by Conrad Jones
He reached into his breast pocket with his right hand and removed three ten pound notes. Handing the notes to her, he undid his anorak and stared at her. It was a look which most couldn’t return without looking away. Tasha hesitated as she put the money into her bra, thinking seriously about not finishing their transaction and bolting instead, but she needed the money. She needed it badly. First thing on the list was meth and second was a half bottle of vodka to help through the nightshift. Her nerves were jangling as she slid across the passenger seat and reached for his belt buckle. She could see her reflection in the window and the image was disconcerting. There were dark circles beneath her once dazzling eyes. She knew that the drugs were aging her rapidly but it wouldn’t be like that forever. Once she re-enrolled in university, she would get clean.
She fumbled with the buckle. The rolls of fat hanging over his belt obstructed her. When it came free she breathed a sigh of relief and flicked the button open before tugging the zip down. “Slide your pants over your hips so I can get to it,” she said impatiently, “I haven’t got all night.” He smiled for the first time and she noticed how crooked his teeth were. She should have felt more relaxed but she didn’t, she felt a bolt of fear shoot through her. His smile was more of sneer. There was evil behind it. She could sense menace. The thought of what she had to do made her feel nauseous but she’d learned to take her mind to another place while she performed. It had been that way as far back as she could remember. Her stepfather had stolen her childhood years, sneaking into her room whenever her mother went to the bingo. He had taken every opportunity possible to undress her, bathe her and abuse her. She was an only child, which meant that he could focus all his twisted attention on her. When she was twelve, she had her first period and suddenly the abuse stopped. He died of lung cancer a year later and she watched his disintegration from a strange perspective. Part of her wanted him to suffer indefinitely but somewhere inside she pitied him. The grief she felt when he died ran unexplainably deep. She could never forgive him but she couldn’t forget the times that he was kind either. Eventually she stopped looking for explanations within and she kept the skill of disassociating herself from her body and turned it to good use on the streets. Stepping into the role of a working girl was an easy transition.
“Let the dog see the rabbit,” she sighed as she bent towards his groin.
His left hand grabbed a fistful of hair on the back of her head. At first she thought he liked it rough but when he twisted it painfully and pushed her face closer to his own, she realised he meant to harm her. Adrenalin rushed into her veins and she lashed out. She pushed her hands against his thigh trying to pull free but he was strong. Her fingers dug into his legs and her feet kicked at the door. She thrashed about violently trying to break free but he held her in a vice-like grip. A scream rose in her throat but before she could let it out, she heard the crackling noise of electricity. Red hot pain shot through her neck. Her teeth cracked together painfully as her muscles went into spasm and she could smell burning flesh. Although white lightning flashed in her brain, she knew that it was her flesh that she could smell. His smile widened as she twitched and bucked into unconsciousness.
Chapter 7
“Why are we splitting the dog teams up?” Sergeant Atherton asked irritably. The wind from the sea was still bitterly cold and his temper was wearing thin. “They work better as a unit. We can cover more area that way.”
“When you have one area to search?”
“Well, yes.”
“This time, we don’t have just one area to search,” Stirling said slowly. “We need two areas searched at the same time,” Stirling shrugged. “It’s not fucking rocket science, is it?”
“Funny guy,” Atherton whined.
“I’m not trying to be funny.”
“It wouldn’t be so bad if we knew why we are searching two areas.”
“Because we need two areas searching. That’s all you need to know for now.”
“What’s all the secrecy about?”
“I can’t say anything just yet but we have two possible dump sites to cover. We can’t let the press get hold of it yet.” Stirling shrugged and studied the area beneath the trees with his eyes. “You have swept the entire path on both sides?”
“Both sides are clear.” CSI officers were combing the area to the left of the path while the dog unit searched the opposite side. “At least the rain has stopped, although anything on the sand will already be useless.”
“We wouldn’t split up the dogs. Is Bugsy interfering again?” Atherton muttered. “My hounds would be proud of those teeth.”
