by Will North
“Did you?”
“Did I what?”
“Recognize the name.”
“Of course not, or I would have said. Not one of our neighbors or tenants, that’s certain. Nor any of the farm workers or managers I’ve ever heard of, and we’re a tight community up here around the moor. Not a local Cornish name, either: Lugg. But then the moor attracts all kinds, walkers mostly, throughout the warmer months. Besides the views, there are so many ancient sites and settlements, Iron Age and earlier, so amateur historians come as well. We’ve also a fairly active pagan community here—Wiccans, druids, the lot. They’re harmless as near as I can tell, and they actually look after and clean up around the stone circles and so forth. The county council hasn’t the resources to look after these sites anymore, so these volunteers do. It’s rather charming. Oh my goodness, I’ve rattled on. Sorry. What will happen next?”
“There will have to be an announcement that a body has been discovered and, at some point, a press conference.”
“Artie?”
“Not likely. His senior officer, Detective Chief Superintendent Malcolm Crawley, will no doubt preside. He loves the cameras. DCI Penwarren tends to stay in the background.”
For the first time, Beverley Cuthbertson smiled. “Yes, that would be like Artie.”
Day Six
Twelve
“WHATEVER HAPPENED TO weekends?” Morgan Davies groused as she stalked into the incident room at the Bodmin Hub Saturday morning, spot on at nine. Morgan led with her head when she walked, as if following a scent. She seemed forever at risk of tipping forward.
DCI Penwarren had come in early and he watched now as each member of his team assembled—Davies, West, Barnes, young Novak. Even his forensic pathologist, Dr. Duncan, had come. He felt honored to work with each of them.
“You’re getting soft from all this leave, Morgan,” he said as she settled into one of the conference table chairs. She scowled as an answer. A moment later, West eased into a chair beside her.
“Calum. Welcome. Your doctor phoned to give me a tentative okay,” Penwarren said. “Did you have a knife to his throat?”
“Memory’s not what it used to be, boss. Can’t recall.”
“I’ve had suspects with the same mental affliction. But how do you feel, honestly? There are some here who, unaccountably, seem to have missed you.”
“Never better! Woke up this morning, saw that I wasn’t in the mortuary fridge with a tag on my big toe, and decided it was a good day to get back to work!”
Dr. Duncan, who’d affixed many such tags, cuffed his shoulder as she took her own seat.
“I’ve announced a press conference at Rough Tor car park tomorrow morning. Crawley will lead it.”
“Ah, Crawley, our very own circus clown,” Morgan mumbled, shaking her head.
“Let’s remember he’s our Superintendent, Morgan.”
Morgan made a face. “Man’s an idiot.”
Penwarren looked up and his face clouded. Terry Bates had finally arrived, uncharacteristically late. There was a compression bandage wrapped around her right wrist. It peeked out from beneath her suit jacket. She gave a casual wave of greeting with her left hand and headed to the coffee pot at the back of the room.
“Terry?”
“Good morning, boss.” She was right-handed and poured awkwardly with her left. Novak rose to help but was turned away with a look.
“Terry?” Penwarren pressed.
“Little accident. Not a problem.”
“Did this happen up at Merseyside?”
“Yeah. Got into a brawl with the lads at the pub. Rough bunch, those Liverpudlians. Got back late. I’ll explain in my written report.”
Penwarren wasn’t buying it. “I should think now would be the right time for your report, detective.”
Morgan watched all this silently. There was a current beneath this exchange she didn’t like. Terry was being evasive, and she wasn’t any good at it. Calum cleared his throat, as if to fill in the silence.
Terry brought her coffee and sat. She rested her swollen right hand in her lap beneath the table.
Penwarren waited.
Bates sighed. “Okay, so Lugg is known up there. Somewhat. Lived with his mum and looked after her until she died a while back. Then he seems to have gone to ground. No known employment since his cage wrestling days and no recent form, either.” She took a slug from her cup and made a face. “Coffee’s better at Merseyside.”
