Simon Beckett - Whispers of the Dead

A few miles further on, he directed me to branch off the highway and we began to climb into the mountains. They rose up around us, plunging the road in and out of shadow as it wound through them. We saw a few other cars but it was still too early in the season for there to be many. Spring was everywhere. The woods were carpeted with wildflowers, blue, yellow and white dappling the vibrant new grass. At any other time the Appalachian beauty would have been breathtaking; now it seemed like a cruel joke.

‘Take the next right,’ Paul told me. The turn-off was a narrow road, gravelled like many of the minor roads and tracks out here. This one was steep enough to have the car’s automatic transmission straining. After a half-mile it levelled out. We rounded a bend and found our way blocked by a patrol car. Beyond it, I could make out wooden picnic tables and parked police vehicles before trees blocked the view.

I wound down the window as a uniformed deputy approached the car. He looked barely out of his teens, but walked with an older man’s swagger. He stared down at me from under the wide brim of his hat, one hand on his holstered gun.

‘Back up. Y’all cain’t come up here.’

‘Can you tell Dan Gardner that Dr Hunter and—’ I began, and then I heard the passenger door open. I looked round to see Paul climbing out of the car. Oh, Christ, I thought, as the young deputy scrambled to head him off.

‘Hold it right there! Goddammit, I said stop!’

I hurried out of the car after them, grabbing hold of Paul as the deputy planted himself on the track in front of him and drew his sidearm. I’d never realized how much I disliked guns until then.

‘OK, it’s OK,’ I said, pulling Paul back. ‘Come on, take it easy!’

‘Back in the car! Now!’ the deputy yelled. He gripped the gun in both hands, pointing it at the ground between us.

Paul showed no inclination to move. In the bright sun his eyes didn’t look fully focused. He couldn’t touch York, but the need for confrontation was consuming him. I don’t know what might have happened, but at that moment a familiar voice rang out.

‘What the hell’s going on?’

I never thought I’d be glad to see Gardner. The TBI agent was striding down the track, tight-lipped. The deputy glared at Paul, gun still outstretched.

‘Sir, I told them they cain’t come up here, but they won’t—’

‘It’s all right,’ Gardner said, but without enthusiasm. His suit looked more crumpled than ever. He spared me a cold glance before addressing Paul. ‘What’re you doing here?’

‘I want to see the ambulance.’

It was said in the inflectionless tone of someone whose mind is made up. Gardner considered him for a moment, then sighed.

‘It’s this way.’

We followed him back up the track. The picnic area was set on a grassy clearing overlooking the foothills. They spread out below us, miles of tree-covered peaks and troughs: a frozen ocean of green. This high up the air was cooler but still warm, sweet with pine and spruce. At one side of the clearing the police vehicles were clustered in front of a handful of civilian cars.

Parked slightly away from them, quarantined by crime tape, was the ambulance.

Even from a distance I could see the damage caused by the collision. Parallel gouges ran along one side, and the left wing had crumpled like tinfoil where it must have hit the tree. Small wonder it had been abandoned; York had been lucky to get as far as he had.

Paul stopped at the police tape and stared into the back of the ambulance. Its doors hung wide open, revealing shabby bunks and cabinets. A forensic agent was busy inside, and we could see restraining straps dangling from one of the bunks, as though they’d been hurriedly flung off.

I felt someone beside me, and turned to find Jacobsen. She gave me a solemn look. There were dark smudges under her eyes, and I guessed Paul and I weren’t the only ones who had gone without sleep.

Paul’s face was a mask. ‘What have you found?’

He didn’t seem to notice Gardner’s slight hesitation. ‘There were blond hairs on the bunk. We’ll need to check them against samples of your wife’s hair, but we don’t think there’s much doubt. And it looks like York must have taken quite a knock in the collision.’

He led us round to the front. The driver’s door was hanging so we could see into the grubby and well-worn interior. The steering wheel was buckled and skewed slightly to one side.

‘Chances are York’s pretty banged up himself if he smacked the wheel hard enough to do that,’ Gardner said. ‘Must’ve busted a rib or two, at least.’

For the first time something like hope showed on Paul’s face. ‘So he’s injured? That’s good, isn’t it?’

‘Maybe.’ Gardner was noncommittal.

Something in his tone sounded off, but again Paul was too preoccupied to notice. ‘I’d like to stay here for a while.’

‘Five minutes. Then you need to go on home.’

Leaving Paul there, I walked away with Gardner and Jacobsen. I waited until we were out of earshot.

‘What aren’t you telling him?’

Gardner’s mouth compressed, but whatever he might have said went unspoken as someone called him from the crime scene truck.

‘You might as well let him know,’ he told Jacobsen before walking away, the line of his back as uncompromising as ever.

The shadows under Jacobsen’s eyes added to her solemnity. ‘There are bloodstains in the ambulance. On the bunk and on the floor.’

I pictured Sam as I’d last seen her. Oh, dear God. ‘Don’t you think Paul’s got a right to know?’

‘Eventually, yes. But not all of the stains are fresh, and we can’t say for sure that any of them belong to his wife.’ Her gaze ficked to where Paul maintained his vigil by the ambulance. ‘Dan doesn’t think knowing about it is going to help him right now.’

I reluctantly accepted that. I didn’t like keeping information from Paul, but his imagination would be torturing him enough already.

‘How did you find the ambulance?’ I asked.

She brushed back a strand of hair that had strayed over her face. ‘We got a report of a stolen car, a blue Chrysler SUV. There are rental cabins about a quarter of a mile away but they don’t have a road. Tenants leave their cars here and hike up the rest of the way. That’s probably why York chose this place—even this early in the season there are usually one or two cabins rented out. Anyone familiar with this area would know there’d be cars here.’

I looked over at the damaged ambulance. It had been left out in the open, a few yards from a thick clump of laurel bushes. ‘York didn’t make much effort to cover his tracks.’

‘He didn’t have to. Cars can be left here for days while their owners play at pioneers. York could bank on the one he took not being missed till this morning at least, and maybe even longer. It was pure luck that the owner noticed when he did.’

Luck. It wasn’t something we’d had much of so far. ‘I’d have thought he’d at least have parked it so the damage was less obvious.’

Jacobsen gave a tired shrug. ‘I expect he had more important things to think about. He’d got to get Samantha Avery into the car, and that can’t have been easy if he was injured himself. Hiding the ambulance would have been the least of his problems.’

That made sense, I supposed. York only needed it to remain undiscovered long enough to get where he was going. After that it wouldn’t matter.

‘You think he was heading for the Interstate?’ I asked.

‘That’s how it looks. It’s only a few miles away, and from there he could go deeper into the mountains, double back west or head for another state.’

‘So he could be anywhere.’