DEAD AIR (Henry & Sparrow Book 2)

by A D FOX

  ‘Oh,’ said Moira, putting the puzzle book aside and giving him a twinkly smile. ‘I thought you found things! Didn’t think you lost things.’

  ‘Ah, well,’ he said. ‘I’ve lost a lot of things. My marbles, mostly.’

  She laughed and buzzed through to the producer. ‘He’ll be out with it in a couple of minutes,’ she said. ‘Do take a seat - have another hot drink if you like.’

  Lucas didn’t like. He wanted to get out of here. He had a prickly, creepy feeling, knowing Kate Sparrow was somewhere in the building. Of course, she might have left already, but his instincts were telling him otherwise. If she came back through reception and he was still here, she was going to wonder why. She might think he was hanging around to speak to her, and although they had plenty to talk about, he most definitely was not here to speak to her. Until today he hadn’t seen her for weeks - and didn’t expect to see her at all until the inquest into the death of one very sick killer the pair of them had helped to despatch.

  It wasn’t just that they each probably needed to process the trauma of that day in their own way; there was more to it than that. Lucas had only recently discovered that they had an unhappy shared history; one that neither of them took pleasure in revisiting. Kate probably didn’t want to go there. Neither did he.

  He wandered the reception area and idly picked up one of the many postcards of the station’s presenters. A chubby-faced middle-aged man peered out from it, posed across a broadcasting desk, his headphones around his neck, one eyebrow arched quizzically beneath an artfully tousled lock of greying brown hair. Beneath the image were the words: DAVE PERRY - THE VOICE OF WESSEX. Dave Perry had autographed it in thick black felt tip, with the legend: OK - let’s talk! Lucas recognised the slogan from the hoarding out front and remembered that this was the breakfast presenter who hadn’t shown up that day. Or maybe for a few days.

  He felt buzzy. Wired. It wasn’t just about the proximity of Kate and the chance of being caught waiting here; he suddenly, really, urgently needed to get out of here. At that moment the door to the corridor which led into the studios and newsroom was flung open and Louella’s young producer - Daryl - stepped out with Lucas’s brown leather backpack in one hand.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Lucas, reaching for it.

  ‘No problem,’ said Daryl. ‘Thanks for coming in today. Loved what you did.’

  Lucas nodded and then saw, over the young man’s shoulder, three people walking along the corridor towards reception. One of them was Kate. The other was DC Michaels. Lucas grabbed the backpack, turned around, and virtually ran for the revolving door, goosebumps washing the back of his neck. As he spun himself out of the building he glimpsed Kate emerging into the reception area. Damn! He just had to hope she wouldn’t recognise the back of his head.

  He ran back to his bike, realising, as he did so, that the signed postcard of Dave Perry was still in his hand. He shoved it hurriedly into his leather jacket pocket, slung his backpack over his shoulders, and put his helmet on. He straddled the Triumph and throttled up. It took some effort to stop himself roaring off to the ring road. That would attract attention and he just bet that DC Michaels would recognise his number plate. Kate and her DC were exiting the revolving doors as he rode away, and he told himself she hadn’t noticed him. She hadn’t.

  He should have gone straight home. He absolutely should have. But Sid thrummed against his chest and told him to take a different route, up to the north. Lucas cursed his little glass helper. He didn’t want to do this. He absolutely should NOT do this. He passed his turn-off point and kept on riding, wishing he could stop but pulled along like an iron filing to a magnet.

  When we get home, Sid, he said in his head, you are going back in that sock. I don’t know why I’m even wearing you these days, you little stirrer. But in truth, he knew it wasn’t the inanimate lump of glass that dictated situations like this. The dowsing talent was within him; Sid was just a focal point, even though the pendulum seemed, very often, to be a living entity in its own right.

  He travelled on for twenty minutes, under the A303 and up towards the plain, taking a left instead of a right and neatly avoiding any Stonehenge traffic, although he doubted many people would be haunting the stones on a late, darkening November afternoon. No. Onward. Further north. The patterns in his dowsing mind were guiding him towards something tall; something metal.

