Crimesight

by Joy Ellis

  ‘It’s the least you can do.’ said Chloe indignantly.

  Jasmine threw her friend a horrified look as the man walked a few doors down and disappeared into a rough looking house. ‘You can’t get into his car alone, Chloe! Don’t be totally stupid! We never do that, never!’

  ‘Then come with me. It’ll be fun. We’ve practically got him..,’ she nodded her head down the road, ‘..eating out of our hand. Lighten up, Jasmine for God’s sake. My brother thinks these parties are the coolest thing ever! Really wicked! Free drink all night, music, dancing, snogging, anything you want.’ She lowered her voice. ‘And I mean anything. He didn’t know that I was listening, but I heard Paul telling his spotty mate Darren, that he actually did it with his girlfriend! Can you believe that!’

  Jasmine didn’t even want to think about it. The thought of Paul and his skanky girl friend jammed up against a wall made her feel ill. Doing it, as Chloe had so crudely put it, should be special. Jasmine wanted flowers, incense sticks and a big soft bed for her first time, not some dingy basement surrounded by piss-heads.

  ‘I’ll go on my own, Jas, honestly I will.’

  ‘You can’t. What if your brother turns up? He’ll kill you if he finds you there. And he’ll know that you’ve snooping through his mobile.’

  ‘He won’t, he’s gone to a concert in Sheffield.’ The girl looked up as she heard a door closing further down the deserted street. ‘Please, Jas? Just let’s see what it’s like? If you don’t like it, we’ll go home, I promise.’ She watched as the man approached them. ‘And he’s harmless, you can tell by just looking at him.’

  Two minutes later, as Jasmine reluctantly followed Chloe into the back of the car, she knew that she was making a seriously big mistake, but even knowing that, there was no way she could have watched her best friend drive away alone.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A piece of torn crime scene tape moved lazily in the night wind. One end was still attached to a rough piece of rotten wooden fencing, and the other made erratic sweeps over the muddy puddles that stretched out before him.

  Jon drew the collar of his black jacket higher around his neck, and cautiously looked around. Other than the dirty flapping tape, there was nothing to show for what had happened there two weeks ago.

  The old disused boathouse, or what was left of it after decades of foul weather, was empty, as was the path along the riverbank that led to the marsh and on to the sea. Few people ever went there in the brightness of a sunny day, yet alone at two in the morning, just after a drenching squall.

  But still Jon was wary. For what he wanted to do, he needed to be alone.

  With a final glance around, he slipped inside the gaping dark hole where the boathouse door had once hung, switched on his torch and moved quickly to the back of the derelict building.

  As soon as he found his bearings, he switched off the powerful beam and leaned his back against the wall. This was the spot. He took a deep breath in and held it, trying to blot out the stench of the place; the smell of decay, of cloying dampness and the memory of blood. He took two or three more breaths and felt his heart rate begin to slow down, then he slid slowly down the wall until he felt the cold floor beneath him.

  ‘Show me. Just show me,’ he whispered. ‘Please, I just want to help.’

  He stared at the doorway. The heavily clouded night sky had stolen any chance of moonlight, but he could just make out the entrance, if only as a lesser darkness to that which filled the interior of the stinking old building.

  Jon closed his eyes and continued his regular deep breathing, until he felt a chilly draught brush his face. He slowly looked up, and saw a shadow, a slim figure moving slowly through the darkness. For a second his heart juddered in his rib cage, and he had to fight to keep the even, steady breaths.

  Even though it was pitch dark, Jon could see the boy perfectly clearly. Lanky, like so many teenage lads, with messed up hair, untamed, both too long and too spiky to be even called a style, and a stooped, indolent gait that oozed a bored disinterest with life. Or was it that, or something else? On reflection Jon decided maybe the boy just looked lost; lost and confused.

  ‘Jamie.’ Jon whispered.

