Sleeping in the Ground

Chapter 16

Gerry could have kicked herself for not thinking of caravan sites before. If she had, she could simply have googled ‘caravan parks in Swainsdale’ and saved herself some time. But she hadn’t. She had insisted on using maps, the old technology. Well, that would teach her. It wasn’t as if the sites weren’t marked clearly enough by little blue symbols on the OS maps, but she had overlooked them. A caravan was the ideal type of anonymous, easily transportable home that would suit Vincent. And his wallet, if money were indeed a problem. It was possible that he had picked up a used car and caravan somewhere cheap, no questions asked, cash in hand.

Even though Gerry had drawn a blank at the first two sites, she still felt optimistic as she pulled into the gates of the Riverview Caravan Park around half past four. It wasn’t the first time Gerry had visited Riverview, about half a mile west of Eastvale across the river from Hindswell Woods. Only a couple of years ago she had been there with Banks around dawn on a miserable March morning watching the smouldering remains of a caravan.

The site stood on the north side of the River Swale, and when Gerry got there, the place was like a fairground packing up and leaving town. Car headlights and high-beam torches lanced through the darkness like searchlights as the cars crawled to the narrow gates, some of them pulling caravans behind them. Dark shapes stood in the rain waving their arms about and shouting instructions. It was an exodus in the wake of flood warnings, Gerry realised, and she was driving against the flow. She could hardly get through the entrance to park outside the main office building no matter how much she leaned on her horn.

Some good Samaritans were directing the traffic towards higher ground, and helping to get out the cars that got stuck in the churning mud. Several caravans had also got bogged down, one of them almost on its side. When Gerry finally managed to squeeze through and park outside the office, she grabbed her umbrella and put on the wellington boots she had kept in the boot of the car in the event of just such a situation. You didn’t go far without a pair of wellies in the Yorkshire Dales, no matter what the time of year.

The scene inside the office wasn’t any less chaotic, with the poor manager inundated by worried residents asking him where the hell they should go. As there was a fair slope down to the river, then a steep bank leading down to the water itself, Gerry wasn’t convinced that the site would be flooded, but perhaps it was better to be safe than sorry.

The manager seemed almost relieved to see Gerry and excused himself to come over and talk to her, leaving his poor receptionist to deal with the anxious crowd.

‘I remember you from before,’ he said. ‘Harry’s my name. Harry Bell. What’s up?’

Gerry slipped the photo of Vincent out of her pocket and showed it to Bell. ‘Have you seen this man?’

Bell studied the photo for a few seconds, then said, ‘That’s him. Mr Newton. Gordon Newton. Can you tell me what it’s all about?’

Gord, Gerry thought. At last. ‘How long has he been here?’

‘Over two months. Since last November, I think. Quiet as a mouse. I must admit I had my concerns at first. He’s hardly Mr Sartorial Elegance, if you catch my drift. His car’s a right old banger, too, a clapped-out Renault, and the caravan’s an eyesore. Mind you, he keeps it clean and tidy. So what’s he done?’

‘We don’t know that he’s done anything yet. I just need to talk to him.’

Bell gestured towards the outside. ‘Must be serious if you’ve come out here in this weather.’

Gerry smiled. ‘I’m only a detective constable,’ she said. ‘I’m out in all weathers. Now if it was my DI or the super, you might have a bit more cause for concern.’

Bell laughed.

‘Is he here now?’ Gerry asked.

‘I’m afraid he’s gone out. Drove off earlier this afternoon, before the rain was quite so bad. I try to keep an eye on the comings and goings. It passes the time.’

‘Any idea where he was heading?’

‘No. I just remember seeing his car leaving.’

‘With or without the caravan?’

‘Without.’

‘Which way did he go?’

‘Turned right at the top.’

That meant he was most likely heading for Eastvale, Gerry thought. On his way to abduct Maureen Tindall. ‘Would it be possible for me to have a look inside his caravan?’ she asked.

‘Well, I—’

‘As I said, we just want to talk to him, but it is quite urgent that we find him as soon as possible.’

‘Bad news, is it? A death in the family?’

‘Something like that,’ Gerry said. ‘There might be a clue in his caravan as to where he’s gone.’

‘Of course.’

‘Do you have a key?’

‘Er... no. Is that a problem?’

‘We’ll see,’ said Gerry. In her experience, caravan doors were pretty easy to open.

Bell accompanied her outside on to the porch, where the chaos was starting to abate, and pointed down the rutted track to his right. ‘Down there, towards the river. Second left, fourth caravan along, on the right side as you’re walking. You can’t miss it. It’s quite small and could definitely do with a paint job. You’ll see what I mean. Pardon me if I don’t accompany you but...’ He gestured back to the office. ‘Bit of a crisis. We’ll probably be fine, but people get all wound up listening to the weather forecasts.’

