Bones In the River

by Zoe Sharp

  “Dammit!”

  Her sudden exclamation made him stiffen and whirl. She’d slopped the dregs of her coffee over the papers. He grabbed a tea towel, helped stem the tide and blot out the worst of the stains.

  “Thanks, love.” She let out an annoyed breath. “So much for me looking all professional as new Deputy Head.”

  “Ah, don’t worry about it. Back when I was at school, the English teacher would send back my homework covered in fag ash and cat hair half the time.”

  “Well, those days are long gone.” She dabbed a kiss on his cheek. “We don’t write with chalk on slate anymore, either.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Very funny.”

  He finished his coffee standing with his back to the sink while she scurried round gathering books, bag, and keys. He followed her to the front door to wave her off. She was still distracted by her own clumsiness, for which he was grateful, but as she blipped the locks on her four-by-four she seemed to register the otherwise empty driveway and her gaze sharpened.

  “Where’s your car?”

  He jerked his head to the garage. “Put it away.”

  She frowned. “I wouldn’t have thought it was worth it by the time you got back. Must have been a late one.”

  “It was a bit, I s’pose. But…old habits.”

  He saw her shrug it off, her mind already on the day ahead. She gave him another distracted peck on the cheek and climbed into the driver’s seat. He heard the voice of the local radio disc jockey boom out before the engine fired. She gave him a last brisk wave as she reversed off the driveway.

  After she was gone, he stepped back, closed the door and sagged against the wall just inside.

  How do people do it? How do they act normal and live with what they’ve done, day after day?

  He made another careful check around the car before he set off for work himself. For once, the morning playlist on Classic FM on the way in failed to soothe him.

  In the main car park, he left his vehicle nose to the wall, just in case there was something he’d missed, strode quickly into the office and hung his jacket on the back of the door. The day was already warm and looked like being warmer still before lunchtime.

  The phone on his desk began to ring before his computer had a chance to fire up. The hesitation before he reached for the receiver was momentary but he was aware of it, even so.

  As he picked up, he injected as much authority into his voice as he could manage.

  “Good morning, Head CSI Chris Blenkinship. What can I do for you?”

  Part II

  Wednesday

  4

  “All right, lads, listen up.”

  In the relatively short time Nick Weston had been with Cumbria Constabulary he’d never heard Detective Inspector Pollock begin a morning briefing any other way, regardless of the gender mix of his audience. And if any of the female officers present felt undermined by his collective terminology they never called him on it, so who was Nick to make waves?

  He had learned to keep his head down.

  Fitting in with his colleagues was still an ongoing process. Although he’d earned a bit of grudging respect from those around him over the events of last summer, it was going to take more time than he’d first thought to become an accepted member of the team.

  “I don’t think I need to remind you that Thursday sees the start of this year’s Appleby Horse Fair,” Pollock went on.

  A collective groan went up. For weeks now, Nick knew that those further up the food chain had been grappling with the plan for handling the largest gathering of Gypsies and Travellers in Europe. Pollock’s boss, Superintendent Waingrove, had been put in charge of co-ordinating the police response. Nick hadn’t had much contact with Waingrove—lowly detective constables did not mingle with the high-ups on a regular basis—but rumour had it she’d been breathing down everyone’s neck to put the agreed plan into effect on the ground.

  “So, I also don’t have to remind you that nobody’s getting a day off or pulling a sickie until it’s all over, right?”

  One of the other DCs, Yardley, shot a hand up. “Erm, sir—?”

  “I know, lad, I know—your missus is about to pop. Well, if she does, she does, and it can’t be helped. But tell her I’d take it as a personal favour if she’d keep her legs crossed for another week, if it’s all the same to her.”

  There were a few guffaws. Somebody slapped Yardley on the shoulder hard enough to almost knock him off the corner of his desk. Pollock let them settle.