  He reached a small village, passed through it, found himself on a road which was barely more than a farm track. He could sense the magnetic field of the transmitter long before he saw the top of it, gleaming in a shaft of setting sun. A little further along he pulled over, climbed off the Triumph and rested it on its kickstand at the side of the lane. There was nobody about. Well, almost nobody. He pulled off his helmet, put it on the bike seat, took a deep breath, and made for the metal five bar gate a short walk away. It was possible he was wrong. It was always possible. Just, in twenty years of experience, not probable.

  He stopped before he reached the gate and had a little word with himself. Seriously, mate… why don’t you just get back on the bike and go home? Right now? And he agreed with himself. That was absolutely the only sensible thing to do right now. Above him a magpie chakked noisily in the tree and then subsided, leaving no sound at all except a slight whispering of leaves and the ever-present, sub-bass hum of electromagnetism sent out by the transmitter. He felt a deep, deep chill sink through him. Go. Go now.

  He stepped forward and reached the gate, which was ajar, its steel tube base marking a perfect curve of scraped concrete. He sidled through the gap, walked past a couple of boxy metal units housing electrical circuitry, and on towards the mast.

  It wasn’t a huge structure but it was still a good twenty metres high. This was just a booster to the bigger masts and sported no satellite dishes or massive aerials, only a spindly antennae on each of its upper limbs. A vertical ladder ran up through the centre of the basic criss-cross structure, with dire warning notices to ward off thrill-seeking kids (clearly posted in the days before Xbox was a thing). Although the top of it could be seen for a few miles around, the four-footed base wasn’t visible to passing traffic. You would need to make a point of coming in and looking. Which might explain why nobody had noticed the body gaffer-taped to it.

  Lucas took a long, slow, steadying breath. ‘Fuck,’ he said, not unreasonably.

  He stepped across, pulling the postcard from his pocket for another look. It was hard to be sure, because most of the man’s lower face was wrapped in grey gaffer tape; the same tape which also held his body up in a T shape, about a metre above the ground. The eyes were open. They looked as if they had been pecked, probably by the same territorial magpie now chakking away again in the trees. Lucas guessed the corpse was several days old.

  And now what? He didn’t need to get any closer to know this was Dave Perry. Although there wasn’t much to recognise beyond the thick thatch of greying dark hair, every vibration surrounding the deceased breakfast presenter screamed its truth to the postcard in Lucas’s hand.

  And, to repeat himself, now what? The very LAST thing he needed was any further involvement with a murder case. Because he was pretty sure it wasn't suicide, unless Dave Perry was a magician at self-bondage. Someone had done this to him. Someone who was clearly wanting to make a bit of a statement. Maybe a listener had been pushed over the edge by one too many spins of Cracklin’ Rosie.

  Lucas walked back to the road, helmeted up, got on his bike, and went home.

  4

  There was a mountain of admin waiting for Kate when she and Michaels got back to the station. It was normally the very least favourite part of her job. It always felt like homework… and as it was a decade since she’d left school, some part of her always resented it. But it was a necessary evil. She understood the importance of doing it properly; more than one otherwise watertight court case had been thrown out because a copper had been sloppy with their admin.

  She logged the details of the waste of time missing pers
ons file first. She could get Michaels to do it but he had other stuff to get on with and her roster of work was still fairly light as she got back into the flow of full-time hours. Dave Perry would probably show up at work tomorrow, sheepish and fragile after a four or five-day pub crawl. It wasn’t difficult to gather, from the tactful phrases used by Donna the PA and her boss, that a bender was definitely what they were thinking. They were worried, though, she guessed, that he was in a ditch somewhere. Of course, his car not being on the drive also meant he could have driven off for a little unsanctioned downtime somewhere. Maybe he’d met someone. She’d also picked up that he liked the ladies… a little indiscriminately if the two divorces were anything to go by.

  She put some calls in to the local hospitals and quickly established that nobody fitting his description had passed through any A&E department in the county. She could call the numbers for his second ex-wife and daughter too, but made a decision to wait a day before she did so. This was just not waving enough red flags at her to start spooking relatives.

