Death Rider (The Rider Series Book 2)

by Samantha Bassett

“What do we know?”

  “Waiting on SOCO but the scene is a mess. Come on, I’ll show you. She’s there.” I gestured to the muck heap.

  “What buried in the shite?”

  “Yeah…”

  “Fuck! Poor cow!”

  “Right… They’ll struggle to find much in the way of evidence. There should be prints, maybe DNA. Do we know if she was assaulted?”

  “No sign, but we haven’t got that far yet. Right, they’re here. We’ll know more when they’ve done their work. Let me brief them. Grab a brew, we’ve set up in the tack room, it’s just over there.”

  * * *

  “Miss? I’m DCI Kelly Jarvis. Can I speak with you? I’m so sorry for what happened; however, we need to do the best we can for Olivia now.”

  “Of course, I understand. I’m sorry about earlier.”

  “You have every right to be upset in the circumstances, I understand. Just rest assured we’ll do the best for her now.”

  “Is she still…?”

  “We have to wait for the pathologist and the scenes of crimes team. It would be best if you and your colleague stay in here for now. I or one of the team will come and find you if there is anything we need.”

  “Thank you.”

  I left her sitting in the untidy front room of the farmhouse. I’d seen it many times before, the shock of finding a body, made worse by the fact it was someone she knew well. I’d have to temper myself, the anger of the crime, a thoughtless killing of someone who had their life before them, with the sadness any human being would feel. Those emotions would have to be bottled up until I was well away from here. For now, it was DCI Jarvis who had to be in command and not Kelly who would rather spend her time grooming and riding the horses than having to pick up the shattered pieces of the lives of their owners.

  All I could do was the best for the victim, my sole duty was to serve them justice and I would ensure I did that doggedly. Looking up I saw the battered Volvo of the pathologist, Dr Robert Bird pulling up outside the window, he was just stepping out of the car as I approached. His hair greying and unkempt, his tweed jacket frayed. He was slim to the point of being gaunt with piercing blue eyes which seemed to have the ability to look into your soul.

  “Dr Bird.”

  “DCI Jarvis, what a pleasure to see you again, sadly as always on such bleak terms. But if we didn’t want death to feature so much in our lives we are both in the wrong careers. Tell me, what do we have here?”

  “Female, 21, multiple stab injuries. Pitchfork. She’s over here.” I used the impersonal shorthand of our work to describe the scene.

  “Right, show me the way Kelly, let’s see what we have.”

  He smiled, the faint lines wrinkling around his eyes. We had worked together for as long as I’d been involved with homicide, from the first days when I’d thought he was cold and had an issue with me as a young female detective looking to go through the ranks. I soon realised he was someone who communicates better with the victims in his care than living humans. We had found a good working relationship and more than once he had stood up for me on a case and fought my corner.

  He sighed as he looked at the scene, climbing up the wooden boards, he knelt beside the victim on the plastic we had laid out to try to preserve what we could of the scene.

  “Poor girl. This is quite frenzied, you would have to be pretty bloody strong to puncture the chest like that, look at the depth of the prongs, someone wanted to make a point here.” He looked up and saw my obvious discomfort. “Okay, let me do my work here Kelly, I’ll see what I can find. We may need the fire service to cut the handle to get her safely away from here.”

  I nodded and he turned back to the body, I knew she would be safe in his care. I walked across the yard, watched by interested horses, pushing open the door of the tack room. John was on his phone with a chipped mug of tea in his other hand. I poured myself a mug, adding milk and sugar before sitting opposite him. I watched as he finished the call and looked up at me.

  “Anyone important?”

  “The Chief Constable, he’s got wind of this. The woman, Hilary whatsit is apparently quite a famous rider. We could have the press here if it gets out. When it gets out, make sure we have someone covering the entrance, I don’t want this all over the red tops.”

  “Sure, I’ll get on it.”

  “Anything yet?”

  “Bob’s here, just looking at her.”

  “Oh, that creepy sod… I don’t get him…”

  “John, you don’t ‘get’ anyone, anyway he’s a damn good pathologist. He said it was quite a frenzied attack.”

  “Oh, you don’t say! There I was thinking it was a kiss on the cheek…”

  “Oh piss off John! If you don’t want to be here, bugger off back to the station.”

