Shifting Sands Read online

  I mean, that woman is formidable.

  And single.

  She’s married to her job, I think.

  They’re a devoted couple, inseparable, and God help anyone who gets between them.

  Just now, I hear the door to her office open, and she’s pacing between the desks. It’s now or never. I need her advice about the best way to follow this up — the best people to see. There isn’t much about Sefton-on-Sea that she doesn’t know. I reckon she’s been here since Caxton invented the printing press.

  I need to find out about Westleigh Hall and anything else in that neighbourhood. My guy must have come from somewhere. He couldn’t have walked far like that. According to Winston, his centre of gravity had shifted well forward.

  ‘Liz?’

  She stops and turns, and I feel staples flying towards me.

  ‘Yes, Philip?’

  ‘Have you got a minute? I might have a story.’

  ‘In a newsroom? Surely not.’ She pauses and glances at her watch. ‘I’ll give you five minutes — come through to the office.’

  I don’t sit down. I’ve not been here long enough. Fifteen years is the minimum, they tell me, before you can sit down.

  ‘Well?’

  Liz perches on the edge of the desk and pins me with that look.

  ‘Well,’ I begin, ‘it may be nothing. I met this friend — more of an acquaintance, really — someone I knew in school — and he was telling me this story. I’m not sure...’

  ‘Get to the point, Philip. I’m due to die in the next forty years.’

  I take a deep breath.

  ‘He was the driver for a guy burgling a house out near Westleigh.’

  ‘Nice company you keep.’

  ‘He was standing at the drive of this house. It was two in the morning. He hears this strange sound and then...’

  And I tell her, and she listens, and she doesn’t laugh. She doesn’t even smile. I tell her everything, every detail, and then I tell her I checked the hospital and the police station.

  ‘Nothing,’ I tell her.

  ‘Is your source reliable?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you believe him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She stands up and checks her watch again.

  ‘The owners have summoned me. I have to go. What are you working on at the moment? Never mind, I don’t want to know. Give it to Alice. She’ll be grateful. She’s keen and silly. I doubt there’s anything in this story; someone will have found him and taken him home, and he’ll be tucked up in bed somewhere but... gel and electrodes, you say?’

  ‘That’s what Winston told me.’

  ‘Drive out there; do a bit of house to house. See what you can find out. Check out the new owners of Westleigh Hall. It changed hands about a year ago, and I believe they had some plans to create a hotel or a clinic or something.’

  ‘It was for sale?’

  ‘Don’t you read your own newspaper, Mr Tyler? Never mind, don’t depress me; I don’t want to know. Westleigh Hall has an interesting history. You should look into it, get some background.’ She pierces me with one of those stares. ‘Educate yourself, Mr Tyler. My local history is a good starting point. I won’t ask if you’ve read it, not if you don’t even read your own paper.’

  She pulls down a tome from her bookshelf and hands it to me.

  ‘Now, is there anything else?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Good.’

  She brushes past me, breezing out of the door. Halfway down the press room, she pauses and turns back.

  ‘Well done, Mr Tyler. We’ll make a journalist of you yet.’

  With that, she’s gone, and I walk back to my desk, conscious of the uncomprehending stares of my colleagues. Words of praise from Liz are a rare commodity. People write diary entries about them.

  Then I open Liz’s history of the local area, and my momentary feeling of elation deserts me.

  Chapter 3

  I skim through the ancient history of Westleigh Hall, pausing briefly to read the compulsory, every-old-house-has-got-one ghost story. This one’s about some young woman who was bricked up in a wall and left to die — for adultery, apparently. Try that in Sefton today and you’d empty half the streets; the walls would be bulging.

  Anyway, that was way back in the sixteenth century, when the Westleighs still lived there and ruled over the area — local, self-important, minor nobility.

  I feel my socialist instincts stirring.

