by Mark Sennen
‘Not a theory, fact.’ Larry reached for the mug again and took a gulp, drops of tea left in his beard when he put the mug down. ‘One of my buoys gets cut by a passing yacht, I know exactly where to find it. Eddies, currents, rips, tidal streams. They push back and forth, this way and that. Appears random, but in the end those oceanwhatnofors can map them years in advance. And the second raft, that was on the Erme, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, but the man didn’t manage to launch it. He’d spent so long assembling the pieces that he ran out of time and the craft became marooned on a sandbar.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong.’
‘Mr … Larry. I’m sure you mean well, but we’re pushed here today.’ Savage tried to be polite, but she needed to get shot of Larry and get back to work. Quite why he’d come in, she didn’t know. Perhaps he was lonely. ‘Jason Hobb is our concern now, not the tides.’
‘Sure he is, girl, but you’re looking not listening. Trapped, I said. Like the boy. The lobster, you see. The poor fellow sniffs some bait and then takes a wrong turn. Tries to back up, only the way a pot works he can’t find the exit. Lobster pot one minute, cooking pot the next.’
‘Larry, if you’ve got some information then please stop talking in riddles. Otherwise I could put you in contact with social services, sort you out some help. You shouldn’t be living out on that—’
‘Fuck social services! Bunch of tossers, the lot of them. And it’s not me who needs help, you do.’
‘Me?’
‘Hot water getting hotter. Cooking you up so you’re nice and tender.’
‘Larry, I—’
‘THE BOY! JASON!’ Larry swept his arm across the table, catching the mug and sending it flying. The mug tumbled to the floor and smashed into several pieces, tea splashing everywhere. Larry shook his head and wrinkled his nose. ‘Sorry. Tryin’ to tell you, aren’t I? I can get you out of the pot. I know where he is.’
Savage stared at Larry. Took in the black coat smeared with fish oil. The full beard. The right hand – the one with no thumb and the crab claw fingers which scissored back and forth. How could this man possibly know anything about Jason unless he’d been directly involved in his disappearance?
Larry blinked at her and his eyes sparkled like silver sand at the bottom of a rock pool.
‘Tell me,’ she said, all of a sudden beyond caring where the information came from.
‘That bloke wasn’t launching the raft when he got caught Monday morning. He was trying to retrieve it.’
‘Retrieve it?’
‘Yes. See, he’d launched it from farther up the river in the middle of the night. With all this rain the water was plenty high enough. He hoped the raft would come down and meet the tide and be carried off. Only there wasn’t enough height in the tide and the raft got stuck on a sandbar. When he was discovered, he was down there taking the thing apart, not putting it together.’
‘So how does this help us find Jason?’
‘The raft was launched from the Erme for a reason, and that’s because of what’s upstream. See, Brenden’s mother’s there.’
‘Brenden’s mother? You mean Deborah Parker? We understood she was dead.’
‘Alive or dead she’s the key.’
‘How do you—?’
‘I know, that’s all. You don’t need the whys or wherefores. You just need to find a way out of the pot, understand?’ Larry pushed himself up from the chair. ‘He was mad Brenden, back then when we was kids. Weird like his dad. Reckon, from what he’s been up to recently with them boys, he ain’t improved much either.’
‘Larry.’ Savage stood too. ‘You stay right there. We need to get a statement.’
‘I’m not staying anywhere.’ Larry shuffled to the door. ‘I’ve told you all I know. The mother, understand? I’ll be on my boat if you needs me.’
The fisherman slipped into the corridor, leaving Savage staring at the broken cup, the pieces surrounded by a puddle of steaming tea. Brenden Parker, she remembered, had sought comfort from the warmth of a silver teapot which had belonged to his mother. At the time, they hadn’t realised she’d died nor did they know the story behind her relationship to Brenden.
That was it. Savage turned and dashed from the room. Half a minute later and she was in the crime suite confronting Collier.
‘Deborah Parker. Frank Parker’s first wife and Brenden Parker’s mother,’ she said.
‘Who?’ Collier raised a marker pen in defence. He turned to his whiteboard and examined a list of names. ‘Not on the radar.’
