Turn to Dust

by Amphlett, Rachel

  ‘It’d be good to get some progress this morning. Is Sharp coming over?’

  ‘Not this time, no. He phoned me on the way in – he’s headed to Headquarters for a meeting with media relations. We’ll see what comes to light during the briefing and over the course of today, and then I’ll have a chat with him about whether it’s time to issue a public appeal for information. Anything happen elsewhere over the weekend?’

  ‘No – I’ve been through the logs from downstairs, and it was a quiet couple of nights. No major incidents on the roads, either.’

  ‘Well, at least if we do an appeal it won’t be overshadowed by anything and we might get some extra personnel from uniform to help with the phone calls.’ She leaned back in her seat and blew across the surface of her tea before taking a sip, and watched as Gavin and Laura stopped beside Debbie’s desk to speak with the police constable. ‘How did those two get on over the weekend?’

  Barnes peered over his shoulder. ‘Good, from what I’m hearing. Gavin said Laura’s not afraid to jump in and ask questions, and I think they’re all getting on fine. I’ve noticed she looks to Carys for the day-to-day processes, but that’s understandable seeing as she’s the more experienced of the two. Laura seems to be fitting in well, anyway.’

  ‘That’s one less thing to worry about, at least.’ Kay drained her tea. ‘All right, let’s get started, shall we?’

  Ten minutes later, a crowd of uniformed officers and plainclothes detectives created a semicircle around where Kay stood in front of the whiteboard. Each member of the investigating team held a copy of an agenda produced by the HOLMES2 management database. A silence fell as Kay held up her hand.

  ‘Thanks, everyone. We’ve had a busy weekend, and we’ve got a long way to go over the next few days, but let’s see if we can find a way forward and see some justice for our victim. Ian, do you want to start us off, please? I see on the report here you’ve had a follow-up conversation regarding the house-to-house enquiries from last week.’

  ‘Thanks, guv.’ Barnes moved to the front of the room and loosened his tie before bringing his colleagues up to date with Peter Winton’s interview. ‘I’ve spent the rest of the weekend going through the CSI reports that were emailed over from Harriet’s team on Friday afternoon, particularly in relation to vehicle track marks at the crime scene. We know it’d rained heavily since last Sunday night when Peter said he’d heard the van, so any trace evidence would’ve been washed away, but I decided to go for a walk along the track when I was out with Pia yesterday, and there are definite vehicle markings. I put some sticks in the track next to them to mark them out – it was starting to get dark by then. I organised a uniformed team to seal off the track before we left, and I left a message on Harriet’s phone when I got home. I’m hoping she’s going to get a team over there this morning to take some samples.’

  Kay updated her notes as he spoke, and then raised her head as he wandered back to his seat. ‘Ian, that’s great work – thank you. If Harriet doesn’t get back to you by ten o’clock, can you let me know? Those samples need to be a priority now. The van might not be connected to our case, but we need to rule it out if it isn’t. Keep me posted.’

  Her colleague nodded in acknowledgement, and she turned to Carys. ‘How’ve you been getting on?’

  ‘I’ve made further enquiries about night-time parachute jumps, guv. If our man was the victim of an accident, he had to have had at least fifty previous jumps to his name before being allowed to go up at night. I’ve also been told he would’ve needed to hold an endorsed “B Licence”. I’ve gone through the records of everyone locally who does have one of those licences, and spoken to parachute clubs about it, but no-one recognises him from the image we’ve got.’

  ‘That elimination process is an enormous help though, Carys. Thank you,’ said Kay.

  ‘Guv?’ Gavin raised his hand and gestured to Laura. ‘What Carys is saying ties in with what we heard chatting to airfield personnel on Saturday. If anyone was planning to do a night-time jump, it would’ve had to have been lodged with the Parachute Association, Civil Aviation Authority, and the local police station. We’ve spoken to all of those, and there are no records for such a jump between the Tuesday when Dennis Maitland ploughed that field and last Wednesday when our victim was found. In fact, there haven’t been any night-time jumps in that area for quite a while.’

