SHADOW OVER THE FENS a gripping crime thriller full of suspense

by Joy Ellis

  ‘It’s not much, hope you don’t mind but I raided your frugal freezer and Spartan store cupboard and threw something together for supper.’

  ‘Of course I don’t mind. But surely nothing from my larder could smell that good?’

  ‘Well, I did stop at that little farm shop just off the marsh lane, and picked up some fresh vegetables to bolster it up a bit.’ He walked back to the kitchen and checked the stove. ‘I thought we’d eat just after seven, if that’s okay?’

  Nikki’s heart sank. At seven they would be receiving an uninvited guest. ‘There’s something I have to tell you, Joseph.’

  ‘Shall we talk over a glass of wine?’ He stood in front of her, a bottle of white in one hand, and a red in the other. ‘You choose.’

  ‘Whatever, just make it a large one.’ There was no easy way to tell him. ‘Joseph, Chief Superintendent Walker collared me this afternoon.’

  ‘Haven’t met him yet. Isn’t that the guy who looks like a carrion crow wearing gold braid?’

  ‘You got it, and he’s after blood, Joseph. Yours.’

  ‘Mine?’ He handed her a glass of sparkly white wine, then stepped back and stared at her. ‘Why?’

  Nikki looked at him miserably. ‘It seems top brass, in their infinite wisdom, are concerned about your health.’ She took a slug of wine and shook her head in disgust. ‘The super is coming here tonight to talk to you, and I want you to be prepared for the worst. He said they may be suspending you for a while.’

  Joseph turned back to the hob, picked up a spoon and stirred whatever was in the iron pan. After a while, he said. ‘I had a feeling this was going to happen.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t!’ exploded Nikki. ‘And I damn well told them so!’

  Joseph gave a humourless chuckle, but kept his back to her. ‘I’m sure you did. And I’m sure you got a bollocking for your trouble.’

  ‘Sort of,’ she muttered. ‘Well, yes I did, and then I had to grovel to that beady-eyed, beak-nosed prig in order to stay on the case.’

  ‘But it worked, didn’t it?’ Joseph turned quickly and she saw deep concern in his eyes. ‘You are still on it?’

  ‘Yeah, it worked. And I’m still leading. Just.’ She took a slower sip of wine this time. ‘And don’t worry, Joseph. I promise to get to the bottom of this.’

  ‘To be honest, everyone maybe safer with me out of the way for a while.’ His voice lacked power and had a wistful tremor to it.

  ‘I’m not sure I agree with that, but I’m going to get every available officer onto this. I want it cleared up fast. I want my sergeant back.’

  He looked at her over the rim of his glass. ‘Me too.’

  ‘Do me one favour?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Don’t tell the super I warned you. You know, protocol, procedures and all that crap?’

  ‘No problem. But how should I react? Shocked? Because I’m not. Angry? I’m disappointed, but not angry.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know how I feel actually.’

  ‘Then tell him that. Be honest.’ She sat down at the kitchen table and looked up at him. ‘And we need to be honest with each other too, Joseph. These killings have to stop, and you and I are going to have to explore the mind that is carrying them out. I have to find out what his endgame is, and stop him before he gets that far.’

  ‘I’m not sure how you will achieve that, Nikki, but I’ll help you all I can.’

  ‘Thank you, Joseph.’ Nikki gave him a long look. She had just said about being honest, and she was being far from that. If he knew that Billy Sweet was long dead, what would it do to him? Well, she wasn’t about to find out. She needed a lot of answers to a lot of questions before she hit him with that little rocket.

  ‘Do you think the super will want supper? I seem to have cooked enough for the whole team.’

  ‘Probably not. I doubt he’ll have much appetite after practising what to say to you.’

  ‘He’s got no choice, has he? If the order comes from higher up, he’s just the mouthpiece, and I respect Superintendent Bainbridge.’ He gave her a half-hearted smile. ‘I won’t give him a hard time.’

  ‘I’ll disappear when he gets here. Give you some privacy.’

  ‘No. Stay. Please?’

