Dark Tides Thrillers Box Set

by Tony Hutchinson

  His voice trailed off, his eyes full of doubt and fear.

  ‘Hang on,’ Ed said. ‘You’re hardly a paid informant and what information you give me is tittle-tattle. Do you want a snack?’

  Eric shook his head and swallowed more Scotch.

  ‘No thank you,’ He said. ‘What I’m about to tell you is not tittle-tattle.’

  His shaking hand went to the bottle. Another top-up. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead.

  ‘Okay,’ Ed said. ‘I won’t say anything. Whatever you tell me is between you and me.’

  ‘Can you guarantee that?’ Another gulp. ‘I’m trusting you here.’

  Ed nodded.

  ‘I can Eric. One hundred per cent.’

  Eric closed his eyes and took a breath, galvanising himself to overcome his fear.

  When he spoke his words were firm.

  ‘It’s about Aisha’s uncle,’ Eric began. ‘Many years ago, when he still lived in the Punjab, he killed one of the girls in his village for bringing shame on the family. Killed her at the father’s behest... an honour killing. She was 16.’

  Ed stepped into the pause. ‘What had she done?’

  ‘Kissed a boy,’ Eric went on. ‘They dragged her into a field, raped her to rid her of the devil, strangled her and buried her in a shallow grave.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  Sam adjusted her dressing gown, tightened the belt and pressed the button on the microwave, the kitchen floor cool on her bare feet: another night, another push-button Marks and Spencer special.

  Is this it for me now? Ready meals for one?

  She’d never cooked a meal from scratch since Tristram died, almost forgotten what it was like to peel vegetables, cook fish, eat a rare steak.

  Bending down, she reached for the black plastic container, tonight’s offering a Cumberland pie.

  ‘Jesus!’

  She dropped the food on the granite work top, rushed to the tap, and held her scorched hand under the flow of cold water for the third time in a week. Fingers still red and stinging, she took a knife and rammed it through the plastic film. A cloud of steam billowed around her as traces of mince seeped on to the bench through the pierced hole in the bottom of the container.

  Shit!

  She put the container on a plate, sat down and gingerly peeled off the rest of the film. Her fork broke through the mash, releasing the smell of the mince and hitting the small piece of metal that seconds ago was the tip of the knife.

  She was determined to take her time, determined to spend longer eating than the microwave did cooking. As usual she failed, but at least a glass of wine had been resisted.

  Tea brewed, she took her mobile off the bench, scrolled through the contacts, and hit a number. The call was answered on the second ring.

  ‘Amber, it’s Sam Parker. Sorry to bother you. I hope you don’t mind me ringing. I know it’s late.’

  ‘Hi Sam.’ Amber’s voice sound friendly. ‘No trouble at all, and as for late, well you know me. I don’t sleep much at night these days. I still sit in the armchair; go to bed through the day if I have time.’

  ‘How are you managing?’ Sam asked.

  There was a short silence.

  ‘I’m okay,’ Amber told her. ‘It’s a cliché but it really is a day at a time. How are you?’

  ‘Fine,’ Sam said. ‘Busy.’

  ‘Yeah, I saw you on the TV.’

  ‘That’s what I’m ringing about,’ Sam said. ‘Your self-help group.’

  She listened for any change in Amber’s tone but heard none.

  ‘Just a bunch of young women who’ve suffered abuse of varying kinds from men,’ Amber told her.

  ‘Do you have many members?’

  ‘About 20.’

  ‘And the abuse. Is it specifics or general?’

  ‘General mostly.’

  ‘And the girls I saw you with,’ Sam said. ‘I know a couple of them.’

  ‘Yeah, they said.’

  ‘Have any of them been targets for any abuse?’

  Amber took a moment before she spoke again.

  ‘Sam, we talk about the overt inappropriate sexual behaviour of men in the round and how we can influence change, how we make sure our sisters in the future don’t have to put up with what we did.’

  Sam made her move.

  ‘It’s just that we’ve heard some of the male students were taking photos of girls when they were asleep.’

  Amber’s answer was instant.

  ‘Not heard that Sam,’ she said.

  Sam was about to ask if she was sure when her house phone began to ring.

