by Andrew Lowe
‘All legal, though?’
Sawyer rolled the sweet around his mouth. ‘Naturally. Can you have a look for a character called Stuart Sutton? I’m helping the mother of a missing teenager, Darren Coleman. I want to find out more about Sutton. They were friends, but there might be more there. Some kind of drug connection. Sutton was excluded from Cedar Mount School near Matlock in the early 2010s. Possession. I assume he was cautioned by local plod at the time.’
‘So, what do you need? A recent address?’
‘Anything would do. Detail on the charge would be good, too. I’d like Mr Sutton to help me with my enquiry, but I’d prefer someone else to do the initial enquiring, and I’ll cover anything face to face. Also, can you see if there’s any history of officer attendance or complaints about hazing rituals or initiation ceremonies at Cedar Mount?’
Walker cleared his throat. ‘I’m on it.’
‘Thank you, Matt.’
‘So what are your thoughts on the Hardwick murder?’
Sawyer climbed into the car and shut the door. ‘Somebody wanted him to suffer.’
‘Uhuh.’
He adjusted the rear-view mirror. ‘Somebody wanted to see him suffer.’
21
Maggie snuck up behind Mia as she admired herself in the hall mirror beside the enormous Kandinsky reprint. She slipped a ten-pound note into her daughter’s pocket, leaned down and whispered, ‘Get popcorn.’
Mia smiled and whispered back, ‘Dad doesn’t like us eating popcorn.’
‘Sit on the end seat. Pretend you’re going for a wee when he’s engrossed in the film, get it then. He won’t notice.’
Mia swished her bright blonde hair out of her face. ‘Mum! You’re bad.’
Maggie hugged her. ‘It’s a minor crime, darling.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Enjoy yourself, and make sure you share it with Freddy.’
Mia rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, yeah. Like I’m going to eat a whole bucket of popcorn by myself.’
‘Plenty of people could.’
‘Uncle Jake.’
Maggie laughed. ‘Oh, definitely.’
‘And my friend Emma can eat a Creme Egg in two bites.’
‘Let’s go!’ Freddy’s voice from the car outside.
Mia hugged her mother and ran out onto the porch and down to Justin’s Mercedes. Dusk had settled over the Roaches, and the rocks squatted on the horizon in violet silhouette.
Maggie waved them off and headed back inside, into the vast kitchen with its centrepiece table. Handmade oak. She and Justin had bought it bespoke, at crippling cost.
She gathered the ingredients for tomato pasta sauce and set a pan of water to boil.
Garlic clove on the chopping board. Peel it.
Thin slices with the heavy Wüsthof knife. Cutting with a rocking motion. Maggie preferred clean, sliced garlic to the mess of the crusher.
Goat’s cheese from the fridge. Fresh basil.
Later this evening she could get through a few episodes of the second season of Doctor Foster on iPlayer. Only three years late for it.
She took out her phone and set an album playing through the Sonos speaker. A-ha. Scoundrel Days. A mildly guilty pleasure for cooking.
Squat down to the low cupboard. Pan for the sauce.
Stand up again.
She startled, and released the pan. It made an almighty clang as it fell to the floor.
A tall, broad man stood at the open kitchen door. He wore a sleeveless T-shirt and a black-and-white New York Yankees baseball cap, and his features were obscured behind a dark balaclava.
Maggie’s stomach lurched; she yelped in alarm.
The man covered the distance across the kitchen with long, flowing strides.
Maggie snatched up the knife, but he grabbed her forearm with a gloved hand, held her firm.
They stood there for a second, suspended, the man dwarfing her in size.
He raised a meaty fist.
Maggie jerked back, and cracked her head against the hood of the cooker.
The man held her firm, kept still, staring.
The house was remote, on the edge of the Roaches. Only the sheep would hear her scream.
The man uncurled the fingers of Maggie’s hand, forcing her to release the knife. It skittered across the stone-tiled floor.
