Vanished (20 page)

Ross considered the bag holding the damp, stained red scarf. “How many of these are about, do you reckon?”

“Quite a few,” said Rohan.

Michael added, “Hopewell's got his men dressed as seafaring clichés, but then, that's why they're clichés. Everyone recognizes them.”

“Recognizes them,” said Molly. Her thread of thought flittered across her senses and then knotted.

“That's it! That's why poor Daisy used her own blood to write a number two on the wood beside her!”

“You saw that 2, as well, did you?” Ross asked. “I've been wondering what that means.”

“It means there are two murderers?” hazarded Rohan.

“No, two
men.
There was a guy walking along behind Holly McKenna earlier today,” Molly said, “wearing one of Trevor's seaman's uniforms, a dark blue jacket and a neckerchief. I thought at first I recognized Martin Dunhill, but then realized he only looked like him.”

“I saw him on the tour, too,” Michael said. “I was trying to remember where I'd seen him before. He was standing with Martin when we left the yacht Saturday afternoon.”

And I thought you were looking at Holly.
Molly said, “That's right. They don't resemble each other that much when you put them side by side, but if you dressed the second one in clothes like Martin's and put a baseball cap on him to hide his features…”

“Hang on,” said Rohan. “You're sayin' this second guy is the murderer?”

“No, no, no. I'm saying he's the decoy.
He
was the man buying the pie. He's the one who was wearing a neckerchief while reminding Trevor of his phone call. At the same time, Martin was on the yacht cleaning himself up after murdering Willie with the knife he stole from Hopewell.”

“Meaning to fit Hopewell up?” Ross's face was tight with thought. “Or perhaps Dunhill simply didn't care if Hopewell was blamed.”

“Either way,” Michael said, “that's why there was a neckerchief in the water by Willie's boat, when Hopewell doesn't wear one. Dunhill used his to wipe his hands or the knife—or both—but the wind probably blew it away from him.”

“But how did Daisy Coffey figure it out?” asked Ross.

“Daisy was always watching Willie's flat—it was her telly—maybe she saw both men in the flat.”

“This other chap needs locating.” Ross stood up. “The drugs trade must have been their motivation, since Martin didn't seem to know about the coins—at least at first.”

“No, he didn't,” Molly confirmed. “Hopewell ordered the yacht to Blackpool for Seafaring Days, but he neglected to tell Martin why.”

“Also it's a wee bit counterproductive to kill a man who knows where a treasure is hidden,” Ross added. “So the coins were another diversion. This was about the drugs all along.” He swung his attention to Molly. “Where's this pie seller of yours?”

Molly said, “He was at his stall an hour ago.”

Tucking the evidence bags under his arm, Ross led them off the Grahams' small boat, past Trevor's large one—Molly scanned the railing, but saw no one she recognized—and into the square.

Thomas Clough was still dispensing his crusty, gravy-soaked meat pies, although his stainless-steel trays were now almost empty. Silently, stern-faced, he handed a customer his change and without shifting expression turned to Ross, Michael, Molly and Rohan. “Can I help you?”

Ross held up his warrant card. “D.I. Jason Ross, investigating the murders of Willie Myners and Daisy Coffey. You were at this stall Sunday morning round half past ten?”

“Yes.”

“Did you see one of Trevor Hopewell's crew members walking about the area? Did he buy a pie from you?”

Clough gazed at the masts of the
Black Sea Pearl
rising above all the others, then back at Ross. “Yes.”

Michael produced his phone. After a moment fingering the screen, he angled it so Clough could see. From the side, Molly glimpsed the photo of Trevor having words
with Martin over the disappearance of the knife. “Was it this man?”

Clough considered. Finally, he said, “No. He was like to this one, right enough, but no. That's never the same one.”

“Gotcha!” exclaimed Molly beneath her breath.

Michael pocketed the phone.

“Thank you. We'll be taking a statement soon as may be.” Ross started toward the
Pearl
again. His hand that wasn't securing the knife and the neckerchief held his phone to his face as he laid out orders in full outline form.

Clough returned to his trays, but not without casting an eye at the transparent mistiness gathering over the harbor and blotting out the remaining daylight. “We're in for a fret, I reckon.”

Rohan grinned at Michael and Molly. “It's not that Martin Dunhill was in two places at the same time. It's that there were two of him. Good going!”

