The Body on the Shore

by The Body on the Shore (retail) (epub)

  ‘I didn’t know you was that brainy, sir,’ Hodges said.

  ‘And Colin, I didn’t know you were that obsequious,’ Gillard replied.

  ‘That’s another big word, sir,’ Hoskins said, then pointed to the whiteboard. ‘So where does all this get us?’

  Gillard smiled. ‘Nowhere, immediately. Just think of it as a framework that helps to clarify where we stand. Our priority now has to remain quite simple: it’s with the living. We have to find those kids and get them home safely. Knowing that someone has shot and killed a close member of their family makes that task even more urgent. And that’s why I need to see this Lincolnshire corpse.’

  Chapter 19

  The Albanian Kanun or Canon of blood feuds was formalized in the fifteenth century as the Code of Leke Dukagjini. It dates back to the Bronze Age, and covers everything from inheritance and the rights of the Church to the treatment of livestock. Leke Dukagjin (1410–81) was one of the leading figures of Albania’s resistance against the Ottoman Turks. The two most notorious elements, still applied to this day in the remote northern mountains, are the concepts of blood-taking, gjakmarrja, through a feud, and hakmarrja, the obligation to take life to right earlier wrongs and to salvage honour. Under the communist government of Enver Hoxha (1944–85), the Kanun and its code were suppressed. Participants in blood feuds were executed or sent to labour camps. In later years it has reappeared, though many of the traditional strictures, for example that women and children were exempt from blood feuds, have been ignored. Fear of being killed in blood feuds has been one of the main reasons cited by those seeking asylum abroad. This tendency has become complicated by the emergence of Albanian organized crime in child trafficking, and their growing dominance of the cocaine trade. Blood feud ‘certificates’ issued by the Albanian police have been used as proof of fear of persecution, though the Home Office believes that many are forged and now refuses to accept them. This leaves British asylum tribunals, faced with hundreds of otherwise undocumented young refugees, unable to distinguish between fact and fiction.

  (Extract from UK parliamentary Home Affairs Committee investigation, June 2014)

  Friday

  It was a quarter to five in the morning when Craig Gillard slipped out of bed, kissed his wife goodbye, and began the almost 200-mile journey to Lincolnshire. Last night he had looked at the map of the remote place he was going to and realized that he’d never been anywhere near it. The early bits of the journey, on the M25 and A1 (M), were dully familiar, and it was only a long time after he’d left Peterborough and got onto the A16 that the traffic became sparse and the character of the surroundings started to show. A rosy fleck or two on the horizon heralded the sunrise, while the soft grey of the low, mist-wreathed fens was punctured by the steeples of parish churches and the bare limbs of roadside trees. Gillard followed a tractor and muck spreader slowly into the town of Spalding, famed for its Dutch-style canals and unspoiled architecture. The satnav guided him onto a long straight road into Boston, cutting through fields whose rich soil would in a few months’ time be green with vegetables and salads. Towns he had never heard of – Spilsby, Alford and Horncastle – crept onto the satnav map. Gillard was taken by surprise by the rolling hills of the Lincolnshire Wolds, open arable fields, hedgerows, cattle and very little traffic. When he finally pulled into the coastal car park at Theddlethorpe, he felt like he’d been on the road all day, although it was only four hours. Waiting for him there was DCI Trevor Greycoates of Lincolnshire Police and, standing by his battered Land Rover, Jim Crowthorne, the ranger who had found the body.

  They had arranged to visit the spot where the body was found at exactly the same position of the tide. Greycoates look like a 1980s football commentator, with a long grey comb-over, a pepper-and-salt moustache, and even the sheepskin-collared coat. Only the wellingtons spoiled the image.

  The moment he got out of the car, Gillard wished he put brought a thicker coat himself. There was a raw, penetrating cold and blustery wind, which got to him even as he put his wellingtons on. The long yomp out, past brambles and dunes to the tidal mudflats, was a revelation to Gillard. ‘Why would anyone drag a body this far out?’ he yelled to Greycoates, trying to make himself heard above the wind.

