Payback

by R. C. Bridgestock

  ‘No wonder we couldn’t tell which team he was batting for,’ said Wilkie.

  Charley felt her jaw clench. Her voice rose as she surveyed those in front of her then, making her case to Wilkie Connor, continued, ‘We don’t do finger pointing. We rely on irrefutable evidence. Now,’ she said, scanning the sea of faces before her. ‘Where’s everyone at?’

  Detective Sergeant Blake glanced to his left. Nothing short of disgust showed upon his face, reddened with anger towards the detective at his side. ‘We are liaising with management and staff of the obvious bars and pubs in the area, ma’am, that we know Kylie frequented, and her workplace too,’ he said.

  ‘Good. We need to concentrate on securing a timeline of Kylie’s final movements. I want to know who spoke to her last and where.’ Charley’s face took on a puzzled expression. ‘Besides murdering Kylie, what do you think could possibly have been going through the killer’s mind when he cut her hair in such a specific way, put her footwear on the wrong feet and staged the dump site scene?’

  ‘The time it must have taken the killer to stage the dump site tells me they weren’t in fear of being apprehended, or maybe they had a lookout?’ said Mike.

  Wilkie raised an eyebrow. ‘Or they wanted to be caught.’

  ‘Maybe it wasn’t the killer who staged the dump site. Maybe there was more than one person in on it: the murderer and an accomplice,’ said Annie.

  ‘Killers are cunning. Some make purposeful mistakes to throw an investigation,’ said Wilkie.

  Annie frowned at him.

  ‘One thing’s for sure, this murder was definitely premeditated,’ said Mike.

  ‘And that’s good news?’ said Annie.

  ‘It’s good news for the boss, because there’s less chance that the CPS will try to reduce the charge to manslaughter,’ said Mike.

  Annie narrowed her eyes. ‘Of course! Do you think the murderer is trying to taunt us?’

  Wilkie’s eyes followed Charley as she stood and walked to the dry-wipe board where photographs of the deceased, the scene and other important information appeared. She turned her back to the group. Her office phone rang and, with her back to her audience, she looked to her left, but decided to ignore it. Instead, she tapped a picture on the board with her pen. She lingered for a moment.

  Wilkie leaned over the table towards Annie, a cocky look in his eye. ‘Or maybe the murderer is just taunting you, ma’am…’ he whispered menacingly.

  Annie kicked him under the table. Wilkie stopped and glared at her. She glared back. Charley turned back to them.

  ‘The netting…’ she said, pointing to a photograph of the deceased laid out on the mortuary slab, ‘…used here to wrap and transport the body, is an obvious positive line of enquiry. I want someone to visit all the local garden centres and nurseries. I want to know if any of the establishments use or sell this type of netting. I am keen to know its origin.’ There was a twinkle in Charley’s eye. ‘What the killer may not have realised, is that the more they tampered with the body, the more they gave us opportunities to find evidence against them.’

  Wilkie slouched back in his chair. ‘That’s easy. How many different horticultural netting outlets can there be, for Christ’s sake?’

  With a swipe of her finger on her mobile phone Annie looked directly at Wilkie and promptly said, ‘Fifteen pages on Google.’

  ‘There you go DC Connor! What are you waiting for?’ Charley’s expression was challenging.

  The office phone rang on the desk in front of DS Blake. He picked the receiver up and listened gravely. After a few seconds, he glanced over at Charley. His frozen expression immediately told her there was something wrong. He offered her the receiver and she walked over towards him and took it from his hand. The control room inspector was direct. ‘Two young boys, aged nine, on their way to school at the Fairways have discovered the body of a male, lying face down at Four Fields.’

  ‘Do we have anyone at the scene?’

  ‘PCSO Richard Adams, boss.’

  ‘Who’s pronounced life extinct?’

  ‘Paramedics. They suggested it was suspicious. Further uniform personnel are en route to secure the scene and to deal with the kids who found him and rang three nines.’

  ‘Well done, lads!’ Charley grabbed her coat, picked up her bag and headed through the CID office at pace, slowing down as she reached the door and fixing on her detective’s mask. At the entrance, Ricky-Lee shedding his coat blocked her path. ‘Don’t bother,’ she said. ‘We’ve another body. CSI are en route; you’re with me.’

  DC Lewis did an about turn and quickened his pace to keep up with Charley, who marched across the car park in front of him. ‘It was quiet around here before you arrived,’ he said. ‘Not that I’m complaining. I could do always do with the overtime.’ He heard the beep of her car alarm. Her opening of the door was swift. The engine was already running when he slid into the passenger seat next to her. He looked across at her, raising his eyes in a question, but before she could answer, Ricky-Lee’s impatience got the better of him.

  ‘So, what ’ave we got?’ he asked.

  Charley was pleased to see that the area was already cordoned off with crime scene tape and that a six-foot screen had been erected around the body to shield the scene from prying eyes and allow passers-by to concentrate on their footing as they traversed the uneven, boggy terrain. Uniform personnel had a visible presence standing guard. Charley took a protective suit from the boot of her car. She nodded towards Neal Rylatt’s CSI van that was parked nearby, and it was from the back of that that Ricky-Lee found one for himself, along with a pair of Wellington boots. Charley couldn’t help but smile to herself. ‘You’re a lucky bastard,’ she said to a wide-eyed Ricky-Lee.

