McLaren’s sense of Right, his need to help others, blossomed. After graduating from university, he joined the police service. When he had completed his initial training, at the top of his class, he had honed his determination to serve where and how he could.
“I could hear him—” Nigel took a deep breath, trying to keep his voice from quaking. “I knew where he was, even in the dark. There’s a floorboard that creaks. I snapped on the overhead light and surprised him with the cash register till in his hand. He was emptying it into a sack he had with him. He’d also put some bottles of liquor or beer into it. I heard the coins hit the bottles as they fell into the sack. I saw a crowbar on the counter top. The tool wasn’t mine—I don’t own one. He smirked at me and called me a name. I guess the crowbar was too far away from him ’cause he reached into the sack and brought out a bottle. He had hold of it by its neck. He hit it against the edge of the serving counter so the bottom of the bottle broke off. Then he rushed at me. He was holding the jagged bottle edge toward me like he was going to dig it into me. I was scared—for me and for Maureen. As he ran up to me I picked up the fireplace poker and hit him.”
ELEVEN
“Hear that, McLaren? It’s a confession. Mr. Forester hit Mr. Antony.” Harvester smiled, the smirk broadening into a grin as though it were a personal triumph.
McLaren glanced around the bar area, expecting to see great pools of blood. The oak-paneled walls, stone floor and fireplace were as he remembered. The massive beams, nearly black against the white plaster ceiling, had not changed. Yet the room’s warmth and intimacy had become cold and menacing from the night’s event and Harvester’s presence. McLaren doubled up his fist, ready to slam it into Harvester’s leer, then shoved his hand behind his back. “Since when are the police so protective of a burglar? You make me sick, Harvester.”
Unconcerned with McLaren’s opinion, Harvester said, “I’ve cautioned Mr. Forester and he acknowledged that he understands it. Nothing you can do. We’ve got the evidence of the assault—”
“What evidence? If you’re talking about fingerprints on the poker, that’s no evidence. It’s his poker! I’m taking this up with the governor.”
“What’s the matter with you, McLaren? You hard of hearing? Or just so thick skulled that you don’t understand? I said it’s not your case. Mr. Forester attacked Mr. Antony so severely that the wrought iron poker bent over his head, for God’s sake! That’s proof of an assault. That and Mr. Antony’s blood on it. It’s a clear case of Section 18, causing grievous bodily harm. And, if Mr. Antony dies, it’ll become a case of murder.”
The years of antagonism seemed to solidify into this exact moment. And now, in his friend’s pub, McLaren felt the determination to help others—the need that had sent him into the Force in the first place—growing within him. The anger and frustration at seeing Nigel Forester so wrongly arrested spilled out. He strode over to the CSI officer, grabbed the fireplace poker, and marched into the men’s loo. Turning on the cold-water tap, he thrust the poker under the running water and moved the poker back and forth, wiping the blood and hair from the tool. When he had removed all the physical traces, he straightened the poker over his knee. Satisfied, he strode back into the main room and threw the poker onto a table. The poker bounced once as it thudded against the table’s wooden surface.
“Now where’s your evidence?” McLaren barked, hatred in his eyes as he glared at Harvester.
Every eye in the room was fixed to the now-clean poker.
Harvester slowly shifted his gaze from the table to McLaren’s face. He stared at McLaren, matching his anger as he snapped, “I’ll have you up before the Chief Constable, McLaren! You’ve just destroyed vital evidence in a case.”
“Nigel Forester stays right here.” He took a step toward Harvester and brought his fist from behind his back. The two constables who were in attendance exchanged nervous glances but remained where they were.
“I’ll have your job, McLaren,” Harvester hissed. “Yours and anyone who assists you. You’re interfering with a police case.” He didn’t have to look at the constables to make his meaning clear.