Penwarren wasn’t amused. “I’m still waiting, Terry. What’s the ‘but’?”
“There may be more intel on Lugg, but they wouldn’t share it with someone as lowly as me. Seems you’ll have to set up something called a CONFI protocol, liaise with them, and then maybe they’ll share what more they know, whatever that is. You’d think Lugg was a terrorism suspect, not a corpse.”
“And who suggested this?”
“The DCI: Waggoner.”
Penwarren considered for a moment. “I hope I don’t need to bring Crawley in on this.”
“I don’t think so, boss. You and Waggoner are both DCIs. He said nothing about getting clearance from higher up.”
“Good. Set a face-to-face meeting there for Monday, Terry; I don’t think Waggoner would have suggested it if he didn’t have something. Now, about this ‘accident?’”
“Maniac in a hurry to exit the hotel car park. Clipped me. I went down. Sprained wrist. That’s all.”
“License?”
“You’re jokin’ right? I said I went down.”
“The car didn’t stop?”
“No.”
“You didn’t report the incident? To either the hotel or police?”
“It was late; I wanted to get home.”
“You’re a police officer.”
“I’m a detective, not a traffic cop. All I saw was the color. Black, or maybe dark blue; lighting’s not that good in an underground car park. Some kind of sedan. What could I report?”
Penwarren relented, but Morgan had been listening to this exchange with increasing frustration. It wasn’t that she disbelieved her young acolyte, but her instincts had gone to high alert.
“Who knew you were in Liverpool, Terry?” she asked.
“You lot, of course, and Merseyside CID.”
“How many?”
“Waggoner and his people? It’s an open plan office, fewer than a dozen others at desks that afternoon and the next morning. They tried to be helpful.”
“But you said they knew of Lugg.”
“Well, yes, one of the blokes did. Remembered Lugg was a cage wrestler.”
“And then Waggoner suggested this CONFI arrangement?”
Terry’s patience was wearing thin. And she hurt.
Morgan continued: “Doesn’t that suggest that Waggoner already knew more about Lugg than he was letting on?” Morgan asked. “Why wait for one of his own to make the connection?”
“I can answer that,” Penwarren said. “If he did have intel about Lugg, and he seems to have had, he would have been prohibited from sharing it with his staff—at least at this point. He probably has intel files on all sorts of characters in his patch.”
“All right, fine then. But this so-called ‘accident’ minutes after Terry left the Liverpool HQ?”
Morgan looked at Calum. He nodded.
“Has it not occurred to you, Detective Sergeant Bates,” Morgan pressed, “that this might not have been an accident? That the timing might be more than coincidental? That this was perhaps a warning? From someone within Merseyside?”
Bates massaged her wrist but did not meet Morgan’s eyes. Of course it had.
PENWARREN WAS AT his stand-up desk facing his windows when Morgan walked into his office after the meeting and, to his surprise, closed the door behind her.
“We need to talk.”
Penwarren shook his head and smiled before turning and gesturing for Morgan to sit at his small meeting table.
“About Terry?”
“No.�
�
“No? Well then, I am at your service DI Davies.”
“Oh stop, boss. This is personal.”
“You and Calum?”
“Don’t be impertinent. It’s about you, dammit.”
Penwarren folded himself into a chair opposite her and waited.
Morgan took a deep breath. “Look, this is none of my business…”
“That’s never stopped you before.”
“No, really; there’s something you need to know—about your ex-brother-in-law.”
“Randall?”
“You got another one?”
Penwarren laughed and raised his hands in surrender.
“I interviewed the Cuthbertsons yesterday. Your brother-in-law is barely compos mentis, boss. I spoke with his wife afterwards. She says he has some kind of rapid onset dementia and may only last a few more weeks. You might want to have a talk with Beverly. I think she needs you: someone strong and rational, because things are unraveling for her right now. That’s just me talking, okay, and what do I know? But I’ll tell you what I do know: that woman pretends to be steely, but I think she’s cracking. Her world is disintegrating as fast as her husband’s mind.”
