Nine Elms: The thrilling first book in a brand-new, electrifying crime series (Kate Marshall 1)

by Robert Bryndza

Victoria wiped her eyes and got up from the chair. She turned her back to Kate and started to lift her long jumper and the corner of a T-shirt underneath. ‘It’s stretched over the years as I’ve got bigger, but this is where one of them bit me.’

  There was a scar in the shape of a bite mark. The skin was puckered around a clear impression of teeth.

  ‘Peter Conway,’ said Kate.

  Victoria turned and sat again. ‘But I never saw his face . . . I had bruising around my neck afterwards – I think they tried to strangle me.’

  ‘Yes, the photos show that,’ said Kate softly.

  ‘What happens now?’ asked Victoria, suddenly starting to panic. ‘Does he know you have the photos?’

  Kate explained how she’d got the photos, and told Victoria that she would call the police, and they would need to take a full statement, with the photos as evidence.

  ‘We have the originals, and the negatives,’ said Kate. ‘Please talk to the police about this. Put it on record.’

  It was late afternoon when Kate and Tristan left Victoria’s house. Kate had contacted Varia, who had a team of officers come and talk to Victoria and take a statement. Victoria’s story was another shocking revelation for Kate.

  ‘What happens now?’ asked Tristan.

  ‘I hope they talk to Paul Adler. It makes me wish we were police officers. I’d love to be the one to knock on his door and haul him in for questioning.’

  As they drove, Kate felt torn, and the guilt came back. She wanted to continue with their investigations, but then she thought about Jake coming, and wanted nothing more than to spend time with him.

  Kate dropped Tristan at his flat.

  ‘I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to go and clean my house and get ready for Jake.’

  ‘Okay, keep in touch,’ he said.

  Kate went shopping at the supermarket, loading up on food for Jake’s stay. As she drove back to her house, she glanced in her rear-view mirror a few times. There was a car, two cars back, she was sure had been behind her on the way to the supermarket. But, then again, she hadn’t been watching closely. Was this a manifestation of her anxiety? Or was she being watched?

  Just as she thought this, the car turned off before she could get a good look at the driver. Kate shook the thought away, but still felt an unease in her stomach.

  CHAPTER 56

  Kate was excited to see Glenda and Jake when they arrived at 3 p.m. the following day. It had been a long car journey, so she took them straight down to the beach for a walk.

  It was a sunny day, a little windy, but pleasant enough to take off their shoes and paddle. Jake ran ahead and was poking around in the rock pools with a stick.

  ‘He’s been very excited about seeing you,’ said Glenda as they walked along the sand.

  Kate smiled and watched Jake as he leaned in close to look into a wide rock pool and then jumped back.

  ‘There’s a bloody enormous jellyfish in here with blue stripes!’ he shouted.

  ‘Jake. Language!’ trilled Glenda. He ignored her and started poking around, wading into the rock pool. ‘You will keep an eye on him?’

  ‘Mum. I’m not stupid,’ she said. Jake was peering into the water, taking pictures with his phone. ‘What have you told him about the police car?’

  Kate had been in touch with the local police in Whitstable to tell them Jake was coming to stay, and they had coordinated with Devon and Cornwall police. A police car was stationed again outside Kate’s house. They seemed to think that Kate and Jake together were more of a target.

  ‘I told him that there’s a bad man involved with Peter Conway who the police are looking for, and they are here just as a precaution,’ said Glenda.

  ‘And Jake bought that? Didn’t ask any more questions?’

  ‘He did, but I was very vague. If I’m honest, I wanted to cancel him coming here, with all that has been going on. At least if the police are here I feel a little better about it,’ said Glenda.

  ‘I’m going to look after him, Mum,’ said Kate, annoyed that her mother still didn’t trust her with Jake.

  ‘I know you are, darling. And keep an eye on the police. Make sure they’re not nodding off on the job.’

  ‘Surveillance police don’t “nod off on the job”,’ said Kate. She remembered all the times she did surveillance, and felt protective of her former career.

  Jake was now in the middle of the rock pool where the sandy bottom dropped away a little and he went in up to his waist.

  ‘Ahh! Cold water!’ He grimaced.