  A vibration in her pocket reminded her that it was time to spook herself. ‘Bugger,’ she muttered, logging out of the system and acknowledging the note on her phone which read: Joanna C in ten minutes.

  ‘I’ll be back in an hour,’ she told Michaels, grabbing her bag. He raised his eyebrows, expecting more information and then lowered them and gave a slow, understanding nod when she didn’t offer it. Kate gritted her teeth. Having to see the counsellor every week was aggravating enough without her colleagues knowing all about it. They did know though. In a small station like Salisbury it was pretty much impossible to keep anything like that a secret. It wasn’t as if she could get out of it, either - continuing to see Joanna Cassidy was one of the conditions of her phased return to work.

  She hurried the five-minute walk to the counsellor’s small practice, determined to spend no more than forty-five minutes in the building. Joanna Cassidy welcomed her with the easy professional warmth Kate had got used to over the past couple of months. ‘Come on in,’ she said, leading the way through to her office. The room was designed to relax her clients, with pale green walls, elegant potted plants and soft lighting. It also held an oak desk and chair and wall-to-ceiling shelves full of books on psychology, sociology and psychiatry. Kate sometimes wondered if the whole wall was a fake edifice, which, when you pressed the spine of a certain leather-bound tome by Freud or Jung, would spin around and reveal a hidden dungeon. She’d obviously played way too much Resident Evil with Francis in their teens.

  ‘How have you been?’ asked Joanna, settling herself in the comfortable leather armchair which mirrored Kate’s. ‘It’s your first week back, yes?’ She smiled and Kate was struck by the lack of lines in her pale golden skin. Considering the levels of stress that must be bouncing around in the ether of this room, Joanna didn’t seem to be absorbing too much of it. She looked barely older than Kate, although her evident experience suggested she was a good ten years her senior.

  ‘I’ve been fine,’ said Kate. ‘It’s great to finally get back to work. Honestly, I could have done it six weeks ago.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ said Joanna. ‘Can you remember how you were feeling when we first spoke?’

  Kate didn’t miss the hint. She sighed. ‘I was a wreck,’ she said. ‘But… wouldn’t anyone be?’

  Joanna nodded. ‘Your experience back in September was very traumatic. You’ve coped very well but I really think you did need that time off; time to recover.’

  ‘Well, sitting around in a onesie watching Homes Under the Hammer was an absolute tonic,’ said Kate, slapping her knee.

  Joanna smiled again. ‘I do think you’re probably ready to be back at work, but be careful about the way you use humour as a shield, Kate. Are you aware how often you deflect questions about how you’re feeling? Or make jokes about it?’

  Kate rolled her eyes. ‘Look - have you ever walked through CID and listened to the talk? It’s just the way we are. We deal with the shittiest end of the human nature stick; we have to laugh about it.’

  ‘About half my practice is with police officers in some degree of distress,’ said Joanna. ‘I know exactly what you mean, but here, with me, is not the same as being in CID. You’ve already shared a lot with me.’

  Kate thought back to the first session when she’d arrived, brittle and wise-cracking and left having used up every tissue in Joanna’s box. Yes, she’d shared a lot. She just didn’t want to keep sharing. It didn’t feel normal.

  ‘How are you sleeping now?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Any more nightmares?’

  ‘Only a couple of times a week now.’

  ‘Have you had any more panic attacks?’

  Kate shrugged. ‘A couple of moments,’ she said. ‘Nothing major.’

  ‘Tell me the most recent one.’

  ‘Well… I was out on a visit today and… I saw some photos. Proper professional photos of BBC presenters, you know, on a white backdrop, well lit.’

  Joanna nodded. ‘And that reminded you..?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Kate. ‘Yes it did. But I didn’t go into a meltdown. When I’m at work it’s easier to control. It’s when I’m just me… walking somewhere crowded maybe… that’s when it can really kick off. Sometimes I just have to go home.’ She looked up at the counsellor, quickly. ‘But not at work. Never at work.’

  ‘There’s something you can try,’ said Joanna, getting up and going to her desk. She opened a drawer and withdrew a brightly coloured cardboard package, about the size of a book. She handed it to Kate who accepted it with some bafflement. There were pictures of crocodiles and lions on the front and a cellophane window revealing grooved stripes in muted rainbow shades.