“If I was you,” Stirling pointed his finger, “I’d shut my mouth and get on with the job.”
“You would, Stirling,” the dog handler snapped. “You’re so far up her arse that you could clean her teeth from the inside.”
“She’s the best DI that I’ve worked under,” Stirling snarled, “and your only problem is that she wears a skirt. What’s up? Does it dent your ego taking orders from a woman?”
“No,” Atherton replied nervously. Stirling was a big man with a formidable reputation. “My problem is being told how to do my job by a pen-pushing bint that hasn’t got a clue about working with cadaver dogs.”
“Oh and your unit is shit hot, is it?”
“We’re the best there is.”
“Kathy Brooks and the CSI team wasted three hours uncovering a rotting shite-hawk because your dog indicated a body. A very expensive seagull!” Stirling stepped into his personal space. “It hasn’t been mentioned to the Super because Annie asked Kathy to leave it out of her report, so before you go shooting your big mouth and running her down, I’d have a think about it.”
“I didn’t realise,” Atherton stuttered.
“No you didn’t, did you,” Stirling said angrily. “But while budgets are being slashed, I’d be very careful who to criticise, especially when you’ve unnecessarily added a few grand to the investigation.”
“It’s been a long week. I’m just tired,” Atherton blushed. “Sorry.”
“Bollocks,” Stirling lowered his voice. Some of the officers nearby had noticed their exchange. He smiled to put them at ease. “If I hear you calling the DI, ‘Bugsy’, again, we’re going to be rolling around in the sand.” Stirling turned the insult back on him. “Do you understand me?”
“Perfectly,” Atherton replied hoarsely. He straightened himself up and walked away embarrassed. “I’ll go and check on the progress.”
“You do that.”
“Sarge,” a voice called from behind him. He turned and trudged up the sandy path to where the CSI officer stood. The sun was shining weakly though the tree canopy but it was low in the sky and had no warmth in it. “Can you take a look at this?” the white clad figure asked.
“What have you got?”
“The sand is too wet to hold any footprints but look here.” He pointed excitedly as he spoke. Stirling scanned the elephant grass, which was interspersed with reeds at the edge of the kidney shaped pond. A hundred metres across the water, he could see the bench where Tibbs had sat while Annie grilled him. “See there in the mud. There are two sets of footprints, which look like they were made by training shoes to me. The imprint looks pretty sharp. I could lift them.”
“I think you’re right,” Stirling agreed. “We’ll need casts of them please.” He noticed that the reeds were snapped in places. “It looks to me like someone put something into the water.”
“How deep do you think it is?”
“Waist high, no more than that.”
“I’ll get the waders out of the van and sweep the shallows.”
“Okay.” Stirling grimaced as he looked at the dark pond. “The DI is going to love this. If there’s anything in there, I hope it’s near the edge or we’ll need the dive team too.”
“This area is clear,” Atherton called from the trees. “Unless you’ve got any objections, I suggest we join the other dog units near the dunes?”
“We were told that the men who dumped the dog collar walked from this path around the pound to the car park,” Stirling recounted. “The dogs have searched all the way to the road?”
“There and back again,” Atherton raised his eyebrows. “Bearing in mind where your information came from, I’m hardly surprised that you’ve come up with nothing. Tibbs is a lying kiddie-fiddler. I’m amazed a detective with your years of service would listen to a word he said.”
“Well we did and until we call the area clear, we finish the job,” Stirling sounded unconvincing. “If you’ve finished the woods, let’s get all the dog units concentrated near the dunes.”
“Good idea,” Atherton rolled his eyes. He looked like he was about to add another cutting remark when the radio crackled.
“Guv,” a voice came through the static.
“Go ahead,” Atherton answered.
“We could do with a hand over here.” There was concern in the voice.
“What’s up?”
“Sally has sat down on three so far and I’m not more than two hundred metres from the car park.” Atherton looked at Stirling with his mouth open. He wasn’t sure whether to be worried or not.
