Bones In the River

by Zoe Sharp

  “Yes, sir,” Nick said but knew there was still doubt in his tone. “How is Vano Smith connected to the missing kid?”

  “We don’t know, and the last thing we want to do right now is start accusations flying and a witch-hunt, understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Pollock eyed him a moment longer, as if checking his sincerity, before he continued. “Prints that came back to Smith were found on Jordan Elliot’s bicycle.”

  “So, he might have been the one who ran him down?”

  “No. And that’s exactly the kind of leap we’re trying to avoid. All we know is that, at some point between young Jordan going out on his bike, and it turning up in that skip the following morning, Vano Smith handled it.”

  “Do we know where Smith is?”

  “We’ve had FLO going over the footage our lads have shot so far of people getting to Appleby. She was able to identify Smith’s caravan arriving there earlier today. He’s currently camped on Fair Hill for the duration.”

  Pollock’s shorthand almost had Nick asking who on earth Flo was before he realised the DI was referring to the Fair Liaison Officer. Instead, he asked, “When you say ‘caravan’ do you mean horse-drawn? If so, it would have been difficult for him to have knocked Jordan off his bicycle.”

  “Aye, but not impossible. Besides, his home address comes back as Sheffield and he has several commercial vehicles registered in his name. He could easily have trailered everything up to one of the outlying areas and Dobbin’d in from there. In fact, what better way to hide the evidence? If, as I say, there’s any evidence to be hidden.”

  “So we’re picking him up are we?”

  Pollock shook his head, almost regretfully. “A missing kid… Feelings are likely to run hot with this one. Word has come down from on high that we’re to take a very softly-softly approach. So, that means someone has to go and beard the lion in his den, as it were. Have a quiet word and see if we can get his story as to how his prints got on the kid’s bike, without kicking off a bloody riot in the process.”

  Nick sighed. “And you’ve called me in because…?”

  “Aye, lad.” Pollock’s smile widened to a shark-like grin. “You’re the lucky bugger who gets to volunteer for the job.”

  20

  Blenkinship parked up again, as far away from prying eyes as he could manage, and switched off the engine. His hands trembled where they rested on the steering wheel.

  How the hell did I forget about the dash-cam…?

  He knew exactly how, of course. He’d never bothered with one for his personal car. Well, if you were a half-decent driver, on the ball, you didn’t need one, did you? He’d tried to talk Susanne into a dash-cam for her car last Christmas, though. Her four-by-four was always picking up new knocks and dents in the school car park. She blamed the students. Blenkinship privately thought the teachers were more likely to be the guilty ones. Some of them were too dozy to survive out in the real world.

  He glanced over, remembering bitterly of the care he’d taken to make sure the workshop positioned the camera so it wasn’t in his line-of-sight when he was driving. It had a permanent display running on the back of the unit that he’d found irritating. This one was tucked away to the left of the rear-view mirror.

  He knew they had run him through the basics of how it worked at the time, but the whole idea of them was, he recalled, that it was a fit-and-forget device. It came on and went off again with the ignition, unless something bumped the car when it was parked up. The unit could be unplugged and stowed in the glove box if you found yourself in a really rough area, but otherwise you left them alone and…forgot about them.

  Unless you had an accident.

  Blenkinship felt the prickle of sweat forming at his temples. He wiped his forehead, took a deep breath.

  Stay calm, man and just think for a moment…

  He knew the camera had a memory card that stored the video input. And that it worked on a continuous loop, over-writing the oldest footage with new. But he couldn’t for the life of him bring to mind how long that loop might last.

  And it was almost certain to go back weeks, rather than days.

  In which case…

  Blenkinship undid his seatbelt and flung it aside so abruptly the metal tongue clattered against his driver’s window. He ignored it, leaned across and yanked the camera from the front screen. It was attached to a suction mount that peeled away from the glass, leaving a grubby ring behind like the stain from an old coffee cup.