  “No… I’ll wait until she’s been taken from the scene. Not that I don’t trust you of course.”

  “Naturally…”

  * * *

  “Why would this happen here? I mean who would do that to her?” Hilary sat with her head in her hands.

  “Adam was pretty cross with her yesterday… Do you think he could have? … Well, you know? -”

  “Sally! There is no way Adam could have done this! Jesus, why would you even say that?”

  “Well, I’m just saying he had a go at her yesterday, then he was here overnight before leaving at god knows what time. Don’t you think that’s suspicious?”

  “Why the hell should I? He was going home anyway, we had agreed he would do four days a week, you knew he had a drink last night so he couldn’t drive, and as for the argument…”

  “It was more than an argument, you told me he had attacked her!”

  “I’m not having this conversation…”

  “I’m just saying…”

  “Sally, please, either shut up or piss off…”

  12

  Assumptions Made

  I watched as the black van slowly navigated the driveway, ‘private ambulance’ what a euphemism. I often wondered how many people realised what they were really carrying.

  “Kelly…”

  “Bob. You’re all done here?”

  “As much as I can. However, this is a bit interesting. I didn’t want it lost in transit as it were.” He held up an evidence bag, I took it peering at the broken gold chain contained within. “It was in her right hand. Now, it’s too early for me to speculate but as it was in the palm of her hand, wrapped around her fingers she may have torn it from her assailant.”

  “Great, thanks. I’ll make sure it’s logged. Anything else you can tell me?”

  “Time of death is going to be tricky to get exactly as the body was kept warm, but that shouldn’t be an issue as she was seen only last night, we aren’t going to be arguing about exact details, I’m sure. Cause of death, well, it’s pretty obvious she didn’t drown. I’ll leave it up to you to do your bit now and find the bastard that did this.”

  I was somewhat taken aback, Bob rarely showed emotion about victims, he was always impassive, a professional trait. This expression of disgust and anger was unlike him; however, I knew that we all felt the same. We knew we had to catch who had done this and soon.

  Something was on my mind, I walked through the back door of the house, calling out as I stepped into the front room where the two ladies were.

  “Hilary, I saw the camera’s mounted on the buildings. Do you have CCTV recordings?”

  “Yes… The insurers required it, the horses are worth a fortune as is the tack and equipment.”

  “Can I see the system please?”

  Hilary walked me through to a cluttered office, the desk piled high with paperwork and magazines, Horse and Hound mostly. She cleared a space, knocking papers onto the floor and sat down, booting up the computer which eventually came to life. Clicking the mouse, the screen filled with images of the yard, I could see my colleagues milling around, John in the tack room, again on his phone.

  “Are there any camera’s where Olivia
was found?”

  “No, I’m sorry they didn’t need the muck heap covered. The closest would be the rear yard.”

  “Thank you. If I may I’ll have a look through some of the recordings.”

  Hilary nodded; she was looking tired. I waited for her to leave the office before starting to look around the camera system. It was pretty high tech; someone had sold her top of the range kit. The images were clear and it looked as if there were recordings for each stream in real-time. I started to go through the images from the night before, hoping that I may see something.

  I dragged the timeline back to the previous afternoon. On the screen, I could see tiles from each camera. I clicked on one and saw a very much alive Olivia speaking with Hilary on the main stable yard. From then on was the arduous task of going through the footage from the night. I watched the two women leave the yard before someone returned later. I paused the video. Opening the full video screen, I looked at the image, this was not Hilary or Sally. I stood up and walked back to the front room asking Hilary if she could come with me.

  “Do you recognise this person?”

  “Well, that looks like Adam, he’s my other working pupil.”

  “What? Sorry, where is he now?”

  “Well, he went home to Cumbria early this morning.”

  “And you didn’t think to mention this?”

  “I…” Hilary stuttered, tears in her eyes.

  “Sorry. I apologise, could you please tell me how we can get in touch with him. We would need to have a word with him.”

  “Of course…”

  Hilary’s omission to even mention this other person surprised me. I’m sure it was due to nothing more than shock, but I needed to know more. He had left the scene in rather a hurry before the girl had been found. Call it a copper’s instinct, but I felt I needed to find this guy quickly. I pressed on.

