Time Lapse Read online

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Pete Trewin was born in Middlesbrough under the shadow of the soon to be demolished steel mills but has lived for most of his life in a leafy suburb of Liverpool with his wife, Paula and golden retriever, Bryn. Their three children have long moved on.

  While working as an economic development and regeneration consultant, Pete gained a knowledge of how you might launder ill-gotten money. Not direct experience, obviously. This set him on the path of writing crime novels. The rest of his time is spent in Snowdonia where he indulges his interest in rock climbing and hill walking.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2015 Pete Trewin

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the publishers.

  ISBN-13:978-1506179445

  ISBN-10:1506179444

  www.petetrewin.com

  www.facebook.com/PeteTrewinAuthor

  Time Lapse

  PETE TREWIN

  Also by Pete Trewin

  A FAIR WACK

  For my mother and father

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ONE

  M56. Cheshire. 4 pm. Lovely autumn day. Rush hour. The air con was broken so if he opened the window he was hit by a hot blast of exhaust fumes. And Chris Crosby was caught short. When you spent all day in a van it was an occupational hazard. He kept a jar in the back but you could hardly use it when you were driving down a motorway. All he could do was try and hold on to the next service area. While idiots in company cars tailgated him at ninety. And cut him up on the inside at a hundred.

  He couldn’t race them and risk being pulled over. Not with his past. And, in any case, a white Transit van wasn’t the ideal racing car. Though with its tinted windows you could sit in the back in comfort and not be noticed whilst using that marvellous piece of surveillance equipment: the standard human eyeball. The high tech stuff - the computers, cameras and microphones - were fine but to Chris there was nothing like a good look.

  But today that had backfired. He hadn’t noticed the black off-roader, a Cherokee Jeep, sitting at the back of the car park until he was nearly finished.

  He’d counted and photographed them in. Sixty five. He’d have to check the names when he got back to the ranch then split them into sales, admin, installers and telesales – i.e. cold callers. Check the Job Centre, sickness, tax. And not let Simple Simon stick his big nose in. If he was kept out of this job then it could be tied up and Chris could quickly complete the final report on “Snug as a Bug Double Glazing”, as it said on the sides of their vans. Times were hard. Everyone in “Safe n’ Secure” knew it. If you didn’t complete assignments to the satisfaction of clients and keep the work flowing in, the company would go pop.

  The trouble was, he couldn’t work out how this scam worked. They advertised as honest joes in the local media. In a business rife with conmen and fraudsters. No heavy sales pressure. No tricks to make punters sign up at once. Yet they seemed to be doing well.

  His mobile went. He switched it off.

  Google Alert on the hands-free laptop. He checked it. Fuck! Someone had entered a search using his old name. After a lapse of twenty years since the crime. For a moment he could see the image. The big oak tree. Blood on the bracken and grass.

  He closed his eyes for a moment and shook his head hard. He noticed something in the rear-view mirror. A Cherokee Jeep was right on his tail-gate; huge and black. So close that Chris could clearly see the driver’s big face and broad bison-like forehead. And there was something strangely familiar about him. The vehicle was so close that the slightest mistake and they would both be dead.

  He thumped the accelerator pedal to the floor and tried to pull away but the Jeep behind quickly caught up with him. Chris eased his foot off the pedal and waited, cruising along in the middle lane, just under the speed limit. The Jeep dropped back.

  An articulated lorry gradually caught up with him on the inside. A junction was coming up. He turned off across the path of the lorry without signalling and just managed to escape onto the slip road. He caught a glimpse of the Jeep braking hard but the artic was too long and the Jeep had to continue down the motorway.

  Just before he reached Helsby village, he turned off up a single track road. He stopped in the small car park at the top of the hill. Deserted. He jumped out and raced for the trees.

  Back in the van, he switched on the laptop and checked the e-mail from Google. The search had been made from an unidentified location. No replies. He had covered his tracks well. He sighed, closed his eyes and leaned back in his seat.

  TWO

  The big, brown, green-streaked buttresses of sandstone loomed through the trees like the features of dead American presidents on Mount Rushmore. Chris could feel the stress lifting at the sight of Helsby crag.

  He strolled along the approach path. Sunlight dappled the trunks of the oak and birch trees under the thick foliage. Acorns crunched under his feet.

  A warm early evening in late autumn. The best time. Light breeze catching the smoke plumes from the chemical works. Perfect climbing weather. An hour of time stolen from Simon.

  Chris had a problem. He was a talented climber and runner. And he loved it. And, no matter how he tried to train on the quiet, he kept being drawn to it. It was a bitter irony that anything which drew attention to him – talent in a sport, ability in a job - was not a blessing but a threat. Unlikely as it was, he couldn’t stop himself from imagining that squads of dedicated detectives were scouring the country for him. So, when he won a race – the Liverpool 10k - and his picture appeared in the local paper it was not a success, it was a disaster. He had only gone in for it as a lark but near the end he found himself in the leading bunch and he got carried away.