  He dropped the camera into his lap and fumbled with the casing until part of it flipped open to reveal the memory card inside. When he thumbed it out, he registered the capacity of it and did a rough calculation.

  He’d been right—this thing could store weeks of video. Every journey was recorded. Every time he’d parked on double-yellow lines when he wasn’t strictly on official business. Every time he’d overtaken where perhaps he shouldn’t have done, or crept over the speed limit—OK, ignored them completely—or committed any other minor driving offence.

  Or any major one, come to that.

  He plucked the memory card out of its slot. He needed to replace it and get rid of the old one, and the sooner the better.

  Blenkinship dug out his cellphone and stabbed his thumb on one of the speed-dial numbers, waited with barely suppressed impatience while the line connected and rang out. He had the card between his forefinger and thumb, end on, amazed how hard he had to squeeze the apparently flimsy plastic casing for it even to flex in the middle, never mind break. He was probably going to have to take a hammer to it.

  “Good morning. This is CSI Frost. How can I—?”

  “Yeah, never mind all that, Ty. Where are you, right now?”

  “Er, who’s that?”

  “It’s Blenkinship, you moron. Who d’you think it is?”

  “Oh, er, sorry, boss. It didn’t sound like you at all,”

  “That’s as maybe. Where are you?”

  “Er, in the office, boss. I’m just working on—”

  “Do you have any spare memory cards?”

  “What for?”

  “Never mind what for!” Blenkinship squawked. “It doesn’t bloody matter what—”

  “Hey, steady on, boss, I didn’t mean it like that,” Frost managed to break in. “I just meant, you know, what’s it going into—so I can check I’ve got the right sort.”

  “Oh, why didn’t you say so right off, eh?” Blenkinship grumbled. “It’s, er, for a dash-cam. Mine’s…stopped working.”

  “Ah, well, they changed from Mini SD to Micro SD halfway through the model year. Or it could be—”

  Blenkinship let out an audible groan.

  “Why don’t you pop in next time you’re passing and I’ll swap it for you,” Frost suggested quickly. “Easier all round.”

  Well, why didn’t you damn well say that to start off with? But out loud he forced a smile into his voice and said, “Ah, thanks, Ty. Sit tight. I’m here right now, as it happens. I’ll be with you in just a minute.”

  And it wasn’t much more than a minute or two later that Blenkinship strode into the CSI office, making Ty Frost jerk guiltily in his chair. He was more of a computer geek than a crime-scene specialist, but Blenkinship was prepared to overlook his inexperience in the field in the face of his expertise when it came to tracing digital evidence.

  Now, he took one brief look at the card still clasped between Blenkinship’s finger and thumb and dived in a desk drawer, pulling out a tiny clear plastic case.

  “There you go, boss. That’s the one you need. If you give me the camera, I’ve got a charging lead here. I’ll check it’s all formatted for you.”

  Blenkinship handed over the camera but kept hold of the original card. With one eye on Frost, he moved casually nearer to Grace McColl’s desk, gaze skimming over the paperwork stacked there.

  “Where’s Grace this morning?” he asked, all innocence.

  “Oh, in the workshop, I think—processing the kid’
s bicycle. Did she tell you we got a positive match on one set of the prints she managed to lift?” Frost asked. Without taking his eyes from what he was doing, he waved a hand toward one of the in-trays. “They came back to one of the Gypsies, here for the Horse Fair. So, accident or not, it looks like there’ll be trouble over this one.”

  Blenkinship took a breath to hide the adrenaline that crashed through his system at Frost’s initial statement. He reached for the report Frost had indicated. His hands were shaking again, to the extent that he fumbled the papers. Some of them fanned onto the desktop. He gathered them together quickly, glad the other man was too wrapped up in his task to notice.

  “Gypsies, eh? Well, no surprises there.”

  “Mm, a guy called Vano Smith. He’s got a bit of previous form, although nothing like this.”

  “Ah well, they tend to escalate over time, most criminals.”

  Frost didn’t look convinced. He studied the view-screen on the rear of the camera for a moment longer, then powered it down and unplugged it.