  ‘I don’t think he was dead when they brought him out,’ the detective replied.

  Gillard looked around. He’d never seen such a big sky, nor such a featureless beach. It was still another 300 yards out to the shallow surf, marking the start of the North Sea. Another 200 miles beyond that was Holland. Why here? Gillard kept asking himself. His detective brain raced through the limited criminal possibilities of this part of the world: a place for a drug drop or human trafficking? Maybe. Not too far from the gangs of Grimsby, nor from the bigger players in the port of Hull just 40 miles north, with its ferry links to the Continent. Greycoates pointed to an orange plastic marker in the distance. When they reached it, teeth gritted into the wind, Gillard saw it was attached to a five-foot rod that had been banged into a sandbank.

  ‘This is the place,’ Crowthorne bellowed, his back to the wind. ‘Of course it’s changed shape a little even since I found it two weeks ago. The creek behind meanders back and forth on a weekly basis,’ he said.

  ‘And there were no footprints?’ Gillard asked.

  ‘Not around the body,’ Crowthorne said. ‘They would have been washed away by the tide.’

  ‘What about around the car park and above the high-tide level?’ he asked Greycoates.

  He was met with an expansive shrug. ‘As you saw, the path to the beach is concrete, until the last 20 yards before the beach proper begins, and there is loose, windblown sand. We had a look, but we didn’t think there was much chance of getting a realistic impression. It wasn’t helped that there was a delay of several hours before we marked the entranceway from the car park to the beach as a crime scene.’

  ‘So there had been other visitors?’ Gillard asked

  ‘Not lots, but a few, enough to make tracking footprints impossible.’

  Gillard looked up, and out to sea. This was a very obscure place. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to dump a body here. The question was, why would they do that?

  He turned back to Greycoates with a couple more questions about the condition of the body.

  ‘I think those answers would be best coming from Dr Javadi. She’s agreed to go over her findings with you.’

  ‘I’m looking forward to it,’ Gillard said, rubbing his hands. And that was only partially to keep them warm.

  * * *

  It took nearly two hours driving west to reach the Leicester Royal Infirmary. Dr Lida Javadi was a very busy woman and kept them waiting nearly half an hour. Finally, the Home Office forensic pathologist came to fetch them from reception. Dressed in a white coat, she was a handsome 50-something woman. After exchanging greetings, she led them into the mortuary. ‘We’ve had a spate of stabbings locally, so I regret that it has taken me longer than expected to put together my full report. At least it makes a change to have a shooting rather than more knife crime.’

  ‘So what did you discover?’ Gillard asked.

  ‘First off, the caveats: the body had been at least partially under salt water, presumably the tide, for at least six to eight hours by the time it was recovered. Seagulls and crabs had already made a start on him. Both eyeballs were missing, and there was considerable damage to the mouth and rectum…’

  Greycoates winced: ‘Is that what seagulls go for?’

  ‘I’m not an expert on scavengers, but my understanding is that bodily orifices are the primary route into a cadaver. Anyway, this inevitably muddies the waters, so to speak.’

  Gillard nodded. ‘But were you able to get some clues?’

  ‘My full report will be ready by Monday, but in summary we can say this: death was caused by a single bullet wound to the head. Time of death was approximately 12 hours before the discovery of the body. The hypostasis does not indicate bodily disturbance, so there is a strong
possibility that he was walked out to the beach and then shot, in the very position he was found.’

  ‘An execution?’ Gillard asked.

  ‘That is for you to decide,’ the pathologist replied. ‘My job is what happened to the body; it finishes at the skin. However, any layman would be able to observe that it is easier to get your victim to walk half a mile to his final resting place than to be carried after death.’

  ‘What else did you discover about the body?’

  ‘Age, perhaps mid-20s, healthy heart, kidneys, liver. Indications that he smoked, nicotine traces both from the lungs and the fingertips. No alcohol in his system, no trace of noteworthy drugs. All perfectly normal, internally. There were a number of contusions, and a parchmented abrasion on the body, on elbows and knees.’

