Payback

by R. C. Bridgestock

  ‘What – in the church grounds?’ Annie held open the door for her boss.

  Charley forced a smile. ‘Not exactly; just over the dry-stone wall.’

  The door swung closed in their wake and Annie eagerly continued asking questions. ‘What sort of crimes would the guilty hang for back then, do you think?’ The corridor wider here, she was able to walk alongside Charley, matching step for step.

  ‘You’re presuming that they only hanged the guilty?’ Charley’s face showed a wry smile as she pulled open the door to the next corridor. The CID office was now in sight. ‘During the eighteenth century, the death sentence could have been passed for picking pockets or stealing food.’

  As they entered the CID office, there was already a palpable sense of urgency. Some staff hurried around with papers in hand, others were standing at the printers eagerly awaiting the information they spewed out, and the rest were either inputting data or on the phone. Each person in the room had a focus, a purpose, otherwise they wouldn’t have been there.

  The two women walked directly to the conference table from where Charley would soon be addressing the team. Charley sat and instinctively sought the return from court of her sergeant, as the evidence she would require for the briefing was brought to her.

  ‘Mmm … How very clever of them,’ Annie said thoughtfully as she also sat down, next to Charley.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Those in charge of hanging people, of course.’

  ‘Clever, how do you mean?’ Charley said. ‘Thankfully, we’ve moved on a long way in how we deal with prisoners.’ Charley shuffled papers into a pile and tapped them on the desk to even them out. She suppressed a smile, took a deep breath and called for the others to join them at once. This was what being an SIO was all about, getting a job and running with it – grateful for the well-oiled cogs in the incident room wheel.

  Annie went on, ‘Yeah, but just think. The body of the guilty person could be shoved straight into a prepared grave if we still hanged ’em nearby. I say it’s a pity we don’t still do the same today. Save us a hell of a lot of time and money,’ Annie said. ‘No undertakers, no service, no wake…’

  ‘In t’olden days the likes of you, Annie Glover, would’ve been classed as a scold,’ said Wilkie, who had obviously been listening in to the conversation and now swivelled his chair round to join them.

  ‘Who rattled your bloody cage?’ Annie snapped back.

  ‘A troublesome and angry woman, who by brawling and wrangling amongst her colleagues, breaks the public peace, increases discord and would be at the end of a ducking stool if it had anything to do with me.’

  ‘God loves a trier … Why don’t you fuck off!’ retorted Annie, showing him a middle finger.

  Wilkie chuckled. ‘It’d be a foolproof way of establishing whether you really are a witch,’ he said, through slitted eyes.

  When Charley was a child, the hilltop church could be seen from afar at night, its illuminated cross a beacon shining down to protect the town below. Now, it was nothing more than a derelict shell: Nearer My God to Thee, being the reason Charley had considered in her youth. She’d latterly conceded it was more likely that the hilltops were difficult to till and thus less promising as farmland than the bottom land near the rivers and the creeks. As the land would originally have been donated by a landowner, a hilltop parcel would have been more expendable than valuable farmland.

  She knew the old graveyard well. Once a meeting place for her and Danny in their youth, a stomping ground where they frightened each other almost to death with ghost stories and where he’d hide his treasure – a penknife, matches, rope and a scarf he said smelt like his mother. When Charley had needed a project for her history thesis it had been the place she’d chosen to research. Beyond its partly tumbledown, dry-stone walls, an overgrown and extended field was surrounded by moorland – it was still an enchanting place.

  Paperwork held high in one hand, she banged the table with the other, stood and called for silence in the room, grateful to see Mike Blake appear just in time for the address – fully briefed, she hoped. If those present couldn’t see her from where they sat, they moved, or stood. The sound of chairs being pulled nearer to the centre island, in order that their occupiers could hear what Charley was about to say, made a cringeworthy sound on the floor. When all was still, she began.