‘No, because she’s dead.’
‘Dead?’ Collier shook his head. ‘So where are you going with this? Ghosts?’
‘No, Deborah Parker’s not coming back.’ Savage pointed to a map on another board. ‘But it’s what she left behind I’m interested in.’
Savage explained to Collier what she wanted and went to find Calter. Five minutes later and she returned with the DC in tow.
‘Well?’
‘I’m confused,’ Collier said, waving a piece of paper at Savage. ‘I can’t find a record of Deborah Parker’s death, but I’ve got her address. She lives over in the countryside near Modbury.’
‘Lives?’ Savage took the address. ‘That can’t be right. We found a condolence card at Brenden Parker’s house.’
‘Whatever. The property’s right on the Erme, upstream from where the second raft was found.’
‘Find a car,’ she said, turning to Calter and shooing her from the room. ‘We need the PolSA, a search team, John Layton and his CSIs. Alert the air ambulance too, we might need a medevac.’
‘Yes, ma’am!’ Calter had already pulled out her phone and she was punching numbers as they ran down the corridor.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Near Modbury, South Hams, Devon. Thursday 29th October. 12.38 p.m.
They sped along the A38, Savage topping a ton for most of the way. After the dual carriageway they had no option but to take minor roads and progress was torturous. While Savage concentrated on keeping the car on the road, Calter made call after call on her phone.
Near Modbury, Savage turned off onto a tiny lane which climbed a hillside before dropping down a steep hill.
‘Here, ma’am,’ Calter said.
Savage slewed the car round and took a track which led through a couple of fields towards a large house. Behind the house a field ran down to a line of trees, the blue of the River Erme beyond.
The place may have once been home to a local doctor or solicitor, Savage thought. Now it lay abandoned, broken glass in the windows, a full-length veranda partly collapsed at one end, an old rocking chair next to a small cast-iron table sheltering under the porch.
They bounced down the track and pulled up in front of the house. An iron fence ran around a small plot, the grass long and almost waist-high. To the back, a paddock lay thick with docks and nettles and off to one side sat an orchard with wiry apple trees badly in need of pruning.
‘The drawing showed a box buried in the earth, so check the grounds first.’ Savage leapt out of the car as they stopped. ‘Come on.’
She ran up to the gate and pushed it open. A stone paved path hugged the right-hand side of the house. She went along the path, Calter close behind.
‘You reckon he’s here then? Jason?’ Calter said.
‘Got to be.’
They rounded the house and crossed through an area of long grass to the orchard. A post and rail fence surrounded the trees and a gate stood open to the plot. In places, the grass had been trampled. Someone had been here recently.
‘There!’ Savage said, pointing to an area of disturbed ground, a pile of soil still dark brown with moisture. She moved across to the pile and felt a sudden lurch in her stomach when she saw the hole alongside. ‘He was in here.’
She stared down into the hole. The sides plunged down through the dark earth and at the bottom sat a large box perhaps a metre or so wide by two long and maybe a metre or so deep.
‘The
lid, ma’am,’ Calter said, pointing to a large sheet of plywood on one side of the spoil heap. Next to the plywood lay a short section of tubing, something like a drainpipe. ‘Jesus, I can’t imagine what it must have been like trapped down there. Horrible.’
Savage nodded. Several cans of Coke and the wrappers from numerous packets of biscuits and chocolate bars had been pushed into a corner. To one side of the box, fresh soil showed through a rough opening in the plywood.
‘But where is he now?’ Savage peered closer. The opening led through to a neighbouring hole, narrower than the first. In the bottom, Savage could see the outline of a wooden coffin, the lid splintered and pulled aside, a plain wooden cross thrown down on top.
‘Ma’am?’ Calter stood alongside Savage. ‘If Jason was in the first hole, who or what was in this one?’
‘No idea, but the hole was dug today as well.’ She pointed at the spoil heap and then scanned the orchard. The rest of the grass was long and untrampled. ‘There’s nothing out here, let’s try the house.’
