by Tom Trott
I found him behind the house. Sprawled on his back in crimson snow, an axe sticking out of his chest.
2
Two of a Kind
Frost had already formed on the axe handle. New, fluttering snowflakes landed on his tongue, but didn’t melt. His cream suit was bloodied, torn, and cut, just like his body. His eyes were open, staring up endlessly at the clouds now gifting snowflakes. One landed on the lens of his eye. He didn’t blink.
He was in the garden. Beyond him was a rusted children’s climbing frame, slide, and swings. Beyond the end of the garden was a treeline. The rest was darkness.
It was 1:14 a.m. He was cold, but that didn’t mean anything. Assuming he arrived on time, and waited no more than fifteen minutes, he must have died sometime in the last half an hour. The tyre tracks that had driven over his footprints most likely belonged to the person who killed him.
I may not be a forensic pathologist, but even I could see from deep red marks on the backs of his legs that the axe had caught him several times as he was running or crawling away. And when he could crawl no more his killer had rolled him over and buried the axe in his chest. But that wasn’t all: there was a deep red line around his throat where he had been garrotted with some kind of wire. Either Clarence had managed to escape the garrotting and that’s why the killer chased him with the axe, or the killer wanted to make doubly sure once the axe was in his chest. Or both.
I crouched down to search his pockets with my gloved hands. His left trouser pocket held only lip balm, the right only his iPhone. Locked, of course. No fingerprint reader meant face unlock, and it was too dark for that. I rolled him gently to feel his back pockets; they were empty, so I moved onto his coat and suit jacket. The outside coat pockets were empty, he was wearing his gloves. The inside one held his car keys. The outside jacket pockets were still stitched. The inside one had another set of keys, a card-holder with three credit cards, and a money clip clutching five hundred pounds. I put them all back, except for the keys.
I performed another search of the house; I even climbed up into the loft, disturbing a community of birds that took off with a gunshot and whooshed through my torch beam like a pounding wave. I had sit down for several minutes.
There was definitely nothing to find, the place had been stripped years ago, it was just a shell. Heading outside, and taking one last survey of the scene, I began trudging my way back to our cars.
There was nothing of any interest in his. The glove compartment contained a street map, insurance documents, breakdown cover, hand sanitiser, and a small torch. In the boot was a first aid kit, some de-icer, a scraper and cloth, and under the floor just the spare tyre and locking wheel nut. It was unnaturally clean and tidy, just like Clarence.
I locked the Mercedes back up and got in my Jag. I started the engine so that I could turn on the heated seat. I looked out through the window, through the steel gate, across the hills. By day I would be able to see the farmhouse from here, any other night it would be nothing but darkness. This night it was a white glow, but the house was indistinguishable in it. I reversed away from his car, and then turned around, heading back toward the city.
✽✽✽
Clarence’s office was on St George’s Place, opposite St Peter’s Church, right in the centre of town, taking up all five floors of one of those single-room-wide curved-fronted terraced townhouses. Behind it is a small area nestled between the backs of buildings, used these days for parking. I crawled in quietly with my lights off, turning my car round in case a quick escape was needed. The city air was unusually quiet. I reminded myself it was the night after New Year’s Eve and the partygoers would be nursing their hangovers.
I brought my torch with me as I approached the back door. The back entrance was kept neat because most of his clients arrived by car. I needed two keys to get in; brass for the mortice lock, nickel silver Yale for the latch; both cut by Dockerills.
As I pushed open the door I could hear a quiet beeping, like a digital watch. Three metres down the narrow hallway a panel on the wall was making the noise. It was an alarm system. The screen blinked “FLAP OPEN”. A corner of the plastic panel that hid the buttons hadn’t clicked into place properly. I gave it some gentle pressure and the beeping stopped. Now the screen said “DISABLED”.
I listened carefully. I heard no creaking, nothing but the occasional car on the road out the front, accompanied by the sweep of lights as they passed. Torch off, I quickly checked the two rooms on this level. Both empty. I didn’t bother with the basement, and instead slowly creaked my way up to the first floor.
Now I could hear the gentle creak of footsteps in the room above: Clarence’s office. I gripped the heavy torch, ready to swing it if necessary, then ascended to the second floor.
At the top of the stairs I arrived opposite his office and could see the dim light of a desk lamp through the half-open door. I tiptoed silently across the landing and slid inside.
Five metres in front of me was the bottom half of a woman, bent over into a filing cabinet. She was wearing heavy leather boots and leather trousers, with an arse to make you prang your car. Her back was also leather, it was some kind of catsuit. I could just see long, dark frizzy hair at the top of her neck. I leant back on the door, closing it, blocking it, and announcing my presence all at the same time.
Her head shot out of the cabinet and she span to face me, her frizzy black hair swishing through the air and across her face. She must have been in her twenties, with very dark skin, and an incredibly toned body. She looked like she could snap me in half. I’d probably enjoy it too.
Her heaving breath gradually subsided as the initial shock wore off. I didn’t say anything. Neither did she. She didn’t even raise an eyebrow. Very cool indeed.
