DEAD BAD a gripping crime mystery full of twists

by Helen H. Durrant

  “If you’ve not had breakfast, I recommend the full English. Otherwise, stick to tea or coffee. The rest of the food they serve up here leaves a lot to be desired,” Calladine told Greco.

  Greco went to the counter, ordered a coffee and sat down opposite Calladine. “You do know that I’m investigating your disappearance and what happened to you?”

  Calladine nodded. “Just as well we’ve met up then. I can save you a lot of work.”

  “I shouldn’t tell you this,” Greco said, “but rumour has it you took a bribe from Costello, then dropped out of sight of your own accord.”

  “That’s rubbish.”

  Greco looked straight at him. “Given what I learned during the last hour, I think you’re right.”

  This came as a surprise. He hadn’t expected Greco to be so easily convinced. After all, the two of them had history. Greco disliked him. “You’ve found something?”

  “I’ve traced the money that made its way into your account. It didn’t come from Costello. I’ve had a thorough look at your cases over the last year or so and I can find no reason why anyone involved in them would want to bribe you.”

  This was real progress. “I was kidnapped. Hit on the head and taken from outside my house. I’m likely to have a scar on the back of my head to prove it. When I came to, I was in a strange, old house up in the north of Scotland.”

  Greco stared at him. “When you escaped why didn’t you tell the police straight away? Ullapool is remote but there is a force up there.”

  “I fully intended to, but there were complications.” He paused. “Threats were made against our families, against Ruth’s son, Harry.”

  Greco was still staring. “Nonetheless, you should have come straight in. You have a black eye.”

  “Getting free was tricky.”

  “Can you think of anyone who would want you out of the way?” Greco asked.

  “No, and believe me, I’ve thought of little else these past days.”

  “Does the name ‘Heights Industrial’ mean anything to you?” Greco said.

  Calladine was taken aback. He reached in his overcoat pocket for his notebook. “Yes. It’s the name of the organisation that owns the house I was taken to — Moortop Manse.”

  “Snap!” Greco produced his own notebook. “It’s the same firm that put the money in your account.”

  “Do you know who they are? Where they operate from?” Now they were getting to it. Calladine was fired up now, and raring to go.

  “Not yet. I was only given the name this morning, moments before you called, in fact.”

  “Birch doesn’t know?” Calladine asked.

  “No,” said Greco. “When I get back to the station, do I bring her up to date? I take it the threat still stands. Sergeant Bayliss must be scared witless. I know I would be if someone threatened my child.”

  “Harry has a uniformed officer watching him. My daughter has disappeared with her partner and told no one. I have to return to work. My team have a tricky case on their hands, and they need me.”

  Greco frowned. “You’re quite right. You are a serving policeman. You were kidnapped. That in itself is a major crime. Add to that the recent threats and we are looking for some dangerous people.”

  “You agree then. I re-join my team.”

  “Where are you staying?” Greco asked.

  “With Dr Hoyle in Hopecross village.”

  “I’ll speak to Birch. Go back to Hopecross and wait there until I ring you.”

  “What made Birch and them upstairs believe I’d taken Costello’s money in the first place?” Calladine said.

  “A tip-off.”

  “And that’s all it took to condemn me as a bloody criminal!” Calladine was dumbfounded. “All the years I’ve given to the job! Suddenly they count for bugger all.”

  “Ford asked me to carry out the initial investigation and to determine if the case should be taken further. He could have passed it onto the anti-corruption squad, but he didn’t. In my opinion, that isn’t condemning you out of hand,” Greco said.

  “I’ve worked with Ford. Knowing him as I do, that only makes me trust him even less. Where did this tip-off come from?”

  “A solicitor on Costello’s team gave the information to Birch. I’ve tried to contact him without success. I’ve spoken to the head of the firm and he denies all knowledge of it. Birch then passed the information on to Ford. They’ll have discussed it. Whether they got any further than I did trying to validate it is another matter, but both Birch and Ford were convinced. But they wouldn’t divulge who it came from, except to say that it was a source they trust absolutely.