  ‘Jake! Those trousers are clean on. They are your only smart pair!’ shouted Glenda.

  Kate suppressed a smile as Jake ignored her.

  ‘Mum,’ she said, putting her hand on Glenda’s arm. ‘It’s just sea water, and I’m not planning on us going to any ritzy restaurants, or church. We’re going to have fun, and you can have a rest until Saturday.’

  When it was time for Glenda to leave, Jake wasn’t sad to see her go; he was more concerned with getting back to the beach to make a huge sandcastle. They came out to the car, and Glenda insisted on going to meet the police officer stationed in the car outside. He was only in his twenties, and was in the middle of eating a sandwich when she knocked on his window. He swallowed quickly and wound it down.

  ‘Hello. I’m Glenda Marshall. What’s your name?’ asked Glenda, fixing him with a beady stare.

  ‘I’m PC Rob Morton,’ he said, wiping his hands on a tissue. He took out his warrant card and showed it to Glenda, who gave it the once-over.

  ‘I want you to take good care of my grandson, Jake. And this is my daughter, Kate. She was a police officer too!’

  ‘Hello,’ he said.

  Jake fidgeted next to them in his wet trousers. He didn’t seem interested in the fact he had police protection. Kate didn’t know if this was a good or bad thing. Was he used to this craziness? she wondered.

  Glenda handed back the warrant card. ‘I just wanted to say hello, and to tell you that we really appreciate what you do. I’ve asked Kate to make you a cup of coffee every now and again, which should keep you sharp and alert.’

  ‘It’s been quiet. There’s the caravan park up the road, but that’s pretty empty. Just a few hardcore caravanners braving the wind,’ said Rob. He took his card and smiled, wound up his window and picked up the rest of his sandwich.

  Kate and Jake went with Glenda to her car.

  ‘Now, Jake. You do as Mum says, okay?’ said Glenda.

  ‘Yes. We’re cool. It’s going to be fine,’ he said. Glenda leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Ugh!’ he cried, wiping at his face with a sandy hand.

  ‘Thanks, Mum,’ said Kate. ‘Drive safely. Any problems, I’ll call you.’

  ‘It won’t be much longer till he’ll be able to stay wherever he wants,’ said Glenda. Kate detected a trace of bitterness in her mother’s voice. ‘Keep an eye on him. He’s precious.’

  Kate had spent so long thinking about not living with Jake that she’d never stopped to think how attached Glenda was to him, and how hard it must be for her, him growing up.

  ‘I’ll guard him with my life,’ said Kate.

  She watched as Glenda drove away. She reached the curve in the road and vanished,

  ‘I thought she’d never go,’ said Jake. ‘Can we go back on the beach?’

  ‘Yeah, let’s build a sandcastle,’ said Kate.

  The red-haired Fan sat in his car on the edge of the caravan park, amongst the parked cars of a couple of campers and dog walkers. Today he was driving an old battered Ford Fiesta, the runaround car he liked to use to help him blend in. He wore walking gear, and if anyone took too much notice of him he was ready to get out of the car and head off up the hill with a map and backpack.

  He pretended to be engrossed in a large map when Glenda drove past. He had seen her arrive with Jake a few hours earlier. This was too good to be true. Kate and the kid, alone in the house. He had been watching Kate for
a couple of days, and he had a couple of problems – the old woman from the surf shop next door and now a police car stationed outside.

  It would involve a few changes to his plan, but he would enjoy getting creative. He waited a few minutes, then started the engine and drove away. His preparations were almost complete. The stage was about to be set, and he would be back.

  Kate went back to the beach with Jake and sat on a deckchair watching him build his sandcastle. The sky was clear and the sun shone down, warming them. Her phone rang in her pocket and she took it out, seeing it was Tristan.

  ‘Kate, there have been some developments with Victoria O’Grady,’ he said, sounding excited. ‘The police took her statement – she told them the same as she told you – and they’ve been studying the photographs we took from Paul Adler’s chemist. Varia says there’s enough evidence to reopen the Caitlyn Murray case, and a team want to go and look at Jepson’s Wood tomorrow . . . I take it that’s out for you?’