  “Uniform are bearing the brunt on the run-up, as always, but intel we’ve received from other forces suggests drug gangs are going to be operating on the periphery of the Fair, as well as sellers of fake or stolen leather goods. And the latest whisper is of a serious falling-out between two rival groups of Travellers, who are aiming to settle their feud—if that’s what it is—in a bare-knuckle fight to be held some time over the weekend.”

  “Well then, sir,” Yardley put in, “can’t we just let them sort it out for themselves?”

  Pollock regarded him from beneath unkempt eyebrows. A big man, he had the look of a brawler himself, although Nick understood that any tendencies in that regard had been exhausted on the rugby pitch, and twenty years ago at least.

  “If I thought it would stay one-on-one, I might be tempted, lad,” Pollock admitted now. “But as we well know, these things have a habit of getting a bit out of hand. And this year we’ve got the added problem that they’ve lost their Shera Rom.”

  Pollock’s eyes flicked towards him but before his DI could launch into any explanations, Nick said, “Their head man, sir, yes.” He risked a small smile. “We came across our share of Gypsies down south.”

  Pollock nodded. “Last one was a good bloke, by and large—Hezekiah Smith. Had a reputation for not suffering fools at all, never mind gladly. He wasn’t keen on us interfering but if we had a real problem with somebody and we dropped a word in his ear… Well, let’s just say they tended to get put in their place, one way or another.”

  “What happened to him, sir?”

  “Old age, lad. Same as happens to most of us, sooner or later—if we’re lucky. I understand he was hoping to make this his last Fair but he died about a month back. As far as we know, nobody as yet has emerged as his real successor. So, it means that minor trouble he would have kept a lid on in previous years might just blow up in our faces this time. Rightly or wrongly, the Powers That Be have decided to take the ‘iron fist in velvet glove’ approach, so keep that in mind, eh?”

  There were general nods and Pollock began assigning tasks. When he got to Nick, he said, “Right, lad, I want you down in Kirkby Stephen—a kid’s bicycle has been found trashed in a skip put out for the Gypsies who were camped on the road toward Garsdale Head.”

  Nick’s heart sank. He didn’t miss the sly grins aimed in his direction.

  “Yessir,” he said, expressionless.

  “Don’t be like that. This is exactly the kind of thing that needs stamping on before the rumour mill gets going,” Pollock said sharply. “Because that kid’s bike, it appears to have blood on it.”

  5

  Halfway along the Mallerstang valley road, Grace McColl processed the bicycle and tried very hard not to think about the child who had been riding it—or what might have become of them.

  Instead, she concentrated on the procedure, her hands taking her through the familiar ritual, as calming as a meditation.

  She had placed the dull gold-coloured bike on a piece of plastic sheeting on the grass near the skip in which it had been found. It lay isolated in the centre, the white space around it emphasising its size—or lack of it.

  Throughout her training, they had warned her it would be the cases involving children that would affect her the most. But Grace had come late to the job of Crime Scene Investigator, after the demise of her childless marriage. Perhaps those extra years allowed her enough maturity to maintain a certain detachment.

  “I thought it were paint or oil
or something on it at first, like,” said the man who’d been driving the skip lorry. He watched her work from ten or so feet away, nervously twisting a rag in his hands. Grace had already swabbed them and taken samples as well as his prints. She’d had to tell him more than once that this was purely for elimination—not because they seriously thought he might be involved.

  “When did you realise it was blood?” she asked.

  “Soon as I put it down. You could smell it and, this weather, there was the flies…”

  “Where was the bicycle, when you got here?”

  “It were shoved down that side of the skip,” the man said, starting forward. “Just behind the—”

  “If you wouldn’t mind staying outside the tape, Mr Felton,” Grace said gently. “There might be boot prints I haven’t yet got to.”

  “Oh, aye, right you are. Sorry, lass. I’ve got grandkids, see—six and eight. Grow like weeds at that age, don’t they? That’s why I thought… It’s fair upset me, this, I don’t mind admitting it.”

  “It would upset anyone,” Grace agreed.