Penwarren stared at his top detective and blinked.
“Morgan, I had no idea.”
“I think she’s frightened, boss.”
Day Seven
Thirteen
IT HAD JUST gone eight Sunday morning and he was preparing for the press conference, when Adam Novak appeared at Penwarren’s office door. Apart from a few uniforms downstairs, the rest of the Bodmin Hub was deserted. There was no one at reception. You had to code your way through security.
“Got a minute, boss?”
“You trying for an early promotion, coming in on a Sunday? In my own experience, it gains you nothing or I’d be Commander Penwarren by now.”
Novak smiled but stayed at the door.
“What’s up?”
“Okay, so I’ve been troubling over that Range Rover Terry and I saw leaving Poldue Monday night.
“You said you wanted to look into it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And?” He hoped the young detective constable wouldn’t always be so reticent.
Penwarren took a seat at his conference table and gestured to Adam to sit as well. The young man did so reluctantly, like an uncertain suitor. He remained silent.
Penwarren prompted: “Now then, Adam, what have you learned that you need to share, when you should be getting ready to feast on the Sunday roast lunch at that pub in St. Breward with DS Bates?”
Novak shifted in his chair and looked away like a boy just caught out. He and Terry had been sharing Morgan’s barn conversion home at the edge of the moor ever since Morgan had gone to take care of Calum and his daughters. He wasn’t at all sure it was permitted by police policy, but he had not asked. Neither had Terry. They both assumed the boss knew. Apparently, he did.
He cleared his throat. “So, that was a top-of-the-line Range Rover I saw in our headlamps that night. You can tell from the ‘shark gill’ trim on the forward doors. Goes for somewhere just under £100,000 to even more, depending on the model. Pretty posh ride and I didn’t think it likely many got sold down here, so I checked with the Rover dealers at Truro and Saltash. They’re the only dealers in Cornwall. There have been a few recent sales, but none that were silver. However, a silver one is being leased from Roger Young’s dealership in Saltash, to a company called Celtic Property Development Ltd.”
“Rings no bells.”
Adam smiled.
“Okay, Adam, let’s pretend this isn’t a quiz show. What have you got?”
“Right, then. Given the company’s name, I started researching UK business listings in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and even here in Cornwall—since they all claim Celtic heritage. But I found nothing. That’s why it’s taken me a while to get back to you.
“Then I tried the Republic of Ireland. I found the company all right, but it shut down almost ten years ago, just before the collapse of the Celtic Tiger economic boom there. They were in housing development. During the boom, Ireland built half as many new homes as the UK, despite having only a fraction of the population. Celtic Property Development Ltd. were in the forefront. Then, just before the bubble burst, they closed down.”
“They went bankrupt?”
“No, they walked away—closed shop just at the peak if I have the dates right. Like they somehow knew the boom wouldn’t last…which, of course, it didn’t.”
“I remember the news stories, now you mention it. But if the company is defunct, how is it leasing a brand-new Range Rover?”
Adam shrugged. “I don’t know, boss.”
Penwarren got up and turned to his windows and said nothing for a few moments. Then he turned again.
“Adam, thank you. That was first rate work. And I mean you no disrespect, but I want you to report all this to Morgan and work with her. You and she are proving to be formidable researchers. I want the two of you to find out what you can about this allegedly former company that still manages to lease luxury Rovers. And then we need to learn why that car was at Poldue the night the body was found—if that was that car. The Cuthbertsons were—and I suppose to some extent still are—family. I can’t afford to be too closely involved. But Morgan knows them now, and I gather Mrs. Cuthbertson trusts her. If there’s further questioning to be done, I want Morgan to do it, with you at her side.”
Novak nodded and rose. “On it, boss.” At the door he turned. “Tomorrow soon enough?”
“Yes. That’s fine. I’ll let Morgan know. You’ll be at the press conference?”
