by Peter Helton
‘And you turned up nothing at all?’
McLusky pointed out of the window. ‘It was already getting dark and it’s very misty up there, too. ‘
‘Tomorrow, then, at first light.’
‘How many officers can we deploy?’
‘I can let you have four. With you and DS Austin, that’s half a dozen.’
‘Half a dozen? Sir, have you seen the size of the place? Leigh Woods is two hundred hectares, give or take. In old money that’s probably—’
‘Five hundred acres, thanks, McLusky, I’m fully decimalized. There’s a big football match on tomorrow; we can’t possibly spare dozens of officers to poke around in the woods on the strength of some vague sighting. Find some evidence of foul play and you can have all the officers you want. Until then you’ll have to make do.’
Football. Why couldn’t they play football in summer, when it was nice and warm? ‘There’s at least one pond in there as well.’
‘Forget the damn pond. It was a fox she saw, not a beaver. Leave the pond alone. Underwater search costs an absolute fortune. Now if there’s nothing else, DI McLusky …’
DI Kat Fairfield turned the heater up. Then she turned the music up. She loved her little Renault. It was quick, it was fun. Come to think of it, it was more comfortable than her flat. Quicker to warm up than her flat, too. And it was paid for. She could play music as loud as she liked without the neighbours complaining, and the view from the windows was ever-changing. There was no one to tell her that heavy metal was rubbish. If Led Zeppelin was rubbish, then fine, she liked rubbish. Mind you, there was no one at home to tell her it was rubbish either. Not since ‘the break-up’, and that was years ago now. Before the flat and before the Renault. Why aren’t we all living in cars? she wondered. She’d probably still be with Paul if they were. Just meet from time to time, park up next to each other for a while, then drive through your own life until you felt like parking up again. She’d hung on to the name, another thing her mother couldn’t forgive her; the first had been marrying Paul in the first place. Somehow DI Kat Fairfield seemed an easier name to work with on the force than Katarina Vasiliou. What’s wrong with Vasiliou, Rina? It’s a fine Greek name! And all her own fault for not marrying a nice Greek boy with prospects in the first place. Unfortunately she’d never been completely one hundred per cent sure about the boy thing either. But opportunities for the girl thing seemed even rarer than the other.
She liked driving, especially on these back roads, but it was getting quite misty and would be dark soon. And the trip out to Yatton had been a complete waste of time. She’d gone to re-interview the victim herself, hoping to get a handle on a violent reoffender, aka the victim’s ex-boyfriend, but the woman had begun by contradicting her first statement, then completely withdrawn the charge. It would have been good to take the man out of circulation for a while. Otherwise not a CID matter. He’d punched the victim to the ground then stomped on her a few times for good measure, breaking her collarbone and several bones in her hand. What counted as losing your rag in some circles. Well don’t come running to us next time. The next time, of course, it might not just be a couple of teeth and your collarbone.
‘What can I do, I love him,’ Fairfield mimicked in a squeaky voice. Not that the woman had actually said it, but it was the refrain she heard in her head when she came across women in abusive relationships who every time went back for more. He’s always so sorry afterwards, so contrite. And there it was, that tiny illusion of power, the joy of forgiving. That girl could do with a bit of heavy metal in her life rather than the boy-band crap she listened to. Perhaps it would give her enough backbone to get out of there. Mind you, these lyrics weren’t exactly written by a feminist either. Fairfield quickly forwarded through the song to the next track.
Her frustration had made her speed up too much, and she had to slow down quite hard for the bend ahead. Nothing in her mirrors. A speeding ticket was the last thing she needed. Superintendent Denkhaus did his nut last time one of his officers was caught speeding, and she wasn’t in the super’s good books as it was. Never had been and had no idea how to get into them. To make matters worse, DCI Gaunt was in hospital having ‘his operation’. He’d been waiting for ‘his operation’ for so long, she’d forgotten what it was for. She got on with Gaunt, no matter what others thought of him. Popularity wasn’t important in this job; you could do well without it. It was results that counted.
