Puppet: A DI Charlotte Savage Novel

by Mark Sennen

  ‘Another what?’

  ‘Another dead girl, only this one’s worse. A lot worse. She’s all strung up. Ropes and stuff. Crazy shit.’

  ‘Calm down, Jane.’ Savage scanned the text and saw the location. Estimated the time she’d take to get there. ‘I’ll be half an hour max. And tell John to wait.’

  ***

  Savage drove at speed along the A38, Calter’s words coming back to her. Another dead girl the DS had said. Likely then, this was Isobel Anderson or Fiona Jones. Somebody hadn’t liked the police poking their noses into God’s Haven and were determined that whatever secrets the place held would remain hidden.

  She turned off before the town of Ivybridge and headed south, climbing away from the dual carriageway on a lane that cambered around a hill. The road entered a wood, the car’s headlights struggling to pierce the rain and the gloom, before she drove out the other side. Up ahead, Calter stood by an open gate. Savage drove through and stopped the car, waiting until the DS had closed the gate and hopped in.

  ‘Jesus,’ Calter said. ‘I’m soaked.’

  Savage peered through the windscreen. A track ran down the side of a field, passed between stone pillars and ended by an old lodge house. The house was half derelict, glass missing from a couple of the windows but lights flickering inside.

  She pulled up behind several vehicles, one of which was John Layton’s Volvo, a second was a white CSI van, while a third was another van with Moor Green Energy stencilled on the side. Now, for the first time, Savage became aware of the field to the left of the house. Dozens of black slabs raised above the ground and angled to the south.

  ‘A solar farm,’ Calter said. ‘The security guard was doing his early morning check when he spotted lights on in the lodge. Went to investigate, and that’s when he found her.’ Calter clicked open her door. ‘Best see for yourself, ma’am.’

  Savage got out of the car, hunching low against the wind and rain. A sizeable pop-up shelter stood to one side of the CSI van, and Calter guided Savage over. Several plastic boxes contained PPE. She found a suit, mask and overshoes, put them on, and walked across to the lodge.

  Inside, light came from a festoon strung up along one side of the entrance hall. Farther in, a set of floods on a pole stood at the threshold of a room off to the right. Savage moved down the hallway and looked in.

  ‘Glad you’re here, Charlotte.’ John Layton was halfway along a row of stepping plates. He tipped his Tilley hat with a forefinger. ‘Because you’re used to this sort of thing, right?’

  This sort of thing, thought Savage as she took in the room, empty aside from the girl, wasn’t anything she ever wanted to get used to.

  The girl was suspended from a beam in the ceiling. A rope looped round each wrist ran to two pulley wheels that had been screwed into the beam a couple of metres apart. Her feet had been tied to each end of a metre-long piece of timber on the floor so she hung in an X shape. Her head lolled down, her chin on her breast bone. She was naked, the whiteness of her skin contrasting with the dark hair that fanned out at her head. A tan belt had been wound several times around her neck, and there were numerous cuts and bruises on her torso, dozens of marks and welts on her thighs and buttocks.

  ‘Is she one of the missing girls?’ Layton said. ‘From God’s Haven?’

  ‘No.’ Savage reached for her phone, suspecting her earlier hunch had been wrong. She fiddled for a moment to get the screen to react to her touch through the latex gloves and brought up a pair of images that Collier had cropped from the group photo of God’s Haven residents. Both Isobel Anderson and Fiona Jones had blonde hair, whereas the victim’s was black. Savage tilted the phone at Layton. ‘Here.’

  ‘You’re right. Wrong hair, different facial features. Definitely not from God’s Haven.’

  ‘Is the security guard in the clear?’ Savage pocketed the phone.

  ‘Probably.’ Layton turned to a couple of candles flickering on the mantlepiece. ‘He came to investigate the lights and found her hanging here. He’d come from his house on the other side of Modbury. Got a wife and kids. Presumably the wife can verify when he left home.’

  ‘The guard could have been here in the night, though?’

  ‘He wasn’t on shift, so he’d likely have been in bed. His wife will be able to give him an alibi.’

  ‘Cause of death?’

  ‘Looks like the belt was used.’

  ‘So not like Abigail?’

  ‘No, but there’s something else that might link it not only to the Duffy case but to operation Tarquin.’ Layton pointed over to the fireplace. ‘That.’

