Against the Tide

by Stephen Puleston

  ‘That’s no bloody good, Dave,’ Winder said.

  ‘Why not? Better than nothing.’

  ‘We don’t even know if they are persons of interest yet,’ Drake said. ‘Somebody out there had a motive to kill Ed Mostyn.’

  ‘Anything in the papers from the cottage?’

  ‘Just started, boss.’ Howick gestured to a pile of paper on his desk.

  Winder made a face. ‘And there’s the smell of fish bait on everything.’

  Drake cut in. ‘Anything from house-to-house?’ He watched heads shaking slowly. ‘And anybody been to see WPC Gooding in the mobile incident room?’

  ‘The guy from the local post office makes a nuisance of himself,’ Winder said. ‘He’s full of bullshit. And I checked our records – there’s nothing known about him. But I don’t think we could rely on anything he’s said. There was a crowd in the shop when I called, all listening to him like he was an Old Testament prophet.’

  ‘Having someone killed in a quiet village isn’t exactly commonplace is it, Gareth?’ Caren said.

  Winder pouted. ‘He mentioned the name Somerset de Northway again. He told me—’

  ‘I know. He gave us the details too. We’ll need to talk to him next week. Any sign of Ed Mostyn having made a will?’

  Howick shook his head.

  Drake wagged a finger at both men. ‘That’s the priority for both of you next week. I want the house-to-house finished too.’ He turned to the board and pointed at the name ‘Maldwyn Evans’ printed in bold font. ‘We need the names of Rhys Fairburn and Gwynfor Llywelyn up here as well.’

  Howick and Winder both wore serious expressions. Drake continued. ‘Get a full financial check done on all of them.’ He turned to Caren. ‘In the meantime I want to know everything about Ed Mostyn. Bank accounts, credit cards.’

  Drake strode over to his office and sat down. He noticed, from a certain angle, yesterday’s dust on the computer monitor. The photographs of his daughters had been moved since the night before; they were no longer aligned as they should be, along a particular grain of the wood of his desk. He watched his hand reach out over the desk, moving involuntarily towards the picture frames. It was so easy and once he’d made the adjustment he could clean the screen and empty the bin and then concentrate on work.

  He made an effort to pull his hand back and it stopped, suspended in mid-air until something pulled it away from him again. He closed his eyes. He forced his hand onto the desk and the pile of statements, the first of the paperwork that would dominate the inquiry.

  Chapter 9

  ‘Area control, sir.’ The voice sounded detached, like the pre-recorded announcers at post offices. ‘There’s a report of a fatality.’

  Drake stood up abruptly, pushing back his chair, which crashed against the radiator behind him. He finished the call and looked out into the Incident Room.

  ‘Caren,’ Drake shouted before making for the door and retrieving his suit jacket as she appeared in the doorway. ‘There’s a body been found a couple of miles from where Mostyn was killed.’

  The traffic was heavy for a Monday morning as Drake powered westwards along the A55, the main dual carriageway that crossed the North Wales coast from Holyhead to the border with England. Springsteen’s Born to Run was playing on the CD, but his mind was full of the comments Sian had made the day before about where they were going and that she was finding it harder to live with the constraints that his rituals inevitably brought into their home life. He followed Caren’s directions before peeling off the dual carriageway. The car jolted to a halt at the roundabout at the top of the slip road and Caren pointed towards an exit.

  ‘Are the CSIs there?’ Caren said.

  ‘No, on their way.’ Drake crossed the roundabout.

  ‘Then who’s at the crime scene? Turn left here.’

  ‘Uniformed lads.’

  Caren reached for the satnav, punched in the postcode and waited, staring down at the LCD display. A voice gave directions and Drake obediently turned left down a narrow track towards an entrance to a farm. The road then forked right, over a cattle grid, the tarmac petering out into a track, a line of grass down its middle that brushed the underside of the car.

  The track soon disappeared altogether and they found themselves on a rough, sandy area lined with potholes. Drake slowed and negotiated his way around the various holes until he saw a patrol car in the distance. He turned the satnav off and pulled up alongside the police car.