  ‘Sorry Amber, I’ve got to answer another call,’ she said quickly. ‘I’ll speak to you later. Take care.’

  She darted into the living room. ‘Hello.’

  ‘It’s me,’ Ed said.

  ‘Hi. Nicely timed.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I was just talking to Amber,’ Sam said. ‘Asking about her group.’

  ‘And?’ Ed asked.

  ‘I felt she was being evasive in the beginning, lying at the end,’ Sam told him. ‘She denied knowing anything about the photos of the girls but Charlotte’s in her group and so is Tracey. I just can’t see it.’

  ‘Me neither,’ Ed agreed.

  ‘And she referred to womanhood in general as ‘sisters’. Now I know that’s not an unusual term these days, but... ’

  ‘Tracey and Alex would know enough to call themselves Sisters of Macavity,’ Ed finished for her. ‘They study English.’

  Sam broke the short silence that followed.

  ‘Anyway, were you just ringing for a chat? I only left you an hour and a half ago. Missing my velvet tones already?’

  ‘No,’ Ed said. ‘It’s Aisha’s uncle.’

  He relayed his conversation with Eric.

  Sam shivered. ‘This just keeps getting worse.’

  Sam tossed and turned. Every time she closed her eyes, the images alternated between Jack being hit over the head, a carrier bag drawn over his face before he was pushed into the river and Aisha in the front seat of a car fleeing to Plymouth. She turned on the light. Trying to sleep when she was like this was futile. Years of experience had taught her if her mind was on the job not to fight it.

  She sat up, picked up the glass on the bedside unit, and drank. Why she never took an orange cordial to bed when she’d had too much to drink was a question she felt weekend drinkers everywhere would share.

  The revelation about Aisha’s uncle was more than troubling. Ed was considered a ‘Subject Matter Expert’ around honour-based violence, even if he played it down. He always believed if Aisha hadn’t got away, she was dead. There was no halfway alternative.

  Would Aisha, following the publicity, have come to the police or would she have been too scared? Would she have called her parents after their TV appeal or would she have seen only crocodile tears?

  Sam needed to make something happen. Should she seek authority to get a listening device in Davinder Bhandal’s house? Could she do something to spark a conversation? Arrest them perhaps?

  Their solicitor, Jill Carver, would love that. At the slightest opportunity she would publicly slag off any investigation if she thought procedures were not being followed. The Butcher, as Ed and many others called her, had built her career on carving up police officers.

  And these jobs always had the potential to increase racial tensions, spark disorder, something the Superintendent in charge of Seaton St George would be anxious to avoid.

  Jack Goddard was different, but no less difficult. She had one body but there were four more the students and the media wanted to link together as the work of a serial killer. She could only kick that theory into the long grass once Jack’s killer was arrested. There was talk of another student demo and that was making the Superintendent at Seaton twitchy.

  ‘Can’t you get this sorted Sam? We need it boxed off, pronto.’

  She got up, went downstairs, and poured hot water over a teabag. A cat scr
eeched loudly outside. Bloody cats, she couldn’t get away from them. Sisters of Macavity. What was that all about? And Amber? Why was she so evasive?

  Sam opened the fridge door, blinking as the bright light flooded her eyes, then poured milk into the mug and unwrapped a mint Club biscuit.

  Back upstairs 20 minutes later, she slid under the duvet and closed her eyes.

  Thursday 17th April 2014

  Sam stared at the bright red eyes looking back at her from the wall mirror above the sink. Three hours sleep, tops. She’d read once that Paul Newman used to submerge his head in a bowl of cold water every morning to fight facial ageing. She ran the cold tap, filled the sink, and dunked her face. Brain freeze. She spluttered, dried herself, and looked again in the mirror. The puffiness around her eyes was still there. Cheers Paul.

  Thirty-five minutes after a hot shower she was in her office, speed reading her emails. Most of them could be deleted without a response. Those that needed one would have to wait. She was way too busy to provide statistics to the bean counters.

  Ed walked into her office, face ashen. With a little eyeliner he could have been an extra in Michael Jackson’s Thriller video. Suddenly she felt 100 % better. ‘Rough night?’

  ‘Yeah, ended up on the whisky.’ He sat down. ‘Rough as a badger’s now but I’ll be sorted in an hour. Bev’s gone out for bacon sarnies. Want one?’

