by Candy Denman
If he was surprised to see her, he didn’t show it. All the fight had gone out of him. Every ounce of his energy was being spent trying not to move and cause himself more pain.
Callie sat on the chair by his bed, as he eyed her warily.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
“What’s it look like?”
“Painful.”
“Spot on.”
“How did it happen?”
“I fell down the stairs.” He couldn’t look her in the eye when he said this and she knew he was lying.
“Really? Your injuries are more consistent with being beaten up. I’m even told that on your side there’s the shape of a boot where you were stamped on.”
“Must’ve landed on one of mine then.”
Callie decided to change tack.
“The last two times I’ve seen you, you’ve been arguing with Councillor Claybourne. Why is that?”
“Let me see, maybe it’s because the man’s a prick.”
“Why?”
“It’s none of your business.”
Callie was getting a little tired of being told this, not least because it was absolutely true.
“Look, David, I’m going to tell you what I think happened and rest assured, I have absolutely no proof for any of this. I think you and Mr Claybourne had a falling out about the cigarette smuggling, and that when the shop was raided, he blamed you and had you beaten up. If that’s the case, I’m sorry, because it was me who told Trading Standards about the place and I’ll happily tell him so if that’s what you want, but I’m not sure how much help that would be.”
Morris stared at her, open-mouthed. Of course, it wasn’t strictly true that she had told Trading Standards about the shop, she had merely threatened to, thereby forcing Kate’s van driver to tell them.
“How did you know about it?” Morris managed eventually.
“I saw you coming out of the shop with a carton of cigarettes that matched the description of the smuggled ones. So, I suppose, Claybourne could argue that you were the source of the information, but it wasn’t deliberate and I will leave your name out of it. I have to warn you, though, that I am also going to tell the police about my suspicion that he is behind it.”
“No, please don’t, Dr Hughes, please don’t go to the police.” Morris was understandably frightened at the prospect.
“I’m sorry, but I have to. I will also suggest that they might need to offer you some kind of protection and I think you should agree to co-operate fully with them, because you don’t want to give Claybourne the chance to come after you, again.”
She left Morris to consider what he should do next, and she had a word with the ward sister on her way out.
“I’m worried about my patient in Bay C,” she said. “I think he may try and discharge himself, and there is also the possibility that the men who beat him up could come back.”
She left the nurse rapidly making arrangements for a member of security to come up to the ward. Not to stop Morris from leaving, that was his right – although Callie didn’t think he was in any kind of a state to leave hospital just yet – but to stop anyone else from having a go at him whilst he was still there. At least she felt that she had done all she could to protect him – whilst he remained in hospital, anyway.
* * *
Having had a thoroughly unsatisfactory afternoon, Callie decided to round it off with a visit to the incident room to see if DI Miller was back from France. He was. And so was Detective Sergeant Jeffries.
“Hiya, Doc. Or should I say bonjour?”
His accent was execrable, but Callie was impressed that he had at least attempted to learn one French word.
“How was your trip?”
“Fantastique!”
She was wrong, he’d learnt two words.
Callie was lucky that Miller came out of his office before she had to listen to Jeffries telling her more than a few choice phrases about French ladies and their sexiness, and how they had all apparently loved his accent. Callie found it hard to believe and the faces of his colleagues in the incident room told her that he had been telling them all about it, at length, ever since he had got back.
“Sounds like you had an interesting trip.”
Miller’s mouth twitched as he tried not to smile at her choice of words.
“That’s one way of putting it.” He led the way over to the refreshment station which was situated beside two boards at the front of the incident room. Callie paused to look at the photographs that completely covered one of the boards. One picture for every victim found. Normally there would be details of the victims written beside their photos, but only one had even a tentative name next to it – the young lad that Parton had mentioned, Callie presumed.
The pictures were all clearly of bodies, hard enough for relatives and friends to see and not suitable for the general public. Whilst she had been visiting Morris in the hospital, Callie had been sent the touched-up photograph that she had requested from Lisa Furnow. There was no doubt it was a much better option. Whilst there was still something about it that suggested that the man in the picture was not alive, he wasn’t so obviously dead and there remained enough detail for him to be recognisable to people who knew him; his friends, and his family.
“I’ve emailed a better picture of the body found at Fairlight over to you,” she told Miller. “So that you can try and identify him, maybe put it in the papers.”
Miller grunted and looked distracted.
“Where the hell?” he asked and looked around.
The refreshment station was never more than a table with a kettle and a coffee machine as well as an array of mugs, packs of teabags, jars of coffee. Only, at the moment, the coffee machine was empty apart from a ring of sediment at the bottom of the pot, there were no mugs to be seen and only a few crumbs and an empty packet remained of the supermarket own-brand custard creams. Miller sighed, but at that moment DC Nugent hurried over with a tray of clean mugs and the kettle.
“Sorry, Guv. Just cleaning up a little.”
