“Morning, Richie. You know you don’t have to do this!” They shook hands.
Richard was only slightly shorter than Thomas, and his strong build stemmed from a time when car repair was done with little mechanical support. He was fitter than many active police officers Thomas knew, and only the furrowed lines in his face and the grey hair curling out from underneath his green knitted hat betrayed his age.
“No worries, mate! Allison is busy in the kitchen, and I’m just constantly in her way.”
Thomas grabbed a shovel, and together they finished clearing the driveway in silence.
“Rumour has it someone’s been murdered,” Richard said knowingly.
“Glad to hear the bush telegraph is still working. What else can you tell me?” Thomas replied with a grin.
“They say it’s the old guy from the cabin. Found impaled by something on the pyramid. And they say you’re leading the investigation, so I had hoped for some more information to share with my bingo pals this afternoon.”
Richard was leaning on his shovel, and smiling like the cat that got the cream.
Thomas laughed. “All right, I can tell you this much,” he said in a hushed voice, motioning for his neighbour to lean in closer. “Yes, the victim is the man from the cabin, and yes, he was found dead on the pyramid this morning, and because I am leading the investigation I’ll tell you now no more about it.”
Richard pulled a sad face and sighed. “So, all of this shovelling was in vain…”
Thomas gave him a wink. “You know what, I’d like you and Allison to come over for dinner tonight. It would be my pleasure to cook for my best neighbours.”
“Agreed!”
“Did you know the guy from the cabin?”
Richard scratched his head. “I saw him in the forest a couple of times when I went hunting. Never spoke to him though. I don’t even know his name.”
Like a ghost, Thomas thought. Everybody had seen him but nobody knew him.
He quickly put the dustbins and some firewood from the shed inside his garage, which he hoped saved him shovelling two less paths in case the snowfall picked up again, and went inside.
Sky had left a message on the kitchen counter explaining that she would go skiing at Cannonball Mountain with her friends after school.
Cannonball Mountain was a large hill, rather than a real mountain, encircling Turtleville with Screen Mountain at the opposite side. One could ski from the top all the way down to the front door of Thomas’s house, which Sky and her friends loved to do.
And then they frequently invaded his kitchen hungry for hot chocolate.
7
THE door to Thomas’s assigned office at St Anna Police Station was open.
Inside, DS Collins sat immersed in thought in front of her laptop. She had taken off her sheepskin boots and pushed them underneath the radiator to dry. A grey hooded fleece jacket, simple white shirt, and black skinny jeans completed her outfit.
The room was exceptionally small and empty, except for two ancient grey desks — that reminded Thomas of his school days — a phone to share, worn chairs, a lamp, and a wall calendar from the previous year. He sighed, put his leather satchel on the empty desk, and pushed a sandwich in Collins’s direction.
She looked up.
“So, what can you tell me about Ethan Wright? And when did you intend on informing forensics to go to the cabin?” he asked, slightly irritated.
“People eat that here?” Collins poked at the smoked salmon sandwich.
Thomas leaned across the table. “No, they stick it up their nose, which is exactly what I’ll do with it to you if you don’t stop working yourself up into a lather about everything, and start doing what I tell you! Ethan Wright… what do we know about him?” he fired back.
“Okay, okay, no reason to get all snappy.” She held up her hands in defeat and leaned back in her chair. “I can’t tell you much about him. Nothing, to be precise. This man is like a ghost. He doesn’t exist in any of the databases I have checked so far.”
“Then I suggest you check all the other databases that have not yet been given your undivided attention. And make it snappy! Or you can spend Christmas and New Year’s Eve here as well.”
The phone screamed, making both of them jump and look around.
Thomas answered and was told by reception that a man from Turtleville would like to talk to him.
Without looking back, he left Collins to herself and walked down the cold and sterile staircase he had climbed only a couple of minutes earlier.
His visitor turned out to be Mr Alfred Goodman, the ancient pharmacist from Turtleville. He was fidgeting nervously with his bony hands, but looked intently at Thomas through his half-moon spectacles, which were balanced precariously at the end of the old man’s nose.
