Acid Lullaby

by Ed O'Connor

  ‘What’s that?’

  Miller knelt to inspect it, ‘Nothing very exciting. It’s called Tinder Fungus. Ganoderma Applantum. It grows all year round. There’s more over there.’ He pointed to another larger example at the base of a pine tree.

  ‘Any sign of the two we’re after?’ Dexter asked.

  Miller shook his head. ‘Have a seat, I’ll do a quick circuit. Amanita Muscaria was recorded here three years ago.’

  Dexter sat down on a tree stump and watched Miller wander between the trees, his eyes exploring their bases and surrounding undergrowth. She closed her eyes, feeling the exhaustion draining from her brain. Dexter wondered if she would drop dead when it reached her heart or whether it would just get pumped around her system and drag her down even further.

  ‘There’s a condom over here!’ Miller called. ‘It looks older than me.’

  Dexter rose and walked over. She bagged the offending item and labelled it.

  The next two hours passed quickly but without success. They found some litter at a site near Santon Downham and a beer can west of Thetford Warren. Dexter collected all the items and placed them into evidence bags. She would arrange for all the items to be fingerprinted. However, she was beginning to sense failure.

  The final site that Miller had selected was in the north-east corner of the forest near the village of Weeding.

  Miller had lost none of his enthusiasm. He pointed out a clump of tall plants with yellowish flowers.

  ‘See those?’ he asked.

  ‘The weeds?’

  ‘They’re not weeds. It’s called Wood Spurge or Euphorbia Amygdaloides. My daughter calls it Wood Spew. She says it’s the colour of sick.’

  ‘How old is she?’ Dexter asked.

  ‘Eight.’

  Dexter suddenly wanted to change the subject but Miller had produced a photograph from his back pocket.

  ‘Cute, isn’t she?’

  Dexter had to admit that she was: blonde curly hair and wide brown eyes.

  ‘I didn’t think you were married,’ she said. ‘You don’t wear a ring.’

  ‘Separated. Her mother lives in the USA. California. I keep trying to get an academic post over there. I could get to see Isabella more often. My current situation is a long way from ideal.’

  ‘Isabella’s a nice name,’ Dexter conceded. So was Zoe, she told herself. Zoe would have been eight in three weeks’ time.

  ‘She’s “Izzy” really or “Dizzy”. She hates being called Isabella.’

  Miller knelt at the foot of a small group of silver birch trees. Dexter looked out beyond the trees to the open fenland that bordered the forest. To her left, she saw the B1112 stretching round towards Feltwell and Hockwold cum Witton, to her right she could see the tiny clustered villages of Yaxford and Methwold.

  ‘It’s growing on me, this place,’ she said to Miller.

  ‘Like a fungus?’

  ‘I used to think it was bleak, but it’s peaceful I suppose. It takes time to learn to appreciate open space.’

  ‘Too cold for me, I’m a sunshine boy.’ Miller leaned in closer to consider a clump of material at the base of a birch tree. ‘Hey! Come here!’

  Dexter turned and walked over. ‘What is it?’

  Miller pointed at three white rings on the ground. ‘Amanita Phalloides has a white volva that encases the base of each mushroom.’ He opened his equipment box and removed a small trowel. He scraped away some of the dirt. ‘Typically, most of the volva is underground. There you go.’ He had excavated one of the samples. It looked harmless enough: a pale, white bulb coated in brown dirt.

  ‘Is it definitely one of the two we’re after?’ Dexter peered at it.

  ‘I’d say so. The stalk and cap have been cut off. Can you see? There’s a clean incision been made across the base of each stalk.’

  Miller found a bottle of hydrochloric acid from his equipment box and dropped a small amount on to the remains of one of the mushrooms. ‘Remember the Maixner Test?’

  ‘The test for amatoxins,’ Dexter nodded. ‘It should go blue, right?’

  Two minutes later it did. Dexter suddenly felt a twinge of excitement. ‘Okay. How sure are you that these are the right mushrooms?’

  ‘Eighty per cent sure that they are Amanita Phalloides, but there’s no way of being sure until I’ve analysed samples in the laboratory.’

