Kate angled the torch beam away, thinking about heading back down to the track, but something about the face caught her attention as the shadows shifted. She took a step closer, her brain struggling to make sense of what she was seeing. It couldn’t be. It must be a trick of the light. She tried a different angle and suddenly she saw the face clearly.
Had she known this man?
July 1988
The Three Amigos sat on the low brick wall that bounded two sides of the school field and surveyed their kingdom. Eleven years old, they felt like they knew everything and could do anything. Strikingly different in appearance, like a sepia colour scale – Dusty very dark, Ned with his mid-brown mullet and Lucky’s blond hair so fair it was almost translucent in the sunlight – they’d bonded over a love for the cinema and a shared disdain for the other students.
The trio had already eaten their sandwiches, swapping jam for salmon paste and corned beef as was their custom, and now they were discussing the greatest event of their school career so far. The early summer sun had already baked the winter mud patches and dust plumed in the warm air as games of football and tiggy raged in different corners of the school grounds. The wall gave them a vantage point from which they could see across the field and the playground, and into the tall window of the school staffroom. Most of the time they liked to watch the teachers and try to guess what they were talking about, but they had much more pressing matters to discuss in the limited time that they had before lessons started again.
‘Do you think everybody in our class will go?’ Dusty asked the other two.
‘I bet Jamesy doesn’t,’ Lucky responded. ‘His mummy won’t let him.’ Ned snorted derisorily. Aaron James’s attachment to his mother was legendary at Sheffield Road and the bullying that the lad had been forced to endure had been low level but relentless for the past three years – ever since his mum had stormed onto the school field one sports day and demanded that he stop running so fast in case it made him wheezy.
The amigos hadn’t really joined in with the taunting though – not after the initial hilarity of nicknaming him ‘Wheezy’. It wasn’t really their thing. They liked to think of themselves as being above the general hubbub of school life and, even before they’d seen the film which had given rise to their nicknames, they’d preferred each other’s company to that of any of the other kids at school.
‘Will your mam be able to pay for you?’ Lucky asked Ned. Dusty frowned at him and shook her head sharply, warning him not to remind their friend about his fatherless status and his mother’s lack of funds. Fiercely protective of each other, they were loyal enough to be able to talk about anything, but Dusty didn’t believe that meant that they necessarily should discuss each other’s problems unless invited.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Ned said. ‘Mr Whitaker said that there was a special school fund to help kids whose parents don’t have much money. School might pay for me and I can just ask my mam for a bit of spending money.’
The other two nodded, accepting Ned’s matter-of-fact approach to charity in the same way that they accepted Lucky’s Catholic faith and Dusty’s gender.
‘I don’t think we’ll need much spending money,’ Dusty said. ‘The campsite’s in the middle of nowhere. There won’t be shops and stuff.’
‘We might be able to sneak off though and find some.’
Dusty laughed at their naivety. ‘It’s Derbyshire. There’s nothing there but grass and sheep. The shops’ll all be miles away from where we’re staying.’
They sat for a while contemplating the idea of camping in a field in the wilds of a county that none of them had visited before even though it formed a border with South Yorkshire only a few miles outside Sheffield.
Mr Whitaker had announced the planned trip in the fourth-year assembly, and it had taken him a couple of minutes to get the students to settle down, such was the excitement. He hadn’t given them any specifics but the promise of a few days off school as a fitting end to their time at Sheffield Road Juniors was enough to fire the imagination of every child in the school hall.
‘You ever been camping?’ Lucky asked.
Ned shook his head but Dusty was keen to share her knowledge. ‘We rented next door’s caravan at Bridlington for a week last six-week-holidays. It wasn’t camping but we were on a campsite and had to use the toilets with everybody else.’
‘That’s not the same,’ Lucky said. ‘I went on a Catholic camp with the church two years ago with our Ian. It was brill. We shared this little tent and slept on my nan’s airbed. Our Ian kept farting all night though. I thought we were going to take off and float round the campsite like a hovercraft.’