With a slight stutter, he told Thomas that his house sat on the corner of the main road and the market square, and that his bedroom window faced the pyramid.
Thomas led him into an empty meeting room and asked the receptionist to fetch Collins.
When she arrived, he retained her in the corridor, making it clear that he would be the only person in there asking questions. She nodded laconically.
Once they had all sat down with a hot cup of tea, Thomas looked at the pharmacist. “So, why did you want to see us, Mr Goodman?” he asked in the gentlest way possible.
“I-I-I couldn’t s-s-sleep v-v-very well l-l-last night. A-a-arthritis. S-s-so I g-g-got up a-a-at around o-o-one a.m. t-t-to walk a-a-around a b-b-bit, and l-l-looked out o-o-of the window a-a-and I s-s-saw a c-c-car d-d-drive by the p-p-pyramid fairly quickly.”
“Thank you for sharing this information with us. What can you tell me about the car? Colour. Make, maybe.”
“M-m-my wife h-h-has spoken to y-y-you,” he answered, gesturing towards Collins, who nodded quietly. “Sh-sh-she told m-m-me you a-a-asked for witnesses t-t-to come forward,” he continued undeterred and looked back expectantly at Thomas, who realised that the interview might take just a tad longer than expected. He decided to change the subject to help the old man settle. “Did you know Ethan Wright, the guy who lived in the cabin?”
“I-I-I saw him i-i-in the v-v-village a-a-a couple of t-t-times, and h-h-he once b-b-bought dressing m-m-material. Said h-h-he had i-i-injured h-h-himself when s-s-splitting firewood. H-h-he a-a-asked for very s-s-special brands… s-s-seemed to know w-w-what he had t-t-to do w-w-with it.”
Thomas nodded appreciatively but only half listened because an important question kept him busy. “So, you said you saw a car speed off. Can you remember the colour or what make it could have been?”
“Ah, I-I-I might be o-o-old, but my b-b-brain works p-p-perfectly well. I c-c-can e-e-even tell you t-t-the number p-p-plate. I c-c-can remember a-a-all the m-m-mixtures I h-h-have e-e-ever done in m-m-my pharmacy. I-i-in the olden d-d-days, it w-w-was sometimes h-h-hard to get a-a-all the i-i-ingredients one n-n-needed. You h-h-had to improvise. For e-e-example, o-o-once—”
“Mr Goodman,” Thomas interrupted before the man could drift off and tell them how to make a lotion out of snake venom. “This is all really interesting, but seeing as you have to go back to your pharmacy, we would like to keep this meeting as brief as possible. What can you tell us about the car you saw last night?”
He noticed Collins rolling her eyes and gave her a sharp look.
“Ah, yes,” the pharmacist began, nervously kneading his hat. “I-i-it was a s-s-silver Skoda O-o-octavia with a-a-a Bohemian n-n-number p-p-plate reading 1-A-A-5-2-1-2.”
Collins, who had been dutifully taking notes, looked up. “Are you sure it said ‘A-A’, or was it just one ‘A’?” she asked dryly. Thomas took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
The pharmacist, though, smiled softly at her and replied, “A-A. Double A-A.”
They thanked him for his help and returned in silence to their broom cupboard, where Collins quickly found out that the car was registered to a nineteen-year-old Karel Belka, resident of Carls Bath,
Bohemia.
Thomas had questioned him on various occasions in relation to drug dealings, but could never prove his involvement. He knew boys like Karel produced cheap crystal meth in dirty drug kitchens in Bohemia and sold it in and around St Anna.
Carls Bath also had a fencing club, Collins informed him, but Thomas did not really believe there was a connection to his case; it seemed too easy and too much of a coincidence. However, every angle needed to be checked out.
He ordered Collins to do another thorough background check on Ethan Wright while he set off to Carls Bath, with a junior officer in tow.
After forty-five minutes of driving without really seeing much of the landscape, as it was hidden behind mountains of snow, and having dropped off the young constable at the fencing club to find out if anything had been stolen, Thomas arrived at the address of Karel Belka.
