Five minutes later three large locals, all round bucolic faces and broad girths straight out of a Hogarth caricature, spill through from the main bar, mouthing obscenities about what they would like to do to a young female PC. With clumsy pretence, they are surprised when they notice my figure stood in the corner shadows, tight against wall and bar as though in a boxing ring’s corner. They lurch over, glasses in hand. It is pantomime season, it seems.
One thrusts his face close to mine, peering close before hissing with no trace of being drunk now, “Shit smell in here.”
I note his two large friends falling into step one on each side of him, glasses lost in their huge hands and ready to thrust forward at a moment’s notice.
“Murdering bastard, not wanted hereabouts, scum like you.”
They may be coppers I do not recognise. They may be local workers, from some of the nearby factories or workshops. I should declare myself a policeman, detail my rank, order them to just go back to the main bar. I should do all that. But I do not.
Instead, I wait, tensed and longing that one thrust a glass towards me so I can hurt him with a brutal head butt, knocking him across the narrow space into the others, creating time for me to viciously hook the next directly in his throat before an uppercut to end the third’s interest in events. Before turning to whichever brave colleague from next door comes through to join them or try to arrest me.
“Come on, come on,” I barely breathe, my succubus instantly rampant, as I say loudly, “Do something scrote or are you all piss and wind.”
I see the landlord hovering close now as witness that I am provoking confrontation. A couple of PCs are peering through past the partition from the other bar, avidly waiting to bask in the pain I am to suffer. If I survive this, and they appear I look forward to hurting them too.
I step forward, blood surging through my ears, the scene all red sheen before me, eager for the fray, knees bending to smash my forehead against the first man.
And then, sadly it is over. The three men are lifted bodily and hustled out of the side door to the bar by Fenwick, Harry and a large DC from the Drugs Squad.
“Just in time Sir,” Whittle breathes into my ear. “We saw the three come through here as we arrived in the bar, DCI Fletcher said we should come around by that back door and help even though he thought you would not need it.”
***
The noise from forty odd coppers in the other bar has ceased totally during the rumpus around me. I hear Harry speaking to them then without making out any words, the sound vicious in itself. The sounds of shuffling feet departing as a round of drinks for a score or more appears on the snug bar near me.
My two DCs, Parsons and Harry usher me to a corner table while the dozen members of his Drugs Squad drape themselves in little groups around the room. The buzz of excitement is palpable. The tale is soon told.
The blood on knife and towel in Clive Hildred’s house matched that of the dead man though fingerprints in the blood were not ultimately conclusive. Clive’s DNA was all over the two objects. He has no alibi, has been charged with the murder. Two witnesses have now come forward to say they saw him dump the body outside the school this morning. A security guard at a derelict dock warehouse has reported odd sounds there overnight. When uniform eventually checked this afternoon, they found blood which matched the dead man and the guard had seen Hildred’s car parked outside during the night.
“A result,” says Harry to all, “kudos to both our squads and credit to DCI Cade for arguing we should look at the Hildreds as responsible for Marty Pridgeon’s disappearance, and the bad blood between them giving us grounds for the search warrants to be issued to set all this in motion.
“Just need the scrote to confess, still adamant and violent with it that he is innocent.”
Everyone laughs at this. Glances towards me are less hostile than usual. Even if Harry and I both know he would have thought about the same approach too, both knowing it was legally thin for warrants. It is generous of him to give me the credit. He also knew that the ACC pushed the magistrates harder to grant the search warrants to help Major Crime Squad 2 at this moment in time rather than him.
“A real result, real policing,” says Parsons, finishing a pint of lager, smiling at Harry and rising to get another round in.
“Harry?” I ask quietly as we watch my Sergeant returning with a full tray, minus another for me as my first drink remains untouched.
“I know. Something smells but it is a cast iron case,” he replies quietly so only I can hear. “Clive always fronts up, yet keeps saying he is innocent and has been fitted up.”