“You are a star, Nigel,” Callie said and tried not to smile as the young man blushed.
“Not at all, Dr Hughes. My pleasure.” He hurried away and whilst the kettle boiled, Callie set about making tea for herself, and Miller put two spoons of coffee into a mug.
“The photo?” she prompted.
“I’ll check it out.”
She was going to have to be satisfied with that. For now.
“Was it useful, going to Calais?” she asked him.
“Yes,” he answered. “And no. There’s no great will over there to stop the migrants from crossing the Channel.”
“That’s understandable, from their point of view.”
“I know. Much easier if they become our problem rather than theirs, but they did at least promise to follow up on our leads.”
“That a trawler brought them most of the way over?”
He nodded and stirred his coffee. Callie sniffed the milk carton. Miller didn’t take milk, she knew, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to trust it, but it smelled all right so she poured a small amount in her tea.
“Using the coastguard radar, we managed to track all the fishing boats on the night in question. They all have to have these identifying transponders and they have to leave them on at all times, but in one case, the marker seemed to disappear for a short while.”
“They could have been coming closer to shore, dropping the migrants off in a RIB and then switched it back on once they were back where they should be.”
“Exactly.”
“Have they been questioned?”
“That’s where we have to leave it to the French, and they have promised to follow up.”
“But they may not follow it up too vigorously.”
“To be fair to them, they don’t like the people traffickers any more than we do. I think they will take it further, it’s just that they’ll do it in their own way.”
“And in their own time. Mea
nwhile, the traffickers could be getting ready to bring another boatload across.”
Miller shook his head.
“I made it quite clear that we had the boat’s registration number and if they come anywhere near our waters, we’ll intercept them with a naval vessel. Make an international incident out of it.”
Callie smiled. She would like to see the Royal Navy stop them in the act.
“I read in the paper that there were to be more patrols.”
He nodded.
“Anyway, is there anything we can do for you, Callie, or is this just a social visit?”
“Has Nigel told you about the cigarette smuggling?”
“I seem to remember reading a memo. Didn’t Trading Standards raid a shop or something?”
So, she told him about everything that had happened, Morris’s two spats with Councillor Claybourne, seeing Morris with the cigarettes, telling Kate about which shop he had bought them in, leading to the abortive raid and finally, that Morris had been badly beaten up.
“So, let me get this straight. You think Claybourne is the man behind the cigarette smuggling and that he suspects Morris grassed him up?”
“Yes.”
“And do you have any evidence of any of this?”
She had to admit it was a good question.
“Not really. Just that I witnessed Morris having a go at Claybourne twice, and definitely coming off the worst at the rally. It stands to reason when he turns up in hospital for a second time, that it’s Claybourne behind it again.”
“I agree that there is some circumstantial evidence there to suggest it, but not enough for me to go charging in asking Claybourne awkward questions.”
“Seeing as he’s a councillor, and all,” Jeffries said.
Callie could have done without him coming over and butting in.
“It’s big business, bringing in tobacco. Lots of money involved,” she continued. “If Claybourne is running a smuggling operation, it stands to reason that he would want to protect it. His treatment of Morris shows he’s prepared to resort to violence, and body number nine, really doesn’t belong on that board there.” She pointed to where the photographs of the dead migrants were.
Jeffries gave an exaggerated sigh.
“Wait. You think he’s part of the cigarette smuggling ring rather than the people smuggling?”
“It has to be possible, hasn’t it?”
“Bloody hell, Doc, now you’re accusing a councillor of bumping people off.”
“Is that so hard to believe?”
Both Miller and Jeffries gave it some thought.
“You have to admit that it seems unlikely.” This was the best that Miller was prepared to say.
“Like a three-legged horse winning the Derby,” Jeffries added as he shook the empty biscuit packet. “Who’s nicked all the custard creams?” he asked belligerently. “Bloody thieving bastards.”
Chapter 18
Another mild summer’s evening, another body washed up on Fairlight Beach, and Callie was once again wishing that it wasn’t in quite such a remote place as she stumbled for the umpteenth time, slipping on the wet rocks. When she finally got to the spot, a bit further along from where body number nine had been found, Callie saw that this was the body of a young woman. The only female so far and that was not the only reason to believe that she was not one of the migrants: she looked Caucasian, with badly bleached hair dyed purple at the ends, a couple of piercings to her nose and eyebrow; and she was dressed in cheap but fashionable clothes. And she had a serious head wound.
Lisa was busy taking photographs while her colleagues, all masked and dressed like Callie in their crime scene overalls, were searching the area around for anything that might relate to this body.
“Who found her?” Callie asked Lisa.
“Same bloke as found the last one. I think he’s probably going to give up being a detectorist.”
Callie thought she probably would too, if she had found two bodies in less than two weeks.
“Thanks for the photo, by the way, it’s really good.”
