Creatures of Dust

by Scott Hunter

  “Hmm. You don’t say. Can I buy you a drink?”

  “Well, I was thinking perhaps a bite to eat?”

  Shona made a cooing noise in her throat. “Now you’re talking.” She grinned. “I’m always hungry.”

  Moran made his way past the front desk, pausing briefly to ruffle Sergeant Robinson’s carefully laid-out leaflets and pamphlets. Robinson was a lovely bloke, but he was completely obsessive about the reception area. Any small deviation from what Denis Robinson considered acceptable produced an apoplectic Jekyll to Hyde reaction. Which, of course, was what made provoking him so enjoyable. It’s the little things that make life bearable... Moran whistled a tune as he took the lift to the squad room and found, as he had expected, a buzz of expectancy.

  “So.” Moran surveyed the team. “Come on. Let’s have some ideas. We have, in no particular order, a body, no motive, no witnesses. Your thoughts, please.”

  “He was Asian, guv,” a young DC offered. With his fresh face and sandy hair he looked as though he would be more at home in a classroom than a murder incident room.

  “Thank you, DC Hill. Anything else wandered within range of your acutely-honed observational skills?”

  There was a ripple of laughter and the young policeman blushed. However, despite his embarrassment he spoke up again.

  “Well, guv, he was young, casually dressed. No ID, no money, no phone. Traces of a small intake of alcohol; the BAC reading was around 0.031. Plenty of bling – worth a bit, from what I’ve seen. Maybe he was hanging around waiting for a lift – or a customer.”

  Moran raised his eyebrows. “Pusher?”

  “Pimp?” someone else offered.

  “Right wing extremist group?” said someone else.

  “Okay,” Moran said. “Ifs, buts and maybes aren’t going to get us very far. As no one has reported a missing person answering our friend’s description we’ll just have to go looking ourselves. He has family, somewhere. Friends, clients, girls – whatever. I’d suggest chatting to one or two of the Oxford road ladies to start with.” He turned to his sergeant. “Can you take that, Phelps?”

  Phelps nodded. “Pleasure, guv.”

  “But not too much, I trust,” Moran said dryly. More subdued laughter from the assembled officers.

  “And I’d like one of you to check out the town centre pubs. Chances are he was in one of them earlier in the evening. Maybe he’ll be remembered.”

  “That’ll do for me, guv,” DC Hill piped up.

  “Take your ID with you, son,” one of the older officers advised.

  “All right, all right. That’s enough,” Moran shouted above the hilarity. “Let’s remember this is a murder investigation. I want concrete facts and I want them fast. We reconvene tomorrow at eight sharp.”

  The team began to disperse, some reclaiming their desks, others making for the canteen where a new coffee machine had reversed the facility’s ailing fortunes.

  “Hang on, hang on.” Moran called them back. “One announcement before you get cracking. DI Pepper was due to join us this week but is apparently down with a dose of the summer flu, whatever that is.”

  Knowing grins were exchanged. One DC made a comic noise of disbelief.

  Moran waved the laughter away. “All right, all right. Don’t get any ideas – I don’t want anyone else going AWOL, not while we have a murderer to track down. In DI Pepper’s absence, Detective Sergeant Phelps here will be acting DI. If I’m not around for any reason you are to report to him and him alone. Any questions? Right, let’s get on with it.”

  Slough town centre was teeming, but there were precious few white faces among the crowds. Empowered and enlightened by his new identity the Kafir felt like an outsider. An outsider in my own country. He walked through the shopping mall, watched the shoppers pass by. Young, old, sick, fit. happy, grim-faced – on they went, tunnel-visioned, trudging along their allotted pathway like automata.

  He went into a Starbucks and ordered a frappuccino.Trade was good, conversation buzzing. An image flicked through his mind; a beautiful girl, dark-skinned, smiling. He shut her out with a brief shake of his head. He would make Jaseena a memory, lock her away in some cold corner of his subconscious where no harm could be done. He sipped the cold coffee, skim-read a discarded newspaper.

  The Kafir sat in the corner, watching. Waiting.