  Kay waited until the assembled officers had finished updating their notes, and then gestured to the list of bullet points she’d updated on the whiteboard.

  ‘I think it’s quite clear that our victim wasn’t killed in an accident,’ she said. ‘The focus of this investigation now is to ascertain who he is, and why he died in such horrific circumstances. Ian – I want you to take Laura with you and head back to the track next to the Wintons’ house. Arrange for uniform to provide continuing assistance in sealing off access to it until such time as Harriet has processed the evidence you’ve identified.’

  ‘Guv.’

  ‘Carys – can you and Gavin go and interview Dennis Maitland again to find out what he knows about public usage of that track, or whether he’s had cause to use it over the past couple of weeks? Ask him about aircraft sightings over his land, too. Perhaps he heard something last Sunday night that will tie in with Peter Winton’s statement.’

  ‘Yes, guv,’ said Carys.

  Kay finished delegating that day’s urgent tasks, and then held up her hand. ‘Before you all go, I can confirm that we’ve received some information to indicate that our victim was a member of the armed forces based on the tattoo on his arm. At the moment, we still don’t have any identification for him, and that part of the investigation could take a while. With regard to motive – keep an open mind while you’re working through your enquiries. Until we have more information, we can’t rule out anything, is that understood?’

  A murmur of assent filled the room.

  ‘All right, thank you, everyone. You’ve got a lot to work through so unless there’s something urgent, the next briefing will be at four o’clock tomorrow afternoon.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Barnes wrinkled his nose at the stench arising from a stagnant pool of water beyond the bracken and rotten leaf litter that peppered the woodland to his right, and then cast his gaze across the line of blue and white crime scene tape that had been tied between two poplar trees.

  Beyond the striped plastic barrier, a pair of uniformed officers stood with their backs to Barnes, their attention taken by the group of six crime scene investigators who crouched on opposite sides of the waterlogged track, talking in low tones.

  Wind rustled through the branches above him, an eerie sound that muted conversation and set the hairs on the back of his neck on end.

  His feet were getting cold.

  He shuffled across to where Laura stood, her expression one of fascination as she watched the white-suited figures move back and forth.

  She glanced up at him as he joined her.

  ‘I never had time to watch what they do when I was in uniform,’ she said. ‘I was always the one with the clipboard, making sure no-one came near the crime scene who wasn’t supposed to be there, or dealing with the public and their bloody mobile phone cameras.’

  ‘How’re you finding major crimes, then?’

  Laura exhaled. ‘If I said I was loving it, it’d sound really crass, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘But all of us would understand. It’s what keeps us going. Kay always says it’s about justice. Justice for the victim, and justice for whoever is left behind. I wouldn’t be anywhere else.’

  He smiled as her shoulders relaxed, and then turned to his left at a loud whistle.

  Barnes had tasked four uniformed constables with searching the surrounding woodland for any other trace evidence and PC Aaron Stewart now held his hand aloft from his position several paces away amongst the thick undergrowth.

  ‘What’ve you got?’

  ‘Rabbit.’ Stewart bent down for a moment, then stra
ightened and held up a dead rabbit. ‘There’s a trap here.’

  ‘Poachers?’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ said Laura.

  ‘It puts a different angle on this vehicle, doesn’t it?’ said Barnes as Stewart tossed the dead animal aside and began to pull apart the snare. ‘Here’s us, hoping that van has something to do with our victim’s death, and yet we’ve now got evidence of poaching.’

  He broke off as Stewart clambered over a fallen tree to join them, a tangle of wood and wire between his hands.

  ‘Nasty,’ he said. ‘I’ll report this in to Rural Crimes.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Barnes. ‘Warn the others that there could be more – the last thing we need is someone getting injured amongst all this undergrowth.’

  ‘Will do, guv.’

  While Stewart radioed through the message to his colleagues before returning to his search quadrant, Barnes peered at the track disappearing into the distance beyond the CSIs’ position.

