CUT DEAD: A DI Charlotte Savage Novel

by Mark Sennen

  Riley got out of his car and went across to the entrance to the workshop. Somebody was underneath a Ford Mondeo which stood over an inspection pit. A grinder showered sparks from beneath the car. Riley banged on the metal workshop door and the grinding ceased. A figure moved down in the pit and a face grubby with grease poked out from behind the rear wheel.

  ‘Tim Hamilton?’ Riley said, showing his warrant card. ‘DS Riley.’

  Hamilton shook his head and disappeared for a moment, reappearing at the front of the vehicle as he clambered from the pit. Hamilton wore a blue boiler suit, black in places with oil stains. He was thirty-something, but running to fat, the poppers on the suit open at the waist. He had a large wrench in his right hand.

  ‘What now?’ he said. ‘I’ve got all the paperwork, everything’s legal.’

  ‘I’m sure it is, Mr Hamilton, but I’m not interested in your Build-A-Car workshop.’

  ‘What then?’ Hamilton wiped his hands on his boiler suit. ‘Cos that’s all I do.’

  ‘Four years ago you repaired a blue Subaru Impreza. It would have had some minor damage to the nearside front. The damage could probably have been repaired without replacing the panel, but the owner would have been insistent. They wanted a complete new front wing.’

  ‘Four years ago? Are you having a laugh? I can’t remember repairs going back that long ago.’

  ‘What about your records, invoices, bank statements, that kind of thing?’

  ‘All cash in this business, mate. I tot the money up at the end of the week and give the lot to my missus.’

  ‘Come on, Mr Hamilton. I know it was a while ago, but this was a rush job on a sporty car. Probably better than the usual jalopies you get in here. You remember – and if you don’t, then I reckon I’m going to have to call a search team in here.’

  Riley pulled his mobile out and made as if to walk back outside.

  ‘Shit.’ Hamilton tapped the wrench against his leg. ‘You got me.’

  ‘A name. That’s all I’m after. No one’s going to find out who told me.’

  ‘No name, the lad didn’t give one. Look, what’s this guy done? Hit and run? Bank job? Some other shit?’

  ‘You give me something,’ Riley said. ‘And then I walk away. No more questions.’

  Hamilton turned and walked over to a bench at the side of the workshop. He clumped the wrench down.

  ‘Yeah?’ he said. Riley nodded. Hamilton sighed and then went over to the side of the workshop where a long beam supporting the wall held rows of battered number plates stacked several deep. ‘Extensive front end damage. New grille, new front index too, so I made him one up. The old plate is here somewhere.’

  ‘You kept it?’

  ‘Sure.’ Hamilton glanced across at Riley. ‘Let’s just say it was insurance.’

  ‘And why would you need that?’

  ‘Pays to be careful in this business.’ Hamilton flicked a couple of plates forward. Replaced them. Moved along. ‘Here.’

  He pulled a plate out from behind several others and walked across to the bench. The plate clattered onto the surface next to a notepad and pen. Hamilton left it there and went back to the front of the car. He climbed down into the pit.

  ‘I didn’t tell you anything.’ Hamilton’s voice floated out from underneath the car. ‘Never said a word. Understand?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Riley walked over to the bench and wrote down the letters and numbers. Ripped the sheet from the pad and walked out of the garage as the sound of the grinder started up again. Sparks flying, metal on metal, Riley thinking of the damage the front of an Impreza would cause as it smashed into a child on a bike.

  Lucy Hale didn’t know much about cars. You pressed your foot down on the accelerator pedal and pointed one end where you wanted to go. At the other end was a hole you glugged petrol into once a week, giving up a sizeable proportion of your income so you could enjoy the freedom of the road. Assuming you weren’t stuck in traffic.

