About the Author

  James Ellson was a police officer for 15 years, starting in London and finishing as a DI at Moss Side in Manchester. When he left the police he started writing, and has been writing ever since. He is currently working on the sequel to The Trail. He also mentors work in progress, and talks at writing groups and festivals.

  James was a keen climber and mountaineer, and has visited Nepal many times. In 2004 he climbed 6,812 metre Ama Dablam, and in 2008 soloed the Matterhorn. He now lives on a smallholding in the Peak District with his wife, and manages their smallholding, which includes bees and an orchard. He offers tours, runs courses and gives talks on self-sufficiency and apples.

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  The Trail

  James Ellson

  This edition first published in 2020

  Unbound

  6th Floor Mutual House, 70 Conduit Street, London W1S 2GF

  www.unbound.com

  All rights reserved

  © James Ellson, 2020

  The right of James Ellson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  ISBN (eBook): 978-1-78965-078-5

  ISBN (Paperback): 978-1-78965-077-8

  Cover design by Mecob

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A.

  For Sarah

  Contents

  About the Author

  Super Patrons

  Dedication

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  52

  53

  54

  Epilogue

  Lexicon

  Acknowledgements

  Patrons

  1

  War memorial 5 mins

  Calix shoved the phone in his pocket, opened the car door and climbed out into the dark and the rain. In the distance he heard a burglar alarm and sirens, the muzak of Manchester.

  On his face the cold rain felt like stabs of electricity. It suited him. Encouraged hoods up and heads down, discouraged hanging about. He looked around. Two lines of sardine-parked cars, spindly trees, and an army of wheelie-bins. A flickering streetlight revealed the slant of the rain. Behind the cars were small gardens and quiet houses. TV-blue seeped from windows.

  No movement, no voices.

  Too quiet?

  On the car’s passenger side he popped the small square flap and pulled it open. Instead of a petrol cap, there was a compartment half the size of a shoebox. Bespoke and expensive, but a business had to be invested in to be successful. In the compartment was a plastic bag. Smaller bags inside. He removed one bag and pushed the flap shut.

  He walked around the back of the car, hopped up onto the pavement and headed for the meet. His last delivery of the evening and so far no problems. No IOUs, no photocopied notes, no these are my five mates from the football club. The word delivery made him think of milkmen. Trudging around the streets clinking their bottles while everyone else got on with their lives. He was a modern milkman with a crap gig of a job. No holiday or sick pay, not even a Christmas party. A violent boss to answer to. But only temporary, and good money while he waited for something better to come along.

  Maybe something just had.

  A car splashed past. He pulled his hood up. Yes, he was a modern milkman, an oversized delivery boy, out in all weathers. Milkmen got to sleep with their customers.

  No way was he doing that.

  He reached the memorial, a cross above a great slab of stone. Sacrifice chiselled on the front and underneath, a long list of names. His john waited in the monument’s deep shadow. The flare of a cigarette pinpointed him like the laser of a sniper’s scope. A new john, friend of an old one. Second time.

  Calix walked closer.

  Ryan threw down his cigarette. It hissed in a puddle. He took a step forward. ‘Alright?’

  Calix nodded, sensing a problem. He liked to get it done quickly and without words. In and out, like a knife. ‘Money.’

  ‘Next week, okay?� �

  Calix stared at Ryan. Seventeen or eighteen, still at school or college. Under his charity shop trenchcoat was a Barry Manilow t-shirt. For fuck’s sake. Ryan was trying it on, wearing a Barry Manilow t-shirt.

  Credit meant more investment, a minder, and greater risk. Maybe when he came back from his trip, but for now he liked things as they were. Just him, no one else to stuff up. Once a week, meet The Big Red, a dozen deliveries. Easy.

  ‘Okay,’ said Calix, handing the bag over.

  Ryan took it. He looked relieved, surprised even. ‘Thank—’

  Calix hit him.

  An open-handed slap to the cheek. Not hard enough to put him on the floor, but hard enough to make him remember. ‘Next week, double, plus next week, so that’ll be triple. Sixty.’

  He walked back to his car with its twin petrol flaps. Carrot and stick – basics.

  2

  A bee inside the veil was every beekeeper’s nightmare. Going cross-eyed, Rick watched it crawl around on the mesh. She was annoyed and buzzing loudly. Keep calm, he told himself. He put down the frame of bees and pulled back a strip of Velcro which secured his hood and veil.

  His phone rang.

  Life would be boring, he thought, if incidents were doled out with fallopian frequency.

  With a pincer-grip he extricated the phone from a pocket of his smock. He knew it would be work, even on a rest day. Still watching the bee, he prodded the screen with his gauntlet and held it up to his ear.

  ‘DCI Castle.’

  ‘Rick, it’s Robbo, I’ve got a missing person enquiry for you.’

  He closed one eye to see if it helped. It did. The bee was heading towards his left ear. ‘I’ll phone you back.’ If anyone would understand it would be his boss because he’d given Rick his first nucleus.

  ‘Soon as.’

  He pocketed the phone. She’d disappeared.

  Honeybees could tell if a keeper was nervous. He thought of lying on a beach. Going to the cinema and eating popcorn. A meal out. Christmas with his parents and sister. Thoughts, not memories. He never lay on a beach – he hated them. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been to the cinema and he usually worked Christmas.

