Out of the Window: The Island Connection, #2

CHAPTER ONE

Amy's teeth chattered as the glacial drizzle showed no signs of letting up. It was one of those cold, miserable, penetrating, grey, non-stop drizzles that soaks through meagre clothing and annihilates a person's confidence. With no signs of any customers, the harbour-side hot food kiosk had closed early and Amy had taken the opportunity to rifle through their bins. She thought herself lucky when she found some stale burger buns that would keep her going until tomorrow. With her head bent low, she tore strips off the first bun and chewed while she huddled and shuffled her way past the lifeboat station. She looked up as a large seagull squawked and dived towards her, trying to take the bun from her hands. The damn things were like Exocet missiles over here. But Amy was too fast because her need was too great to allow a bird to take her only meal of the day. She whipped the bread inside her saturated fleece and walked faster with the cold water of the harbour on her left and the bleak castle walls on her right.

One hundred metres further, she reached the hewn stairs that gave access to Peel Castle. The steep stone steps leading up to the entry portal were sheltered by overhead slabs of grey granite. Amy was still buffeted by the wind, but at least it was dry and she looked up with tired liquid-green eyes, grateful for the small amount of respite. In a few more minutes, she would be a little drier and a little warmer and, eventually, the shivering would stop, but she still had to force her aching legs to mount every step. It was going to be another wretched night on a hard tiled floor, but what other choice did she have? At least the rain disguised her tears of anger and frustration.

She hauled her tired body up the wide stone steps until she reached the locked gate at the top. Peel Castle, on the Isle of Man, was not scaled like a simple Norman castle with a keep and a moat round the outside. Peel castle sat on an islet attached to the main island by a one-hundred-metre-long causeway. It had high granite walls and stretched for almost twenty acres. For summer visitors it was a way to pass a pleasant afternoon in a gentle ramble, poking their heads into the various nooks and crannies. But the castle remained closed for five months in the winter and, on a wet early December afternoon, it was the perfect hideaway for somebody who didn't want to be found. She squeezed through the narrow gap between the unforgiving granite wall and the full height steel gate that stayed locked all winter. Luckily she was a slightly-built girl, otherwise she would never have made it through.

High inside the castle grounds, the summer visitors enjoyed a splendid view of the rolling hills to the east but, today, there was nothing other than a dirty grey sky and more freezing rain. Amy pressed on as fast as her tired legs and wet jeans would take her until she arrived at the ladies' toilets and washrooms. As she had discovered a few days earlier, the outer door had no lock, so she let herself in, pushed open the door to the nearest stall, and sat on the toilet. Her whole body shook with cold and she knew she needed food and warmth. She could do something about both, but not much. She pulled the burger buns from inside her wet fleece and tore at them as she pushed wads of bread into her mouth. She could taste tea leaves and cigarette ash from the inside of the bins, but ignored it as she filled her belly for the first time today. After several bites, she put her head down to the hand basin and drank water from the tap to wash down the dry bread.

On her first visit, Amy had found the main fuse for the washrooms and had turned on the electricity. She hit the button on the electric hand drier and wallowed in the stream of warm air. Then she flicked on the light and closed the outer door. In the mirror over the hand basin, her image was etched with fatigue. She ran her hands through her wet hair to drag it away from her face.

Amy had come to the Isle of Man to try and sort things out with her aunt but had found herself the victim of a verbal attack on the doorstep that had left her reeling. She'd had no chance of explaining her thoughts. And the berating included a specific promise of a physical follow-up which, in her aunt's own words, meant only one thing. Amy knew what her aunt was capable of and fled, in fear for her life. Amy's family had form and the fact that she was her niece would have no effect on her aunt. The only outcome that would satisfy her was Amy's death.

It was Thursday today, and the young lady had already been on the street for a week - something she had no experience of. She was sick of living like this with no money and people staring at her as if she was dirt. She wondered whether it might be a good idea to try and get back to Lancaster, confess to her crime and see what transpired. But then she batted that idea away because her aunt had made it abundantly clear that she would track her down to the ends of the earth to extract revenge. And Amy believed her. She knew the pedigree all too well.

CHAPTER TWO

Stella Rudd's laptop was tuned in to Manx Radio's webcam because it offered her a splendid view of the fishing boats in Peel harbour as they offloaded their catches. She couldn't have positioned the camera better if she'd done it herself. Well, that wasn't quite true because, when it had first been installed, she'd paid Dan Cretney, a local electrician, £100 to make sure it was facing exactly where she wanted.