He lived in an old, shabby semi-detached house, coloured in a sad grey and located on the outskirts of Carls Bath. The Skoda Octavia was parked haphazardly out front.
It was past one o’clock in the afternoon but the curtains were still drawn. After some hard knocking and shouting, a bleary-eyed young man wearing only underpants opened the door, his curly ginger hair standing in all directions.
“Who are you?” he mumbled.
“Good morning to you too. Don’t you remember me? My name is Detective Inspector Nathaniel Thomas, St Anna Police Force. I have some questions regarding your whereabouts last night. May I come in?”
Karel pushed open the door, and Thomas stepped into a dimly lit and sparsely furnished corridor. It smelt like dog poop, and empty beer bottles littered the floor.
He had no intention of seeing more of the cheerless place than absolutely necessary, and after all, he needed a search warrant if he wanted to check the house properly for drugs. For some reason, however, they were rarely ever produced at the registered address.
“Where were you last night, Mr Belka?”
“Out partying,” he snapped.
“See, the more details you give me voluntarily, the sooner I let you go back to bed,” Thomas said, leaning on the landing. “Or I can take you to the station… that depends on whether I like the details or not.”
“What do you want from me?”
“For a start, I want to know why you were driving through Turtleville after midnight last night? Where were you partying? With whom? And what did you do until you got back here?”
The lad hesitated. “I was at the Shooters Club Christmas party in St Anna with my brother. We drank some beer, danced, and pulled some birds. The club closed at half past midnight. Then we drove back home and partied some more. What’s this all about?”
“Where’s your brother?” Thomas asked, ignoring the question.
“Petr!” Karel yelled upstairs. “Get down here!”
A door squeaked, and a younger version of Karel shuffled downstairs.
“Good morning, Petr. My name is Detective Inspector Nathaniel Thomas, St Anna Police Force. I have some questions for the two of you.”
“No, first you tell us what this is all about!” Karel shouted, slowly waking up.
“Someone was murdered last night in Turtleville, and your car — the one that is parked haphazardly outside and which I believe was driven by a drunk — was seen at the crime scene.”
Thomas saw his words getting their attention. Both boys looked at him with wide eyes and open mouths.
Petr lifted his hands. “We have nothing to do with this!”
“If I had a penny for every time someone told me that…” Thomas let the end of the sentence hang in the air.
“Right, listen,” Karel said. “Yes, I drove home yesterday, and I had drunk some beers and maybe some shots too, but we didn’t murder anybody!”
“Did you stop in Turtleville at around one a.m.?”
“Yes, we did. For a pee,” Petr answered.
“Where did you stop?”
“Near the market square. I peed my name into the snow. Maybe you can still find it.” He giggled like a schoolboy.
Thomas let it pass. “Did one of you see or hear anything unusual? Was there another car? Someone walking away maybe?”
“Didn’t pay much attention. I was busy with my name and keeping my cock warm.” Petr shrugged.
Sensing the tension build, Karel replied quickly, “I was waiting inside the car, and I didn’t see or hear anything or anybody.”
“Your front window was facing what?”
“The bare trees of the market square.”
“The pyramid, too?”
“Yes.”
“Anything unusual there?”
“It was not illuminated, but that is normal for night time.”
“Could you see the figures on it?”
“Just their rough silhouettes from the streetlight. Look, it was snowing really heavily. I didn’t study the figures there, okay? I glanced at them while I was busy keeping the inside of the windscreen from fogging. I can’t tell you if one was missing.”
“Unfortunately, that’s not the problem.” Thomas looked from one boy to the other. “Rather, a figure was added.” He raised his eyebrows inquiringly. But after staring into blank faces for a while, he realised that drugs and alcohol had already done their bit to eliminate whatever brainpower there might have been.
“The victim was placed on the pyramid. So, my question is this: if you didn’t do it, did you see anything?” he explained impatiently.