  Recently, an action photo of him had appeared in a climbing magazine. A freelance photographer had caught him on a solo ascent of a hard climb in the Peak District. Chris had only gone over for a Sunday run on the moors and then a bit of climbing, but that was the way to get caught.

  He came upon a clearing that gave a sudden view out to the estuary over bracken and gorse, the bright yellow flowers alive with bees. Endless lines of slowly moving vehicles on the motorway. To the left and right, columns of smoke and fire belched from chemical works. In the middle distance; two cathedrals, the Pier He
ad, tower blocks. In the far distance, the Welsh hills. Closer to hand, the Runcorn Bridge. A lighthouse. All spread out before him in a breathtaking panorama. Liverpool. The pool of life.

  At the base of the crag, he changed into vest and shorts, and soloed a few easy routes. Take nothing with you but your boots, your chalk bag and your balls. He passed a group of helmetted, teenage beginners, hard at work on easy routes, swearing and panting, gear clanking and striking the rock. Their instructor was standing at the bottom, a young man in his twenties with a hippy hairstyle of long, corded, ginger rats’ tails. He was examining the guidebook.

  ‘Hi, mate!’ the man said with a friendly grin. ‘Been here before?’

  ‘A few times,’ Chris said, stopping for a moment.

  ‘Why do the routes here have such macabre names?’ the man said. ‘Coffin Crack, Morgue Slab, Necrophiliac. I’m Billy, by the way.’ He held out his hand.

  Chris shook hands and laughed. ‘You have to be careful here. There have been quite a few fatalities. I’ve seen the boulders over there splashed with blood, tufts of hair, scraps of clothing. Trouble is, modern gear doesn’t work so well here. The rock’s so soft and brittle.’

  ‘But it says in here that it was popular at one time.’

  ‘Yep. It used to be packed out. In the twenties Mallory and Irving practiced here for Everest, and in the thirties some of the top climbers in the country – Kirkus and Menlove Edwards - trained here. It’s handy for public transport from Liverpool and Manchester, see. It fell out of favour for a long time. They thought that everything possible had been done. But recently modern boots and training methods mean that blank walls and slabs - holdless to the old timers - have become possible.’

  ‘So what’s the hardest route here now?’ Billy said.

  ‘That would be “Time Lapse”. It goes up there. A non macabre name for a change. It was top roped by John Daly a few years ago.’

  ‘Daly? I’ve heard of him. Wasn’t he a nutter?’

  Chris laughed. ‘Yeah. He was a junkie and a painter; a lunatic. Shortly after he did Time Lapse he slipped off an easy descent in the Alps and killed himself. The name comes from a series of sloping moves on pure friction for hands and feet. Daly described doing the moves as being like a time lapse film – you know when everything is speeded up. Though there was a rumour that he was under the influence of herbal remedies. Not too unlikely considering that his most recent climb in North Wales at the time was called “Reefer Madness”.’

  Billy laughed. ‘A man after my own heart.’ He leafed through the guidebook. ‘Here it is.’ He read from the page:

  ‘Time Lapse Not Led 6C 30 metres

  The steep slab and roof left of The Beatnik. Don’t bother taking any gear with you on this one. The crux is as smooth as a baby’s bottom. The ability to levitate would be useful. The upper section with a small cave near the top is easier but is still solid 6a and requires a steady head.’

  He whistled.

  ‘So a lead would be a solo,’ he said. ‘So have you done it?’

  ‘Too hard for me!’ Chris laughed.

  ‘But there’s no grips,’ Billy said, leaning over and craning his neck. ‘You’d have to be off your rocker to solo that!’

  ‘You’re damn right! See you later, Billy.’

  Chris worked his way along the crag, soloing gradually harder routes and using easier ones to descend. Grooved Slab. Oyster Slab. Wood’s Climb. Named after rock features or first ascentionists. After warming up, he sat under Time Lapse with his back against the rock. The group was packing up. Billy shouted, ‘So long, mate!’ as they left.

  Chris started up in a trance, his body numb but moving freely. A hollow feeling in his gut.

  The route was the only direct way to the top without a long detour; the first section a fifteen metre, steep, blank slab leading up to an overlap, with no holds at all. But the weather was just right and his boots stuck to the slightest imperfection in the rock. Before he knew it he was at the overlap and resting on a ledge about a foot wide, which sloped downward at an angle which meant that you couldn’t stand or sit comfortably – you had to hold on to something.

  He reached up from an undercut and, at maximum stretch with his feet on smears, found a tiny, one-finger depression on the vertical wall above. Ridiculous. But he was possessed by a rare confidence.

  He pulled and slapped for the vaguest of edges. A fingertip layback with one boot smeared on smooth rock and the other placed precisely on the almost invisible finger hold. He could see a small hold above, just below the finishing ledge. Something shifted and he was moving in a time lapse sequence, his mind separate from his body.