  ‘Go on then.’

  Sam answered her phone. The deep Cornish accent should have been advertising clotted cream or starring in Jamaica Inn.

  She listened then spoke. ‘I’ll get DC Bev Summers to liaise with your DC Welch, sort some photos out. Cheers.’

  Ed was putting his mobile back in his pocket. ‘Sarnie’s sorted.’

  ‘That was the DI from Devon and Cornwall,’ Sam told him. ‘They’ve got a witness who saw a young Asian man drive the car into a lock-up and walk away. Could be Sukhi.’

  Ed said that sounded promising.

  ‘I hope it is,’ Sam went on. ‘I’ve said we’ll get Bev to liaise. She can email them a photo, one of the ones we took off Bethany’s phone.’

  Their noses twitched, nasal partners in a synchronised dance of hunger pangs, the smell of cooked food alerting their stomachs before their eyes saw Bev.

  ‘Two bacon with brown.’

  ‘You’re a lifesaver,’ Sam said.

  ‘Suppose you want a cup of tea as well?’

  ‘Only if you’re offering.’

  ‘Make that two,’ Ed said.

  ‘I’ve got the CCTV from Rendezvous,’ Bev told them. ‘I’ll start on that this morning.’

  ‘And Bev,’ Sam said. ‘Can you liaise with a DC Welch from Devon and Cornwall? He needs one of the photos of Sukhi. They’ve got a witness down there who saw a young Asian male driving the car into the lock-up.’

  ‘Yeah, no problem.’

  Sam bit into the bun, a dollop of brown sauce dropping on to her finger.

  Ed wiped his mouth as his mobile rang.

  ‘Any idea what it’s about, Charlie? Okay, give me half an hour.’

  Bev walked in with two mugs of tea.

  ‘I’ll have to pass,’ Ed said. ‘Fatty Sanderson’s in the cells and wants a favour. Says he got something for us.’

  ‘And he is?’ Sam asked.

  ‘Joey Sanderson, Handler of this parish, too fat to do burglaries. Been around the block a few times. We go way back but he’s never given information before, not to my knowledge anyway.’

  ‘How old is he?’ asked Sam.

  ‘Fifty-odd,’ Ed said, as he stood up, reaching for the mug on the desk. ‘Convictions going back to when he was a juvenile: theft, burglary, handling stolen goods, deception. No violence, but a full house for dishonesty. Even got one for ‘removal of an article from a public place’.’

  ‘Not often you hear of that,’ Sam said.

  ‘I’ll let you know the sketch if it’s anything worth knowing.’

  Joey Sanderson waddled. Like a giant penguin, he came up the corridor from the cell block, his black Fila trainers squeaking on the glistening, recently mopped linoleum, three yellow ‘caution, wet floor’ signs stating the obvious.

  Ed closed the interview door.

  ‘Long time no see, Joey.’

  ‘Yeah. How you been?’

  ‘Champion,’ Ed said. ‘You still getting around the pubs and clubs with stolen gear?’

  Sanderson smile was almost shy. ‘You’ve got to earn a crust, Ed. You know what it’s like, grab it while you can.’

  ‘What you in here for?’

  ‘Handling. They come round with a warrant.’

  ‘What did they get?’ Ed asked.

  Sanderson looked ridiculous as he shuffled, trying to get comfortable in the tiny seat. Ed estimated his six-foot frame now weighed about 30 stone.

  ‘Clothes and food.’

  ‘Food?’

  ‘Big business now, Ed,’ Sanderson told him. ‘People are skint. Not everybody wants to go to food banks, so I provide an alternative.’

  ‘How much food did they recover?’

  ‘About 500 quid's worth. Forty-odd carrier bags.’

  Ed shook his head. ‘Five hundred pounds worth of food.’

  ‘Ed, it’s done to order,’ Sanderson said. ‘People bring their shopping lists to me. I’ve got a team of young lads and lasses that go out for the stuff. I pay them, then dish it out at 40% of the marked price.’

  ‘So what went wrong?’

  Sanderson’s fleshy face looked sad. ‘Got this morning’s deliveries and as the last arrived your lot burst in.’

  Ed nodded. Sanderson had obviously been grassed up. ‘So what do you want me to do?’