  Savage moved onto the stepping plates and worked her way along. She crouched low and shielded her eyes against the brightness from the guttering candles on the mantlepiece. Something was hanging inside the chimney breast. Strings led down from a cross of wood that had been jammed in a crack. A smiling face with bright red lips, wooden arms and legs, a carved wooden body with a painted-on polka dot shirt.

  ‘A puppet,’ Savage said.

  ***

  Half an hour later and a link from the dead girl to operation Tarquin was all but nailed on.

  ‘I sent a picture to Gareth Collier, ma’am,’ Calter said. ‘And he’s just confirmed it’s Faye, the girl at the party who stabbed DC Naomi Hester.’

  ‘Faye who?’ Savage said.

  ‘The Tarquin team don’t know her full ID. She was a runner for Dave Smeeton, the dealer who was killed, but that’s all they have. They initially identified her from pictures posted on social media at the party. Verified by the lad who saw Hester stabbed.’

  ‘Makes sense.’ Layton stood over near the evidence table. He’d removed the puppet from the chimney breast and now held it in his hands. He turned it over. ‘The letter F. Scratched on the back of the head as with the one at the Smeeton crime scene.’

  Savage turned to Calter. ‘So this is no longer our beat then?’

  ‘DI Davies is on his way over,’ Calter said. ‘Looks like the crime will be merged into the Smeeton investigation.’

  Savage nodded. It was understandable given that Faye was a runner for Smeeton, and yet something niggled. The letters from the Puppet she’d earlier dismissed as the work of a crank had now taken on a more profound significance. It was undeniable there was a connection to Tarquin, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t also a link to Abigail Duffy. Was it time to re-examine the argument for Barry Schultz, the drug baron currently in prison, being involved in all three murders?

  When Davies turned up, she’d put it to him. Meanwhile, she still had a job to do, evidenced by the sight of Doctor Nesbit stooping into the room.

  ‘Things are getting out of hand,’ he said. ‘Three bodies in a week.’

  ‘Thanks for that, mate,’ Layton said. ‘We hadn’t realised.’

  ‘So who do we have here?’ Nesbit took to the stepping plates and moved closer. ‘And why is she strung up like this?’

  ‘We don’t know the answer to either question,’ Savage said.

  ‘I see.’ Nesbit spent a minute staring at the body and then fussed with a thermometer before inserting the probe between the girl’s buttocks. Next, he took the air temperature with a second thermometer and examined the girl as best he could. He walked about, crouching, turning this way and that, moving from head to toe and back again. Finally, the pathologist’s gloved hands moved to the throat. ‘The belt was used to kill her, but there was another ligature as well. I’d say it was around her neck for some time. Hours, perhaps longer.’

  ‘Longer?’ Savage said.

  ‘The skin on the buttocks and thighs is raw and red from being struck with a cane or a rod, and there are cuts from a razor blade or similar.’ Nesbit moved a finger on the pale flesh of the neck. ‘Likewise, these types of markings round the throat can’t have happened post-mortem. She must have been alive for a considerable period for the bruising to take effect.’

  ‘So she was restrained by the neck to subdue her?’

  ‘I�
�d say so.’ Nesbit removed a large magnifier from his pocket and waved it above the markings. ‘I can see indentations from a rope. Some analysis for you to do, hey, John?’

  ‘Right, I missed that.’ Layton’s voice was flat. The error had embarrassed him. ‘I might need an eye test, or perhaps I’m the one who should be retiring.’

  ‘Rubbish. You’ve got another twenty years to go yet.’

  ‘Great. Looking forward to that immensely.’

  ‘So cause of death was asphyxiation?’ Savage said, interrupting the banter.

  ‘It appears so.’ Nesbit moved back and held the girl’s head. He lifted one eyelid and then the other. ‘Petechiae and blood-red eyes. Looks like whoever did this had their fun and then finished her off by tightening the belt.’

  They stood silent for a moment, and then Nesbit continued working his way over the body. Eventually he’d finished.

  ‘You can get the poor lass down now,’ he said.

  Layton beckoned two of his CSIs. Together with the mortuary attendants, they removed the ropes and lowered the body to the ground and into a waiting body bag. The zip clicked closed and the girl was gone.