  ‘Understood.’ She decided to take a chance. ‘I’m going to get a forensic team up here right away. They might come across something we can use.’

  ‘These have been cut fairly recently,’ said Miller, ‘you can tell from the …’

  He paused. Alison Dexter was already on her mobile phone.

  60

  DS Harrison returned to New Bolden CID at 3p.m. He needed to focus, to clear his head of emotion and fill it with information. He realized that the only way he could help Sarah Jensen was to find the man who had killed her. The images of the bodies he had discovered in the ditch on Fulford Heath were still hovering at the front of his mind. That was not the way he wanted to remember Sarah.

  He had spent the morning clearing her stuff from the shelves of his bathroom, packing her clothes into a suitcase. The smell of her in his flat had been upsetting. It was if she was lingering behind, taunting his failure to protect her and Harrison had felt unable to bear it. Sarah Jensen’s possessions now sat without purpose or warmth in a black bin bag and a suitcase next to the front door of his flat just as her body lay in a metal drawer in the mortuary at Addenbrookes Hospital. The process had not been helpful. The flat felt violated to him and he knew that he would have to move out eventually. Aggression was starting to boil in his veins. Harrison had always believed that the first step away from despair was anger. So he tried to channel his loss into creative fury.

  The CID floor was eerily quiet when he arrived. Dexter’s office was deserted and even the seconded uniform officers had disappeared. He hoped that meant there had been progress made in the case during his brief absence. He found Sauerwine working at his desk. The constable looked surprised by his sudden appearance.

  ‘Hello, sir, I wasn’t expecting you. Sorry for taking your desk.’

  Harrison nodded. ‘What have I missed?’

  Sauerwine cleared his throat. ‘There have been a few developments. Inspector Dexter called a few minutes ago. She thinks they’ve found a location in Thetford Forest where the murderer might be harvesting the poisonous mushrooms. Suffolk Police are sending a forensic team to the site.’

  ‘Why aren’t we?’

  ‘It’s in their patch and our resources are stretched after …’ Sauerwine hesitated, ‘after the discoveries on the Heath.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘DI Underwood has gone back to Jack Harvey’s house. I’m not sure why. He didn’t say.’

  None of it sounded particularly promising. Harrison pulled up a swivel chair and sat down next to Sauerwine. ‘Fair enough. So what are you working on?’ He gestured at the list of phone numbers scrawled on a piece of paper in front of the detective constable.

  ‘Forensic reckon the tyre tracks on the Heath were made by a Toyota Land Cruiser: two-point-eight litre engine, long wheelbase model. I’m calling the local dealer network and trying to get hold of any sales and service information.’

  Harrison didn’t feel any satisfaction that his hunch about the killer driving an expensive car had proved half-correct. He tried to remain focused. In truth, he had expected something more expensive after his discussion with Farrell at the scene of the attack on Ian Stark: a TVR, a Porsche or a Mercedes.

  ‘DI Underwood had an idea about looking for owners that have missed scheduled services or MOT appointments in the last three months,’ Sauerwine added, sensing Harrison’s attention was drifting away from him.

  It made sense, Harrison thought. Underwood had always been adept at spotting possible logjams in information flows: like a bear waiting at a waterfall for leaping salmon. However, it was a short-cut approach and therefore a ri
sky one. He sensed Sauerwine was struggling.

  ‘Need a hand?’ he asked.

  ‘That would be helpful, sir. It’s taking longer than I expected. They’re not being very forthcoming.’

  ‘Let’s divide the list. You work from the top down, I’ll work from the bottom up. We’ll tell them to photocopy their sales and service records for that model by say five p.m. tonight. Then we’ll send squad cars round to pick up the paperwork and bring it back here. If they give us any grief, tell them we’ll send a team to check the logbook and sales record of every car on their forecourts. That should get the bastards moving.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Sauerwine paused for a moment, choosing the right words. ‘For what it’s worth, sir, I’m very sorry about DC Jensen. She was a good laugh.’

