Death on Dartmoor

by Bernie Steadman

  Solomon walked slowly across the barn floor, swung the backpack carefully off his shoulders and placed it on the hay bale. He unzipped the main compartment and took out the glass jars one by one, lining them up on the earthen floor. He zipped the bag up, swung it back over his shoulders and turned to go.

  ‘Hold it there, Jew boy,’ said Garrett. He grabbed the backpack and threw Solomon onto a hay bale, then squeezed Solomon’s head with one hand until he squirmed and let out mewling sounds. ‘You and me are going to have a little talk, then you’re going to help me, and then we’re all going to be happy. Get it?’ To make sure he got it, Moss slapped Solomon twice round the face with an open palm. He was disappointed with the result. He expected tears at least. Jew boy was not quite there. ‘You taken something, arsehole?’ He pulled Solomon back up towards him and stared into his eyes. ‘Lights are on, no-one at fucking home,’ he said and dropped him back on the bale. ‘Now what am I gonna do?’

  ‘What do you mean,’ said Solomon rousing himself, ‘we’re going to have a little talk? Talk about what, Moss? I have to get back to my mum. She’s sick.’

  ‘A little talk about making the stuff, moron. ‘Cos I can’t risk any more stupid kids dying, and there’s something wrong with the recipe you gave me.’

  ‘No, no there isn’t.’ Solomon shuddered, sweat popping out on his forehead. ‘It was right, I swear. It was right, Moss. I wouldn’t mess you about, honest. A kid died, that’s bad.’

  ‘Too right, bad for business. So this time you can help, and we’ll get it right. Alright? Don’t have to rush back to your mummy now she’s in hospital, do you? So, give me a hand with the jars and we’ll head over there, now.’

  39

  In the van, Dan panicked and hit the button on his radio. ‘Whoa, he’s coming out now, and bringing Solomon with him. I never expected him to do this, I thought he’d go on his own. Sal, get ready to follow them, on my mark. Just give us a minute to get out of the van.’ He grabbed the laptop and gave Lizzie Singh the electronics. ‘Carry these,’ he said. ‘Over to you guys, now,’ he whispered to Sally’s team in the van.

  They leapt from the back door of the van in a quiet dash and jumped or climbed over the fence into the field opposite The Retreat. Dan shuffled across the field, keeping low to the ground until he was facing the main gates. He spoke to Lake on the radio. ‘Where are subjects?’

  ‘Subject One still in barn with subject Two. Subject Three has gone into the café. Subject Four still inside the house, possibly watching TV.’

  Dan told him about Moss’s plan to leave with Solomon, and then they waited. Nothing happened. He looked back at the others, ranged against the hedge, and shrugged.

  Oliver squatted on the damp grass, opened the laptop and watched the thermal images, becoming clearer as daylight failed. She waved frantically in Dan’s direction as his radio crackled.

  ‘One and Two on the move,’ said Lake.

  ‘Await instructions.’ Dan ran back across the field and knelt down next to Oliver who was watching the images on screen.

  ‘They’re not coming out,’ she said. ‘Look, they’re going across into the café.’

  Dan stared at her. What the hell was going on? Annie Garrett was in there. ‘All open channels, but silent from now on in. Only my voice. ER2, follow subjects at close range, but stay back. Try for visual on the café. Assume position, wait for us.’ He spoke to Sally’s team, waiting in the van. ‘Subjects One and Two are heading for the café, not off-site. Out you come, into the field.’

  He waited until Sally’s team joined him. He had to get over to the café and see what was happening. He turned to Oliver and Larcombe; ‘Ma’am, take your team and guard the cottage. Forced fast entry may be necessary. Only Merlin Garrett is in there. Secure it.’ She got up, grinned at him, tucked the laptop under her arm and beckoned her team. They crossed the field, opened the gate and entered through the same side gate as Nathan Solomon.

  Dan gave her a minute to get into position, then nodded at Bennett. ‘Search team go straight to the barn. Use the van’s bolt cutters to open the front gates wide. Wait outside the barn until we have served the warrant. You’ll hear that happening. Then get all the lights on and pull that barn apart until you find… well, whatever it is you find.’

  Sam Knowles leapt over the fence to get the bolt cutters from the back of the van. Dan waited in frustrated silence while the DC rummaged in the strongbox and Ben Bennett clucked his tongue.

