Shadows and Sins (The Falconer Files Book 13)

by Andrea Frazer

  It was something that had been discussed at length in the Carmichael household before any action was taken. Kerry Carmichael had agreed: as much as she loved the little dogs, they were not ideal pets for her at that moment in time – tripping over them at that stage of her pregnancy was not an option.

  Carmichael could visit his one-time dogs whenever he wanted, as could Mulligan’s former owners visit their almost-horse. With Kerry as heavily pregnant as she was, the little dogs had got under her feet; God forbid that she should fall and harm either herself or the twins. The older boys had rather lost their interest in such little pets and so were much less concerned than they would have been a year ago: Mulligan was much more fun for a bit of rough and tumble.

  Carmichael had not broken this news to Falconer yet. Mulligan regarded the inspector as one of his very best friends; whereas Falconer regarded Mulligan as a danger to humankind in general, and himself in particular.

  Clearing his mind, Carmichael’s heart lifted as he thought of the antenatal appointment to come and the fact that he would hear his babies’ heartbeats, real and reassuring of the new lives to come. And the rest of the day was his to do what he wanted.

  Into the office early as had now become habitual, Falconer sat at his desk looking unseeingly at his computer screen. When a call came in for someone to attend to a post-New Year break-in, he sent DC Tomlinson, who was glad to get outside where everything was not so focused on their departed colleague.

  Before the DC returned, however, the inspector realised how confined he had felt recently, and was reminded that there were three bodies in the mortuary awaiting post mortem. They had died in a car crash, but Philip Christmas, the force’s FME, had been away for a couple of days, visiting nephews and nieces. He would be back this morning, and the inspector grabbed his car keys and coat, and left the building with a feeling of relief. It may be a visit to more death, but at least he didn’t know these people, had never laughed and joked with them about work.

  Doc Christmas had not yet started his triple grisly task, and made a pot of Blue Mountain coffee for himself and Falconer to share before he got ‘stuck in’, as he phrased it, to his tasks.

  ‘Scalpels at the ready, I suppose,’ commented Falconer.

  ‘Don’t forget those delving hands of mine. I never know what they’re going to turn up.’

  ‘How you can be so light-hearted about this business I can’t understand.’

  ‘How else would I handle it, having to do it so often?

  ‘Don’t know, but I’m glad I haven’t got Carmichael with me. You know how he reacts to your slicing and dicing your victims.’

  ‘Like a maiden aunt being flashed at by a pervert hung like a donkey. Now, to be serious, are you seeing that young lady of yours again? That psychiatrist you were going out with, and then dropped for no good reason I could discern.’

  Falconer didn’t enlighten him as to his reasoning, but his face broke into a small smile as he remembered he was having dinner with Honey that night. ‘We’re having a meal together later,’ he volunteered. They had not met very frequently since their reunion, for he wanted their time together to be quality time, and not wasted in the company of others. It was important to him to test out this tentative renewal of the relationship, and he wanted to be sure of his feelings before he committed to any more time spent together.

  Doc Christmas smiled back in approval and asked, ‘Which restaurant?’

  ‘Actually, it’s not in a restaurant. It’s at her place.’

  ‘That’s not like you, Harry. What’s got into you?’

  ‘Maybe the realisation of my own mortality, and the desire to live a little while I still can.’ They were brave words, spoken confidently, but Falconer didn’t put the conviction into them that he should have done.

  ‘Good man. You go for it.’ Doc Christmas, unaware of just how tentatively the explanation had been vocalised, had donned his gown, hat, and mask, and was now scrubbing up for his ‘cut and rummage’ – another of his expressions. ‘Good luck.’

  Falconer endured the inevitable and, at long last, picked up his keys, donned his coat, which he had hung up behind the doctor’s office door, and left the premises. He didn’t really relish going back to the station and headed, instead, for Fallow Fold, where a lady vicar of his acquaintance lived. Maybe talking to the Reverend Florrie Feldman would make him feel easier in himself about Green’s untimely departure. And where, exactly, was Carmichael this morning? He hadn’t turned up like the angel of death at his usual time to haunt the office. Then he remembered that his sergeant had booked a day off to attend an antenatal appointment with Kerry, and would not be in until the next morning.

