by Sam Christer
61
DCS John Rowlands already feels like he’s gone a week without sleep. The clock is ticking fast and the leads are coming slower than he hoped. The pressure is relentless. The Chief Constable, the Home Office, the Deputy Chief Constable and the Vice President’s private secretary are all on his back.
Teams of DCIs and DIs shuttle in and out of his office, tossing what bits of information they have on to his wrecked desk. Jude Tompkins and Megan Baker are the latest to take their turn. He greets them with what’s left of his charm. ‘Ladies, welcome to the pleasure dome. What have you got for me?’
‘Some good news.’ Tompkins clears a plate and a crust of pizza from a seat. ‘DI Baker has a positive on the vehicle. And the boyfriend.’
His blue eyes widen. ‘Tell me.’
Megan puts a ripped DVD on his desk. ‘A compilation of CCTV footage, sir. The first clip is from the petrol pumps at Fleet. It’s in colour and you can clearly see Lock and Jake Timberland, the man who paid for the Campervan rental.’
Rowlands doesn’t need his notes. ‘Son of Lord Joseph Timberland.’
‘That’s right.’
He picks up the disk and slides it into a player on a shelf beneath a TV behind him. Megan talks as he fiddles with a remote control to find the channel. ‘The vehicle you are about to see, sir, is an imported right-hand-drive Type 2 Vintage in cornflower blue with chrome wheel hubs and refurbished interior.’ A picture of the van comes up on screen. The Camper pulls up at the pump. Two figures get out. And then they become clear. Jake shows Caitlyn the pump and starts her off. Leaves her to fill up and walks towards the shop to pay.
‘Freeze it please, sir.’
Rowlands stops the picture with the remote.
‘Look in his right hand.’ Megan smiles. ‘A gold credit card. Amex. It’s the one he used to pay for the rental.’
Rowlands nods and turns off the DVD and TV. ‘Good enough for me. Jude, get someone to make copies of the footage for the investigation teams and the press. Talk to the communications office and call a conference for eight in the morning.’ He turns to Megan. ‘Well done. Make sure your team know we think they’re doing a first-class job.’
‘I will. Thank you, sir.’ She gets up to leave but pauses.
Rowlands glances at her. ‘Is there something else?’
‘Sir, if there is a press conference in the morning, I’d like to be part of it. I’d like the experience, sir.’
He smiles and turns to the DCI. ‘My, you have got an ambitious DI here.’
Tompkins nods. ‘She’s aching with it.’
He looks back to Megan. ‘No, Detective Inspector, you may not.’
‘Why not, sir?’
It’s Tompkins’ turn to smile now. ‘Two reasons, Megan,’ she says. ‘Firstly, you’re doing too good a job on the inquiry to be wasted posing about in front of cameras. Secondly, you’re too inexperienced to be put in front of those dogs. Not enough gravitas for the press pack, do you see? It’s late, so why don’t you go home, get some well-earned rest and see your kid.’
Megan has to fight not to show her anger at the put-down. ‘Thank you ma’am – for your kindness and concern – but my daughter is being well looked after by her father, so if it’s okay with you, I’ll go back to my team and resume the job. The one the Detective Chief Super says I’m very good at.’
Point made, she wheels around and walks away before they can get in the final word.
62
Serpens checks his watch. Midnight. The time has come.
He stands and waits outside the old barn, his thoughts as black as the night sky. Psychologically things are piling up. Crushing him. Pressing him down. Not giving him a moment’s relief.
The disposal of the sacrifice earlier in the month had got to him. He’d been involved in selections before but never afterwards. Never the bloody carnage of it all. And now he’s crossed the line even further. He’s taken someone’s life.
The realisation that he’d killed the man in the Camper is eating him. He’s a tough guy, been involved in plenty of fights in his time, even got a criminal record, but not for anything like murder.
Maybe if he went to the police he’d get away with a charge of ‘accidental murder’. If he came clean now and told them everything he knew, there’d be some deal to be done. Possibly even immunity from prosecution. But the Craft would get to him. They’d find him and they’d kill him. He knows they would. They have brothers in the police – in the courts – in the prisons. They’d get to him all right.