  Once Drake had locked the car he marched over towards the shore. In front of a row of four cottages, their roof line sagging with age, stood a man in cycling shorts holding a helmet and talking to a uniformed officer, a mountain bike discarded on a sand dune nearby. It looked expensive, suspension front and rear.

  ‘Good morning, sir. Constable Radcliffe.’

  ‘Where’s the body?’ Drake said.

  Radcliffe pointed beyond a mound of grass and vegetation, towards the sea. ‘Constable Parkes is down there.’

  ‘Can I go now?’ the cyclist said.

  Drake gave the man an intense stare. ‘You’ll stay until I say otherwise.’ He strode down to the water’s edge, Caren following behind him.

  A voice shouted over at them. ‘Here, sir.’

  Parkes had sand dusted over the bottom of his trousers and a harassed look on his face. The relief was evident when he saw Drake. The body of a girl was lying face down by the edge of the beach, well above high water and sheltered by the dunes. She had long blonde hair cascading over her shoulders. Her jeans looked clean and well pressed. Her legs were curled slightly, making it difficult to judge her height.

  ‘Is there any ID on the body?’ Drake said.

  ‘I haven’t touched her,’ Parkes said, faintly surprised that Drake had expected him to search a corpse.

  The young officer stood to one side and Drake leant down. Behind him he heard the familiar sound of the Scientific Support Vehicle drawing to a halt. Fine grains of sand were already rubbing against his skin inside his socks. The thought of his car being full of sand for weeks, trapped in the carpet of the footwell, set him on edge. He wondered about booking a professional valet.

  He snapped on a pair of latex gloves and turned the body onto her side, then searched through the pockets of her jeans. He guessed she was twenty, maybe younger. He hesitated when he saw the deep bruising around her neck.

  Footsteps approached and then the voice of Mike Foulds. ‘Good morning, Ian.’

  Drake unzipped the girl’s light-grey fleece and searched the two inside pockets.

  ‘Who’s the dead girl?’

  ‘No ID as yet.’ From the second pocket Drake found a small purse. He snapped it open and drew out a driving licence and a bankcard. ‘Jane Jones, Tyddyn Du farm.’

  Drake stood up and stared down at the body. He left Foulds and the CSIs to their work and strode away from the beach, Caren following in his slipstream.

  Drake stopped next to Radcliffe and turned to the cyclist. ‘Does anyone live here?’

  ‘How would I know? I’m on holiday.’ Drake couldn’t identify the accent immediately – Midlands, maybe Birmingham.

  ‘We’ll need your details. Name and address.’

  ‘Can I go then?’

  Drake didn’t answer; he was already striding towards the cottages, leaving Caren jotting down the man’s contact details. The windows on the first cottage were dirty, obliterating any chance to see inside. The door was locked and when he thumped on it the place sounded empty. There was a low stone wall surrounding a small front garden and he walked round to the second property. Sellotaped to the door was a plastic envelope with the contact details of the Anglesey Wildlife and Environmental Trust printed in clear letters on a sheet inside. He found his mobile and rang the number. It rang out a couple of times until the messaging service clicked on, first in English and then in Welsh. Drake left a message, urgently asking someone to call him.

  The windows of the next cottage were cleaner and Drake knelt to peer
in. There were some implements and an old wooden settle. Caren was rattling the door of another cottage, its windows shaded by a net curtain. Drake stared up at the roof. Nothing had been done to the cottages for years. The pretty postcard image didn’t last long once he’d looked carefully.

  ‘Anything in the first two?’ Caren said.

  Drake shook his head. ‘There’s a contact number for some charity.’

  ‘Place looks deserted.’

  ‘We need to find out who owns them.’

  Drake walked down towards Foulds and the CSIs working around the body. He passed cases of equipment piled above the high-water mark; his shoes sank into the sand as he approached the tent erected over the body.

  ‘She was strangled,’ Foulds said.

  Two CSIs were scouring the sand; another searched the surrounding dunes and shoreline.

  ‘Pathologist?’ Drake said.

  ‘On his way. We’ll move her once he’s finished.’

  ‘Anything from the search so far?’

