‘So, Mia, before we’re joined by DC Dickhead, can I ask what you make of the turkey feather found in our man’s throat?’
‘Not sure. It could be a message . . . or simple scene contamination. Although the shed wasn’t in use there were still plenty of feathers lying around.’
Jayne took a pull on her cigarette. ‘Brian’s convinced it’s that.’
‘Well, that’s the neater, less work option.’
The DI laughed.
Mia took a sip of her own coffee. Instant needed sugar, but everyone just assumed that no one, at least no females, took it these days. Not that it mattered, she wouldn’t be finishing it.
‘In the five years I’ve been with the NCA, I’ve come across Brians in almost every incident room — happy to rely on the validity of their own gut instinct but not on someone . . . especially a woman . . . with a university education.’
Jayne exhaled a thin line of blue-grey smoke. ‘He’s never bothered taking the sergeant’s exam and calls in sick every time there’s any sort of course, but still feels friggin’ hard done by. You should have seen his face when I got promoted again — especially as the DCI’s a woman too — although she tries to hide it.’
Gemma wanted the conversation back on point. ‘Is there anything else we’ve missed, Doctor Langley?’ Mia raised an eyebrow and Gemma corrected herself. ‘Sorry, Mia.’
‘Well, it would have taken some time. And the killer or killers knew the layout of the farm — which sheds were in use and which weren’t, not to mention the existence of the chains in the abattoir. So it all points to an inside job, or at least inside knowledge. The extent of the beating also indicates something more personal than just the man’s nationality.’
‘We’re looking into that possibility too.’ The DI exhaled more smoke. ‘Fights amongst the workers are not uncommon — although they usually prefer knives.’
‘I’ll ask SCAS to look into similar cases…’
‘SCAS?’ Brian’s tone was defiant as he pushed open the porta-cabin door and joined them, an unlit cigarette already hanging from his lips. He wore no coat and surveyed the three women huddled against the wind as Macbeth might have surveyed the three witches, with a mixture of wariness and contempt.
‘The Serious Crime Analysis System, DC Nowells. Such a pity you were off, again, for the last workshop.’
He gave the DI a thin smile, before turning his back on her to light his own fag. Straightening up, he too took a long pull. ‘So, what conclusions have you ladies come to regarding the feather in the throat?’
‘None.’ Jayne flashed him a warning look.
He stared at Mia, blowing his smoke in her direction. ‘Long way to come for nothing.’ He took another drag, ‘Any thoughts on why they’d continue to beat a dead body then? I’ve got thirty years in and, as the boss says,’ he nodded towards the DI but didn’t look at her, ‘it’s got to be the work of some nutter.’
‘I’ve never said that!’
‘With all due respect to your thirty years,’ observed the 35-year-old Mia, ‘my guess is they’ve all been spent in Norfolk.’
Jayne and Gemma lowered their gaze.
‘But I’ve seen this type of violence on too many occasions, which is why I’ve become an expert on it.’
Cigarette and coffee finished, Jayne needed to get going. She had a mountain of paperwork to get through and the evening de-brief to pull together.
‘What next, Mia — back to London?’
‘No, I’m off to Leeds to consult on another battered body.’ Mia poured her coffee down a nearby drain, taking care to shield how much was left from Gemma. ‘But I’ll contact SCAS on the way and get back to you. You’ll let me know when you manage to identify your man?’
‘Of course.’
The three women shook hands and Mia set off for her car; the wind now blowing at her back, pushing her away, onwards and upwards — well onwards.
She let out a deep sigh as she set the sat-nav for Leeds. She didn’t mind long journeys, travelling alone. Even her line of work had a capacity for monotony. But she was tired, exhausted, and physical exhaustion tended to turn her inner landscape dark. When she got to Leeds she’d definitely let Mark Johnson, the Leeds SIO, take her out for a drink. And maybe, just maybe, something more.
CHAPTER TWO
It is the nature of change to be sloppy.