  He was back on the ledge. He’d blown it.

  He got his breath back and glanced down. He was now well above the tree-tops. Away to one side, oblivious to him, the beginners were trooping down the hill, chattering to themselves.

  He tried again. He reached up for the hold. Two inches away. An inch. He sagged back onto the ledge, tightly gripping the undercut. No way up or down now. His nerve had gone. A huge fist of fear gripped his body. Disappointment oozed out of every pore.

  He shuffled along to the right and then to the left, but each way the ledge petered out. He sat down facing outwards, gripping small holds on each side and trying to relax. It was well into the evening now. Miles of sands and mud flats stretched to where shafts of light rose from the distant sea to an invisible sun behind a low cloud. A million ripples flickered on the surface of the sea. The traffic was moving a bit quicker on the motorway now. The buildings in the city centre were in shadow but he could make out the mass of the Anglican cathedral and the mushroom of the Post Office tower next to it.

  Helsby Hill. A superb vantage point; the site of a fort in the Iron Age and, in Roman times, the location for an observation tower on the edge of the Empire. Despite his position, he found himself trying to imagine the scene two thousand years ago. No city. No crowds. No manic street preachers. No drug dealers. No gangsters. No bread and circuses, Big Macs, football, violent films. Modern civilization seemed a long way away.

  He was aware of a low rumble from the motorway. And a loud clattering nearby. He flinched as a pigeon landed next to him on the ledge. It strutted and preened itself. Cooing softly. Beautiful purples. Rich greens. A little beady eye. How could it stand so easily on the sloping ledge? Another bird flew past. Its slow, deep wing beats gave an impression of tremendous muscular power. It examined the man and the pigeon in an instant then flashed away. A peregrine falcon.

  He tried shouting for help. But the drone of the motorway noise and his position on the cliff meant that no one would hear. He was stuck. And if he didn't do something soon he'd be dead. Unlike his little cooing companion, he couldn't just fly off. He had committed the only true blasphemy. He had wilfully risked his life.

  ‘What are you doing up there?’

  He turned and carefully leaned over until he could see a middle-aged lady in a bobble hat, anorak, walking trousers and boots. Binoculars swinging from her neck. She was standing with her hands on her hips, peering up at him through thick-rimmed spectacles.

  ‘I’m a climber,’ he shouted down. ‘I’m stuck.’

  ‘Don’t you know that it’s a criminal offence to disturb peregrines on their nest?’

  ‘I’m nowhere near the nest. It’s over there. Could you help me?’

  She considered this.

  ‘If you are so stupid as to go up there by yourself disturbing protected birds then you deserve everything you get.’

  She strode away.

  His legs began to shake. Pins and needles in his fingers and an aching sensation in his feet.

  He turned and pushed his face against the rough rock. One hand by his face. He had scratched himself. Red blood on white skin. He closed his eyes. The image from the past.

  And after twenty years of nothing, someone had put in a Google search using his old name. Chris Paterson.

  He had a sudden, ridiculous urge to jump ou
t from the rock face. He was sweating now. He had to do something. Might as well go for it. He took deep breaths, preparing himself for an all out effort to reach the top.

  ‘You look like one fucked-up cunt that needs some help!’

  The voice from above was surprisingly loud and near. The top must be closer than he had thought.

  ‘Excuse me?’ Chris shouted.

  No reply.

  ‘Excuse me! Could you help me?’

  A pause.

  ‘What do you want?’ said someone from above.

  Chris leaned out from the rock as far as he dared but he couldn’t see the speaker.

  ‘I'm a climber!’ he shouted. ‘I'm stuck.’

  Silence.

  ‘I can see that. So what do you want me to do about it?’

  ‘Just go to the bottom of the crag. My rucksack’s there. My car keys are in the zip pocket. It’s the white Transit parked on the road at the end of the track. There's a rope and slings in the back. Tie the rope to a tree and drop it down.’

  A pause.

  ‘You are in a pickle, aren’t you?’

  Off to the right, Chris could now make out a huge head, peering out of a bush where a rock buttress stood out from the cliff. A head that he recognized. Fuck. He closed his eyes and dug his fingers into the rock.

  ‘Look, it’s getting dark,’ he shouted up. ‘I can't hang around here much longer.’

  ‘Hey,’ Chris’s new companion said. ‘Don't I know you?’

  THREE

  ‘So what name do you answer to these days, sonner? I bet you’re not Chris Paterson any more.’

  McPherson took a long swallow of Stella and thrust the cigar stub into an ashtray. Chris looked around. It was early in the evening but the Frodsham pub was busy; the mainly male middle class clientele attracted by the wide range of real ales available. He took a sip of beer. His third pint. His companion had insisted on bringing him here. And he still had the keys to Chris’s van from the rescue. He had plied Chris with drinks.

  ‘Chris,’ he said. ‘The name’s Chris Crosby. And you?’