by Peter Repton
‘How do you reckon that big fancy Mercedes got into my field then?’ Wilkes asked Danny, breaking his momentary bond with the happy pig. Danny looked up and followed Wilkes gaze to an area just beyond two silver birch trees. There he saw the sleek silver Mercedes saloon immersed in mud up to the sills. The cars polished alloy wheels had sunk deep into the mire up to the distinctive Mercedes badge in the hub of each of the wheels. The driver’s side window was half open.
‘I think joy riders abandoned it, Mr Wilkes; it happens a lot these days. I dealt with another just like this yesterday morning,’ Danny offered, trying to sound knowledgeable about such events. Wilkes raised his eyebrows and then said.
‘Take a good look, young Daniel; there is not a tyre mark in sight anywhere. With the ground this soft, the tracks would be at least a foot deep. It could not have got this far without getting stuck sooner.’ Danny knew the big fellow was correct. His boots sunk into the swampy ground to past the middle of his shins, and there were no tyre marks.
‘I reckon it must have fallen out of the sky, as silly as it sounds. There appears to be no other explanation; it wasn’t here yesterday when I last came down,’ Wilkes said, looking at Danny with a solemn expression on his face.
‘But wherever it came from, it needs to be out of my field. I’ll get my lad to bring up the tractor, while you check it over. We were going to tow it out before I phoned the police. I wanted you to see this with your own eyes, or else you would never have believed me.’ Wilkes walked off trying to get a signal on his mobile phone, cursing the phone companies for the lousy service that they provide in rural areas.
Danny opened the driver’s door and looked inside the vehicle. The keys were still in it. When he turned the ignition, the engine immediately sprang into life. The fuel tank was full, the same as the red Vauxhall Corsa found the previous morning.
The glove box contained five old compact discs in a unique disc holder. On the passenger seat were two full cans of Pepsi and an uneaten cheese and onion sandwich still in its wrapper. Checking inside the boot, which was also unlocked. Danny found an expensive-looking laptop computer in a carry case. With these were some medical company brochures for the latest dialysis machines.
Danny was surprised that the thief had not taken the equipment. The owner would not have left the car unlocked with these valuables still in it. It was a mystery he could not fathom. Wilkes approached Danny, who was still deep in thought, and startled him when he said.
‘Another thing I have noticed young Daniel. There are no other footprints here apart from our own and my beauties. So whoever was driving this car, they did not walk away from it either.’
‘You should have been a detective instead of a farmer Mr Wilkes. I don’t think Sherlock Holmes could even have made such deductions,’ Danny replied with a hint of genuine admiration in his voice.
‘I have no idea what happened; it beats the shit out of me!’
Fred’s son Mick brought a tractor around to the front of the Mercedes. Mick clambered out of the cab clutching a coiled length of thick nylon rope. He dropped to the ground passing a loop under the front tow ring of the car. Fred Wilkes watched him. He glanced first at the Massey Ferguson tractor and then back at the sleek luxury car stuck in the mud. He thought to himself.
‘Yes, you flash German beauty nothing can touch you on a motorway cruising at high speed. You could get up to one hundred and sixty miles an hour. Here in my world, my tractor may only be able to do thirty miles an hour flat out without a load. It can pull over ten tonnes through any of terrain that exists.’ Fred Wilkes loved his tractor almost as much as his pigs. The tractor dragged the Mercedes out of the field onto the farm approach road. Danny called for a recovery vehicle to collect it.
Until it arrived, he spent a pleasant thirty minutes drinking a cup of tea with jolly Fred and his wife, Beryl. Mick finished his and went back to the fields. Danny could not help thinking how much more relaxed this country style of life is. He compared it to his own stressful and low paid job.
‘A coppers lot is a tough one these days. Perhaps I should get out right now,’ Danny reflected.
4
The police station soon established that the recovered Mercedes belonged to David Kempston. The local kidney specialist was missing after filling up petrol two nights earlier. Chief Inspector Jack Ford instinctively knew that the two disappearances were connected. He could find nothing to link the missing individuals with each other.
