Dead & Buried

by Adam Croft

  He had flirted with the idea of getting a taxi, but had decided against it. At the back of his mind was Operation Counterflow. Although he wasn’t working tonight, he thought it best to remain sober just in case. The bosses weren’t keen on people doing unauthorised overtime — especially not on major cases — as it had been known for defence teams to use the argument in court that the investigating officers were overworked and overtired, and that the prosecution was therefore likely to be flawed. In the long run, it was best that investigations took a little longer or involved more officers, if only to save themselves the embarrassment of having a perfectly good case thrown out of court through there being the slightest element of ‘reasonable doubt’ required for the jury to acquit.

  Besides which, he barely knew the woman and didn’t want to let his guard down too early. One glass with dinner would be just fine with him.

  When the front door opened, he barely recognised Chrissie. The tied-back hair was now delicately arranged, and she was wearing a summer dress that wouldn’t have gone amiss at a garden party.

  ‘Off out somewhere?’ he joked, as he looked at her. ‘Sorry, I feel a bit of a wally dressed in my scruffs.’

  ‘You look very smart to me, Jack. Come on in.’

  Chrissie’s house was clean and tidy, and decorated tastefully. She’d gone for the light and airy, minimalist look and it had clearly worked.

  ‘Nice place,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you. I had the back of the house opened up about two or three years ago, to let more light in.’

  ‘Looks good. I wish I had the foresight to do something like that myself.’

  Chrissie laughed. ‘I can’t take the credit for that, I’m afraid. I was left a bit of money and I have a friend who’s an architect. I wouldn’t have had a clue otherwise. Not to mention the budget.’

  After a few minutes they’d decided they’d have Chinese for dinner, and Chrissie poured the wine whilst Jack phoned through the order.

  The conversation seemed to flow well, but Jack tried to steer the topics away from work. It never went down particularly well to tell someone what he did for a living before they’d got to know him. It could only go one of two ways: they’d be frightened off or the rest of the night’s conversation would turn to talking about murder investigations, in which case he might as well just be at work anyway.

  ‘So. What’s your deepest fear, Jack?’ she asked him, throwing him a complete curveball in the middle of a discussion about the new town centre regeneration scheme the council had put forward recently.

  ‘Uh, I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I suppose that’s the thing about fears. You try not to think about them too much.’

  He wanted to move the conversation on to happier topics, but at the same time he was intrigued by Chrissie’s question. It was a long time since someone had tried to hold that level of conversation with him.

  ‘They say there are only five primal fears. Everything else is a form of one of those,’ she said. ‘Extinction, mutilation, loss of autonomy, separation and ego-death.’

  ‘Come on then. What are you, a shrink of some sort?’

  ‘Close. Not a million miles off, anyway. But I used to be a psychology teacher. I’ve always kept a keen interest ever since. I studied it at university.’

  ‘Oh? Where’d you go?’

  ‘Cambridge. Well, Norwich. But I lived near Cambridge. Well, I could get to Cambridge on a full tank of petrol, anyway.’

  Jack laughed. He liked her sense of self-deprecating humour. ‘Where are you from originally?’ he asked, having detected a bit of an accent when she spoke.

  ‘A lovely quaint little village in the north-west called Liverpool. You probably haven’t heard of it.’

  He laughed again. ‘I think it rings a bell.’

  The food was fantastic, and Jack made a quiet promise to himself to order from that restaurant again. The conversation was great, too, and he found himself becoming more and more intrigued by Chrissie.

  ‘Are you sure I can’t tempt you with another glass of wine?’ she asked. ‘You’re more than welcome to leave your car here and get a cab home.’

  ‘To be honest, I’d be better off walking back. It’d only take twenty minutes or so, but I’m going to need the car first thing so it’s best if I don’t. Maybe another time,’ he added, before realising he’d inadvertently committed himself to meeting her again.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see her again — he did — but he didn’t want to have to admit it, even to himself.

  ‘Sure. Maybe next time I can find out a little more about you.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, I don’t feel I’ve got to know you very well. You seem… closed. Difficult to get to know.’

  ‘Is that a bad thing?’

  Chrissie smiled and shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. At least, not in my experience. Often the juiciest fruit needs the hardest squeeze. If you’ll pardon the expression.’

  Jack had never really opened up to anyone, and he’d be buggered if he was going to tell everything to someone he’d met in a supermarket that week, no matter how much he liked her. And that was quite a lot, he had to admit.

  ‘So, Jack. What do you say we pop another date in the diary and meet again?’

  He looked at her for a moment, trying to squash the thoughts that were invading his mind.

  ‘I’ll let you know,’ he said.

  25

  Wendy was used to feeling under pressure. That was the nature of the job. But that sort of pressure was different from what she was feeling now.

  It was nice to feel wanted. Of course it was. She was delighted that her hard work had been recognised and that Culverhouse wanted her to progress further in her career. She was stunned that Xav liked her as much as she liked him and wanted to move things on to the next stage. They were both things she’d wanted for a long time, but still there was something holding her back.