Ellie turned her plain face towards the brittle brightness of the spring sun. She had once overheard a man describe her as ‘the wrong side of average’. He’d been talking about her looks; it’s what people did. First impressions, they really did count. What is truly beautiful has nothing to fear from homeliness. Her mother had been fond of misquoting people greater than her, but she’d got this one wrong. She didn’t get a lot wrong, but on this she had always been blinded by motherly love — the sort it was useless to argue against. Living in such a wet-green part of the world meant sunshine, however pale, was not to be taken for granted. Ellie closed her eyes, soaking up the vitamin D and imagined warmth.
Toby, Hamish and Lulu, her three rescue dogs, were playing happily in the high-hedged lane, mimicking the lambs in the surrounding fields at the foot of the Welsh mountains. They were on the downward leg of a long walk. Opening her eyes, her smile faded at the sight of a man fifty yards in front of them, heading in the same direction. She would have to put the dogs back on their leads. They had an innate but understandable distrust of men which Toby and Lulu expressed by aggressive barking — as though they still believed that attack was the best form of defence.
She called the dogs to heel. They came immediately and stood with slowly wagging tails, looking up at her with utter trust as she clipped leads on to worn collars. Normally she’d have sat down on the verge for five minutes and waited for the person to walk out of sight, but she worked for minimum wage at the animal shelter just outside Llanbrynmair, and was already running late for her next shift.
Closing in on the man, he seemed familiar. He was shouting into his mobile.
What an arse! Pollute my quiet enjoyment of the countryside and stress my dogs, why don’t you? If I ruled the world there’d be a law against using mobiles in open countryside, except for calling the emergency services — obviously. Conversations, however important, would be confined to people actually present.
‘If I ruled the world’ had been a favourite game since childhood. For example, it would be illegal to keep herd animals, like horses, on their own, or own a dog if they were going to be left alone for too long. What was too long? Well, eight hours was a definite no-no. Shifts at the shelter were regularly twelve hours, but the dogs were with her, sleeping in the busy office and getting walked during any breaks.
Toby and Lulu had begun to growl when they first registered the man. The heat and growing volume of his voice now turned these intermittent growls into a continuous, vibrating rumble.
Who was he? He had the sort of ambling gait she associated with youths who used to frequent the Job Centre in Newtown, wearing their jeans so low on skinny hips that you could see the labels on their fake-designer boxer shorts. But this man was older and wearing a worn Barbour with large side pockets that sagged open from continual use. The closer they got the stronger the smell of cow shit. It wafted backwards from him, an invisible cloud of something nasty. A tangible warning.
She watched him swap the mobile from his right to left hand and rummage in his coat pocket. The hand re-emerged holding a cheap plastic lighter and it dragged with it a small piece of paper which caught the breeze and fluttered backwards, landing on the verge a few feet away — its hard whiteness against the soft green added insult to a ruined walk.
Fucking arse! She picked up the litter and shoved it into her own coat pocket.
The man’s argument was escalating, and this stopped her pointedly handing the litter back to him, but his drumming anger turned the dogs’ vibrating growls into manic barking. Hamish was crouched, peeing with fear at the chaos erupting around him. Ellie shorten
ed Toby and Lulu’s leads with one hand, before picking up Hamish with the other. Dragging Toby and Lulu past the man, she kept as much distance between him and her dogs as the narrow lane would allow.
‘Hang on!’ he shouted into the phone, before holding it against his chest and yelling at Ellie. ‘You shouldn’t have fucking dogs if you can’t fucking control them!’
Despite Hamish’s trembling, Ellie stopped and turned back. She allowed Toby and Lulu’s leads to lengthen as she advanced on Paul. She’d finally put a name to the face of her childhood tormentor.
He took a step back from the snapping and barking.
‘My dogs are under control and I don’t need to use a cattle prod!’ Paul looked confused and took another step back, the thick hawthorn hedge making it the last one possible.
‘Oh I know all about you, Paul Cummings. You were a bully in the playground and now you bully the cows at Dolgwydell farm. Heard old Puge gave you a taste of your own medicine with the prod and you threatened to call the plod. You’re a fucking arse, Cummings — a bully, and an arse!’ Walking on, she put Hamish back down before raising her right hand and giving him the finger.