Gerry stood on the porch, scowled up at the sky, unfurled her umbrella and trudged off into the mud, fumbling with her mobile as she went.

Banks looked out of his office window at the blurry lights in the town square, listening to a Philip Glass string quartet on Radio 3. Gerry’s phone call had him a little worried. If Harry Bell was wrong and Vincent was home, or if he suddenly came back, it could be dangerous for her. He had told her to wait at the site office for backup, but he was pretty sure she had already set off for the caravan when she phoned, and she wouldn’t go back. There was a kind of hard-headed fearlessness about Gerry that he much admired, but it caused him concern for her safety. He called the duty sergeant and asked him to send out the nearest patrol car, just to be on the safe side. The sergeant said he’d do what he could, but the roads were a major concern. Banks stopped short of saying ‘officer in need of assistance’, the way he’d heard it on American cop shows, but raised the level of urgency in his voice and made it quite clear that Gerry’s welfare took precedence over bloody traffic problems, thank you very much.

Next, he phoned Annie in the squad room.

‘DI Cabbot,’ she answered.

‘Found out anything yet?’

‘Not much,’ Annie said. ‘I talked to Doug back on the Tindalls’ street. Neighbour across the way three doors down is the best bet. Says he saw someone leading Mrs Tindall by the elbow out of the house and shoving her into a beat-up old car about three o’clock. Thought it looked suspicious. He did phone it in, by the way, but Robert Tindall called us first.’

‘Did he get the make?’

‘He didn’t get the number plate, but he said he thought it was a Renault. An old Clio. He couldn’t see the colour because the light was poor, and the streetlights just reflected. But it was a dark colour, and there were rust patches, or lighter patches at any rate, around the wheel rims, and what looked like spray jobs elsewhere. All in all, it looked as if it had been around the block a few times too many. Seemed to know his cars.’

‘Good.’ Banks paused. ‘Gerry’s hot on the trail. She thinks she’s found him. Vincent.’

‘The little devil,’ said Annie.

‘Riverview Caravan Park.’

‘That hotbed of crime.’

‘Seems so. Anyway, the site manager says he’s not in his caravan but has no idea where he might be. Drove off earlier this afternoon.’

‘In time to nab Maureen Tindall?’

‘Yes,’ said Banks. ‘According to my calculations.’

‘So what next?’

‘I think we’d better get out there as soon as possible. I’ve got a bad feeling about this. You know how impulsive Gerry can be. I’ve already dispatched a patrol car, but you can’t rely on them tonight. They’re very thin on the ground.’

‘I’ll meet you downstairs.’

Banks went back to the window, then walked over and turned off the radio. Philip Glass’s edgy repetition was doing nothing to dispel his sense of unease. He grabbed his raincoat, switched out the lights and headed down. The sooner they got out to the Riverview Caravan Park, the better.

The door proved as easy to open as Gerry had expected, and when she switched on the light she found herself inside a cramped but cosy room. The single bed was made, the top sheet tight enough to bounce a coin off, and there were no dirty socks or underpants on view. Mark Vincent certainly knew how to take care of himself. It must be his army training, Gerry thought. But the place looked lived in, nevertheless. There were dirty dishes in the sink, for a start. Not disgusting old mouldy dishes, but recently used ones, probably left out that morning after breakfast. It indicated that Vincent probably planned on coming back before too long.

Gerry started her search slowly and methodically, from the end where the bed was. There was nothing of interest on the small bedside table, only a cheap clock radio, and in the one top drawer was the usual jumble of small change, blank notepad, pens and pencil stubs, a few rubber bands and a post office savings book that showed Vincent with a balance of £52.40. The bottom drawer was reserved for socks and underwear.

Gerry could find no correspondence in the small writing desk in the living area, not even a bill or a circular. A few clothes hung in the wardrobe, but not the black anorak and waterproof trousers he had been wearing during the shooting. Gerry guessed he was wearing them again now, along with the black woolly hat. There were several shirts, jeans, a couple of pairs of worn trainers and a sports jacket.

In the recycling box beside the door were newspapers, neatly folded and piled, that morning’s on top. Gerry bent and picked it out. It was open at the crossword, which Vincent seemed to have completed in ink without corrections. Gerry was impressed. It was one of those difficult cryptic ones filled with anagrams and synonyms and the names of plants she’d never heard of.