  ‘Nothing and I’m not expecting any results either. There’s sand everywhere. We don’t have a chance of finding anything.’

  Overhead two small training jets flew past. Drake returned to the cottages and strode up onto a large mound. He stood and looked down the inlet towards the sea; the tips of antennas and masts from the nearby RAF station could be seen in the distance. The sun was hot, and below him Drake saw the small pool formed by a curling finger of rocks jutting out into the inlet, an idyllic secluded spot for swimming. The CSIs had moved away from the shoreline, and in the distance was the small bridge near where they’d found Ed Mostyn.

  He heard the phut-phut sound of an outboard approaching and he saw a small fishing dinghy pointing its bow towards a sandy section of the shore. Drake scrambled down from his position and walked over to where the boat had landed.

  The fisherman was lifting lobster pots out of his dinghy laden with rods and buckets of bait and equipment. He stopped when he saw Drake. The man wore a battered red fleece over a T-shirt torn at the neck and a pair of faded jeans.

  Drake produced his card. ‘Detective Inspector Drake.’

  ‘I know who you are.’ The man stood dead still.

  ‘A body has been found on the beach behind me.’

  The man looked at Drake, said nothing, waited.

  ‘I need to know who owns the cottages.’

  The man moved a hand over his face, pulling at his nose. ‘Who’s been killed?’

  ‘We haven’t got a positive identification yet.’

  ‘Man or woman?’

  Drake wanted to believe the man wasn’t being deliberately obtuse. ‘I’ll need your personal details.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘What’s your name?

  Drake scribbled down the details. ‘So, do you know who owns the cottages?’

  ‘Of course. Somerset de Northway.’

  Chapter 10

  Drake drove down several single-track lanes before realising each time that he was in the wrong place, forcing him to retrace his route back to the main road. Eventually he found the right turning. After a narrow entrance, the lane opened into a long straight road for about a hundred and fifty metres, with a ditch on either side filled with green stagnant water; an expanse of reeds covered an area to Drake’s right. At the end of the track a small post with a crooked sign announced the entrance to the farm.

  Tyddyn Du looked over a handful of small fields down to the shore. The house looked bleak; the window frames were painted a dark brown, now barely distinguishable from the walls. Outside was a row of sheds covered in corrugated iron with wooden doors, their red paint peeling and tired. What first struck Drake when he got out of the car was the smell. It was the usual smell of soil and earth, but also the harshness and acidity of diesel or petrol.

  Drake walked over a path of large flat stones towards the rear door: it was dark blue and unusually large, and as he approached it was opened by a middle-aged woman, her complexion pasty, her long grey hair unbrushed and unloved.

  ‘Mrs Jones?’ Drake said. ‘Detective Inspector Drake.’ He held up his warrant card. ‘And this is Detective Sergeant Waits.’

  ‘Mildred… Mildred Jones. Have you come about Jane?’ She looked tired and drawn. ‘Come in.’

  She led them through the kitchen into a parlour. Natural light came into the room from two small, deeply recessed windows, covered in thick net curtains.

  ‘My husband, Ray.’ Mildred gave a lank wave towards him. Jones was dressed in a collarless shirt and a dark blue serge waistcoat. The wrinkles on his brow were deep and wide, covering his entire forehead. He nodded. Drake resisted the usual courtesy of extending his hand, sensing an invisible barrier. Ray remained seated while Mildred stood with Drake and Caren in the middle of the room.

  ‘May we sit down?’ Drake said.

  Caren found two chairs from the table and they sat down opposite Ray Jones. Mildred sat next to him on the old sofa, at the edge of the seat as though she was waiting to fall off. Drake cleared his throat and glanced at Caren. Her face had an intensity Drake had not seen before.

  ‘I have some bad news. This morning we found a body on a beach nearby. We believe it might be Jane. I am most terribly sorry.’

  For a moment Mildred just looked at Drake and then at Caren, before her eyes began to fill and then she started crying uncontrollably. Gulping for breath in between the blubbering, she clasped her hands to her face, saying nothing. Ray just sat there, a blank expressionless face; but his jaw tightened as his wife spoke haltingly between the sobs.