The only possible connection was Nurse Kerry Harrison kept a petrol receipt in her handbag, proving she filled up with petrol at the same Shell filling station as Kempston. The time of the receipt showed eight forty-five on Thursday evening.
Ten minutes after Kerry left her shared flat. Nothing conclusive in this as Kerry passed this filling station on the way to Julie’s house every day. Something happened to her after filling the car up, before she reached her destination.
Ford sent DS Wilson to interview Kempston’s wife Sarah that Saturday evening. He hoped to find out if anything unusual occurred before her husband’s disappearance. In Ford's experience, a few men went missing for a couple of days. Often after a domestic row just to teach the wife a lesson. Ford himself had done it to his wife Mary many times. Usually to meet of one of his lady friends that charged other patrons for their services. Working girls gave Ford favours so he would allow them to ply their street trade unmolested. If they were one of Hard Jack’s girls, their pimps never beat them up too much either.
They knew from bitter experience they would get a visit from Wilson. Thriving on these regular violent confrontations, Wilson could handle himself well. He had broken scores of noses plus a few jawbones too.
Ford obtained the filling stations video recordings. These filmed everyone who visited the petrol station on that Thursday night. It revealed that Kempston filled up with fuel at seven forty. Ten minutes after his wife said he left the house. Kempston bought a sandwich plus two cans of Pepsi. Leaving only five minutes before Kerry Harrison filled up herself. His gut told him this was too much of a coincidence.
Ford told his team that he considered it possible that Kempston parked up near the garage. Observing the customers come and go, waiting to abduct a woman to give her one. Both cars had been found six miles apart. No forensic evidence existed linking one with to the other, made his theory seem unlikely. Ford also knew he would not get much sleep until he could begin to establish just what was happening. With all this sudden craziness occurring on his patch, just when he least needed it.
He worked in a beautiful town, despite its perception. Most of the people in it were law abiding decent citizens. Jack was just unfortunate to be rubbing up against the tiniest but the worst side of it all the time. Even Ford’s usual half bottle of Scotch before bedtime could not work its required magic now. He used it for easing the tension. Now he started taking sleeping pills with it too.
Ian Larsen, a retired truck driver, walked with his two King Charles spaniels in a local park. It was the first Sunday for two weeks he was able to do this because of the atrocious weather. Ian's usual Sunday routine was to visit the crematorium. Taking some fresh cut flowers to place at his late wife’s memorial headstone. He said a quiet prayer and a few loving words to her. He was taking the two dogs for a run on the nearby common. The younger of the two spaniels chased a white-tailed rabbit into an area of tall green ferns and bracken. Yapping as she enjoyed the hunt.
The tone of her barking changed. Then she yelped. Ian feared his dog trapped in a rabbit snare set by poachers. Rabbits thrived in this sandy area. They burrowed into the soft ground. Pushing his way through the waist high vegetation, Ian made his way towards the wild young canine. He was eager to see what caused the commotion.
The little brown and white spaniel had found a clothes shop mannequin. It’s plastic head obscured in a large gorse shrub. The stark whiteness of the dummy’s thorax contrasted with the dark sandy earth. Ian moved in close. Nothing prepared him for the shock. Ian realised it was
not a shop window dummy at all. It was a pale, naked, decapitated corpse of a young woman. Ian sank to his knees as his legs gave way underneath him. He vomited.
The pair of dogs yelped with consternation as their master dropped to the ground. Ian vomited until his stomach was devoid of its contents. Then he vomited some more. His eyes were streaming. His throat burned from the hydrochloric acid brought up from his guts. When his nausea passed, Ian's eyes were drawn to the distressing spectacle again. The girl seemed an unreal white colour with a slight blue hue around her extremities.
Staggering to his feet and lurching over to one side. Ian saw a dark red jagged line running down the dead girl’s abdomen. It ran from her breastbone all the way to her pubic area. Another slash carved across her tummy under her navel. This new revelation started Ian retching again. Ian forced some strength back into his legs. Rising from the ground he ran towards the outlying residential area. The shock combined with the exercise brought on a massive angina attack. He felt a terrible pain constricting his chest. Ian fell to the ground as his dogs fretted around him. His tablets, which Ian put under his tongue when he suffered this pain, were in his car. The crushing chest pains intensified. His vision blacked out as he lapsed into unconsciousness.