  Plymouth’s convoluted road system functioned OK when the council weren’t messing with its layout. Unfortunately that wasn’t very often and the city always seemed to be choked with traffic. Right now though she’d be thankful to be stuck in a jam rather than sitting in her stationary car up here on Dartmoor. In front of her the tarmac curled to the horizon, not another vehicle or person to be seen. To the west the light faded behind a rocky ridge sending huge shadows creeping across the open moor. Night was coming and the cosy pub in Tavistock where earlier she’d dined with a friend seemed just a memory. Now she was beginning to regret having gone out that evening, beginning to regret having taken the route home across the moor.

  Lucy got out and kicked the flat tyre. Wasn’t sure why, just that’s what people did. Somewhere in the boot the spare sat beneath layers of carpet. She supposed there’d be a toolkit and jack in there too.

  Sod that.

  She pulled out her phone and at the same time extracted a slim card from a pocket on her bag. She squinted at the card and thumbed in the number.

  Thank God for breakdown cover.

  Ten minutes later she wasn’t feeling so pleased. ‘Going to be a couple of hours at least’ the man on the end of the line had said. Lucy had protested, saying she was a single woman, that it would be long dark by the time the tow truck arrived. ‘It’s where you are,’ the voice said. ‘Dartmoor. Not much cover. Plus we’re very busy around Plymouth. I’ll do my best.’

  Typical. So much for the Knights of the bloody Road.

  Lucy chucked the phone in through the open window of the car. Stared at where a bank of dark cloud tumbled in over the top of a tor. Nothing now but the hilltop and close by, a herd of ponies. Nothing but heather, rock and the road wending its way through inky shadows, just before the tor the road dividing and the left fork diving into a patch of glowing white which looked like snow.

  Not snow, clay.

  Lucy knew that the clay pits were on the edge of the moor so the road must be a shortcut towards the city. Half a mile to the fork, a couple of miles down off the moor, and she’d be in civilisation. The tyre might be shredded and the rim of the wheel ruined, but it was a small price to pay.

  The car juddered along, a slight rocking motion the only sign something was amiss, until a mile or so later a clanging started up. A little after that came a bang and the steering wrenched to the left, pulling the car off the road.

  Damn.

  Lucy turned off the engine and got out, this time resisting the temptation to kick the wheel, now devoid of tyre and cracked across the middle. Leaning for a moment on the bonnet of the car she realised how dark it had become. The headlights sliced down the road, picking out a stone wall and a gated lane to some farm or other. In all other directions the night closed in, the shapes of nearby trees silhouetted against a blue-black sky, a few twinkling stars fighting the thickening cloud.

  And then there was the wind.

  A faint ticking came from under the bonnet as the engine cooled but the noise was all but drowned out by a shushing as gusts swept through the trees, their branches writhing in the air like demented arms on some giant demon. Throughout the day the wind had been building, a summer storm, the forecast promising gales and a deluge.

  Pitter-patter, pitter-patter.

  Oh great.

  Lucy glanced up to where the stars had been only moments before. Nothing but black now. Black and water.

  Sod it.

  Lucy grabbed her bag and phone and slammed the door shut. What was the distance to the nearest village? A mile or two at the most? She set off, following the wall and every so often using her phone as a makeshift torch. At the gate to the farm she thought about seeing if anyone was in, but the lane led round a corner into some old quarry or pit and something about it felt a bit creepy. As if wind and rain and what seemed like almost total darkness wasn’t bad enough.

  Five minutes later and she could see lights down in the valley. Far in the distance, true, but comforting nevertheless. Then there
were some other lights – headlights – a car coming towards her. The beams dazzled and she raised her arms to shield her eyes. The vehicle coasted to a stop a few car-lengths before it reached her. Not a car, rather a beat-up tow truck. A door opened and slammed, someone standing in the white glare.

  ‘You got trouble, girl? Only we’d be only too pleased to help.’

  We? Lucy could only see one person. But then the other door of the car opened and somebody else climbed down and slouched into the light too.

  Lucy stepped backwards and slipped into the shadow at the side of the road, feeling her feet sink into mud. The two guys didn’t seem right, didn’t seem … normal. The second one had a head that lolled to one side, a mass of scraggy brown hair like wire atop a round face, nose all squashed up, the eyes an afterthought, mere dark slits painted on with a flick of a brush. The first one spoke again as she squelched away from them along the ditch.

