Carruthers' Demise, Chapters Thirty Two & Thirty Three

Chapter Thirty Two

‘Well I hope I’ve given him something to think about,’ Casey said, crouching beside the pond in the hotel garden, thumb and forefinger caressing a blade of grass.
‘Given who something to think about?’ Carruthers stubbed out his cigarette, flicked it into the container provided.
‘That sergeant – Sidebottom.’
‘Higginbotham…’
‘Higginbotham then.’ Casey snorted. ‘Honestly Marty, we were only speaking about it a moment ago – you’re in a world of your own, there’s a murderer too close for comfort and you’re obsessed with this bloke Noades…’ she got to her feet, straightened her blouse. ‘I wish you’d listen to me, Marty, initially I thought the same as you, but now I think we need to look again.’
‘No, no, no.’ Carruthers waved her suggestion away, hushed his voice, there was a cream tea assembly at one of the tables fringing the pond and he saw heads turn. ‘I’m not going over that again.’
Casey swung round, gave the group one of her icy stares and it seemed to do the trick. Satisfied, she fronted him again. ‘So where do you go from here, if you’ve no leads, and what do I do if the police won’t see sense?’
Carruthers leaned against the hotel wall, thrust his hands into his trouser pockets and tilted his head towards the cloudless sky. He sighed. ‘Adrian phoned yesterday, unusually civil for him I must say. He actually apologised for being no help and suggested we meet up. Two heads are better than one – that’s what he said.’ He met Casey’s eyes, minced his lips. ‘I don’t know what good it’ll do but anything that helps find her I’m bound to take up. You might as well join me, pointless going back there if you are being watched.’
‘I guess there isn’t. I’d feel tense and uncomfortable, certainly unable to write. I might as well see this thing through to the end.’
Carruthers managed a grin. ‘You certainly look far from that right now.’ He wiped his brow, the afternoon was becoming humid once more. ‘Fancy a drink, something cool?’
Casey smiled, slapped him hard on the shoulder. ‘Thought you’d never ask – looks can be deceiving - all this heavy stuff’s weighing me down…’
‘Yeah, well it’s not going away any time soon, I’m afraid.’ Carruthers led her through the rear of the hotel, along the plush red-carpeted corridor and into the bar. Casey ordered a Smirnoff while he asked for a lager. They took a seat by the window, looked down on the traffic below.
He leaned forward, hand caressing the glass. ‘Oh I know I’m reaching the point where remaining here would be futile; I guess Adrian, strange as it may seem, is my last hope. His eyes widened, engaging Casey’s. ‘I can’t understand how the key could have gone. Nobody knew it was there apart from Chelsey and I, and the garage is protected by combination lock. I keep telling myself that if she has been back there, then there’s precious little point in being here anyway.’
Carruthers’ mobile rang; he clutched it to his ear. ‘Ah – Adrian – what’s that? You’re here now? Well I’m in the Chequers, Casey’s with me - Casey Jennings. Say, why don’t you join us?’
‘Oh I see, well I suppose we could – I’ll ask her.’ Carruthers cupped a hand around the phone, leaned across to Casey. ‘Adrian’s asked us to join him on the |Forest; I asked him here but apparently he has an engagement this evening…’
Casey shook her head, raised her glass to her lips and then seemed to reconsider. ‘Okay, if you think you’d like a bit of civilized company.’
Carruthers returned to his call. ‘Yes, Casey will join us. ‘Where will we find you? Wait a minute, let me write this down.’ Carruthers took an A6 pad from his trouser pocket, jotted down a series of directions, not unaware of the fine lines knitting on Casey’s brow. ‘Shall we say about an hour? Okay, Adrian, that’ll be fine.’
‘Yeah, that’ll be fine,’ Casey mimicked, stretching over to scan the directions he’d scribbled down. ‘Where on earth is this place anyway? Sounds like the back of beyond.’
‘It belongs to a friend of his,’ Carruthers explained, taking a gulp from his pint. ‘He’s spending a couple of days there.’
‘Then why the sudden rush this afternoon?’ Casey jumped in. ‘Why couldn’t it wait until tomorrow?’
‘Because it concerns Chelsey,’ Carruthers answered with impatience. ‘That’s why. I’m going to take a shower. Shall we say fifteen?’