  Chapter 4

  Oxford road. Dodgy area. Phelps homed in on his target. She was slim, smoking and smiling. As he got within spitting distance she threw the cigarette down on the pavement and ground it out with an exaggerated stamp of her high-heeled shoe. She gave him a knowing look.

  “Copper, right?”

  Phelps nodded. “Obvious?”

  She held his gaze. “Right.”

  “I’m not here to hassle you,” Phelps told her. Much…

  “Really?” The girl drew out another cigarette and placed it between her bright red lips. She was pretty, of mixed race. Around twenty-five, Phelps guessed – mouths to feed at home, caught in the economic cleft stick which made the oldest profession seem like her best option.

  She lit the cigarette and blew smoke in a thin stream. “What you want, then?”

  “You heard about the murder in the town centre?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe.”

  Phelps pressed on. “Asian guy. Young. All blinged up.”

  She shrugged again.

  “Anyone you know gone missing? Any of your buddies short of work this week?”

  “What are you trying to say, officer?” Her voice was mocking, poshed up for effect.

  “Oh, come on, sweetie.” Phelps felt himself losing his patience. “The guy looked like a dealer or a pimp, maybe both. It’s a small world around here. You must have heard something?”

  “You got a photo?”

  Phelps showed her. She gave the image a cursory glance and shook her head.

  “Nah. Not one of ours.”

  Another girl appeared across the road by the pub. Phelps’ girl waved and received a greeting in return.

  “Go and ask Zoë, big boy,” she advised him. “She knows everyone. Even out-of-towners.”

  “Thanks.”

  Phelps crossed the road. The girl watched him approach with ill-concealed amusement.

  “Hello there. What can I do for you?” she purred and sidled up to Phelps, ran a slim hand down his lapel.

  Phelps removed the hand and flashed his ID.

  “Ah. Shame.” She placed both hands on her hips. “I was looking forward to getting to know you, babe.”

  “I’ll bet. Did you get to know him?” Phelps repeated the photo-show.

  Zoë peered at the image, rolled her shoulders. “Maybe. I seen him in the town centre once or twice.” She pronounced it ‘centah’.

  “Where and when?” Phelps pressed, trying to avert his eyes from her ample cleavage.

  “The Retreat. And he was in Chameleon’s once.”

  “The bar on Friar Street?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Friend?”

  “Nah. Mouthy little git. He came on to us but he was all talk, y’know?”

  “Name?”

  “Dunno.”

  “Nothing to do with your line of work then, Zoë?”

  She gave him a look. “No way. He was just a kid.”

  Phelps tucked the photograph away. “Now he’s a dead kid.” He gave the girl a hard look. “I hope you’re not telling me porkies, Zoë.”

  “Pleasure to meet you, officer.” Zoë turned and sashayed away. A van passed and Zoë acknowledged the wolf-whistle with a casual wave. Phelps watched her retreating figure and lit a cigarette. She was lying, for sure.

  Nice legs, though.

  “Come on, Archie.” Moran called his spaniel for the umpteenth time but the little dog was having none of it. He’d found a scent – of which there were plenty in Sulham Woods; squirrel or deer, probably – and he wasn’t going to let it go without a thorough investigation. It began to rain, lightly at first and then
more persistently. Moran squatted gingerly on a tree root protruding from the chalky soil and resigned himself to a lengthy wait. When Archie was in this kind of a mood it was best, time allowing, to let the cocker get on with it. At least it gave him a little more thinking time; the woods were perfect for that and this evening he was in no hurry.

  He buttoned down his waterproof and allowed his thoughts to return to the dead Asian boy and the fact that no relatives had come forward. Why not? Perhaps they hadn’t realised he was missing, or maybe they had closed ranks. He’d come up against that before; any closed community was likely to deal with a serious incident on their own terms – at least initially – because the police were considered outsiders. Charnford Abbey had been a classic example. And now perhaps the Asian community were playing the same game.

  From the undergrowth came the sounds of snorting and snuffling as Archie homed in on the source of his obsessive quest.

