by Dylan Young
‘That doesn’t work for Rosie though, ma’am,’ Holder said.
‘No,’ Anna agreed, but Shaw’s words stayed fresh in her head. ‘But if Rosie was his first, his trial run, it’s possible it wasn’t a consideration. He might have been concentrating on other things. Like being certain of the geography, his exit plan. Or maybe he was close enough to them to see the cracks in their relationship already beginning. Her parents weren’t with her when she was taken, remember.’
Khosa looked unconvinced. ‘OK. But if it was all planned, how could he possibly know this information about the victims unless he knew the families?’
Something in her question struck a chord in Anna. She didn’t have the answer, not then, but there was something that chimed.
‘Thanks for supper, ma’am,’ Holder said.
Anna looked at him, realising she’d been wool-gathering for almost a minute.
‘It’s a pleasure, Justin. You two both deserve it. Maybe we should be doing a team night out as a regular thing?’
Holder looked aghast. Khosa frowned. ‘Us three?’
‘Yes. You know, for a meal or a pub thing.’
‘Uhh, you turned into a zombie after an hour of the bowls night for the super’s birthday, ma’am. It was scary. I don’t think you spoke for like, twenty minutes.’
‘Didn’t I?’ Anna knew she had. ‘My battery gets drained.’
‘You don’t need to do that for us, ma’am,’ Khosa said. ‘That’s for needy bosses, not you.’
Anna thought about protesting, but then simply nodded. Her team knew her well. Perhaps too well. She was about to ask Khosa to elaborate on why she thought knowing the family was important when Holder sat up suddenly.
‘I don’t believe it,’ he said, looking beyond Anna and Khosa to the bar entrance.
‘What?’ Khosa said.
Holder’s mouth opened and shut wordlessly before he raised a hand half-heartedly in greeting.
Anna turned to see Dave Woakes standing there, dressed in jeans and T-shirt, drink in hand. ‘Evening.’
‘What are you doing here?’ Anna asked.
‘Having a drink. Like you. Supposed to meet up with a couple of the lads after they finish work.’
‘What lads?’
‘Not here yet. Mind if I join you?’
Anna did, but Woakes was already pulling up a chair.
‘How did you know we’d be here?’ Anna asked.
‘I didn’t. Like I said, I’m meeting up with some lads.’ He turned to Holder. ‘So, Justin, any news on Morton?’
Khosa must have seen Anna’s expression because she turned her eyes down towards her drink in a way that suggested she would happily dive into it.
‘Erm… no… not yet.’
‘You were unlucky there, mate. Still, he’s not on Mars, is he?’ Woakes let out a chortle.
Anna stared. The man was unbelievable. Brazen was not the word. He must have known Rainsford had spoken to her. Even so, this was pushing his luck. Acting like nothing had happened. A flush bloomed on her neck. She wanted to ask him what the hell he thought he was doing, but this was neither the time nor the place.
He’s still on the payroll. Find something for him to do.
‘Nice spot,’ said Woakes. ‘What’s the occasion?’
‘Late finish,’ Anna said. She wasn’t going to let Woakes back in. He’d lost her trust.
Woakes nodded, unfazed. Khosa and Holder stared into their drinks.
‘Didn’t peg you for a pub-goer,’ Woakes said, leaning back and fixing Anna, his smile as genuine as a cardboard sword.
‘Special occasions only,’ Anna said. She got up. There was half an inch of wine left in her glass and she downed it in one swallow.
Khosa watched and followed suit, Holder taking up the rear, but leaving what was left of his beer in his glass.
‘Another drink?’ Woakes said. ‘My shout.’
‘We’re all driving, Dave,’ Anna said. ‘Things to do.’
‘Yeah, thanks but no thanks, sarge,’ Holder added.
Khosa merely shrugged.
Anna stood. ‘See you all tomorrow.’
The atmosphere felt strained if not hostile. Woakes stayed seated as the rest of the team all left. He was still sitting there, watching them as they turned the corner form the beer garden to the car park. No one said anything and Anna respected both her DCs for that.
