PAIN HAS A PERMANENT ADDRESS - READ BETWEEN THE LIES

READ BETWEEN THE LIES - EPSIODE 1

1  

Yazmin Nash flung open her flat door and tried to close it again when she saw me standing there. I planted my boot on the threshold. 

 "Miss Nash?  My name is John Handful."   

 "I don't care who you are, please take your foot away."  She looked angry and scared at the same time. 

 "I'm a private detective." 

 She looked up.  "I know who you are." 

 "I'd like to talk to you about Group Commander Charles Steele." 

 "I've nothing to say."  She looked uncomfortable when I'd mentioned that name. 

 I shook my head.  "Miss Nash.  I know you were helping him investigate the alleged UFO sighting near RAF Oxmarket last month." 

 "I'm off that story," she said with a snap in her voice.  "How'd you find me?"  I held up a battered mobile phone and played back a voicemail. 

 "It's Yazmin Nash, from the Oxmarket Mercury.  We spoke earlier.  Sorry if I sounded dubious.  Is there really something in this?  Call me back when you get this message, will you?"  She reeled off her number and the call ended. 

 "The rest was easy," I said.   

 "What do you want?" 

 "His wife has asked me to try and find out how he died.  I did some research and your name kept on cropping up." 

"Where did you get that mobile?" 

 "I never reveal my sources, Miss Nash."  

"Did Mrs Steele say something about me?"   

   "Should she?" 

 "No." She shrugged.  "I was just wondering." 

 I knew there was more to it than that.  "Why do you think he died?"  "He was going to expose what happened that night, and they killed him."  

Tears welled up in her eyes. 

 "Who's they?" 

 "I don't know," she said.  I could sense fear in her voice.   

 "Would you mind coming with me to see the Group Captain's widow? The police are convinced it was a suicide." 

 Yazmin shook her head.  

 "Something happened between you and Mrs Steele?" 

 She dwelled on my question for a moment before saying, "Charles and I had a brief fling. She caught us together."  

 "I see.  Let me deal with Liz Steele.  I'll tell her you're crucial to the investigation." 

 "I never said I would help you." 

 "Oh, you will,” I said.  "You're a journalist.  And a good one." 

 Yazmin smiled. "Let me get my coat." 

 It took us twenty minutes to find Liz Steele's house, a semi on a quiet street.  Despite my valiant attempts to try to engage her in conversation, Yazmin didn't respond, but when I'd almost given up, she turned away from looking out of the window.   

"Well, Mr private detective, how long have you been doing this line of work?"   "About six years," I replied.  "It was my wife who encouraged me to try." 

 "You're married?" 

 "Widowed," I said, with a hint of sadness.  "She died of leukaemia." 

 "Oh, I am sorry." 

 "That's okay.  I try not to dwell on it for too long.  Her death left such a big hole in my life; I am still trying to fill it." 

 Yazmin returned to looking out of the window, through the sleepy streets of Oxmarket and finally pulled up outside Liz Steele’s house. 

It was decided that I should lead the way, as I suspected that Liz Steele was unlikely to take kindly by being accosted by me and the girl she'd once caught in bed with her husband.  She ushered me up the garden path while she hung back. 

 The door was opened and a small, haggard blonde woman, stood in the doorway.    Sunken-eyed with a sallow pallor, she looked as if she hadn’t seen daylight for a week.  This was my client.                          

She glanced at Yazmin, but her expression did not change. "Hello, Mr Handful," she said.  "I thought you were the police.  They said they'd be round this morning.  We . . . I had a break-in last night." 

 "Did they take anything?" 

 Liz Steele shook her head.  "Not really . . . A few bits of jewellery, but mainly . . ."  Her voice shook, and she took a deep shuddering breath.  "Mainly they just went through Charles's things." 

 "His work things?"   

The woman nodded, eyes welling up.  I tried awkwardly to pat her shoulder, but she shrank away.  I looked at Yazmin and jerked my head as if to suggest she help. 

 Yazmin braced herself and walked forward.  Liz Steele narrowed her eyes.  

"Yazmin?  What're you doing here?"   