  No relatives, no friends. Too ashamed to come forward? Too scared? No ID, no useful prints or DNA. Moran sighed. He wanted a cigarette badly, but that would earn him Dr Purewal’s wrath. He’d been ‘damn lucky’, the pretty GP had told him, and ‘damn stupid’ to have refused an ambulance at Charnford. Moran grunted at the recollection. She was probably right, but Rory Dalton was now well and truly detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure, and Moran’s stroke had been less severe than it could have been. “This time, Inspector Moran. Next time, not so lucky.’ Dr Purewal had glowered through her designer spectacles.

  Another dog appeared, a well-groomed Labrador with a chain collar. Moran recognised it. It belonged to Alison Miller, a neighbour and the only soul he’d had any real conversation with since he’d moved in. She and her husband were a nice couple; he was an architect and she ran some kind of sports injuries clinic.

  “Max?” Alison’s voice came from somewhere nearby. “Where are you?”

  Max emerged from the undergrowth, snorting and dripping with mud. Moran did a double-take. A woman’s handbag was dangling from the dog’s panting mouth. Archie appeared, trotting along behind Max, sniffing at the ground.

  “Oh no.” Moran shot up from his seat of roots and zeroed in on the gap in the tangle of bush and foliage from which the two dogs had emerged. He squelched across the mossy woodland floor, ducking his head to avoid the wet, springy branches, scanning the ground for something he didn’t want to find.

  What he did find was Alison Miller. His neighbour was rooted to the spot, her expression one of sheer horror.

  “Brendan. My God, I– I–” Alison’s hands went to her mouth.

  He followed her shocked gaze, at first seeing nothing untoward until he bent down to look more closely, and there it was: a woman’s hand, black and caked with mud, half-hidden under a shroud of fallen leaves.

  Moran squinted in the intense light of the murder scene. White-suited SOCOs moved back and forth under the glare, studying the ground for information, bagging samples, inspecting every centimetre of woodland as if mining for gold. Which, in a way, they were; as far as Moran was concerned a leading clue was infinitely more precious.

  “Can’t believe you turned this up, guv.” Phelps shook his head in disbelief.

  “If I hadn’t, somebody else would have,” Moran said. “This is a prime dog-walking area, Phelps. Whoever buried this girl knows nothing about dogs.”

  “Unleash the dogs of war, eh, Moran?” Sandy Taylor was at his side, brusque and breezy, briefcase at the ready, feet clad in Hunter wellingtons.

  “A casual observer might conclude that you enjoy being dragged out at the witching hour, Dr Taylor,” Moran observed dryly.

  “Fresh air, fine health,” Taylor replied with a wide grin. “Always glad to get out and about.”

  “Spare me the nocturnal bonhomie, Sandy,” Moran told the pathologist. “Just tell me how she died.”

  Taylor bent to his task and Moran did his rounds, chatting to the scene manager, a tough Scot named Maclennan, and each SOCO in turn. There was general agreement that the woman had been dumped, not killed in situ. By the time he had finished Taylor had also concluded his examination.

  “Strangled,” Taylor announced. “Several broken fingernails. I’ll prime Bagri to pay particular attention to those.”

  “Usual question, Sandy.”

  Taylor sucked in his cheeks. “Two or three days, I’d say.”

  “Right. Thanks.”

  “Poor kid,” Phelps observed morosely as the body was bagged and the zipper closed over the tangle of hair. There was something final about that moment, Moran always thought, a precursor to the finality of the crematorium’s closing curtain.

  “Poor kid, indeed,” Moran agreed quietly.

  He dismissed Phelps and made his way back to his car. Two or three days. That would put the timeframe close to the town centre incident. It could be related – or maybe not. He glanced at the Rover’s clock. Ten past one. He was dog-tired but he felt the old, familiar reluctance to go to bed. A snatch of Shakespeare came into his head: to sleep, perchance to dream…

  Gregory Neads was also wide awake. He slipped the car into first and followed the Land Rover at a discreet distance. His head throbbed with the memory of the agony he had suffered at Charnford. His thoughts were cold, calculating, devoid of compassion. High summer it might be, but his soul inhabited a world that was forever winter.