  He’d been careful staking out the vehicle tread marks, ensuring the twigs he’d used as markers were inches away from the potential evidence so that the forensic experts could take photographs and casts as necessary without worrying about contamination.

  The markers had been cast away to the tangled verges as the CSIs processed the scene, starting at the taped-off boundary and moving forward towards the field boundary beyond the woodland.

  ‘Where does this lead?’ said Laura. ‘To the field where the victim was found, or one next to it?’

  ‘One next to it – if you imagine the gate to the field where he was found, then this goes to the field to the right of that. Maitland was ploughing the one to the left of it last Wednesday.’

  ‘How far?’

  ‘About six hundred yards from where we’re standing. Just around that curve.’

  Laura pivoted, staring back in the direction from which they’d walked after parking the car in the lane. ‘So, only about a quarter mile in length in total. And if Peter Winton hadn’t been sleeping badly––’

  ‘We’d have never known.’

  ‘Do you think it has something to do with the dead man?’

  ‘Professionally speaking, I’d say we wait for the evidence before making a conclusion, especially given that dead rabbit.’

  ‘Personally?’

  ‘My gut feel is yes. Why would someone drive a van down here in the middle of the night? I don’t think a poacher would take that sort of risk, not the sort who traps a rabbit here and there, and anyone killing deer wouldn’t get too close, either. They usually park away from their hunting ground. It’s why farmers around here are always complaining about barbed wire fences being cut and horses or cows getting out – it’s because the poachers drag the carcasses across the fields to their vehicles and don’t care what happens to the livestock.’

  He glanced across at his colleague, who seemed fascinated by his insights. ‘Tell you what, though – get onto Rural Crimes when we’re back at the station and ask them if there have been any reports of poaching around here, just to rule it out, okay?’

  ‘Sure.’ She pulled out her notebook, then pointed at the snare Stewart had left on the ground next to his vehicle. ‘Is there any use trying to get fingerprints off of that?’

  ‘Stewart will try, but if it’s anything like the ones that have been found before, we won’t find anything. They usually wear gloves.’

  Half an hour later, the forensic team were packing away their equipment, and the four uniformed officers had collated a small pile of snares, discarded aluminium drink cans, one shoe, and a bundle of rags that were indistinguishable.

  ‘We’ll have to process all of this as well,’ said Patrick as he stood next to Harriet and peeled off his protective paper suit. ‘It’ll be a couple of days before we’ve got anything to report, though.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Barnes, battening down his disappointment. He began to walk back to the car, Laura at his side. ‘I bloody hope Carys and Gavin have more luck speaking to Maitland.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  Carys eased off the accelerator as the car rumbled across an iron cattle grid, then weaved the vehicle around a cluster of chickens that were pecking at the mud-covered concrete apron of the farmyard.

  There was an open barn off to the left of where she parked. A variety of well-used machinery cluttered its floor while a tractor with enormous wheels blocked access to a gated entrance at the back of the yard. Two sheds and a dilapidated lean-to took up the right-hand side, their contents obscured by a musty gloom.

  When she unclipped her seatbelt and opened her door, the stench of manure assaulted her senses and she turned to Gavin with a grimace.

  ‘Did she give us this one on purpose?’

  Her colleague grinned. ‘You must’ve done something really bad.’

  ‘I was joking.’ She slapped his arm. ‘I thought Kay said they were growing lavender here?’

  ‘Maybe that’s what the manure is for. Give it a boost before the summer.’

  ‘That’s bull––’

  ‘Exactly.’ Gavin pointed at the house that stood in the centre of the U-shaped mixture of buildings. ‘Shall we start there?’

  ‘It’s a good a place as any. I can’t see anyone out here.’

  She skirted around the mud, wondering fleetingly if it was all dirt – or worse – and then brushed aside the tendrils of a tangled and naked wisteria that clung to a wooden trellis next to the front door, before pressing the bell.