Serpens hangs his head. It’s a crisis of faith. That’s all it is. Everyone has one. He’s sure they do. Musca appears out of the clouded moonlight, a white plastic carrier bag in his right hand. ‘All right?’ he says and puts an arm around Serpens’ shoulder as they head inside. ‘Don’t worry, all this will be over in half an hour. We’ll go straight to Octans’ afterwards. He’ll alibi us. Say we’ve been there all night playing cards. Everything’s going to be fine.’
Musca always says everything will be fine. Draco too. And for them it always is. Fine lives with fine consciences, not a guilty thought in their fine heads.
The barn is lit by a paraffin lamp on an overturned wooden crate a couple of metres from the Camper. It casts a yellow delta of light into the cobwebbed rafters. The two men disturb a colony of bats as they walk to the Camper. Musca laughs and points to the fluttering creatures. ‘Creepy little fuckers. I wish I had something to shoot them with.’
Serpens pulls back the sliding door on the VW. A small interior light flickers on and reveals the fly-covered corpse. He steels himself for the task ahead. ‘What do you want to do with him?’
‘Wait. Put these on.’ Musca hands him a pair of thin latex gloves. ‘Better safe than sorry.’
Serpens stretches them and awkwardly squeezes his hands in.
‘Okay, watch and learn,’ says Musca. From the tiny kitchen he takes the complimentary food hamper left as a gift by the van hire company and smiles. ‘Just what we need.’ From cupboards he collects a plate, knife, fork, saucepan and toaster. He opens a can of beans from the hamper, tips them into the pan and places it on the cooking ring. He puts two slices of bread into the toaster and then produces a bottle of vodka from the carrier bag he brought with him. He unscrews it and pours some into a tumbler. ‘Almost there, my friend. Almost there.’
Serpens watches in a trance as Musca opens the cupboard beneath the cooker and turns on the gas. He strikes a match, lights a ring on the small hob and then turns it off and smiles contentedly. ‘So, that’s all our preparation done.’ He points to the corpse. ‘The scene is set. We have our man left on his own in the Camper after a row with his girlfriend.’ He points to the vodka. ‘Man gets blind drunk – a reasonable reaction to being ditched part-way through a romantic break, right?’ He points to the hamper. ‘Then, because he’s wasted he gets hungry and tries to make himself something to eat.’ Musca picks up the vodka bottle and splashes it around. ‘Unfortunately, because our heartbroken friend is on his way to being pissed he gets clumsy and spills his drink. On himself. On the floor. On the cooker.’ Musca raises his arms violently. ‘Voom! Suddenly he’s a fireball. He panics. Falls over and knocks himself out. Within seconds the Camper is on fire, even the barn and he tragically burns to death.’ Musca pulls down the corners of his lips to create a sad face. ‘Sometimes unrequited love ends badly.’
Serpens is not in any state to fault the plan. ‘So the fire destroys the evidence?’
‘Right.’ He wags a finger. ‘But we should take care.’ He points to the body. ‘First off we pour half this bottle into Mr Heartbreak. Then we make it look like he fell. We crack his head on something – in the same place where you hit him. That way any autopsy will find the injury is what they term “consistent with the fall” and not with you whacking him.’ He grins. ‘Finally, we soak him in the last of the voddie, light our bonfire and run.’
Serpens looks disturbed but nods his agreement.
; ‘Okay, let’s get it done. Help me sit him upright.’
Timberland’s body is heavy and cumbersome. It makes sickening cracking and gassy noises as they pull it into a sitting position. Musca tilts the head back, pulls the lips apart and pours vodka down the dead man’s throat. Serpens wants to throw up.
‘Best let some of that settle for a minute,’ says Musca. ‘Or else it’ll just come straight back up.’ He leaves Serpens holding the corpse while he turns on the gas, heats the beans and makes the toast. ‘All done. Let’s move him to the drawers there, in the wall opposite the cooker. Open the bottom one. We can make it look like he slipped and cracked his head.’