Back round the front, Calter stopped as she stepped onto the veranda. She knelt on the wooden boards.
‘Blood, ma’am.’ The DC pointed to several dark splotches near the front door. ‘Fresh, by the look of it.’
‘OK,’ Savage said. ‘Let’s see what we can find inside.’
Calter nodded, stood, and reached for the door handle.
‘Gloves!’ Savage said, reaching into her own pocket and pulling out a pair. ‘Here, have these.’
‘Thanks.’ Calter took the gloves and put them on. Then she reached for the door handle once more, turned it, and pushed the door open.
A narrow hall stretched away in front of them, a door to the right and left. A staircase ran up to the first floor on one side of the passageway. Calter moved into the house and Savage followed. The draught from the open door had disturbed a layer of dust on the floor and motes swirled in the air. There was something else in the air too. Steam, drifting from the rear of the house.
‘Empty, ma’am,’ Calter said. She pointed into the room on the right. Bare floorboards, an old rocking chair, a monk’s bench, a huge but plain dresser, some moth-eaten velvet curtains. ‘Just a load of ancient furniture. I reckon whoever lived here is long gone.’
Savage took a glance into the room to the left. It was the same story. Empty. Peeling wallpaper on the wall next to the window where the rain had come through a broken pane.
‘Somebody’s here.’ Savage sniffed the air and pointed down the hallway. ‘In the kitchen.’
She moved along the hall to where a glass-fronted door stood half open, beads of moisture streaming down the pane. She pushed and the door swung to reveal a farmhouse kitchen. To one side stood an Aga, steam hissing from beneath the lid of a large pot.
‘Careful,’ Savage said. ‘We don’t know who we’re dealing with. They could be armed with a Taser. Whatever, they’re very dangerous.’
Calter strolled across to a door, but there was nothing behind except a small larder. She shrugged and then looked to the ceiling.
‘Right, there’s nothing here.’ Savage gestured back the way they had come. ‘We’ll try the first floor.’
She moved back down the hallway to the stairs and began to climb. Beneath her feet the treads creaked in protest, but otherwise appeared sound.
‘More blood, ma’am.’ Calter pointed to another dark stain as she followed Savage up the stairs. ‘Let’s hope it doesn’t belong to Jason.’
Every few steps there was another spot of blood. On the landing the trail turned left and led into a large double-aspect bedroom.
‘Careful, ma’am.’ Calter reached out and grabbed Savage by the shoulder. ‘No floorboards.’
‘Thanks.’ Savage’s attention had been drawn to the ceiling which was covered in hundreds of pages of tiny print. She peered up. The pages were thin, like cigarette paper. ‘These are pages from the Bible.’
‘What the hell is this, ma’am?’
‘No idea.’ Savage turned her gaze to the floor. Or rather, the lack of one. The floorboards had been removed, leaving only the joists. Beneath the joists she could see the slim wooden wattles running back and forth. They wouldn’t be that strong. Step in the gap between the joists and your foot would go right through the plaster. ‘But let’s be careful, OK?’
Unlike the rooms downstairs, this one had furniture. A huge cast-iron bedstead straddled the joists, the bed’s feet carefully positioned on two floorboards which had been left in place. On the far side of the room, beside the window, stood a tall, heavy wardrobe.
‘Christ Almighty!’ Calter leant in through the doorway and pointed across to the bed. ‘What the heck …?’
Savage stepped into the room, making sure she planted her feet firmly on the joists. She walked across half a dozen of them until she stood alongside the bed. Someone was lying there, the bedclothes pulled up to the person’s neck. Grey hair tumbled over the pillow, spread in a fan-like fashion and framing a face of cracked skin. The nose had gone, the nasal bone exposed. Likewise the lips had dried to nothing, revealing white teeth, a golden flash of filling top right.
‘From the grave in the orchard,’ Savage said. ‘She’s obviously been dead for a while.’
‘She?’ Calter tiptoed across the joists. ‘I know it’s got long hair, but how do you know it’s not a man?’