  ‘Who could resist such a plaintive plea?’ Nikki smiled back. ‘Sure I’ll stay. I respect Rick Bainbridge too, and I like him, but I still think he deserves a bit of stick, don’t you?’

  ‘Okay, but nothing too harsh.’ He sat down opposite her. ‘You may need to keep him on our side.’ He drew in a breath. ‘At least I’ve done his figures, and I think he’ll like the results. Now I can concentrate on Martin Durham.’

  ‘You want to continue?’ asked Nikki, trying to keep the surprise out of her voice.

  ‘It’ll have to be in an unofficial capacity, but I can follow up the other suicides using public sector info, can’t I?’

  ‘If you’re okay with that, I’ll get you everything you need. Well, as much as I can without dropping us both in the mire. At least it’s a way to keep all our balls in the air, so to speak.’

  ‘You nail Billy for me, Nikki, and I’ll find you some answers about Martin. Deal?’

  Nikki felt a shiver pass across her shoulders. Someone had already nailed Billy. So who was she chasing now? ‘Deal,’ she said with as much enthusiasm as she could muster, ‘and the sooner the better. Now, what exactly is in that pan on the stove?’

  * * *

  Rick Bainbridge did eat with them, then left at around nine, with Joseph’s warrant card safely in his inside pocket.

  Joseph had pulled out all the stops to make the task easier for the super, too many for Nikki’s liking, but then it wasn’t her being suspended. Joseph had to deal with it he saw fit.

  After they had cleared up the supper dishes, Nikki poured them both a snifter of her father’s cognac and they talked for another hour before she turned in. As she pulled her bedroom curtains she reflected on what a world-class shitty day it had been. She had had such high hopes for her new team, and in just a few days everything, in the immortal words of Dave Harris, had gone to rat-shit. Somehow she needed to get her finger out and find Joseph’s murdering stalker.

  With a sigh she sunk into her bed and pulled the duvet around her. And now thanks to her beloved chief, she was without her sergeant. ‘Great, fucking great,’ she whispered as she closed her eyes.

  * * *

  Joseph stood at the window and looked down into the shadowy garden below. A few hours back he had come a hair’s breadth from going out to meet Bryony. He had phoned her as promised, and they had talked for over half an hour and although the whole thing had a teenage dream feel to it, he liked it and it relaxed him.

  Now it was after one in the morning, and he was far from relaxed. Not that he should be too worried about the late hour, he had no work to get up for. The plain fact was the news of his suspension had floored him. He had done his best to cover his true feelings, but he was devastated. Going right back to his school years, he had been conscientious and hardworking, and he’d never been ‘removed’ from anything in his life. And now, with his movements severely restricted, he was going to have to find a way to get to Billy through Nikki.

  For a while he paced the room, but the old floorboards creaked and he didn’t want to disturb whatever sleep she may be lucky enough to get, so he pulled on a sweater and quietly slipped out.

  Making sure that he had his door key in his pocket, Joseph left Cloud Cottage Farm and walked down the moonlit lane to the marsh. He needed to think what his next move would be.

  More to the point, he needed to think what Billy’s next move would be. And he needed to think fast, before someone else died.

  Joseph was not the only one who could not sleep. Nikki’s mind had no intentions of letting her switch off, and highest on her list of insomnia-inducing problems was Joseph and his conviction that a dead soldier was going around killing the residents of Greenborough.

  She tossed around trying to get comf
ortable, but only succeeded in losing the duvet. She dragged it back from the floor and then pummelled her pillow angrily before flopping back into it. No matter how bad it looked, and Jesus, right now it looked sodding dreadful, she could not bring herself to believe that Joseph was in anyway other than an involuntary one, involved. There was obviously a connection, but what it was she could not begin to understand, and the dead of night was not the best time to be logical.

  Nikki squeezed her eyes tight shut and decided it was time for the word game. She needed to slip her brain into a different gear, and the game usually worked. Take a letter of the alphabet and name all the film titles you could. She shifted to her side. Last time it was F so . . .

  Genevieve, Gigi, The Great Escape, The Great Gatsby.

  What if Joseph really were still suffering from the aftermath of his attack? What if the man who pulled a face at him through his windscreen reminded him of other horrors, African horrors?