Ross stowed his phone and looked over his shoulder. “Well done, the pair of you.”

But Molly wasn't about to breathe a sigh of relief, not yet. As Ross increased his pace, she pulled Michael into a fast trot after him.

T
AKING
M
OLLY'S HAND
and checking to make sure Rohan was still with them, Michael hurried after Ross. Well done, yes, but they had yet to actually apprehend either man.

What had Clough said?
We're in for a fret.
He wasn't joking. A mist was rising off the water and clotting into cloud. Already the horizon was matted with fog.

The two uniformed officers from the Ripon team ran past them to Ross's side, Luann Krebs on their heels. Ross handed the evidence bags to Krebs and sent her back to the station to bring Paddington up to speed. She opened her mouth as though to protest at the task, but one cool glare sent her scurrying away.

He told the other officers to accompany them up the gangplank and onto the deck of the
Black Sea Pearl.

Trevor Hopewell popped out of a hatchway like a genie out of a bottle, still dressed in the doublet, hose and off-the-shoulder cloak. His golden head resting on the white ruff reminded Michael of a roast suckling pig on a platter. All Trevor needed was an apple in his mouth, which went from the crescent of an affable smile to an O of astonishment when Ross displayed his warrant card.

“D.I. Ross, Mr. Hopewell, investigating the murders of Willie Myners and Daisy Coffey.”

“Ah—I've already spoken with the authorities about—”

“You have a man named Martin Dunhill in your employ.”

“Yes, I do. If you wish to speak with him—”

“Are you employing another man as well, one who looks a great deal like him?”

“Dark hair,” Molly interjected. “Black beady eyes. Heavy jowls. We've seen him wearing Martin's uniform.”

“Have you now?” Trevor replied. “Whyever would he be doing that?”

“To pose as Martin,” answered Michael.

“So he could alibi Dunhill for Willie Myners's murder,” Molly went on.

Ross waited.

Trevor's already fair complexion went ashen. “My word, if that isn't a turn up! You must be referring to Gary Dunhill, Martin's brother from Newcastle. Martin asked if he could spend his holiday weekend here on the yacht. He's swanking it, I expect. Martin, that is. Not everyone's as fortunate to have as good a position as he does. Some cheek, though, dressing Gary in one of my uniforms!”

“Where are these men?” asked Ross.

“Um, well…” Trevor looked from bow to stern and back again. “Martin was here a few moments ago—you saw him yourselves, Molly, Michael—and, Rohan, is it?”

Rohan nodded politely.

“As for Gary…”

Voices rang out from a nearby doorway, and a man plunged through it, knocking two more aside.
Gary.

Everyone rushed forward, piling into a small chart room. Gary stood behind a table, cornered. The two constables seized him and, after a brisk scuffle, subdued him. Ross began the official caution, “Gary Dunhill, I
arrest you for the murder of Willie Myners and Daisy Coffey…”

Gary's stubbled jowls quivered, his eyes bugged out like ripe blackberries. “I didn't murder no one,” he whined. “That was Martin. I didn't know he meant to kill the bloke. It wasn't me, I tell you.”

“Nothing like a little brotherly love,” said Molly.

Trevor stepped up, his features set in cold indignation. He tugged the neckerchief from Gary's throat. If Gary had had a sword, Michael thought, Trevor would have broken it over his knee.

“Now, Martin,” Ross said. He left Gary in the custody of the constables and led them back onto the deck.

“The presumption of the man! With his references, as well!” Trevor called to a passing seaman, “Here, have you seen Martin?”

The man gestured toward the town, its roofs and walls indistinct in the gathering gloom. “You've just missed him, Guv'nor. He legged it off the ship while you were tussling with Gary, there.”

“Damn!” said Rohan, and started for the gangplank.

Michael was just behind, Molly on his heels, but Ross passed them both. “Adams,” he shouted to a constable at the foot of the gangplank, “call for assistance. Put out a description.” Leaving Hopewell watching, mouth agape, Ross sped off the ship and up the pier, and only stopped when he came to the cobblestoned square.

Michael and the others pounded up behind him. “Which way did he go?” Molly shouted. “Is he trying to lose himself in the crowd?”