“Yes, sir. Might still be time after for that Sunday roast lunch at the Old Inn…”
BECAUSE IT WAS routine practice to do so, and because he also took quiet joy in discomfiting his officious senior officer, DCS Malcolm Crawley, Penwarren arranged for the 10:00 Sunday morning press conference to be held near as possible to the murder site: a small gravel car park at the end of Rough Tor Road, the tor itself looming in the background. Good television visuals. Penwarren, the rest of the MCIT team, and Crawley gathered under a small white marquee canopy stretched over aluminum poles anchored with sandbags. Technicians were setting up a microphone. Penwarren had briefed his DCS on the latest (which was little), but he never knew how much the man actually took in. As predicted, the rain had appeared, first as a mist but now it was threatening worse. A raw wind was freshening from the west and out over the Atlantic the sky was smudged with dark rain cloud cells in an otherwise pewter sky.
Crawley, down from Exeter HQ and impeccably but unsuitably dressed in dark suit, starched white shirt, tie, and polished black brogues, was not pleased.
“This could have been done at the Bodmin Hub,” he carped. “Indoors. Like civilized people.”
“Not policy, sir, as you know: closest to the scene.”
“But—”
“You are a stickler for policy, sir. Just making sure we toe the official line and meet your standards.”
Crawley made a face. “Sunday of all things.” He looked around. “Not much of a turnout, either.” Crawley liked an audience. “And bloody awful weather.”
Penwarren shrugged. “Welcome to Cornwall, Malcolm. But it’s a slow news day; you’ll get good visibility.”
A couple of reporters’ cars and two television satellite vans—BBC Cornwall and ITV—were drawn up in a semi-circle near the canopy. Technicians set up lights, affixed microphones to a stand in front of the shelter and adjusted the aim of the disks atop the vans. The cameramen and reporters remained in their vehicles, staying dry. Except, that is, for a wiry, balding, middle aged man in a greasy green Barbour coat with a cigarette smoldering damply in his left hand and a shiny digital voice recorder in his right.
Morgan Davies, standing beside Penwarren, her hands deep in the pockets of a capacious olive anorak so worn it looked incapable of shedding the slightest drop of water, grumbled, “Just our luck—it
’s MacLeod.”
Penwarren gave her a cautionary nudge.
“About this body…” MacLeod barked as he approached the canopy.
“All in good time, Lance. You know how these things go. Please be patient,” Penwarren said amiably.
Macleod pulled on his cigarette, looked at the stub briefly, and used it to light another. “Patience never got me on the front page, Penwarren!”
“Ah, but premature and typically wrong front page coverage gets you in trouble,” Morgan stuck in. “We’ve been there before, MacLeod.”
Two female reporters, both young, blond, and telegenic, had emerged and taken position under the lights. “Premature, I’m sure!” one of them said in a salacious aside to the other: “That’s our man Lance!” They both laughed.
MacLeod ignored them. He was The Cornishman’s top—and only—crime reporter. A wiry weasel of a fellow, he had a narrow head and a long nose that seemed forever to be sniffing for the scent of a story, and his squinty face was permanently pinched and creased from years of blinking back cigarette smoke. He had been with the county’s oldest weekly newspaper for as long as anyone could remember, despite having repeatedly tried to scoop investigations, getting the facts wrong, and having to back-track in the next edition. But he sold papers. He was also a police press conference fixture. Morgan called him “the ferret” and wondered whether he even had a den to sleep in, other than his increasingly decrepit and perpetually filthy VW diesel sedan.
Penwarren stepped out of the shelter of the canopy and raindrops pocked his fawn trench coat.
“Detective Chief Superintendent Malcolm Crawley has come down from police headquarters in Exeter to brief you all on this new case.” He nodded to his senior officer to step forward. Crawley stayed beneath the canopy. A uniformed police technician moved the microphone closer.
“Thank you all for coming,” Crawley began, as if speaking to a nonexistent crowd beyond the range of the cameras, his hoped-for evening television viewers. “Late Monday afternoon, nearly evening, a body was discovered on the east side of Rough Tor on Bodmin Moor.” He gestured behind him, as if the tor were not already obvious.