Serpens flips it open and takes a deep breath. The two men struggle again to lift the body. Timberland was smaller than both of them but he’s like a rag doll and weighs a ton. Finally, Musca takes him under the arms, slides him backwards and drives the back of the skull down on to the bottom drawer.
He lets the body fall and stands back to admire his work.
A little vodka has spewed out of Timberland’s mouth, on to his shirt front and on to the floor. Apart from that it’s perfect.
‘Finale time. You ready?’
‘Guess so.’
Musca takes the open bottle of vodka and pours it over the head and chest. He lays the empty near the hands. He turns off the gas under the beans to extinguish the flames. When he’s sure it’s out he turns it on again and cranks it up high.
He gives Serpens a look, takes the carrier bag that he brought with him and unscrews the other bottle of spirits. He douses the corpse again and the cooker then points to the door. ‘Best stand outside.’
They step out of the Camper into the cold barn and the yellow paraffin light. Serpens watches Musca pour the last of the vodka on to the floor of the van and return the empty to his carrier bag. ‘Three, two, one.’ He strikes the match. Lets it catch, then throws it on to the floor near the corpse.
‘Run!’
They sprint like scared kids through the barn and out into the surrounding field. From the safety of the darkness, they see flames building. The old wood begins to crack in the rising fire. Suddenly, there is a guttural thud. The cylinder explodes.
The barn’s rafters splinter and fall in. A scream of nesting bats scuttle skywards away from the spiralling orange flames.
63
SUNDAY 20 JUNE
Caitlyn knows about women who’ve been held captive for years. Imprisoned in cellars. Even locked in wooden crates. She knows of their horrors because Eric told her all about them. Said it would teach her to be careful – remind her to stay safe. The unlearned lesson chills her. Maybe others have suffered her fate, entombed in a thick stone wall, where you can scream your lungs out and never be heard.
Eric’s warnings drift back to her. The horror stories he’d thought would keep her safe. Teenager Danielle Cramer from Connecticut, kept in a secret room under a staircase for a year. Nina von Gallwitz, held for 149 days until her parents paid out more than a million Deutschmarks to get her back. Fusako Sano from Japan, kept captive for ten years. An entire decade.
She can remember them all. All their faces. And they were the lucky ones. Eric showed her the long list of Dutch, American, English and Italian women who had not been so fortunate. Ones who had been taken, held and killed, even though ransoms had been paid.
His words come back and haunt her. ‘They take you for sex, for money, for torture, even to get revenge on you or your parents. These are dangerous people, Caitlyn. Some of them are insane enough to take you just to become famous. Whatever you do, don’t mess with our security.’
But she had done. She screwed up and she can’t make it good. She wants to cry. Wants to sob her heart out. But she doesn’t. She won’t. She tells herself that she never cried during thirty-nine days of Survivor and she sure as hell isn’t going to start now.
Caitlyn tries to think of something different. She recalls her time on the reality show. The welcome party, the first tasks, the guys who were hot for her. Thirty-nine days, twenty competitors, fifteen episodes that made her a household name. Once she swam naked during the live telecast. It gave the censors a fit. Damned nearly got the whole series scrapped. But it was a ratings blockbuster.
She’d do it again. Any time. Shock and glamour have become her middle names. It almost makes her smile. Even in this dusty crevice of a prison she can still taste the sweetness of her old life – the money, the fame, the controversy caused by her wild spirit. But for how long? she asks herself. How long before the whackballs holding her send her mad?
64
Gideon is down to the last two tapes.
He’s watched close to forty and despite the thunderstorm raging in his head, he’s determined to view the last of them before turning in.
He slides one into the player and watches his father appear on screen. The young professor doesn’t look much older than Gideon is now. After a few seconds, Marie Chase can be heard behind the camera: ‘I think it’s working, Nate. Yes, yes, the red light is flashing. You can start when you want.’