“She had better not be sitting on bloody seagulls again,” he said flatly. “I’m bringing Dobson over now.” Atherton shrugged and half smiled. “They can’t all be shite-hawks, although part of me hopes that they are.”
“Definitely not, Guv,” the voice crackled again. “CSI team have found tubes in the sand just below the surface. “It looks like we’ve got three more prawns.”
Atherton blushed at the final comment. “Sorry. I call him empty-head because he doesn’t think before he speaks.”
“Prawns?” Stirling asked incredulously. “It’s one thing calling the victims prawns and another doing it over the comms. Have a word with him will you? There could be half a dozen nerds listening to us on scanners.”
“I will do,” Atherton jogged off as he spoke. “Are you coming?”
“I’ll wait until the pond has been searched,” Stirling shouted after him. “The DI is questioning Tibbs but when she’s finished, she’ll be in charge down there so don’t let her hear empty-head calling the victims prawns.” Atherton nodded and jogged on, a wry grin on his face. Stirling had a good idea where empty-head had heard the derogatory term first. Dark humour was common at the crime scenes he had worked on. He replayed images of the past in his mind as he walked along the edge of the pond. Recovering bodies from water was never pleasant. The longer the victim was submerged, the more advanced the decay became. He recalled a case when a lifeboat crew attempted to extract a body from the Mersey Estuary. It was so rotten that the arms were pulled off during the struggle. Lacey Taylor had been missing for weeks. If she was in the pond, her body would be bloated and would float to the surface unless it was weighted.
“We’re going to start over here, Guv,” a voice disturbed his thoughts. Stirling looked back as saw two CSI officers clad in green rubber waders, which reached to just below the armpits. “We’ll take the casts when we’ve searched the water.”
“Okay,” Stirling waved. “There’s nothing in the sand here to indicate that anyone ventured far from the path. If they had carried a dead body then they wouldn’t want to carry it any further than absolutely necessary, especially if it was weighted.”
“I wouldn’t want to dump a body too close to the edge though, Guv.”
“I’m guessing it was dark,” Stirling thought out loud. “They carried the body from the car park. All the way up that path, around the pond and along here to this side. I would have deemed this the furthest point away from where most people walk, wouldn’t you?”
“I suppose so.” The CSI shrugged as he squelched into the water. Thick black mud sucked at his limbs and he had to wrench his feet free to move forward. He probed the pond bed with a white pole, searching for anything that didn’t belong there. “It’s very shallow here. I’ll try further out and you check that side,” he said to his colleague. “Go easy with your pole.”
“Said the choirboy to the priest,” Stirling laughed.
“The old ones are the best.”
“Unless you’re a Catholic, and then it’s offensive.”
“Are you a catholic?”
“No.”
“Shut up then.”
“When you’ve finished your stand up routine, I’ve found something.”
“What is it?” Stirling peered over the reeds but he couldn’t see anything. He edged along the bank to a better vantage spot. The CSI probed the water feeling out the shape beneath the water. His colleague approached him from the right. His movement created chevron shaped ripples on the surface. “I’m pretty sure that we’ve got a body, Sarge. I’m waist deep but I think we can lift it between us.”
“Hey,” Stirling shouted to the officers nearby, “come and give us a lift here.”
“Guv.” Four white clad men jogged to the pond.
The officers in waders bent double and strained to move the dead weight from the muddy water. The sandy gunk on the bed seemed to suck the object down, refusing to release it. No matter how hard they tried, it wouldn’t budge. “It’s not going to shift, Guv,” one of them panted. His face was ruddy with exertion. “It feels like a tarpaulin. I can feel a chain wrapped around it so I think it’s weighted.”
“It looks like we’re going to get our feet wet,” Stirling laughed dryly as he slipped his coat off. He hung it on a tree and then trudged into the reeds. Icy water ran into his shoes, seeping between his toes. His feet were instantly numbed by the cold. The other officers followed his example, without question. “Two of you at each end, I’ll grab the middle.” He waited until they had a grip and then nodded, “on three. One, two, lift.”