  Harrison couldn’t look the young constable in the eye. Instead, he stared fixedly at the page of numbers in front of him. ‘It’s worth a lot, mate,’ he said eventually. ‘She was. We just have to concentrate on doing our jobs properly. Let’s get hold of this bastard before he can hurt anybody else.’

  Sauerwine collected his papers and moved to an adjacent desk. Harrison tried to focus away the memories that were suddenly flooding back to him. He consoled himself with the thought that when they finally caught the bastard, he would make sure the custody sergeant vanished for half an hour so he could spend some quality time alone with him in the cell. He looked over at Jensen’s desk, still cluttered with her personal effects.

  It was distracting him. Someone would have to clear it.

  61

  Underwood removed the protective blue police taping from Jack Harvey’s front door and unlocked it. He felt a certain sense of trepidation. It wasn’t merely the thought of what had happened in the house a few days previously that jarred with him. Nor was it to do with the terrible images of Rowena Harvey’s fate that his imagination was throwing up for his consideration. Moreover, it stemmed from the growing and uncomfortable sense that Jack was watching everything he did.

  The stench of smoke still hadn’t left the house. Now, after nearly a week, the hallway smelt acrid, acidic. Underwood moved with care into Jack’s office. The forensic team had stripped most of the room; bagged and tagged all items of interest. Underwood was unsure of exactly what he was seeking. He wondered whether Jack had concealed a strongbox or a safe somewhere around the house; somewhere that the forensic teams had missed.

  Based on Mary Colson’s comments about the keys and on opening the box, Underwood had gradually come to the realization that the box of bad memories was real. It wasn’t just a psychologist’s trick. He had given the box a physical life based on Jack’s advice, burying photographs, CDs and other reminders of his previous life with Julia. Perhaps, Jack had done the same thing. One of the keys on Jack’s keyring looked like it would unlock a padlock. Underwood was convinced that Jack Harvey had a box of bad memories too; that it had a tangible, physical existence; and that it was still somewhere in the house.

  But where?

  He knew that the Scene-of-Crime team had been through the main house in great detail; seeking out tiny pieces of evidence, looking for DNA trace material. The fire had destroyed most of the contents of Jack’s office and the search teams had found only fragmentary remains of his patient records. Underwood decided to leave the office and downstairs rooms of the house. He knew that these would have been searched exhaustively and that Jack would not have placed any sensitive material in an easily accessible ground floor location.

  He headed upstairs. The main bedroom smelt vaguely of Rowena Harvey’s perfume. He found it vaguely arousing. Underwood looked through the cupboards and drawers and checked the corners of the carpet for any loose areas. Finding nothing, he examined the bathroom. For no particular reason, Underwood found himself reading the labels of Rowena Harvey’s array of toiletries: cleansing lotion, daily moisturiser, shampoo. He was slightly disappointed to find a bottle of self-tanning lotion: he had always believed Rowena Harvey’s tan had been entirely natural.

  The killer wants Rowena Harvey, he thought to himself, the killer sat in Jack’s consulting room staring at her framed photograph. He probably met her too, when he visited the house. The killer wants her sexually. He has probably already raped her. Why wasn’t she killed with the others? What else does he want to use her for?

  He gave up on the bathroom and moved on. Searching the other three bedrooms and the loft space took Underwood just over an hour. Eventually he walked down to the Harveys’ kitchen and poured himself a glass of tap water. The view over the back of the house was impressive. The garden covered approximately an acre and was lined with thick clumps of dark green conifers. Underwood noticed that Jack had installed a water feature in the centre of the lawn since his last visit. It was a little waterfall effect, with water pumped from the mains supply, splashing over a neat rainbow of round stones. He looked around for the control switch. There seemed to be little point in powering a waterfall that no one was ever likely to see. Underwood realized that the switch had to be located in Jack’s shed.

  He knew that the SOCO team had examined in the shed and found nothing of interest. He could see their evidence tag stapled to the wooden door as he approached across the lawn. The control for the waterfall was just behind the door on the right hand side. Underwood flicked it into the ‘off’ position and, stepping back outside, heard the feature babble to a halt. He absorbed the sights and smells of the garden, feeling a sudden rush of pity for the Harveys. There was the stone barbecue where Jack had sweated over steaks in the summer; there was the white plastic sun lounger where Rowena Harvey had given a veneer of authenticity to her chemical tan; there was the patio where they sat together and drank chilled glasses of Chardonnay in the evenings.