In the tiny fridge she found milk, margarine, some cheese slices and a loaf of white bread. A box of bran flakes stood on top, along with teabags and a jar of instant coffee. The cutlery was in a drawer below the hot plate, along with a plate and a bowl. Frugal, indeed. Gerry looked in vain for any traces of Maureen Tindall, but there were no signs of a struggle.

Rain beat down on the flimsy roof as she searched, and she noticed a leak above the door. Water was trickling slowly down the inside wall. Outside, car headlights flashed by the windows now and then, and engines whined as wheels spun uselessly in the soft mud. Occasionally she could hear someone shout above the hammering of the rain.

At the opposite end to the bed was a breakfast nook, and beside it a small armchair with the stuffing leaking out, a reading light angled beside it. There was no TV, nor any kind of entertainment device, unless you counted the clock radio. A row of second-hand paperbacks stood on the single bookshelf over the desk. Old thrillers: Ken Follett, Robert Ludlum, Jack Higgins, Alistair MacLean. Well, she wouldn’t have expected Vincent to have a taste for Jane Austen or Zadie Smith.

Gerry noticed something else on the bookshelf and pulled it towards her. It was an old WH Smith wide-ruled exercise book, battered and dog-eared. She sat down carefully in the chair and opened it up. The first thing that caught her attention was a newspaper cutting that slipped on to her lap, a photograph of Maureen Tindall cut from a larger group shot. Across it, someone — Mark Vincent, most likely — had written ‘GRAINGER’ in angry pen strokes.

Gerry shivered and flipped through the pages. She saw a list of names, three of which had been crossed out, and the second one, Martin Edgeworth, ringed in ink. She recognised the other names from the list of shooting-club members Doug Wilson had interviewed. Over the page were Edgeworth’s personal details — his address, telephone number, date of birth, bank, estimate of height and weight. Later came a list of places, including the White Rose, a pub called the Moorcock in Eastvale, and the names of several local restaurants and country inns, presumably places where Edgeworth liked to dine. There was also a list of all the Walkers’ Wearhouse branches in the dale.

Over the page was yet another list, this time of books: The Making of the British Landscape, The Pennine Dales, High Dale Country, Yorkshire Villages, Walks in Swaledale and Wensleydale, A History of Cricket, along with books on military history by Antony Beevor, Ian Kershaw, John Keegan and others.

Gerry put the exercise book down and leaned back in the chair. So Vincent had been grooming Martin Edgeworth. He had staked out the shooting club and spied on several members, finally deciding on Edgeworth, no doubt because he lived alone in an isolated house. After that, he must have made it his business to meet Edgeworth, get chatting, probably on long walks so they were less likely to be seen together. He had found out about the guns Edgeworth owned, which suited his purposes, and the more he learned about Edgeworth’s tastes and interests, the more he could read up on and feign an interest of his own; hence the books on local history and geography, military history, rambling and cricket.

There were no signs of any of the books in the caravan, so Gerry assumed he must have either borrowed them from a local library or perhaps skimmed them in the library. There were pages of notes about the various subjects covered by the books, so he had clearly done his homework and turned himself into someone who had a lot in common with Martin Edgeworth. And he had done it all fairly quickly. The longer Edgeworth remained alive, the greater the possibility of something going wrong. It was a cruel and calculating thing to do to get revenge, a dish served very cold indeed. Gazing down the length of the caravan to the neat bed, she could see nothing out of place. She would bring in a team of experts to take the place apart, and they might find something else. But that would take time. Besides, she thought what she had found was incriminating enough, though it didn’t tell her where he had taken Maureen Tindall. On a whim, she nipped outside and bent to check underneath the caravan. Nothing there, either, except the water rising.

There wasn’t much she could do now but wait for Banks and Annie to arrive, and that could take a while, given the worsening state of the roads. Gerry lay the newspaper on the table before her and noticed something interesting. The way it was folded highlighted an article about local flood danger spots in the weather section above the crossword puzzle. Mark Vincent could have been reading this before or after he had worked on the crossword. The report showed a map of the River Swain’s course, with attention drawn to potential flood trouble spots, places in danger when the Leas, a wide swathe of meadowland on both sides of the river just west of Eastvale, became waterlogged. The closest one marked on the map was Swainsford Bridge and there was a circle of ink around it. It could just be coincidence, of course, Gerry told herself, or a pointless doodle he’d done when filling in the crossword. But it chimed with something in her memory, something she couldn’t quite grasp immediately. It was there, she knew, and it would come.