“No problem.” The photographer looked over Callie’s shoulder and then turned away. Callie looked round and saw two more suited and booted people walking along the beach in towards her, neither had their masks pulled up yet. Miller and Jeffries. As she watched, Jeffries slipped on a wet, algae-covered boulder and landed on his rump. She could hear him swearing from where she was and she turned away, trying not to laugh. It was hardly appropriate at the scene of a violent death.
“What you got for us?” Jeffries asked gruffly as he pulled up his mask, attempting to deflect from his embarrassing entrance. Miller had already raised his mask and was looking at the body. He turned to listen to her answer.
“Body of a young woman, not been in the water long, hard to say if drowning or the head injury are the cause of death, but−”
“Definitely not one of the boat people?”
“Not unless she’s been living somewhere nearby for the last couple of weeks, no. They might know more after the post-mortem.”
Miller looked up at the cliffs above the beach.
“Could she have fallen?”
Seeing his gaze, Lisa started taking photographs of the area above them. The steep cliff was topped with dense woodland, but Callie knew from her walks that there was a path, sometimes steep, sometimes muddy, winding through the trees. It had once gone all the way from the East Cliff of Hastings to Fairlight Cove, but landslides in some places meant that a few sections were now missing or too dangerous to use.
“Anything’s possible,” Callie answered him. “But she’s lying a bit far out for a fall.”
“Could have fallen at high tide, been washed out and back in again.”
Jeffries had a point, but they all knew that could mean she fell in from almost anywhere.
“Colin?” Miller called, and Colin Brewer, the crime scene manager, recognisable in his protective clothing by his short, squat stature, hurried over. Miller pointed up the cliff. “We’re going to need a team to walk along the top of the cliff, see if she fell from somewhere up there.”
“I’ll get a team ready for first thing in the morning, Guv.”
Miller looked as if he was about to argue and ask for them to start the search straight away.
“Don’t want any of them falling over the cliffs in the dark.”
There was only about one hour of daylight left, Callie knew, and it would take longer than that to get a team of searchers together.
Reluctantly, Miller nodded his agreement.
“What about this body and the tide?” he asked the crime scene manager.
“We should be able to clear the beach before it comes in,” Brewer reassured him. “If we hustle. The difficult bit will be getting the body back to where the van is parked before we get cut off. Need to get moving soon.”
“Bloody hell,” Jeffries commented as the little man bustled away to make sure his team had collected as much of the surrounding detritus as possible. “Not exactly a convenient place to find a body.”
And Callie had to agree.
* * *
Billy was in his office when Callie popped in at lunchtime the next day. She had been called to the hospital to take swabs from a young woman who had reported that she had been raped. Callie found sexual crimes particularly difficult and after an hour of collecting evidence and counselling the distraught young woman, felt she needed a break before returning to do her evening surgery.
“Hiya,” Billy said, but Callie couldn’t help noticing that his smile and greeting were not as cheerful as usual.
She sat down in the chair opposite his desk and gave him a long look.
“What’s up?”
“If you’ve come to ask me about the young woman found on the beach last night, the body has already gone so that the Home Office pathologist can do the PM in better facilities.”
“Ah,” she said and understood. Callie’s godfather had been the local pathologist u
ntil his death and over the years, she had listened to his frequent complaints about Home Office pathologists coming in and taking over all the interesting cases.
“Have you thought about registering to be one yourself?” she asked.
“Of course, but it’s not that easy.”
She raised a questioning eyebrow.
“Nothing worth having ever is,” she quoted her mother’s favourite phrase from when she was growing up and complaining about having to work so hard to get her A-levels.
“It’s not just the qualifications, I have completed quite a few of the modules already and I’m working my way towards the rest,” he admitted.
Callie tried not to look surprised, or hurt, that it was news to her.
“It’s more that you have to be a member of a recognised group practice and there’s only six of those in the country.”
Callie understood his concerns.
“The ones that come here always seem to come from South London.”
“That’s right, there’s a large practice covering the whole of the south east. It makes it easier for the rota to make sure that there’s always someone on call.”
“And what are the barriers to joining them once you do have the qualifications?”
“Firstly, they’d have to have a vacancy and they don’t have one at the moment. In fact, they have a waiting list.”
“And secondly?”
“If I joined them, most of the work would be in London, which is understandable. I’m not sure living down here would make sense.”
He looked at her and she could see his problem. When he was living and working in Brighton, the roads were faster and covering London would have been less of a problem. He might even have considered moving up there anyway, as his family were from a suburb to the south of the city. But the roads and trains from Hastings made commuting to London difficult and the town hospital was a small one, lacking facilities – a backwater for the career-minded. If he wanted to be a Home Office forensic pathologist, or at some point he decided to turn to teaching, become a professor even, he would have to move. He would have to leave Hastings.
It was a dilemma she understood well. She had watched her godfather struggle with it over the years and had often thought that he regretted staying in Hastings. Work versus home life was a delicate balance, as she knew only too well, and you had to be happy with the way it worked for you.