  ‘OK, OK, anyone got anything else for me before we begin?’ she asked. She looked around her. No reply, paperwork, or information was forthcoming. Heads were all turned in one direction, their focus solely on Charley. All was still. She turned to the sergeant. ‘Mike?’ she said. Mike nodded and stood. Charley sat and looked up at him, as eager as the others to hear what he knew.

  ‘A woman was found dead this morning by a local farmer, Peter Stead, when he was out walking his dog,’ he said, referring to his notes. ‘He was the one to ring three nines from his mobile phone. At this time, he was also able to describe to the operator the scene he had come across.’

  ‘Do we know what time that was?’ said Charley.

  ‘Around seven-thirty, ma’am. Uniform patrol is now on site as the first responder and they’re requesting CID attendance.’

  Pen in hand Charley scribbled notes on her writing pad.

  ‘Life pronounced extinct by?’

  ‘Paramedics.’

  ‘Have they cut the body down?’

  ‘No, they didn’t want to disturb the scene. Apparently, it was quite obvious to them that the woman was dead, and the circumstances of her death had to be suspicious.’

  A thousand thoughts fought for supremacy in Charley’s mind as she stood up to conclude the briefing with instructions. Just minutes later she watched the fingers of her team dance instinctively across the keyboards, their eyes focused on their computers, flicking through various screens, ticking boxes, updating data – doing what they were trained to do. Ricky-Lee’s hands, however, were raised over his mobile phone as he looked up to see her looking in his direction. He raised his eyebrows expectantly when their eyes met. She walked towards him.

  ‘I want you to deal with the one in the cells, instead of Annie,’ she said. ‘Quick as you can. I need you at the scene ASAP.’

  Charley pointed to Mike and Wilkie as she walked towards her office. ‘I want you two to take the firm’s car and I’ll see you at the scene pronto.’ Murmurings grew in volume, in her wake, with an intensity that ran around the office.

  ‘Ring the Commander’s secretary and make my apologies will you please?’ she called over her shoulder to Tattie. Her request was met with a nod of the head. ‘As much as I was looking forward to the welcome back,’ she mumbled out of the corner of her mouth as she passed Annie’s chair.

  Annie rolled her eyes and smiled knowingly. The younger woman looked up at Charley, her eyes brimming with excitement. ‘I’ve never been to a murder scene,’ she whispered. ‘If that’s what it is … murder.’

  It was Charley’s turn to be surprised. ‘Want to see how it’s done?’ she asked.

  Annie nodded eagerly.

  ‘You’re with me,’ Charley said with a wink of one eye.

  Annie’s eyes lit up still further. ‘O.M.G! Thank you,’ she mouthed.

  There was a collective banging of drawers shut, rustling of paper, the printer spewing out yet more, a shout of ‘Who had the firm’s car keys last?’ and a flinging of a pen across a desk to an awaiting Wilkie, who had beckoned it from Tattie.

  Charley stopped briefly at her office door and turned to see the retreating figure of her second in command. ‘Mike,’ she called. Mike spun around on his heel and looked at her expectantly. ‘Will you get hold of the scenes of crime supervisor, ask them to join us and tell them to bring a crime scene investigator?’ DS Blake acknowledged her request with the raise of a hand.

  The Commander might not be best pleased that she was postponing his invitation to meet and greet, or at the likelihood of there being a suspicious death on his patch to take up his limited resources, Charley t
hought as she entered her office, but he couldn’t blame her, as much as he might want to lay a budget overspend at someone else’s feet.

  ‘OK, let’s get this show on the road,’ Charley shouted with an energy she’d got out of the habit of using. Her door was wide open and as she prepared to go to the scene she continued to shout out instructions, as thoughts for further immediate enquiries popped into her head. ‘Annie, check intelligence to see if we have any females reported missing.’ Charley put her pen to her lips and took it away immediately the next instruction sprang to mind. ‘And you might care to check over the borders too – just in case: Derbyshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, North Yorkshire and South Yorkshire.’ She checked the five counties off on her fingers.