Two young children in a flimsy den made out of branches and plastic refuse sacks, saw him fall. They were fifty yards away in a dip on the common. Seeing him topple they sprinted off to tell their mother what had happened. Ian was lucky. Their mother called an ambulance immediately. The paramedics arrived just in time to save his life, taking him to the local hospital. It was not until he regained consciousness two hours later that he was able to tell his story. Ian related his discovery to a disbelieving doctor on the cardiac ward. Ian convinced this doctor of his sincerity.
A further hour had passed before the police got contacted to investigate. Ian was given sedation as his heart was beating fast due to the stress. The doctor believed the ordeal of discovering the girl’s body was the cause. The real reason is Ian was concerned about the whereabouts of his two beloved spaniels.
5
Jack Ford received an intrusive telephone call at his home. He was enjoying Sunday lunch, a delicious roast beef with Yorkshire pudding meal that Mary had prepared.
Jack learnt a young woman lay dead in the park. Ford instinctively knew it must be the body of the missing nurse Kerry Harrison. He left the house amid loud protestations from Mary. Jack listened to her moaning about how happy she would be when he finally retired. They could sit down enjoying a peaceful meal for a change, like any normal couple. Just before Jack arrived at the crime scene, he took a swig of his favourite single malt scotch. It was in a silver plated hip flask he kept in the glove box. Jack noted police officers setting up a perimeter around the corpse. The commotion attracted a variety of onlookers. Jack didn't understand why people were unable to resist hanging around any disaster.
These sickening ghouls got a weird excitement being where something terrible occurred. It was the same story at the scenes of major rail and plane crashes. Many pile ups on motorways would trigger similar accidents on the opposite carriageway. Onlookers were not looking where they were going rammed into the vehicles in front of theirs. Jack Ford sneered at a nearby trio of scruffy male onlookers shouting at them.
‘What’s up with you losers then? Nothing good on Jeremy Kyle today or have you just dropped by on the way to pick up your bloody benefits? Go and find some proper jobs you lazy bastards.’
His Sergeant, Andrew Wilson, was already at the crime scene. Jack rated Wilson. He joined the force from a military background. Wilson took orders doing things without question. He also felt that Wilson was the sharpest, hardest and keenest of the men that he commanded. Wilson also endorsed Ford's approach to policing enjoying a good brawl with villains.
Wilson now greeted him with a pained expression on his face saying in a formal matter of fact way.
‘Hello, Sir. A nasty piece of business this is,’ he added. ‘I have already arranged security of the crime scene. Four uniformed officers manning the only entrance points on to the common, to prevent any public access to the park. The police surgeon is on his way here now just as a formality as we are dealing with murder. The forensic pathologist and scenes of crime officer are also close. One of the boys in blue is up at the hospital now taking a statement from the man that discovered the body.’
Ford was impressed by the way that Wilson organised events so far. He seemed to recall his involvement in a murder enquiry sometime before. Perhaps that was why he seemed to be so calm and collected. Wilson was the right man to have beside you in a tight spot. The nominated police surgeon, Doctor Mike Barnes, a local General Practitioner, arrived five minutes later. Just before Steve Trowell scenes of crime specialist. Doctor Barnes helped the local constabulary in this role for the last six years. Although having the title of police surgeon, Barnes spent most of his time looking after his patients at his local surgery.
Barnes received special supplementary training to deal the requirements of the local force. His police involvement revolved around taking blood tests from drunk drivers, and patching up people injuring themselves in the police cells. Barnes had not seen murder before and was here only to establish that the victim was indeed dead. Barnes had called a forensic pathologist to take sole medical charge of the case from this point and then conduct a mandatory post-mortem.
Steve Trowell arrived. He was a man with a keen eye and an even sharper brain. Trowell possessed the ability to notice things many others missed at crime scenes. Partly due to his training but also because he obsessed about forensic science. Trowell first established who visited the site before he arrived. He was checking that no possible clues got disturbed. Trowell positioned a walkway between his designated control points on the firm ground. Right up to the corpse of the girl.
