Death under the Dryer

Twenty-Eight

Whoever Nathan Locke had expected to come down the stairs into his lair, it wasn’t a pair of middle-aged women. He looked at them in frank amazement. But rather than reacting with violence, he remained seated and asked politely, “I’m sorry, but who are you…?”

No time for aliases now. “My name’s Carole Seddon. This is my friend Jude.”

The blankness on the boy’s face told that he had never heard of either of them.

“And what are you doing here? Are you from the police?” His natural good manners couldn’t completely exclude a note of disbelief from the question. He looked scruffy, a wispy three-week growth of beard around his chin, but not as though he had been maltreated.

“No, we’re nothing to do with the police. You don’t need to be frightened. You’re quite safe with us.”

He let out a bitter laugh. “I think I might be safer with the police than I am here.” He gestured to the chain on his ankle. It gave them a moment to take in the space in which he was incarcerated. There were loaded bookshelves, a cassette player, even an ancient-looking television. Jutting out from one wall was a shed-like structure with two doors, possibly leading to a kitchen and bathroom. The area had more qualities of a furnished flat than a prison.

Jude moved forward alongside Carole. “Listen, Nathan, we know who you are and we know why you’re here.”

“Oh, do you? I sometimes wish I did.”

“It’s in connection with the death of Kyra Bartos.”

The name hit him like a slap. His lip trembled and tears glinted in his eyes. At that moment he looked less than his sixteen years. “Kyra? What do you know about Kyra?”

“That she’s dead.”

“And that I killed her? Do you know that? Just like everyone else who seems to be so sure of it?”

“We don’t know that. But we’d like to talk to you about it.”

“Would you? Well, there’s a novelty.” The bitterness was back in his voice. He still wasn’t being overtly rude to them, but there was in his voice a deep weary negativity, an acceptance that he had entered a world in which normal logic did not operate.

“A novelty, why? Because nobody else wants to talk to you?”

“Nobody else wants to talk except to give me orders. No one wants to listen to what I have to say.”

“We’d very much like to hear what you have to say.”

He was tempted by the sincerity in Jude’s voice, but his scepticism remained. “Oh yes?”

Carole decided it was her turn. Jude had been trying the good cop approach, without marked success. Maybe something harder might be more effective.

“Listen, Nathan, you know you’re in a lot of trouble. Circumstances dictate that you’re the major suspect for Kyra Bartos’s murder. And the fact that you’ve run away only exacerbates the problem.”

“Excuse me.” The boy looked affronted. “What’s all this ‘running away’ business?” He indicated the chain round his ankle. “Does it really look as though I’m stuck down here voluntarily?”

“Are you saying you were kidnapped?”

“Not exactly. No, I came down to Cornwall of my own accord. In all the confusion of what happened – and the kind of mental state I was in – yes, lying low for a few days did seem a good idea. In retrospect I’m not so sure it was, but I wasn’t thinking very straight after I heard about…what happened at the salon.”

“Who did you hear about it from?” asked Carole.

“My uncle.”

“Rowley Locke.”

He looked at them curiously. “Are you sure you’re not police?”

Jude promised that they weren’t.

“Because you do seem to know rather a lot about me.”

“Everyone in the West Sussex area knows a lot about you. There’s been blanket coverage in the papers and on television.”

“Yes, I suppose there would be.” He sighed and gestured to the ancient set. “That doesn’t work. Not that I’d get Sussex local news down here anyway.”

“No.”

Carole picked up his narrative. “So you were saying…you came down here of your own free will…?”

“Yes. More or less. Uncle Rowley can be very persuasive.” Both women shared the thought that they were sure he could be. “But when they got me here…suddenly he says I’ve got to be chained up.”

“Does it hurt?” asked Jude.

“Not really. It’s quite slack. Only hurts if I try to get out of it, and I gave up on that idea after the first couple of hours. And the chain’s long enough so’s I can get to the bathroom.” He grinned wryly. “No, as prisons go, I suppose this is a very humane one.”

“But don’t you get bored out of your skull?”

“Well…” He gestured to the bookshelves. “I’ve got plenty to read. And I keep comforting myself with the thought that it’s not for ever.”

“For how long, though?” asked Carole. “Did your uncle give any indication of that?”

Nathan shrugged. “Not precisely. Presumably he’s just keeping me here until the police find out who actually did kill…” Again emotion threatened. Something in his throat rendered him unable to speak his late girlfriend’s name.

“Hmm.” Neither Carole nor Jude was persuaded by the explanation.

“Uncle Rowley did say I was being kept here for my own good. He said if the cops got their hands on me, I’d never escape. They’d stitch me up good and proper.” That sounded in character from what Carole had heard of Rowley Locke’s estimation of the British police force.

“I have to listen to what Uncle Rowley says,” Nathan continued lamely. “He does know what he’s talking about.”

This was a tenet of Locke received wisdom to which neither Carole nor Jude subscribed. They both had strong suspicions about Rowley Locke’s agenda.

“Well,” Carole announced practically, “the first thing we should do is get you free from that chain.”

The suggestion brought a light of paranoia into the boy’s eye. “Oh, you’d better not do that. There’s a girl – my cousin Mopsa who – ”

“We know all about Mopsa. She’s gone off shopping.” Carole consulted her watch. “She won’t be back for at least another twenty minutes.”

“So,” asked Jude, “should we find some tools upstairs to cut through the chain?”

“You don’t have to bother with that.” He gestured towards the foot of the stairs. “There’s a key to the padlock hanging over there. Just about six feet beyond my reach. Don’t imagine I haven’t tried to grab it.”

“Right,” said Carole. “Then the first thing we do is get that key.”

“I don’t think so.”

They all looked up at the sound of the lisping voice. Mopsa stood halfway down the stairs, back-lit from the kitchen above. In her hands was the shotgun that had been hanging on the sitting-room wall.