  “There you go, boss. Good as new.”

  “Thanks, Ty.” Blenkinship hesitated a moment, then joined the dots from Nick Weston to Grace McColl, and from Grace to Ty Frost and back again. “I, er, only realised it wasn’t working because that bloody southern DC, Weston, came into the car park like it was the Monaco street circuit and thumped the front end of my car,” he said. “If he thinks I’m going to take the blame for him driving like a lunatic, though, he’s got another think coming, eh?”

  “Oh, er, yeah, too right, boss.”

  It was only when Blenkinship was almost at the front entrance that he realised he no longer had the old memory card in his hand. He turned back, aware of the beat of his own pulse in his ears.

  When he got back to the CSI office, Frost was on the phone. Blenkinship stood for a moment or so but it was clearly a call that was not going to be over quickly. He cleared his throat and mimed what he was looking for. Frost merely tapped the metal rubbish bin next to his desk with the toe of his shoe.

  Blenkinship hesitated a second longer. He was aware that he was making too much of this. Had probably done so already.

  Frost looked up, frowning.

  Blenkinship showed his teeth, designed to reassure but not quite managing to do so, then waved and left again.

  As long as the memory card had been thrown away, what did it matter?

  Ty Frost was still frowning about Blenkinship’s odd behaviour when he finally put down the phone about ten minutes later. He’d found the old memory card just after the Head CSI had departed. It was on the corner of Grace’s desk, the casing slightly displaced from the abuse it had suffered at Blenkinship’s hand.

  Automatically, Ty dropped it into the bin. Leaving corrupted devices around was asking for trouble.

  Maybe that’s why he wanted it back?

  Ty had never been Chris Blenkinship’s biggest fan when he was simply another CSI. Now the big man was…well, the big man, he liked him even less. Nick Weston, on the other hand, had put his neck on the line for Grace the previous summer, when no-one else had the balls to do so.

  So, if there was anything on that memory card that might show Nick was not to blame for the accident Blenkinship mentioned, well, it might be worth a bit of his time to find out.

  He bent and retrieved the memory card, spent a moment pressing the casing back into shape. Before he could slide it into the card reader on his desk, however, the phone rang again. Ty dropped the card into his desk drawer as he listened to the caller, pulling a notebook toward him to scribble down the details.

  By the time that call was over, his mind had moved to other things. Absently, he pushed the desk drawer closed and turned his attention back to his work.

  21

  There were times Queenie hated the Fair as much as she loved it.

  Oh, she loved seeing old friends—people who’d known her father, even those who still remembered her mother, and would speak of them fondly. She loved meeting again the giggling girls she’d grown up alongside, now matured into women with children of their own.

  She loved the tradition of being among her own people and being together in force, drawn from all corners of Europe and across the Irish Sea, like Bartley’s folk. And having gorgios by the thousand lured by the spectacle—come to admire them rather than to drive them out.

  She loved to stroll among the many traders and see the glitter of the goods they brought to bargain over. But most of all she loved seeing the horses that came to be flashed and dealt.

  Her brother Vano had always had a special way about him with the horses. There wasn’t one foaled that he couldn’t tame. And if he managed with sweat and struggle what Queenie herself could achieve with a quiet word and a calming touch, well, nobody thought any less of him for it—nor any more of her.

  But what she hated about the Fair, she hated in measure enough to cancel out the rest of it. She hated what it did to her men.

  Every year, she had seen it in her father, as the gathering began. His manner hardened. She went from being daughter, friend and confidante, to his servant, a lesser being in his eyes.

  All year, she had been the one who cooked his meals, cleaned the wagon, and washed and mended his clothes—her brother’s, too, until he took a wife. And all year Hezekiah had seemed to recognise it was not simply her duty but her pleasure to do so. Her choice. But come Fair time, that changed.

  It became all she was fit for.

  And now she saw the same in Bartley, who was a good man overall, grown from the cocky lad who’d befriended and charmed her. Once, she’d seen him as a friend. The possibility of him becoming something else had seemed absurd. How could he, when her heart was already taken?