‘Right back at yer, yer ugly bitch!’ The shouted insult was accompanied by the smell of cigarette smoke.
The shift had been a long one. The dogs tumbled through the narrow front door and headed straight for the kitchen and their evening meal. They were soon joined by the three cats, including Smudge, her latest rescue, who normally scrambled under the sofa when the door first opened. Ellie usually loved this part of the day, the light of expectant joy in the eyes surrounding her feet and MacAwesome the Macaw’s squawking as her animals waited to be fed.
But tonight she was bone weary, starving and cold to the point of pain.
She had spent fifteen hours trawling up and down the M4 collecting five donkeys, two at a time, from a shelter in Wiltshire. They were coming to Llanbrynmair so Wiltshire could make room for some of the thirty horses and ponies found starving to death on a stud in the supposedly rich county of Royal Berkshire. It was great the way shelters could work together like this, for the ‘greater good’, but it had been knackering.
Having fed the animals, she hunched over the orange glow of the toaster and let the heat wash upwards over her numb cheeks and nose. As the greying stale bread turned to edible gold, the smell of its renewed freshness made her stomach tighten. Taking the toast and an opened can of cold baked beans into the small lounge, she switched on the TV manually (Toby had killed the remote), before collapsing onto the sofa. Too tired to light the fire, she kept her coat on.
As she waited for the picture to fade into view she once more envied those who could afford satellite. Most people in the valley had a dish now — even those on Social. Forking cold beans past her crooked teeth, she smiled back at the latest reality show host with his over-white smile and orange tan.
‘We’ll be right back after the break, when you — the viewers — will decide the fate of Serena and James. Who will be eliminated and who will live to fight another day?’
Ellie loved playing judge and jury.
Judge, especially. She’d always been small; too small for the physical realities of growing up in a Welsh mining village — easy prey for the likes of Paul. All she could do then was dream of retaliation, of retribution, of trials and righteous punishment. She could still feel the tension in her hand as she woke from childhood dreams, her tiny fist curled around an imagined knife.
Now she wondered if she’d be able to smell the burning flesh of Smudge’s previous owner, as she slowly pushed a lit cigarette into his or her face — not nice, is it? Or how much satisfaction she’d actually feel if she could repeatedly kick her booted foot into the softer flesh of Hamish’s previous owner. His £300 fine had not felt like justice to her, and justice mattered.
‘Welcome back! The lines are now closed and if you ring now your votes will not be counted but you may still be charged.’
‘Rip off!’
Hamish wagged his tail in acknowledgement of her opinion.
‘So who’s it to be? Serena or James? Well, you, the nation have spoken . . . and . . . the person leaving the show tonight . . . is …’
James, it’s got to be James. He’s such a dick! For fuck’s sake, get on with it …
‘… is . . . Serena. I’m so sorry, Serena …’
‘Serena! She’s the only one left with any talent! That’s bollocks!’
The anger in Ellie’s voice sent the three cats running and Lulu sank into the grubby shag-pile rug, flattening her ears against her skull and her skull against the rug.
‘Sorry, guys.’
Softening her voice, Ellie took in the three sets of wary looking eyes. ‘I don’t know why I watch this crap.’
Bending down to fondle Lulu’s ear, she let Hamish lick her face in gratitude at her returning calm, before gently pushing him off her lap. She was ready for an early night.
‘And now for a recap on tonight’s lucky lottery numbers — with a EuroMillions roll–over of £88,000,000!’
Ellie remembered Paul’s lottery ticket.
On her way home she’d stopped at the village shop, desperate for chocolate. Going through her pockets for loose change, she’d found four twenty-pence pieces. The piece of paper she’d seen Paul drop two days earlier emerged with the last ten pence. She’d been about to put it in the bin outside the shop when she realised what it was.
I should bin it — serve the arse right! I know, Mum, I know — he may be an arse, but you brought me up better. ‘Rise above it …’, ‘do unto others …’, ‘if you can’t say anything nice …’. She’d decided that if she ever saw Cummings again she’d hand it back in silence. The ticket had gone back in her pocket.