  ‘Almost certainly when they roughed him up,’ Greycoates said.

  ‘Professionally, I couldn’t possibly speculate. However, common sense dictates that if one was dragged forcibly from a vehicle, one might expect to suffer these types of injuries.’

  ‘What about the burn that you mentioned?’ Gillard asked.

  ‘Yes.’ The pathologist pulled up an image on her computer screen. It showed the back of the head of a young man with short razor-cut dark hair and an angry-looking circular burn on the nape of his neck, three inches below the bullet entry point. ‘This is the type of injury caused by a piece of very hot metal pressed into the skin. A brand, in effect.’

  ‘After he was killed?’ he asked.

  ‘I doubt it,’ the pathologist said. ‘There was time enough for serum to rise to the surface, though nowhere enough time for scabbing.’

  ‘So he was tortured,’ Gillard said.

  ‘Quite possibly. It would be hard to conceive of accidental injuries of that kind, particularly in the context of the killing at around the same time.’ The pathologist swivelled on her chair to look back at the detective. ‘So do you know who he is?’

  ‘Up until yesterday, I would have had to say no,’ said Greycoates. ‘His DNA didn’t match anyone on our database. There was no wallet, phone, nor any papers on him that would give any obvious clue. As you say he is of Mediterranean-looking origin.’

  ‘When the mitochondrial check comes back, we will know more,’ Dr Javadi said. ‘But I understand you have a connection, Detective Chief Inspector Gillard?’

  ‘That’s right. We have a strong familial DNA link with two abducted children.’ He reminded them of the details of the case. ‘David and Amber Lund are Albanian orphans. Or that’s what we thought they were.’

  ‘So this chappie could be their father?’ Greycoates asked.

  ‘They are young enough for that to be the case,’ Gillard said. ‘Or their brother. But until we get the expert analysis we won’t know for sure whether they are siblings or children, or some other blood relative.’

  ‘Hmm, fascinating,’ the pathologist said. ‘I’m afraid the samples I sent for mitochondrial analysis will take another week and a half. Unlike you, at the time I ordered them I didn’t think I needed to splash out on the express service.’

  ‘Anything else we should know?’ Gillard asked.

  ‘Well, this won’t be mentioned on my report because it’s not pertinent to the way he died. I did notice that his fingernails have been carefully and probably professionally shaped sometime in the last week. The surface of his nails yielded evidence of a clear varnish, which we should be able to identify. His eyebrows had also been professionally shaped quite recently. I think threading is the term used.’

  ‘Are you hinting he was an uphill gardener?’ Greycoates chuckled.

  ‘I don’t hint, I give the facts,’ Dr Javadi said, raising a well-shaped eyebrow. ‘Assumptions about sexual orientation would be quite a leap at this stage. Thirty years ago police officers might have said the same about a man wearing an earring, and it could equally have been a mistake.’

  ‘For all that, it would be an idea to ask the gay community. It could be a real help in the missing persons angle,’ Gillard said.

  ‘Well, he doesn’t match any of the half-dozen young males missing locally, but if he was brought over here from, say, London, Nottingham or Leicester, we can really cut down the possibilities,’ Greycoates said.

  ‘It must be quite a small subset of the population,’ Gillard said. ‘Well-manicured Albanian males who haven’t been seen for a while.’

  ‘So would you like to take a look at him?’ Dr Javadi asked.

  DCI Greycoates had previously seen the body and made his excuses, but Gillard wanted to see for himself. The pathologist led him into the mortuary, handed him a white coat and some latex gloves. She and a male assistant located the body and pulled it out onto a trolley. A label dangled from the big toe. Gillard leaned over and looked at the man’s face. He was dark, hirsute and lightly bearded. While he looked of Mediterranean origin, the absence of eyes made it impossible to say whether he looked like young David Lund or not. The living and the dead, a man and a boy: just a double helix of familial connection.

  In this position the body had few visible wounds, apart from the Y-shaped incision from the post-mortem. Dr Javadi showed him each abrasion mentioned on her report. ‘Can you show me the neck burn?’ Gillard asked.

