Deadly Fallout (Detective Zoe Finch Book 6)

by Rachel McLean

  Anita pursed her lips as she wondered what had really happened. She had no doubt she’d be getting a call from the school later today. A summons to discuss how they would deal with her daughter’s behaviour.

  She hated meetings like that. It always made her feel like she was the teenager, sitting in the headmistress’s office being told off for her inadequate parenting skills. David never came along, of course, despite her always giving him the date and time. Too busy with work.

  She watched as her daughters turned in opposite directions at the end of the drive. She leaned against the doorframe, exhausted. A van was pulling up. She waited.

  The driver, a short fat woman wearing a red cap, smiled as she walked up the path. “Morning.”

  “Morning.” Anita tried to return the smile. David had left at 6am and they hadn’t had a chance to talk. Not about Carly, not about the photo. He’d been in his study till gone midnight and she’d been asleep when he’d come to bed.

  “Big ’un, this,” the woman said. “Heavy.”

  Anita looked at the parcel the woman carried. It was indeed big. The woman lowered it to the ground at Anita’s feet and held out a phone for Anita to sign her name.

  “Cheers. Enjoy it, whatever it is.” The woman gave her a mock salute.

  “I will.” Anita stared down at the box, puzzled. She hadn’t ordered anything online in the last week. It was nobody’s birthday.

  She bent down to check the label. Mr and Mrs D Randle. So it was for David, but she’d been added as an afterthought.

  But her name was on the label, which meant she was allowed to open it.

  She dragged it into the hall and closed the front door. It was too heavy to take into the kitchen so she went to fetch a pair of scissors. She ran the blade against the tape securing the top flaps. There was no logo on the box, no indication of where it had come from.

  The flaps opened and she pulled them back to reveal packing material. She shovelled it out. Inside was a basket. It looked like a picnic hamper.

  She wrinkled her nose. Who would send them a picnic hamper?

  Once all the packing material was on the floor around her, she ripped the box open further to reveal the rest of the basket inside. It had a leather handle, and a logo painted on the side. Fortnum and Mason.

  Blimey.

  Someone had sent them this hamper, someone with money. Why?

  She unfastened the buckle on the leather strap holding the hamper shut. As she lifted the lid, she wondered what she would use the basket for once its contents had been eaten.

  It was gorgeous. Cheeses, a bottle of port, red and white wine, chocolates, a loaf of artisan bread. Beneath that, a fruit cake wrapped in muslin.

  This must have cost a fortune.

  She rummaged amongst the parcels, looking for a note. Eventually she found a small card.

  Thank you in advance, it read. No signature. No address. Just one line.

  Thank you for what?

  She felt her body go cold.

  What was David expected to do, that would earn him this expensive gift?

  As a serving police officer, this meant only one thing. Unless it was a gift from his colleagues.

  No. West Midlands Police didn’t send out things like this.

  She held the card in her fingers, only the tips touching the creamy paper. He would know she’d opened it. The outer box was ruined. And if he knew she’d opened it, he’d know she’d read the card.

  She swallowed. Only one thing for it.

  She ripped the card into shreds, not stopping to reconsider, and walked to the kitchen. She tossed the shreds in the bin. After a moment, she opened the bin again and stirred it around with a wooden spoon to make sure the paper was obscured.

  She stared through the kitchen door at the parcel and the surrounding packing material, scrunched-up brown paper. Even that looked expensive. She would have to clear it up.

  She took the bin bag out of the kitchen bin. She’d put the packing materials in that and dump it in the wheelie bin. That way, David would never see the note.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The fastest way to get to Chelmsley Wood was north out of the city and via the M6. The Aston Expressway heading out of town was busy and Zoe had to concentrate on making sure she was in the right lane.

  At last they were on the motorway.

  “Right,” she said. “Let’s prepare.”

  “Not much to prepare for,” said Mo. “A dead body, adult male, found in some wasteland in one of the rougher parts of Chelmsley Wood.”

  “Aren’t they all rough parts?”