Ten minutes passed then with Trowell’s permission; Ford moved past the two uniformed officers.
They were behaving like sentries fifty yards from where the dead girl lay. Despite his thirty-five years with the police force and seeing a lot of sick and depraved things in his time, nothing could prepare him for the sight that greeted him. Ford was gazing at the pale abandoned body, in her naked state. He wanted to cover her up to protect her modesty. Ridiculous, Ford thought as the girl was long beyond caring. He felt embarrassed for the poor girl lying naked in such a humiliating way. Ford’s daughter Tanya was of a similar age to the dead girl. He stood looking at her remains, feeling a strange mixture of emotions.
He felt intense anger at the brutality of the act perpetrated against the young woman. He also felt shame as he felt a grateful sense of relief that it happened to someone else and not to his daughter. This feeling of relief then led to pangs of guilt, because he had even entertained this selfish thought at all. Perhaps the hardest of all was that he knew that he alone was now responsible to the family of this dead girl. It was his job to apprehend and bring to justice the sick beast that committed this horrific crime. His emotions now shifted back to anger.
Andrew Wilson saw the distressing display amongst the green ferns and bracken. He arrived quite soon after the discovery. Wilson was the second police officer to appear at the scene. He immediately busied himself with the security of the crime scene. He knew to preserve any evidence. Wilson could see the victim was beyond help. She was not going anywhere.
Young Constable Danny Quill was the first on the scene. Danny was driving his patrol car close to the area when the call came in from control. When Andrew arrived, he found Danny crying. He was huddling up against a tree alongside his police car. Danny looked at him with a distant and pained look in his reddened eyes and asked.
‘How could anyone do such an awful thing like this to someone so young?’
Knowing that what Danny saw could not be pleasant Wilson shrugged his shoulders. He verified that Danny did not touch anything at the crime scene, worrying that the young officer may have contaminated any available evidence. Danny confirme
d that he remembered the rigorous training. He looked at the victim from several yards away before retracing his footsteps. Feeling pity for the young officer, Wilson told him to go back to the station to file a report and have a cup of coffee. Danny pleased to leave the scene said.
‘If this is real police work, then I cannot take it anymore. I quit, you can stick this job up your arse. I will look for another in the morning.’
Wilson could tell from Danny’s expression, his brief time in the force was over. Wilson felt sorry that Danny discovered something so gruesome he would never be able to forget. Wilson thought about what kind of man could have done such a thing to the young woman. Could it be the mild-mannered missing renal consultant David Kempston? Could he have committed this atrocity? Wilson had recently interviewed his wife, Sarah. Kempston appeared to be a kind, loving man. But someone murdered Kerry Harrison.
The feelings of extreme sorrow inside Wilson did not show from his outward expression. He was no stranger to personal pain or death, but he learned to handle it well. One part of his mind strayed back to another time, a different place. A sudden release of pent up hurt flowed out of that closed box of memories. Wilson always managed to keep these locked away at the back of his mind. He was storing a lot behind an imaginary iron door. Wilson felt his throat tighten, his eyes filling with the salty sting of suppressed tears. Blocking out his unwanted memories, he focused on an alternative train of thought. Andrew was an excellent police officer. He kept within the confines of the law.
Swearing an oath now if the opportunity should ever present itself, Wilson would kill the man that committed this terrible crime. He would enjoy doing it. No one would ever find out. Wilson had killed twice before, in field combat. Ford interrupted his faraway thoughts when he touched his shoulder and said.
‘Andrew the Home Office pathologist and his forensic team are here at last. I will just say hello to Charlie, and then we better clear off out of here and let them do their job. The media will be howling for answers as soon as this shit hits the fan. I want you to take that ginger toe rag Roberts and keep a close watch on Kempston’s house. He is the only lead we have at the moment, even though there is no clear motive. There is something that is fishy about this whole deal. My gut says he is involved. I will arrange for someone to relieve you both in the morning. Now I must organise the uniformed lads to conduct door to door enquiries, to see if anyone saw anything unusual in the area. Then I have to get back to my dinner or else my Mary will have my guts for garters.’