Stella had a financial interest in knowing what catches were brought ashore and, when undeclared or under-declared catches were spotted, Stella's husband Tommy would apply verbal, and sometimes physical pressure on the boat skippers. He would quote ‘unspecified sources’ for his information and the skippers all assumed there was an informer in their ranks, so they all paid up without quibble. Had they known it was nothing more than the webcam on top of the lifeboat station that was informing on them, they might have done something about it.

Tommy was what the commercial fishermen on the Isle of Man called ‘a hard bastard’. To everybody else, he was a respectable member of the community who paid his taxes on time, employed a lot of people - mostly Romanians at minimum wage - and donated money to local causes. But, to the fishermen, he was the man who could make you or break you. You didn't argue with Tommy Rudd if you wanted to survive. The source of Tommy's power was as simple as a generous back-hander to a low-level civil servant who dished out and renewed the island's limited fishing licences. Two holidays a year to somewhere exotic, plus a couple of grand in pocket money, and Barnaby Hedge was happy to withhold licences from anyone who Tommy Rudd told him to. He didn't even have to have an excuse because nobody ever dared to complain or launch an appeals process. Tommy made sure of that. Tommy had only ever had to call in the services of Archie Woods and his trusty baseball bat once. The beating Archie had dealt out had left the recipient with a long spell in hospital and a pronounced limp. It had gone down in the annals of Peel fisherman history and had been more than enough to keep the whole fleet in line ever since.

That power over the fishermen gave Tommy Rudd the exclusive rights to buy all the landed catches of fish and shellfish on the island for well below the normal going rate. He was careful, of course, to make sure the fishermen earned enough to survive, but he was never over-generous because Tommy also owned the processing factory that prepared the catch for local supermarkets and exported the rest to whoever would pay the highest prices. Usually that was the French because they were fussy about quality and, if nothing else, Manx waters produced top quality merchandise.

Stella was getting heavy-eyed and was ready to turn off her laptop and put her feet up in front of the TV with a glass of Martini. She had a lot on her mind and was finding it difficult to concentrate anyway. Suddenly she sat up and stared at the screen. Bastard! she screeched. She fumbled to press the 'Print Screen' key so she had a screen dump of the webcam image. Then she opened her Paint Shop programme while she continued to screw her eyes up and stare at the screen. The webcam refreshed every 30 seconds so she waited, and wasn't surprised to find that the person she'd seen was no longer visible, having walked out of the range of the camera.

She pasted the screen capture into her imaging programme and saved it to her desktop. Then she enlarged the image of the solitary figure huddled against the rain and smacked her hand on the desktop. She'd hit lucky - the webcam had caught the girl in the bottom of the frame just as she had looked up at something blurred above her head. It was her.

Tommy, she screamed. Get down here. Now!

A moment later Tommy Rudd came tumbling down the stairs, tripping over his own feet and stumbling to a halt. Wazzup? he asked.

Look, Stella said. It's her. Look!

Tommy leaned his face down to the screen. He'd left his glasses upstairs where he'd been having a little late afternoon siesta. After a moment, he said, It does look a bit like her, doesn't it.

"A bit like her? A bit like her? That is her, you great lummox, and she's just ten miles away. So do something about it. Get someone to go and get her."

Tommy rushed towards the stairs.

Stella screamed at him, Where are you going you dickhead?

I'm going to get dressed and go and get this bloody girl.

Oh don't be so bloody stupid, Tommy. Use your brain if you've still got one. Phone the damn fishermen out of the quay. Tell them there's a reward if they get on the case right now. The girl is only a few hundred yards away from them. Just describe her to them.

Yeah, right, Tommy said, of course. His face darkened as he considered how much worse his life was going to get if he slipped up on this one. His wife's younger brother was lying in a hospital in Lancaster, brain dead. In Tommy's view, Wee Davie McKenzie was a malevolent waste of space. But Davie and his sister, Stella, seemed to have some sort of mental thing between them that Tommy didn't understand. If Tommy was honest with himself, Wee Davie McKenzie deserved everything that had happened to him. Unfortunately, Davie's protective big sister didn't see it that way and Davie's sister was Tommy's wife who had stuck with him through thick and thin for the last twenty years. Many was the time that Stella could have screwed him over for his infidelities. But she had just smacked him round the head a bit and gone therapy shopping at the jewellers to help improve her mood.

