NEVER CAME HOME an addictive crime thriller with a twist you won't see coming (Detective Inspector Siv Drummond Book 2)

by Gretta Mulrooney

  #keepingberminstersafe

  Patrick’s Twitter feed was popular in the town and useful for maintaining good relations with the public as well as information gathering. He was justifiably proud of it. But right now, she needed him to focus.

  ‘Good stuff. Have you heard about our body?’

  ‘Yes, guv, Ali filled me in. The builders have been fingerprinted and he’s sorting out hot drinks for them. He said he’ll see you in the interview room. He’s asked me to find out how long Steiner’s has been empty, and then check any mispers in that period.’

  Siv took a bite of her panini and stuffed the rest in her desk drawer for later. She rang her boss, DCI Will Mortimer, to update him about the corpse, and was thankful when his PA informed her that he was at a two-day conference in London. Any day that she didn’t have to talk to Mortimer counted as a good one. She sent him an email instead, took a gulp of coffee and carried it downstairs to the interview room, a cheerless place with a warped table, orange plastic chairs and a sad ficus plant. Ali was in there with the men from Haddon’s, chatting to them about the weather while opening a window. He was good at putting people at ease with his banter and blokeish camaraderie. They both had cups of tea and biscuits and the older man paused mid-dunk while Ali did the introductions.

  ‘This is Detective Inspector Drummond. Ivor Bass and Grant Haddon.’

  ‘You’ve had a difficult day so far, so we’ll try not to keep you too long.’ Bass was sturdy with a pockmarked face. Haddon was childlike, wan and sweaty, with a faint whiff of vomit about him. That would be why Ali had opened the window. ‘Mr Bass, I understand that you were heading up this clearance operation at Orford End.’

  ‘That’s right. We’re knocking Steiner’s down next week, ready for a new build, so we’ve got to get all the crap out — and I mean literally. There’s dried-up shit in there. Disgusting how people behave — or let their dogs behave. There’s someone who’s always letting their dog do his business in my front garden. So nice to step out into a pile of steaming turd! I’ll catch them one day and when I do, I’ll rub their face in it.’

  ‘I wouldn’t advise it. That would be assault,’ Siv said. ‘Can you talk us through what happened from when you arrived in your van?’

  ‘Sure. I met up with Alec and Malik at base at seven forty-five and I drove the three of us to Steiner’s. We got there at eight. Grant was waiting outside. I opened up, we had a quick recce and I allocated the jobs. Me and Sunshine — sorry, Grant here — went to the kitchen and I decided we’d start with the fridge. I went to pull it forward,’ he demonstrated with his hands held out, ‘and I’d eased it out a foot or so when Grant yelled to stop. He’d seen . . . well, what he’d seen. He chucked his guts up. Projectile vomiting, it’s called. My youngest used to do it a lot as a kid. We called him “Barfy”. Anyway, I stepped round the back of the fridge and I couldn’t believe my eyes. At first, I thought it might be some kind of dummy from a joke shop. Then I rang the police. Poor old Sunshine. He wasn’t supposed to be with us today, and I bet he wishes now that he hadn’t turned up!’

  Haddon was still ashen-faced. His tea was trembling in his hand. ‘I realise you’ve had a nasty shock,’ Siv told him. ‘Have you anything to add?’

  He put his tea down, slopping some and licked his lips. ‘No, that’s what happened.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Sorry about the sick. It’s just . . . I almost touched it because I was going to hold the back . . . It was terrible, like something from a nightmare.’

  ‘Where had you planned to be today?’

  ‘I was supposed to go to London with my friend Jamie, to visit the Design Museum. I’d stayed the night at his place in town so we could make an early start, only he fell on the stairs and sprained his ankle half an hour before we were due to leave. It swelled up to twice its size so there was no way he could walk on it. I didn’t fancy the trip on my own, so I decided I might as well head to Steiner’s and help out, get an extra day’s pay too. Jamie’s mum gave me a lift. I arrived five minutes before Ivor turned up.’ He shivered and shook his head.

  ‘Sunshine’s a bit delicate,’ Bass explained in a sneering tone. ‘He’s a student, into music and drama.’

  ‘That sight could turn the strongest stomach,’ Siv said. Haddon did give the impression that manual labour would put him in bed for weeks. ‘If you’re a student, how come you’re working with a builder?’

  ‘Bloody good question,’ Bass mouthed.