  Concentrate, Nikki. Gallipoli, Gremlins, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?

  And what if all that trauma came bubbling back to the surface? What if . . . ?

  She yawned. The Green Mile, Ghost, Gone With the Wind.

  First thing in the morning she’d talk it through with Dave. And maybe Cat. Dave had experience and age on his side, but Cat had intuition and an almost feral streetwise instinct about her. She had the feeling that she would be needing them both.

  Gothika. Get Carter. Ghostbusters.

  As sleep began to gently dull her senses, she vaguely heard footsteps on the stairs, but told herself that it was no wonder Joseph was awake. All evening he’d seemed so in control, but she was sure that deep down he was hurting. She wondered if she should go down and keep him company, but before she could make a decision, she drifted unresisting, into the arms of Morpheus.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Her waking moment was a far less peaceful affair, with her alarm shrieking in one ear, the phone blaring in the other.

  ‘DI Galena,’ she mumbled, still trying to silence her clock with her other hand.

  ‘Nikki, can you get in, pronto?’ The superintendent sounded out of breath.

  ‘Yeah, of course.’ She scrambled from her bed, still holding the phone. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘I’ll tell you when you get here. Quick as you can.’ The phone clicked, then hummed softly. Damn! She flung the receiver back in its cradle then hastily pulled her duvet up in a poor semblance of tidiness. A shower would have to wait. As would breakfast. She pulled clothes swiftly from drawers and cupboards, then hoping she didn’t look too much of a rag-bag, hunted for some shoes.

  As she moved along the landing she saw that Joseph’s door was still closed, but hearing the soft, sonorous sound of his breathing, she ran down the stairs, scribbled him a note, and dashed to her car. The super had left her in no doubt regarding urgency, but she just wished he’d told her why. Guessing, these days, was a pretty unnerving pastime, and her imagination was already on high alert.

  As she swung past the lane to Knot Cottage, she felt a pang of sorrow tug at her heart. Martin was being put on the back burner again and that was not how she wanted it to be. Luckily Joseph was still game to keep delving, which was something, but it wasn’t her, and she still felt horribly guilty about her promise to her old friend.

  And this melancholia was getting her precisely nowhere.

  With a grunt of irritation at herself, she pulled up onto the main road, and jammed her foot down. Something had happened, and she needed to know what the hell it was, and she wouldn’t do that by dawdling along like a bloody tourist.

  She didn’t quite beat her PB for speed from Cloud Fen to the nick, but it had been an impressive ride, and most effective in concentrating her wandering thoughts. As she strode through the foyer, she had left the weak, sensitive woman wandering somewhere on the marsh, and she was now one hundred per cent tenacious detective again.

  ‘The super?’ she barked to the desk sergeant.

  ‘Murder room, ma’am. With the chief.’

  She raised a hand in acknowledgement, and cursed under her breath. Walker was rarely seen at this hour, and his presence didn’t bode well.

  ‘Nikki.’ The super looked grey, and she guessed that he’d had about as much sleep as she had. ‘Sorry to drag you from your bed but there’s been another incident.’ He glanced across to the chief, who looked irritatingly immaculate and very well rested, and said, ‘Shall we take this into my office?’

  After the door closed, he said, ‘There was an attempted abduction in the early hours of the morning. Another young man with similar facial features and hair colour to the two dead men. But this time he survived.’

  ‘So what went wrong?’ asked Nikki urgently. ‘If it was our ultra-efficient assassin, how come his victim escaped?’

  ‘Pure luck, by the sound of it,’ said the chief.

  ‘Yes, chance,’ added the super. ‘One of our uniformed crews made an unofficial stop at the bakery on West Lee Road, at just before three in the morning.’

  ‘Unofficial? That bakery practically relies on us for their doughnut sales! Our lads are there all hours of the day and night!’

  ‘Maybe, but last night one of the baker’s wanted to show off his new Kawasaki motorcycle. He took our two men out to the back car park, and that was when they disturbed something.’

  ‘They saw him?’

  ‘No. The footpath along the back has no street lights, and by the time our officers got there, the attacker had done a vanishing act through the back alleys.’