The road was empty now, and Fairfield speeded up again. How she’d love to drive a fast car on a race track one day. Still nothing in her mirrors. She checked her speed. Sixty. It seemed like nothing, but it was idiotic in this mist. She slowed down a little. It was the end of her shift anyway, no need to hurry anywhere. She might not even check in at Albany Road nick; drive straight home instead. Her speed crept up again. It was getting dark now, but it was a familiar road; it felt like she knew every bend, and she swung the car through them in an easy, one-handed rhythm. There was food in the freezer; she’d stop at the off-licence near her house, buy a bottle of wine. Best get two, one for tomorrow. She really ought to try and make two bottles last three days.
The deer jumped gracefully into the beams of her headlights and froze as Fairfield stood on the brakes. Her car snaked towards the animal while her tyres shrieked and Fairfield held her breath. Then the deer was gone. She released the brake and straightened the car. Damn it, Kat, you never know what’s around the corner. She drove on. Then stomped on the brake again, making the car squeal to a complete stop while two more deer followed the first one across the road.
And you never know what the hell is going to happen next.
Chapter Three
Leigh Woods, first light. McLusky was reluctant to leave the car, which had just begun to warm up a little. It was perishing cold out there. Last night, knowing this cold moment would come, he had gone through his entire wardrobe, what there was of it, looking for warm things to wear. He appeared to have no winter clothes. He couldn’t understand it. Of course it had been Laura who, back in Southampton, had packed up all his belongings and dumped them at the section house so he would have no excuse to come back to her flat. Finding them there all boxed and bagged after he’d left the hospital had been a clear message: no negotiations. And yet. And yet she had moved to Bristol only a couple of months ago to start a course in field archaeology. She lived somewhere out there in the city now; he didn’t know where.
But Laura was far too efficient not to have packed all of his clothes. So it was either thieving bastards at the police section house or the sad fact that his wardrobe was as inadequate as the rest of his domestic arrangements. One thick black sweater, a pair of black leather gloves and this ridiculously cheerful scarf was what he had found. PCs Pym and Becks were also still sitting in their car. He’d told them to wait until the rest had turned up. When they had learned there would be a grand total of six officers available to search the woods, they’d simply exchanged glances and nodded. They were used to idiotic numbers games.
First light it may have been, somewhere up there above the clouds; down here it was dark enough to make the search difficult, if not impossible. Headlights appeared now in his rear-view mirrors, announcing the arrival of a second patrol car, carrying PCs Purkis and Hanham, and behind theirs the tiny blue Nissan of DS Austin. McLusky quit the dubious comfort of his old Mazda and waited for everyone to come to him. Austin parked opposite, beyond the track. He looked wide awake and full of energy as he unfolded himself from the little car.
‘You really need to get a different car, Jane,’ McLusky mocked, not for the first time. ‘For a big hairy DS, a baby-blue Micra is the wrong accessory.’
‘You’ve not met my fiancée, have you?’ Austin countered quickly. ‘Eve can be very persuasive. They also come in pink, you know.’
‘So you’re saying you got off lightly.’ The four constables converged on the inspector’s car. McLusky tuned his voice to upbeat. ‘Morning, gentlemen. Oh, and gentlewoman,’ he added when
he recognized PC Ellen Purkis behind the broad shape of PC Hanham.
‘Gentle, her?’ Hanham scoffed. ‘You’ve not seen her make an arrest then, have you, sir?’
Purkis shrugged happily inside her high-vis jacket and slapped her hands together for warmth.
‘Okay, welcome to the Avon and Somerset survival course. There’s six of us and we have five hundred acres of woodland here.’
‘Four hundred and sixty, I looked it up,’ Austin supplemented.
‘There you are, thanks to DS Austin here, that’s forty acres done already. Visibility is worse than yesterday, we only have six officers and a couple of dragon lights and the whole thing is a total farce. We’re now at the spot where the woman saw the fox and she says it went that-a-way.’ McLusky pointed west, into the mist. ‘We’ll form a line … yeah, okay, a very loose line, and sweep up and down on this side of the path. Pokey sticks at the ready. Let’s go find a dead body. You’ll recognize it when you see it; they say it has one ear missing. If you find one with two ears – ignore it, we don’t want any of those.’
