Dead and Gone: A gripping thriller with a shocking twist (DI Annie Parker)

by D. L. Michaels

  I stop at a yellow wooden gate, set in an overgrown privet hedge. A security light flickers on. I step back and look at the short garden and house in front of me. There’s a flagged path. A bit of grass both sides. A tiny shed that probably holds the mower, then the back of the terrace.

  A black drainpipe pops out from beneath a white window, so I’m guessin’ there’s a kitchen sink the other side of it. There’s no light on in the room but one is spilling in from the front, so there must be a door or arch connecting the two. The house looks pretty long, so I’m figurin’ there’s a big kitchen diner, then the front room where The Bastard is sat.

  I glance upward and see that there are no lights on in the bedrooms.

  I open the gate, slip inside and close it without lettin’ it bang shut. A nice click of the latch, that’s all. It only takes me nine quick steps to get to the back door. I stop, wait and listen.

  There’s a telly blarin’.

  I strain to pick out voices, to hear if people are talkin’ about what’s on. To find out if Paula is sat with The Bastard, all cosy, watchin’ TV and stuff.

  I don’t think so.

  It’s not her style. Certainly not somethin’ she did much with me. Always preferred to be on a computer or have her head in a book, that’s my Paula.

  MY PAULA.

  Anger ratchets up my blood pressure.

  So, Bastard is most likely alone.

  Good.

  At least there’ll be no screamin’ and interferin’ as I do my worst.

  I tighten my grip on the tyre lever and put my other hand on the fancy metal back-door handle. Even before I try, I know he’s left it unlocked. Most people do. They’re always in and out with rubbish and groceries, so they leave it loose.

  In my head, I already see the first whack I’m goin’ to give him. Bosh. One to the back of the bonce while he’s sat starin’ at the gogglebox. Not enough to fracture his skull, but sufficient to start him howlin’ like a kid with his cock caught in his zip.

  I turn the door handle nice and slow and hear a cool click, like the tumbler of a safe.

  Sweet.

  A gentle push and it’s open.

  There’s a lingerin’ smell of bacon. Coffee. Old fish in a bin that needs emptyin’.

  I step across the kitchen. The floor is tiled and noisy. I walk on my toes. Past worktops, a bread bin, a block of knives. I make a mental note to stop the fucker goin’ anywhere near the blades. I tiptoe around a table. Four chairs pushed in. Only two placemats. Places for Bastard and Paula.

  MY PAULA sat here.

  Maybe sat here, with my child inside her.

  Never again.

  Never a-fuckin’-gain.

  There’s an open door leadin’ into the front room. I press myself against the wall. Countdown is on the telly. I can hear that short-skirted blonde bird asking one of them impossible maths questions.

  The game-show music plays louder. It’s the tense bit where the clock counts down. As it clunks and clunks to its dramatic stop, I enter the room.

  ‘Move and I’ll blow your bloody head off!’

  A gun barrel presses into my face.

  The Bastard has been hidin’ the other side of the wall.

  Now he has a shotgun to my head.

  ‘It’s real and it’s loaded.’ He shoves the gun into my temple. Steps away from the wall.

  Smart.

  He’s a couple of paces away from me grabbin’ the weapon, or hittin’ him but he’s still got a good shot at me.

  Question is, has he got the balls to take it?

  67

  Annie

  The ground-penetrating radar has arrived and is being set up under a night sky threatening more snow.

  ‘I’ve spoken to Matthews,’ Charlie informs me as we walk into a bitter wind. ‘She took over those checks you wanted on Smith, Crewe, Ellison and the market boys, Pilcher and Sismey.’

  ‘Did she find any connections?’

  ‘No new ones,’ he says, scanning the growing darkness. ‘There certainly doesn’t seem anything to link Ashley or Kieran Crewe to Anthony Pilcher or Mark Sismey. And there seems no link between Kieran Crewe and Danny Smith, except of course they both knew Kieran’s brother Ashley.’

  ‘Shame. More for you than me, because that might have made sense of Ellison’s claims about some drug lord being behind all this.’

  ‘Drug lord is an overused term outside Columbia,’ he says with a smile. ‘I prefer greedy, heartless bloodsucker with a bit of cash and muscle but no soul or brain to do anything else.’