He held her at arm’s length, out of range of a kick or knee to his groin. She kept her eyes away from him, tried to calm her breathing. ‘You don’t have to hurt me. My handbag is on the table in the hall. There’s money. I’ll give you plenty of time to…’
Maggie raised her head slowly; the man averted his gaze as he rested his other hand at the top of her chest, then pushed it up, closing his fingers around her neck, squeezing.
22
APRIL 2011
DI Martin Pittman parked his royal blue Subaru Outback in a lay-by on the edge of woodland at the south-eastern tip of the National Park.
Sawyer dipped his head and peered out of the passenger side window into the gathering dusk. ‘Looking stormy.’
Pittman laughed. ‘With foresight like that, you’ll be a DCI in no time.’
‘Who’s this again?’ Sawyer nodded to the stereo. Music played at a low volume.
‘Twelfth Night. Prog rock titans. Not your thing?’
Sawyer screwed up his face. ‘Is that their name or a reference to how long the songs last?’
Pittman opened the door. ‘We can have your Underground on the way back.’
‘Underworld. Prog techno titans. Sort of.’
‘I don’t get how you can listen to that shit when you’re not on drugs.’
Pittman stepped out of the car, straight into a puddle of sludge. ‘Fan-fucking-tastic.’ He edged round onto the road, scraping his shoes against the tarmac.
Sawyer got out, avoiding the sludge. ‘Should have brought your wellies.’
‘Haven’t got any. I wasn’t planning to walk through open fields.’
‘We might have to. It’s a bit out of the way, for obvious reasons.’
They set off, up a steep track, and cut into the trees as the road bent round, beginning its descent into Ashbourne. Pittman took the lead. They swished away the soggy branches and joined an underused walking track.
Pittman pointed to an overgrown gate with a lurid sign (KEEP OUT). ‘Used to be a private road up there.’ He swiped at his light blue suit. ‘Fucking hell. We should have sent a couple of DCs on this.’
‘Couldn’t trust ’em.’
Pittman looked over his shoulder at Sawyer, smiling. ‘You’ve only been a DC yourself for a year.’
‘Eight months.’
‘You going for DS soon?’
‘Of course. It’s no fun, just bossing the bobbies around.’
Pittman shook his head. ‘There’s serious talk of Buxton becoming a Major Crime Unit.’
‘Are there enough major crimes to cover?’
‘Spoken like a true DC. You’ll find you get access to the darker corners the higher you go up the chain. You’re down with that, right?’
Sawyer smiled. ‘I like it dark. But I’m not sure how long I can stick around here.’
‘Fuck me. A couple of promotions and he thinks he’s Morse. Where are you off to, then?’
‘Probably London. Test myself in the urban jungle.’
Pittman scoffed. ‘It’s such a myth, you know, that the Met are the fucking elite and the regional forces are hicks or whatever. If anything, it’s the other way round. They’ve got all the big-city resources, while we have to rely on instinct. And the criminality is more insidious. Easier to hide.’ Pittman looked over his shoulder again, frowning. ‘No other reason why you want to head to London?’
‘I met someone. She’s gorgeous and her dad is loaded.’
‘Fuck off! So that’s your idea of testing yourself?’
Light up ahead. Sawyer moved around Pittman and pushed through into a clearing. A large, squat industrial building sat at the centre of a patch of open ground, surrounded by high fe
ncing topped with barbed wire. Most of its windows had been smashed, and it was smothered by weeds and climbing ivy. Several derelict brick outbuildings lay on the far edge of the site, with a larger barn-sized structure connected to the main building by a covered passageway. Tall, low-grade floodlighting shone down on the main building, but most of the other structures were unloved and unlit.
‘Cameras?’ said Sawyer.
‘No. There’s security, but I don’t think there’s anything worth stealing. All the copper went ages ago.’
‘So what would Professor Pope be doing up here?’
Pittman crouched down by Sawyer, out of breath. ‘No idea. He hasn’t been seen for almost a year now. The tech people screwed up on the data and so we ran it all again, using this new guy.’
‘Rhodes.’
Pittman nodded. ‘Yeah. The Manc. Knows his stuff. The other guys missed a lot of the passive data but he recovered it all. Even so, the only thing that might be significant is the prof’s phone.’