  Calladine gave a humourless laugh. “They’ll know better in future then, won’t they?”

  * * *

  Greco returned to the station. The Calladine case was dragging on longer than he’d hoped. Now he had proved that the DI hadn’t taken a bribe, Birch and Ford would want to know who had kidnapped him and why. With any luck, they’d let Calladine himself get on with that one.

  Greco went to see Birch.

  “You met with Calladine alone?” she said. “That wasn’t wise. You should have told me. Are you sure that there’s no mistake about what you discovered? Costello’s a seasoned villain. He knows how to cover his tracks.”

  “There is no mistake. Costello might know all the tricks, but Calladine was taken for some other reason, and whatever that is, it isn’t connected to Costello. Calladine was attacked outside his home and imprisoned in a house in the north of Scotland. You are protecting those they threatened, but he may still be at risk. These people are ruthless.”

  The look she gave him could have frozen the sea. “The child, I agree, but I do not have the resources to guard Calladine twenty-four/seven.”

  “He wants to return to duty. Given what we now know, I see no reason why he shouldn’t.”

  Birch heaved a sigh. “I’ll get onto the Scottish police ask if forensics have found anything. I’ll tell Ford what you’ve discovered. Uniform will keep an eye on Calladine and his house.”

  “Thank you. I’ll be returning to my own station tomorrow.”

  Chapter 21

  Calladine reluctantly went back to Doc Hoyle’s house. The meeting with Greco had gone better than he’d expected, but he still needed to get back to work. Greco had promised to speak to Birch and Ford. It was something, but would it bear fruit? Calladine had been racking his brain as to why the kidnappers had chosen him. It had to be connected with something he was working on, but he couldn’t for the life of him think what.

  He started researching Heights Industrial. There was very little. The company was newly formed, and the directors’ names meant nothing to him. He would have to use the resources back at the nick to get any further.

  “The hospital has been on again. They want me back in. As if last night wasn’t bad enough,” Doc Hoyle complained. “I’ve only had four hours’ sleep. They forget how old I am.”

  “Busy night?” Calladine asked.

  “Busy doesn’t cut it, Tom. It’s been bloody manic. A&E is chock-full with kids who’ve all taken something new. Some sort of cheap designer drug has hit the streets. No one knows anything about it: who’s supplying it or who’s manufacturing it. It was a close run thing with one young girl. She’s damn lucky to be alive.”

  “All local?” Calladine asked.

  “We had Oldston and the big hospital at Trafford Park on, asking for advice. Leesdon has a specialist drugs unit. They had a spate of the same thing too.”

  That meant there was probably a new supplier in the area, someone who’d spread his wings wide. “Did you manage to get your hands on any of it?” Calladine asked.

  “Yes. Pills. They’re in the lab being analysed now.” The doc took his mobile from his pocket and showed Calladine a photo. “See what I mean? Proper pills, blue ones, in tiny see-through plastic bags each holding about five.”

  Calladine peered at the image.

  “Dr Hampson says they’re met
hamphetamines,” the doc said. “Street name’s speed or meth. But they’re not like the usual stuff. These pills were professionally produced. Someone out there has got an illegal lab and a production line going.”

  Calladine frowned. More work. Leesdon station would have to investigate their share of this. Ruth would be tearing her hair out.

  “Anything else, apart from the meth?” he asked.

  “A couple of homeless people had taken too much spice. They’ve been sleeping rough in the underpass by the motorway. As you’d expect, there were more of those in Trafford Park than around here. We got a sample. Same packaging, so we suspect the same firm, Tom.”

  Calladine knew what that meant. Some bright spark with the knowhow and the contacts had gone into business for himself. But who? “Any of them talk to you? Say who they bought it off?”

  Doc Hoyle shook his head. “No way. You know what it’s like, Tom. Talk, and they believe they’re dead meat. There must be quite a setup somewhere out there. It will have taken a great deal of organising and financial investment. Also, there’ll be waste. Production, on the scale we’re seeing, will create a lot of it. It’s dangerous and needs disposing of correctly.”