  ‘Maybe we should factor Sarah Johnson into that matrix of people Matthews was checking. But do it under all her names – Makeney, as she was at school, Smith when she first married and then Johnson when she bigamously tied the knot.’ I rub red-raw hands and blow into them for some warmth.

  ‘I’ve just suggested all that to Matthews. Here—’ He digs out a pair of gloves from his pocket.

  ‘I’m okay, thanks.’

  ‘No, go on, take them, don’t be silly.’

  I give in. ‘Okay, thanks. What about you?’

  ‘Don’t be soft. I’m hard as nails. All alpha male. You know that.’

  I steer the conversation back to the case. ‘D’you think we should call her Paula Smith or Sarah Johnson? She seems more comfortable with Johnson but technically her second marriage is void.’

  ‘Has to be Smith when you charge her. As you say, legally she isn’t a Mrs Johnson, because she never stopped being a Mrs Smith.’

  I nod. ‘Right. From now on, I’ll get everyone to call her Paula Smith. Let’s get into the habit straight away.’ I pull my foot out of a patch of cloying mud and slither like I’m slipping on ice.

  Charlie grabs my arm. ‘Careful!’

  He holds on while I steady myself. Our eyes lock. He gives me a warm look and I get an embarrassingly delicious girly shiver.

  ‘The pathologist is en route,’ I announce, awkwardly. ‘He may be a while, given the weather.’

  He lets go. The mention of a pathologist always kills a mood.

  ‘Who is it?’ he asks, his eyes now cold.

  ‘Prof Symonds.’

  ‘That ballbreaker? Jesus, someone’s got it in for you.’

  ‘Actually, we got lucky. Symonds is also an anthropologist as well as a pathologist, so his expertise in skeletal analyses should help us get an accurate date on the age of the corpse.’

  We grow silent as we walk past a bank of portable floodlights fixed to a genny illuminating the spot where our bigamous interviewee told us Ashley Crewe’s body is buried.

  Harsh white light spills across the target area, then out over felled green lumber, until it fades at the feet of a cluster of towering conifers.

  The grandly named Ground Penetrating Radar Team rolls toward us. Grandly because, given spending cuts, these days it is a one-man show known as Geoff Beasely. Geoff’s a jolly, black-bearded joker in his late thirties who I’ve worked a number of jobs with and come rain or shine he’s never short of a smile. Clad head-to-toe in high-vis waterproofs, he whistles cornily ‘Singing in the Rain’ as he pegs out an all-weather ‘mapping grid’, so he can be sure every centimetre of the suspected burial ground is checked. ‘With you in a sec,’ he shouts without looking up.

  Charlie and I watch him smooth the sheet down as best he can, then, from his van, he wheels out the yellow and black portable radar machine that looks as though it’s made from Lego.

  ‘Do you know how those things work?’ asks my former boss, in a tone that gives away he’s desperate to tell me.

  I point to the machine and explain confidently, ‘That flat plate on the ground sends high-frequency radio signals into the earth and reflected signals bounce back to an on-board receiver and are then translated into viewable data by some thingamajig computer.’

  ‘A thingamajig?’ He breaks out laughing.

  ‘Yes, a very powerful one,’ I reply, as I start to crack up.

  ‘Oh, Annie, you were doing
so well until you said thingamajig.’

  ‘Then,’ I persist, ‘there’s a display screen on the handle of the machine, on which you can see the shape of what’s been hit and how deep it’s buried.’

  ‘Good evening, Inspector, says Geoff, finally getting to us before I have chance to demand an apology from Charlie.

  ‘Evening, Geoff,’ I say mid-laughter. ‘This is DI York from the National Crime Agency.’

  The two men shake hands.

  ‘Wish I could have fixed some better weather for you,’ I tell Geoff.

  ‘Not a worry, Inspector. I got caught in one of those flash storms this morning in Manchester.’ He continues to roll the GPR machine and we follow, as he adds, ‘I was at a church near Old Mills, looking for bodies in a cemetery.’

  ‘Well, who would have thought you needed radar for that?’ quips Charlie.