  Normally, she would have started at the perimeter and worked her way inward. But the priority here was to identify to whom the bicycle belonged, and where that person—that child—might be. The uniforms who were first on scene had already done a sweep of the immediate area. They had now gone to enquire at the nearest farm building just further up the valley.

  “I’ve found all sorts in skips, over the years,” Felton said suddenly, seizing on the familiar. “Never ceases to amaze me, what folk will chuck out—you wouldn’t credit it. A full set of original window shutters once; half-a-dozen of those big old cast-iron radiators. Even a rocking horse—still had its horsehair tail.”

  Grace photographed a close-up of dark transfer on the bike’s mangled front forks. Paint? No…plastic. From a bumper, perhaps.

  She scraped a sample into an evidence bag, sealed it and scribbled a note before asking, over her shoulder, “Doesn’t your boss mind you cherry-picking what gets put into the skips?”

  Felton grinned, uneven teeth under a tobacco-stained moustache, and stabbed a thumb toward his own chest. “Aye, but I take no notice of me’self.”

  “Ah, no offence intended.”

  “None taken, lass. I tried sitting in the office all day but paperwork, it’s not really my thing. Me daughter handles all that now.” His pride was obvious. “She leaves me to do what I’m suited to—pick-ups and drop-offs. Anything that might be a bit problematic, like, I do them me’self.”

  Grace raised an eyebrow as she met his gaze. “Were you expecting this particular collection to be difficult?”

  Felton returned her look without embarrassment. “With this lot, you never know,” he said stoutly. “There have been times, in the past. I mean, I sent one of the lads to pick up a ten-yarder from right here a couple of years back and—”

  “A ‘ten-yarder’?”

  “Holds ten cubic yards, same as this one.”

  “Ah, right. I’m sorry, do go on.”

  “Well, it didn’t look overladen, like, so he doesn’t bother putting the legs down on the truck—thinks he’ll get the job done quick and grab himself a bit of lunch and a pint at the Black Bull down the road. Only, when he hooks up the chains and starts lifting, the thing’s so heavy it pulls the front end of the truck clear off the ground. Turns out it was full of engine blocks, hidden at the bottom, like. Ruddy great big diesel engine blocks—out here, I ask you?” He jerked his head to the surrounding hills and walled fields with barely a house in sight. “Where on earth did they get hold of those? That’s what I’d like to know. And how on earth did a bunch of Gypsies get them here, with nowt but a load of horses and carts, in the first place?”

  On her way to Mallerstang, Grace had driven past several garages which claimed to specialise in agricultural or commercial vehicle engines, but she thought it best not to speculate. Likely as not, Mr Felton did not expect answers to his questions.

  She turned the bicycle upside-down, balanced on its handlebars and seat, and inspected the underside of the frame and the crank for an identification number. There was nothing on the rear chain stays or the headstock. At the base of the seat tube, she found a label that had been painted over. Whether this was because the painter couldn’t be bothered to remove it, or a deliberate attempt to conceal the number, she wasn’t sure. Although, judging by the quality of the paint job, she’d plump for the former rather than the latter.

  She sighed and stepped back. As she did so, Grace noticed another label underneath the bicycle’s seat. Someone had tried unsuccessfully to remove it, but there was part of a logo still visible. She raised the Canon to her eye and worked the zoom lens to get a better view.

  Ah…

  The sound of a car fast approaching from the direction of Kirkby Stephen brought her head up. The engine note was raspy and distinctive, and clearly not out for a leisurely drive.

  A flash of bright blue appeared around a corner in the narrow road, the driver blipping the throttle as he changed gear for the short stretch of downhill before the cattle grid leading onto the open ground.

  “Ruddy boy racer,” Mr Felton surmised.

  Recognising the car, Grace smiled, more pleased than perhaps she should have been. “Oh, without doubt,” she agreed. “But fortunately, that’s not all he is.”

  6

  Nick parked his Subaru Impreza WRX behind Grace’s dusty Nissan pick-up and the truck that must have come to collect the overflowing skip. It was on a wide flat area of grass, open on both sides of the narrow road. Far to the right he could see the curve of the River Eden. To the left was rugged rising ground, the grass yellowed and coarse.