  She was in his hair.

  The sound as he ripped back the rest of the Velcro seemed to aggravate her and the buzzing intensified. Still he couldn’t see her. He unzipped the smock, pushed the hood backwards and ran a hand through his hair. For a second he felt her vibrating body between his fingers, and then she was gone.

  Ten minutes later, Rick had put the hive back together. Keeping it open, even on a bright spring day, wasted the bees’ reserves.

  He walked away from the hive, tapped a couple of keys on his phone and put it to his ear. He was worried he hadn’t found the queen. She was longer than the workers and more spidery looking, and she was marked with a yellow dot. But despite all that, and checking every frame, he hadn’t spotted her. Which meant problems.

  ‘Why me, sir?’

  ‘I know the missing’s father,’ said his boss. ‘A war hero. Brigadier Coniston, David Coniston.’

  ‘Iraq?’

  ‘Falklands. Won the Military Cross.’

  ‘Who’s missing?’

  ‘His son Calix.’

  ‘Age?’

  ‘Twenty-three.’

  ‘Suicidal?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Needs medication?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Mentally ill?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How long’s he been missing?’

  ‘Two weeks.’

  In the pause, Rick could hear the M60, Manchester’s orbital. Never at rest.

  ‘I said you’d go and see the brigadier this afternoon.’

  Rick put his phone, gauntlets and smoker into the box of beekeeping paraphernalia, heaved it up, and walked back through the apiary to his car. Pearl-grey clouds drifted across the sky and a hidden aeroplane droned. The air smelt of honey and grass pollen. Bees flitted amongst red and yellow poppies, bluebells, and the last of the daffodils. The scrub was wet and his socks felt damp.

  Beekeeping was the perfect foil to police work. Honeybees behaved predictably, never complained, and cooperated for the greater good. Very rarely aggressive, even when they were stuck inside your veil.

  3

  ‘Namaste,’ said the two small men in unison. They clapped their hands into the prayer position, and draped garlands of orange marigolds around Calix’s neck.

  ‘Welcome to Kathmandu,’ said Amanda. The Nepal Adventures guide was tiny – not even five feet tall. Calix wondered how she’d shoulder her pack, let alone carry it for four weeks. He followed her through the teeming airport concourse to a line of taxis. Black with yellow bonnets. His rucksack wouldn’t fit in the boot and he threw it up onto the roofrack. Amanda sat in the front and Calix, feeling like Gulliver, squeezed into the back.

  The taxi set off, but only as far as the exit queue. Calix juddered the window down. The air was warm and humid – a welcome relief after the cold of Manchester – and stank of diesel. Beggars appeared from nowhere. A man on crutches, one of them broken and taped together, and a teenage boy with no arms and pine-needle legs. Two girls, no more than ten, one carrying a baby on her front. The baby bawled. Behind them were others. Hands crowded in through the window.

  The taxi edged forward, and in the footwell Calix pulled notes from his wallet.

  ‘You know that’s real money?’ said Amanda, watching him in the mirror. Her face was plain and freckly.

  They drove to the hotel. The traffic was crazy. Lorries looking like carnival floats fought with legions of tiny cars – overtaking, undertaking, and veering off – as if it was the start of a race. Their taxi stopped at a huge junction. Standing in the middle, on a small pedestal, a dibble with long white gauntlets controlled traffic from five directions. Every vehicle honked and hooted. Moss Side on New Year’s Eve.

  Amanda turned around.

  ‘Tomorrow there’s a team meal in the evening when you’ll meet the others. Twin brothers and a couple from London, a farmer from New Zealand, a writer, a couple from Ireland, a girl from Australia, and a Frenchman. Then a free day, and the morning after we’ll leave for the trailhead. Any questions?’

  Eleven people meant one of them didn’t have to share a tent. Ideally that would be him, but requesting it might seem antisocial. He shook his head.

  *

  Calix was jet-lagged and got up late. The others had gone out. On the hotel balcony he ate a plate of momos, and watched parrots flitting around in the trees. Bird Bird would have kicked ass. He smoked a cigarette, and drank an Everest beer. He pushed the bottle around on the table, making patterns in the condensation trails. Beer at lunchtime was the definition of a holiday.

  He wandered out into Thamel, Kathmandu’s tourist district. Hundreds of people, a mixture of locals and tourists, packed the streets, along with tuk-tuks, bicycles and hand-carts. Dogs scavenged alone or roamed in small packs. The shopfronts were narrow, but the shops sold everything. Mountaineering equipment, linen, carpets, plastic containers of every size and shape, grey meat cuts covered in flies. Wafts of incense fought with the stench of sewage and diesel that choked the Kathmandu valley. A pig ran down the street, scattering people and knocking over a table of books.

  His sister Megan would have loved the hustle-bustle, the throngs of people, the spice shops. The vibrant saris and pashminas. He had to experience it all for her. Since her accident, he had to live life for the two of them.

  He bought a phrase book and a dictionary in a bookshop. Further along was a small hardware shop. He went in. It was crammed, floor to ceiling – nails to chicken wire to shovels. After a few minutes, he found what he was looking for, a small lock-knife with a wooden handle and a whetstone. He added a couple of other items and paid.

 

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