  ‘Yeah, you’d have imagined not,’ answers our expert techy. ‘But these were bodies under bodies.’

  ‘Ooh, that’s interesting,’ I say.

  ‘It is. And luckily for you, Inspector, it’s on the north-west crime patch so you’re not going to be lumbered with it.’

  ‘Serial killer?’ asks Charlie.

  ‘Drugs. The SIO said it was gang related. A novel way of getting rid of your rivals. They’d done a good job an’ all.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asks Charlie.

  ‘Buggers had gone in from the side,’ he says with a hint of admiration. ‘Used turf cutters to lift the grass walkway between the graves. They shifted it, dug down parallel to the graves, sledgehammered the side out of the coffins and pushed new bodies in on top of the old ones.’

  ‘What happened to dumping victims in the Ship Canal?’ I ask.

  ‘Cameras, my darling. Cameras. But there isn’t CCTV in a country graveyard, is there?’ Geoff is now almost effusive in his praise. ‘To the naked eye, nothing looked like it’d been disturbed. Pots, headstones, gravel, everything were still in place. The church gardener, he only comes once a month in winter to tidy things up, says he thought maybe there was a bit of subsidence going on, so he did a test dig and found a couple of skellies double-bunked in a grave for one and raised the alarm.’

  Geoff stops moving. Peers at his monitor. ’We’ve got something here. Come onto the grid and have a look.’

  Charlie and I join him and aim our amateur stares at the monitor.

  ‘About a metre and a half down.’ Geoff runs his finger back and forth on the grey screen to clear it of rain.

  I lean closer to the LCD monitor and stare pitifully at a fuzzy, body-shaped image.

  ‘Best get your diggers in,’ says Geoff. ‘Looks like we’ve found your victim.’

  68

  Danny

  ‘So, you’re Danny.’

  Bastard says my name like I’m a piece of shit.

  ‘And I guess you’re Martin,’ I reply in a matching tone.

  Bastard still has a shotgun aimed at me. But he’s no tough nut. His eyes betray him. ‘Why don’t you put that down, mate?’ I flash him a cool smile. ‘We both know you’re not goin’ to use it.’

  ‘Is that right?’ He lifts the stock to his shoulder and looks down the sight. ‘You’ve no idea how much I hate you.’

  I give a casual shrug, try to appear calmer than I am. ‘So, where’s the love of your life, then? You got my missus tied to a bed upstairs?’ Beyond his shoulder, on a dark wood table, I see Paula’s phone.

  ‘She’s not here,’ he says. ‘She’s gone to the police to tell them everything.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘The lot. You and her. What you did to that boy at your school.’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re on about. Now why don’t you put that gun down, before someone gets hurt?’

  Bastard looks down the barrel again. ‘I’m sure you know exactly what I am on about,’ he says. ‘And I know she will also have told them about her bigamy.’

  ‘Her what?’

  ‘Her marrying me as well as you.’

  I can’t help but laugh. ‘You been on the fuckin’ magic powder? I don’t know what’s goin’ on in that mad bonce of yours, but she’s never gonna marry you. Now put that fuckin’ gun down so I can call my stupid wife and stop her makin’ things worse than they already are.’

  ‘We are married,’ insists Bastard. ‘Don’t you understand what I’m telling you? We’ve been married for years.’

  He’s right. I don’t understand. It doesn’t make sense. ‘You’re what?’

  ‘Married. I married Sarah in Italy. She is my wife.’

  ‘Sarah?’ ‘Paula Sarah Smith to you. Sarah Paula Johnson to me.’

  ‘Fuck off. She’s my wife. She’s carryin’ my child. You’re fuckin’ nothin’ to her.’

  ‘Child? She’s pregnant?’

  I see confusion in his eyes. Bastard clearly doesn’t know her. His focus has gone now. His arty little head all over the fuckin’ place.

  Suddenly, he reads me. Knows what’s going to happen now.

  He pulls the trigger and he lives.

  He doesn’t and I tear his head off.

  69

  Annie

  Hailstones pound the roofs of Support Group vans. I hear the loud drumming noise, while I show a group of grumbling PCs in waterproofs where to start digging.

  Charlie and I take shelter beneath some overhanging trees and watch them.