  An experienced copper, Charley Mann had worked on many murder enquiries, but that didn’t mean that the hairs on the back of her neck hadn’t risen, adrenaline wasn’t pumping wildly through her veins, or that her heartbeat hadn’t quickened at the thought of what lay ahead of her. She was no stranger to crime scenes – in her relatively short service she had dealt with a large variety of man’s inhumanity to man and her approach had become somewhat routine – but Annie’s announcement that she had never been to a murder scene before had set a multitude of thoughts and emotions reeling through her brain. Never complacent, she had kept abreast of forensic breakthroughs – one thing the police were good at was training their officers and she would ensure her staff would get the training they needed. She was more than aware that no two crime scenes were ever the same and that there were lessons to be learnt at each and every one. As they travelled to the scene, Charley contemplated what the crime scene would teach her, as much as what it would teach her younger passenger. A thousand questions, and instructions to give the personnel under her command at the scene, did somersaults in Charley’s head. Annie was respectfully silent.

  Just short of their destination, Charley swung the car down an unmarked and almost invisible unmade road. The vehicle bounced and rattled, suspension creaking, as it lurched along the track. Bouncing off the verge, the car came to a halt, two tyres in the dirt and brambles. Annie looked around her. There were no other vehicles to be seen.

  ‘Where are we?’ asked Annie.

  ‘It’s quicker this way when approaching by car, trust me.’

  Taking Charley’s lead, Annie got out of the car. Shivering, she looked on with angst as her boss stepped into her Wellington boots and pulled on her hat and gloves before shuffling into her weatherproof overcoat. Finally, she wrapped a woollen scarf around her neck and pulled it up over her nose and mouth before slamming the boot shut. Charley turned to Annie, her face set, on a mission. Immediately she stopped and looked from the girl’s grey, pinched face to her stockingless feet and flat plimsolls at the end of her long, black cotton trouser-clad legs. She groaned, opened the back door of her car, pulled out her riding boots and offered them to the girl along with her riding jacket.

  ‘Lesson one,’ Charley said. ‘Always be prepared with sufficient warm clothing and footwear; or be prepared for your clothes to be ruined and to be the butt of the others’ jokes, like I was.’

  She recalled her first body on the moors. By the time she had returned to the office, her smart, heeled shoes had been completely ruined and her size six feet were killing her. However, she’d taken some solace in the fact that she’d had the presence of mind to roll up her trouser legs and therefore her one and only suit at that time wasn’t ruined too.

  Annie nodded gratefully, the icy cold creeping all through her body. Surprisingly, the smell of horses didn’t make her baulk as she’d imagined it might when she’d first put the jacket on, but when she closed her eyes against the elements she imagined freshly cut pastures and a tractor spluttering somewhere up ahead – not the dead body hanging from a tree she was about to encounter. The pleasant thoughts gave her great comfort to forge ahead into the unknown as she followed her boss.

  Accustomed to walking over rough terrain, Charley knew that the best footing was in the middle of the trail. ‘Don’t try to pick your way, or pussyfoot around the puddles,’ she advised. ‘It’ll only result in mud all over and you’ll end up falling over.’ She checked on Annie struggling a few yards behind her, like a baby fawn learning to walk. Once or twice she stopped and waited for her to catch up.

  ‘You’ll have guessed by now that I’m a townie,’ Annie said, breathlessly.

  Charley didn’t seem to hear. Instead of responding, she nodded her head towards the rendezvous point. ‘Just follow me, you’ll be fine,’ she said. The air was sharp and wet, but she felt invigorated by it. The ancient plot was in two open fields divided by a dry-stone wall that was, she saw, badly in need of repair. As they approached the five-bar gate, she paused, feeling slightly disorientated by its newness. She tilted her face into the wind as if listening for some direction Annie was unable to hear. The younger of the two struggled behind, finding it harder and harder to breathe and to keep up. With increasing ferocity, the harsh northerly wind circling the three steep-sided Pennine valleys made a howling sound, not unlike a wounded animal. Annie wondered if she could possibly be dreaming: her apprehension grew until the tight band around her heart was as much from anxiety, as from the cold. Were the dilapidated remains of the old burial ground getting any nearer? It didn’t appear so to her.