  Savage went outside to get some fresh air and discovered the area around the property was now a hive of activity. Officers were inspecting the garden and poking through nearby hedges. The search coordinator spotted her and came across.

  ‘Nothing much yet, ma’am,’ she said. ‘We’re doing a thorough fingertip search everywhere within a hundred metres of the lodge, but it looks like the perpetrator came straight in and out.’

  ‘What about the solar farm?’ Savage jerked a thumb at the rows of identical panels.

  ‘We’re still waiting for permission to go in. Health and safety. You see, we need a technical officer from the company to supervise us.’

  ‘Not the security guard?’

  ‘His insurance doesn’t allow it.’

  ‘Shit.’ Savage looked at the fence surrounding the compound. They could climb over easily enough, but if something went wrong, she’d be personally responsible. The joys of command. ‘OK, but I want you to hurry them along. Explain that if there isn’t somebody here within the hour, we’re going in anyway.’

  Savage spent half an hour checking in with the search teams and then returned to the lodge. Back inside, Layton was finishing up.

  ‘All done.’ Layton pointed at the ropes hanging loose from the ceiling hooks. ‘Got photos, fibre samples, measurements, the lot. Plus, we’ve dusted this room and the rest of the house.’

  ‘Anything stand out?’

  ‘Well, aside from the puppet, not a lot.’ Layton pointed to the ceiling. ‘Got some smudged fingerprints on the hooks, but nothing usable.’

  Savage looked over to the hooks. They glinted in the lights. ‘The killer screwed them in, right?’

  ‘They’re brand new for sure. No rust spots or tarnishing.’

  ‘Can we get a make or brand?’

  ‘No, they’re generic, but we can try the DIY chains. Check purchases for the last year or so. We might get lucky.’

  Right, Savage thought. If the hooks were bought locally rather than online, if within a year, if the buyer hadn’t used cash. Still, a lot of police work led to dead ends, and the investigation only needed to find one route to be successful.

  ‘What about the rope and knots?’ She looked over to a low camping table that Layton had set up. There were several evidence bags on it.

  ‘Various mixed pieces of cord and twine.’ Layton waved at the space where the body had been hanging. He was forming shapes in the air, and it wasn’t hard for Savage to imagine the victim straining against the ropes as the killer strung her up and carried out his diabolical sadism. ‘It was a bit of a mess, to be honest. Tangles and granny knots and all sorts. Whoever did this didn’t know what they were doing when it came to ropework.’

  ‘I just wonder,’ Savage said, glancing across to the pile of evidence bags. ‘If her movement, the way she hung there and struggled, was part of it all. If she was a live version of the puppet.’

  ‘Hey?’ For a moment, Layton appeared confused, but then a grin appeared and he face-palmed himself. ‘Of course. The horrible thing has been staring at me for hours and yet I missed the bloody obvious.’

  ‘Bloody obvious?’ Savage said. ‘Give me some credit, John.’

  ***

  Things were still going on, Raymond thought. Things that shouldn’t be going on. He tried to distract himself by busying round the shop. He had a box of trinkets that needed to be distributed to various rooms. Three more medals for the war room, a fishing reel for the sports room, a small stuffed parakeet for the animal room. There were also several hundred books from a house clearance, and each needed to be priced and shelved.

  But what about the things that are going on?

  ‘Can’t be dealing with that now, Jakab. Too much work to be done and too little time to do it in.’ Raymond unlocked a display case and slipped the parakeet inside, fluffing its feathers before closing and locking the door.

  You’re in the war room!

  ‘Hey?’ Raymond looked up from the box of stock. Sure enough, he was surrounded by military paraphernalia and the stuffed bird sat inside the display case alongside several shiny honours. ‘Bugger.’

  He unlocked the case and switched the parakeet for the medals. Perhaps Jakab was right. Perhaps he needed to have a little think about things.

  He made for his office and put the box down in one corner. The rest of the items would have to wait. He slid the kettle onto the gas ring and fired it up, and while he was waiting for it to boil, he priced up a few books. When the kettle had boiled, he made a cup of strong tea with three sugars and a dash of milk. He sipped the tea and sat back.

  Are you sure you’ve been taking your medicine?