  ‘Yes. You know I’ve got Jake here,’ said Kate, watching as he was digging, up to his waist in a hole.

  ‘Okay. I can go, if that’s cool with you?’

  ‘Of course. You’ll let me know what happens?’

  ‘As soon as I know anything, I’ll call you.’

  She came off the phone and felt far away from the investigation. A little part of her, she was ashamed to admit, wished Jake had come to visit at another time. She pushed those thoughts firmly away and joined in building the sandcastle. They managed an impressive one, with four turrets and a moat, before a huge wave obliterated it and soaked them both.

  They came back to the house and Kate got them towels so they could dry off and get warm. The sun was now behind some clouds and it had grown colder.

  ‘Mum. That was the best sandcastle ever. I can’t ever build big ones like that at home ’cause the beach is all stones.’

  Seeing him in her living room for the first time in a few months, Kate realised how tall he was.

  ‘Stand by the doorframe there,’ she said. She grabbed a pen and marked where the top of his head touched. He stepped away and they both looked at all the marks on the doorframe, showing how much he had grown over his visits.

  ‘Blimey, you’ll be taller than me soon,’ said Kate.

  He ran his finger down the markings. The time had passed so quickly, and very soon his childhood would be over. She felt the urge to apologise to him, for making his life complicated. For . . .

  ‘Mum, I’m soaking wet, and the wet sand is rubbing on my bum,’ he said, grimacing. Kate swooped in and gave him a huge hug.

  ‘What’s that for?’ he asked. ‘By rights, I should be in trouble ’cause I went in the sea in all my good clothes.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ said Kate. ‘I just needed a hug.’

  ‘Women,’ he said, rolling his eyes.

  ‘Come on, let’s get you upstairs and into some dry clothes,’ she said.

  She showed him up to the front bedroom, which was next to hers. It was the one he always had when he came to stay. It had a colourful striped blanket on the bed, a bookshelf loaded with kids’ books, which she realised he’d grown out of, and the window looked down at the beach.

  He ran his finger over the headboard to check for dust. ‘Catherine, you’ve not been slack with the furniture polish,’ he said, doing an uncanny impression of Glenda.

  ‘Do you need a hand unpacking?’ asked Kate, laughing.

  He put his bag down on the end of the bed. ‘I’ve got it covered,’ he said, shooing her out.

  ‘Okay. I’m doing Cumberland sausages with chips and beans for tea, and I’ll take the skins off the sausages.’

  ‘Cool!’

  ‘And I’ve got Phish Food ice cream for pudding.’

  ‘Best Mum award goes to you,’ he said, and he closed the door.

  She came downstairs to start the food, feeling all warm and happy that he was with her. The only thing that spoiled her thoughts was seeing the police car stationed outside. It made her think about the case, and that Tristan would be going to Jepson’s Wood without her.

  Again, the eternal struggle between being a mother and wanting to have a career reared its ugly head. She put it to the back of her mind and started to cook.

  CHAPTER 57

  The next morning, Tristan met a team of police officers and Victoria O’Grady at Jepson’s Wood. He’d borrowed his sister’s car for the day, promising her, on pain of death, that he would bring it back in one piece. The wood had shrunk in size over the past few years, and was now a couple of acres of trees surrounded by new-build homes.

  The section where the police were due to search sat on the edge of the housing estate, where a long line of fences backed onto the trees. A police support van was parked next to the fence with a couple of squad cars. A man with two cadaver dogs had arrived, and he was talking to an officer. Tristan grabbed a cup of tea from the support van and went over to Victoria. Her eyes were puffy and red from crying and she wore a huge orange fur coat.

  ‘Thanks for coming,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe we’re doing this.’

  ‘I was expecting two huge ferocious Alsatians,’ said Tristan as they watched the dog handler open the van, and two fluffy Cavalier King Charles spaniels jumped out and started to bark and scamper. Their white furry heads contrasted with their long floppy brown ears.

  Victoria laughed. The dogs came galloping up to them and rolled over to have their bellies scratched.

  The dog handler followed and introduced himself. ‘I’m Harry Grant,’ he said. He was in his late fifties, a cheery man with thin grey hair. ‘This is Kim and Khloe.’