“Different reaction to normal when he is done for murder though guv,” Parsons intervenes, hearing the last words.
Maybe, but it is all a bit convenient.
Harry shrugs, “Search is still going on at their two houses, I am going back in an hour and we are checking brother Simon in the Caribbean and Rankin.”
Oddly, Parsons squeezes in next to me with Whittle and Fenwick shifting sideways on the bench seat to make room.
“Thanks for letting me work the case,” she says with quiet seriousness. “Appreciate it, real police work, what the squad should be at.”
With no response, she tries lightness, “Old squad always said things happen round you.”
Her quizzical look asks why I was not involved myself in the murder case, rather than a hit and run, burglaries and farm thefts. I shrug. If only she knew.
***
An email to Harry, copied to me, pings simultaneously into our phones.
“Bugger me,” is his harsh rasp as we both read.
The room catches the mood and goes silent with anticipation. Once finished, we stare at each other, trying to digest what the ACC has just sent through. Harry rises, checks the publican is just cleaning glasses in his now empty public bar and calls everyone to sit tight around him.
“DC Fenwick, just watch that scrote landlord and barman does not hear though I will warn him off telling of this night as we leave.”
Contempt is replaced by practicalities, “Finish your drinks, listen hard and then we need to be back at work for a few hours. Sorry.”
The moan changes to amazement then, “The house search team have found some video from a car cam in Clive Hildred’s car from four days ago. It shows young Clive and brother Simon dismembering and dumping Marty Pridgeon to the south of Ancaster Fen. We need to find the spot and the body.”
A pause of disgust, “Insane, but nobody said these guys were bright.”
People are about to talk among themselves as Harry hushes, “There is more. ACC just got a report following our request to contact Simon Hildred in the West Indies. He, two bodyguards and his wife were shot dead driving to some flash restaurant an hour ago, hail of bullets – motorbike drive by with Uzi or such like, police looking for culprits now but blank wall so far and no motive locally.”
People whisper ‘Jesus,’ shaking their heads to clear images of a hail of machine gun bullets, before Harry asks a DC to order pizzas for twenty and they head back to Ister’s forbiddingly colourless 1960’s police station around the corner.
***
As they all move to leave, he pauses for a word. Even as I wonder why he has not told his squad the rest: having found Rankin’s estate closed up, it has now been raided with a warrant, found to be empty and the former gang lord’s lawyer confirms it has been sold to a foreign investor.
“Disposed of his house, the dodgy businesses, keeps the legit ones no doubt, pocketed the cash, teaching the young pups that the old King still has all the answers, and taking over again Caleb?” Harry asks.
I shake my head, “Could be, or new player all together – from outside, very efficient if so. I reckon Rankin is truly out of it, gone off to visit the art galleries of the world, leaving all this behind.”
Harry does not accept this,” Nah, his style this, reeks of him, get rid of the guys he put in charge of his empire but makes no sense - presumably woul
d have given him a rake off for years, what is the point?”
I shake my head again, “Who knows, I only met him once.”
It makes more sense the more I think though. Rankin is a canny operator, it would fit his character. Sell, then take back over for nothing with ruthless violence. Where the dead man at the school fits in is anyone’s guess though.
A thought comes, “If. If Rankin has orchestrated this, he has set off a struggle for power in the vacuum that exists now. There is no ready-made successor but also nobody knows any of his secrets, nobody can threaten him …”
Harry is impressively quick, “Nobody to come after him, say he has not lived up to his part of the bargain or ask for his help in any power struggle against the other one or perhaps decide he is still a threat and take him out.
“With these guys, all being dead. Out can truly mean out for him.”
My smile is bitter, “Especially if we cannot find him. It all makes sense, characters, events, all fit the narrative as it has played out, but how many have died so the man can enjoy the great art, photographs and world of ideas he loves?”
Everyone else has gone and my colleague moves sadly to the door, “And he is gone, disappeared no doubt, scot free, and we have only surmise, no evidence anywhere.”