  Calladine decided to ring Ruth and find out what the teams at the nick were doing about it. He was right. She wasn’t happy.

  “Drugs! We haven’t got the time. We’re up to our eyes in it with the two murders. There was a briefing about the drug issue this morning. Birch has allocated that investigation to Long, which suits me no end. It gets him off our backs. I was terrified he’d be given our case in your absence.”

  “About that,” Calladine said. “I met Greco this morning.”

  Ruth laughed. “I’d like to have been a fly on the wall at that one.”

  “He was okay actually, very reasonable. He knows I’m innocent and he can prove it. Once he sorts it with Birch and Ford, I should be back. Ford didn’t pass my alleged misdemeanour upstairs for investigation, which is something to be grateful for. He wanted Greco’s take on things first.”

  “With Greco’s endorsement, you should be back soon then?” Ruth asked.

  “Tomorrow hopefully.”

  “Greco is back in his office,” she said, “or rather your office. He’s been on the phone a lot, but he hasn’t said anything to us. I’ll let you know the moment we get told what’s happening about you.”

  So, Long was investigating the drug problem, was he? It might keep him out of Ruth’s hair, but that was about it. Whoever was at the bottom of it would run rings around the man.

  The doc had given Calladine plenty to think about. He picked up the phone again and rang Eve Buckley. She might be able to advise him on where the waste from such an operation would be taken for disposal. The Buckley family owned a pharmaceutical company in Leesworth that employed half the adults in the area.

  Although Eve Buckley was his birth mother, she hadn’t raised him. Calladine was the product of an affair between Eve and Calladine’s father, Frank. Eve Walker, as she had been then, hadn’t been able to cope. She was young, unable to support herself. Her horrified parents had told her to put the infant up for adoption. Eve hadn’t wanted that, so she asked Frank for help. He took the newborn infant home to his wife, Freda. Unable to have children of her own, she accepted him, and raised him as her own son. Calladine could not recall his parents ever discussing this, nor did Eve ever come looking. It was only after the deaths of Frank and then Freda that he learned that the three of them had agreed this plan. Calladine had only learned the truth about his family fairly recently, when Freda had died. Although he was gradually getting used to the idea of Eve, he didn’t think of her as his mother. But she was a reality, and lived nearby. She had two other children, Samantha and Simon, his half-brother and sister.

  Eve was not at home when he phoned. Her housekeeper told him that she’d gone into Manchester. He left a message. They would speak later.

  * * *

  “I can take Alice along if you’d rather,” Ruth said.

  “No, I’m fine. Don’t get me wrong. It’s true I hate going to PMs,” Rocco said. “All that blood and cutting up isn’t pleasant, but it’s all part of the job.” He gathered up his things, ready to leave.

  “Fortunately for us, Natasha has nothing else on, so she can do this one now,” Ruth said.

  “Poor lass, whoever she was. I told you there’d be more.”

  Ruth hadn’t seriously considered it, because the first body had gone so long undiscovered. She should have. “Alice, would you have a trawl through the recent missing person reports while we’re gone? You never know, we might strike lucky. Now that Alenka has identified her sister’s body we need Ingrid Plesec’s phone records too. Get on to the provider, will you?”

  Alice nodded. “Knowing the number that offer of work came from might help. But what’s the betting it’s an unregistered mobile?”

  “Got to try, nonetheless,” Rocco said.

  On their way out, Ruth cast a glance Greco’s way. He was still closeted in Calladine’s office, phone in hand.

  “Things are looking better for Tom. Turns out Greco believes he’s innocent too.”

  Rocco frowned. “But who put the money in the boss’s account then? Has he answered that one yet?”

  “Tom is looking into that. But the dosh definitely didn’t come from Costello. That means he’s in the clear. Someone is obviously trying to frame him.”

  Traffic was light, and soon they were in the Duggan Centre, mounting the steps to the viewing platform. Ruth sighed. “Twice in one week, Rocco. Grim, and tragic.”

  “At least we have an ID for the first one,” he said.