Gerry also knew from previous experience that the Leas wouldn’t hold out much longer. The water would then spread further north and south, over and beyond the meadowland towards some of the houses that faced the riverside beauty spot. But that wasn’t the worst of it. The water was rushing down from becks and streams high up in the hills at an alarming rate, all of it joining the Swain and swelling its already bursting banks. There were certain spots where the river narrowed and became shallower for a stretch, and as the water couldn’t soak into the waterlogged swathe of the Leas, it would back up and overflow at those narrow points with some force, creating flash floods as unpredictable and as certain to burst as aneurysms. One of those spots, marked in a newspaper Vincent had been reading, was Swainsford Bridge.

The bridge was a single arch over the Swain, a bugger to cross because you couldn’t see if anyone was coming the other way, and it was less than a mile east of the caravan site, right in the thick of Hindswell Woods.

Suddenly, the phrases ran like a mantra through her mind and she knew what connection she was looking for.

In the woods. Under the bridge. In the rain.

Wendy Vincent had been killed in some woods and her body hidden under a bridge beside a broad stream. What if Vincent were, in his way, trying to emulate that murder, or at least the scene of the crime? What if Swainsford Bridge was his chosen spot? What if he had left Maureen Tindall under the bridge by the riverside for the flood to take her? Under the bridge. In the rain. Was that the place from where she was meant to contemplate her own death arriving? Vincent hadn’t intended to rape and stab Maureen Tindall, as Frank Dowson had done to his sister, but he had a twisted sense of poetic justice, and perhaps this was how he had planned things to work out.

It was a guess, of course, but Gerry thought it was an inspired one. She could find out whether she was right easily enough by driving to Swainsford Bridge and checking it out. The road running west from the caravan site was nothing but a narrow unfenced track for over a mile or so before it came to the turning for the bridge, and it wasn’t likely to be busy now, not with everyone heading east. The only question in her mind was that, if she was right, where had Vincent gone after abandoning Maureen Tindall to her fate? Wouldn’t he want to stick around and see what happened? But she couldn’t let thoughts like that hold her back. The main thing was that Maureen’s life might be in danger, if she hadn’t been killed already.

When Gerry got back up to her car by the site office, the chaos had diminished enough for her to manoeuvre her way out easily enough. Fortunately, someone had found some boards and laid them across the muddiest sections of the road. Gerry picked up her mobile as she drove, squinting at the short stretch of road her headlights illuminated in the rain and darkness.

This time she got through to Banks, told him where she was going, what she was thinking and what she was doing.

‘It’s far too dangerous,’ Banks said. ‘Stay where you are, and I’ll send the emergency services out to the bridge, in case you’re right. The patrol vehicle should reach you soon. We’re on our way, but these diversions are taking time. We’ll be there as soon as we can.’

‘There’s no time,’ said Gerry, narrowly avoiding a caravan that seemed to materialise out of the rain and darkness in the middle of the road. ‘The emergency vehicles won’t be able to get here any faster than you can. And if I’m right, it may be too late already. I’m almost there. It makes more sense this way.’

‘Not if you get yourself killed, it doesn’t.’

‘I’ll be careful. Come straight to Swainsford Bridge.’

‘Don’t do anything foolish,’ said Banks. Gerry ended the call. She saw the turning for Swainsford Bridge ahead, to her left, the sandwich-board warning sign knocked on its side, yellow police tape across the road to the bridge broken in the middle and trailing in the rain.

Gerry was about a quarter of a mile away from the bridge itself when she went through the first dip in the road. It was filled with water, which splashed up in broad sheets on either side of the car. She could feel its drag, slowing her down as she ploughed through. Not far now, she told herself. Hang on.

Soon she could see where the river narrowed, a mass of churning foam to her right, and she knew the waterlogged Leas lay not far to her left beyond the bridge. The water that gushed faster and faster down from the mountain streams into the Swain would soon have nowhere left to go. It would back up and swell the river to bursting, fill the bridge’s arch, perhaps even take the bridge with it. It had happened before.

There was a steep bank on the side of the river. Gerry drove to its edge, where her car would be safe from any flooding, and got out, taking her torch from the boot. The bridge stood ahead, about fifty yards further along the road, which was all downhill. She could see from where she was standing that it was blocked by more official boards declaring it unsafe. As far as she could tell, there were no other vehicles in the area. There were no houses for some distance, either. She levelled her torch and made her way slowly down to the riverside in its beam. The water was almost level with the top of the riverbank now, and it was swirling and swelling at an alarming rate as the mountain streams that fed it poured on relentlessly.