Tommy sighed. In his business, a supportive wife was gold dust so he had to put things right by her. It didn't matter that her younger brother had been a spoilt kid who developed into a truly evil bastard, and that he had probably brought his accident upon himself. It only mattered that Stella felt the score was settled with the girl. So it was up to him to get it sorted. When he finished talking to the fishing boat skippers in the harbour at Peel, he reported back to his wife. They're on to it. he said.

Bloody hope so, Stella snarled, knocking back a large glass of Dry Martini. Can you imagine, that bitch had the cheek to turn up on my doorstep and tell me how sorry she was for what had happened and how we needed to talk. If I hadn't had your bloody mother in for tea, I'd have strangled the little cow there and then. So just make sure she doesn't give us the slip this time, Tommy. I want her rotting body fed to the fish.

Tommy nodded, sauntered to the long oak bar and refilled her glass. Yes love.

It was two hours later when Tommy received the final call from the last of the skippers he'd talked to. He could do nothing to stop the heavy sigh that escaped his lips because he knew he was in for a first class bollocking, even though it wasn't his fault. He walked into the living room and opened his mouth to speak.

They damn-well lost her didn't they? Stella snapped. What a load of useless pricks. One little bloody girl in one little bloody town and they friggin' lost her. I'm telling you, Tommy, if this doesn't get sorted soon, you and me are going to have a major disagreement. I've still not forgiven you for involving the police. That was stupid. I'm going to bed. You're in the spare room till this girl is caught. Stella stood up and stomped up the stairs.

CHAPTER THREE

Detective Constable Sarah Flemons slipped into DI Angus Slooth's office, coffee cup in hand, and made a beeline with it for the one empty portion of desktop available. Angus looked up and nodded. Thanks Sarah. How did you know I was gasping?

Has there ever been a time when you weren't? Just thought I'd drop in before I knock off, and see what you want me to work on tomorrow. The phantom garden gnome thief is now sulking in a cell awaiting the court's pleasure and I've finished all the paperwork on Alfie Hilton, the guy who was nicking the wooden seats from the gardens on the promenade.

Bugger, Sarah, we live in a den of iniquity. Garden gnomes and wooden seats - whatever next?

Sarah laughed. It's all right for you, Inspector. You get all these high-profile financial scandals while us poor plods are at the coal face sweeping up the garbage of society.

It's Angus while we're alone, Slooth reminded her. Anyway, someone's got to keep the coal face nice and clean.

Sarah nodded. Her friendship with Inspector Slooth had begun two years before when he had provided a rock-solid shoulder to lean on after her best friend had been murdered. Angus Slooth came complete with a full head of wild hair that looked as though it could scour pans. His craggy face matched the granite cliffs of the island, and sometimes he would adopt a Glaswegian accent that was as strong as a caber tosser's jockstrap. Most people just recognised it as the product of an eccentric, but highly effective, Scottish policeman. Angus would be celebrating his fiftieth birthday in a few weeks.

Sarah Flemons was only half the age of her boss and was blessed with twinkling blue eyes, a show-stopping smile, and plump, kissable lips. That was the sexist version that her boyfriend, Sparky, was inclined to use, but it was reasonably accurate nonetheless. She wore her strawberry blonde hair at medium length above her shoulders which had the effect of accentuating her ample breasts. But you wouldn't want to make that sort of comment to Sarah Flemon's face. Unless, of course, you were Sparky. If anything, Sarah played down her looks while she was working, preferring to dress in trainers, jeans and casual jackets. But, as Angus had sometimes noted, she wasn't averse to using her looks if it got a result.

There was a natural understanding between Angus and Sarah that ran deep. As he saw it, she was a bright young detective with the right attitude and he was raising her in the Angus Slooth methods of policing, which weren't always those outlined in the training manuals. Angus' clear-up record was such that he could be very persuasive with the upper echelons who tended to give him anything he asked for. So he had made sure that Sarah reported directly to him.

What about tomorrow? Sarah asked. What's on the cards?

Angus pushed some papers aside on his desk and retrieved some notes he'd printed out earlier. Got a call from an old mate of mine in Lancaster, DCI Joe Evans. He emailed these details through to me after we'd spoken. They're looking into a guy who did a head-dive from a fourth-floor window at the university there. He's alive, but it's doubtful that he'll ever regain consciousness. They're fairly certain the guy wasn't trying to kill himself.