‘It pinged the mast near here, yes? On the day he disappeared.’
‘Yeah. At 10:30pm.’
‘Hard to imagine an esteemed Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience skulking around a place like this at a time like that.’
They waited for a few seconds in silence, listening.
Shuffling trees, drowsy birdsong.
‘Let’s have a look around.’ Sawyer headed out of the trees and walked onto the site, heading for the barn-sized building.
Pittman hesitated, then followed. ‘Slow down. This could all be unsafe.’
‘Anything in Pope’s background?’
Pittman caught up. ‘Not really. He was cautioned for a run-in with some protesters last year. They were camped outside his house.’
‘What kind of protesters?’
‘Animal rights. His department was involved in animal research or something. They usually go more for disruption, though. Indirect action. He’d had a few nasty deliveries. No specific threats.’
They stood before the barn. The brickwork was grey and mottled, but still solid. Sawyer moved around to the covered passageway that connected it to the large central building and pushed his face against a small window. No light inside; just the outline of a few shelves and fittings.
‘Can’t get in,’ said Pittman. He rattled the padlock on a sturdy iron bolt covering the barn’s sliding metal door.
Sawyer studied the lock. ‘I disagree, sir.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s locked. But that doesn’t mean we can’t get in.’ He pulled an oblong black case from his pocket and took out kirby grip hairpins.
Pittman laughed. ‘Oh, fuck right off. We’re not doing that, Sawyer. Keating will have my bollocks.’
Sawyer ignored him and got to work on the lock. ‘Strong case for a Section 17, sir. Danger to life and limb. We have evidence that the professor was in this location, and there’s a locked building with a door that doesn’t match. Looks like it was installed fairly recently.’
Pittman crouched and watched Sawyer work one of the pins into the padlock and bend it, while he slotted in the second pin straight. ‘This isn’t actually going to work, is it?’
Sawyer grinned. ‘The padlock is strong but it’s a standard Abloy. First pin is a tension wrench, and the second is used as a pick to feel your way into the pins that hold the lock closed. If I can get in and we find something, we’re clear.’
‘And if we don’t find anything?’
‘Put the padlock back in place. Nothing broken. No harm done.’
The padlock clicked and Sawyer pulled the shackle free. He dropped the lock onto the ground and pulled away the metal covering, freeing the bolt. He turned to Pittman, smiling. ‘Do you want to do the honours, sir?’
Pittman shook his head. ‘Fuck me, Sawyer. Aren’t you full of tricks?’
‘Only the practical stuff.’
Pittman stepped forward and pulled the bolt to the side. The grinding cut through the stillness of the surroundings and made them both wince.
Pittman turned on the light from his phone and edged inside.
Sawyer followed, and turned towards the connecting passage that led to the main building. He shone his phone light on the solid wooden door, secured by a cluster of grimy chains and padlocks. ‘They’re a bit more serious about this door.’
‘I suppose it gives access to the main building. Although why anyone would want to get in there…’
Their voices seemed to die in the air, almost without echo.
The barn was large and tall, but empty apart from a few workbenches and rusted pipes that ran around the base of the stone walls. A rail structure had been fitted into the ceiling; it ran to the passageway and looked like it might pass through into the main building. Sawyer poked around one of the workbenches; they were mostly dusty and disused, apart from one with recent-looking notches gouged into the wood. He stood up and sniffed the air; damp and sulphurous, with a hint of coal tar.
Pittman shone a light at the far wall. ‘What’s that?’
Sawyer walked over and crouched down. He pushed his head in close to examine a metal base link fixed into the stone around the lower part of the wall. ‘Don’t know. Did you ever resolve the attack on the guy from the badger-culling group?’
Pittman frowned in recall. ‘Fenwick? The one who got caught in the man trap? No. He tried to make a fuss about lack of protection for a legitimate environmental operation. Blah, blah, blah. Blew over, though.’
Sawyer stood up. ‘How about the guy you found in the chicken broiler farm, a few years ago?’
Pittman held his light towards Sawyer, keeping it low, casting himself in silhouette in the final slivers of daylight at the open door. ‘Broiler farm?’