“Hell.” McLaren strode over to Nigel, who was leaning his head against the wall. At this angle, with the light falling full on Nigel’s face, the bruises and the cut beneath his eye showed up markedly against his pale skin. Turning a chair to face his friend, McLaren sat down and leaned forward, as though having dropped in for a chat. He said quietly but firmly, “You’ll be fine, Nigel. You’re not going anywhere with Detective Harvester. You’ve done nothing wrong. You defended your and your wife’s life against an armed intruder. Please don’t worry. We’ll go see Maureen when they’ve got you patched up, shall we?”
During this conversation, Harvester had stepped out of the room, but he now returned, his face red and a smile playing about the corners of his lips. He walked up to McLaren but stopped several feet from him. “I’ve just radioed for a superintendent to be turned out, McLaren.” He paused, watching McLaren’s face for the full effect of his words.
McLaren rose to his feet, the knuckles of his right hand pressing against the tabletop.
Harvester smiled more broadly now that he had McLaren’s attention. “I’m making an allegation against you. Perverting the course of justice. We’ll see what the superintendent has to say about that.” He opened his mouth, whether to add something or to smile, but he didn’t get a chance.
McLaren grabbed a handful of Harvester’s shirt with his right hand and seized his right upper arm with his left hand. Turning Harvester around, McLaren stepped behind him. As he dragged Harvester outside, the constables rushed to the doorway, wanting to witness history. McLaren dragged Harvester across the flagstone patio, kicking aside chairs and tables as he made for the edge of the garden. The few constables outside stopped their activities and parted like the Red Sea for Moses as McLaren flung Harvester around to face him. Taking a deep breath, McLaren slammed his right fist into Harvester’s jaw, sending him backwards into the rose bushes.
“You should thank me, Harvester. I’ve just instigated a family reunion for you.” He snapped off a broken rose stem, sniffed it, and threw it at the man. “Harvester’s your name. Now you’re with the rest of your kind—the arachnid harvesters, the spindly-legged predators who infest bramble patches. How’s it feel to be home?”
As Harvester yelled in pain and tried to stand up, McLaren remained rooted to the spot, his chest rapidly rising and falling, his face flushed. Towering over the sprawled-out man, McLaren growled, “About Nigel Forester—he’s going nowhere. Understand?” He waited for a moment, sizing up the man at his feet.
Harvester lay where he was, staring up at McLaren in silence.
McLaren turned abruptly, pushed his way through the coppers who were hesitantly moving toward Harvester, and thundered back into the pub.
* * * *
The scene faded from McLaren’s eyes as he stood by his bedroom window. The night had darkened while he relived that terrible night more than a year ago. The moon had disappeared behind a bank of clouds and a cool wind had sprung up from the west. In spite of the warmth of the June night, McLaren shivered. He rubbed his forehead, telling himself it had all been for the best. That he was glad to be shut of a department whose Chief Constable eventually sided with the extremist councilors and a ranting media out for blood. But he knew he was lying to himself. He had loved the job, still loved the job. Regardless of the constables’ testimony that the poker had never been bent or bloody, that it was Nigel Forester’s word against a known career burglar—all of which left Harvester out on the proverbial limb and madder than ever with McLaren—McLaren had been suspended from duty.
He slammed his fist into the wall. When the Chief Constable had offered him the option of resigning from the Force instead of being prosecuted for assaulting a police officer and perverting the course of justice, McLaren knew a brick wall when he saw one. Knew the handwriting on that wall, too. He’d forever be a marked man, an
d back in uniform in days.
He had resigned in an overwhelming rush of sadness, the hurt of being torn from the CID branch, which he loved, as painful as a loved one’s death. Now, he was reliving that fiasco of justice, that moment of Harvester’s triumph. It was something he had no desire to unearth.
A fox barked in the darkness and the moon emerged from its nest of clouds before McLaren wandered over to his bed. He sat on the edge of the mattress, his toes burrowing into the deep pile of the lambskin throw rug, his heels resting on the cool wooden floor. It’s been a year, he reminded himself. Surely it’s time to get on with my life, to mend the pain. If not for my own good, then for Dena’s.