The other two collapsed in a fit of giggles, Ned making farting noises between gasps of laughter.
‘I hope I don’t have to share with anybody farty,’ Dusty said.
‘No. You can share with us,’ Lucky said, and then realised his mistake. Dusty’s gender wasn’t an issue for the two boys but they were aware, as they got older, that it was an issue for other people. During their last year of juniors there had been a lot of talk amongst the other kids of boyfriends and girlfriends and Dusty had been the butt of a few snide comments from other girls. Not that she shared much of this with the other two – it would only highlight the difference.
‘She won’t be allowed,’ Ned said. ‘She’ll have to share with one of the other lasses.’
The three contemplated this injustice in silence for a few minutes.
Dusty dismissed the topic. ‘Well, it’ll only be the nights and we’ll all be asleep anyway.’
‘I’m not going to sleep,’ Lucky said. ‘I’m going to sneak out at night and have a wander round.’
‘What for?’ Dusty wanted to know.
‘Dunno. Just to see what it’s like.’
‘And then you’ll get shit-scared and come running back to the tent,’ Ned said with a laugh. Lucky gave him a big grin of acknowledgement. He wasn’t the bravest of the three by any stretch of the imagination. He wasn’t even the second bravest.
They spent the remainder of the lunch hour lost in their plans for the camping trip and the tricks that they were going to play on the teachers. By the time the bell rang for lessons, they felt ready to conquer the world.
The camping trip was important for another, less exciting reason. None of the three wanted to acknowledge it but it would mark the end of their time together. They’d been in the same class since their last year of infants but that would all change after the summer holidays. Lucky was going to the Catholic secondary school, Dusty to the ex-grammar in Rotherham and Ned was destined for Thorpe Comp. Though they were sworn amigos for ever, each secretly understood that new schools would mean new friends and new allegiances. They didn’t live in the same part of Thorpe and each knew that the likelihood of them maintaining their friendship was slim. But they still kept up the pretence and, often, they managed to believe it.
Only Dusty heaved a regretful sigh as they made their way back into the school building. She knew that her two friends felt much the same as she did about their imminent separation but, being boys, they weren’t going to talk about it unless she forced them into some sort of confrontation with their feelings.
2
Kate decided to stay with the body rather than return to the track, watching as the figures of Nick and the Caldwells disappeared into the dark shadows of a patch of trees. She wasn’t sentimental. She had no sense of keeping the dead man company, but she didn’t want to risk anybody else clambering up to see what the red splash on the hillside might be. Not only would they be in for a shock, they could potentially contaminate the scene. Switching off her torch, she waited in the gathering gloom, trying not to think about the possible identity of the dead walker. She needn’t have worried. It seemed that all the other hikers had beaten her and Nick to the valley floor and nobody passed below her along the path.
When Kate saw the lights of a vehicle approaching, she switched her head torch back on and used the f
lickering beam to lead the way back down the hillside where she met with two uniformed officers from Cumbria Constabulary. One was obviously more senior, the sergeant’s stripes on his shoulder confirming his rank. His stubbled chin and bloodshot eyes suggested that he was coming to the end of a long shift and wouldn’t have appreciated being called out on what could potentially be an all-night vigil.
‘Not your patch,’ he grumbled, totally unimpressed, as she’d flashed her South Yorkshire Police ID. He continued to gripe about the weather and the lack of light as he shrugged himself into a high-vis jacket and grabbed a torch from the glove compartment of the vehicle. His companion was standing on the sill of the passenger door from where he reached up to the roof bars and angled one of the powerful spotlamps up the hillside.
‘He’s over there,’ Kate said, using her torch to indicate the jagged black line of the gully, the light forming eerie shadows amongst the rocks and bracken. ‘Be careful, the ground’s a bit rough.’