  Haddon turned his watery gaze to her. ‘My dad, Lewis Haddon, owns the company, so it’s a way of shoring up my bank balance. I’ve started at Rother College, doing a degree in performing arts. I didn’t have any lectures today.’

  Bass pulled a face and asked, with a glinting eye, ‘So, what happened to our corpse, then? One of them sex games gone wrong? I’ve heard about that. People get themselves all knotted up and then it’s nighty night. Sad way to go when you were just hoping to have fun. But there must have been two playing. There’s no way you could tie yourself to a fridge like that.’ He nudged Haddon, who flinched and groaned.

  Ali said stonily to Bass, ‘Had you visited the premises before today? Did you go there to assess what needed to be cleared out?’

  ‘Come again?’ Bass put a hand behind his ear.

  ‘Had you been to Steiner’s before today? Ali asked again.

  ‘Oh right. It’s your accent, a bit broad for me. I’m not much good with accents — Scots, Welsh, Brummie, whatever. Irish goes right over my head. Hurts my ears or something.’

  ‘Oh aye? Maybe you’re the delicate one in the room, then.’ Ali smiled without warmth. ‘So, do you need the question again? I’ve plenty of time.’

  Bass sniffed. ‘I went there in April with the boss to give it the once-over, and draw up a list of what needed chucking before we knock it down. We weren’t there long. It’s not a place you want to hang around. We fitted a stronger padlock to deter the lowlifes.’

  ‘Did you see anything suspicious?’

  Bass pulled his earlobe. ‘Nah. There was no one there, if that’s what you’re getting at — except the stiff, that is. Bloody weird to think that was there all the time we were doing a recce. It was a tip in April and it was the same tip today.’

  Siv sipped her coffee. ‘Have either of you had any other connection with that premises, apart from your involvement in clearing it out this year?’

  They both shook their heads. Haddon winced, as if the movement hurt him.

  ‘Who’d want to go in that shithole unless they had to?’ Bass asked.

  ‘What about your colleagues?’

  Bass laughed. ‘They’d be tickled to hear themselves described that way. Neither of them have ever been there before, far as I’m aware, but you’d have to ask them.’

  Haddon had closed his eyes and was holding his stomach. Siv didn’t want him chucking up in the interview room.

  ‘Okay, that’ll do for now. We’ll need formal statements in the next couple of days. Please don’t talk about the details of this to anyone at the moment. Especially you, Mr Bass.’

  Bass sounded wounded. ‘I can keep my lip zipped.’

  Ali fetched a constable to see them out. At the door, Haddon turned and swallowed.

  ‘Do you know who that poor person was?’

  ‘Not yet, but thanks for asking,’ Siv told him.

  She met with Ali and Patrick in her office and ravenously attacked her panini. Ali eyed his yoghurt dubiously but made a show of tucking in. He sat with his back to the window, framed by the tall Japanese maples across the road in front of the museum. Their bronze leaves reflected the warm tones of his skin.

  Patrick had poured hot water on miso noodles and was stirring them with a fork. ‘Guv, I rang the builder and spoke to the boss man, Lewis Haddon, Grant’s dad. He oversees all the work, with Ivor Bass as his site manager. Haddon was all genned up about Steiner’s. He said that the daughter shut the removals business down in May 2009 and put it on the market. She had trouble selling, so it
just sat there deteriorating, and then the council bought it in January 2017. A company called Building Blocks based in Manchester closed the deal for it with the council earlier this year, and then they subcontracted the building work to Haddon’s.’ He slurped a forkful of noodles, catching broth on his chin with a finger.

  ‘Ivor Bass told us the builders had been into the premises in April. Did Lewis Haddon confirm that?’ Ali asked.

  ‘Yeah. He said that he and Bass gave it a once-over in the spring, just to see what needed clearing out and to make sure it was securely padlocked. Given that they’re going to knock it down, they weren’t too bothered about the state of it.’

  Patrick didn’t smoke, yet he had a hoarse, scratchy voice while Ali, who was addicted to his Gitanes, had a smooth, jolly baritone.

  ‘How about missing persons?’ Siv licked her fingers and dried them on a tissue. Her email pinged.

  ‘In a twenty-mile radius, seven from January 2009 to date. Three women, one in her twenties, one in her early forties, one fifty, a sixteen-year-old girl, a fourteen-year-old boy and two men in their twenties.’

