Adrian Magson - No Help For The Dying

‘I wouldn’t dream of it. Anyway, Frank never airs his laundry in public-’ Riley stopped, an image springing out of nowhere into to her mind. ‘God, I’m so stupid!’ The words came out before she could stop them.

‘What?’ said Nikki. ‘Are you all right?’

White vans and tinted windows. She was seeing a rolling flashback of images and remembered where she had seen the white van for the first time. A white van, anyway. It had been there, right at the beginning, only it hadn’t registered at the time because she’d been distracted with something more important. White vans are like black taxis — part of the scenery, but invisible. And this one had been at Heathrow… right outside Henry’s hotel. She remembered it now: it had been parked there when she’d arrived, next to the police car. Then, as she was leaving, a white van with tinted windows had pulled out of the hotel car park right in front of her. If it had penetrated her consciousness enough to question it at the time, she would probably have assumed it was a laundry van. After all, why else would a commercial vehicle be calling at a hotel at that time of night if it wasn’t a service delivery? Only they weren’t making a delivery… and the package hadn’t been bed linen.

‘Riley?’ Nikki’s voice pulled her back to the present. ‘What is it?’

‘Nothing. I’ve just remembered something. My problem is going to be proving it.’

Back at the flat, she fed the cat and picked at her laptop while sipping a glass of red wine. It was a moot point which one would give her a headache first, but she needed the familiarity and comfort. In between sips she updated what she had learned so far, along with random thoughts as they occurred. With a bit of hard work, it would eventually begin to distil down into the coherent outline of a story.

Tired with the keyboard and with too many gaps in the data that she had no way of filling, she switched off the laptop and slumped onto the sofa with her wine, hoping relaxation would generate some clear thinking. It would be some time before Nikki got back to her with details of the other deaths, so there was nothing to do but wait. Tomorrow she would bring Palmer up to date with what she had so far. When the cat oozed onto her lap and began purring, she was asleep within seconds.

It seemed only moments later that she was being dragged out of a fractured dream by the phone. She had a crick in her neck from the sofa’s low back and a mouth made gummy by too much wine. The cat was nowhere to be seen, and the readout on the VCR told her it was five in the morning. Christ, this was becoming too much of a habit. She leaned across to the phone and snatched it up.

‘Is that Riley Gavin?’ The woman’s voice was soft, with a faint rural burr, and her tone suggested she was deliberately keeping her voice low to avoid being overheard.

‘Yes. How can I help?’

‘I’m calling on behalf of Susan Pyle. Katie’s mother.’

Riley sat bolt upright. God that was quick. She stood up and made for the kitchen. She had a feeling she was going to need some coffee. ‘Can I see her?’

‘Of course. I’m sorry it’s so early, but… she insisted. We heard you were looking for her, and she just woke up and said she didn’t want to wait. Can you come here?’

‘I’m sure I can. Where are you?’

‘Near Dunwich in Suffolk. Minsmere Lodge. We’re right on the coast.’ The woman gave brief instructions, as if the place was so well known it would be impossible to miss. ‘I’m Mrs Francis, by the way. I’ll be waiting for you.’

Riley grabbed a pen and notepad and scribbled down the address. ‘When can I come? Later this morning?’

‘That would be best, I think. The earlier the better, in fact.’

Something ominous in the woman’s tone made Riley straighten up, hand poised above the notepad. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Forgive me. I hate to tell you this, Miss Gavin, but Susan’s sick. Very sick.’ Her voice dropped further, as if weighed down by ineffable sadness. ‘She’s not expected to last very long.’

Minsmere Lodge was a squat Edwardian building sitting at the end of a narrow, sandy lane which appeared to have run out of tarmac and destination within earshot of the sea. Other than the faint wash of a close tide and the occasional shriek of gulls dipping and swooping across the dunes, it wore a cloak of tranquillity beneath the thin morning sun, as if nothing here could possibly disturb its end-of-nowhere remoteness. The air was sharp with the tang of salt and a faint undertone of something not quite fresh.

Riley parked to one side of the gravelled drive, which was vacant save for a rotting old Rover with flat tyres parked to one side. A cat curled up on the bonnet and a bicycle leaning against the side seemed to confirm that the vehicle wasn’t about to go anywhere soon. She approached the house and touched a bell in the wall next to the front door, partially covered by a hanging growth of ivy. The colour of the original green paint was faded by the salt sea air, and around her feet the flagstones were all but covered in a layer of fine, wind-blown sand.

The door clicked open to reveal a small, neat woman in a starched blue overall. Riley guessed this was the woman who had called her.

‘Miss Gavin,’ the woman said softly in confirmation, and stood to one side. She didn’t offer to shake hands, but closed the door and led the way silently across the small reception hall into a cramped study. It was a masculine room, cluttered and stuffy and smelling faintly of old paper. All that was missing was the heavy tick of a grandfather clock. The woman indicated an armchair and said, ‘I’m Mary Francis. I live in with Susan. Thank you for coming. Would you like some tea?’ She smiled and disappeared before Riley could decline, closing the door softly behind her.

Riley took the opportunity to check her phone for messages. She had called Palmer’s mobile before leaving, to tell him of her trip to see Susan Pyle. Unless Mrs Francis possessed an unfortunate sense of the dramatic, her brief explanation had left little doubt that Katie’s mother wasn’t long for this world.

‘She might know something useful,’ Palmer had agreed. In spite of the early hour, he’d sounded surprisingly awake, and Riley thought she detected the noise of traffic in the background. Somehow the idea of a dawn jog round the park didn’t quite fit her vision of Palmer, but she decided not to enquire. ‘What about the father?’

‘He died some years ago.’ Riley went on to tell him about Nikki’s call and what she had picked up about the Church of Flowing Light and their charitable activities. She also mentioned remembering the van she had seen outside the Scandair hotel.

‘How sure are you?’

‘It was there, but I don’t know how significant it might be.’

‘Be handy if we could get confirmation — even if only to eliminate it.’

‘I was thinking I might ask my friendly hotel employee if he can help. It could be entirely innocent, of course.’

Palmer was more pragmatic. ‘It was there, so worth checking. In the meantime I’ll see if I can get a closer look at the two boys who’ve been following you. Remember to watch your back.’ He rang off, leaving Riley wondering what would happen if Palmer and the two men came too close. They might discover that he wasn’t quite as laid-back as he liked people to think.

She wondered what she would find when she finally got to see Susan Pyle. The last time they had spoken had been some time after Katie’s disappearance, when the most obvious mechanics of the search had begun to scale down. The posters had produced no response other than one or two crank calls, and short staffed, and with no obvious evidence of foul play, the police had been forced to move their attention to other cases. Even Riley had been forced to call it a day by then, and had called on the couple to explain her position. It had been a difficult meeting; John Pyle had been stiff and resentful, although his wife had seemed more understanding. Or maybe, thought Riley with hindsight, she had been too weighed down with grief and internalised sorrow at life’s wickedness to put up much of a fight anymore.