Cold as Ice

Chapter 41

Carter drove through the evening rush hour and spent an hour nose to tail through busy streets. He cut down all the side streets he knew but ended up snagged in bottlenecks. His father had been a cabbie, retired only three years ago. It was when he retired all his health problems came, thought Carter sadly. His father had loved the cabbie lifestyle, meeting up with his mates, starting the day with a cup of strong tea and a bacon sandwich at five in the morning at a cabman shelter.

At just past nine, Carter arrived at Gerald Foster’s house; the van was parked there; there was a large scratch, down to metal on the driver’s side. There were no lights on in the house. He walked around to the side of the property, jumped up and held onto the top of the side gate as he peered over into the back garden. He saw a light flickering through the bare branches of the trees at the end of the garden. Someone was working in the shed. Carter jumped back down and brushed down his coat. He cursed to himself. If there was one thing he hated it was getting his clothes dirty. He shook his head and steeled himself as he leapt once more up to the top of the gate, gripped, pulled his weight up and swung his legs over. He paused before dropping quietly down to the ground the other side. Apart from the faint light from the shed, the garden was in total darkness, shadowed by large overbearing trees.

Carter crept down the side of the garden. He kept to the old row of overgrown shrubs for cover. He watched the lights from the shed window as he approached. There was a blackout blind pulled down over the window but a slight breeze inside the shed was lifting it and a bright light burned inside, dimming occasionally as someone passed between the light source and the window. Now as Carter got nearer he realized that it was much more than a shed. It was a substantial-looking outbuilding. It went far back into the trees and must have been sixteen feet long. There was heavy-duty electric wiring up the side of the shed. Whatever Foster did in there, he didn’t like it to be compromised by power cuts.

Carter walked around to the back of the shed, one careful step at a time. There was music coming from inside. The shed radiated warmth. He listened hard and heard the sound of someone planing wood. Carter tripped over one of the wires leading to the shed and just managed to stop himself from falling but not before he snapped the overhanging branch of the tree as he grabbed for it. Then the planing and the music stopped as someone had also paused to listen. Carter looked upwards and saw a camera watching him from the trunk of the nearest tree. He crouched beneath its range and dodged the trees as he moved towards the back of the stand of trees that encased the shed. He heard the sound of the shed door opening and footsteps coming over the frozen ground towards him. Carter set off towards the edge of the garden beyond the trees and doubled round until he came level with the open shed door and slipped inside.