They said their goodbyes and Anna left in her own car, Khosa and Holder sharing a lift. There was no easy way back into town; it was either one stop down the motorway or in along the gorge and across the suspension bridge. But something was bothering Anna and she knew she’d have no peace until she scratched the itch.
She got back to HQ ten minutes later and went up to the office, mulling over Khosa’s assessment of the victims. Something in what she said was pulling at her, but despite looking again at the files, it wouldn’t gel. After half an hour, she sat back, frustrated and still nursing a dull anger. Seeing Woakes turn up in the pub disturbed her. Confirmed her feelings that he was not the full shilling. Yes, perhaps he was good at his job, though that was open to debate having seen his approach first-hand, but it didn’t say anything about his personality.
She went back to her office and mentally replayed her suggestion of an early supper. All she’d done was walked out and said it. Spontaneously. She hadn’t emailed or sent messages. Little more than a throwaway remark. She stood in the same position now in her doorway, looking out at the desks, at where Woakes should have been sitting.
She stared, her intuition guiding her towards his desk, the first stirrings of disquiet roiling in her gut. The surface was littered with papers, his computer screen stuck with Post-it notes along the top rim. Telephone numbers, names, to-do lists. She scanned them and found nothing until her eye was caught by a yellow note stuck to the middle of the top edge of his screen. Something about it looked different. The top edge, the one coated with adhesive, was torn, a small section roughly removed. Within that section a green light shone at the centre of the black glass exposed by the tear in the note. She removed the paper and sighed. There, at the top of the screen, a small, green LED light glowed. A mixture of incredulity and anger at her own naivety triggered a mirthless laugh.
He’d been watching them. All this time he’d been absent, Woakes had been watching them. There’d be some software running, a FaceTime or a Skype equivalent, something which allowed him access. That was how he knew about them leaving together. And if she confronted him, he’d plead ignorance, she was sure.
Must have left it on without knowing, ma’am.
Yes, of course, easy mistake.
She grabbed a cardboard folder, emptied its contents and laid its open leaves over the top of the screen, blanking out the camera, fighting the urge she had to throw the screen across the room. More than that, she wished Woakes was there now in front of her. Her mind had already come up with ten different ways of telling him how much of a waste of bloody space he was. Most of them involved words only four letters long.
The guy is a bloody lunatic.
But she knew her anger was merely a smokescreen for the hot embarrassment that was burning her face. Woakes had outsmarted her and that, more than anything else he’d done, irked her immensely.
He was playing games. Watching her, seeing the investigation stall and go nowhere. What else was he laughing at? His conviction that Hawley was somehow involved niggled like a hangnail. Though by now convinced of his innocence, she still felt that Hawley somehow held the key to her understanding.
On impulse, she rang him.
‘Inspector, what can I do for you?’
‘Dr Hawley, Ben, I need a favour. Are you free tomorrow morning?’
Thirty-Two
Anna’s dreams were bad.
A darkened room in a ruined house. A cupboard. Empty except for a pinpoint of light far at the back. A voice, further away than was possible in the confines of that space, called to her, rising and falling.
<
br /> ‘Help me, Anna. Help me.’
A second light, blinking, remained silent. And further away, like faded stars, she saw others, barely visible, pulsing weakly.
But she couldn’t reach into the cupboard. Something, a web, invisible but strong, prevented her from getting so much as a hand across, towards the voice. Above she heard the fluttering of wings. There, a crow sat, settling itself on the edge of a jagged tile that bordered a rent in the building’s roof. Its dark, intelligent eyes watched her as it tilted its head from side to side. Only now she noted the ladder and started to climb, up towards the bird and the blue sky above where the clouds crossed at impossible, rampant speeds.
She heard a voice then. Her father’s, but not his, not quite his, calling to her, and she glimpsed the shadow of someone moving beyond the bird.
‘Come up here, Anna. Come and see what’s out here.’