Her answer came from Dockside Avenue. A shout and a sudden squeal of tires sent seagulls squawking into the sky. A woman screamed. Passersby scattered to the winds. A silver car sped away from Coffey's Garage toward the
road out of town, bouncing off a curb and knocking over a rubbish bin.

Ross sprinted in the opposite direction, toward the police station and his own vehicles, aiming to break an Olympic record with his speed. Michael ran for Coffey's, Rohan at his side.

Randall Coffey lay sprawled on the cracked and stained cement in front of the garage, his long, gray hair and his gray beard framing a face the same color. “Who the hell was that? He pulled me out of the car and off he went. Maniac!”

Grasping Randall's bare arms, Rohan and Michael hauled him to his feet. Molly pushed through the gaping onlookers, none of whom had cameras. This time around, Fred Purnell and Tim Jenkins had missed their cue.

“Was that Aleister's Alfa Romeo?” Molly asked.

“That it was,” said Randall. “He'll have my guts for losing it, and it not repaired yet.”

“We'll never catch up,” Rohan told Michael. “It's a saloon, not a sportier model, but it's fast. Once he gets past the switchbacks and onto the road west…”

Randall was still talking. “The thermostat's buggered. I'd just drained the coolant. He'll not get two miles out of town without it overheating, and if he doesn't switch it off it'll ruin the car. How will I explain this to Aleister?”

Laughing, he said, “Tell him to just lie back and think of England.” Then Michael took off again. He heard Rohan's boots and Molly's farther back, and his own labored breathing—you could create another sort of Ironman competition out of his day's activities—spelunking, diving, running.

Logically, they should let the police chase Martin down. Or radio ahead for a roadblock, come to that. But logic had nothing to do with it. There was still a chance
the villain would escape. Michael was determined to deny him that chance.

There was the train station and the packed parking lot—please, let no one be parked behind him—no, the Land Rover was in the clear. Michael leaped into the driver's seat and Rohan into the passenger side. Even as he found his keys and started the engine, he looked back to see Molly climbing into her MINI Cooper. Now he cursed his earlier practicality of taking two cars so he could go home for his tunnel gear.

“Stay here,” he shouted.

She didn't hear him. Or else she ignored him. Her car started up just as his did. Her headlamps pierced the twilight. So did his. But it wasn't exhaust that was thickening the air. Michael had time for one quick glance behind him.

The harbor had disappeared behind the fog, a vaporous wave front tinted a muddy pink by the setting sun. One by one Blackpool's red pantiled roofs vanished into the fog. Tendrils reached over the top of the cliffs and spread across the moorland and forest. Its cold breath raised the hair on Michael's arms.

The sound of a siren rose and fell at the far end of town, and another, not quite in rhythm. Michael peeled out of the car park, accelerating onto the moor road heading west, the only one connecting Blackpool to the rest of the world.

Before him, the sunset flared across a crimson sky. Behind him, the remorseless fog flowed onward, draining the landscape of color and definition.

Would Dunhill try to leave the road? The moorlands rolled like a green-and-gold sea dotted with thick stands of trees, but peat bogs hid in the hollows. While it would be amusing to see Aleister's silver Alfa Romeo covered with black peat, he'd just as soon Dunhill took the straight—

“Look there!” shouted Rohan.

Taillamps gleamed through the thickening air to his left. Michael waved his arm out of his window, pointing over the top of the Land Rover—and made an expert skid-and-turn onto a narrow blacktopped road while Rohan hung on for dear life.

In his mirrors Michael saw the MINI Cooper just behind him, lights smearing in the creeping fog. He held his breath as the dim shape of the vehicle swung around. Good, Molly hadn't run off the road.

Michael slowed as the asphalt beneath his tires disintegrated and the Land Rover bucked and jerked. The dilapidated barbed-wire fence beside the track, tufted with bits of wool from passing sheep, disappeared into scrubby heather and prickly gorse.

He knew where he was. He was driving up to Ravenhearst's front door.

There was the iron fence, a row of spears planted in the muddy soil. And there were the charred ruins of the mansion, the serrated edge of broken walls and shattered chimneys outlined briefly against the sky and then fading into the mist as though they were no more than evil memory.