 "I'm" Yazmin moved uncomfortably from one foot to the other. "I suppose 

I'm helping Mr Handful with the investigation.  Hello, er . . ." 

 "Liz." 

 "Liz, of course.  Hello . . . Again." 

 "I'm not surprised you've forgotten my name.  You forgot about me altogether when you f****d my husband, in my bedroom, and in my bed." "Perhaps we could go inside and talk there?"  I removed a jiffy bag wedged in the mailbox mounted on the wall.  "Yours, I believe." 

 Liz took it from me and stepped aside to let us in.  She didn't offer us anything to drink.  She slumped onto the horrid floral sofa. 

 "How much did you know about your husband's work?"  I asked.  

 "I doubt it can help you.  Charles always kept me in the dark about what he was working on."  Liz gave a brittle laugh.  "He used to joke that if he ever told me, he'd have to kill me." 

 "And he never mentioned anything about what he saw near RAF 

Oxmarket?" 

 She looked at me but said nothing. 

 Yazmin sighed and sat down in an armchair.   

 Liz glared first at her, then at the padded envelope in her hands. "Postman came with that this morning.  Would you believe it?  Postage to be paid.  My husband is dead, I've been burgled, and I had to pay postage on some bloody junk for Charles....'" 

 "May I?"  I proffered my right hand, but Liz did not acknowledge me. She said nothing. 

 I swapped a baffled glance with Yazmin.  "Mrs Steele?" 

 "It's Charles's writing," she whispered, fresh tears welling.  "It's from Charles!"   "May I have a look?"  I suggested and took the package and opened it carefully. 

 A DVD fell out into my hand.  We all looked at each other for a moment.  

"We'd better see what's on this,” I said.                                                                

2

I wondered what the police would make of the scene if they called round to investigate the burglary right now – three people all glued to the screen in Charles's ransacked office, watching shaky footage from a head-camera. 

 "Oh my God," Liz whispered, transfixed, repeating the words repeatedly.  

"Oh my God, oh my God . . ." 

 Watching the DVD sent a chill along my spine.  Not just because whatever Charles must have discovered got him killed, but what we were seeing unfold before us. 

 It started with unusual glowing lights showing through the trees. Charles, accompanied by two RAF security police patrolmen, left the safety of the East Gate of RAF Oxmarket to investigate. 

 As the men entered the forest, radio contact with the air base began to break down, and you could hear Charles Steele telling one of the patrolmen to remain on the edge of the forest to keep contact.  Charles and the other patrol man, continued deep into the forest until they approached the eastern edge, where a conical object with black markings on one side, about the size of a car, floated on beams of light just twelve inches above the ground, where mist surrounded it.   

The two men tried to approach the object. Then, the craft rose rapidly in a flash of light and disappeared. 

Silence fell upon the forest. A moment later, the night filled with the sound of women screaming, animals hawking and screeching and bushes rustling leaves falling. 

The screen went blank for a few seconds, then showed the three men calibrating Geiger counters in daylight, which told me we'd moved onto the next morning.  They re-entered the area of the sighting.  Trees surrounding the clearing had broken tops, and the camera focused on what appeared to be shallow triangular depression about half a foot wide.  Radiation levels were taken – and the cameras focused on the readings.  They were ten times the normal background level. 

Once again, the screen went blank and this time returned to show the second reported sighting.  It was over an open field to the east of the forest.  A pillar of yellowish mist transformed itself into a huge eye with a dark centre.  It then manoeuvred through the forest, lights pulsating, red on the top and blue lights underneath. 

The men gave chase.  The camerawork was jerkier than before but not enough to miss the lights transform into pyramid shapes, thirty feet across and twenty feet high.  

After another twenty minutes of footage, with the men in pursuit, swearing and cursing at the craft's constant change of direction, the craft shot skywards as little elliptical pieces detached from it and lingered a few seconds in the air before disappearing. And then nothing.   

I looked across at Mrs Steele who had bitten her lip so hard she had drawn blood.  

Ten minutes later, the police arrived as we were leaving.  I had a quick conversation with WPC Melanie Softly, asking her to let me know if any clues about the intruder's identity were discovered. 