  “Uh-uh. Whole swathes of the area are being rebuilt. Some of it’s quite nice.”

  Zoe rubbed her nose. A lorry braked in front and she pulled out to pass it before getting stuck.

  “Dawson said it was called in at 4am,” she said. “So why weren’t we summoned earlier?”

  “Maybe they didn’t think it was suspicious.”

  “Which means it’s probably an overdose,” she replied.

  “Or it might look like it could have been a suicide.”

  “Or a domestic.”

  “Unlikely,” said Mo. “A man dumped in open air.”

  “Yeah. Could still be drugs though.”

  Zoe pulled off the motorway and looped back over it to a roundabout.

  “This place always confuses me,” said Mo. “I feel like we’re going round in circles.”

  “Perfect place to stash a body, then,” Zoe replied.

  “We’re not far from those robberies Rhodri has been looking into. One of them was in that chemists.” He pointed to a pharmacy in a squat modern building to their right.

  They’d turned off the Chester Road and were taking repeated right turns, rounding a shopping centre and a bright modern Co-op supermarket that clashed with the featureless council blocks behind it. They turned left and stopped behind a squad car that blocked the road.

  The ‘wasteland’ consisted of a patch of grass to their right. Zoe stopped and showed her badge.

  “Park over there please, ma’am,” the constable said. She pointed towards a row of cars parked further along.

  “Dr Adebayo,” said Mo. “That’s her BMW.”

  “Which means this is more than a random overdose. She’d have sent one of her team if it was straightforward.”

  “We don’t know that. They might have been busy.”

  Zoe parked the car and turned to her friend. “Adana’s been a pathologist for fifteen years. She’s one of the best in this region and a fair few others. She doesn’t waste her time on grunt work.”

  “Well, let’s hope she can tell us how this guy died.” Mo opened his door.

  “Let’s.” Zoe followed him across the road towards the grass. It was overgrown, littered with discarded cigarette packets and plastic bags.

  “I don’t think this bit has been gentrified,” she said to Mo.

  He wrinkled his nose. “No.”

  Adana stood next to the body, which was partly obscured by a hedge. To the side was a steel fence topped with barbed wire.

  “We need to search the industrial estate,” Zoe said. “Talk to the people working in those units.”

  “We’ve got two officers already knocking on doors.”

  Zoe turned to see a uniformed constable standing behind her. “Where did you come from?”

  “Sorry.” He pointed to a squad car parked nearby. “PC Hines.”

  “We’ve already met,” she said, her stomach dipping. He’d been there when Andreea Pichler had been ploughed down by a car. Zoe had held the woman in her arms as she’d died: one more victim of Trevor Hamm’s organisation. “Fill me in.”

  He nodded, his expression grave. He was remembering it too. Then he took a breath. “999 call came in at 3:48am. A guy driving along here spotted a shape in the grass. He parked up, got out and threw up.”

  Zoe followed his outstretched hand towards a patch of vomit on the grass. “Nice.”

  “Can�
�t blame him, really.”

  Zoe looked back at the body. The man had been dead a few days, at least. The face had been attacked by animals and the stench was overpowering, even in the open air. The blond hair was matted with dirt and the body was bloated to the point where the seams of his clothes were bursting.

  “We need to get a tent over this. Too exposed.”

  “FSM are getting one out,” PC Hines said. He looked back towards where Yala Cook stood by a white van, talking to a uniformed sergeant. “She’s with my sergeant.”

  “Good.” Zoe knew Yala; she worked closely with Adi.

  She turned to Adana. “What’s your initial thinking?”

  “He’s been dead at least four days, possibly longer given that he’s partially buried in the soil. Decomposition is setting in. Not just where animals have got at him, but elsewhere. I’ve looked at his abdomen and there’s greening, meaning his gut bacteria is spreading into his abdomen. There’s bloating to his thorax and head and purge fluid.”