Gerry’s progress was difficult because she was trying to walk down at a steep angle on mud and slippery grass in heavy rain and near darkness. She fell on her backside a couple of times and slid, but managed to hang on to everything except her dignity, and this was no time to worry about that. The lashing rain was practically blinding her. At the river’s edge was a narrow footpath, like a towpath by a canal. It was already under half an inch of water. Gerry moved along it towards the bridge on her left carefully, in the light of her torch. The path was muddy, too, and water lapped over her feet. Here and there, the path had disappeared completely into the water, and she had to back up the slope a few paces to get by. If she lost her footing, that would be the end.

She shone her torch around, scanning the banks for anything that might be Maureen Tindall. Finally, the beam picked out a bundle of some sort under the bridge, on the narrow ledge between the inside of the arch and the river. The water was slopping over the bundle but hadn’t covered it yet, or dislodged it at all. As the currents twisted and turned in the gushing stream, glinting dark and light in the moving torch beam, water occasionally splashed over it. Gerry hurried as best she could along the narrow, broken path in the weak light of her torch. She was scared. The noise of the water filled her ears and cut out all other sound. Vincent himself could be lurking somewhere nearby, even aiming a gun at her right now. And if she missed her footing and went into the river, that would be the end of her. Under the bridge, the noise was even louder, and the water hit the stone in such a way that it splashed up the walls and rained on the bundle she was slowly edging her way towards, moving sideways, hands against the stone.

Finally, she got there and saw that the bundle was indeed Maureen Tindall, gagged and tied up in such a way that, if she moved, the rope would tighten around her neck and strangle her. Gerry held her torch in her right hand and fumbled in her pocket for her Swiss army knife, the one her father had given her for her fourteenth birthday and told her to carry with her always. She found it and got it open, then bent and cut Maureen Tindall free, shouting in her ear for her to keep still and not to move an inch. When the ropes were loosened and Maureen could stretch out her legs and move her arms without choking, Gerry yelled to her that the ledge was narrow and fast disappearing under the rising water, and that the only way to get her out was for Gerry to grab her legs and slowly drag her backwards. Maureen had to remain completely still. Even so, it would be dangerous. Gerry knew that she could easily slip on the wet path, and they could both tumble to their deaths in roaring waters, but she bit her lip and concentrated as best she could.

She gave Maureen the torch to hold, but the light in her eyes didn’t help at all as she shuffled slowly backwards, feeling for every step with her foot before advancing. It was slow and painstaking work. Luckily, Maureen had got the message and lay still, let herself be dragged. Finally, they cleared the arch of the bridge, where the path widened a few inches. But the river’s flow seemed to be getting faster and noisier. It had swelled even more since Gerry had gone in, and now there was less of the muddy path to follow.

Gerry glanced back at the bridge and saw the water was now covering the ledge where Maureen had lain. Smashing to and fro against the sides. There was only one way to safety, and that was up the bank. Up there, on the higher ground, they would be safe. She would get Maureen into her car with the heater on, then drive her to the hospital. But the only way to get Maureen up the bank was to drag or carry her, and Gerry wasn’t sure she had the strength left. Maureen was so frozen with fear and her circulation had been cut off by the tight ropes, so she could hardly do anything but whimper.

The fireman’s lift wouldn’t work. Not that Gerry couldn’t bear the weight — Maureen was a slight enough figure — but carrying her like that would unbalance her, and she would surely slip back or sink into the bankside mud and slide down to the water. She couldn’t make it up the slope walking upright. The only way was to get Maureen to cling around her neck without strangling her, and for Gerry to crawl on her stomach and claw her way up the slope with her hands, feel for footholds with her feet. It was slow going, even slower than the journey back from the arch. Once, they slid back and almost went over the bank into the water. But Gerry held on and set off again.

At last, she felt she had got far enough and had sufficiently dug in with her feet to take a breather. The water still roared in her ears. She glanced over her shoulder, past Maureen, and saw that it now almost filled the whole arch of the bridge.

Gerry took a deep breath, gathered all her strength together and grabbed on to whatever she could find in the bankside for the last haul — clumps of grass, a half-buried rock, an exposed tree root. Finally, they made it. She dragged herself and Maureen on to the roadside, unhooked Maureen and rolled over on her back, where she lay gasping for breath. Maureen lay still, a few feet away, also on her back. It was only twenty yards of easy paved path to Gerry’s car now, but she wasn’t sure whether she could make it. Her whole body hurt, every muscle, every joint. She had to struggle just to fill her lungs with air on every breath. The water roared in her ears. She felt her head spinning, the world receding from her. She wanted nothing more than to sleep.

Then she heard what she thought was a slow handclap and turned her head sideways to see a figure dressed all in black standing over her.

‘Well done,’ Mark Vincent said. ‘That was a heroic effort. Pity it all has to come to nothing.’