Nathaniel takes a breath to compose himself and brushes a straggle of windblown hair from his face. He’s wearing a thick blue fleece, dark pants and walking boots. There’s snow on the ground and an all-too-familiar backdrop. Stonehenge. ‘I take you back almost five thousand years,’ he announces, sweeping his hand across the landscape. ‘Back to the days when our ancestors dug this circular ditch, some three hundred feet in diameter, twenty feet wide and up to seven feet deep.’ He squats on the ground and places his hands in a furrow where the ditch had been. ‘Beneath this spot, archaeologists found the bones of animals that died two hundred years before this ditch was even dug. Why did our forefathers put them there? Why use a pile of old bones to line a new ditch? The answer of course is that these bones came from special sacrifices to the ancient gods.’
Gideon smiles. His father the self-publicist had been well known for spicing up dull university lectures with his own home movies. On the screen, the young professor leaves the ditch and as he walks the circumference of the stones expounds a now familiar theory about the discovery of more than two hundred human skeletons on the site. ‘The seventeenth-century historian John Aubrey found these burned human bones in fifty-six different holes. Were they too offerings to the gods? Was Stonehenge both a crematorium and a temple, a ritual slaughterhouse for celestial gratification?’
Having just read the diaries from a decade later, Gideon finds it strange to watch his father pose the questions in such a sceptical tone. Stranger still to think of what might actually be true. The tape rolls on to the final stage of development: ‘Some three thousand years ago, unknown hands moved these bluestones from the Preseli Mountains. We still do not know how they achieved such a feat. They were erected as a circular monument, the entrance aligned towards sunrise at the summer solstice.’ Nathaniel walks to the bigger sandstones, his hand stretching to the skies. ‘These giant sarsens, some more than three times my height and weighing as much as forty tons. Stood on their ends by incredibly talented ancient builders, they were capped with horizontal sarsens using sophisticated mortise and tenon joints, a technique that seems way before its time.’ He walks deeper into the circle. ‘Here in the heart of the henge, a horseshoe-shaped arrangement, five pairs of standing sarsens with giant horizontal caps – the trilithons.’
Gideon views the rest of the tape at double and even quadruple speed, making his father comically dash all over the site jerkily pointing out the Heel Stone, the Slaughter Stone and the north-eastern entrance.
He takes a short break, makes a mug of tea and returns to watch the last uncatalogued video. He pulls it from its cardboard sleeve and sees a label in the centre that hasn’t been written in his father’s faded hand. It reads: ‘To Gideon, my loving son and pride and joy.’
He hasn’t seen the handwriting in decades but recognises it instantly. It’s his mother’s.
65
Jimmy Dockery pulls on a Tyvek suit
and curses the fact that he’s the one who’s been called out in the dead of night. It always seems to be him that cops for the worst of jobs, the graveyard shifts with their mundane crime scenes. Any bit of mess – get Jimmy to mop it up. First it was chasing missing persons, sweeping up after some old man’s suicide, and now it’s a burned-out barn. In his head he’s a better investigator than that. If his father, the Deputy Chief, knew the kind of crap they sent him on, he’d sack them all.
Dockery flashes his ID and ducks the fluttering yellow tape. An exhausted-looking PC takes his name and he wanders into the blackened ribs of the barn. Soco arc lights illuminate the charred metal remains of the Campervan. A burned-out replica of the one he saw on the footage he recovered from the service station. The one half the police in the country are looking for. Jimmy picks his way over a non-contamination pathway to the vehicle. Inside, a man and a woman are on their knees inspecting the body.
‘Is it the girl?’ Jimmy asks. ‘The one who’s missing.’
The question bounces off the back of Home Office pathologist Lisa Hamilton.
She recognises his voice. ‘No, it’s a man – and Sergeant – just a word of warning, don’t crowd me, don’t press me, don’t annoy me and don’t on any account mess up my crime scene.’
‘Understood.’ It’s water off a duck’s back to Jimmy. Everyone is always giving him a list of don’ts. Besides, he has a soft spot for Lisa. Even at two in the morning, she triggers something primeval inside him.
From over her shoulder, he can see that the corpse looks like badly barbecued meat – a sickening mix of pinks and blacks. Tattered remnants of clothes are stuck to charred bone and tarry puddles of human fat are spread on what’s left of the base board of the Camper. Jimmy notices part of the vehicle’s metal frame is bent upwards ‘There been some kind of explosion?’