  ‘They’re so cute,’ said Tristan as Kim, the slightly bigger of the two, playfully chewed on the collar of his jacket.

  ‘Don’t underestimate their cute fluffy faces. They’re incredible. They are both trained to smell decomposing flesh.’

  ‘But Caitlyn went missing twenty years ago. Even if she was buried here, what would be left of her after all this time?’ asked Tristan.

  ‘I’ve tested them with so many variables. Kim was able to detect the presence of rotting flesh in a cold case going back eighteen years. The police believed that a man had killed his daughter, buried her in the garden and then moved the body shortly afterwards. They were able to detect where the body had been buried, even though it had been moved eighteen years earlier and buried somewhere else. When the police dug, they found small fragments of tooth and skull belonging to the young girl.’

  ‘How deep can they pick up on a scent?’ asked Victoria.

  ‘Up to eight or ten feet,’ said Harry, as Khloe lay on her back and let Victoria scratch her pink belly.

  After they’d finished their tea, the police and Tristan walked with Victoria back to the area where she remembered having the picnic with Paul Adler. They moved in silence to the edge of the trees, Victoria in her huge orange coat, flanked by four police officers and Tristan. Harry stayed back with the dogs in his van, waiting until she had identified the area where they would start to search.

  Victoria walked unsteadily on the rough ground, and they were silent apart from the faint sound of far-off traffic on the motorway. They reached the edge of the trees and stepped into a clearing covered with pine needles. The weak sun shone through the branches and dappled the ground.

  ‘It’s changed so much,’ she said. Despite her thick coat and the weak sunshine, Tristan could see she was shivering. ‘This used to be fields for miles.’

  ‘Where was the lake?’ he asked.

  ‘There was a lake about a quarter of a mile over there,’ said one of the police officers, who was holding a map. He was pointing towards what were now rows and rows of roofs.

  Victoria looked around and nodded. ‘It was somewhere here, near this clearing. We went deeper into the woods, but not too far as the trees were very dense.’

  A police officer with a neatly trimmed black goatee looked around. ‘What makes you sure?’ he asked. It was a question without host
ility or doubt.

  ‘I remember the turn-off from the main road. There’s that really old King George phone box a little way before the dead end and it turns into fields. The trees are bigger, but I’ll always remember what bit they brought me to,’ she said.

  ‘Roughly how wide is the area that you think we should search, from what you remember?’

  ‘This whole clearing, and a little way into the trees there,’ she said. Her eyes welled up again and she scrabbled for a tissue in her coat.

  ‘Okay,’ said the officer. He reached for his radio. ‘Harry, we’re ready for Kim and Khloe.’

  Despite the seriousness of the situation, Tristan had to suppress a smile. It’s all down to cute fluffy Kim and Khloe. Let’s hope no one drives past in a burger van to distract them. He just couldn’t imagine that the dogs would be able to smell anything other than moss and rotting leaves.

  Kim was brought over first by Harry. Everyone stood back as he let her off her lead and she ran about sniffing around the area Victoria had indicated. Harry worked methodically with her, making sure that she moved up and down in straight lines, like mowing a lawn, working her way across the clearing. After about ten minutes, she reached a tall oak tree and stopped, circling round and sniffing intently, her long furry ears disturbing the piles of leaves and pine needles. She sat down, tipped her head back and started to bark.

  A police officer marked the spot and she carried on sniffing around for the next fifteen minutes, then came back and barked again. Tristan and Victoria had been watching in silence, and when the dog barked for the second time, he could feel the tension in the air.

  ‘What if she’s smelling a dead bird, or a fox?’ asked Victoria, her voice cracking with emotion.

  ‘Harry said she’s only trained to detect human remains,’ said Tristan, feeling tension and excitement in his stomach.

  Harry gave Kim some treats and took her back over to the car. The police officers remained at the edge of the clearing.

  ‘What happens now?’ said Victoria to the police officer with the goatee.

  ‘He’s going to bring the second dog back to check, just as a precaution . . . But I think we’ve hit the bullseye. She’s detected human remains.’