But as she climbed, a tree and its reaching branches grew in towards the hole in the roof, filling it as she ascended, its pungent leaves brushing against her face, its twigs harsh against her skin. She fought and pushed through until the crow took flight, its warning caws caught and scattered by the wind.
A man stood on the edge of the roof looking down into the fields beyond. When she craned her neck, standing on the top rung of the ladder, she saw the field and in it a figure next to a huge cauldron with thick, oily steam billowing up. The figure held something in his hand with which to stir, something white and long with bulbous ends.
At the edge of the roof, the man, her father, stood with his back to her.
‘Look, Anna. All you need to do is look.’
She hesitated, crept forwards onto the rickety slates, heard them creak and crack beneath her. The man on the edge had thicker hands, a bigger frame, less hair than her father. She stood, unsure, unsafe as he began to turn and reveal himself for the imposter he was. The imposter who’d enticed her up above the world to see. The same large shape as the figure in the field below…
* * *
She half-woke, the face not seen, the last of the dream beating in time with her racing heart. The digital read-out on the bedside clock was her link to reality. 4.57 a.m., grey light leeching into the day.
The man on the roof was who she needed to find. Or was it Shaw leading her on?
There was still time for rest, but peace had flown with the crow. She lay there, half in and half out of consciousness, her mind bouncing like a pinball against the bumpers of worry. Untangled knots of her professional life presented themselves for intrusive inspection. The mock-up model of Rosie Dawson in that rucksack, folded and mute. Woakes, a capricious thorn; Hawley, damaged goods.
She emerged into full awareness as traffic noises began to intrude from the earliest risers. From the park, birds erupted into full song to greet the dawn, a dog somewhere barked at a squirrel or a cat.
When the sun arced around to lance through a gap in the curtains, Anna got up.
Thirty-Three
Friday
He’d had to work late on Thursday evening. Still, by hanging around he knew he’d create a good impression and that the feedback to head office would be favourable. But today was Friday.
Today he had something very special planned.
He dressed for work as normal. He usually met the neighbours on a school run. They’d expect him to be smart. Suit grey, shirt white, tie plaid, shoes black, polished. He was in no rush. He planned to be in the city by 9 a.m.
Before he left, he went back to his workshop and removed something from a drawer. It had its own space, wrapped in a soft cloth. He placed it on the bench and carefully pulled back the cloth to let it fall open. It revealed a single, startlingly white, bone. A human ulna. The first and only one that he had ever kept. It was beautiful and, under his fingers, smooth yet contoured where the muscles and tendons had once attached so elegantly.
He nodded. This was his affirmation. Slowly, reverently, he wrapped up the bone and placed it back in its drawer.
He drove to a McDonalds, bought coffee and a McMuffin and sat going over everything in his mind. He’d repacked the boot of his car with all the equipment: the nylon rope, duct tape, the large rucksack, placed on one side, careful to leave enough space for something else. He put the roll of plastic sheeting along with the digital SLR in its box and the video equipment on the back seat.
There was half an hour to kill before heading towards his one and only stop in Bristol. One of the guys down the pub had told him about a place he could buy what he wanted.
‘Cost you,’ he’d said. ‘Big market for them in Asia, apparently. Take whatever they can get.’
He was prepared to pay. No pain, no gain, as his dad used to say sometimes. And always when he used his belt.
He had his phone in a holder on the dashboard. He removed it now and smiled as he scrolled through the replies to his posting on the forum. Thirty so far after the image of Blair in her well hole. Two offering 3 bitcoins each for post-mortem images. One asking for something else very specific. That one for 5 bitcoins. There were other boards where a lot of interest had been shown but no actual money offered. There was always a market for images and video and so it paid to advertise. But Bopeepers knew what they wanted and you needed a proven cryptocurrency account to gain access. The administrator demanded a token transfer as proof of wealth. This way everyone knew they were dealing with no time-wasters.