  Charley turned and threw her arms wide at the top of a mound while she waited for Annie once more.

  ‘Hundreds of people died in Marsden during the Industrial Revolution.’ She looked down at her feet and the uneven ground. ‘I’m reliably informed most of them are buried here. That said, many more died before then from sheer lack of food or basic resources. I guess they’ll be here too, buried by their families in unmarked graves, as near to the sacred ground as they could without having to pay for it.’ Charley waited for Annie to catch her breath and then carried on walking.

  ‘The Luddites used to hold secret meetings at the Old Moor Cock, at the top of Mount Road,’ Charley shouted over her shoulder. ‘You’ll be seeing a lot of that place, I imagine, if you stick around.’ Her words were carried surprisingly clearly on the breath of the wind.

  Charley stopped abruptly, bent low beneath the knotted overhang of branches of a tall, broad oak tree and, as Annie stumbled beside her, she pointed a finger at a small group of uniformed police officers, hopping from foot to foot in an attempt to keep warm, no doubt. ‘There!’ she pointed, with some satisfaction.

  The graveyard that lay before them was like the ruins of an overgrown garden. Headstones were toppled and strewn across the ground. Where flowers and shrubs had once flowered, now there were only masses of brown stems and low, sweeping, misshapen trees.

  Apart from securing the scene with outer and inner cordons of blue and white crime scene tape, which danced happily in the wind, uniform could do nothing more than wait for the SIO to arrive – and God help them if they hadn’t secured the crime scene properly for Charley Mann. Training would have made them aware, or experience shown them, that they had only one chance to preserve a crime scene.

  ‘Neal Rylatt is CSI supervisor, ma’am, and he’s on his way,’ stated a uniformed police officer. Annie watched Charley scan the area surrounding them with an expert eye, collating the information she would later rely on to make important decisions. There was the odd mumble of officers exchanging words; a radio bleep; instructions; requests being made over the airways. The ground beneath them, strewn with leaf litter and dead vegetation, smelled of pungent decay.

  ‘I expect the first on the scene to ensure it’s kept sterile and protected from the elements, as well as from people, no matter who they are. Do you understand?’ Charley asked Annie.

  Annie nodded emphatically, instinctively putting her hands deep into her pockets. Only then did she find a woollen scarf in the coat Charley had lent her – and the odd Polo mint or two, covered in fluff.

  Annie’s puzzled look at the mint in her hand was met with a knowing smile. ‘The horses lov
e them,’ Charley said.

  Whilst the SIO spoke to a uniformed officer, Annie wrapped the scarf around her head where a hat would have been, if she’d had one. She followed Charley’s lead and also looked about her – not sure what she was looking for other than anything out of the ordinary. A crisp frost remained in the sheltered areas and although the sun was up, the wind chill reminded her in no uncertain terms that it was still winter, and winter in the North was at least ‘a coat colder’ than in the south of England.

  Those who knew Charley were aware that she would not tolerate any idleness, laziness or lack of professionalism from her team. Her time away had taught her that law enforcement in the city centre was very different to rural policing. Here she was reminded she had limited resources to call upon. However, the feather in the cap for the rural police was that the vehicle fleet included two Land Rovers, which enabled the officers to reach outlying areas of the challenging terrain that covered their patch, and she knew she was going to need them here.

  ‘Have you been on your off-road training yet?’ she asked Annie, as they waited for the CSI.

  ‘No, I’ve only been at Peel Street for a month and I don’t think my sergeant was very impressed,’ she grimaced. ‘He seconded me straight into CID as soon as the vacancy arose.’

  ‘Well, we’ll have to remedy that as soon as possible. It’ll help you gain confidence; it did me.’

  ‘Really? I’d love it. What does it entail?’

  ‘Going over the top of steep, muddy banks, when all you can see over the bonnet of the Landy is the sky as the vehicle plunges over the summit.’ Remembering that scene still triggered a cold sweat in Charley. However, Annie looked ecstatic.