As he scrambled along, Jason began to sob soundlessly as he’d learned to in White Oaks. A part of his brain urged him to stop to face his fate: anything was better than this torment, day and night. But he didn’t. Something basic, something primal inside kept him going.
When he stopped again, Jason realised he was at a fork in the path. The main path continued to follow the river back towards Derby, but the left fork wound its way round to Elvaston Castle and its dark tree-lined grounds.
He turned down the path towards Elvaston. After hobbling round a couple of ninety-degree bends, he staggered onto the overgrown bank of a stream. He settled into the undergrowth with a view of the path and tried to regain the rhythm of his breathing as quietly as he could.
Several minutes elapsed but nobody came down the path. Jason began to shiver and, worse, started to get cramp. He’d crouched in as near a position of readiness as he could manage but it soon began to hurt. After ten minutes of this, Jason finally had to swivel into a seated position and wait, eyes darting, ears pricked, every sense on heightened alert.
Hudson and Grant stepped into the gloom of the dingy lobby onto a threadbare carpet, feeling the tacky pull of ancient spillage on their shoes. The noxious odour of cheap disinfectant assaulted their noses and the tobacco-stained walls did the same for their eyes.
The man behind a cramped bureau gave Grant an unsubtle stare of approval as she approached, then turned to Hudson with an over-friendly grin. He was short, slightly overweight, and had long straggly hair that disguised his early baldness as ineffectively as the grin hid his yellowing teeth.
‘It’s thirty for the hour or sixty-five for the night and we don’t do breakfast …’ Grant’s warrant card silenced the man and his manner became defensive. ‘Oh yes, Sergeant. What can I do for you?’
‘I’m DS Grant, this is Chief Inspector Hudson. We’re inquiring after a guest who stayed here on Saturday night,’ said Grant, brandishing a photograph of Tony Harvey-Ellis under the man’s nose. ‘Are you the proprietor, sir?’ she asked as he took the picture from her.
He looked up at her and back at the photograph. After a moment’s hesitation he nodded. ‘I am.’
‘Your name, sir?’ asked Hudson, swinging around, preparing to take an interest for the first time.
‘Sowerby. Dave Sowerby.’
‘Do you recognise the man, Mr Sowerby?’ asked Grant.
Sowerby concentrated fiercely on the photograph. ‘No,’ he said after a few moments of unconvincing deliberation. He handed back the photograph, returning his attention to the reception desk and fiddling with some papers as if to imply a heavy workload.
‘Mmmm.’ Hudson wandered off to the front door but neither he nor Grant made any attempt to leave. After a minute, Hudson ambled back to the desk, picked up the local newspaper from under a stack of documents and jabbed a finger at the picture of Tony Harvey-Ellis, smiling on the front page. ‘Perhaps this is a better likeness, Mr Sowerby?’
‘Is that the guy?’ said Sowerby, hardly bothering to look.
‘That’s him,’ said Hudson. ‘His name is Tony Harvey-Ellis. But then you knew that because he stayed here Saturday night. Mr Harvey-Ellis drowned in the early hours of Sunday morning. The picture we showed you was taken at the mortuary.’
‘Most people who see a picture of a dead body tend to react in some way,’ added Grant, smiling coldly.
‘You, on the other hand, didn’t react at all, sir. Now why might that be?’
Sowerby tried to look Hudson in the eye but couldn’t hold on. ‘I didn’t realise …’
‘You didn’t realise how important my time is, did you?’
‘I … I …’
‘You didn’t realise that I get very pissed off when someone wastes my time when I’m investigating a suspicious death …’
His words had the desired effect and Sowerby’s eyes widened. ‘Suspicious!’ he said, agitated. ‘It doesn’t say anything in the papers about suspicious. It says he drowned.’
‘You calling me a liar now, sonny?’ said Hudson, fixing Sowerby with a cruel glare.
‘No, no.’ Sowerby raised his hands in pacification.
‘Cuff him, Sergeant. I don’t like this dump. We’ll do this at the station …’ Hudson turned and began to saunter away. Grant made no attempt to reach for the handcuffs.
‘Wait! Just hang on …’ pleaded Sowerby to Hudson’s retreating back. ‘I’ve got a business to run.’
‘Guv,’ said Grant. ‘Give him a minute. I think Mr Sowerby wants to help.’ She turned back to Sowerby. ‘Don’t you, sir?’
‘I do. I didn’t realise …’
Hudson stopped at the front door but didn’t turn around. There was a brief silence as Grant considered how best to continue. ‘Maybe Mr Sowerby was just trying to protect a valued client.’
Sowerby looked from Hudson to Grant and nodded eagerly. ‘That’s it, a valued client – a regular.’
‘I mean, we can understand that, can’t we, guv?’ continued Grant. ‘He was just being … discreet.’ Sowerby continued to nod eagerly and looked with hope towards Hudson’s back. ‘I mean, we’d want the same discretion if we stayed at a hotel, guv. Wouldn’t we?’
Hudson turned now, his lips pursed. ‘I suppose,’ he conceded eventually and padded back towards the bureau. ‘All right, we’re listening.’
Grant nodded and smiled encouragement at Sowerby, who wasted no further time. ‘Mr H is … was,’ he corrected himself, ‘a regular. He had an understanding that we’d turn a blind eye. You know …’ He looked encouragingly at Grant.
‘Discretion,’ she obliged.
‘That’s it. Discretion. He was married, see …’
‘No?’ said Grant.
‘He was. But he had a right eye for a pretty girl. And he always paid cash, you know,’ added Sowerby enthusiastically, before suddenly realising he’d said the wrong thing. ‘Not that I don’t …’
Hudson held up his hand. ‘Any particular pretty girl this last time?’
‘Well, he had more than one but this weekend it was the usual.’ ‘Usual?’
‘Yeah, the one he’d brought here a few times. Very pretty. Brown hair. Slim but not …’ Sowerby darted a glance at Grant, who raised an eyebrow ‘…not flat.’ Hudson now had to douse down a smirk. ‘And, of course…’ Sowerby now stopped himself, beginning to look uncomfortable.
‘Go on,’ prompted Hudson.
‘…young,’ said Sowerby quietly. ‘They were always very young.’ Hudson and Grant faced Sowerby in silence, well-versed in tightening the screw. ‘Not that I had any reason to think they were … you know … illegal.’ He stared down at the floor to see how far he’d dug himself in.
‘Then why think they might be?’
‘The usual one. The first time he brung her in was a couple of years ago…’ Sowerby stalled over the words. Hudson and Grant waited, knowing it would come ‘…And she’d tried to dress up normal but I could see…’
‘See what?’
‘She had one of those sweatshirts on.’