  They do the usual side-swapping during the Civil War but end up on the wrong one, and that’s the end of the Westleighs. The new owners are even more boring, and, eventually, they die out too, and then there are a couple of industrialists, and they die out until there’s just some old lady. She lingers on through the war when the hall is turned into a hospital, and then it’s her turn, and she dies. Shit, this is a depressing story — death, death, death... anyway, that’s 1953. The hospital lingers for a while, and then it’s bought out and becomes a sanatorium which doesn’t make a profit. That closes in the seventies. The owners — relatives of the old lady, I think — stay on in one wing, but they can’t keep up with the maintenance, and, eventually, in 1996, they pack up and leave. It’s left to decay.

  Twenty years later and it’s on the market; it’s been taken over, and some redevelopment is underway. I wonder why it took twenty years? Sentimental attachment maybe? I feel like that about a handful of vinyl records from my teens and a book my first girlfriend gave me one Christmas. Melissa, yeah, that was her name. She broke my heart — the bitch.

  I turn to the computer to find the agent — Mackenzie-Green — but they just put me on to the solicitor from London who dealt with the purchase. I get on the phone to them, only, they’re as helpful as a hole in a sock. They tell me the hall was for sale (which I knew) and that it was sold (which I knew), but they won’t divulge the name of the buyer (which I want to know) because the buyer doesn’t want them to (I want to know why). They’re very polite, like saccharine on a cyanide capsule. I say thank you through gritted teeth, check Land Registry, and find the name of the company which bought the place — Logrum Research — and I think I’m getting somewhere.

  But I’m not.

  I check out the directors and phone them and email them. The phone calls go to answerphone and the emails bounce. I’d have more luck sticking my head out of the window and shouting their names. I hope none of them are called Bunny.

  So, I go back to the computer and dig deeper. Logrum Research, it turns out, is a subsidiary of another company, which is a subsidiary of a company that is based somewhere so obscure, you’d need to mount an expedition to find it. By now, it’s late in the day, and all I’ve got from my hard work is a headache, backache, and repetitive strain injury in my hands and arms. The joints in my legs are locked.

  To hell with this, I think.

  Then I get stubborn, and I think, I’ll give it one last try, and I go back to the solicitors Pettigrew and Slim, and, this time, I apply a bit of journalistic pressure.

  ‘I’ve heard from a source that Logrum Research is planning to open a hotel or a clinic of some description. Do you have any comment?’

  She doesn’t. It seems she’s unfamiliar with the concept of independent thought.

  ‘Can I speak to Mr Pettigrew or Mr Slime?’

  ‘It’s Slim,’ she tells me. ‘S-L-I-M.’

  ‘Can I speak to him, then?’

  ‘It’s Lorraine Slim,’ she says, with a voice which could poison wells. ‘She’s a woman.’

  Ouch.

  Okay, let’s try something else.

  ‘I’m writing an article about the future of the hall. I’d like something more definite than “its future is shrouded in a mystery which its new owners, Logrum Research, are unwilling to reveal.” You know how people respond to uncertainty. I dread to think what they’ll make of this. They’ll imagine a prison, a young offenders’ institute, a holiday camp, or something really awful like wind tu
rbines.’

  She hesitates. I can hear cogs turning. Maybe she’s asking her computer for a decision.

  Will she? Will she?

  ‘If you’ll give me fifteen minutes, I’ll speak to Mr Pettigrew and get back to you.’

  Yes!

  ‘Thank you. I’ll await your ca—’

  She’s already hung up.

  Twenty minutes later, the phone rings, but it isn’t Mr Pettigrew or even Ms Slime. It’s some official guy with a voice which sounds like it’s just escaped from a subterranean vault. He introduces himself as Clive Wigmore, agent for Logrum Research. He’s American, I think — kind of mid-Atlantic. He has a message he wants to get across, and he doesn’t want to be bothered by anything which doesn’t relate to that message. His is the manner of the curt media man, the guy who represents a big organisation or a senior politician in the US — abrupt, verging on ignorant, and immediately annoying — a red rag to someone like me.