  How things change.

  Bartley had been there when Queenie had needed him most. He’d stood for her—stood up for her. And when he’d set himself to woo her, she’d been in no fit mind to refuse. She’d fallen to him as salvation.

  But since her father had passed, it seemed he’d determined to take on more than just the old man’s mantle, but his manner, too.

  He hadn’t discussed with her the idea of him throwing his hat into the ring to become the new Shera Rom. Hadn’t asked what she thought, or even if she minded him challenging her brother. By the time she found out, the die was cast and it was more trouble than it was worth to speak out against her husband.

  Bartley was many things. A wheeler dealer who could cut the line thinner than was good for him. A man who liked the drink more than the drink liked him. A man who fought and loved with equal fervour, so that sometimes there was little to choose between the two. A stubborn mule when he felt in the right. A sentimental fool when he knew he’d got it wrong.

  A husband who knew her secrets, who held her when she cried, loved their children equally, more than life itself and who would do whatever it took to protect them.

  She’d once thought she would feel nothing ever again. Bartley had made her feel many things since the day they wed, from the deepest sorrow to a joy she thought had gone forever.

  But he’d never made her feel like property before. Not until he’d mentioned them all in one breath, as he had this morning at the farm.

  “Queenie!”

  The voice calling her name brought her head up suddenly. She realised she was amid rows of stalls selling extravagant furniture, mostly in diamanté-studded white leather, shrouded in clear plastic against the muddy ground from the recent rain. She had little memory how she’d got there. The sun was climbing fast, the sweat already sticking her blouse to her back. Yesterday’s thunderstorm had done little to ease the heaviness. She flushed, aware of looking a little bedraggled when all around her were at such pains to be worthy of the show.

  And show it was. Not just a time for catching up but a time for catching, too. When the boys strutted and the girls fluttered and many a match was made.

  The old man who’d called her name called again, offering condolences on her father’s pas
sing. Queenie accepted with a quiet dignity, solemn as the occasion befit. She asked after relations, and relations of relations. It was a trick of memory she’d possessed since she was a chi, when it was brought out almost as a party trick. The old man nodded his appreciation and asked after Bartley, as if the approval transferred to Queenie’s husband by default.

  A customer to the man’s stall gave Queenie the chance to slip away. She ducked out of the lane, between two vans with rear doors open and the stock piled up high. Trade at the Fair was always brisk.

  As she weaved between the vehicles in the traders’ parking area, a sudden clanging thud nearby made her start.

  But not as much as the words that followed.

  “Now there you are, Bartley Smith—as if taking that name’s going to keep you from what’s coming, eh?”

  Queenie froze, flattened herself against the side of a horse trailer and slid an eye to the corner, peeping round. Across the grass, two men had Bartley hemmed in between car and van while a third loomed over him.

  It was no secret that Bartley had become a Smith when they’d married. A sign of commitment to her father, she was told, proof that he was gaining a son, not losing a daughter. She’d never heard of it causing him trouble. Not like this.

  It wasn’t hard to recognise the big man. Name of Jackson, he was close to seven feet, a shovel-handed brawler, who made money from other Romany and unwary gorgios alike in bare-knuckle brawls. More by betting on the outcome than from the purse, from what Queenie knew.

  But what does Bartley have to do with him?

  Jackson leaned in, angling his jaw as if to take a bite out of Bartley’s throat. She saw Bartley tense, then relax as the big man stilled a hairs-breadth away to whisper in his ear. Frustrated, Queenie darted closer, gripping the chains at her throat so even the tinkle of her jewellery didn’t give her away.

  Oh, watch him, Bartley. Watch his hands—

  Moving faster than a man of his size ought to, Jackson whipped back a fist and drove it up and under Bartley’s ribcage on the left-hand side. Her husband gave a great explosive whumph of sound as the air was blasted from his body. She would swear the force of the blow lifted him to his toes before he began to sag.