  If she was true to herself, she knew deep down that she couldn’t have both. Being a constable or sergeant and trying to hold down a relationship was difficult enough; it would be almost impossible at a higher rank. The level of responsibility would leave her with absolutely no time of her own. She didn’t want to do that to Xav. She’d seen how many relationships went sour in this job, and she cared too much about him to knowingly enter into a relationship she knew was likely to end badly.

  She’d been browsing through Facebook earlier that evening, when she’d come across one of her old school friends who was forever posting daft motivational messages and sharing statuses from some self-help guru called Sam King. She usually ignored them, but today one caught her eye.

  It simply said:

  Ask yourself: Are you happy right now?

  There was no indication of what the reader should do based on the answer, nor was there a link to sign up for a ‘free webinar’, as was usually the case with these things. It was clearly a load of old bollocks, but it had got her thinking.

  Was she happy right now? She was content; she’d go that far. She was in an easy place: living on her own, doing a job she was good at, never really pushing herself in any area of her life. That way, she couldn’t be disappointed or hurt. She’d had enough of that before.

  But, if she was completely honest, she wasn’t what she’d call ‘happy’. She no longer had any family around — not now her brother was in jail hundreds of miles away in County Durham. She barely saw any of her old friends — the job had put paid to that. The only human contact she got outside of work was with Xav. Until then she’d probably have counted Cookie as her only friend, but she wasn’t entirely sure you could call a cat a real friend.

  There’d been a lot of talk on TV and in the media recently about loneliness. When Wendy thought of people being lonely, she thought of old folk whose spouses had died, children had flown the nest and who had nothing to do all day but watch daytime TV and call local radio phone-ins.

  Beat officers saw it all the
time: old people dying alone in their homes and being found four weeks later after someone just happened to notice they hadn’t seen them in a while. Little old ladies answering the door to find a man with a knife and a rucksack. Elderly gentlemen being swindled out of their entire life savings by fraudsters. These were the lonely people. Weren’t they?

  She’d never really considered the concept of loneliness, although she’d freely admit to feeling lonely occasionally. It had never been anything deep: just a sense that she would’ve quite liked a bit of company from time to time. But as she thought about it, she realised that loneliness ran much deeper than that.

  There were times when she felt less lonely. And she’d quickly come to realise that was most often when Xav was around. She found him warm, interesting and funny — everything she wanted in a companion. And, after all, wasn’t feeling less lonely the whole point of having a partner?

  She loved it when he was around. She slept better at night, felt safer and looked forward to evenings at home. The more she thought about it, the more she realised what she had to do.

  She knew she couldn’t go on in this limbo any more. She’d made her decision. She would ask him to move in with her.

  26

  Mikhail Gushkin watched the ripple of the waves disappearing off onto the horizon as the yacht bobbed gently on the water. He was suitably bronzed, and wasn’t particularly looking forward to returning to Europe in three days’ time, although he’d be back out here next month.

  It was the only time he got alone, the only space he had to himself. Even the owner of a huge property portfolio and business empire needed a bit of downtime occasionally. True enough, most of the donkey work had been delegated to others, but he was still the boss, still the decision maker. Sometimes, those decisions had to be made sooner rather than later.

  He was free of most distractions whilst he was on the yacht. He ensured his mobile phone was switched off and that only a select few people had the number for the secure, encrypted on-board telephone, which he had assured them was only for use in emergencies. By emergencies, Mikhail meant life or death situations.

  He closed his eyes and tuned into the music playing through the sound system. It had cost him an extra $40,000 for the upgrade, but it was worth every penny. He didn’t know a thing about classical music, but loved to have it playing while he was on the yacht. It relaxed him, listening to the smooth violin and lilting bassoon.

  Relaxation was something that was otherwise hard to come by in his line of work, but he made sure he prioritised his trips out here. He knew people who liked to use their yachts for entertaining. It was an almost constant stream of parties, free-flowing drink and loose women. But that wasn’t Mikhail’s style. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d let anyone else on board who wasn’t there to service the engine or repair the ice machine in the kitchen. That bloody ice machine was the bane of his life.

  He didn’t even need to hear the electronic beep of the yacht’s on-board phone ringing — the dip in the music a second before was, unfortunately, all too familiar.

  He stood up and walked over to the door, picking up the receiver on the wall next to it.

  ‘Da?’

  It was Anatoly, his childhood friend and now manager of his UK-based properties.

  ‘Miki, we have a problem,’ Anatoly said, speaking in Russian.

  ‘What sort of problem?’ Mikhail answered, also in the native tongue, knowing that Anatoly would not call unless it was a serious matter.

  ‘It’s connected with what we spoke about a couple of days ago.’

  Mikhail rubbed his brow. Why couldn’t Anatoly just get to the point? Had the stupid fuckers gone and got caught? Was there an evidence trail leading right back to him? Were the local gendarmes clambering on board a speedboat right at that moment?

  ‘What about it? Tell me.’

  ‘They brought in two new boys, to replace them. They’ve… they’ve escaped.’

  ‘Escaped? What do you mean escaped?’

  ‘I mean they escaped. They’re gone.’