The second, younger officer gave her a smirk which suggested that rough ground was nothing to a hardy Cumbrian police officer. Kate bristled at his attitude, but she knew that pulling rank wouldn’t do her any good here.
‘Best get over to the hotel,’ he said. ‘Get warm, have a drink.’
Tempting as it was to stay, Kate knew that he was right. She couldn’t do anything to help; in fact, she’d be more of a hindrance, especially if she told the officers that she had a possible ID for the body. And was she really sure? She hadn’t seen him for nearly three years after all. It could just be somebody that looked like him. Most men seemed to have beards these days, especially amongst the hill-walking fraternity. Better to wait and see if her first impressions had been correct rather than starting a wild goose chase if she was wrong.
Kate shouldered her rucksack and set off along the track, trying to make sense of what she’d seen. Or what she thought she’d seen.
‘You okay?’ Nick asked as soon as Kate had finished reassuring the Caldwells and had left them in the care of two female PCSOs who had obviously been dispatched to the pub to help with the witnesses.
‘Fine,’ she replied, feeling anything but. She still couldn’t shake the image of that bearded face staring up at her with sightless eyes and the full lips almost hidden by thick dark facial hair.
‘You don’t seem fine,’ Nick said. ‘I’d have thought that something like this wouldn’t be too awful for you, but you look like you’ve seen a ghost – if you don’t mind the awful cliché. Is it that you’re off duty and relaxed?’
His concern was touching, especially as he wanted to find a reason for her reaction rather than assuming that she must be a crap police officer if she got shaken up by the sight of a dead body. She had to tell him what was really bothering her.
Casting a glance towards the Caldwells to make sure that they weren’t close enough to hear, Kate lowered her voice and said, ‘I think I knew him.’
‘Who?’ Nick looked baffled and surveyed the lounge as if some old acquaintance of Kate’s had walked through the door.
‘The body. It looks like a DC I worked with here in Cumbria. We weren’t in the same team but we both worked out of Kendal Police Station.’
‘Are you sure?’
Kate shook her head. ‘No. But it looked a lot like him. He was a keen hill walker so it’s not unlikely that he was up in the Langdales.’
‘That’s why you’re so shaken up? Was he a friend?’
‘He was a colleague who I got on really well with,’ Kate said, trying to evade the question, but she could see that Nick wasn’t convinced. ‘When things were really shitty between me and Garry I used to talk to Chris. We’d sometimes meet up in the canteen after a shift and have a natter.’
Kate suddenly became aware of the silence in the bar. It seemed like all the air had been sucked out of the space and she and Nick were left in a vacuum. She’d never spoken to anybody about her relationship with Chris Gilruth. She’d barely admitted to herself that it was a relationship before she’d been offered a promotion and a transfer to South Yorkshire.
They hadn’t kept in touch. Chris was married and Kate knew how it felt to be the one waiting at home for a man who would rather spend time with somebody else; anybody else. They’d kissed a couple of times. That was it. But there had been an intimacy to their talks which could have very easily led them to bed and to potential disaster in terms of their working relationship and to Chris’s marriage.
‘So, when did you last hear from him?’ Nick asked.
‘We last spoke a couple of days before I left Cumbria. A chat over coffee in the canteen. There was no point in us keeping in touch – he was a new dad with a busy job and I wanted to establish myself in my role in Doncaster. If I’m completely honest, I haven’t thought about him much since I moved.’
‘Well, you have had a hunky oncologist to occupy your thoughts,’ Nick said with a grin. ‘But are you sure it’s him?’
Kate shrugged. Was she sure? It had been difficult to tell in the beam of her torch. Every time she’d focused on one part of his face the rest was in darkness. It was like looking at all the separate pieces of a jigsaw and trying to get a sense of what the finished puzzle might look like without the box as a guide.
‘I can’t be certain,’ she admitted.
‘Yes, but dark hair and a beard, that could be anybody. It’s not like it’s an unusual look.’