‘Okay. I’ll do likewise.’ Casey glanced dubiously at his sheet of directions, tracing a finger down it. ‘I should take a few minutes digesting that,’ she said, assuming an ominous air. ‘We could end up getting horribly lost.’
‘No we won’t, I’ll feed it into the sat-nav,’ Carruthers said casually, before treading the stairs to his room.
But back in the room, over a shower, he considered the wisdom of accepting the sudden invitation. Adrian’s friend did indeed appear to live in an isolated location. He’d had a pint, and although that was unlikely to set him over the limit, the tribulations of the day had, as usual, begun to grind him down. Why, really, couldn’t it wait until morning, when he was fresh? After all, Adrian had inferred that he’d be staying for a couple of days at least. But when he came down to the nitty gritty, if as he expected, Adrian wasn’t going to be a lot of help, then he’d just as soon head back home immediately afterwards. He’d exhausted all possibilities and himself in the process. It would be time to face the real world again.
And furthermore – face it without Chelsey.

 
Chapter Thirty Three

Carruthers waited impatiently for Casey to appear. She’d diverted to reception as they’d made their way out, for whatever reason he hadn’t a clue. His fingers drummed with increasing intensity on the wheel until finally she emerged, jet black hair sweeping about her face in the strengthening breeze.
‘I don’t know what you’re going to achieve by this,’ Casey said, jumping in and settling beside him in one fluid movement. ‘This Adrian chap is one obnoxious guy, if he hung around me the way he did Chelsey I’d smack him a bunch of fives – and he’s her brother too.’
‘Half-brother. And in any case,’ Carruthers couldn’t resist the quip – ‘with your taste I doubt you’d be much offended.’
‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.’ Casey’s reply was light enough but there was venom in her eyes that sobered Carruthers up.
‘So you noticed it too?’
‘Noticed what?’
Carruthers took a deep breath, checked in his mirror and pulled out of the hotel archway. ‘The man’s attitude as much as anything.’
Casey curled a hand to her brow and yawned. ‘I must say that in the few times I met him, I found him – shall we say – abrasive?’
‘Abrasive?’ Carruthers shot her a glance as he drove through the high street, swinging right across the cattle grid that took them into the Forest National Park and onto the Beaulieu road.
‘Yes, in his manner…’ she continued, her eyes focused on a group of rider-less horses cantering across the hillocks, ‘and he’s got those sharp features, little short of hostile – and mean eyes darting as if they were rife with suspicion. A weird one if you ask me.’
‘Which makes his change of attitude more difficult to understand…’ Carruthers turned the air conditioning up a notch; the humidity was becoming oppressive, even in the Range Rover’s spacious interior.
The Forest closed in for a while as the road swept down into it, the big old oaks either side combining branches to form gloomy woodland tunnels, before rounding a tight bend the woods suddenly relented, yielding to moorland as the navigation system whispered, ”In three hundred metres, turn right.”
Carruthers obediently obliged, flicking on the wipers as large droplets of rain splattered on to the screen. The sky had developed a threatening brown hue and mist began to sweep in on the turbulent air. ‘Great,’ Casey observed dismally, ‘we’re heading for a storm.’
‘You didn’t have to come.’ Carruthers rattled his fingertips on the wheel; ignored Casey’s raised eyebrows and studied his directions. ‘Shouldn’t be much further – there’s a right turn in a mile or so, and apart from a small lane that’s about it.’
‘Then let’s press on while we can still see where we’re heading.’ Casey glanced around morosely. ‘Dusk’s closing in early.’
Resisting a sudden impulse to swing round and head back, Carruthers set the four-by-four in motion. He didn’t know what had caused the sudden inclination but to have succumbed to it would have been acceptance of defeat in his eyes. He had to give this a chance.
Reaching the turn he veered right. The lane, wide at its junction soon narrowed, climbed and snaked. Hedgerows encroached on either side, their thistles brushing the sides of Carruthers’ vehicle.
The rain began to intensify, adding to the general murk and Carruthers missed it at first – the makeshift road that Adrian had told him would lead to the entrance of “High Warren,” his friend’s house.
Heather and bracken had obscured the track from his view but in the distance to his left, Carruthers caught the twin chimneys and roof of a house. He brought the Range Rover to an abrupt stop eliciting a groan from Casey, and reversed the twenty metres or so to a tiny junction, the track leading off it only narrowly managing to separate two fields of heather and several foot high rye grass. The terrain was rough and lumpy, even for a four-wheel drive and seemed to incline continuously, until finally they reached the summit and an overgrown entrance with the words “High Warren,” engrained into the bark of an oak – the point at which Adrian had said he’d meet them.