  He glanced at Adam Foster. Should he put him in the barn for safe-keeping? No, he’d be okay with DC Lines to look after him. ‘Okay, the rest of you, with me. We’re going over the front gate or through it if Sam gets a move on. Straight over to join DS Lake at the café. Total radio silence. If we want evidence that will stick, we need to see, and hear, what’s going on in the café.’ He cast a glance over them, nodded, and set off at a low run to breach The Retreat’s gate well before Knowles had got it open.

  As soon as Dan reached the path which led visitors around the various animal pens, a security light crashed on above his head, flooding the area with harsh white light and illuminating the black-clad figures darting for cover. ‘Find cover and freeze,’ he whispered into his radio. ‘Security light should go out in a few seconds.’ His heart hammered in his chest. If the light had disturbed Garrett, all hell would break loose and he could end up with nothing. In the quiet – well relative quiet, he amended, as the motorway was still thrumming above their heads – he thought he could hear voices coming from the café.

  The security light dimmed and went out, leaving only the soft evening gloom. Once his vision improved, Dan negotiated a path towards the café avoiding the cottage windows, keeping below the level of the window sills. It was killing his quads and sore left foot. Behind him shuffled Sally and the rest of their team. Ahead, DC Lines gave a low whistle and shifted so they could see his position. He pointed them along a low hedge towards the café kitchen, where all the lights were on and blazed out into a small garden. Dan left the others to stay with Lines and dashed towards the back wall.

  DS Lake waited by the kitchen window. A patterned blind was pulled halfway down, obscuring the faces of the people inside. He nodded to Dan and moved aside so he could get as close as possible. He could hear voices. Moss Garrett, Nathan Solomon, and Annie Garrett. It took him a moment to process the information. Not Merlin. He was still in the cottage. Annie Garrett? Annie Garrett was making the drugs? Bloody hell.

  He lifted his head briefly and glanced into the kitchen. Solomon had his back to the door and was facing out towards the window. Moss leaned against the sink. There were measuring scales and jugs on the work top. Annie was closest to the kitchen door.

  Dan withdrew and made his way back to Lines and Oliver. She was sitting under the shelter of a shrub in the cottage garden, laptop open and listening to the conversation in the kitchen. Dan sat next to her and borrowed one of the earphones. He stuffed the tiny piece into his ear and listened.

  Solomon: I can’t remember the recipe, I told you, Moss. I already told you. (Sounds of sobbing)

  Moss Garrett: Yes, you can, you little shit, if you want your mother to wake up in that hospital. Otherwise she’ll have a little accident. (Sound of a kick and a yelp)

  Annie Garrett: Be reasonable, Nathan. All we want is to run that recipe by you again, then we can let you go. Look, you’ve got the death of that kid on your conscience. Why don’t you help us get it right so it doesn’t happen again?

  Solomon: (Sound of sniffles) I didn’t know you were making it, Mrs Garrett. What happened to Dani? She could do it. She had it right.

  Moss Garrett: Never you mind what happened to her. Ma can do it if she knows what she’s doing. Right, Ma?

  Annie Garrett: Right. So tell us what we need to know. Come over here and show me.

  Dan took the earphone out and whispered, ‘We can nail the pair of them if we do this right. Serve the warrant on Merlin, and make it as quiet as you can.’

 
Oliver nodded, unfolded her long legs and pushed herself up off the wet grass. ‘I’ll end up with piles if we have to do this too often,’ she said. She took the warrant from her inside pocket, sent Larcombe and a PC to secure the back door of the cottage, and took her fast entry expert round to the front.

  Dan waited until he heard the front door of the cottage creak open, and the bass rumble of Merlin Garrett’s voice, before he gestured to his team. ‘Right, Sally, go in through the front café door. It’ll probably be open, so don’t bang about. Secure the exit. My team will effect entry from here.’ Lake and one of his men slipped over to stand with Dan. They had the smaller battering ram ready to go.

  Lake told his armed officer to get down off the roof and take up a position opposite the café. Dan gave him a thumbs up, and moved back to the window so Lake could lead the initial charge towards the door.