I felt a pang of guilt as we walked away, leaving Mrs Steele alone and dazed to cope with all this.  Not that she would appreciate any sympathy from a private detective and her recently deceased husband's lover.   I'd told her I would make a copy of the DVD and give that to the police; explaining it would be a tremendous help in tracking down Charles's killers.  I had managed to stop Yazmin from mentioning it would also be a tremendous help in putting together the biggest story of the twenty-first century for her newspaper, too.  I kept feeling in my pocket to make sure it was still there. "What do you reckon, then?"  Yazmin asked me as she got into the passenger seat of my car.  "I don't think they'll find anything," I answered.  "I'd imagine that the people we're dealing with would be scrupulous in clearing up after themselves." "I don't mean the police," she said, exasperated.  "I meant, what do you reckon about the DVD.  Could that have been a UFO?"  

I felt the hairs on the back of my neck prickling.  "Well, there's only one way to find out." 

"And what's that?" 

"Visit the crime scene and the area of the sighting." 

On the way, I stopped at a small service station in the middle of nowhere.  No supermarket or burger bar here, it looked to be a decrepit little place where you'd be lucky to pick up a packet of crisps with your petrol from the yokel behind the counter.  Yazmin sighed.  As I was about to get out, my phone

went off.   

"Hello, John Handful." 

There was no answer.  Then the line went dead.  I checked the digital display.   

PRIVATE NUMBER. 

I shrugged, put the phone back into my pocket, and set about filling up. 

The unleaded nozzle kept pumping, the flickering digits displaying the cost.   Kira wouldn't have approved.  But I no longer needed to worry about what she thought.  She had made the decision to end our relationship, three months ago.  At first, I thought she had met someone else.  I'd even followed her for a while, convinced she had been cheating on me.  But it was simpler than that. 

She'd stopped loving me. 

The petrol pump cut off in my hand as the tank reached nearly full, and I jumped in the air.  I glanced about, embarrassed, as some of it dripped onto my foot. 

I saw a black Audi with tinted windows pull up behind my Peugeot.  The two men inside it seemed in no hurry to fill up.  They were just watching me.  

Perhaps they were waiting until I moved to get to the diesel nozzle. 

I looked away, hung up the pump and went into the small shop to pay.  While I waited, I glanced outside.  Yazmin was sitting in my car, oblivious to the two men in the Audi. It hadn't moved. The men were still watching me.  

3  

I felt sick as I rounded the corner of the tiny track road and stopped the car.  Glancing at Yazmin beside me.  She was beautiful, even as tears rolled down her cheeks. Ahead of us, stretches of blue-and-white hazard tape whipped in the wind around the charred and blackened verge.  An accident notice had been stuck around a red post box, requesting witnesses. I glanced about.  Some chance out here.  It was just mud and fields, out of sight of the main road. 

 I was glad the Audi had driven on when we'd made a stop at a pub in Oxlangtoft.  I had a pint of lager while Yazmin had a vodka and lime and then went ahead to ask the locals for any gossip on recent comings and goings.

And they had all been moaning about the increased activity at RAF Oxmarket.  Yesterday the village roads had been half-choked with military traffic on its way out again.  But the airmen based there contributed a great deal financially to the local community, so none stayed cross with them for very long.   A high price to pay for a quiet life, we decided, as we looked at the burnt undergrowth, the scorched earth. 

 "Christ, Charles," Yazmin said. 

 "We need to have a snoop around," I said in what I hoped was a reassuring tone.  "If we find something then we might help bring his killers to justice.  

And you could get the greatest scoop ever."  

 Before we could get out of the car, I heard another car coming.   The black Audi. 

 I swore and restarted the engine, driving forward slowly.  The men in the Audi matched my speed.  I realized I had no idea where this track led, nor did Yazmin, but I had a hunch it wouldn't be to a nice stretch of dual carriageway with a friendly police station round the bend.  I only nodded mournfully when a chained wooden fence appeared at the end of the trail, barring access to a churned up muddy field. 