As senior officer, McLusky could easily now have returned to Albany Road, or at least sat in the car and waited for results, but he’d have felt cut off. He preferred being outside or on the move, only he liked his outside paved and tarmacked and twenty degrees warmer. He took the extreme left of the line next to Austin so he could talk to him without instantly broadcasting every word to the rest of the officers. The six of them walked ten paces apart, leaving plenty of scope to miss all but the most obvious clues. Short of stumbling into a recently dug shallow grave that had been uncovered by foxes, they had little chance of finding the body. If there really was one.
‘How long are we keeping this up?’ Austin wanted to know.
‘Don’t ask. I’m trying not to think about it. If we could be sure about the sighting, then we’d simply go on until we find the body.’
‘That’s if the rest of it is here. Perhaps it’s been dismembered and distributed around several sites.’
‘That’s what I like about working with you, DS Austin, your cheerful optimism.’
Austin checked his wristwatch. ‘It’s twenty to eight now. Sun sets at sixteen twenty.’
‘We’ll have perished long before that.’
‘Yesterday you seemed quite certain the witness was reliable,’ Austin reminded him.
‘It wasn’t that cold yesterday. I must buy some warm clothes; one jumper is all I found.’
‘I’m wearing my thermals for this.’
McLusky directed the sweep up and down in what by necessity was an arbitrary area on the west side of the path. Each time he called the line to a stop and moved it across, he was aware that the body could easily lie just six feet further on into the trees. The strong beams of the dragon lights the PCs were using stabbed thick milky fingers into the mist but after two hours had failed to illuminate anything significant. Cigarette packets, the odd drinks can, faded packaging of biscuits, of condoms. McLusky poked a stick at another bump in the leaf litter, uncovered nothing more interesting than a nest of stones and stopped. He straightened up. They were nearing the lower end of the area, getting closer to the cars again. He was about to order a break when control called him on his radio. He cheered up as he listened, and waved Austin over.
‘Enough of this, we’re wanted elsewhere.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘A bona fide dead chap with both his ears in place. We’re even on the right side of the river.’ He called the officers over and delivered the news. ‘And then there were four. Don’t get lost, don’t get hypothermia. And don’t fall into any ponds, because we can’t afford the Underwater Search Unit, I’m told. Pack it in by lunchtime.’ He waved his hands, palms skywards, as though shooing along chickens.
‘Why don’t I drive us in my car?’ Austin suggested as they walked towards the collection of vehicles.
McLusky grunted non-committally.
‘I’ll drop you back here again later. It’s got a decent heater. And I’ve got a flask of tea.’
McLusky hated being driven, but the thought of warmth managed to override his anxieties. ‘You talked me into it.’
‘So what have we got?’ Austin asked once they were on their way. ‘Unlawful killing?’
‘Apparently not. Chap died in an old-fashioned road traffic accident.’
‘Great, now they have us doing RTAs. I must tell my dad. When I first joined, he said I’d probably make it as far as directing traffic.’ Austin pushed the Nissan along the country lane as fast as he dared. Not that this was exactly an emergency.
McLusky sipped at the tea the DS had furnished him with and felt content. A corpse you could see, you could work with. ‘Slow down a bit or you’ll land us in a ditch. More immediately you’ll land tea on the windscreen.’
Austin slowed down. A diversion had been set up down an even narrower lane. He ignored it. Further on, a constable stood by a Road Ahead Closed sign. McLusky drained his tea and replaced the cap on the flask. ‘That’s us.’ The constable waved them through. ‘Park here, we’ll walk the rest.’
‘What for?’ Austin stopped the car. ‘You really are embarrassed about my car, is that it?’
‘Nonsense. It’s just that I could do with the exercise.’
‘You hate exercise.’
They were only a few miles out of town, yet it was markedly colder here than in the city, colder even than Leigh Woods. Against the grey of the frosted countryside the police vehicles and technicians’ cars looked bright and almost cheerful where they stood in the lane that led to the scene of the accident. A grey BMW 3 Series, what was left of it, had come to rest against the trunk of an ash tree in the midst of a thick hedgerow that divided the lane from the pasture beyond it.