I butt in, “Perhaps check his wife, daughter, grandkids in Buckinghamshire?” even as I know they too will have disappeared. My mind is back meeting Rankin’s steely gaze, knowing he was genuine when he told me that his big regret was losing his wife and daughter. Like me. But perhaps his estrangement was strategic, for their own safety until his old life was truly at an end.
Wednesday
75
The lights are low upstairs, creating two shadows flitting hither and thither like marionettes whose limbs are in spasm, out of control, as they clash, break apart, circle, scuffle. A parley sees the indistinct inhuman faces peer out at the houses and woodland outside.
I hope they cannot see us hidden behind hedge and tree. A firearms unit are on their way. Silence is absolute at four in the morning save for the soft drip of snow and ice gently thawing.
I was lost in my dream delight playing ‘lorries,’ flying kites, creating a white cloud of sumptuous flour cooking with Bess and Grace, when the gutting knife of nightmare ripped into my brain.
The phone call saved me. A DCI from Yorkshire says a burglary that fits the modus operandi we had discussed a few days ago took place in his area at midnight. This time the middle-aged occupants had changed their plans at the last moment and were home fast asleep. They awoke to hear and disturb the intruders in balaclavas who had just entered and somehow worked round the expensive burglar alarm. Both husband and wife got a beating for their pains from one of the men with the woman still in intensive care. The burglars escaped but the description from the male victim’s hospital bed matched Stephenson’s and James Rudd’s build, and one hissed ‘Shut it Steveson’ to the other at one point.
Half asleep I had slipped through the woods to the Rudds’ house to check if they had run there for cover. Where else did they have? Standing in the darkness I had watched their dim lights and frantic activity from the shadows inside for half an hour. Tracy Kemp’s house was bright with all lights on so I rang her. Rudd Senior and Stephenson had woken her and the children as they backed their van noisily on the drive soon after three. Things were all wrong from the start as she could hear doors crashing, loud voices arguing, the noise of fighting interspersed with total silence through the adjoining walls. Her shepherd husband was lambing and did not answer his phone, nor did her mother. Terrified, she hunkered down for safety under her kitchen table with her children, pretending to play a game to soothe the frightened young ones. She was about to ring the police when I called.
I had roused my squad. Fenwick and Parsons had spirited Tracy and her children out the back and to my house before taking up position hidden in woods at the rear. Whittle and I were and are in darkness out front. ‘Austerity’ here means the street lights are out and all is black through the night.
Seeing the pair’s erratic behaviour within, I remembered that James Rudd has licences for two firearms. Parsons called in the incident, requesting no sirens or blue flashing lights and a tactical armed response team.
They are fifteen minutes out when the lanky figure of Stephenson limps out of the front door, clearly visible in the half light from a hall light. Whittle and I let him reach Rudd’s parked transit van and throw two canvas bags in the back before we appear suddenly out of the darkness shouting ‘Police.’ Whittle in front, me behind him as he yanks the driver’s door open. Stephenson is startled but takes what must seem the only option, lashing out at me while moving to leap into the driver’s seat and drive away. I duck, Whittle smashes the open door into the man’s back and head with her foot and he slides to the floor, moaning and bleeding heavily from his face that has cracked against the sharp door jamb.
We are bent cuffing Stephenson, Whittle checking he is not badly wounded when the person in the house smashes a bedroom window. Shards from the car door cascade around us even as the sound of a gunshot echoes through the valley. They say if you hear the noise of the gun going off without feeling the bullet then you are safe. Impact is faster than the speed of sound.
Spinning round we push the moaning Stephenson ahead of us and all tumble on the road side of the low garden wall, away from the shooter. Breathing heavily Whittle and I crouch so nothing is visible to the house as we brush small pieces of glass from our faces and coats. The DC’s face is cut and bleeding. I signal for her to stay motionless as I creep along the wall towards Tracy’s house and peer through the metal gate to the Rudd house. The danger is if Rudd comes out with his firearm and looks to take Whittle prisoner. I may be able to get to him across the two gardens before he notices but it is unlikely.