Both boys frantically shook their heads. “No! If there was a dead body on the pyramid we didn’t see it! And we certainly didn’t put it there! I told you, we were at a Christmas party all evening. Together. You can ask the barkeepers and the other guests!” Karel answered for the pair.
“I certainly will. Do you have jobs?”
They both nodded, and Karel, being the older brother, answered again. “Petr works as an apprentice at a car repair shop, and I’m a carpenter. But we both have today off,” he added hastily.
“And with these jobs, you can afford this house?”
“No, erm… our parents are on holiday.”
“Until your alibis are confirmed I don’t want you to leave town. You go to work and back home. Use your newly acquired free time to surprise your parents with a clean and tidy house.” Thomas kicked away a beer bottle. “Is that understood?” They looked at him and nodded.
“One last question, do you fence, or have you ever fenced? You know, the sport.”
“No,” they answered in unison.
He picked the junior officer up at the fencing club who confirmed what Thomas had already assumed: no break-in, nothing was missing, and none of the Belka brothers had ever set foot inside the training rooms. The coach knew the boys but said they were avid football players.
They drove back to St Anna in silence. A light snowfall had set in again, and the flakes wavered and danced for a long time in the chilly winter air before finally falling to the ground.
The main roads were wet from the melted snow. The salt scattered by the ploughs that morning had done its deed.
Thomas would remind Collins to drive carefully as the wet roads quickly froze over as soon as the sun set. He did not even know where she would spend the night, but he hoped she’d use her common sense and decide against driving back to Turnden.
It was mid-afternoon by the time Thomas and the junior officer finally reached the station.
Thomas told Collins about his visit to the Belka brothers and the report from the fencing club, and wrote the main information down on their whiteboard — which he had hoped would have been less white and more covered in black writing by the time he got back. But Collins had disappointed him yet again. She had found a couple of Ethan Wrights in their database but none had matched their victim. He was not a registered citizen anywhere and did not have health insurance, nor pay any taxes.
The only proof of his existence was a bank account in his name. The bank confirmed that the account had been opened nearly two years earlie
r and that the amount of thirty-thousand euros had been paid into it, in cash. Back then, the man had shown the bank his ID card, declaring himself as Mr Ethan Wright residing in Turtleville. But as Thomas had not found any ID anywhere inside the cabin, it was likely a fake.
The only transactions were withdrawals of small sums of money, that Collins assumed were for buying groceries. Not a single cent had been paid into the account since, though.
The bank could not tell them where the money had come from, as it was not illegal to open an account and pay in cash up to a certain amount.
“We need to find out who this guy was; obviously Ethan Wright was not his real name,” Thomas said, unwittingly touching the scar at his temple. Promptly, he looked into Collins’s inquiring eyes and read all the questions she was dying to ask, but getting started on that topic now would not bring them any closer to solving their case.
In fact, it would just set him back to square one — feeling sick and paralysed — and he had left square one that morning with all his might. He let his hand drop into his lap and decided to talk to her at a later date. Maybe.
“I’ll call Laura and see if she already has a report for us. She needs to do a DNA test ASAP.” He was taking out his mobile when the desk phone startled them for the second time that day.
“And we need a new phone,” Collins said through gritted teeth. “I don’t want to succumb to a heart attack here.”
He smiled and picked up the screaming phone. “DI Thomas, hello?”
“Hi, this is Laura. Just letting you know that I have a preliminary report for you. And I’ve pulled the epee out of his body. Thought you might want a look at it.”
“Laura, perfect timing. I’ll be over in a minute. Have you done a DNA test yet? Because… to be honest, we’re a bit in the dark about who this guy really was.”
“I took his fingerprints and chased them through the computer — outcome still pending. The blood test results will be here tomorrow.”
“All right, see you in a moment.” He hung up.
“I’ll go to the morgue now. The blood DNA results will be here tomorrow. Hopefully they can tell us who Ethan Wright really was. In the meantime, could you please check the Belka brothers’ alibi?” Thomas pushed his notepad across the desk. Collins took it without saying a word.
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