‘His aim was good, I give him that,’ Austin said. ‘It’s the only tree on the whole stretch.’
‘Yes,’ said Sergeant Lynch. He had been watching their approach from beside the wreck. ‘Though it looks like the car had already rolled by the time it hit.’
‘Any other vehicles involved?’ McLusky asked.
‘We think not, at this stage.’
‘Who reported the accident?’
‘The farmer who owns those fields. He was out early and saw the wreck from the other side of the hedge.’
Accident investigators were already busy photographing, marking sections of tarmac with chalk, measuring distances. There was a sharp scrape across the road surface where car metal had gouged it. McLusky ducked down to get a first look at the interior through a crumpled, glassless window opening. The body of the driver looked grotesquely twisted, as only corpses could. ‘So who’s the bod?’
‘We don’t know. White, male, mid-twenties. No identification. But fingerprints will tell us, I’m sure.’
‘Oh? You think he’s a customer, then? Go on, what’s interesting about this one.’
‘Ah, where to begin, Inspector,’ Lynch said with relish. ‘False number plates for starters. These plates weren’t stuck on properly.’ He pointed to them where they lay beside the road inside a clear plastic bag. We checked and they don’t match the chassis number. Cloned, we think.’
‘Okay, good. That’ll keep you busy. What else?’
‘Come and take a closer look.’ All three of them scrambled into the ditch to get near to the driver’s side. The wreck was tilted at an awkward angle, close to forty degrees. It was hard to believe that this had once been a fairly luxurious, even stylish vehicle. Inside, the driver’s body lay broken and twisted over the wheel.
‘What am I looking for?’ McLusky asked.
Austin saw it instantly. ‘No airbags, sir.’ Austin was scrupulous about calling the inspector ‘sir’ in front of other officers. In exchange, McLusky never called him ‘Jane’ within earshot of others. ‘It should have deployed airbags; this one’s got side-impact bags as well, but there’s nothing.’
McLusky turned to the sergeant. ‘Are you suggesting that someone deliberately disabled the a
irbags to kill him?’
‘No, not really. It was most likely the driver himself.’
‘What for? Oh, I get it. Didn’t pay off, though, did it?’
‘No. They do that in case of a chase. If they get rammed by a police car, the airbags could deploy. Makes things tricky, especially if you want to get out quickly and start running.’
‘This one won’t be running much. Airbags might have saved him.’
‘Even a seat belt might have done it. He wasn’t wearing one.’ The hand of the twisted right arm was closest to them, palm upwards. The fingernails were well kept and clean.
‘It’s the Darwin principle at work,’ Austin shrugged. In his book, if you were that stupid, this was what you deserved.
‘You mean the unfit don’t get to pass on their genes? If only that were true.’ McLusky turned away. He had seen enough. For some reason it was always the hands of dead people that affected him most. It was the thought of all the things they had touched and never would again. ‘Okay, Sergeant, I’m still bored. What else?’
Lynch nodded. He’d come across DI McLusky before and liked him, despite the man’s odd reputation. Or perhaps because of it. ‘Just a second, Inspector.’ He walked to the nearest patrol car and returned holding aloft an evidence bag. Through the clear plastic showed a dark rectangular metal object. He handed it to the inspector.
‘Magazine for a semi-automatic.’ McLusky handed it on to Austin.
The DS scrutinized the magazine through the bag. ‘Nine millimetre?’
‘Correct,’ said the sergeant.
‘And the gun?’ McLusky wanted to know.
‘Missing.’
‘I want it. Keep looking. Could it have been thrown out of the car?’
‘That’s entirely possible. If it was, then we’ll find it. Though I have another theory.’
‘Let’s hear it.’
‘Come round the back, sir.’
The boot of the car was open, its lid distorted. Inside the boot itself sat an open travel bag. It was black, made from waterproof man-made fibre, and rested on top of accumulated rubbish of empty soft drinks bottles and sandwich cartons.