Except there was no sign of him –
Carruthers checked his watch and saw they were ten minutes beyond the agreed time.
‘Perhaps he’s given up and gone inside,’ Casey said glancing about. ‘Wherever inside is.’
‘Wherever indeed. Oh to hell with this…’ Carruthers flung open his door, jumped down from his vehicle, strode through an entrance once protected by a wooden five-bar gate which now lay rotting amidst a mass of tangled undergrowth. Ahead lay a concrete road, reminiscent of a war-time runway, but now cracked and riddled with weed and moss, beyond which stood a partially collapsed open ended barn, looming like a vast hollow in the premature dusk.
Carruthers heard Casey’s footsteps behind him and turned in exasperation.
‘High Warren? He’s having a laugh,’ she said before he could speak. ‘And the joke’s on you – by the look of it.’ She raised her eyebrows, slapped his shoulder.
‘No, it’s no joke.’ Carruthers shook his head. ‘There is a house here; I saw it from the road.’
‘Okay.’ Casey sighed and turned full circle. ‘It’s well concealed then.’ She gazed wide-eyed at a wild and desolate landscape.
‘No, wait.’ Carruthers raised an arm, pointing through the barn, beyond which seemed a blanket of trees, their outlines dimly visible in what little light there was left. ‘I reckon the road veers off, leads to the house. We can’t see it for bad visibility but I’ll vouch that’s where the place is. If not, we’ll call it a day.’ Carruthers looked pleadingly. ‘Agreed?’
‘Okay.’ Casey flinched as she entered the cavernous barn. ‘But I’m not liking this one bit.’
Carruthers led the way through the barn, heard Casey’s voice resonate in the hollow metallic surround. ‘This place is kind of creepy. I really don’t think we should be here.’
‘It’s harmless enough,’ Carruthers said dismissively, ‘the elements just make it seem that way.’
‘Then where is our friend, Adrian?’
Carruthers had no answer to that. He pushed on ahead, passing through the barn, restricting his breathing from the stench of rotting vegetation that made him want to gag, and out into the open once more. He swept soaked hair from his eyes and turned to Casey, two paces behind. ‘There, just as I thought,’ Carruthers gasped. He indicated the track which did indeed arc tight left through a clearing in the woods, passing another disused farm outbuilding – a long, low rectangular shed, towards, in the distance a large old Victorian house, a hulking shape in the near-darkness, flanked on either side by a pair of enormous oaks.
Carruthers halted, turned to Casey. ‘We’ll get the car and drive down,’ he said, placing an arm around her shoulder. ‘It’ll save us getting drenched.’
Casey grumbled, ‘If you ask me we’re on a wild goose chase – this place hasn’t seen human habitation in years.’
‘Oh but that’s where you’re wrong, here’s the living proof…’
Carruthers and Casey swung in unison to find Adrian Frampton-Williams behind them, arms outstretched. An old grey twill sweater and dark slacks were all he wore as protection from the rain.
‘Sorry I missed you good people. Went for a stroll, never was one to correctly anticipate the conditions.’
Carruthers stared through the gloom of the barn at Adrian’s silhouette and the whites of his eyes. His smile seemed static and unhealthy, but Carruthers wrote that off as being down to the elements and poor visibility.
‘I’ll fetch the four-by-four, drive it through. I take it you’re staying at the house at the bottom?’
‘I sure am. How kind of you – and then we can have that chat about Chelsey.’ Adrian’s expression didn’t change one iota as Carruthers passed him en-route to his vehicle, aware now of Casey’s strong grip on his arm.
‘Some power you’ve got there.’ Carruthers winced and Casey instantly relinquished her hold. ‘Guess it’s just that I’m a bit tense. Perhaps we shouldn’t be here – you could reverse right out…’
‘No I couldn’t do that. I have to go through with it.’
Casey clicked her tongue, ‘Whatever you say,’ and jumped into the passenger seat as Carruthers took the wheel. He reached for the ignition, tried to trigger it to no avail, tried once more – nothing.
He glanced at Casey, whose eyes were fixed on Adrian, who stood studying them with an unchanged mirthless grin.