Silence is solemn save for Stephenson’s moans of pain. The firearms unit are late before sirens boom through the night, bringing lights on in the other four semi-detached houses in the row. So much for requesting a quiet arrival.
In Rudd’s unbroken bedroom window a dark shadow appears against the inner light in a frenzy of arm waving, shouting unintelligible things, brandishing what appears to be a shotgun as though sweeping the outside for a violent enemy unseen and non-existent.
Both Whittle and I cry out, ‘No’ then as his intent became obvious. The jerking movements of the marionette cease as he sticks both barrels under his chin, somehow pulls the trigger and explodes a circle of shadow all around his head. Even as the shadow cloud dissipates like icicles floating away, the body flutters downwards to collapse, out of sight.
As Whittle and I slowly stand, eyes stark at what has just happened, Parsons and Fenwick poke their heads gingerly from around the side of the house. The firearms wagon arrives with a patrol car in the lead. Behind them comes a Mini Cooper, music blaring, screeching to a stop beside us. Duane Rudd and three friends, carrier bags full of beer cans, two bottles of Jack Daniels and greasy smelling kebabs, spill out, ready to party on after a night in an Ister nightclub.
***
The faceless body is accusing as I observe the scene with the pathologist and Jai Li from forensics. We are all in scene of crime suits, the artificial swish of the material the only sound in the room. Lights are on everywhere, neighbours stood in doorways despite the cold, but even nature seems repelled by what has gone on here and an eerie silence has descended.
Derek Stephenson is under guard, being treated at Accident and Emergency in Ister, Duane is at Merian Police station with Parsons and Fenwick checking his alibi for tonight and the other burglaries on our county’s borders and relating to Pippa Langstaffe’s death.
Jai Li hands me a transparent evidence bag containing a blood-spattered note, scrawled by a feverish hand and mind, a gap between the paragraphs in different coloured ink, likely written over the last few weeks. James Rudd’s words are brief, to the point and poignantly sad as I hear his slurred voice speak:
‘I lost my boys many years ago, worked too hard to earn the money, drinking even then to help forget that it was all going wrong. Wayne was bad almost from birth, Duane colourless and easily led. My wife and I could not stem the poison in them.
I lost Rita through her shame at our Wayne in Cade’s lane interfering with those young lasses. The boy was not punished, more’s the pity, but everyone knew, and she could not stand fingers pointing, tongues wagging, gossip.
I drank more when she left, I gambled more, I lost, I drank, bet, lost. Boys turned the house into a shit hole, I was a joke to them. I was, am a joke. Rita would die to see us as we are now but has long, thanks be to God, disappeared.
A friend of Derek’s came to see me. Had a way I could clear my debts, make some big money, get the boys respect back. By house breaking. And he would fence the stuff Derek and I stole. My finding out through work - what rich houses had alarms I knew how to disable - ringing to see if anyone was in, bypassing the system on the night. Worked a treat. Nothing local, no houses I had worked on, not that stupid.
Thirty-six jobs across the north and Midlands this past three years, one a month, list of dates and places with this, had it written a long time.
Duane and Wayne were not involved. You must believe me on that, it was just me and Derek Steveson, nobody else, and the bloke who flogged the stuff for us.
My boys. Too late. Neither got any education to speak of, always dawdling at school, could not have drummed need to work into em any more than I did. DCI Cade, I fear Wayne is as bad as they come and am sorry.
I knew this was coming, scribbled these notes since the summer.
Odd.
Now I write this knowing you filth is outside, and that I am about to top myself. I am not going to prison. I knew it would come to this. Just so pissed off, not want to go on.
Bitter Pastoral_A DCI Caleb Cade Crime Thriller of rural Ancaster County. Page 47