  Mikhail gritted his teeth. He knew it had been wrong to take a holiday. This was exactly why he needed the time to relax — because he had fucking idiots in charge at home, which was precisely the reason why he needed to be there all the time to keep an eye on them.

  He knew there was no way this was sustainable. He was going to have to do something serious and final about that place. The last two boys had become a liability. They’d been pushing and probing too far, and it didn’t do to have that kind of atmosphere about the place.

  He couldn’t see why they’d wanted to cause trouble in the first place. They were given shelter, free accommodation and were kept safe from the real scumbags out on the streets. To him, of course, they were just a commodity and a means of making money, but he believed some people had to know their place in life. And this was theirs.

  When he’d given the order to get rid of them, he’d known the risks. Dead bodies have to be hidden somewhere, and there was always a risk of them being found. Still, he paid his men more than enough to ensure they did their job properly. And, if they didn’t, they’d be the next ones under six feet of earth — and he certainly made sure they knew that.

  ‘Find them,’ he said. ‘Find them and get rid of them.’

  ‘That would be very risky right now,’ Anatoly said.

  ‘It’s fucking risky to leave them running around the streets. You don’t know who they’re speaking to. Find them and get rid of them.’

  ‘What if they’ve already spoken to someone?’

  Mikhail considered this for a minute. If the boys had already told someone about the brothel and then ended up dead, it wouldn’t be difficult for a copper with half a brain cell to pull everything together. But, as things stood, he was already far too over-exposed. If it got out and was traced back to him, he’d be down for years anyway. Sometimes you had to go all-in if you wanted to build your chip stack back up again.

  ‘There’s something else,’ Anatoly said, taking a deep breath. ‘The last two. Our guys were disturbed. They heard sirens in the distance.’

  ‘Disturbed how?’

  Mikhail heard Anatoly sigh. ‘They didn’t do as thorough a job as they would’ve liked. It was… shallow. And exposed.’

  Mikhail had known Anatoly long enough to recognise in the tone of his voice when there was something he was holding back. ‘They’ve been found, haven’t they?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Mikhail felt the blood rising in his temples as he tried to push back his anger and think rationally, but it was far from easy. What was most important was ensuring silence. Even if the boys had already spoken, there was nothing anyone could do without witnesses in court. As long as they were taken care of long before then, things should still be safe.

  ‘Find the new boys. And take care of them.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Anatoly asked.

  ‘Yes. I’m sure. Get the same guys to do it. The guys who fucked it up last time. Make sure they know this is their last chance. Then, when they’ve done it, get rid of them too.’

  ‘Mikhail, that’s—’

  ‘Do it, Anatoly.’

  Anatoly had been friends with Mikhail for long enough to know when his friend was serious. Deadly serious.

  27

  Jack switched the radio off, rinsed his plate under the tap and checked the text message that had appeared on his phone.

  Had a great time last night. Hope to do it again soon. Cx

  He’d reply to her later. There was no use in looking desperate.

  ‘So, how did it go? Is that her?’ Emily said, gesturing to his phone, having just appeared in the doorway.

  Jack put his phone in the inside pocket of his suit jacket and picked up his mug of coffee. ‘It was fine.’

  ‘Fine? Is that it?’

  ‘It was just a chat with a friend, that’s all.’

  ‘And I’m supposed to believe that, am I?’ Emily replied, smiling.
r />   ‘You’re going to have to, because it’s the truth.’

  ‘Do you like her?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, if she wanted to take it further, would you?’

  Jack looked at his daughter and sighed. ‘I dunno. Maybe, yes. We’ll see.’

  ‘Have you told her that?’

  ‘No. And I’m not going to, either. Listen, I’ve got to get to work. I’ll see you later, alright?’

  Emily paused for a moment, then threw herself into a hug. ‘I’m so pleased for you, Dad.’

  ‘Shit, Emily!’ Jack said, jumping back, motioning to the coffee which was now dripping down the front of his jacket.

  ‘Damn, sorry. I was just trying to be nice. Listen, I’ll take it to the dry cleaners this morning. You get off to work — it’s going to be a nice day anyway, so you won’t need a jacket.’

  ‘I’ve got another one upstairs, I can—’

  ‘Forget it. It’s going to be too warm,’ she said, shoving him towards the door. ‘Now go. You’re going to be late.’

  ‘Yeah, and this is why I chose not to live with women.’

  ‘Let’s not get started on that one, eh?’ she said, giving her dad a kiss on the cheek. ‘Have a good day.’

  She watched as Jack walked up the drive and got into his car, before starting the engine and driving off to work. Back in the kitchen, she put her hand into Jack’s inside jacket pocket and pulled out his mobile phone.

  Perfect.

  28

  There were certain advantages to the Chief Constable having an office at Mildenheath Police Station. Whilst Jack’s immediate superiors were stationed up at Milton House, he could quite happily go straight above their heads to the Chief Constable when seeking guidance on operational matters.

  It wasn’t something his superiors were happy with, but in many ways it was easier than trying to argue the toss with Jack Culverhouse. They knew that if they refused permission for something he’d go and do it anyway, so at least this way he was Hawes’s problem and not theirs. Mildenheath was, to all intents and purposes, completely ignored by the rest of the county’s police service.