  ‘I knew something was wrong. I just knew it,’ she cried.

  Ray lifted an arm over his wife’s shoulder without moving himself any nearer to her.

  ‘It’ll be all right. We’ll be all right,’ he said simply.

  She ignored him and continued to weep. Between the tears she tried to grasp a small glimmer of hope. ‘Can you be sure it’s Jane?’ More sobbing. ‘How do you know it’s her?’ But then a certainty prevailed. ‘I told her to be careful.’

  She covered her face with her hands.

  Ray Jones turned to look at Drake. ‘Jane had some friends that we thought were a bad influence.’

  Although Ray Jones looked towards Drake, he adopted an affectation of averting his eyes to an invisible spot on the ceiling.

  ‘I know this has been a terrible shock. But we will need you make an identification.’

  Ray Jones stared at Drake.

  ‘I need you to come to the hospital.’

  ‘What, now?’ Ray asked.

  ‘You can travel with me and we’ll arrange for a family liaison officer to bring you back. I know it will be a difficult time.’

  ‘We won’t need any help, thank you,’ Ray said as his head pointed at Drake, his eyes returning again to the ceiling. His voice was firm and the tone contemptuous.

  Drake continued. ‘The officer won’t be in the way at all. I’m sure it will be of help.’

  But Ray Jones was dismissive. ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘Do you have any other close family?’ Drake asked. ‘Any other children?’

  Mildred answered Drake between sobs. ‘Ellen lives in Litchfield. She’s a teacher and Huw, he’s away today.’

  ‘I can arrange for a policeman to call and see your daughter.’

  ‘No, that won’t be necessary,’ Ray Jones said. ‘We’ll call her.’

  Drake was finding this hard going – harder than any other time. ‘What about Huw – can we contact him somehow?’

  ‘He should be back soon,’ Ray said flatly.

  Drake continued. ‘If it’s possible, could we agree to meet you at the hospital in two hours’ time? In the meantime Sergeant Waits will write down our telephone numbers so that if you need to contact us you can do so.’

  Mildred continued to cry, but the intensity was diminishing. Eventually Drake and Caren left the farmhouse.

  ‘That was weird,’ Caren said as they walked back to their car.


  Drake looked over at the land surrounding the farmhouse; weeds grew in wild unkempt clumps all over the grass and fences lay broken. His grandfather would never have tolerated such bad husbandry.

  ‘I’ve never seem someone react in such a way,’ Caren continued.

  Drake stood for a moment as he reached the car. ‘I wonder when Huw will be home,’ he said, thinking about Mildred. ‘I hope he’ll be of help.’

  ‘Shall I ask them again if they want me to accompany them to the hospital? I can always wait until Huw arrives,’ she added.

  ‘I think that Ray Jones’ reply was quite clear.’ Drake opened the car and climbed in. He started the engine as Caren closed the door behind her. ‘Let’s keep an eye on the family at the hospital and then we can always send one of the liaison officers to the house each day.’

  *

  Time dragged as Drake and Caren stood outside the front doors of the hospital waiting for Mildred and Ray to arrive. Drake looked at his watch, regretting not being more forceful with Ray Jones and insisting that the family travel with them.

  Drake saw Mildred first; she seemed to have visibly shrivelled. Ray walked to one side of his wife, the distance marking the relationship between them. Mildred walked with a slight stoop that Drake hadn’t noticed in the house but Ray, despite his size, also appeared shrunken. When Mildred reached the door she appeared surprised to see Drake and Caren.

  ‘What do we do now?’ she asked simply.

  ‘I know this will be difficult,’ Drake told her, as he led them through the hospital corridors.

  Drake was close to Mildred and Ray as they entered the mortuary. Ray kept his hands in his pocket; Mildred grasped a handbag tightly. The body lay on a table covered in a white cloth that the technician pulled away to reveal the blonde hair and features that made Jane recognisable. Drake was pleased that the technician hadn’t revealed the bruising around her neck. Mildred’s eyes filled with tears before her face collapsed into a contortion of emotion and she began to sob.