A full two minutes must have passed before either of us said a word. It was her.
‘Does it speak?’ she asked.
‘It speaks.’ I tried not to return her wry smile. ‘Who are you?’
She perched her arse on Clarence’s glass desk. ‘Honey, why on Earth would I tell you that?’
‘Do you know whose office this is?’
‘Clarence somebody, it said on the door.’
‘Uh-huh, and what are you doing here?’
‘Nothing special. I’m just a sexy cat burglar on the prowl.’
‘Cat burglars don’t steal from filing cabinets. And it doesn’t say Clarence on the door, it says “C. Alderney”. Honey.’
She bit her lip. ‘Oh dear, have I been a bad girl?’
I sighed. ‘I’m sure this technique would work on me any other time, this is the best I’ve seen it done, but tonight I’m afraid things are serious. What are you looking for?’
‘You know I can’t tell you that, handsome.’
I pulled out my phone and dialled 999.
‘You’re seriously going to call the police when you’ve broken in here too?’
I jangled the keys in my other hand.
‘And he just gave them to you, did he?’
‘Not exactly. I took them from his body.’ Her face froze. ‘Thirty minutes ago.’ The line started to ring.
‘Whoa, whoa, whoa!’ She screamed as I held the phone to my ear. ‘Ok!’
I hung up, but kept it in my hand.
Cool again, she nonchalantly brushed hair out of her face. ‘I can see you’re serious. I don’t know anything about that, I swear.’
‘You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t take your word for it. He was murdered, about an hour ago, and here you are, breaking into his office.’
‘I’m a private detective.’
I raised my eyebrows, asking for more.
She sighed. ‘A client hired me to find out some information. I thought that Mr Alderney would have other information relating to that specific information in his files. But he doesn’t,’ she gestured to the filing cabinets, ‘this is all old stuff, all his files from the last ten years must be on the server in the basement.’
‘How well do you
know Clarence?’
‘Never met the man. Wouldn’t even recognise him.’
‘Where are you from?’
‘London, baby. The big smoke. I’m just down here on a job.’
I nodded. ‘Stand in the corner.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘I’m just going to take a look around.’
She rolled her eyes in disbelief. ‘Can’t you just let me go? I haven’t taken anything. A little professional courtesy, one detective to another?’
‘Like the professional courtesy you’re showing Clarence?’
‘Yeah, like that.’
I went round the desk, checking the few scraps of paper. She moved out of my way.
‘Don’t run,’ I told her.
The desk was immaculately clean, the only papers were bills he had received and a cryptic crossword. In the top drawer of the desk were hand creams and aftershaves, he was always a dandy. In the bottom drawer was a MacBook Pro. Anyone who knew Clarence knew he had fully subscribed to the concept of the paperless office. The concept fitted with his love of order: no messy papers getting lost or lying around. He had no pictures on his desk, nothing on the walls. The filing cabinets would go once the old files had been digitised. The only thing that was safe was the rubber plant.
There was nothing of any note, nothing to indicate why he had wanted to meet me. I grabbed the laptop and looked up to see how closely she was watching me.
I was alone.
Shit.
I heard the growl of a motorbike engine and legged it down both sets of stairs, out through the back door. She was still there, the exit blocked by my Jag. She killed the engine when she saw me.
‘Get off, you’re coming with me.’
She pulled off her helmet, her hair exploding out in all directions as she did. ‘Really, and where are we going?’
‘You’re going to pay Clarence a proper visit.’
✽✽✽
‘What’s your name?’ I asked as we zipped out of the centre.
She leant over from the passenger seat. ‘What do you want it to be, darling?’
She licked my ear. I swerved across the other lane in shock. She cackled.
‘Stop being cute,’ I told her.
‘You can call me Tidy,’ she purred, ‘everybody does. But now you have to tell me yours.’
‘Joe.’
I saw her nod out of the corner of my eye.
‘“Tidy”, is that short for something?’
‘Is “Joe”?’
I refused to play.
‘Where are we going, Joe?’
‘We’re going to take in a little country air.’
‘Wow, should I take a catnap on the way there?’
‘There won’t be time.’
‘Thank heavens, I’m not sure I trust you with me lying here unconscious.’
‘I said stop being cute. I’m in too serious a mood to be tricked into doing something stupid.’
‘Well,’ she sighed, ‘you can’t blame a girl for trying.’
We cruised up the length of Ditchling Road, from the centre, by the skate park and the green lawn of the Level, up past council flats, past the tiny terraces of the Roundhill, the railway line passing underneath us, past the larger terraces of the Fiveways, past the school, the park, the golf course at the top of the hill, the mobile phone mast, the windy road looking down on suburbia and my office, the high bridge over the bypass, and onto the silent stretch to the beacon.
Tarmac. Trees. Stone walls. We pulled up behind Clarence’s Mercedes at the lonely bus stop. I killed the engine. It was still snowing here.
‘Is he in the boot?’ she asked.
‘We’re going for a walk. Will you be warm enough?’