  At the first crash of metal against wood, Dan watched shock register on Annie Garrett’s face. At the second bang, Lake, closely followed by Lines and Foster, crowded into the kitchen yelling at the three inside to stand still. Dan planned to enter last, which was a good decision, as Moss Garrett came hurtling through the kitchen window to land in a heap of glass and wood at his feet. ‘Out here,’ Dan shouted, knowing he didn’t stand a chance against Moss on his own.

  Garrett rolled onto his knees and attempted to push himself to his feet. A spurt of blood, garish in the light, ran from a long slash on his arm. ‘Shit,’ he gasped.

  Dan threw himself into Garrett’s side and tried to hold him down to the ground. Garrett shrugged the much lighter Dan off and got to his feet so Dan went for Garrett’s legs with his boot, intending to bring him back down. He’d got a good kick in when he heard a yell from the window ledge and Adam Foster jumped onto Garrett’s back.

  Foster hung on, breathing heavily as Garrett twisted round and rammed him into the café wall.

  Idiot, what does he think he’s doing? Dan aimed a better kick at Garrett’s knee and heard a crunch and a cry. He backed away as Garrett staggered under the weight of Adam Foster and went down onto one knee. Lake ran back out of the kitchen and aimed a savage kick at the side of Moss’s other thigh. Garrett dropped to the gravel, howling, and rolled onto his back before Foster could move.

  ‘Get off him, Foster!’ Dan shouted, too late. Adam lay pinned against the ground under the big man. He was squirming and panting, in real danger of being suffocated.

  Garrett reached into his jeans pocket, grabbed his knife, flicked it open and made a stab at Lake, who had his baton ready to attack. Lake crabbed back a couple of feet, baton ready if Garrett made a move. Dan positioned himself near the corner of the café, ready to block an escape attempt. He flicked a glance into the kitchen, where Annie Garrett stood, mouth agape, at the window.

  Garrett rolled his head around, looking for an escape route. Quickly, he reached one arm around his back, dragged the panting Foster out and held him in front of his body with one meaty arm pressed against the young PC’s throat. He held the knife out in his other hand. ‘Let me go, fuckwits, or I’ll hurt him.’

  Dan moved into Garrett’s line of vision. Foster’s eyes bulged. He was close to complete panic. ‘Garrett, listen to me,’ Dan said, as calmly as he could. He watched the blood pouring from Garrett’s arm onto Foster’s stab vest. If he kept Garrett talking long enough, he might collapse. ‘Enough now, you can’t get away, so give it up, man. Put that knife down and we’ll talk.’

  ‘Talk, fuzz? Talk?’ Garrett sneered at him. ‘Yeah, let’s talk.’ He swung the blade, six inches long and gleaming in the stark kitchen light, across to the front of Adam Foster’s pinned body. Grunting with the effort of directing the knife with his bleeding arm, Garrett slashed the blade along Foster’s throat, rolled the suddenly inert body onto the gravel, and reared up onto his undamaged knee, ready to run or fight.

  He didn’t get far. Lake’s single shout brought his armed officer into the little back garden. He pointed the weapon at Garrett’s chest and shouted, ‘Put the weapon down and lie on the floor. Now!’

  ‘Your choice, Garrett. Surrender, or end it here,’ said Dan, ‘and I don’t care which one you choose, fuckwit.’

  Garrett stared wildly, calculated the odds, and slumped face-first onto the gravel. He threw the knife into the vegetable patch.

  Dan called for two ambulances as Lake cuffed Garrett and cautioned him. Then he knelt beside Adam Foster and pressed his fingers against the wound. Not another one, he thought. Please God, not another one of my team dead. But Adam was conscious and the blood was a slow ooze, not a gush. The lad’s eyes stared up at him. That was a good sign, wasn’t it? Not a deep cut. Dan held onto Adam, like he’d held onto the dying Ian Gould, and prayed that he was right this time.

  40

  Inside the café kitchen, Annie Garrett stood at the kitchen window with both hands clasped to her face in horror. ‘Moss!’ she screamed. DC Lines attempted to get cuffs on her but she was strong. Much stronger than he expected. She rammed him back away from her so hard he bounced his head off the cupboard and slumped, dazed, to his knees.

  Annie whipped away and glared at a cowering Nathan Solomon with all the hatred she held inside her. ‘You. You told the police didn’t you? You little shit.’ Calmly, she picked up a jar of sulphuric acid, took the stopper out and flung it at Solomon. His screams ripped the air.