  The last time Nick had cause to travel this road, he remembered, it had not ended well. As he climbed out of the car, he could not suppress a shiver, despite the blustery sunshine. He eyed the far hills as if expecting to see the glint of reflection from the scope of a sniper’s rifle.

  Nick shook himself and walked across the road to where the crime-scene tape fluttered from slightly drunken rebar uprights surrounding the skip. He did not attempt to go closer. An older man wearing a shirt bearing the logo of the skip hire company watched him approach and gave him a cautious nod in greeting.

  “Morning,” Nick said.

  “You a copper, then?”

  “That’s right.” Nick unfolded his warrant card. “DC Weston, sir. And you are?”

  “Name’s Felton. That’s my skip.”

  Nick glanced at the empty grassland, noting several blackened rings of stones that indicated recent campfires. “What time did you turn up to collect it?”

  Felton shrugged. “About seven, I s’pose. First job on the sheet and I like to get a head start on the day before the traffic gets bad.” His lips twisted below the moustache. “Hard to credit it, out here, but get behind one of them horse-drawn caravans on the A66 and the queues back up for miles.”

  “Was anybody else here when you arrived?”

  “No, there wasn’t, as a matter of fact.”

  “You sound surprised.”

  “Aye, I s’pose I was, a bit. They’re not allowed onto the field at Appleby until a couple of days before the Fair. And you lot have clamped down on ’em clogging up the verges—quite rightly, of course,” he added hastily. “They used to line both sides of the main road all the way from Kirkby Stephen up to Brough and that’s a quick bit of road. Not safe when there’s dogs and kiddies and ponies all over the shop. This is a good pitch—common land, see? What with fresh water, plenty of grazing and somewhere to dump their rubbish, I wouldn’t have expected ’em to move on until they were ready to go straight to the Fair.”

  He went silent but Nick could almost hear the accusatory question lurking on Mr Felton’s tongue.

  “Why up sticks unless you’ve summat to hide?”

  The man may well have spoken the words aloud but at that moment a warbling ringtone began, somewhere in the vicinity of his back pocket. Felton rol
led his eyes at Nick and fumbled for his phone, turning toward his truck as he answered the call.

  Nick left him to it.

  “Morning, Grace. What’ve you got for me?”

  She straightened. A tall, elegant figure, even in cargo trousers and a sleeveless T-shirt. She wore her long red hair in a loose plait at the nape of her neck but strands of it blew around her face. She pushed them back behind her ear with a gloved hand and shifted the bulky Canon camera onto its shoulder strap.

  “Hello Nick, I’m glad you’ve turned up.” Just when he might have made too much of that, she added, “I could do with a hand, if you wouldn’t mind?”

  “Sure. What do you need?”

  “I don’t suppose you have a blanket or a coat in your car—something heavy—thick, anyway—and dark?”

  “I’ve got a waterproof in the boot, if that would do?”

  “Please.”

  He fetched the waxed-cotton jacket and held it out to her but she lifted the crime-scene tape and beckoned him under it.

  “I need you to hold it for me, too.”

  “Well, I don’t see any puddles to drape it over—nor any maddened bulls to fend off. What’s this in aid of, Grace?”

  “The sun’s too strong to see a UV light. I need you to create a bit of shade.”

  “I see,” Nick said blankly.

  But he allowed her to direct him to drape the jacket over the frame of the bicycle while she huddled underneath the cloth, light in one hand and camera in the other. Nick tried not to look at the mangled front end, the buckled wheel and sprung spokes.

  His daughter, little Sophie, was almost five. She was desperate for a proper bicycle to replace her old trike, and alternated between pleading and tantrums as part of her ongoing campaign. The prospect of her being out on it anywhere near traffic had Nick frankly terrified.

  After a minute or so, Grace emerged. Her face was flushed but whether with exertion, triumph, or simply the heat, he couldn’t tell. He folded the jacket over his arm.