Nick was right. It could have been anybody but, as Kate downed her second whisky in an attempt to get warm, she was becoming more convinced that she hadn’t been mistaken. And, if it was Chris, what was she supposed to feel? It seemed like such a waste of a life, falling off a mountain and being left to rot in a gully. If the sheep hadn’t disturbed the scree, how long might it have been before some poor soul had made the grisly discovery?
Kate was surprised to find herself close to tears. Chris had been younger than her by nearly ten years and now, remembering him, he seemed so vibrant, so full of life.
‘DI Fletcher?’
Kate turned, about to snap at the interruption to her thoughts, and found one of the PCSOs standing behind her. She was about the same age as Kate, blonde hair cut into a short bob and she’d removed her hat, holding it to her chest as though for protection.
‘I’m sorry to bother you but I need to take down your details. Both of you,’ she said with a glance at Nick. ‘It’s just procedure but, if we need to follow up on anything, somebody will be in touch.’
Kate reached into the pocket on her trouser leg and removed her mobile phone. She opened her contact card and held it out to the woman who placed her hat on the bar and removed a notebook from her breast pocket. She scribbled down Kate’s mobile and work numbers and turned to Nick who was holding out a business card. She took it, noted down the details and passed it back.
‘Thanks for your help today,’ she said, her voice formal. ‘The Caldwells were lucky to run into you both. I hope you can still enjoy your evening.’ She grabbed her hat and, placing it firmly on her head, walked away towards the door.
‘Shouldn’t she have clicked her heels together?’ Nick whispered.
Kate smiled. She’d been surprised by the officious departure, but it was understandable. Kate was a superior officer, albeit in another force, and the woman clearly wanted to be seen as having done a good job. ‘I think she was just being thorough,’ she said.
Nick took a last gulp of his coffee and checked his watch. ‘Still got to walk back to the car,’ he said. ‘And it’s bloody dark out there.’
It was less than a mile of road walking back to where they’d parked but it felt like much further after Kate’s head torch finally flickered and died and they had to rely on Nick’s phone. Kate was irrationally overcome with relief when she saw the solid lines of Nick’s Merc nestled amongst the car park’s trees.
3
Calvin Russell loved his job. He enjoyed the responsibility and the trust placed in him to ensure that clients got exactly what they wante
d; and he did try his best to ensure that every client was happy when they left. Calvin knew that it wasn’t a career though; there wasn’t much scope to progress to the upper echelons of Doncaster Storage Solutions as the upper echelons meant Mr Hibberts, who owned the warehouse, and Calvin couldn’t ever see himself owning much more than his old Kawasaki ER500 motorbike and his Xbox. But it was a secure income and he was allowed to make some decisions for himself.
He was in that position now. A few days ago, he’d noticed an unpleasant smell coming from one of the storage units and he was beginning to think that he’d need to look inside. It was a unit hired by one of the cash-only customers, which made Calvin a little wary of interfering. Mr Hibberts had a few clients who paid upfront, in cash, on the understanding that a blind eye was turned when they deposited or collected their belongings. Calvin suspected that they might be storing stolen goods or possibly even drugs – he’d seen something similar in a news report on television – but Mr Hibberts had been clear that it was none of Calvin’s business and that he should just take the cash.
The man who had paid for the unit which was currently causing a problem hadn’t been one of the ‘usuals’, but he’d had the cash for a six-month rental so Calvin had simply shown him one of the smaller units and, when the client was satisfied that the storage space was big enough, taken his details and given him a key and a receipt for his cash. As far as Calvin was aware, after depositing a number of bags and boxes, the client hadn’t been back. He still had three months before he had to pay for more time or remove his goods, but the smell was getting worse and Calvin felt compelled to intervene. He’d rung Mr Hibberts who had simply told him to do what he thought was best, so Calvin had dug out the master key and decided to investigate.
Reunion: a gripping crime thriller (DI Kate Fletcher Book Book 4) Page 2