by Adam Carter
“Sure. I’ll show you the way.”
Stoker could sense Hart was losing hope with this, but he had not just been encouraging when he had told her she was handling the case well. She may have only ever dealt with the odd major crime, but Hart had been trained well and all her experience counted for something. She was a strong woman with a good heart and Stoker knew, given enough support, she could crack this case. Perhaps she even did not need him at all, other than for psychological reasons. She was better than she knew, and it was Stoker’s job to make sure she realised this.
At the same time, he was also intrigued. This was an unusual case and the detective in Stoker wanted nothing more than to solve it. He thought back to Brenda then and knew she had been right. He could not afford to lose his head. He could not afford for the past to repeat itself.
There was a reason, after all, they had come to Barrowville. The past needed to be left firmly behind.
CHAPTER FOUR
John Stoker was a legend. Of course, Hart had never heard of him before he had come to live in Barrowville, but he represented everything she had ever loved above detectives. He could only have risen higher in her estimation were he to don a fedora and trench coat while narrating events, using flowery metaphors and words like ‘dame’.
Hart did not know why she had always wanted to work for the police, but supposed it had something to do with her family. Her younger sister Gail had Down’s syndrome, so took a lot of looking after. She had matured early in life and had come to realise the value of looking after people she loved. As she had grown into an adult, it had seemed natural to her that she should extend that philosophy to her working life and the police had been a natural career path.
But Barrowville was not somewhere she could work the type of cases she read about in the newspapers. The worst thing she had ever had to deal with was the occasional sexual assault, and they were harrowing enough. Actual murder was unthinkable in Barrowville; even angry neighbours stopped short of actually putting a hatchet in someone’s head. When Stoker had first come to live in Barrowville, Hart had been more excited than she had ever been. She remembered finding reasons to see him, to talk to him about what he must have seen. But Stoker was reluctant to speak of much of it, and his wife never really liked the talk in her house, so Hart had generally gone away disappointed. But there was always a gleam to Stoker’s eye when he spoke of the past and Hart would usually be able to get some form of story from him.
As far as work was concerned, she had never asked him for help. Sometimes she had gone to him for advice, especially on the worst crimes. He had always proven willing to help, and even seemed to enjoy sharing his experience with her. This was the first time she had ever asked him to come with her out into the field – literally in fact – and she was grateful he had not turned her down.
Now all she had to do was prove herself competent enough to at least help him solve the case. She could not stand it if he ever looked upon her with eyes filled with disappointment.
She had taken him to the remains of the snowman. A large portion of the field had been cordoned off. There were few officers in Barrowville, so there was only one constable standing guard. He looked freezing and she imagined his flask of tea had run dry long ago, but she had not thought to bring any more. The constable’s name was Rob Manson and he did not need to see any identification from either of them to let them through. Snow had been falling steadily throughout the day; consequently the footprints left by the children who had found the body had been mostly filled in, while the snowman itself was all but merged into the landscape now. Like some fallen giant finally come to rest and slowly turning into a hill.
Stoker stood several metres from the snowman, his eyes searching the area as though he would be able to see something she had missed. It was precisely what Hart had brought him there for, yet there was a part of her which hoped he would not find anything. It would be a boost to her ego to think she had been thorough, yet would not help the investigation any.
“What did the children say?” Stoker asked at last.
“Not much. They were playing, they knocked over the snowman and found the body.”
“What did they say about the ground?”
“The ground?”
“Was the snow disturbed at all? Were there footprints from the people who committed the murder?”
“Oh. Not that they mentioned. They said there was no evidence of anyone else in the area, so I would assume not.”
“It’s never a good idea to assume anything.”
Hart felt a momentary twinge of resentment. “The coroner’s still looking at the body, but it was out here for at least a few days, if that’s what you’re getting at. The snow would have filled in the footprints.”
“I’m not trying to undermine you, Liz. I’m just trying to gather corroborating evidence. If there were footprints and the coroner is saying the body’s been here for days, that would mean someone came back to the scene of the crime.”
She had not thought of that and knew she should have.
“I’ll talk with them again, but I did get the impression they thought no one was out this way. Truman has a reputation, you know. No sane kid would play in his field if they thought Old MacDonald was lurking in the area.”
“That’s a point.”
Hart tried not to feel proud that she had thought of something Stoker had missed. This was not a competition but a murder investigation.
Stoker walked across to what remained of the snowman. He pulled the carrot out of the snow and held it up to her. “What’s this?”
“A nose.”
“Then why isn’t it back at the station?”
Hart knew what he meant. The body and the stake had been removed, but she had not honestly thought the carrot would bear any significance to the case. “Because it’s a carrot.”
“And where did the carrot come from?”
“From a carrot patch,” she said dryly.
From where he crouched, Stoker looked at her with a steady gaze. “If we can trace this carrot back to where it was bought, we may be able to put a face to the person who bought it. Maybe a bearded, young face.”