A blue plastic tarpaulin broke free of the surface. A thick rusty chain was wrapped around it; wire mesh encased the entirety, keeping the contents from spilling out. Pondweed and sludge clung to the blue material. The sulphur-like smell of rotting vegetation and decaying pond life filled the air, followed by the cloying stench of decomposition. “Let’s move it to the bank there. We don’t want to trample on those prints.” They moved as a unit until they were clear of the pond and gently laid the bundle on the ground. Stirling parted the plastic at one end of the roll and looked at the others. They exchanged glances. “Well, I didn’t expect that.” Stirling shook his head and grimaced as the stench of rotting flesh hit him. “Unless Lacey Taylor had hairy toes, big feet and hadn’t shaved her legs for a year or two, this isn’t her.”
The CSI officer at the opposite end fumbled with the mesh to find an opening. He recoiled as he peered inside. “Jesus,” he gasped. The blood drained from his face and he put his hand over his mouth. “The head’s been removed, Guv.”
“Brilliant,” Stirling muttered. He took off his shoes to pour the water out, instantly regretting it as his socks became encrusted with sand. “Get him to the lab, pronto. We need to know who he is and we need to know quickly.”
“Guv.”
“I want the rest of the pond dragged,” he added as he banged his sandy socks against a tree. He struggled into his coat and some of the warmth returned. “It looks to me that Lacey Taylor was involved in more than running youth centres.”
Chapter 8
“Interview with Richard Tibbs, twenty-second of November, twenty-fourteen,” Annie Jones prepped the tape. “Officers present, DI Anne Jones and DC Steven Lewis. Time is nine hundred hours.” She sat back in her chair and looked at Tibbs with a stony glare. “This is a one off opportunity to help you to help yourself,” she paused. “You are withholding vital information regarding the identity of a suspect in a possible murder investigation. If you want to get out of here anytime soon, then you need to start cooperating.”
“You gave me your word that there would be no tapes,” Tibbs croaked. He looked tired and ten years older than the last time she sat in the interview room with him. A sleepless night in the cells hadn’t agreed with h
im. He looked hopeless. Not for the first time in his life, he felt defeated. “I came here to help and we had a deal.”
“That was before you lied to me and it became obvious that you’d breached your bail conditions,” Annie snapped. “Now all assurances are null and void unless you start cooperating. You went to a primary school with sweets.”
“It’s not what you think.”
“It never is. Start talking or you’re on your way to Walton.”
Tibbs hesitated before he spoke. Walton wasn’t somewhere that a sex offender wanted to be, unless they had a death wish. “I’ll tell you what I saw, as long as you understand that I won’t testify.”
“I can’t promise anything.”
“Then I’m not saying anything. It’s that simple. I cannot testify.”
“You’re a nonce, Tibbs,” Lewis snapped. “You’re on the sex offender’s register and you went to a primary school with sweets. The judge will lock you up without blinking.”
“They won’t.”
“They will and don’t kid yourself, Tibbs.”
“It’s all so unfair,” Tibbs sighed. He smiled sadly. “You don’t have a clue about me.”
“I know enough.”
“You look at the register and you can’t see past it.” Tibbs shook his head. His eyes were sunken and weary. “I thought detectives were supposed to delve into all the evidence before they come to a conclusion. Innocent until proven guilty doesn’t really exist does it?”
“It does and we do investigate thoroughly,” Annie said vehemently. “There is enough in your file to tell me that you should have been locked up the last time you were in court, but the judge was a do-gooding arsehole and gave you a second chance.”
“There is nothing in my file prior to two years ago is there?”
“No.”
“I’ve had a bad time that’s all.”
“Rubbish,” Annie said. “No sooner are you back on the street when you find a primary school within access of a remote location where you can park your car and stroll through a nature reserve without arousing suspicion. You’re a danger to the public.”