‘What will you do if I say no?’
I got out and fetched the blanket I kept in the boot. She stepped out into the falling snow and I wrapped it round her.
‘Thank you, sweetie,’ she said and tried to give me a peck on the cheek.
I watched the falling snowflakes as they nestled happily in the curls of her hair. She was quite beautiful then.
‘Let’s go.’
I climbed over the stile, looking for the footprints, but they had been erased by the fresh powder. She followed close behind me. There was nowhere for her to run. I gave up looking for the footprints, I could remember the way.
We trudged down the side of the field, under the power lines, through the kissing gate, through the tilled field, the wild grass, the copse, and into the T-Junction. Finally, we had reached the private road. The tyre tracks were still there. Only later did I realise this made no sense.
We followed them up the hedge-lined road, round its bends, until the chimneys showed against the sky, and then the cracked white walls and broken windows were revealed.
‘Nice place, yours?’ she chirped.
We crunched over the snow and until it disappeared round the side, replaced by mud. I splashed through it until I reached the garden, where I could see that here too there was no snow. And no body.
3
New Dogs
‘Is he shy?’ Tidy asked in jest.
‘This entire area has been washed down.’ I was crouched in the mud. ‘Warm water, probably. Melt the snow, get rid of the blood. Simple.’
‘Maybe you imagined it.’
‘The tyre tracks, they should have been erased like the footprints, the killer came back to tidy up.’ I had no idea why I was saying this out loud.
She sighed. ‘So, do you believe it wasn’t me now?’
‘I guess so.’ I stood up and looked at her, standing in the snow with the blanket round her, shivering as she lit a thin cigar to smoke herself warm.
‘Where even are we?’ she asked.
‘Let’s find out.’
We stepped inside the house, out of the falling snow. I had grabbed the Ordnance Survey map from my boot when I’d grabbed the blanket, and using her phone as a torch we peered over it. I traced my finger down from the road, over the fields, to the private road, and the farmhouse: a small beige rectangle. “Little Fawn Farm” the black text above it read. I could see from the map that the other farm buildings were beyond the treeline at the end of the garden.
‘I’ll be right back,’ I told her.
It only took me five minutes to find them, and less than that to search them. A rusty barn and shed, both collapsing, both empty. When I got back to the house Tidy was tapping away on her phone.
‘This place has got history,’ she said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I googled the name and the first thing that came up was “The Little Fawn Farm Massacre”. It was one of those true crime websites that are mostly run by conspiracy nuts, so take it with a fistful of salt, but apparently a boy went crazy and shotgunned his family.’
‘When was this?’
‘Oh, years ago, but it explains why the place was abandoned. If he killed his whole family it probably still belongs to the boy who’s rotting in jail.’
‘Aren’t there laws against that?’
‘I’m not a lawyer, doll.’
I folded the map back up and put it in my pocket. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here.’
We trudged back down the road, where the tyre tracks were starting to fade under the fresh flakes, and back up the other side of the valley, across the fields.
‘Were you two good friends?’ she asked as we were passing through the kissing gate.
‘No, we didn’t know each other well enough for that. I respected him. I like to think the feeling was mutual.’
‘What are you going to do now?’
‘Give you a lift back to your bike.’
‘I meant about this.’
‘Nothing. There’s nothing to do. I’m going to go home and get some sleep.’
We made it to my car. Just my car. The Mercedes had vanished.
We stood in silence for a minute before I spoke:
‘You can’t tell me you didn’t see that car.�
��
There were two sets of tyre tracks in the snow, one heading back toward the city, and another leading away toward the beacon and the countryside beyond.
‘Are you sure it was his?’ she asked, ‘It could have been someone else’s.’
‘I’ve got the key.’ I showed it to her.
She just shrugged.
We got in my car and I drove her back over the bypass, down Ditchling Road, into the centre, and pulled up near the back of Clarence’s office.
‘I release you,’ I told her.
She smiled and brushed my cheek. ‘Aw, baby, I could have got away from you any time.’
‘Then why did you come?’
‘You piqued my curiosity.’
She winked, jumped out of the car, threw the blanket in at me, and disappeared into the darkness. Moments later I heard the roar of her bike in the distance.
I held the blanket to my face, it smelt of her, then I threw it on the back seat.
✽✽✽
It was 3:32 a.m. when I started knocking on Andy Watson’s door. His flat was on the fifth floor of Furze Croft, an Art Deco block by St Ann’s Well Gardens. He must have checked through the spyhole based on the confident way he opened the door.
‘What the hell, dude!?’
He was wearing a thin dressing gown over tiny pink boxer shorts, and despite appearances was one of the best police officers in Sussex (even if no one else recognised it).
There had been a tension between us for the last couple of years. Like family that were too similar and too different in all the wrong ways, we couldn’t seem to talk without getting into an argument.
‘Can I come in?’ I asked.
He sighed. ‘You might as well.’
As I followed him into the living room I caught a smile of disbelief, but this didn’t mean he wasn’t angry; to Andy smiling was like breathing.