  Chapter 5

  A pretty woman, blonde, sitting at the foot of his bed. Moran knew he was dreaming but somehow it didn’t seem to matter. He looked again. It was Kay. She smiled and raised her hand.

  “Hi,” he said. It was warm, close but not oppressively so. Kay was naked. She came to him, pressed her lips to his, but then she stepped back, a warning finger raised. He frowned. What was wrong? There was someone else in the room, a fleeting, fugitive figure. He caught a movement in the corner of his eye. Kay backed away until she was standing by the bedroom door. Someone stepped in front of her – another woman. A girl with no face. Rotting leaves clung to her clothing and her hair was tangled and filthy.

  Moran felt sweat seep from his pores and his feet turn to lead. The faceless girl advanced, step by step, arm outstretched. He tried to shout for help. Nothing came out. It felt like the stroke all over again, the paralysis, the helplessness. A car engine fired into life, noisily. The apparition faded. His eyes opened and a wave of relief flooded through him. A dream, that’s all. A dream.

  Wincing at the stiffness of his recuperating tendons, Moran swung his legs onto the floor and reached for the curtains. The tail lights of a speeding car winked as the vehicle screeched around the corner. From the other direction a milk float idled into view. Dawn was breaking. Moran limped to his bedside table and picked up his clock. Six minutes past five. He tossed the clock onto the bed. Another night prematurely over, another endless day ahead.

  The M4 was pleasantly clear and the purr of the engine was soothing. The Kafir felt relaxed and refreshed. It was good to know what you were about, what your next job was. He was intrigued that, despite frequent headaches, his mind continued to provide him with fresh, challenging insights. He felt that the headaches were a small price to pay for this privilege. Since his discharge the only other troubling side effect from his beating was a persistent, but not particularly unpleasant, metallic taste in his mouth and throat. However, the doctors had forewarned him of such a possibility so he wasn’t unduly worried. After all, he had weightier topics to consider than the vagaries of his own health.

  This morning he was pondering the problem of fundamentalism, something which had troubled him long before his relationship with Jaseena. He wondered which particular flaw in human nature was responsible for prompting one culture to want to impose its belief system on another.

  It was happening here in the UK, right now. Subtly, perhaps, but he had no doubt that the imposition would become increasingly blatant. In time, relentless pressure would force the government to make ever-greater concessions. The curse of political correctness would come into play; fu
ndamentalists would be appointed more frequently into positions of power and influence. Was it not abundantly clear? Mosques were already replacing churches. Ghettoes were rapidly expanding, consuming neighbouring communities like a cancer. Soon, there would be no compromise. The rot within...

  It had to be stopped.

  He drove into the multi-storey car park and guided his car into a parking bay. He made a note of the level number and then headed down the urine-scented staircase to the main shopping area. Enough reconnaissance. Today was the day. He’d found another one, a relative. Not immediate family, but a second or third cousin who worked in some tedious financial institution as an IT specialist.

  Jayesh.

  Jayesh, who had pointedly failed to acknowledge his presence on the sole occasion he had attended a family function. Jay, who had turned his back, blanked him. And later, who had been laughing and pointing with her brothers. He could still see the hurt on Jaseena’s face, her darting look of guilt and apology. As far as he was concerned it mattered little now, but Jayesh had hurt Jas, and so he deserved to die.

  It was a quarter to five; almost home time for the Slough office workers. The windows of Mukhandra International glinted like mirrored building blocks in the afternoon sun. The Kafir found a bench, placed a mint on his tongue and settled down to wait.

  “Got a sec, guv?” Phelps’ bullish head appeared around Moran’s office door.

  “Always,” Moran said flatly. “Come in, Phelps, and restore my faith in humanity.”

  “Guv?”

  Moran removed his glasses and wearily pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. Stars danced briefly in the blackness and then cleared. When he opened his eyes again Phelps was studying him with close concentration.

  “I’m all right, Phelps. Stop looking at me as if I’m some kind of laboratory experiment.”