  ‘You want to be careful. It’s not safe out here in the dark. All kinds of things can happen. Isn’t that right, Mikey?’

  ‘Guuurrrll!’ the other man said, jumping up and down in the light. ‘Get guuurrrlll!’

  Lucy tried to pick up her feet to move faster, but the gloop sucked at her shoes. She smacked her foot into something and then she was falling over, sploshing down in the mud, her hands scrabbling for her phone as it sank into the water, the pale light from the screen glowing for a second before it went out.

  ‘Now then,’ the voice whispered close in the darkness, somewhere a few feet away. ‘You don’t need to mind Mikey, he only wants to be friends.’

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  The girl is safe in the pumphouse round the back. She’s been shouting her head off, but now she’s quiet. Worked out there’s nobody to hear her.

  You’ve given Mikey some dinner and to calm him down you popped a couple of Molipaxins in there, mixed up with the sausage, beans and mash. The tablets haven’t sent him to sleep but he’s no longer pestering you about the girl. He’s slouched on the sofa with a magazine. Junior sudoku. He’s not clever, Mikey, but he recognises patterns, the way the numbers fit in the grid. Likes solving puzzles. Finding the answers. Like Peter. Only Peter never got any answers.

  Mikey fills in a square and then bites the end of his pencil and chuckles.

  Nothing much to laugh at you think, considering the seriousness of the situation. Peter wouldn’t like this. Going against the usual way of things, getting all out of control. He always was a restraining influence. A hand on your shoulder, a friendly word of advice. You guess he kept you sane. Safe. Secure.

  But where’s Peter now?

  Not here, is he? Not here to hold your hand or smack you down or make you look stupid. Not calling you up to tell you what to do. He’s not watching now. The only person watching is Mikey, and the way he keeps looking up at you and grinning you reckon he’s thinking along the same lines.

  The girl.

  It’s only been a few days since the last one. Peter would say you should wait because there’s no Special Day. No symmetry, no rhyme or reason to it. But hey, who came up with the idea of the Special Day anyway? Peter, wasn’t it? And …

  Fuck him! Who says you can only have one Special Day a year? Why not have one a month or even one a week?

  Which is why you went into town looking for Hazel Tredfel – the next girl on the list. You located her house in Ernsettle, found she had two fat Staffies in the garden and a husband at least as fierce and twice as ugly.

  ‘Discretion,’ you said to Mikey, ‘is the better part of valour.’

  Mikey had looked at you, not understanding what you were talking about but reading the expression on your face. You’d driven off thinking you would need to get another name from Peter’s little book.

  ‘G … g … guuurrrlll!’ Mikey pointed through the windscreen as you neared the turning to the farm.

  For a second, your hand on the door handle, you wondered if you should just let the chance pass by. She was simply a woman by the side of the road. Probably done nothing wrong. Probably innocent.

  Probably.

  What the hell, you thought. Just this once.

  She tried to run but there were two of you and the silly shoes she was wearing didn’t help her much. You wondered why women insist on wearing such things. Might as well wear leg irons. You plucked her from where she lay in a ditch and shoved her in the pickup next to Mikey.

  Scream, scream, scream. But with the wipers swishing and Mikey singing and the rattle from the old exhaust roaring out it wasn’t too bad. Anyway you were home in five, the girl locked away in the little stone pumphouse in ten, the sausages sizzling in the pan in fifteen.

  ‘Mikey,’ you say, smiling at him as he fills in another square and looks up. ‘We did it!’

  And all without a smidgen of help from Peter, you think. Oh-so-clever Peter who right now is stuck in a drawer at the morgue, getting all cold and wondering what good a Ph fucking D is.

  ‘Play, play, play!’ Mikey has put the magazine down now. ‘Play, play, play! Play with guuurrrlll!’

  Outside the rain is teeming down, it’s close to midnight, and you’ve done none of the usual preparation. Really you want to wait until tomorrow to get started. Mikey’s got other ideas though.