“But it’s a carrot. How are we supposed to track it?”
“Failing anything else, there could be fingerprints.”
Hart did not like to say that there would be no fingerprints on the carrot. It was possible the cold had frozen some onto it, but she did not think the cold worked that way. The fact she did not know for certain, however, stilled her tongue. She knew she had made a mistake and felt like a rookie on her first walk of the beat. Thankfully, Stoker was not cruel enough to mention it.
Producing an evidence bag from her pocket, she took the carrot and dropped it inside. Stoker’s attention had already moved on. She could see he was thinking and wondered what was going through his mind.
“I think it’s time I saw the body,” he said at last, rising and brushing the snow from his legs.
Hart did not like to say, but this was an odd order of conducting an investigation. They had already interrogated their first suspect and Stoker was only now looking at the scene of the crime and the body. She knew what he would reply should she bring it up with him, however. He would tell her this was her investigation and he was just lending a hand. While that was technically true, she had not knocked on his door because she had wanted someone to hold her hand through this, but to fill in all the blanks she would miss.
“I’ll take you to the morgue,” was all she said.
It was a long walk back to the station. Ordinarily they would have driven, but the roads were thick with snow and even if they could have got a vehicle through, they would have only ended up getting it stuck. Trudging through on foot may have been slow going but, with her wellington boots, Hart was more than willing to walk ten times the length of the village if necessary.
The station was small and had little in the form of staff. The coroner had been and gone, having left his notes behind. H
art had discussed the findings prior to going out to meet with Stoker, although there was nothing conclusive on offer yet. She led Stoker to the morgue out the back. Barrowville was odd in that its emergency services were all positioned next to one another. Years ago some eager architect had knocked out several walls in an attempt to join them all together. It had not worked out entirely as expected, but it did allow easy access from the police station to what passed for the Barrowville hospital. They had no surgery, of course, but they did have a doctor and some basic facilities. One of those facilities was a mortuary, which every settlement needed. This was the first time Hart had needed access to a corpse during an investigation and was glad she could pretty much just find her own way to it.
The body had been left out on a bed, a sheet covering it for decency. Hart was reluctant to remove the sheet. There was no decomposing stench to the air and she assumed the body had been tended to in whatever professional manner was normal. Hart did not hang around dead bodies and had no idea the processes in dealing with them.
“I guess you’ve seen corpses before,” Hart said, if only to make conversation in the thick, cloying air.
“A few, yes.”
“Do you get used to it?”
“You mean did I gain professional detachment?”
Hart nodded.
“Yes.”
She noted he did not meet her eyes as he said the word. There was something more and she was debating whether to press. Eventually she decided she probably needed to know, if she had any hope of solving this case. “You don’t sound too sure,” she said.
“There’s only one time I got emotional when viewing a body, Liz. When I had to identify one.”
“An informant?”
“My daughter, Sue.”
Hart wished she could sometimes just keep her nose in her own business. “Jesus, I’m sorry, John.”
“You shouldn’t be. You didn’t kill her. Now,” he said, taking a deep breath, “show me what I need to see.”
Hart removed the sheet so he could see the body, inner disgust at her thoughtlessness overriding any sense of nausea she might have felt in the presence of the corpse. The coroner’s notes were sitting on a table, alongside the various items connected to the murder, such as the pole to which the man had been tied. She knew she probably should have them locked away in the police station, but she had commandeered this room as her base of operations while she considered the case and she needed to have everything at her fingertips for her to think properly.
Stoker examined the corpse with a calm detachment. He even touched the body, at which point Hart had to look away and pretend to be busy doing something else. Stoker took his time, being more thorough than Hart felt he needed to be; but he was the experienced officer in this kind of thing.
“Do we know who this chap is yet?” Stoker asked at last.
“No idea. He’s not from Barrowville, that’s for sure.”
“Look at this. Here.”
“Do I have to?”
He gazed at her with an expression halfway between bemusement and disappointment. “Only if you want to do your job, Liz.”
Offering a sarcastic smile, Hart forced herself to look at the corpse. Stoker was of course pointing directly to the head wound. “What do you think caused this?”
“Luckily I have the coroner’s report for that.” She flicked through the notes, although she had already read them; it gave her the perfect opportunity to take her eyes from the body. “Blunt instrument. Likely a hammer.”
“Does this look like a hammer wound to you?”
Reluctantly, Hart looked at the injury. It was a medium-sized hole formed of a semi-circle where something heavy and blunt had cracked through the skull at a downwards angle. “Yes,” she said. “That looks just like a hammer blow to me.”
“Good. Because that’s what it is.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “If you agree with the report, why did you make me look at the body?”
“Because bad things happen in life, Liz, and people like us don’t have the luxury of ignoring them. By the end of this investigation you may see far worse than this poor fellow and you need to be prepared for that.”
“You think there will be more bodies turning up?”