  The boy looked around, but showed no sign of realising that he was not alone. Then his eyes fell upon Jon, or at least, they settled in the direction of where Jon was sitting, and the boy silently crouched down and sat cross-legged on the floor facing him.

  ‘Jamie.’ Jon’s voice was soft and unthreatening. ‘Show me where it is.’

  Maybe he imagined the sigh, or maybe it was the wind blowing through the splintered, rotted wood of the boathouse, but it sounded like the saddest thing he had ever heard.

  He tried to look closer at the boy, but as he did he noticed a faint light, a wispy flickering sort of glow, a little like looking through a curtained window and seeing a television on in a darkened room.

  Relief welled up inside Jon. It was happening. This was how his strange gift worked, because he was no stereotype medium. He didn’t do a Madame Arcarti and commune with spirit guides or waft off into trances. He just saw things; mainly in the form of vivid flashes of film footage. Sometimes they were as clear as daylight and shocked the hell out of him, and other times they drifted across his vision like a second shadowy landscape superimposed over whatever he was looking at. This time, for the sake of Jamie, he had opened himself up to whatever was out there, but generally things just seemed to hit him fair and square between the eyes, with no warning whatsoever.

  Jon stared at the pale light, and it became an image of two people running. The first, smaller and skinnier, stumbled and scrambled to get away from his pursuer, but the second, heavier and older, ran him down.

  Jon heard nothing, and was thankful for that. He’d seen the lips stretched back from the bared teeth as the first one cowered on the floor in pain and shock.

  A one-sided and very short tussle ensued and then there was just one man running, and one still form lying on the filthy floor of the decrepit building.

  Jon blinked and the picture shifted from the boathouse to the marsh path. The older man was still running, lurching almost drunkenly along the towpath and away into the distance. The last thing Jon saw was a hand throwing something away from him. Something long and heavy-looking, something that glinted as it slid and spun around, before it disappeared. And then so did the image.

  Jon’s heart gave another lurch. The pictures may have faded but the boy was still there, and he was slowly standing up. For a moment he seemed incapable of movement then, with a glance back in Jon’s direction, he reluctantly shuffled towards the doorway and out into the night.

  Jon scrambled up and followed.

  The wind pulled at his jacket and tugged at his hair as he hurried along the tow path. Next to him the river was in full flow and although the boy appeared to be drifting at a snail’s pace, it was all Jon could do to keep up.

  Once the lad turned, as if to check that he were still there, but then continued down the uneven path without slowing or stopping.

  Naturally the police had already combed this stretch, searched for days, brought in the dog handlers, but found nothing that could help them. Ahead he knew was a deserted ramshackle wreck of cottage, empty and dangerous. This too had been swept for evidence, but like the rest of the area, had shown nothing connected to the crime.

  Jon jogged steadily, not losing sight of the shadowy wraith in front of him, and soon realised that the cottage was of no interest to the boy: they were moving off onto a narrow grassy track that edged a small reedy tributary to the river.

  Above them the clouds were clearing. A slight brightness appeared, faint moonlight and clusters of stars moved in and out of view, and offered Jon a little more safety as he picked his way along the rough rarely-used track.

  He must have walked, jogged, tripped and run for around twenty minutes before the figure ahead of him suddenly stopped. Jon slowed down and saw the boy climb up onto a wall that edged a sluice. He co
uld hear water rushing on the other side, and although he knew that it would not be deep, the recent rain would have made the drain a fast-flowing torrent that when the sluice opened would feed down into the river.

  Jon tried to recall as to whether the search had included this out of way water-course. He wasn’t sure, although he knew that they would have covered a large radius around the boathouse.

  But the boy was going no further. He stood on the wall and gazed down to where Jon stood watching. And as he looked, the moon escaped momentarily from the cloud cover and illuminated the youngster. Jon saw the sad, empty eyes, and the deep ragged gouge that ran from the ear, under the jawbone, down the side of the throat, only to disappear beneath the dark, blood-soaked neck of his grey hooded jacket.