  ‘Guuurrrlll!’

  Shit, you think, seems like the bloody pills must be wearing off already. You should have given him more than two. You ease yourself out of the chair and move towards the kitchen, wondering whether there might be a tin of apricots and some instant custard in the back of the pantry.

  ‘Mikey?’ you say, reaching in your pocket for the packet of Molis. ‘Fancy a pudding?’

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Crownhill Police Station, Plymouth. Wednesday 2nd July. 8.55 a.m.

  ‘DI Savage?’ The voice came from behind as Savage got out of her car at Crownhill. A hint of familiarity about the accent. She turned round.

  Dan Phillips. The Herald’s crime reporter.

  ‘Dan. As always, a pleasure,’ Savage said.

  ‘How’s the investigation going?’

  ‘You were at the press conference, Dan. You know all there is. Dr Peter Wilson is dead and at this moment in time we’re not looking for anybody else concerning the murders.’

  ‘So you reckon you’ve nailed him, do you? Wrapped up the case?’

  ‘Enquiries are continuing. Tying up the threads will be a long process.’

  ‘No more missing persons then? Everyone’s safe now and we can go back to having our barbecues outside?’

  ‘I told you, enquiries are continuing. That’s all I can say. Now I’m sorry to be rude but—’

  Phillips held up his hand and Savage thought he was apologising. Then she noticed the white envelope held between his thumb and forefinger.

  ‘Take a look,’ Phillips said. ‘Something for you to consider.’

  ‘You’re not trying to pull a fast one, are you?’ Savage said, looking over Phillips’s shoulder for one of the Herald’s lensmen. ‘Get a shot of me acting dodgy accepting suspicious packages?’

  ‘You know me better than that, Charlotte. Now, do you want to take a look or not?’

  ‘The problem is I do know you better than that.’ Savage paused for a moment and then closed the car door. ‘Show me then.’

  Phillips lifted the flap on the envelope and pulled out a photograph of a young woman. Late twenties, blonde hair in a bob like DC Calter’s.

  ‘What’s this?’ Savage said, cocking her head on one side. ‘Some kind of prank?’

  ‘Not from me, Charlotte. The girl in the picture has been missing since last night. The parents reported it but apparently now the killer’s been caught mispers are back to their usual low priority. Nothing doing for twenty-four hours at least. Which was why the parents came to me.’ Phillips tapped the picture with his free hand. ‘Pretty, isn’t she? We’re putting her on the front page.’

  ‘And what makes you think this could possibly have anything to do with the C
andle Cake Killer?’

  ‘Contacts.’ Phillips moved his finger from the picture and brought it up to his nose. Tapped again. ‘I hear there’s a problem with some alibis concerning Dr Wilson.’

  ‘If you print anything about—’

  ‘Look, I want to help. That stunt I pulled the other day with Graham Bunce was childish. I’m trying to make amends.’ Phillips smiled. ‘Got to keep in your good books, haven’t I?’

  ‘OK, Dan. Thanks.’ Savage took the photograph from Phillips. ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘And?’ Hardin said ten minutes later when Savage went to his office to brief him on the latest development.

  Savage slid a printout across the desk to Hardin and then recited the details from memory.

  ‘Lucy Hale. Twenty-nine. She lives in Ivybridge. Yesterday afternoon she drove to a pub in Tavistock to have a meal with a friend. According to the friend she left some time after nine p.m. She had an early start the next day and didn’t want to be up late. She said she’d call in at her mum and dad’s when she got back to Ivybridge.’

  ‘So? She probably forgot.’

  ‘No. She was calling in to collect her younger sister who lives at home. The sister was going to stay over at Lucy’s place as the two of them were driving up to Bristol today to do some shopping. And then there’s her car. I’ve just had a report that it’s been discovered parked near Burrator Reservoir.’

  ‘Suicide?’ Hardin put his hands face up, expectant. ‘Events would be no less tragic but it would be better for us if she’d topped herself. Maybe she took a handful of pills and went for a midnight swim in the lake. Worth thinking about.’