  DC Tomlinson finished his enquiries about the ‘lifting’ of all the recently acquired ‘Christmas presents’ at the addresses he had been sent to, then went on a door-to-door enquiry, to see if any of the neighbours had noticed anything. All the burgled families had been away at the times of the thefts, and someone, who had obviously cased the joints in advance, had taken his chance. Tomlinson had little hope of any success, but at least it kept him away from the station and distracted him from more maudlin thoughts.

  The newest member of the CID team, Neil Tomlinson, had arrived at the station following his request for a transfer to be nearer to his girlfriend, Imogen. The opportunity had come when his predecessor, the somewhat hapless DC Roberts, had requested a transfer back to Manchester. He was feeling much more settled now he had been in the area for a few months.

  Being sent out to follow up the burglaries had been a relief. The thief, or thieves, had targeted homes with more than one car, and where the members of the household, together with one of the cars, were away for the holidays. They had always struck after dark, so there was less chance of them being spotted. If they were, they would probably be taken for a family member returned home and in need of late night transport. The fact that they took the remaining car stuffed with all their valuables just added insult to injury.

  There had been half a dozen of these burglaries reported so far, each having been discovered when the occupants returned home from their New Year breaks, and four of the stolen cars had already been located, abandoned and burnt out, but there were two still unaccounted for.

  In this, and other somewhat fruitless pastimes, the days after Merv Green’s funeral passed, finally drawing to their uneventful and dismal conclusion.

  The next morning, after a scalding hot cup of tea, Carmichael was out in the woods again with his dogs. The thaw was more pronounced now, and the ground was becoming muddy, making him wish he’d taken the time to put on his work boots. The dogs were, as always, running hither and thither, pursuing scent trails that eventually led nowhere, and he let them off the lead for a bit to get some exercise that did not involve his own body being dragged in full pursuit.

  After he had stood for quite a few minutes in melancholy thought, he called them, but only Dipsy came back, his little legs working like fury to achieve a movement that was as close to a run as he could manage, but which produced little speed. Of the Great Dane there was neither sight nor sound. Raising his hands to cup his mouth, Carmichael shouted, ‘Mulligan,’ his call echoing through the bare trees. This was very similar to the outbreak of rebellion in which the two had indulged the day before. In the summer the foliage would have dulled and absorbed the volume, but in this season of the year, it carried loud and clear on the still air.

  There was still no response, so he reattached Dipsy’s lead and marched off in the direction in which the big dog had headed when his leash was removed, Dipsy’s legs working like crazy to keep up. Carmichael whistled loudly to attract the animal’s attention, and occasionally stopped to call his name again. Where had that dratted animal got to? He was usually easy to locate, having stopped to sniff at some wild animal droppings or a local dog’s markings.

  Carmichael finally found Mulligan digging furiously under a clump of withered bracken next to a goodly patch of brambles, not short o
f a thorn or two even in January. He put on the dog’s lead and attempted to drag the animal away, but there was no way Mulligan was giving up what he had found, and he whined and pulled, still clawing at the earth under the plant.

  ‘What are you worrying at there, boy?’ asked Carmichael. He let the lead go slack, and squatted down, so that he could see if there was anything under the dead undergrowth that had particularly attracted the dog’s attention, or whether he was in one of his silly moods – such as when he apparently attempted to dig his way to Australia, something he did often in the back garden of Jasmine Cottage.

  He had managed to scrape away quite a lot of earth, and gleaming in the dark soil was something of a much lighter shade. It looked a totally different texture as well. ‘Come away, Mulligan,’ Carmichael said in his do-as-you’re-damned-well-told voice. Mulligan desisted, looking round at his new master with a quizzical frown on his canine face. The big man didn’t normally speak to him in that tone, and he was puzzled as to what he had done wrong. His family knew he liked to dig in case there was something exciting underground that he had not known about.