 We unbuckled our seatbelts, ready to run if necessary, then I pulled out my phone.  My heart thudded in my chest.  No signal. 

 I reined in my thoughts, manoeuvred the Peugeot through a three-point turn until we faced the other car.  The two men watching us seemed perfectly ordinary.   

 I speed-dialled my answerphone, then handed the mobile to Yazmin, before I wound down the window. 

 "What do you want?" I called to the occupants of the Audi, speaking loudly and clearly as much for the phone as for the car's occupants.  "You've been trailing us, and now you are blocking my way out of here.  Please move out of the way." 

 "They're staying just where they are," I told the phone.  "They're in a black 

Audi."  I read out the registration number of the car.  "Just watching us.  Staring.  Intimidating.  I'm going to drive closer to them and sound the horn." 

 I did so, wondering how long my answerphone allocated for each call. 

 Then the Audi lunged forward and smashed into mine. 

 "They've just rammed us," Yazmin yelled.  "I think they're going to -" Again the Audi crunched into my Peugeot.  Yazmin bounced in the passenger seat like she was being twitched on wires. 

 "I'm putting the car into reverse," I shouted.  "I'm going to try and smash through the fence behind me and into the field." 

 "That only works in films," Yazmin said, as I revved the engine. 

 The Audi paused; the driver unsure if I was going to come at them.  As he revved his engine and pushed forward once more, I pulled my foot off the clutch.  The Peugeot shot backwards some twenty metres, the engine grinding and shrieking until it smashed heavily into the fence.  Yazmin gasped as her head jerked back, and I felt a prickling of pain in my neck. 

 "No good," Yazmin shouted.  "The wood is too solid!" 

 The Peugeot had stalled.  I glanced at the Audi and or then turned the ignition key. It had reversed and then stopped.  The driver revved the engine. 

 "Who are these people?"  Yazmin asked.  The fear in her voice clearly evident.   The Audi's headlights came on.  Main beam.  Dazzling bright in the grey afternoon.  Then the engine roared as it sped straight for us. 

 I turned the key again, swearing and shouting, and the engine finally took.  I twisted the wheel round and turned to our right, tyres spinning on wet grass as the Peugeot slid clear of the advancing car.  We have jolted again as the Audi clipped our rear, but they were travelling too fast to stop.  This time the fence splintered, and the Audi ploughed through it into the thick, claylike mud. The white reverse lights flicked instantly on, but it was soon hidden in a thick spray of mud as the wheels spun hopelessly, trying to get a purchase.   I didn't bother updating our silent audience over the phone.  Yazmin cheered with relief, tears coursing down her face.  I flustered at the wheel, lurching forward, revving the engine too hard, the dead calm I'd felt from the shock slipping away to confused euphoria. 

 The sound of a gunshot refocused me.  Clutching the wheel tight, we rocked and rattled away.  In the mirror, the two figures flanking the stranded car were pointing after us, dwindling to the size of toy soldiers before we rounded the bend, and they were lost from sight. 

 I did not slow for two or three miles.  Only when I was certain no one was following, did I relax?  Reaction set in, leaving me wrung out and clammy as 

I let the car's speed ease back to normal. 

 "Are we safe?"  Yazmin asked, still glancing behind us. 

 "I think so." 

 She closed her eyes.  "I'm going to be sick." 

 I pulled over.  Yazmin stumbled out of the car before we had stopped.  Leaving the engine running I waited nearby, keeping one eye on the surrounding countryside. All around, the landscape a stretched sheet of paper scribbled over by thickets of hawthorns with only the occasional house or barn.  Despite my assurances, I was happier when we were far away from this place.  The dusk was thickening and the rustle of wind through the marshland only emphasized the loneliness.  We could have been the only living things out there. 

 Yazmin re-joined me and gave me a wan smile as she got back into the passenger seat of my car.  "Sorry.  False alarm." 

 "How're you feeling?" 

 "My head is throbbing a little, but I'm not too bad." 

 The light was dropping quickly, and a haze of mist blurred the edges of the little we could still see.  Yazmin shivered, and I knew what she was thinking. 