  “Right, I didn’t see Adam before that time, and when we do see him here is quite late at night.”

  “No, there’d been a bit of an issue in the morning in the arena. I’d sent him off the yard after that.”

  “I’m sorry? Can you explain what happened? A bit of an issue, you say? Can you tell me exactly what you are referring to?” I watched as Hilary looked down.

  “Adam argued with Olivia during a coaching session.”

  “An argument? What sort of argument?”

  “She rode a bit aggressively, made a mistake and Bob, that’s one of my horses, rode into the arena wall. Adam got cross and…”

  “And? It’s important I know of anything which happened, no matter how trivial.”

  “I don’t think he could have done anything to her?”

  “Hilary, please, just so I can understand, please tell me what happened?”

  “He hit her with her riding crop?”

  “He did what?”

  “She beat Bob, the horse. So, Adam rode up, grabbed her crop and hit her.”

  “He hit her? So, where did this take place?”

  “It happened in the arena.”

  “And you said it was in the morning?”

  “Yes… Just after eleven.” Her voice became quiet.

  “Thank you, Hilary.”

  I waited until she had left the room and then clicked on the arena image tile on the screen. Enlarging the image, I saw there was a clear picture of everything which happened within it.

  I scrolled back through the timeline until I found images from the previous morning. I watched the sped up reverse images until I saw a man riding towards Olivia. I reversed more before playing back, full screen. I could see a silent film of her clearing the jump. I gasped as she rode into the wall, hard, her horse falling back. She started beating the horse about his head. I watched as Adam rode up, grabbing her whip from her hand striking her hard across her ribs. Grabbing my phone, I called John.

  * * *

  “Sally, did you mention Adam to the police?”

  “No… I didn’t think…”

  “I just did and about what happened in the arena… Look, he couldn’t…”

  “Hilary… It’s what I said, he was really mad with her…”

  * * *

  “Look at it John, he really lays into her. I mean that would be a clear GBH if she wasn’t dead. Then we don’t see him until, twenty-three forty-seven and, surprise, surprise he left in the early hours.”

  “Christ!”

  “More than that. I spoke with the groom about the necklace. Asked her if she recognised it at all. She said it was his. He always wore it.”

  “Shit! Where the hell is he?”

  “Cumbria, near Grange Over Sands.”

  “Okay, I’ll get on the phone and get the local plod to pick him up and bring him to us. Unless I am very much mistaken, we can get this stitched up pretty quickly.”

  13

  Cross Country

  “No, heels down Jan! That’s it!”

  I caught Adam’s eye as he crossed to the fence line, taking the steaming mug from me.

  “Oh, thanks, Kate… Great, I needed that.”

  There was something about having Adam back home which made everything right in the world. The sun was shining but it was early enough in the year not to be swelteringly hot. Birds swooped across the bay and the river was sparkling in the sunlight. I watched as Adam went back to teaching. I loved how he commanded attention both from the horses and his riders. I was so proud of him and all he had done. Something caught my eye. Looking up I saw a police car approach the yard.

  “I wonder what they want? I’ll go and find out.” I walked from the outdoor arena towards the car park where the police car had stopped and two burly officers had stepped out. “Hi there, is there anything I can help you with?”

  “We need to speak with Adam Bishop.”

  “Of course, he’s in the outdoor arena, just over there. Is there something wrong?”

  The officers ignored me and walked towards the arena, I followed behind.

  “Adam Bishop?”

  “Yes, that’s me. Can I help you?”

  “Could you please step out here with us?”

  “Jan, I’ll just be a moment, keep doing the twenty-meter circles at A and C. Right officers, how can I help you?”

  “Adam Bishop you are being charged with the murder of Olivia Wright-Turner. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court.”

  I watched in horror as Adam’s arms were roughly grabbed and cuffed behind his back

  “Murder? Do you mean Olivia’s dead? She can’t be? I saw her yesterday… I don’t understand?”

  “Adam, what the hell is happening? Where are you taking him? Please, tell me what’s happening?” Adam was dragged across the yard towards the police car. One officer held me back as they manhandled him into the back of the police car, slamming the door shut. Adam stared at me wide-eyed as the car was driven off.