“That depends why this one was killed.”
Hart did not like the way Stoker was manipulating her, treating her like his assistant and playing with her fears and loathing. She had to remind herself that she had gone to him. “You mentioned you had a theory,” she said. “Fancy sharing that yet?”
“First, the evidence. What’s the stake?”
Hart had already examined the stake, but did not mind doing so again. “It’s a fence pole. It could have come from anywhere. There are fences all around this place, what with all the fields. If the snow wasn’t so bad we could work out precisely where it came from, but my guess is it will be from somewhere close to the field where the body was found.”
“And the other evidence?”
“There is no other evidence.”
“You’re forgetting the carrot.”
“You’re seriously considering the carrot to be important?”
“Everything’s considered important until it’s been ruled out.”
Trying not to sigh, Hart produced the carrot. It was still cold as she set it on the table, not removing it from its evidence bag. “So we have two things to examine now,” she said.
“Hopefully one of them will provide some answers.”
“John, your theory?”
“Yes, my theory. You’re not going to like it.”
“I don’t doubt that.”
“I think we were meant to find the body.”
“What?”
“Just not yet.”
“How do you mean?”
“If you’d killed someone and wanted to hide the corpse, you’d shove it in the river or bury it somewhere in the woods. Instead, these killers built a snowman around it. Snowmen thaw. If this was a normal winter, in a few days, a week at the most, the snow would have thawed enough for the body to start showing, at which point someone would have noticed.”
“But the snowstorm’s getting worse, John. That snowman could have conceivably stayed out there for weeks.”
“But our killers wouldn’t have known that. My theory is that they killed this man, stood him in a field and hid him in this unique fashion; then they fled Barrowville, knowing by the time their crime was discovered, they would be halfway across the country.”
“So they’re gone?”
“No.”
“No? John, you’re not talking sense.”
“It’s like you said,” he replied seriously. “The storm’s getting worse. I think our killers intended to flee, but found they couldn’t. Vehicles aren’t getting in or out of Barrowville. Unless they left on foot, they’re stuck here. And how far’s the next village?”
“Too far,” Hart said, her heart sinking. “This guy’s not from around here, so I’m guessing his killers aren’t either. You’re telling me there’s a group of murderers hanging around someone’s barn somewhere?”
“It’s worse than that, Liz.”
“Oh, do go on.”
“They intended to be long gone by the time the body was discovered, but when they holed up they must have figured things the way you did: that the snowman could conceivably have stayed there for weeks.”
“But it didn’t. It was just by chance those kids found it.”
“I reckon the killers would have been keeping an eye on the field. Maybe checking it once every day or something. I think it’s a sure bet our murderers know we’re onto them. Even though we have no idea who they are, they know we’re looking for them now.”
Hart’s heart sank a little lower. Barrowville had never before had to deal with this kind of thing, but it looked as though the murder had only been the beginning. She realised with horror she was going to have to find these killers before the killers found her.
The e
ntire village was relying on her to save them and she got squeamish just looking at a dead body. Stoker was right: before the investigation could be closed, she was destined to see far worse things indeed.
CHAPTER FIVE
Their first stop was to see Larry Millar. Millar ran the local greengrocery and if anyone knew where the carrot nose had come from, it should be him. It was a ridiculous thing to even consider, but Hart had to admit she did not have much in the way of leads. Even Stoker was giving the impression it would not amount to anything, but he insisted every small possibility had to be properly investigated. What he had said back in the mortuary still hung heavy on Hart’s mind. As she walked through the village on her way to the grocery, she could not help but look at all the houses she had known her whole life, think about all the people who lived within those houses and wonder how many of them might not still be alive two days from then. Hart did not know every single person in Barrowville, but she was in a job where she knew more than most. Millar was in another such role, and between them she was hoping they might be able to work out whether any strangers had passed through recently. It was, perhaps, the only thing she expected to get from interviewing the man.
She entered the shop with a smile. Ordinarily, Millar’s produce would be outside on show, but the snow was keeping him inside, along with most of his customers. She was glad to see him still open, however, but had not expected otherwise. Larry Millar was a cliché pillar of the community and would never let his neighbours down.
“Morning, Liz,” Millar said when he saw her. He was aged in his fifties and had been running the greengrocery for more years than Hart could remember. He had a son and daughter who generally helped him, but they were nowhere in sight. A portly man with a friendly disposition, Millar’s smile faltered somewhat when he saw her company. “Trouble?”
“Yes,” Hart said, “unfortunately. John’s helping me look into it.”
“Not my Tony again?”
Hart smiled. His son had been pulled in a couple of times for antisocial behaviour. Nothing serious, just being drunk in the street and trying to start a fight. He was a good enough lad when he was working, but was one of those people who really should lay off the drink since he obviously couldn’t handle it. “No, Larry,” she said. “There’s been some trouble in Truman’s fields.”