‘Yeah. He owned it, I think. Drummond showed me on my first day. Someone had peeled off chunks of the poor bastard’s skin.’
‘Different MOs.’
Sawyer smiled. ‘There’s a link, though, sir. Animals. Animal cruelty or industry. Pope’s work fits.’
Pittman turned away. ‘Bit of a reach, young grasshopper.’
‘Was that ever solved?’
‘No.’ He hitched his suit up over his shoulders and shuddered.
‘Let’s get out of here before the walls start bleeding. Give forensics a call and get them to have a nose around. Replace the lock first, though. Legitimate entry. See if we can find any evidence of the good professor.’
Sawyer ran his finger along the notches in the workbench. ‘He could be refining. Escalating. Maybe the kick of killing isn’t enough. The broiler farm guy was up close, hands on. If he’s also the one responsible for the man traps, then that was a bit more distanced. Maybe the professor got it worse.’ He followed Pittman out of the door. ‘Or he’s tailoring the punishment to the severity of the crime. As he sees it.’
Pittman closed the door and slid the bolt back in place. ‘So, we’re after someone from the militant wing of the vegetarian society.’ They walked back to the track, towards the car. ‘See, I’m a bit more of a romantic than you, Detective. Phone mast pings can be unreliable. What if our professor met a secret lover somewhere around here?’
‘Somewhere a bit more bucolic.’ Pittman looked at him, confused. ‘Prettier.’
‘Yes. And they did a runner. Not everyone who disappears wants to be found, you know.’
Sawyer ducked under a branch, following Pittman, and they headed into the trees. If he’d chosen that moment to look back, he would have seen an observer, looking down from one of the few intact windows on the first floor of the large central building, his outline defined by the room’s low electric light: muscular upper torso, unnaturally large head with a protruding horn shape pointing up at either side.
23
PRESENT DAY
Sawyer shouted. A distress call, into the indifferent dark at the side of his bed. Again, it came: a wailing, dredged up from the deep. The second shout startled him, woke him. There was outrage in there, some panic. But
no fear. Just anguish, desolation. It was a child’s call for comfort, unfulfilled.
He rolled onto his back, away from the patch of night sweat, and unspooled the last few minutes of the dream. Always his mother, walking off the sand and into the sea, her Bible-black hair trailing through the water behind. He looked back, far up the beach, where his father scored a moat around a sandcastle with a plastic shovel, while his brother placed pebbles along its rim. When he turned again, his mother was too far out, but still moving away. Sinking, fading.
And he called and called to her, in his six-year-old voice. And the shouting skimmed across the water, whipped away by the wind, until it found the adult Sawyer in his bed.
Clock.
6:15am.
He tumbled out onto the floor and stripped the covers, piling them into the corner for washing later. He pulled open the blind and squinted at the flare of morning sun.
Sawyer closed his eyes; he knew what was coming. The sounds, approaching and roaring up like cresting waves.
His dog, barking and barking.
His mother. Screaming, sobbing.
There was nothing abstract about this. As he opened his eyes, he was planted right back there in the field, in the heat of the sun; an impotent observer to his mother’s slaughter. It was like a waking nightmare; if he reached out, he would surely feel the swish of the bloodstained grass.
He pulled himself away from the window and stumbled into the bathroom, turned on the shower, trying to drown the sounds.
The water was too hot, but he endured it, wallowing in the way it diverted his senses, muffling the chaos.
After dressing, he fed Bruce, then shook out a bowl of Corn Flakes for himself and ate them standing on the front porch, gazing up at the lower slopes of Kinder Scout, warming in the dawn light, emerging from the long shadows of the imperious ash trees.
Sawyer opened his laptop on the coffee table. He logged in to his VPN and navigated to the HOLMES remote screen.
Login: edshepherd.
Password: Rideout95.
The Hardwick case files showed little progress: interviews logged without follow-up; dead ends with victimology, camera data. DC Moran had interviewed an ex-business partner, with no lead. Sally O’Callaghan had submitted a standard forensic report based on scene searches, with inconclusive outcomes for trace evidence. Multiple tyre tracks and footprints.