  ‘And the victim? Did he see anything?’

  ‘Too busy trying to avoid being murdered, Inspector,’ said the chief sourly. ‘But he did get a glimpse of what the man was wearing.’

  ‘And?’ asked Nikki.

  The chief picked up a statement and read, ‘Desert boots and camouflage pants.’

  ‘Military?’

  ‘You can buy any of that on the market or from a surplus store.’

  ‘And is the victim badly injured?’

  The super stretched. ‘Thankfully not, other than a bruised neck and being scared half to death.’

  ‘What was he doing there, sir?’ asked Nikki.

  ‘We think he was sneaking back home after an assignation with his mate’s wife. His version varies slightly from that, but I don’t think it’s too important. It’s the other man we want, and this time let’s just hope that we get lucky with some DNA from the intended mark.’ He leaned forward and in a confidential tone, said, ‘This does make something a little easier though. Joseph wasn’t involved this time,’ he smiled at her, his relief plain to see, ‘because he was with you, miles away on Cloud Fen.’

  ‘And no doubt you will confirm that, Nikki?’ The chief blinked his hooded eyes.

  She threw him a withering look. ‘Absolutely. There when I went to bed, there when I got up, and I heard him pacing the floor for half the night.’ She gave him her best attempt at a smile and added, ‘So can he come back to work, sir?’

  ‘No, Inspector. His mental state is still in question. I want a full evaluation and medical report before that can happen.’

  Yes, you would, wouldn’t you, she thought, but just nodded and said, ‘Of course.’

  ‘We’ve got the man who was attacked downstairs, Nikki,’ said the superintendent. ‘He’s been checked over at the hospital and given the all clear, so I expect you’d like a word with him.’

  Nikki nodded. ‘I’ll brief my team, then I’ll go speak to him, sir.’

  ‘Right, well I have a meeting.’ The chief picked up his hat from the table and walked to the door. ‘Keep me up to date, Superintendent.’

  Nikki followed him out and saw the retreating figure of Walker heading towards the lifts. She had sworn to him that Joseph had been in her home from dusk to dawn, but had he?

  As she made her way along the corridor, all she could hear were footfalls on the stairs of Cloud Cottage Farm, and maybe the sound of a door closing? She’d rather
stick pins her eyes than tell the chief, but in truth, she had no idea where Joseph had been at three that morning.

  * * *

  Dave and Cat arrived early, both carrying paper bags and polystyrene beakers. By that time Nikki had put together a pretty concise overview of the whole murder case, and after instructing them to bring their breakfast into her office, she closed the door and proceeded to tell them everything she knew. She left nothing out, except the details of the massacre in the Congo and Joseph’s unfortunate involvement. She did tell them however that Billy Sweet had been suspected of killing both his own mates and innocent women.

  ‘And Joseph believes this lunatic is here in Greenborough?’ asked Cat incredulously.

  ‘He’s certain of it.’ Nikki drummed her fingers on the desk. ‘But as Dave will explain, this can’t be true.’

  Dave detached the death certificate from a sheaf of papers and handed it to Cat.

  ‘Oh dear. So who is running around town trying to eradicate corn-dolly haircuts and pale blue eyes?’ Cat nibbled on her lip. ‘And we mustn’t forget that all the victims are Billy Sweet lookalikes.’ She scratched her head. ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘Well, I’ve been up half the night thinking about it, and this is my only conclusion.’ Dave stared at his Danish as if he hoped that it would give him inspiration. ‘It’s got to be an old case, something from Fenchester. We have to get him to think about anyone who has threatened him or bears him a serious grudge.’

  ‘But where does Billy Sweet come into it?’ asked Cat.

  ‘Hate is a powerful emotion. It can make a man very patient.’ Dave took a small bite of his pastry. ‘Someone has taken a lot of time to go back into the past, and they found a nasty rotten apple called Sweet. The very reason that Joseph threw up his glowing career in the army.’

  ‘But we’ve established that Sweet is dead,’ added Nikki impatiently.

  ‘But Joseph doesn’t know that, does he?’ said Dave patiently. ‘So you find someone who looks like him, then you make sure that Joseph believes it is him.’