  Ali was staring glassily at a spoon of yoghurt as if it was an unsuccessful experiment. ‘Bass is a waste of good air but he might have had a point when he talked about a sex game gone wrong.’

  ‘Eh?’ Patrick coughed on a noodle.

  ‘The delightful Ivor Bass had a theory that our corpse was the result of a sex game,’ Siv explained. ‘There is a mattress on the office floor which means that’s a possibility, but there’s no point in theorising as yet. I’ve had an email from Rey Anand. He can fit an autopsy in this evening, so we’ll have something to work with in the morning. Ali, can you go to that? In the meantime, Patrick, can you check those misper records to see if any of them, especially the females, had a connection to Steiner’s Removals. Also, if there have been any reported break-ins at the premises. I doubt that anyone would have noticed, given where it is and the state of the place, but worth considering. Ali, can you make sure we get fingerprints from the other two builders and Lewis Haddon. We need to talk to him in person as well.’

  She watched them depart, Ali with his hand concealing his half-eaten pot of yoghurt. He’d once mentioned that he’d been made to finish everything on his plate as a child. Perhaps that was why he was covert about leaving food. She’d never had that problem, as her mother had rarely noticed if she had anything on her plate or not. Mutsi had been a stranger to the cooker and regular mealtimes. Meals had been hasty pick-and-mix affairs, cobbled together from delicatessens and corner shops. She and Rik were the only kids at school who had serrano ham with anchovies and olives for breakfast. They’d forage for bits and pieces to take for lunch. Other pupils had sniggered and elbowed each other as they watched to see what the Drummonds had in their lunch boxes. They weren’t disappointed as she and Rik would palm scraps of stuffed vine leaves, crab pâté crackers or aubergine fritters.

  When she or Rikka complained about not having enough for dinner, Mutsi would say, Most people eat far too much and that pattern starts in childhood. One day you’ll thank me for your slim figures. Hunger had driven them to filching money from Mutsi’s purse — never too much, and just once a week so that she didn’t notice. They kept their stash in an empty tea packet under Rik’s bed, and used it for fish and chips and snacks at school. Rik had got the habit, and she’d stolen from their father after they moved to live with him, until Siv — the embryonic cop in the making — threatened to tell him if she didn’t stop. Then Rik had turned to shoplifting. Luckily, she’d got off with a caution when she was caught.

  Their poor dad. He’d not understood what had hit him when his two hungry, half-feral daughters landed on him, one a bag of nerves, the other mouthy and anarchic. He’d done his muddled, bewildered best and it had been a relief to find that he kept the fridge and cupboards reassuringly full, and turned out basic but regular, filling meals.

  She opened a window to let out the mix of food smells and rested her hands on her waist. She’d put some weight back on, eating pierogi with Bartel, but her suit trousers still sat at hip level and her eyes maintained their hollow, faded expression. In one of their brief contacts, Mutsi had said, You really need to wear some make-up, something to make you less washed out. Grief ages people. She’d wanted to ask how Mutsi had come by such wisdom, given that she’d never grieved for anyone. Her mother never left home without a carefully applied mask of foundation and mascara — what Ed used to call full slap armour.

  The trees across the way were glorious, with leaves turning through a spectrum of dark mustard, russet and the deepest conker brown, almost the same shade as the shirt she was wearing.

  Some of the older leaves, the ones that would fall first, were the same colour as the tan flesh on the corpse.

  Chapter 3

  At home, Siv headed straight for the fridge, poured a chilled glass of akvavit, and changed into jeans and Ed’s sweatshirt. It still smelled of him, all these months later, a faint aroma of citrus and spice. The last time he’d worn it had been the Saturday before he died, when they’d walked in Greenwich Park. They’d talked about the possibility of having children — neither of them convinced — booking a long weekend in Madrid, and the fact that they needed to replace their old, leaking boiler before it broke down.

  In the afternoon, they’d gone to a film, eaten popcorn washed down with cool white wine, then gone home and made love before Ed cooked pasta.

  Two days later, he was cold and still in the morgue.

  She’d never wash the sweatshirt.

  She’d hated him cycling around London, aware of all the traps and dangers: the mountainous lorries with their blind spots, lumbering buses and powerful jeeps. He’d been so vulnerable on his bike, encircled by those drivers protected in their tough steel cages. They’d disagreed on this one thing. He’d tried to reassure her, insisting that the exercise was important for him and that he was always careful. ‘It’s the other lunatics who worry me, not you,’ she’d say, knowing she wasn’t going to change his mind. When she got the phone call about the accident, it was almost a bitter relief because she’d been imagining the possibility of the moment for so long.