  ‘So glad I’m not doing that,’ he says.

  ‘Me too.’

  Forensic officers erect a white cover tent in the downpour. Other SOCOs lay walk boards, so the scene is protected from contamination when we access it. Giant plastic sheets are staked out, so soil can be transferred to them and sifted for evidence. Beneath arc lights, the search team get down on their hands and knees and shift brambles, bracken, rubble and rubbish that has been dropped there by fly-tippers.

  Finally, the spade work begins.

  Even from here, we can tell it’s shoulder-wrenching, back-breaking work.

  My mobile buzzes.

  It’s deep inside a pocket.

  Inevitably, by the time I get to it, the call’s gone. I squint at the tiny screen to see who’s rung. Either I get glasses soon or one of those big phones.

  Home

  My heart drops. Guiltily, I search my mental calendar. Not a school play. Not parents’ evening. Not anything I’ve forgotten.

  Then the worst of thoughts.

  An accident.

  Polly’s had an accident.

  I hit redial.

  ‘Mum.’ It’s my son’s voice. ‘Something terrible’s happened.’

  My legs go wobbly. ‘Tom, what has happened?’

  ‘The road’s flooded and water is coming into the kitchen.’

  I feel angry. I’m on the verge of hanging up. Then I recalibrate. Flooding is terrible in the ‘normal’ world – the world that doesn’t revolve around digging up a murdered rapist.

  ‘It’s come over the back doorstep, Mum. What should I do?’

  ‘How much? How deep is it?’

  There’s a delay while I guess Tom takes a look. ‘I don’t know. I can’t be sure. It’s a centimetre, maybe two, deep. But it’s coming down the road like a river and the rain’s not stopping.’

  ‘All right, don’t worry, love. Where’s Auntie Dee?’

  ‘She’s taken Polly to the pictures and her mobile is off.’

  ‘Have you put towels down in the hall?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you tried brushing the water out?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Okay, then try the towels and brushing.’ In front of me, I see the search team leader beckoning me and Charlie.

  They’ve found something.

  ‘Are you still there, Mum?’

  ‘Yes,’ I answer, but my attention is on the digging PCs. ‘Turn the electric off, Tom. Do that first. Make sure there’s nothing valuable on the floor in the lounge, like your laptop, your phone or anything.’

  ‘I’m on
my phone, Mum; how could it be on the floor?’

  ‘Don’t be smart! I have to go now.’

  ‘Mum—’

  ‘I have to go. I’ll call as soon as I can.’

  I finish the call and join the others. Steam rises from heads and bodies of the diggers. Faces bead with sweat. They step aside, so I can look into the freshly dug hole.

  Below me, the ragged remains of rotted laundry sheets and the outline of a body. Jutting through the soil, I see a Doc Marten style boot, part of the sleeve of a green jacket and what looks like the twisted leg of some blue or black denim jeans.

  ‘All those clothes fit with what our little bigamist told us Crewe was wearing,’ says Charlie.

  ‘Okay,’ I shout. ‘No more digging. Not until the pathologist arrives. I don’t want anything moved until Professor Symonds gets here.’

  70

  Martin

  Danny Smith is coming at me. The man claiming to have made my wife pregnant has a tyre iron in his hand and wants to cleave my skull open. He’s gambling that I’m not going to shoot him.

  And he’s going to lose.

  The only question in my mind, is whether I kill him or not.

  A head shot will end him.

  A body shot will let him live.

  I pull the trigger.

  Not a nice, calm squeeze. Not like Dad coached me when we first shot clays in the Oxfordshire countryside. But an aggressive snatch at the metal.

  There’s a deafening boom.

  A painful ringing in unprotected ears.

  The sharp smell of burning powder.

  My old man would say I’d pulled the shot, ‘missed the damned target completely’. But he’d be wrong.

  As the screaming testifies.

  Not a high-pitched girly scream, but a visceral man-roar. Deep in bass and rich in pain and panic.

  I’ve shot him, or, to be more accurate, shot in his general direction, at close range with a cartridge filled with rock salt and rice. It’s the very first charge Dad had let me fire. He’d done it to get me used to the noise, the recoil of the gun and to make sure I didn’t kill anything I shouldn’t.