Angus Slooth read from the note. The man's name is David McKenzie, also known as Wee Davie McKenzie. He paused as he fired up his pipe, sending clouds of smoke to the ceiling. Sarah was the only person he knew who never complained and, at this time of the evening, there were few others in the police station who would bother.

And what do the Lancaster police want us to do? Sarah asked. If there are suspicious circumstances, it's on their patch so it's for them to get the evidence.

They think that there was another person involved - probably his daughter. They also think she's now on the island. Seems that Mr McKenzie's sister's husband rang them a few days ago to say that his niece had turned up on their doorstep to discuss what had happened. He told the team in Lancaster so they could take some action.

So who's McKenzie's sister? Do we know her?

We certainly do, Slooth replied. Does the name Rudd mean anything to you?

As in Tommy and Stella Rudd?

My, you do keep your ears to the ground, don't you?

It's what you pay me for. But we're all aware that the Rudds are a bad lot. They might be feted by the island's elite, but you know and I know that Tommy Rudd and his charming wife are brutal bastards.

Well, brutal bastards or not, Mrs Rudd still has a right to know what happened to her brother, so Lancaster police are doing what they can and we'll help if possible.

Do we have any ideas of what may have happened? Sarah asked. Did he jump? Was he pushed? Was he drunk? Was he on drugs?

For the moment, we've no idea at all, Angus replied. All we know is what's in this note. The guy took a dive from his daughter's room on the fourth floor of the student block at Lancaster University. He landed on his back on the grass, which is the only reason why he's still alive. Since the girl called on her aunt to discuss it, it's clear that she's been on the island, though we don't know if she's still here.

If she is still here, how do we track her down?

Angus chuckled. That's for you to tell me, because you'll be the lead for this one and you're going to have to get out in the community and ask questions. Slooth passed her the note and then scrabbled round on his desk for the scanned photo. DCI Evans sent me this. It's the photo from the university year book last year, so it's not quite up to date, but the features shouldn't have changed much. You need to take copies and get them circulated around the place. Someone must have seen her.

Sarah stared hard at the photo of the young lady. Pretty girl, slightly built, shoulder length dark hair but no smile. She referred to the note. Amy McKenzie, age 17, studying for an MBChB degree, second year student. She whistled. That means she started university when she was 16. That's some bright cookie.

Exactly what I thought, said Angus. So why would a bright cookie who's studying medicine and surgery push her father out of a fourth-floor window?

Do we know he was pushed?

No, but when you've read the whole page, you'll see that he was naked when he went flying and they cleaned traces of semen and vaginal secretions off his private parts. Apart from being covered in cuts from the broken glass, he also had deep gouges in his face that look like they were made by a set of finger nails.

Angus puffed at his pipe. Whether or not Wee Davie McKenzie was pushed is just an assumption at the moment. According to his sister's husband, Tommy Rudd, the sister is sure he was pushed, and she may have a point. Why else would the girl appear on her doorstep and want to discuss what happened?

Guess I'd better check all the hotels and boarding houses first.

You do it your way, Sarah, but if you'll accept a tip from an old wrinkly, I'd check out her finances first. If she has no money, she's unlikely to be holed up in a hotel. You might also want to get hold of the team in Lancaster and get the background on the victim. Quite often, there's some information that gives meaning to the main story.

Sarah nodded. Slooth's experience was always freely given, and she soaked it up like a willing sponge. Right, she said, I'll get on to it first thing in the morning.

Okay, keep me in touch Slooth said. And say hello to Sparky for me.

Sarah smiled and shut the door quickly so the smoke wouldn't escape. Sparky was probably already at home getting dinner ready. As well as being an all-round diamond geezer, her boyfriend was also a great cook so, when Sarah arrived at their cottage in the village of St. John's fifteen minutes later, she could smell the dinner cooking. And whatever it was, it smelt wonderful.

Hi sweetheart, Sparky said, giving her his usual hug and a kiss. Dinner will be half an hour yet, but those Blue Hole brochures have arrived so when you've taken your coat off we could perhaps have a glass of something chilled and see what's on offer.

Get it poured, Sarah said, and I'll be with you in a minute.

Sparky filled two glasses with Chablis from the fridge. Sarah was easy to please and made it known how much she appreciated what he did for her. For him, it was a new life after being raised by