  With the help of the assistant, Javadi turned the corpse over. The burn on the neck was livid, and about three inches across. The discoloured glossy flesh had puckered from the heat, but it was quite easy to recognise the symbol that had been crudely branded on this young man.

  The triple-headed eagle of the Dragusha clan.

  Chapter 20

  DI Claire Mulholland had spent Thursday and Friday chasing two remaining leads in the shooting of Peter Young. The first, Karen Davies, the South African-born receptionist had been easy. The woman had not left Britain, indeed had no immediate plans to do so, and had been happy to be interviewed for a third time. After 40 minutes with her in Staines police station on the Thursday morning, Mulholland was convinced that the woman was innocent. Despite her shooting skills, she didn’t fit the profile of an assassin: why get to know the victim before killing him? Why catch a bus and shoot him through the window when she could have done it any morning face-to-face? Most of all, why hang around afterwards to be interviewed three times by the police?

  The second lead was a bit more interesting. Ryan Hardcastle, a self-appointed tough guy, lived opposite the murder scene, in a place from which the fatal shot could have been fired. He was the only one with a motive, because of the arguments over the parking place and the vandalizing of Peter Young’s car. Although she doubted that Hardcastle himself would have fired the weapon, he might easily have a contact who would do the hit for a fee. Mulholland arranged to interview him, again at Staines on the Friday afternoon, but before that she went to HMP Coldingley, an hour’s drive west, to find out what she could about his conduct there. The female governor was very helpful and provided a senior prison liaison officer who had detailed records of Hardcastle’s ‘known associates’ during his time there. Hardcastle was one of the few short-term prisoners in what is generally a lifer’s institution, but none of his cellmates over the six months he was there seemed to have the right credentials for a hit. The nearest was a Jamaican gangster called Arthur ‘Asbo’ Williams, who had worked in the kitchens with him. Williams had years before been a Yardie in Birmingham, and presumably could get a shooter without too much difficulty. He had been discharged from prison just before Christmas. Mulholland started to get quite excited about the connection, and on returning to the office pulled up Asbo Williams’s full criminal record. Checking the call records from Hardcastle’s own mobile, which she’d got from the service provider last week, flagged up a number which was down as Asbo Williams’s landline in Birmingham. Hardcastle had called him three days after Christmas, a perfect set-up time for a hit in January.

  So Mulholland was feeling quite optimistic when she walked back into Staines police station with Carl Hoskins that afternoon, ready to interview Ryan Hardcastle.
The duty solicitor, a tiny Sikh lady called Mrs Singh, was already waiting.

  As before, the interviewee was perfectly polite, with Hardcastle quite readily agreeing that he had fallen out with Peter Young over the parking space.

  ‘There is no parking space anywhere near Roosevelt Road, so what was I to do? It was no bother to him, I’d leave pretty much as soon as he arrived.’

  ‘Why didn’t you mention this when you were first interviewed?’ Mulholland asked, looking down at Gillard’s notes.

  ‘One, I forgot, and two, it was no big deal.’

  ‘But you scratched up his car,’ Hoskins said. ‘And broke off his wipers.’

  ‘That wasn’t me,’ Hardcastle said, staring out of the window.

  ‘Please present any evidence you have that Mr Hardcastle was involved in this crime,’ Mrs Singh said.

  Mulholland shrugged. ‘Okay, so tell me about Asbo Williams.’

  The abrupt change of tack seemed to surprise Hardcastle, who then gave a rather charitable summary of the Jamaican’s criminal CV and his considerable culinary skills, as revealed in HMP Coldingley’s kitchen. ‘Great jerk chicken, he did. Angie still uses the recipe,’ he said. ‘Just a bit too fond of the spice.’

  ‘He’s good with guns too, isn’t he?’ she asked.

  ‘Maybe, I don’t know,’ shrugged Hardcastle. He stared out of the window again.

  ‘Did you get him to do the hit on Peter Young?’ she asked.

  Hardcastle laughed and looked up at the ceiling ‘’Course I didn’t. I didn’t want anyone killed. I’m not like that.’