  She stood, mesmerised, as she watched the acid do its work.

  The rescue centre erupted in a cacophony of noise as terrified animals woke from sleep at the inhuman noise.

  Sally burst through from the front door, Lizzie Singh hot on her heels, and stared at the scene. ‘Oh, God! Lizzie, get cuffs on that woman.’ Sally shoved Annie Garrett hard against the sink with her shoulder and leaned into her with her whole body while Lizzie got the cuffs on.

  Annie Garrett shook herself out of her daze, pulled her arms around to her side as best she could, and started to scream, too. Some of the acid she’d thrown had dropped onto her own hand. DC Lines, recovered and embarrassed, bundled her towards the front door of the café, ignoring her noise.

  Sally yelled at him over her shoulder, ‘Get her hand under a tap,’ but she wasn’t sure he heard her. Then she turned to look at Nathan Solomon. ‘Help me get his clothes off,’ she shouted at Lizzie. Together they tore off his jacket and shirt.

  ‘I wish he’d shut up,’ muttered Lizzie, ‘I can’t think straight.’ The acid hadn’t seeped through to Solomon’s body, but his face was already red and blistering. ‘Shh,’ she tried.

  ‘Warm water,’ Sally told Lizzie. ‘Turn the tap on, warm it up, get his head and hands under there. Keep him there.’ She shook Nathan to stop him screaming and spoke into his face. ‘Nathan, you’ll be okay, but I have to get you under the water. Do you understand?’

  She didn’t wait for an answer, but got Lizzie to drag him over to the sink and hold her hand over Solomon’s nose as the water began to flow over his face and hands.

  ‘We have to get that acid off the floor,’ Sally said, and took tea towels from the drawers to mop up what she could without touching the liquid. She could track its quick progress through the floorboards and into the joists beneath. How much worse would the damage be to soft flesh?

  Where was Dan, and DS Lake? Sally turned to the smashed window. Dan, face ashen, was holding on to a limp, bleeding Adam Foster outside on the ground. ‘No,’ she cried, ‘not Adam. Oh, no…’ She scrambled back to the drawer and got more towels to pad Adam’s neck. She couldn’t even answer Lizzie when she asked what the problem was. ‘Just keep the water on him,’ she said, and ran to help.

  * * *

  Julie Oliver came around the back of the café at a run from the cottage as soon as she got the all clear. She took in the mess; Garrett slumped and bleeding under the care of Lake and his armed officer. Solomon, whimpering in the kitchen as water flowed over his burns, and young Adam Foster, with Dan holding a towel to his leaking throat. ‘What the..? Ambulances on their way,’ s
he said. ‘What can I do?’

  Dan stood up and let Sally take over Foster’s care. He tore off his blood-soaked gloves and dropped them with the blood-soaked towel into a plastic bag, then took Oliver away from the noise into the far corner of the kitchen garden. His teeth chattered. ‘I… I think he’ll be okay,’ he said, unable to look at her. ‘At least he’s conscious. Jesus, what a night.’ His legs, jittery from adrenaline overload, twitched in a crazy dance.

  ‘I hope so,’ said Oliver, eyeing Moss Garrett, now prostrate and cuffed on the ground. ‘His leg doesn’t look right,’ she said. ‘But let’s not worry about him.’ She watched Lizzie talking softly to Solomon, whose whimpers had died away as the water took the burning heat away. ‘What about Solomon?’

  Dan scrubbed at his hair. ‘I don’t know. It’s such a mess. We didn’t protect him at all. And after all I promised him. No wonder he doesn’t trust us.’

  ‘Oi, stop that,’ Oliver said, shaking his arm hard. ‘Time for blaming ourselves later. Let’s sort out the mess as best we can, eh? Take a breath, Dan, it’ll be okay. Singh’s doing the right thing. Water is the best thing for sulphuric acid.’ She shook her head, ‘Vindictive old bitch, Annie Garrett, isn’t she?’

  ‘What about Merlin? What does he know?’ she asked.

  ‘Swears blind he knows nothing about it and I’m inclined to believe him. No love lost in that family. I just can’t get my head round Annie Garrett making the drugs. They must have been desperate.’

  ‘Apparently so. We need to locate this Dani woman Solomon mentioned, and find out what happened there. Looks like Annie stood in for her, and cocked up the recipe.’