  ‘Oh Jamie. I’m so sorry.’

  If he heard, Jamie gave no indication; he just turned, looked along the dark, narrow, oily-looking stream, and pointed.

  Jon tried to focus on the point where Jamie was indicating, but the moon had abandoned him, and a cold mist seemed to be rising from the water. Whatever Jamie was trying to show him was being wreathed by a thick, yellowish fog, and in that swirling and sulphurous mess, Jon fancied he saw shapes moving.

  He stepped back a little. There would be no running away, but he had no desire to be too close either. His eyes darted back to Jamie, but the boy seemed to be fading, receding into the cool night air, becoming a shadowy part of the reeds and the grass and the sky. Soon just a silvery outline remained, the only thing still clearly visible was the extended arm and a finger still dramatically showing something as yet invisible.

  ‘Thank you.’ said Jon softly, and his words disappeared on the breeze and took with them the final vestiges of the boy. And now there was nothing left but to follow up what had dragged him alone onto the marsh at night. And this was the part that he was not looking forward to.

  He took a step forward and murmured a few words asking for protection, then automatically cross circled his solar plexus.

  The mist further down the stream was still moving and twisting and when Jon stared into it he saw something. It was an old metal plaque, a warning sign of some sort, half submerged in the water. As he stared at it, it underwent a subtle change and he saw it clearly. There were numbers and letters and the words Westland Water Authority.

  Jon’s head began to ache and the letters swum out of focus. It was draining him to hold the image, but hold it he must. This was the whole reason for his being here. He swallowed hard and forced himself to concentrate, but the mist was evaporating and the sign becoming less and less clear. ‘No!’ he cried, then yelled out, his voice echoing across the wetlands. ‘Where is it?’

  He ran closer to the water and stared into it.

  The sign flared up, the symbols engraved in it bold and clear, and he saw that the plaque had one corner eroded away and rust eating into it.

  Jon slid to the ground and fumbled in his jacket pocket for his notebook. He dragged the pen from its holder and in a shaky hand wrote down the numbers and the letters before the nagging headache caused him to forget.

  He sat on the wet grass for several minutes rubbing at his temples and praying for the headache to ease. After a while he realised that it wasn’t going to go away, but he still had something to do before he could get himself home and hit the paracetamol.

  With a groan, he pulled himself to his feet, fought off a wave of nausea, and started to walk further down the track. After about two hundred yards, the stream forked and he stood staring one way and then the other, before catching sight of another much smaller drainage sluice. He dragged himself towards it and turned on his flashlight. It was a just like a huge rusted iron pipe, with a heavy wheel on top. The valve seemed to be closed, although water escaped and dripped noisily from small ruptures in the elderly and corroded metal. He swung the beam around and saw a little further along the stream there was a barrier of some kind, with what looked like a wide drainage pipe behind it. It was hard to make out what it was, but he decided it must be an overflow, and then his light caught the sign riveted onto the iron grill. A water authority sign with letters, numbers and one corner missing.

  With a cry of elation he dragged himself up to the barrier and grabbed viciously at the open mesh metal grill. It was old and buckled and ripped away from its fastening on his second attempt.

  Jon slid down the bank and shone his torch beam into the narrow drainage tunnel. Dark shapes came into view. One turned, issued a squeal and scurried off, its tiny feet splashing in the shallow water that lay in the bottom of the drain. Jon shuddered and involuntarily drew back. He hated rats. With a muffled curse, he puffed out his cheeks, shivered and forced himself to look again. Detritus from the stream, plant debris, twigs and rotting reeds lay in clumps, small stones that washed down, and… He angled the beam differently, and something glinted dully from a tangle of marsh weeds.

  Jon stood up and frantically looked around. The damn thing was just out of reach. He needed a stick or something. He gulped some fast breaths, then tried to calm himself down. If that thing in the drain was what he thought it was, this was a crime scene. He reached into his pocket and drew out a pair of latex gloves. He slipped them on, then carefully shone his torch around, looking for something to help him extract the object. Finding nothing, he went back up the path and retraced his steps until he came to the remains of some old cattle fencing. Jon ripped up a length, a piece with a small jagged stub of barbed wire attached, and hurried back to the drainage tunnel.