  “I can see.” Zoe didn’t need to be told about the fluids leaking from the man’s nose and mouth. She put a hand in front of her nose. PC Hines seemed unaffected. He looked to be in his late fifties; he’d probably seen worse over the years.

  “The top half of his body is much worse than his lower abdomen and legs. It looks like he was more fully buried but something dragged him out,” Adana said. “Hence the irregularity in decomposition in different parts of his body.”

  Zoe could hear Mo behind her, breathing through his mouth. They’d seen worse things than this themselves: in Uniform, the two of them had broken down the door of an elderly woman who’d lain dead in her flat for two weeks. But there was something about the angle of this body, the twisted, bloated neck and the bulging eyes that made the scene disturbing.

  “Why’s he twisted up like that?”

  “He could have fallen, landed like that,” Adana replied. “Could have just ended up like that when an animal pulled him out of the soil. If someone tried to bury him, it was a damn shallow grave. I don’t think they were too concerned about him being found.”

  “Or they wanted him to be found, but not immediately.” Zoe thought of the body in Boldmere, of Ian’s trial. She shook her head: no reason to think this was connected.

  She crouched down to get a better angle. The man looked like he was in a yoga position. His legs were bent up to one side, his torso twisted over so his chest faced upwards. His right arm was threaded beneath his shoulder and his face pointed the other way from his feet.

  “He’s definitely been moved,” said Adana. “And not just dragged out of the hedge by a fox.”

  “Why?”

  The pathologist pointed to the legs. The man’s trousers were ripped and Zoe could make out dark blotchy flesh on his thighs.

  “See the colouration on his legs? That’s hypostasis, but it’s in the wrong place. Should be on his lower side, as that’s where the blood pools after death.”

  “So he didn’t die here.”

  “He didn’t die in this position, that’s for sure. Whether he died here isn’t certain.”

  “It’s unlikely someone would come back and move him around,” said Zoe. “Not without shifting him to another spot. Couldn’t a fox turn him over like that? A dog?” There were bite marks on the chin and feet.

  Adana shrugged. “Look at the way his arm is threaded under his shoulder. That wouldn’t happen by accident. I think someone arranged him like this.”

  “But after death? After hypostasis?”

  Adana nodded. “It would have to have been after rigor had passed. Which means three days after death. Makes no sense, I know.”

  “Poor bugger,” said Mo. “You definitely don’t think foxes could have moved him like this?”

  “He’s too neat. The way he’s twisted, it’s kind of symmetrical. Looks deliberate.”

  “Why would you pose a body like that?” Mo asked.

  “No idea.” Adana looked at him. “That’s your job.”

  He flashed his eyes at her. “Touché.” Adana lowered her mask and smiled.

  “OK,” said Zoe. She turned to PC Hines. “I need to speak to your sergeant.”

  “Ma’am.” He hurried away. A group of uniformed officers were near the cars. One of them peeled away and walked towards her.

  The sergeant was short with long dark hair tied back in a ponytail. She extended her hand. “Ma’am. I’m Sergeant Villada.”

  “DI Finch.” Zoe shook the woman’s hand. “PC Hines tells me you have officers knocking on doors.”

  “We do. There are five units in that estate, we’ll have them all covered in no time.”

  “I’ll need CCTV footage. We’re unlikely to have witnesses if he was brought here at night.” Zoe pointed to the Co-op supermarket. “And we’ll talk to the manager of that place.”

  “There’s a church round the corner,” said PS Villada. “The vicar has already been round. He almost fainted.”

  “I’ll bet.” Zoe looked up as Yala approached. “Thank God. You got the tent?”

  “We have.” Yala started giving directions to her team of two men. The three of them had the tent erected in a couple of minutes.

  “That’s better,” said Zoe. “How long will you need to keep him here?”

  “We’ll need to take some more photos,” said Yala. “And samples.” She turned to Adana, her eyebrows raised.

  “I’ve done all I can here.” The pathologist peeled off her gloves. “I’ll let the team back at the morgue know they’ve got a treat in store.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Anita sat in her living room, the hamper open on the coffee table in front of her. She couldn’t decide whether to unpack it and put the food in the fridge. If she left it like this, it would spoil. But she’d spent too long living with a policeman; it felt like tampering with evidence.