  Don’t be cross with me, Ed said in her ear.

  All right. I’m not really. Just . . . It’s crap without you. And you wouldn’t listen to me!

  She stood at the window, watching the darkening river that ran nearby, and the drifting smoke from Corran and Paul’s wood-burner at the other side of the meadow. They were her friendly, helpful landlords. When she’d moved back to Berminster earlier in the year, she’d rented this trim, three-roomed home from them, a circus wagon that they’d bought on eBay. They’d converted it into a bright, comfortable dwelling. Full-length oak doors at the front led down steps to a decked area with a barbecue, table, chairs, and tubs of shrubs and flowers. Inside, there was a living/kitchen area with a wood-burning stove, a shower room and a bedroom. Compact summed it up. It took just a few steps to get from the bedroom to the kitchen, and another couple to the bathroom and the living room.

  Corran and Paul’s home was a beautiful converted barn, full of light and pale wood. They were busy and productive — they kept goats, made their own bread and preserves, grew their own vegetables, and worked the two acres of woodland they owned bordering the meadow.

  Corran was a weaver, and the wagon was decorated with throws and cushions he’d made in contrasting dark pinks and greens. It had taken her a while to get used to the colour scheme. She’d experienced a sense of displacement when she’d arrived from London, and had wondered if she’d regret the move, but she’d adapted and come to relish the cosy space. It was quiet and secure after the grief and turmoil she’d experienced, and Corran and Paul were good neighbours who supplied her with free logs from their woodland.

  There was only one snag with her doll’s house of a home. Mutsi had found it and doorstepped her in the spring. At least she hadn’t returned since, although that in itself was a puzzle. Si
v was now on tenterhooks, wondering when she might be back, loitering by the steps or bothering Corran and Paul. Hopefully, her absence meant that she was busy exploiting whatever prospects Berminster could offer to a relentlessly sociable and well-preserved woman in her sixties.

  The warmth of the akvavit was in her throat, the notes of caraway and dill lingering. It was Finland’s best export and she had it delivered by the case from Helsinki. She was always reassured when she came home and found the box with the blue fish label on the side. She rolled her neck until it clicked. The sky was an intense span of velvet blue. She opened the door and gazed up, enjoying that quiet pause at the season’s turn. Just for this moment, she was at peace. Her skin still felt paper-thin, but it was a while since her scalp had prickled alarmingly. Every day was still a challenge, her sleep troubled and broken, and each morning brought the unwanted reminder that Ed was gone. She rested her face against his sleeve, and then lit the wood-burner and watched the flames hiss and lick.

  In the fridge, pickings were sparse. Ed used to do most of the cooking and she hadn’t quite got the hang of food shopping yet. He’d been diabetic like Ali, and not being much use in the kitchen herself, she’d gladly handed over chef’s duties. Before she’d met him, she’d eaten mostly in police canteens, or created variations on open sandwiches. Corran sometimes knocked on the door around this time with food. He always made too much — enough, Paul maintained, to feed several counties — and he’d turn up with chicken casserole, paella or a stuffed baked potato. No sign of him tonight, though. She cracked eggs, not sure how old they were but when she sniffed them, they seemed okay. She scrambled them with toast, and poured another glass of akvavit to wash them down. While she ate, she checked her emails and saw one from Mutsi that delivered on her expectations.

  Darling Sivvi, as you never return my calls, I’m writing to you. I love my new flat and I’ve already had a drinks party with several of the neighbours round. This is such a friendly town and makes me realise how much I needed to move on. I’ve hardly had a minute to myself! I’ve joined a tennis club and made new friends. Their daughters invite them for lunch at weekends. And of course, they’ve got grandchildren to dote on. Can’t see that I’ll ever have any, the way things are with you and Rikka. I’ve told some friends that I have a daughter in town, although I haven’t mentioned that you’re living like a gypsy in a field. They say it’s good that I have family locally. I hoped that would be the case when I moved back, and it’s very hurtful that you don’t keep in touch. I’m not getting any younger, Sivvi, and I am the only parent you have left. Remember our old Finnish saying: ‘Family is not an important thing, it’s everything.’