He opened the bottom drawer of his bedside cabinet and rummaged within its depths. His fingers felt the cold, metal photo frame and wrapped around a corner as he pulled it from the drawer. He opened the easel stand on the frame’s back and set the photo on top of the cabinet, next to the alarm clock. Sitting in the darkness, he stared at the photo. He needed no light to see Dena’s brown eyes, envision her smile. Hadn’t he conjured up her face countless nights this past year when the nightmares had awakened him, when he had downed too many beers?
Telling her picture that he’d think about the two of them, he lay down. The night closed around him, obscure and soothing. The wind caressed his bare chest, cooling his anger. A flash of lightning crackled beyond the oak. In that second of near-blinding brightness Dena’s face jumped out from the darkness, seemingly alive and blessing him with her smile. Then, as the blackness reclaimed the land and his room, he turned onto his side, facing her portrait. He laid again in the darkness, aware of the storm, the smell of rain approaching downwind. As he drifted off to sleep, he thought that the storm mimicked exactly his life at the moment.
* * * *
The ringing that awakened McLaren at half past seven was not from his alarm clock. He hadn’t set it the previous night. The obnoxious noise came from his phone on the bedside stand. Forcing his eyelids open, he cautiously sat up, testing his stiff back and his aching head. The phone rang again as he rubbed his hand across the back of his neck and he muttered “Yeah? What?” to the unknown caller.
His tone and temperament changed when Jamie Kydd’s cheerful voice sang into his ear. “Late night, Mike?” The humor was evident in Jamie’s voice even if McLaren couldn’t see him.
“More like an early morning.”
“Storm keep you up?”
“That and…” He glanced at Dena’s photo and laid it face down on top of the bedside table. I must’ve been drunk last night to get that out, he thought, then ran his left hand through his tousled hair.
“The case bothering you, won’t let you sleep?”
“Yeah. I’ve a lot to think about.” He pushed the photo frame slightly farther away from him.
“Well, here’s another little something to think about.” Jamie paused, as though bracing for his friend’s explosion of gratitude. “In regards to getting that information you wanted—”
McLaren sighed heavily. “Don’t tell me.”
“I thought you wanted to know. You rang me up—”
“I meant don’t tell me you got caught lifting a file or something.”
“What kind of detective do you think I am? No, don’t answer that.”
“Did you get anything, then?” He ran his fingers through his hair, astonished at Jamie’s friendship.
“If you haven’t looked at your email yet this morning…”
“Bloody hell.”
Jamie grinned. “I’ll take that as a ‘not yet,’ shall I?”
“Get on with it. Did you get anything or not?”
“I emailed those reports to you.”
“I must be still half asleep. You emailed the reports? How?”
“Simple. I scanned them on the computer, saved them as .pdf files, and emailed them as attachments.”
“Must’ve taken you hours.”
“Well, it did take a while,” Jamie confessed. “I stayed late, after my shift ended. Not too many lads around the station in the wee small hours so I had a better chance of getting the files and scanning them. I, uh…” He hesitated momentarily, wondering how to phrase this bit of news. “I sent the pages I thought were most pertinent. You didn’t get the entire report.” He pulled a face, steeling himself for McLaren’s disappointment.
“That’s smashing, Jamie!”
“Thought you’d be well chuffed. I also emailed you a few photos of her body…in situ and of the area itself. I just chose a few to send.”
“Sure, Jamie. I didn’t expect the whole bloody file.” That would’ve taken hours to scan and send. As it is, I hope my damned computer doesn’t crash. “That’s super.”
“Uh, Mike…I can tell you now, if you’d like, where her body was found.”
McLaren withdrew a pad of paper and pen from the drawer in the nightstand. “Yeah?” He wrote swiftly, making no comment as Jamie related the details. When Jamie finished, McLaren sank back against the bed’s headboard and stared at his notes. Half mile out…right side of road…in a depression two yards from the road’s edge…stone barn searched…victim’s right shoe missing. “This is first rate, Jamie. Thanks. I’ll get to those emails right away and let you know what I find at the barn.”