  Underwood smiled as he remembered how Jack had cursed the cost of installing the patio. Rowena had insisted on rippled stones supplied by a company in Cumbria.

  ‘Cumbria, for Christ’s sake!’ Jack had moaned to him. ‘It’s not like we don’t have rocks down here, is it?’

  Underwood saw that Jack had used two of the leftover paving blocks in the area adjacent to his water feature. He walked over. It didn’t look right. The plain grey blocks seemed incongruous with the coloured stones within the feature itself. He doubted whether Rowena would have approved of such a cumbersome arrangement. Underwood stood on one of the slabs and felt it move very slightly beneath him. He stepped off and crouched down to look. One of the two slabs was firmly secured into the soil, the other seemed to be sitting unevenly on something. He retrieved a spade from the side of the shed and levered the offending slab, shifting it a couple of inches to the left. Underwood inspected the space underneath. The slab had been resting on a padlocked metal box. He dragged the stone onto the lawn and, with a considerable effort, hauled the box out from the soil.

  Underwood hurried back into the house with his prize. Sitting at the kitchen table, he checked the size of the padlock. There were two keys on Jack’s key ring that conceivably could have opened it. The second one did. Inside was an A4 manilla envelope and a significant amount of cash. Underwood flicked through the wad of money, estimating it amounted to about five thousand pounds. Then, trying to retain his focus, he withdrew the contents of the envelope.

  It contained a collection of notes scrawled in Jack’s handwriting, and two pages that seemed to have been photocopied from an encyclopaedia.

  Underwood read the notes first of all.

  ‘Session 1: Home. 3rd February 2002. Patient arrived late. Physical condition scruffy and unkempt. When I asked why his clothes were so filthy he replied that he had been gardening. He seemed to find this very amusing. Also appeared to resent my questions. Answers were guarded and often abrasive. Showed no interest in discussing his family of career history. Inability to concentrate, physical lethargy, defensive attitude are indicative of some form of narcotic addiction.’

  Underwood read on. The notes seemed surprisingly general to him. They seemed to be the basis for a more detai
led analysis. He wondered if Jack was sending regular, more detailed reports on his client to a third party. There were no names either, he mused, nothing specific. Odd.

  ‘Session 2: Home. 13th February 2002. Patient’s physical appearance has deteriorated over the past week. Wore same clothes as in previous consultation and gave the strong impression that he hadn’t changed in the intervening days. Arrived late. He is still reluctant to discuss details of his problem. When questioned on drug dependency, patient burst into hysterical laughter. I was unable to get any sense out of him for approximately five minutes. Seems to have little sense of self or of the consequences of his actions. Towards the end of the session, patient lost all engagement with me and began to describe a strange list of images that seem to have religious overtones.’

  ‘Session 3: Home. 23rd February 2002. Physical appearance shocking. Patient was unshaven and filthy. Excrement smeared down back of his trousers. When questioned about his physical condition, patient replied that he was “of the earth” and launched into a stream of expletives. Appears to be unable to cope with reality. I asked him if he wanted medical help and he laughed at me. Patient appeared to be in the afterglow of a hallucinogenic trance: he claimed that there were lights in the back of his head that “chased him around the house” and that there were “demons everywhere”. Patient continually drank from a plastic bottle that appeared to contain urine. More worryingly, he seemed fascinated by the idea of decapitation. He asked me, as a doctor, what I thought would be the optimal method. Judging by the total disintegration of his personality and apparent self-destructive tendencies, I assumed this indicated suicidal tendencies: the removal of the head being often equated with the excision of the problem or the erasure of the hated personality. When I asked if he had thought about killing himself, patient giggled and replied “no, just you”. Some of the hallucinatory and physical symptoms appear consistent with abuse of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide. Recommend hospitalization before patient inflicts damage on himself or on other people.’