The stolen Alfa Romeo sat before the gates, no lights, no engine, just a thin cloud of steam escaping from beneath the hood to mingle with the fog. Dunhill must have realized the car was overheating and turned off onto the first byroad he reached, hoping to lie low.

Michael drove up beside the other car and parked. Where was Martin, then? If he was still in the car, he was hunkered down. If he'd gotten out, he could be anywhere.

With a growl of its engine, the MINI Cooper stopped behind the Land Rover. Then it fell silent. Michael heard nothing but the clicking of his own cooling engine. He
saw nothing but the headlamps focused on Ravenhearst's gates.

Their iron was wrought in sinuous shapes—branches, perhaps, or serpents. The stone gateposts were topped with stone beasts and half-concealed by clinging weeds and vines. Beyond the fence, trees loomed in the fog, each branch as sinister as a gallows. A faded no trespassing sign was mounted on a gatepost. Two padlocks secured the gate itself.

Those still, humanoid shapes on the other side—those were the infamous stone gargoyles. But the humanoid shape slipping along the fence beyond the far gatepost, bent in a low crouch, that had to be Dunhill… The figure vanished into the curtain of fog.

Michael scrambled from the car and ran toward where he'd last seen Dunhill. Rohan jumped out and made a flanking movement. Then Molly screamed.

Michael spun around to see Dunhill rush from the murk and jerk open the door of the MINI Cooper. Seizing Molly's arm, he started pulling her out of the car. Michael and Rohan doubled back, their hoarse cries echoing eerily.

Instead of resisting, Molly slid forward, got a foot on the ground and lunged. Her elbow landed in Dunhill's stomach and his breath escaped in an
oof.
But he still held her.

Michael wrapped an arm around Dunhill's chest and hauled him backward. Molly jerked free and staggered against the side of the car.

Dunhill turned and knocked Michael to the ground.

Michael had a split second to wonder if the man had armed himself with another knife. Then the soft turf gave beneath his back and water splashed on his neck. Dunhill's hands groped for his throat and he caught at the wiry wrists.

Rohan's forearm slammed up under Dunhill's chin and pulled him off Michael, while Molly tugged at his forearm.

Sirens, echoing like a banshee's wail, drew closer. Lights flared. Voices shouted. Footsteps thudded forward and Dunhill was seemingly plucked into the air.

Michael sat up, shook himself, then stood. Another set of hands touched his shoulders, but he recognized them. Molly. He coughed, cleared his throat and inhaled the moist fog enshrouding them. “I'm all right.”

She slipped her arms around him. “You'd better be.”

He returned her squeeze.

One of the Ripon constables was holding Dunhill's right arm, his face a businesslike mask. Luann Krebs, her lean features contorted by a grimace of triumph, held the other. Ross stepped forward, Paddington not far behind, his chest puffed, his moustache curling in glee. He thrust his face close to Dunhill's. “Thought you could cause trouble in Blackpool, did you, my lad? D.I. Ross, you may do the honors.”

“My pleasure, sir,” said Ross. “Martin Dunhill, I arrest you in connection with the murders of Willie Myners and Daisy Coffey. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defense if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”

Dunhill cursed Ross. He cursed Paddington. He glared at the Grahams and cursed them, too, along with everyone else in Blackpool. “I didn't kill him. I didn't have anything to do with what's happened. You're fitting me up because I'm not a local.”

“Yeah, right.” Molly shifted against Michael's side. The lighted screen from her iPhone swam into his peripheral vision and her fingertip moved across it.

A ring tone erupted into the fog, the theme from
Rocky.
Krebs dived for Dunhill's pocket and pulled out a phone.

“He tried to kill me,” Molly explained. “Then he threatened us both. He imitated Trevor's voice.”

“After stealing our phone numbers from Trevor, the way he stole Trevor's dagger,” concluded Michael. He looked at Molly. “I heard that ring tone while I was standing at the gangplank trying to talk Dunhill into letting me onto the
Pearl.
Was that you, trying to prove the call came from Trevor's phone?”

“Yes, that was me.”

“May I see that?” Ross took Molly's phone from her hand. “Mmm, just as I thought. This is the last number Willie phoned Sunday morning. What was he after, Dunhill?”

“Filthy sod wanted to deal with me. Threatened me. It was self-defense, Inspector.”

“Oh, so now you're admitting to knifing him?”

Martin's thick features curdled.