  She pulled out her phone and flicked to the photo of David with the woman. She placed it next to the hamper, her heart racing.

  Two things in twenty-four hours. The photo with the woman, and this gift. Could the two be related? Had the woman sent this?

  Anita picked up her phone and enlarged the photo. The woman was in her twenties, pretty. She wore a green blouse that looked cheap, and a pair of gold hoop earrings. She didn’t look like the kind of woman who’d walk into Fortnum and Mason and order something like this.

  Anita didn’t even know if there was a Fortnum & Mason in Birmingham. Was there one in Selfridges?

  Not wanting to disturb the photo on her phone, she went into the kitchen and grabbed the iPad she supposedly shared with David. She googled Fortnum and Mason Birmingham.

  The only one outside London was in Hong Kong. So this had been ordered online, or by someone from London.

  Or someone visiting London.

  None of this helped her. She searched through the website until she found the hamper that sat in front of her. It cost £150. There was no way the woman in that photo would have spent £150 on a luxury hamper.

  Anita sat back on the sofa and rubbed her eyes. She didn’t need this. School would call any minute, and she’d be expected to go in and talk to them about Carly. She had no idea if she was going to defend her daughter, or let her get what was coming to her. Maybe that would do her good. David would disapprove, but David wasn’t here.

  Her phone pinged and she flinched. She fumbled for it, almost dropping it on the floor.

  “Hello?”

  “Mrs Randle?”

  Anita closed her eyes. “Yes.”

  “Hello, it’s Mrs Healey again. How are you?”

  “Fine, thanks.” Get on with it.

  “I just wanted to let you know things have calmed down today. Carly was given an opportunity to apologise to the other student and she was very contrite.”

  “Good.” Was that it? No meeting? Thank God! Anita opened her eyes and brushed a stray hair away from her face.

  “So I was hoping we could have that chat at the end of the
school day, before Carly leaves for home. She can sit in.”

  Anita stiffened. She hadn’t considered that Carly would be a part of this. “OK.”

  “Is two forty-five alright for you?”

  Anita closed her eyes again. “That’s fine. Thank you.”

  “Ask for me, I’ll be waiting.” The teacher hung up.

  Anita let her phone drop onto the hamper. She wished she hadn’t ripped up that card now. It was evidence, like the hamper itself.

  If the woman hadn’t sent it, then who had?

  She had to know. But she wasn’t about to ask David.

  Anita grabbed her phone and stood up. She walked to the window and looked out as she dialled. Don’t hang up, she told herself. Her hand shook.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello. It’s Anita Randle.”

  “Anita? Everything OK?”

  “Of course.” No, she thought. Don’t lie. “How are you? David told me about your injury.”

  “Well… it wasn’t so much an injury. OK, it was. But… oh you don’t want to hear my life story.” Lesley Clarke sounded confused. Anita had never heard her like that. “What can I do for you?”

  “I hope you don’t mind me calling you.”

  “Of course not. It’s been a while. And to tell you the truth, I”m bored out of my tiny mind.”

  Anita had known Lesley quite well, back when both she and David were DCIs. They’d even had Lesley and her husband round for dinner a few times. What was his name? Terry, or Trevor. He wasn’t the sort of man you remembered, unlike his wife.

  “Was there something specific you wanted to talk about?” Lesley asked.

  Anita cleared her throat. “I wanted to ask you about the cases David is working on at the moment.”

  A pause. “Cases?”

  “Is there anything big? Apart from this trial, of course. The corrupt sergeant.”

  “Ian Osman.” Lesley’s voice had taken on an edge that gave Anita a chill.

  “That’s the one.”

  “Doesn’t David tell you about his work?” Lesley asked.

  “Oh, you know how it is. I don’t want to bother him.”

  “OK.” Lesley didn’t believe her, it was clear from her voice.