 Those men were still out there. 

 I put my arm around her.  "Come on, you can stay at my house tonight." 

          4  

The road took me through the small, dismal town of Oxmarket Mountfitchet.  Past pebble-dashed bungalows and stone cottages to a harbour front, where a few dirty-hulled trawlers and fishing boats slumped at angles on the mud, waiting for the returning tide to give them grace and reason. 

   I continued along the road beside the estuary, the tarmac eroded in places where the tide had overflowed the banks.  It had been another bad winter for flooding, but I hadn't paid much attention to news reports of coastal storms.  Judging by the sea wrack stranded on the road and surrounding fields, they would be harder to ignore here.  Global warming was more than an academic debate here. 

 I followed the road out towards the mouth of the estuary.  With the tide out, all that was left was a muddy plain dappled with pools and runnels of water.   I turned on to a cinder-covered parking area and drove up to my new home, a converted boathouse, a stone building that jutted out from the bank of the estuary.  Its lower half stood in the water; the walls stained with a line to show where the high tide came.  The top half was a single storey built on a level with the bank.  Two small windows sat on either side of a door, like a child's drawing of a house. 

 We walked to the door and Yazmin watched as I struggled to find the right key. Finally, I nudged the door open.  There were no interior walls, just a single large room that I decked out like a studio flat.  I'd painted the unplastered walls with white and installed a double-glazed arched window facing out on to the estuary.  A small kitchen area had been built at one side, while a sofa and armchair stood either side of a wood-burning stove at the other.  I had chosen sixties-style Scandinavian furniture, plain lines, and muted colours, with a deep-red rug I had bought online covering the varnished floorboards. 

 Small as it was, the place was bright and airy, the sort of thing that could be featured in the pages of a glossy travel magazine, and I was proud of it. 

 "Nice place," Yazmin said.    

 "Thank you," I said.  "I'd better warn you, there is no Wi-Fi or TV, but you can generally pick up a mobile signal.  Oh, and the bathroom's in there." 

 I gestured towards a door in a small cubicle tucked away in one corner.  

She nodded.  "Where's the bed?" 

 I went over to a section of wall panelled with rough-hewn planks.  Taking hold of a leather strap, I heaved, and the entire panel swung out to reveal a pull-down bed. 

 "Impressive," she commented.  "But where am I sleeping?" 

 "In here?" 

 "And where are you sleeping?" 

 "In the armchair." 

 "I can't expect you to give up your bed." 

 I held up my hands.  "Think nothing of it.  Now, would you like something to eat?" 

 "Yes, please." 

 She sank into the armchair next to the arched window.  She shivered, and I turned on the warm-air heater attached to the wall beside her. 

 While she rested, I grilled lamb chops with minted potatoes and frozen peas.  Not high-quality cooking but simple and satisfying.  I produced a bottle of wine from the refrigerator and poured two glasses. 

 The alcohol took the edge off any remaining awkwardness, and Yazmin didn't argue with me when I suggested we leave the dishes till the morning.  Taking what was left of the wine with us, we went and sat at either end of the sofa.  We didn't talk, but the silence was comfortable.  I took another drink of wine and stole a look at her.  She was drowsing, legs curled up on the sofa, the head fell back to expose the slender line of her throat. Her face was peaceful and relaxed.  She wasn't conventionally beautiful, but the strong features would still turn heads.  They would still look good in another eight years' time. 

Or eighteen. 

 She was breathing with the slow, steady rhythm of deep sleep, the

almost empty wine glass still held loosely in her fingers.  It had fallen slightly to rest lightly between her breasts.  I was loath to disturb her, but it was starting to slip, each breath dislodging it a little more. 

 "Yazmin . . ."  I said gently.  "Yazmin?" 

 She came awake gradually, eyes staring at me blankly. 

 "Sorry," she apologized, sitting up.  "Please tell me I've not been drooling." 

"Only a little." 

 She smiled and swatted at me.  "Pig." 

 "Why don't you go to bed?" 

 "Not much of a guest, am I?"  she said, but she didn't argue.  She stood and put her hand on my shoulder as she swayed unsteadily.  "Whoa . . ." 