  Raymond thought about that for a moment and was pretty sure he had. One pill every three days, wasn’t it? Or was it three pills every day? He set his mug of tea down on the desk, opened a drawer and scrabbled inside. There were several brown bottles, so he rattled a couple of them. There seemed to be a lot of pills left. He squinted at one of the labels, but the print had been smudged or scratched away and he couldn’t read the dosage. He flipped off the lid from three of the bottles and poured out a handful of pills. If he’d been underdosing, then he would make up for it now. He shoved a few pills in his mouth and washed them down with tea. Did it again. Immediately felt better.

  He turned his mind back to the most pressing issue.

  You’re talking about up there, aren’t you?

  ‘Very much so, Jakab. Shall I call it the Mézáros problem just to make you feel better?’

  It’s not my fault. None of it.

  ‘Nevertheless, if I hadn’t met you, I’d never have got into trouble with Lena.’

  Not. My. Fault.

  Raymond figured Jakab was in denial over recent events. That stuff on the moor with the policeman’s daughter near the old asylum. The Mézáros puppet the Black Detective had shown him a picture of, presumably found at some crime scene. The arrest of the God’s Haven leader. The morning news bulletins full of a dead girl up at the solar farm. What Jakab failed to appreciate was there was a connection. Had to be.

  ‘Have you been talking to other people, Jakab? Persuading them?’

  Not. My. Fault.

  ‘Telling them what a delight it is to pull the strings? How exciting it is to be in total control?’

  Not. My. F—

  ‘Liar! It’s you, isn’t it? Causing all the mayhem!’

  Jakab didn’t answer, which was an answer in itself. Still, knowing that didn’t mean solving the Mézáros problem would be easy, but if he didn’t act soon the whole situation could slip out of control. The police would return and they’d be clink, clink, clinking a set of handcuffs. Poor old Raymond would be back inside.

  He looked over at the gas stove. The frying pan lay nearby atop a pile of newspapers, ready to be used for cooking lunch. He was going to have
to do something. Something extreme.

  ‘There’s an expression, Jakab,’ Raymond said. ‘You can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs.’

  He stood, reached for one of the pill bottles, and popped another couple of pills. Washed them down with the dregs of the tea and smiled at the empty room.

  ‘And that, Jakab, my friend, is the long and the short of it,’ he said.

  ***

  When Savage arrived back at the station, Collier had news.

  ‘We’ve got Marcus Clent,’ he said. ‘Routine stop on the A38 close to Bristol Airport. A young lass was driving erratically, and a check of the number plate revealed an out-of-date MOT. Clent was in the passenger seat, and the traffic officer recognised him. Seems Clent didn’t try to do a runner or anything.’

  ‘Good job,’ Savage said. ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘Weston-Super-Mare. A couple of our lads have gone off to get him.’ Collier tapped his watch. ‘Should be back here late morning.’

  ‘Plenty of time for me to work out a line of questioning.’

  Savage was about to go and find the interview advisor to discuss tactics for the Clent interrogation when DC Louise Robertson entered the room.

  ‘Cuckoos, ma’am,’ Robertson said as she came across. ‘Outside. You’d better come and see before Hardin blows his top.’

  Savage followed Robertson from the room, along the corridor and down the stairs to the reception area. A harassed-looking PC was sitting in the chair opposite the desk, examining a rip in his jacket.

  ‘And they call themselves Christians?’ He looked up at Savage. ‘Neanderthals, ma’am, that’s what they are.’

  Savage turned to the entrance doors. Outside, several PCs stood at the top of the steps, while in the car park, a crowd of people surged back and forth. She edged through the doors and stood next to the line of PCs.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Protesters, ma’am,’ one of the PCs said. He swung his baton into his hand with a thwack. ‘They’re determined to get in the building and apparently only God can stop them.’

  Savage scanned the crowd. There were about thirty people, some with placards, a couple with tambourines. Ben Kelly, the giant of a man she’d seen working on a wall when she’d first visited God’s Haven, hefted a huge wooden cross that Savage reckoned would double as a battering ram. Charlene Golding held a megaphone and was coaxing the crowd into a frenzy. At the bottom of the steps, two protesters had unfurled a banner that read Police Intimidate God’s Servants. The P, I, G, and S of the words were in heavy type. Dan Phillips, the Herald’s crime reporter, stood close by. He was issuing instructions to his photographer, but when he spotted Savage, he sidled up the steps.