“I just hope it’s more than straw and stones.”
* * * *
The ballistics report stated that the bullet that killed Marta was a .38 caliber fired from a revolver. Most likely a Webley. The pathologist reported that although it was evident Marta had been drinking that evening there wasn’t enough alcohol in her blood to register as over the limit. Marta had been shot at close proximity, perhaps six to ten inches. Gunpowder markings were consistent with that distance, the particles imbedded into the skin. Death was instantaneous, or close to it. This was the only evidence of a gunshot on the body. Fixed lividity and other usual indicators that help pinpoint a time of death could not be used, due to the advanced decomposition of the body. The entomologist established the presence of ticks, spiders and several species of flies, as well as maggots, on the remains.
McLaren looked up from the computer monitor. Insects, especially flies, went through life cycles that could be clocked, from laying eggs, to developing larvae, to adulthood. Knowing the type of insects on and under the body, the quantity of a specific insect, and the stage of the life cycle pointed the finger at the time of death. Insects were a witness more reliable and unvarying than the human kind. Especially in this case, McLaren thought, with Marta’s body lying for over a week in the open, in the summer heat. He went back to the report. Although not conclusive, death probably occurred the night of her last casino outing. The insects’ activities are consistent with the time.
He next looked at the photos of the stone barn, the immediate vicinity, and Marta’s body in situ, and printed them out. After logging off, he laid the photos on the kitchen worktop, next to his keys. Then, whistling, he went to take his shower.
* * * *
The storm of early morning left a blanket of mist that still hugged the valley and wallowed in depressions in fields and gardens when McLaren left his house at nine o’clock. A chill laced the air and condensation coated the cooler surfaces such as outdoor water pump handles, farm machinery and ungaraged cars. The small willow at the edge of his garden took on a phantom-like quality, its leaves a green smear beneath a wash of gray. There was a stealthy movement as a bough waved faintly at McLaren and a tendril of mist swirled past the dark lump of the cypress. A bird chirped somewhere in the obscurity, then everything was still.
Except for McLaren’s whispered, “Damn.”
As he approached his car, he saw it. Eleven empty beer bottles set up like a frame for tenpin bowling. The extra bottle was placed in front of the bottle at the triangle’s apex, which pointed toward the car’s windscreen. A twelfth bottle lay on its side, pinned beneath one of the windscreen wipers. Deliberate. A mute message.
He returned to his kitchen, dug arou
nd in the closet and located a pair of rubber washing-up gloves and a large paper sack. Back outside, he pulled on the gloves and put the bottles inside the sack. Perhaps Jamie could work on them off duty, he thought, then folded the top of the sack closed. He stood there for several seconds, staring at his car, aware of the weight of the bottles. Again he asked himself the unanswerable question: what was going on and who was doing this?
The gravel area where the car was parked held no hints. No footprints, no castoff shirt button, no blood splatter. Still, the detective in him was too strong to ignore, and he carefully stepped away from his car and walked around it in a wide circle. Nothing.
He set the bag on the car’s passenger seat, intending to drop it by Jamie’s house later in the day, then got into his car, and drove to Noah’s Ark. The bottles haunted him all the way to Chesterfield. Was he the trapped, fallen beer bottle?
* * * *
The animal shelter was a modern one-story building of white-painted cement blocks and steel. A row of windows near the roofline encircled the structure as a strand of pearls claimed a woman’s neck. McLaren parked beside a panel van that declared ‘Noah’s Ark’ along its side in brilliant green paint, took another sip of coffee before settling the travel mug into the car’s cup holder, and opened the car door.
The mist had burned off in the thirty-minute drive to Chesterfield, leaving the air warmer and hinting at a still-warmer day. Blackbeech Drive, on which the animal shelter was located, hummed with traffic this Saturday morning, and McLaren wondered if the neighboring businesses saw enough custom to keep them going. He locked his car and wandered up to the shelter’s front door. An electronic tone, like a doorbell, sounded toward the back of the reception area as he entered.
Siren Song Page 12