  The door opened after what seemed an age, and a man of Gavin’s height stood on the threshold, his greying hair flecked with nicotine-yellow stains and a shabby long-sleeved rugby shirt that had seen better days.

  ‘Dennis Maitland? I’m Detective Constable Carys Miles, and this is my colleague DC Gavin Piper. Could we come in?’

  ‘I’m in the middle of doing the wages, but all right. I presume you can’t wait.’

  Carys forced a smile. ‘You presumed right, thank you.’

  Maitland stood back to let them in and pointed down a wide hallway to a door at the end. ‘Make yourselves comfortable in the office – it’s the door down there on the left. I was going to make myself another cup of coffee. Do you want one?’

  ‘We’re fine, thanks.’

  ‘All right. Be with you in a minute.’

  Carys followed Gavin into the room Maitland had directed them to, and eyed the pile of paperwork stacked on the farmer’s desk beside an ashtray.

  An old computer whirred next to a dust-laden keyboard, and she recognised a popular book-keeping software package displayed on the screen. A bookshelf against the left-hand wall overflowed with farming magazines, almanacs, and a few dog-eared spy thrillers, while a four-drawer filing cabinet teetered next to the window, the top drawer open and more paperwork strewn over the hanging files inside.

  She took a seat next to Gavin at the sound of footsteps in the hallway and Maitland reappeared with a steaming mug of coffee in one hand and a plate of cake slices in the other, which he proceeded to place on the desk between them.

  ‘The wife’ll never forgive me if I don’t offer you some of this,’ he said, a smile brushing his mouth.

  ‘I’m never going to say “no” to homemade fruitcake, Mr Maitland,’ said Gavin, taking a large wedge.

  Carys rolled her eyes and pulled out her notebook. ‘You said you were doing the wages, Mr Maitland. How many people do you have working for you?’

  ‘Please,’ said Maitland between mouthfuls of cake. ‘Call me Dennis. I’ve got eight workers now. I took on a part-time lad last summer and he works here in between university terms to get some experience before he graduates. The others have been with me for years. One of them even worked for my father – he refuses to retire. I think his wife scares him.’

  ‘We’re trying to get a better understanding of the land around your property,’ she said. ‘In particular, a track that runs from the field next to where o
ur victim was found and the lane that connects with one of the C-roads into Sevenoaks. We’ve got a witness statement from someone who says they heard a van using that track a few nights before that man’s body was discovered.’

  Maitland frowned. ‘I’m surprised anyone got a vehicle down that at this time of year. Hang on.’

  He brushed crumbs from his lap, wiped his hands on the back of his jeans, and then strode across to the bookshelf. Running his hands over the contents, he pulled out a document and returned to the desk, pushing the plate out of the way before unfolding a map.

  ‘This shows more detail than your average Ordnance Survey map – it’s nearly a century old, so it’s not cluttered with all the information on modern maps. It’s easier if I show you the boundaries on this, rather than try to explain it,’ he said. He tapped the map with his finger. ‘Here’s the farmhouse here, and this is the field where Luke and Tom were metal detecting. This one is where I was working on Wednesday, and you can see the track marked here at the back of the other field.’

  ‘Any idea why someone might use it?’ said Gavin.

  ‘Poachers, I’d expect,’ said Maitland, ‘but what they were hoping to catch, I don’t know. Nothing big, that’s for sure. I haven’t seen deer on that side of the property for a few years now, not since we replaced all the hedgerows and fencing. Could be kids, I suppose? Hiding away for a spot of nookie?’

  Carys smiled at the farmer’s turn of phrase. ‘Could be. How far does your land extend?’

  Maitland sketched out the boundary with his finger. ‘Not too far. Manageable, at least. That’s what helps to keep the costs down, although this idea of Liz’s to put this field down to lavender over the next couple of years will eat into our profits for a while until we find out if there’s a market for it.’

  ‘Do you have an aircraft, Dennis?’ said Gavin.

  The farmer raised his head and blinked. ‘An aircraft? What would I need one of those for?’