  “Wish we had an ID for her killer.”

  Natasha Barrington and her team had the room set up. The body of the young woman was laid out, covered by a sheet.

  Natasha looked up at them. “This one also has long dark hair. She’s skinny too. Are you looking at the recent two murders in conjunction with the Norbury killings?”

  “That isn’t official,” Ruth said. “Our new chief super was on the Norbury case himself, and he’s convinced they got the right man.”

  “He may have to think again. I had a look at the old PM reports. The victims were similar in appearance to the latest two —same hair and body shape. It would seem your killer has a type.”

  Ruth nodded wearily. That wasn’t entirely helpful. It simply added weight to the theory that DCI Boyd and his team had got the wrong man, and that Norbury was innocent. The new boss wouldn’t like that.

  Natasha began examining the body. “There is evidence of blunt trauma to the back of the head. Similar wound to the last one. Her hair was chin length, and it’s been cut back to the scalp on one side. We’ll test the hair found inside the toy. She has the brand across her midriff, the sideways-on ‘T’ shape. There are nail marks in her hands and feet. Similar puncture marks on the arms and legs to the first victim are present.”

  Ruth cast a quick glance Rocco’s way. He was pale, frowning, obviously finding this as hard as she was.

  “This time, the mouth was left intact.”

  They watched while Natasha took a look at the teeth.

  “I think your victim bit her killer. There’s no sign that she bit her own mouth. Give me a swab,” she asked the assistant. “There is evidence of blood, even what looks like a tiny piece of flesh between her two front teeth. She must have bitten him hard. Shame it did her no good.”

  “Does that mean we’ll get the killer’s DNA this time?” Ruth asked.

  “If it was him she bit,” Natasha said. “You ought to consider that he left evidence behind because he was rushed, even that he was disturbed.”

  “I bet that empty unit is a place the homeless hang out in at night,” Rocco said.

  She nodded. “We’ll get uniform to keep an eye on it, and ask questions. You never know.”

  “She died from catastrophic blood loss,” Natasha said. “Like the last one, he slit her throat, cutting through the
carotid artery.”

  “Age?” Ruth asked.

  “Mid-thirties.”

  “Sexual interference?”

  “No sign.”

  The two detectives watched while Natasha cut vertically into the body and started to examine the internal organs. She gasped. “She was pregnant. From the size of the foetus, I’d say about four months.”

  This upset Ruth. Murder of an adult was bad enough, without killing the innocent and unborn too. “We have to find out who she was, fast. Her family need to know about this. Any rings?”

  “No. Not even a mark where one might have been.”

  Chapter 22

  He held a newspaper in front of the other man’s face and shook it. “Look at the bloody headline! You’ve risked the lot with your stupid behaviour! We spoke about this. You promised me three months ago that it wouldn’t happen again. You had no intention of stopping, did you? You lied. You’re a bloody fool. I don’t care what happens to you, but it’ll affect the operation, and that does concern me. There’s too much money at stake. You killed another one. You didn’t even vary the method. The police aren’t daft. They’ll be coming after you. I’ve helped you in the past but I won’t risk it again. It might cost me my freedom. Sooner or later, your luck will run out.”

  “You need to stay calm. It’ll be fine, you know it will, just like last time. I know the score. I’m good at covering my tracks. And you’re lying. You do care what happens to me. You care very much.”

  “You’re risking everything.”

  “I don’t know why you’re complaining. The killings put them off the scent. The coppers are so taken up with the murders they don’t have time for our little enterprise. Apart from which, I couldn’t resist. You have to understand how it is with me. That girl a few months ago, she was a gift. A loner with no past. And no future.”

  “I don’t believe what I’m hearing. Well, I don’t understand how it is with you. Here I am, a pillar of the community with an impeccable reputation. I donate to every charity going. I am well liked and respected—”

  “And I’m not? You’re forgetting my reputation. You mustn’t worry. It’ll work out fine. No one is looking in my direction. I’m quite safe. This one now, she was the same — a gift I couldn’t pass up.”