  Carmichael moved a few steps away and called the beast to heel, then unleashed the command, ‘Sit!’ Meekly, the Great Dane sat, his example being followed by Dipsy Daxie, although from the front end there was little change in the dachshund’s appearance.

  From a coat pocket, Carmichael pulled out the tool with which he had cleared his windscreen of ice daily before the thaw, and which he had forgotten to put back inside the car, and scraped gently round what the dog had uncovered. It was not buried deeply, and where he found resistance, he felt round it to see what was causing the problem. After only a few minutes he had uncovered something round and pale that looked suspiciously like the top of a skull. It wasn’t one belonging to any woodland animal he knew of – it was far too big for that – but it was definitely not farm animal shaped either. There was something about it that was horribly familiar…

  His immediate instinct was to cover what he had found and call for back-up, and he tore off some of the undergrowth which had died for the winter, and covered the discoloured dome with it. That done, he made for home as fast as he could to drop off the dogs. He also pulled out his mobile phone from his pocket to give the boss a ring on the way. If that skull wasn’t human, he’d eat his desk, and although his appetite might be hearty enough, he would have some trouble digesting the wood and metal.

  When Falconer’s mobile rang, he was sitting with a latte and a Danish pastry in a coffee shop, unusually playing hooky. His mind teeming with possible explanations of where he was and what he was doing there, none of them honest, he was glad to hear Carmichael’s voice. Why, he asked himself, did he feel so guilty? He should only just have arrived at the office. So he was skiving! He’d already been to his desk, taken a report, and sent Tomlinson off to investigate, and he deserved a bit of a break, having arrived at work at sparrow-fart. He just didn’t fancy the canteen for once.

  ‘Hello, Carmichael. Were you looking for me?’

  ‘No, sir. I haven’t left home yet. It’s just that I’ve found, or rather, the dogs have uncovered, something in the local patch of woodland, and I think it’s a human skull. I don’t want to disturb it anymore, but I thought someone else ought to see it. I’ll be happy if I’m wrong, but I don’t think I am.’

  ‘Where are you now?’ This was better than going into the station of mourning. ‘Are you in the cottage? Have you left your discovery unattended?’

  ‘I’m on my way back to drop off the dogs. I covered what was dug up with some undergrowth I detached, and I don’t think there was anyone around when I left.’

  ‘Good man. Get yourself back there to guard it, and I’ll ring you when I reach the woodland, so that you can guide me in.’

  ‘I’ll leave in about fifteen minutes so I don’t have too long to hang about in the miserable weather. Give me a ring when you get here,’ requested Carmichael with eminent common sense.

  ‘Will do. I’ll be with you as soon as I can.’

  Falconer ended the call and paid his bill, a cautious smile forming round his mouth. This could be just the distraction they needed. Consulting his watch, he rang Tomlinson on his mobile, and told him to pursue whatever he could, whether it was house-to-house enquiries, or paperwork. He and Carmichael would be in as soon as they could. At the other end of the phone the new DC was rather pleased about this, as he would not be subjected to their melancholy influence for a while longer.

  Falconer roared out of Market Darley, giving the journey to Castle Farthing a thrashing in his Porsche Boxster, just because he could, and the sound of the engine and the speed improved his mood. For now, he would take out his grief and frustrated helplessness on the road. He looked forward to being alone with Carmichael at the beginning of what might prove to be a case of murder: not that he wished anybody ill, and if it was merely bones that his sergeant had unearthed, or rather that his dogs had dug up, they were unlikely to be recent.

  When he got to Castle Farthing, he parked his car outside Carmichael’s double-fronted cottage so as not to draw attention to himself, then strolled over towards the woods, whistling almost innocently. Entering the trees he went directly ahead, then rang Carmichael to let him know he was already in the woods. The trilling of the phone seemed to be not quite straight ahead, but over to the right.