He quickly totted up the pre-orders: 11 bitcoins. At today’s valuations that was a great deal of money.
At half eight, he set off, the radio playing a Chris Rea track, ‘Sweet Summer Day’. He smiled. He appreciated the poetry of it. It felt like the gods were with him. Above, scattered high clouds in sculpted shapes framed the sky to the east. Behind them the air was clear and crystal.
Commuters choked the roads. He followed the river in, took the feeder road to Small Street in St Phillips. He negotiated Chapel Street, took a few lefts and then a right to a unit next to another breaker’s yard. It was little more than a large lock-up, a distribution unit in an industrial block next to a plastics manufacturer. Three vans outside. He parked and went in through the front door. A man in a white coat was busy loading trays of ice-filled palettes onto a dolly ready for transfer to a van.
‘Help you?’ he asked.
‘Yeah. Friend of mine said you might have some eels?’
The man looked over his shoulder at his car. A black Renault Megan. ‘Sorry, mate, eels are protected species.’
‘Look, I’m not from environmental health or DEFRA or whatever. My dad used to cook eels unskinned. I heard you might have some. I wanted to surprise someone with them. Special occasion.’
‘Sometimes we do get some. Accidental, mind. We throw them back as a rule.’
A shrug. ‘Oh well. I’d be willing to pay, but…’
He turned for the door.
‘Tenner each,’ said the man.
He turned back, grinning. ‘I’ll take two. I’ve got a bucket.’
‘Try roasting them with a bit of garlic and rosemary,’ the man said and winked.
He put them in the well of the front seat, lid on so the water wouldn’t spill, and the eels couldn’t get out. Two of them, writhing and wriggling in the confined space. They’d continue to do that for hours even after you cut their heads off.
One of his father’s farming friends once told him of how unscrupulous dealers at horse fairs used to feague the animals to make them look livelier. One method was to put a live eel in them – and not through their mouths. He’d never forgotten that. It wasn’t exactly what he had in mind, but their constantly writhing natures, like snakes, made them unattractive creatures. Slithering and slimy.
Not many people liked them close up where they could wriggle and twist against your skin. There was something elemental in that abhorrence. He smiled. Most people would run a mile rather than touch one.
He was counting on that.
Thirty-Four
Anna met Hawley in the car park of
the Gordano motorway services at a little after nine on Friday morning. It was already warm and the stagnant air held a ripe aroma of stale food and diesel fumes that made Anna glad she’d already eaten. Hawley had declined her offer of parking at HQ. She hadn’t argued the point; he would have to pay once his two free hours of parking in the service station were up.
He was standing in front of the Waitrose sign dressed in skinny chinos, an open-neck shirt and a lightweight jacket. Over his shoulder hung a well-used document bag. He held a takeaway coffee cup in each hand. He looked strong and fit and Anna was left wondering where those two adjectives came from and why they’d sprung into her head.
She pulled up and he got in.
‘You know there’s a charge here after two hours.’
‘I’ll pay by phone. How long do you think we’ll be?’
‘An hour to get there; assume an hour there and another to get back.’
‘OK.’ He took out his phone and started pressing keys. ‘I’ll go for four. I can always top up if needed. I got this for you.’ He offered her a coffee. ‘Flat white. I’ve got sugar or sweetener if you want it.’
‘No, it’s fine. And thanks. Never turn down a coffee, that’s my motto.’
He’d gone inside and bought from a Costa Express. She was with him on that one.
‘Tried McDonald’s coffee?’
‘Yeah. If I’m travelling, it’s the one I go for every time.’
‘You’re a man after my own heart, as the vicar said to the transplant surgeon.’
Hawley had his coffee cup almost to his lips. He paused and looked at her, his inquisitiveness turning to approval with a little nod. ‘That’s actually not bad, Inspector,’ he said, amused.
Anna frowned, bemused by the fact that she’d dragged up the joke and wondering why she had. ‘It’s my one joke, I don’t know any others.’
‘Must be nice when you find an opportunity to use it.’