 "Take it easy," I said, getting up to support her.  "Are you OK?" 

 "Just tired, I think.  Must have stood too quickly." 

 She was still holding on to me.  I had my hands on her waist, standing close enough to feel her warmth.  Neither of us moved.  Yazmin's eyes were big and dark as she leaned into me. A smile curved her face. 

 "Well . . ." she said, and something hit the window with a bang. 

5  

We jumped apart.  I rushed to the arched window and yanked open the heavy curtains, half expecting to see the faces of the two men from the black Audi glaring back at me.  But all I could see beyond the window was a sheet of white fog. 

 "What was it?"  Yazmin asked. 

 "Probably nothing." 

 It was an inane thing to say, especially when my heart was pounding.  

They couldn't have followed us here.  Could they? 

 "Stay here," I told her. 

 I went into the kitchen and removed a torch from one of the drawers.  I then pulled a nine-iron out of my golf bag leaning against the wall beneath one of the small windows.   

 "Lock the door behind me," I said. 

 "John, wait -" 

 But I was already sliding back the bolts on the front door and stepping outside.  Nothing to see but the fog that soaked up the torch's beam. The air was damp, scented with loam and rotting leaves.  I shivered. I should have grabbed my coat.  Keeping close to the side of the house, I made my way slowly around the perimeter. The nine-iron felt flimsy in my hand, and I had begun to think this wasn't such a clever idea.  What are you going to do if someone's out here?  What if it's the two men? 

 Something moved on the ground at my feet. 

 I stumbled backwards, raising the nine-iron as I thrust out the torch.  There was another flurry of movement, and then the light and shadows resolved themselves. 

 Caught in the torch's beam, an owl blinked up at me. 

 I lowered the golf-club, feeling stupid.  The bird was ghostly pale, his face white.  It was hunched on the grass below the window wings splayed out awkwardly at its sides. The dark eyes shuttered in another slow blink, but it made no attempt to move. 

 "It's a barn owl," Yazmin said from behind me. 

 She startled me.  "I thought you were waiting inside?" 

 "I didn't say that."  She crouched beside the injured bird.  "It's lucky the window didn't break.  Poor thing.  The fog must have confused it.  What do you think we should do?" 

 "It's probably just stunned," I said.  The bird was staring straight ahead, either determined to ignore us or too dazed to care.  "We shouldn't move it." 

 "But we've got to do something!" 

 "If it struggles, we might hurt it even more."  Besides, injured or not, the bird was still a predator.  Its beak and claws were no less sharp. 

 "I'm not leaving it out here," Yazmin said, in a tone, I was beginning to recognize.  "I'll use my coat." 

 As she removed her coat, I suggested leaving it just inside a small shed, propping the door open, so it could fly out when it had recovered. 

 The bird was surprisingly light as I carried it into the shed, the rapid tattoo of his heart thrumming under my hands.  Inside the shed, was damp and musty with the smell of damp wood.  We hadn't turned on the light, and its pale feathers were almost luminous in the darkness. 

 "Do you think it'll be all right?"  Yazmin asked as we returned to the house.  "We can't do any more tonight.  If it's still there in the morning, I'll call the vet." 

 I locked and bolted the front door, giving it a tug to make sure.  Yazmin shivered as she rubbed her arms. 

 "God, I'm frozen." 

 She was standing very close.  Looking at me.  It would have been natural to take hold of her. 

 "It's late," I said.  "You go to bed, I'll tidy up." 

 She blinked, then nodded.  "Right.  Well . . . Goodnight." 

 I waited while she got ready for bed, then went through the house, angrily turning off the lights.  I told myself I'd done the right thing.  Yazmin was scared and vulnerable, and things were complicated enough already.  But I wasn't sure whether I was angry because of what had almost happened, or because I hadn't let it. 

 I lay awake on the sofa, listening to the night-time silence of the house and thinking of Yazmin.  I finally fell asleep, only to be half-woken by a noise from outside, the sharp cry of either predator or prey.  It didn't come again, and as sleep reclaimed me, I forgot all about it.