  As he walked back, he prayed that his discovery wasn’t just a piece of discarded farm junk, a broken shard from field equipment or something like that.

  Once again he eased himself down the bank, propped his torch just inside the tunnel, and slid the wooden post into the aperture.

  It took longer than he thought, but then he took great care.

  And now he was sitting on the top of the bank, headache forgotten. The black sky was turning into gunmetal grey and deep dusty purple, and he was smiling.

  His mobile phone was in his hand and he had already hit number 1. DCI Kate Reynard’s home number. Okay, so it was four in the morning, but he thought that just for once, she may welcome some good news.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘I want to go back to work.’

  Kate gritted her teeth and carefully placed her coffee mug down on the kitchen table. David was something of a master when it came to picking his moments.

  Even before he dropped his little bombshell, Kate’s mind had been filled with a plethora of work related thoughts, worries and ideas, all vying for attention. Now her head felt as if it had gone into spin-cycle.

  ‘We’ve already been through this, David.’ She avoided his eyes as she spoke and tried to keep her voice level. ‘You know how I feel about it.’

  ‘So my feelings don’t come into it? Is that right?’ The huffy tone didn’t suit him.

  I really don’t have time for this, she thought. Not right now. She picked up the cooling slice of toast and stared at it. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, of course what you think matters, but I thought we’d agreed to wait until the boys are just a little older, especially Eddie.’

  ‘No, you decided on that course, Kate. Not me. Not both of us.’ He leant up against the sink; his arms folded in front of him and stared morosely at the floor.

  For a moment Kate wondered if he did it on purpose. Chose those times when she was up to the gunnels with work, and desperately needed him to be the one to take the reins at home. She stood up. ‘Can we talk about this later, please? You know I have to be in early this morning.’

  ‘It’s always “Manana” with you, isn’t it, Kate?’ He moved to one side to let her tip the remains of her coffee down the sink, then gave a little snort. ‘You’d think after all these years, I’d be used to playing second fiddle to the Fenland Constabulary, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘You don’t come second!’ Kate spun round on him. ‘You never have. I love you and the boys more than anything; it
’s just the nature of my job to be time-consuming and bloody anti-social. But it’s what I do, and what I am, David, and you know that, you’ve always known that.’

  Scared of saying more, or too much, she grabbed up her handbag and car keys. ‘We’ll talk tonight. Come what may, we will talk.’

  At work, Kate fixed herself a large black coffee to compensate for the one that went down the sink, and took it back to her office. She was still smarting, but with an effort, she pushed her personal problems to one side and thought about Jon and his early morning call. Half of her was buzzing with excitement over his locating the murder weapon, and the other half wanted to throttle him for going solo over the marsh at night.

  As if on cue, there was a tentative knock on her door and Jon looked in, a sheepish expression hovering about his handsome face. ‘Is it safe to come in?’

  ‘I haven’t decided yet. Maybe you could risk it.’ She watched him close the door behind him. ‘What the hell were you thinking by going out there alone? I’ve told you before, I go with you. I won’t interfere with whatever it is that you do, but at least I’m around if things get weird, or you accidentally fall into the bloody river!’ She tried to look angry, but the outcome of her sergeant’s night sortie was the best thing that had happened in a long while, and all things considered, staying mad at him was not really an option. ‘Okay, Sergeant, consider yourself bollocked, promise not to do it again, and then I can congratulate you on your work last night.’

  ‘Sorry, ma’am, and I will let you know next time I go out cavorting with the spirits after dark. It was just that I knew what a shitty time you were having with the Kelly family and I didn’t want to add to your worries.’ He endeavoured to look contrite, but a boyish grin lurked beneath the humble appearance.