  When his call was answered, he instructed, ‘End the call and let me ring you again, Sergeant, but don’t answer it. Let me use the ring tone as an aural beacon.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Just do as you’re told. If it stops ringing and starts again, answer it.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Carmichael was quite hurt at being so summarily dealt with.

  His phone began to ring, and he held it out in front of him so that it could be heard more clearly. If he’d really been in a huff he would have buried it in his pocket, then seen how easy he was to find. Of the inspector, he heard no sound. After about a minute, the ringing stopped, and he could hear a rustling through the trees over to his left. ‘Over here, sir,’ he called, making quite a rustling sound himself, for guidance.

  The phone rang again and he answered it. ‘Did you hear me calling, sir?’ he asked, eager once more to get on with things.

  ‘No, I’ve heard nothing but a faint ring tone.’

  ‘But there was rustling in the bushes and undergrowth that I thought was you, and I rustled back. Sir, why am I whispering?’

  ‘No idea. Perhaps you could come to the northern edge of the woods and lead me in. That would probably be the easiest way to do this. Come and get me. I seem to be lost.’ It took a lot for him to be able to admit that after all the years he had spent in the army, but he did not have a compass, and had not been concentrating as hard as he should have been on his direction. His thoughts really did need focus.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  As Carmichael ended the call, the thing that had been making the rustling noise to which he provided an answer in kind, looked at him from a few yards away. As soon as he moved, the deer wandered off, soon getting lost in the entwined bare branches that provided such a grateful screening for him and his kind.

  Carmichael grinned widely at this unexpected encounter with wildlife, and started off in search of the inspector, whom he found, looking like a lost soul, on a tree stump not far from the road.

  A fine drizzle began to fall, and as Carmichael led the inspector off towards the remains they got steadily wetter and wetter. ‘This is worse than real rain,’ commented Falconer huffily. ‘You seem to get more easily soaked than you do in the stuff with bigger drops.’

  ‘Here we are, sir,’ replied Carmichael who had not been listening. ‘It’s just under that pile of dead bracken.’

  Carmichael pulled back the fronds, revealing what Mulligan had uncovered earlier, and pointed for Falconer’s benefit, in case he should have become blind in the recent past.

  ‘I can see for myself, Sergeant, and, yes, it does look like th
e top of a human skull,’ the inspector snapped, kneeling to examine the object more closely. ‘Damn it. We might need the services of a forensic anthropologist for this, to determine whether the remains are recent or ancient, maybe preserved by the soil. I’ll arrange first for Doc Christmas to come out and see what he thinks, and I’ll get a Uniform to guard the remains while we wait for him and a CSI team.’

  ‘Looks like murder to me, sir.’

  ‘It would be a very obliging suicide that had so conveniently buried itself in such a tidy way, wouldn’t it, sergeant?’

  ‘Sorry, sir. Didn’t think.’ A blue bubble began to emerge from the sergeant’s mouth.

  ‘Is that what I think it is, Carmichael?’

  ‘’Uff, fir,’ replied the sergeant, his mouth otherwise engaged in trying to disentangle itself from the emerging bubble.

  ‘Put it in a scrap of paper and dispose of it when you’re near a bin. Do not throw it on the ground, and please don’t chew it again when you’re on duty.’

  Carmichael spat into a tissue that he removed from his pocket, and blushed to have been found out, although he hadn’t really been on duty when he’d left home to take the dogs for a walk, and he’d had it in his mouth since then. ‘Sorry, sir.’

  ‘I should think so too. How many times have I asked you not to chew that revolting stuff in my presence?’

  ‘Don’t know, sir.’

  ‘It must have been dozens, if not hundreds. Leave that sort of thing to the kids.’

  ‘They don’t like it.’

  ‘And very sensible they are, too.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I will not have an officer on duty looking like a cow chewing the cud.’

  ‘No, sir.’ Carmichael looked suitably chastised.