  His message is simple:

  ‘My clients plan to open a rehabilitation centre for a very select clientele, the sort of people who value their privacy and are willing to pay for it — television and movie stars and high-powered business people — the rich and famous. The location of Westleigh Hall is ideal for our purpose. It is close to road and rail networks, but isolated enough to offer complete seclusion to our guests. My clients will make an appropriate disclosure of their plans soon. In the meantime, we would ask you to refrain from raising unnecessary speculation about our work. Its effect on the local population will be minimal.’

  ‘Do you have any clients in the facility at present?’

  ‘No. We’re still at the stage of renovating and modernising the building. It’ll be some time before our first clients take up residence.’

  ‘Can I speak to one of the directors?’

  ‘That won’t be possible. They’re very busy people.’

  ‘Who are the owners?’

  ‘Logrum Research.’

  ‘They’re just a subsidiary. I mean, who really owns the place?’

  ‘The clinic is owned by Logrum Research, its shareholders, and its directors.’

  ‘Who owns the company which owns Logrum Research?’

  ‘It wouldn’t be appropriate to disclose anything further at present. There’s nothing sinister here, Mr Tyler. Everything relevant will be revealed at the correct time. I’m sure you understand the need to control the flow of information in order to prevent speculation and to avoid unhelpful publicity.’

  ‘I usually find frankness prevents undue speculation.’

  ‘We have a great deal of experience in this area, Mr Tyler. You must allow us to reveal our plans in a way that suits our purposes and the nature of our clientele. I hope I can rely on your discretion for the few weeks it will take for us to establish ourselves. I can assure you we will be as frank as possible. Perhaps I could offer you a tour of the establishment in return for your cooperation, prior to our first clients arriving?’

  ‘When is that likely to be?’

  ‘I doubt we’ll be ready before September.’

  ‘Do you have other establishments in the UK?’

  ‘That, Mr Tyler, I can’t divulge. It can lead to unhelpful intrusion. There are too many people out there, and some of those who, alas, are on the fringes of your profession would be eager to photograph a celebrity at a moment of weakness. The location of our clinics is no secret, but we don’t advertise their presence. I’m sure you understand.’

  ‘What about elsewhere? The US, maybe?’

  ‘As I said...’

  ‘What about the old house a few hundred yards down from the hall? Did you buy that too?’

  ‘Yes, we acquired that to provide accommodation for the medical director of the clinic.’

  ‘Has she moved in yet?’

  ‘I don’t have that information, Mr Tyler.’

  I decide it’s time to mention Winston’s naked man.

  ‘There was a man covered in some sort of gel and he had electrodes fitted — the sort you might have in a hospital or clinic.’

  There’s a brief pause, but it isn’t long enough to make anything of it.

  ‘I can assure you, Mr Tyler, whoever that unfortunate man was, he had nothing to do with us. As I said, we are yet to open our doors to our first patients. Now, if there’s nothing else...’

  That’s pretty much it. He asks again for my cooperation, but I hedge that. I tell him I have no plans to print anything at present, and if the situation changes, I’ll let him know.

  ‘If that unfortunate circumstance occurs, I’d appreciate a copy of your article prior to publication.’

  ‘Of course.’

  I take his email, and that’s that.

  When I sit back and think about what he’s said, it’s pretty clear I’ve heard only what he wants me to hear. Maybe that is just a sensible precaution on his part. There’s nothing to link Westleigh Hall with Winston’s story.

  And I’m no nearer to finding the naked man.

  It’s late now, and there’s not much else I can do, so I think maybe I’ll take a drive out there tomorrow, call at a few houses, ask a few questions. Maybe someone will know something. I’ll call at Westleigh Grange and see if the doctor has moved in. If nothing comes of that, I’ll probably give up and go back to my day job.

  I pack up and turn off the computer, and I’m about to head to my car when the door crashes open, and Liz storms towards her office. We all watch as she slams the door, and we hear her swear.