Now she hooked it out with a feeling of unfamiliar excitement. There’s no way Arse will win, but I’ll check the numbers . . . just in case.
She didn’t usually watch the lottery; there was no point. She couldn’t afford a ticket any more than a mobile phone vote. But she could still dream. Tens of millions. A million. A hundred grand. Even £10,000 or £1,000 — she’d put it to much better use than most of the Herberts that ended up winning.
‘And here are the numbers in ascending order. Seven, eight, twelve, twenty-four, thirty-one and the two lucky stars, three and forty-nine! Good luck to all you ticket holders — let’s hope it’s a UK winner this week. And now for the millionaire’s lucky draw …’
She’d stopped listening.
Grabbing the nearest piece of paper and a pencil stub from the cluttered sideboard, she scribbled down the seven numbers displayed on screen, before lightly crossing through a number on the ticket and its counterpart on the bill. Seven numbers, seven cross-throughs. ‘Fucking hell! Fucking . . . bloody . . . hell!’
He’ll give me a reward. He has to. It’s only fair. But Paul’s not fair. He’s never played fair. He could afford to reward my honesty but he won’t. He’ll just laugh in my stupid face if I hand it back.
She looked at the ticket again.
A lucky dip . . . he didn’t even choose the numbers. Just like him –always the easy route, the short-cut. If he didn’t bother choosing the numbers he’s probably not bothered to even look at them, and if he doesn’t know what they are he won’t know whether he’s won. All he’ll actually know is he’s lost the ticket, not even when or where he lost it …
Ellie went to make a cup of tea.
Need to think. Need to think really hard. Mum always said that a good strong cuppa was the best thing for good strong thinking.
But your thinking is far from good, my girl.
Shut up, Mum!
She filled the kettle and switched it on. Shame knotted her stomach. Keep the money? The shame bubbled. Keep the money. Paul would just waste it. Paul didn’t deserve it. She could do good with it. She could do some real good with that kind of money. She could change the world. The water boiled, rattling the kettle.
It’s not fair! Why does someone
like Paul, who electrocutes cows for fun, get to be a multi–millionaire?
Because he bought a ticket and you didn’t, Ellie. You know that.
You don’t understand, Mum!
Oh but I do. You know I do. What you’re considering is stealing — plain and simple.
But it’s not simple — it’s so far from simple. I could do so much good with this money.
It’s Paul’s money.
Finders keepers!
That’s not how it works.
It’s exactly how it works! I found this ticket. You always said, always, that what’s for you won’t go by you. What if this is for me? What if this was meant to be? What if it was fate that put me in the lane at that place, at that time? The wind actually blew the ticket towards me. If I didn’t care about litter I wouldn’t have picked it up. But I do care and I did pick it up. It’s because I care that the ticket came to me!
Ellie. You know this isn’t fair.
Life’s not fair, Mum. You of all people should know that. And, before you say it, I’m sick of trying to make lemonade out of life’s lemons.
She returned to the lounge with her tea. Toby and Hamish tried to sit on her lap but she pushed them away; she couldn’t think and cuddle. Placing the mug on the floor she picked up the ticket.
I need a sign, something to tell I’m right to keep it—
Something to block your integrity and anaesthetize your conscience.
‘Shut up, Mum!’
The dogs raised their heads, ear pricked.
A smile spread across Ellie’s face as she studied the numbers. Twenty-four’s my birth date and twelve is the month!
You were such a beautiful baby, a Christmas Eve blessing. Sad you just missed out on the Christmas crib.
I’ve spent my whole life missing out, Mum. Including being a cygnet that turned into a duck. And look, thirty-one — my actual age! Surely this is my ticket! Seven — what’s special about seven?
Two of the three cats joined her on the sofa.
With the three dogs and MacAwesome that made seven animals! And eight? Our house number’s eighteen! Seriously: date of birth and address — could it be any clearer?
She Will Rescue You Page 2