  ‘Um… plasticine?’ she queried.

  ‘Plasticine,’ confirmed Joanna. ‘Take it home. Play with it. Make some things. And keep some in your pocket.’

  ‘You want me to go around with a lump of modelling clay in my pocket..?’

  ‘I do. At work and out and about generally. Try it. Whenever you feel a sensation of anxiety, squeeze the plasticine in your pocket and send the sensation into it through your fingers.’

  Kate stared at the packet, enjoying its weight and fleeting memories of days in pre-school. She gave a low chuckle. ‘All those years getting your doctorate and… plasticine!’

  ‘Well,’ said Joanna, settling back into her chair with a grin. ‘I do have some other techniques up my sleeve, but I’m just saying… give it a try. It might help when you’re struggling to sleep too. Make something. If you use it all up, get some more.’

  ‘Well, thanks…’ said Kate, sitting up and tucking the packet in her satchel. ‘Can I-?’

  ‘No you can’t,’ said Joanna, rolling her eyes. ‘We have thirty-five minutes left. I want to hear more from you. About what happened in September… or maybe about what happened sixteen years ago. Whichever you like. I think there’s still a lot to work through.’

  Kate sighed and got the packet out again. ‘Can I make crocodiles while we work through it?’

  ‘If it’ll keep you talking, you can make a scale model of a Tyrannosaurus rex,’ said Joanna.

  After the session, Kate walked back into CID with the not unpleasant scent of plasticine all over her hands, half a packet of unused strips in her bag and a lump of mixed up colours in her jacket pocket which had recently been crocodiles.

  ‘Um… Sarge,’ said a voice as she settled back at her desk. She turned to see Sharon Mulligan loitering behind her. ‘There’s something you might want to listen to on the tape.’

  Kate got up, dumping her bag, and followed the DC to the corner of the room where an old-fashioned answering machine sat, taking calls on the CrimeStoppers line. It wasn’t so old that it had tiny cassettes in it, like a nineties Dictaphone, but it was a very early pioneer of digital recording, in a beige plastic housing. Replacing it wasn’t high on the agenda because most of the calls that came through to it were complaints about vandalised bus stops, dog me
ss in the streets or teenagers being… teenagers. It earned its keep once a while, though, with a genuinely helpful tip-off. The point of it was to offer anonymity and occasionally this paid off.

  Sharon pressed the clunky brown PLAY button on the machine and a voice, slightly muffled, began to speak.

  ‘There’s a body. I just saw it on the Shrewton mast,’ said the voice - male, mature, no noticeable accent. ‘You need to get down there.’

  And that was it. The caller hung up.

  ‘What’s the Shrewton mast?’ asked Sharon, who’d only come to Wiltshire three or four years ago from her hometown of Rotherham.

  ‘Well, I guess it’s one of the TV and radio mast sites,’ said Kate. ‘Must be one near Shrewton village.’

  ‘Do you think this is for real?’ asked Sharon. They got plenty of prank calls and hoaxes on the beige box of wonders.

  ‘I guess we’d better find out,’ said Kate.

  ‘Me! Take me!’ said Sharon, bouncing up and down on the balls of her sensibly-shod feet. She was usually partnered with DS Sharpe, but Sharpe was off on leave and Sharon had been office-bound for several days.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Kate, laughing. ‘Ben gets first dibs. But if it’s for real, you’ll be joining us.’

  An hour later, Kate and DC Michaels stood in a pool of arc light, Sharon at their side, staring at the gaffer-taped effigy on the Shrewton mast. Kate and Michaels had pulled into the farm road, found the mast site and clocked the whole, unlovely truth of their anonymous call in an instant. For a moment Kate had fostered the hope that it was a hoax - a leftover Guy Fawkes dummy, perhaps, put there for a laugh.

  But a few steps closer and there was no doubt, from the smell, what they had here. If the past few days hadn’t been so cold it would have been a great deal nastier and the buzzing of legions of flies would surely have alerted the locals much sooner.