  ‘Bastards,’ she shouts. ‘Weak-willed, spineless, money-grubbing, mercenary, worthless bastards — the only man amongst them was a woman!’

  There’s silence across the room — not a murmur.

  When she doesn’t emerge after ten minutes, I go home.

  Chapter 4

  Should I take Winston with me to Westleigh Hall?

  The thought of Winston in a confined space like a car isn’t a pleasant one, and he’s not someone I want too close to me when I’m working. Winston is trouble. The biggest mistake you can make with Winston is to believe he’s your friend and can trust him. He isn’t, and you can’t.

  Remember Benny? Benny is the closest thing to a best friend Winston has, and Winston left him on a country lane at two in the morning, five miles out of town, with a quantity of stolen goods, a naked rambler, and a long walk home. At the first sign of trouble, Winston was out of there.

  On the other hand, Winston can show me exactly where he saw the guy, where he was coming from, and where he was heading. He can show me the house Benny was burgling and where he was standing.

  In the end, I decide to take him because it’s better he’s there if I need to ask him something. But there’ll have to be rules; if he starts with that ‘Bunny! Bunny!’ voice, I’ll pull up and leave him — swear to God.

  I leave a message for Liz, then I drive out to collect Winston. It’s ten o’clock. He’s wearing a college scarf, a hat his gran knitted, a red shirt, and blue jeans.

  ‘I see you’re going for the subdued look.’

  ‘Why be one of the crowd?’ he grins. ‘If you’ve got it, flaunt it.’

  ‘That’s a huge if, Winston.’

  We drive along the promenade to the bridge over the Sefton River, then turn down the main road inland. It’s busy. There are queues at every roundabout and at all the traffic lights, but eventually, we leave the town and turn first down one lane and then another until we reach the railway crossing.

  The barriers are down.

  ‘Have you heard from Benny?’

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘He’s not come looking for you, maybe to have a chat about the other night?’

  ‘What about the other night?’

  It’s like he’s forgotten all about it, like it never happened, or, if it did, like it was something so trivial, it wasn’t worth thinking about. I don’t bother answering.

  ‘I guess he split without finishing the job,’ he says.

  A train clatters b
y, three carriages heading inland, travelling seventeen miles to the next town. It looks crowded, and people are standing between the compartments.

  ‘You pay a fortune and you don’t even get a seat,’ I comment.

  ‘Bastards,’ Winston says.

  That’s as profound as we get.

  Ten minutes later, when I think the lane can’t get any narrower, and hawthorn and blackthorn branches are scraping the windows, Winston tells me to pull over into a driveway on the left.

  ‘This is the gaff.’

  ‘Which way was your guy heading?’

  ‘Back towards the railway... “Bunny...B...”’

  ‘Winston!’

  ‘Okay, okay.’

  ‘There are just a couple of houses along here, and then there are the cottages by the railway line.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Where’s the hall?’

  ‘A mile down the lane.’

  ‘Any other houses?’

  ‘Nah. Hey, man, if he came down the lane from the hall,’ he laughs, open-mouthed, ‘he’d have to have carried a caber like that for a mile. I mean, that must be some sort of record.’

  It’s not an image I want to linger over.

  ‘Let’s drive on down there before we make house calls — just to take a look.’

  The lane widens after half a mile, and then there’s a private road which turns left. A hundred yards further, we’re stopped by high double gates. There’s a sign which says “Westleigh Hall. No Entry.” There’s just sufficient space to pull off the road and park up.

  ‘Shit, it looks like a prison,’ Winston says.

  He’s right.

  The trees on both sides of the walls have been cleared, and the wall itself has been raised to about ten feet and topped with a coil of razor wire. The gates, steel barred, are set in concrete pillars with cameras mounted on their tops. There’s a push-button intercom beside the gate. Everything is new. Even the drive, which leads from the gates down to the hall, winding through trees and around wide lawns, is newly gravelled with sand-coloured stone.