisely, she refrained from comment.

  ‘I might just take a drive in that direction when I get an hour to spare,’ he said.

  Some of the bored outpatients in the waiting area stirred and looked across with interest when Rose’s name was called as ‘Miss X’, but she’d been through this before. She was past the stage of embarrassment.

  She was required to give samples of blood and urine – not exactly the way she had visualised the day. Another hour went by before she got in to see Dr Grombeck.

  He was not the earnest, bespectacled little man she anticipated from his name. He looked as if he had wandered in after driving from London in a vintage sports car. Young, ruddy-faced and with black, unruly curls, he had the sort of smile that would have made you feel good about being told you only had hours to live. He glanced up from the card in front of him.

  ‘Well, Miss X, I don’t know
much about you, but it seems you don’t know much about yourself.’

  ‘That’s right.’ She told him about waking up in the Hinton Clinic and knowing nothing at all.

  ‘This was when?’

  ‘Last Tuesday morning.’

  ‘That isn’t long.’ He asked her a series of questions to elicit information about her family, education and friends, and got nothing. But when he turned to matters of general knowledge like the names of the royal princes and the Rolling Stones, she supplied the answers with ease.

  He enquired about her injuries and she told him about the cracked ribs and the bruising.

  ‘Nothing to show on the head? No sore spots?’

  ‘No.’ She told him Dr Whitfield’s theory that concussion can be caused by a sudden jerk of the head.

  He didn’t comment. He asked to examine her head. Probing gently with his fingertips, he said, ‘You’re quite certain you were unconscious when they brought you into the Clinic?’

  ‘Well, I can’t be certain.’

  ‘Dumb question. Sorry.’ He flashed that smile. ‘That’s what they told you, is it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then there’s no question that you spent some hours in coma. You’re not diabetic – we tested. And presumably the Hinton tested you for drugs and found nothing. So we’re back to this accident as the explanation.’ He perched on the edge of his desk and rubbed his chin. The few known facts of her case seemed to perplex him. Finally he sighed heavily and told her, ‘Miss X, I’m sorry. I don’t think I’m the chap to help you.’

  ‘Why not?’ she said, feeling cheated. She’d pinned strong hopes on this man.

  ‘I’d better explain about memory loss. For our purposes, there are two sorts. The kind we’re used to dealing with in this place is known as retrograde amnesia. It’s caused by an injury to the brain. The patient is unable to remember the events leading up to the injury. It’s a permanent loss of a small section of memory – and that may well have happened to you. But it shouldn’t have blocked out your long-term memory. It doesn’t behave like that.’

  She listened apprehensively. She didn’t want to be a problem case. She wanted a simple solution.