  ‘Ed, I’m on a bender. I don’t want to go down for this. I’m too old for bird.’

  The ‘bender’ – slang for a suspended prison sentence – explained Sanderson’s eagerness to do a deal.

  Ed was thinking fast. The police had gone into his house after the last bag drop. They were either lucky or had the place under surveillance. He favoured the latter. An informant had to be involved, and if that were the case, the handler would want payment for his snout.

  ‘So what do you want me to do?’

  ‘Help me out Ed. I scratch your back.’

  ‘What you got then?’

  ‘I need some insurances, Ed.’

  ‘I think you mean assurances, and I can’t give you any, not until I know what it is you’re giving me.’

  Sanderson paused, weighing up his options, and then spoke.

  ‘The Asian guy,’ he said. ‘The one on the TV on Saturday whose daughter’s gone missing.’

  Ed concentrated on keeping his face neutral, concentrated on breathing slowly and quietly. ‘What about him?’

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘No promises,’ Ed said. ‘But if it’s good, I may be able to help, and that’s better than you’ve got now.’

  ‘They call you a twat in my world, but it’s a mark of respect,’ Sanderson sighed. ‘Everybody says you’re good, fair, and a man of your word. The Last Mohican, Ed, that’s what the older villains call you. Old school. The young cops haven’t got a clue. You’re different. You promise you’ll help?’

  ‘If what you tell me is good, I’ll do my best.’

  ‘It is.’ Sanderson took a noisy, deep breath. ‘A couple of weeks before Christmas I saw Dav Bhandal in a pub. I won’t say which one. He knows I do a bit. Told me he wanted me to burn a settee. Would give me a ton, and whoever helped me carry it, he would give them a Commodore.’

  ‘Commodore?’

  Sanderson looked surprised.

  ‘Fifteen quid. You know... fiver’s a Lady Godiva, that Commodore’s song, ‘once, twice, three times a lady’... three Lady Godiva’s is 15 quid.’

  ‘What and he said Commodore?’ Ed said, surprised.

  ‘Don’t be daft. I’m telling you that. He said 15 quid.’

  Ed shook his head. Who thinks these up?

  ‘So you burnt the sette
e?’

  ‘I told him I would burn it, but when I went to get it, it was brand new,’ Sanderson said. ‘Bit of a smell of pee about it, but that soon washed off. No way was I burning it. He gave me £115 to get shot of it, and I sold it for another £50.’

  ‘Who’s got it now?’ Ed asked, doing well to hide the adrenaline rush.

  Sanderson grinned and laced his fingers over his huge stomach.

  ‘Not so fast, Ed,’ he said.

  Chapter Twenty

  Two hours after delivering bacon sandwiches, Bev was back in Sam’s office.

  ‘Photo sent to the Devon and Cornwall Dee?’ Sam asked.

  Dee, slang for detective constable.

  ‘Yeah, that’s sorted,’ Bev told her. ‘You might want to view the CCTV from Rendezvous. Tracey Davies and Charlotte Swains coming out at 3.25am, each with an arm around... ’

  Sam slapped the table as if it were the buzzer on a quiz show. ‘Jack Goddard!’

  Bev nodded. ‘Bingo.’

  ‘Are we sure about the time on the cameras,’ Sam asked. ‘I always get a bit paranoid with times when the clocks go forward.’

  ‘The times are right,’ Bev told her.

  ‘So, out at 3.25am. What, a 10-minute walk to the tow path? Ten minutes when you’re sober anyway. So, that’s at least 3.35am. Alex O’Connell finds him dead at 4.05am. Where had she been? Check to see if she’s in Rendezvous. Do you see them going in?’

  ‘We’ll check that now,’ Bev said. ‘You wanted the later time doing first.’

  Sam nodded: ‘I did, but let’s see if Alex O’Connell’s in there. And find them all going in. See if Glen Jones went in with them.’

  Sam got into her car and drove to a local park. She needed to think without interruption, think with a cigarette in her hand, in a place devoid of diesel fumes. She ordered a coffee from the travelling barista, his glistening chrome machine attached to the back of a tiny French Citroen, a vehicle so small Sam couldn’t decide whether he got into it or put it on.