‘There’s a photograph on the pillow.’ Savage pointed to a picture in a small gold frame which lay to the right side of the head. A woman with a mass of long blonde hair was sitting in a chair, a small boy of eleven or twelve on her lap. ‘I think that’s her.’
‘So who’s the boy?’
‘Brenden Parker, of course. This woman must be his mother.’
‘Bloody hell.’ Calter shook her head. ‘Sleeping Beauty, she isn’t.’
‘The question is, where’s Jason? Check the wardrobe, would you?’
Calter nodded and worked her way across to the huge piece of furniture. She fiddled with a key which was in the lock, and then opened the door.
‘Oh God!’ Calter turned her head away from the wardrobe for a moment. ‘You’d better come and look at this, ma’am.’
Savage stepped across the joists until she stood alongside Calter. The DC pointed inside. At the bottom of the wardrobe a pile of clothes lay in a jumble. A dark navy cag with a matching inner fleece. A pair of jeans and an Argyll shirt, tie-dyed with fresh red blood. Above the clothes, several dresses hung on wooden hangers.
‘Looks like Jason’s coat and shirt. From the amount of blood on the shirt and the trail on the way up here, I’d say he’s seriously wounded.’
‘But where?’ Calter spun on her heels, almost losing her balance on the joists. ‘The trail of blood leads into this room.’
Savage turned too. The bed and wardrobe were the only pieces of furniture in the room. There was no loft hatch and both windows were closed. The bed was high off the ground and Savage didn’t have to lean over far to be able to see right underneath. Nothing. She stood upright and stared at the bed again. A tingle spread from her fingertips all the way along her arms. The tingle became a chill which washed across her chest. The thin corpse was too bulky. There was something else beneath the bedclothes.
She stepped back across the joists until she reached the bed. Atop lay a crocheted blanket, beneath another blanket, this one wool. Beneath that, and turned over at the top, was a white sheet. The whole lot was tucked in neatly down the sides and at the end of the bed. Savage grasped the linen up near the pillow and pulled the material out from beneath the mattress. With a flick she threw the whole lot back.
‘Oh fuck!’ Calter stood, mouth open. ‘No!’
The corpse was unclothed. Skin, aged and dry and yellowing, hung in crumpled folds. Here and there, white bones protruded through cracks in the skin. It was hard to believe this thing had ever been living, Savage thought, that the corpse wasn’t some alien zombie creature about to rise from the dead. Harder still to realise the woman wasn�
��t alone in the bed. That her shrivelled arms were cradling the naked, headless body of a child, hugging the poor creature close to her dried and barren breasts.
The shock of seeing the corpse of Deborah Parker was as nothing to the realisation that the body she was holding in her arms had no head. As the horrific vision sunk in, a chill slipped down Savage’s back.
‘Ma’am!’ Calter put a hand to her chest. ‘Oh God, ma’am … I’ve never …’
‘Easy, Jane.’ Savage moved from the bed and tiptoed her way across the rafters. ‘Back downstairs, quick.’
‘Was that him, ma’am?’ Calter said when they’d made it down to the hallway. The DC shook her head and took several deep breaths. ‘Poor Jason Hobb?’
‘Yes, I think so.’ Savage paused for a moment. She wondered whether Calter had recovered sufficiently for what she had in mind next. ‘If you’re up to it, then with me, OK?’
‘Sure, ma’am.’ Calter took one long breath. ‘Never better.’
Savage turned and went down the hallway towards the kitchen, Calter close behind. The kitchen was much as they’d left it. The larder door still half ajar, the pan on the stove still bubbling away.
‘Ma’am?’ Calter said. ‘What is it?’
‘That.’ Savage gestured over towards the Aga. ‘The pot.’
‘Hey?’ Calter moved past her and strode into the room. ‘The pot? I don’t get it.’
‘You don’t want to know.’ Savage came in and walked over to the stove. She reached for an oven glove which was wrapped round the cooker rail. ‘Here, take this.’
‘What do you want me to do with it?’ Calter said as she took the glove.
‘I want you to lift the lid on the pot. Look away when you do so. There’s no need for you to see.’
‘Oh Christ, ma’am. You’re fucking joking me, right?’