  ‘What?’ he said, with a twinkle in his eye as he slid them on his size ten feet as easily as if they were his own.

  ‘You know what. Back in the day, if I had rocked up to the office late, sporting a newly acquired spray tan, and attended the crime scene with my boss without the proper attire, I’d have been rolling in that mud by now. You’re on borrowed time, son. Be warned.’

  Such was the saturation of the grass that Charley’s own Wellington boots sank an inch with each squelchy step she took; the going was very tough. Protectively, Ricky-Lee reached out and touched her elbow once or twice when she stumbled, and to her annoyance, she found she was glad he was there.

  It was hard to put a timescale on how long the six-foot, black male who lay in the clearing amidst the long grass and moss-covered boulders had been dead. He was face down, with legs apart, arms outstretched and palms to the ground.

  Unshaven, the deceased sported a gold-coloured stud earring in his left earlobe. A camouflage baseball cap, obviously too small for him, sat atop his scruffy head. His faded denim jeans, too big for his waist, were tied with a cheap cloth belt of a darker shade. A washed-out grey hoodie was pulled up to his shoulder blades, and on his feet he wore training shoes that had not only seen better days, but were a size or two too big. Under his right hand lay a syringe which appeared to be empty. On the ground nearby lay a used condom and several scattered cans of lager surrounded him.

  When the body was turned, it revealed beneath it another condom, this time still in its Durex wrapper. There was swelling around the cadaver’s neck. Neal Rylatt pulled back his sleeves and when the CSI’s eyes met Charley’s they told her that she was not the only one who was wrong to have anticipated needle marks.

  ‘It’s not uncommon to inject elsewhere,’ he said, flatly. ‘We will be looking for more evidence of drug abuse at the mortuary.’

  Charley was deep in thought. She looked about her, taking in the scene that she had been presented with. Close by, a horse and its rider galloped away across an adjoining field. Seeing the rider’s long dark hair blowing wildly behind her, for a moment she envied them both their freedom. Cattle nibbled on luscious grass and sheep grazed on the surrounding hillside. At the side of the dead man’s head a tumbling stream hu
rried towards an unseen source beyond, where field met dark woods. Charley stopped and listened. ‘Did you die here?’ she said in a whisper.

  A high-pitched screech startled her. ‘What the hell?’ she said, and, as if in answer, a pale barn owl came flying silently towards her, carrying a mouse proudly in its beak.

  Ricky-Lee looked concerned for the creature. ‘She must be starving and struggling to catch enough food at night,’ he said, following the onward flight of the bird. ‘Mice are more likely to come out during the day in winter,’ he said by way of explanation for the owl’s appearance during daylight hours.

  ‘How do you know it’s a she?’ Charley questioned, surprised.

  ‘Females often have darker brown feathers around the rim of the facial disc, as well as darker bars on the tail and small black spots on the chest and underside of the wings,’ he said, as if everyone should know that.

  Charley was taken aback. Ricky-Lee observed the scene closely. ‘If sex had taken place here, you’d expect the ground to be disturbed, wouldn’t you?’ His eyes lingered on the worn dirt path, searching for clues.

  ‘And his clothing isn’t in disarray, which suggests to me that he’s been killed elsewhere,’ said Charley.

  There was an unspoken agreement and a shared feeling of anticipation between Charley and the CSI as he placed the used condom in an evidence bag for further examination. ‘It may contain DNA that will connect someone to the deceased,’ Neal said.

  Nodding her approval at his asking, Ricky-Lee searched the dead man’s pockets. ‘Nothing,’ he said. His mobile phone rang, and he stood up to take the call, shaking his head at Charley as he hung up. ‘No one of a similar description has been reported missing.’

  Charley raised her eyebrows and sighed. ‘Looks like we’ve no option but to trust that DNA and fingerprints can give us a clue as to who he is.’

  A number of things about the dead body and the locality didn’t sit right with Charley, but there was no doubt in her mind that the scene was a dump site. The corpse would be transported to the mortuary where the post-mortem could confirm this and, she hoped, tell her more about where the victim had come from and how long he had been dead.

  The next port of call was to the school to interview the boys that had found the body. Ricky-Lee slouched in the passenger seat of Charley’s car, sensitive to her need for quiet as she drove away from the scene. They completed the short journey in silence, past farm land bordered by dry-stone walls. Charley surveyed the surrounding fields, thinking how they were unlit during the hours of darkness and open to the public at all times.

  Ricky-Lee waited for a cue from his boss to talk. As they approached a woman on horseback, Charley looked in her mirror, the vehicles behind her slowed down and the drivers tooted. She smiled and passed the horse wide and slow. The rider thanked her by way of a wave and a nod.

  ‘Do you know her?’

  Charley turned to Ricky-Lee as she indicated and turned left through the school gates. The way to the car park was well signposted.

  ‘No. What makes you ask that?’ she said, driving cautiously past several Portakabins, evidently being used as extra classroom space.

  He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Dunno, I just thought, maybe…’

  ‘Horse riders just happen to be the most courteous of road users. Didn’t you know that?’

  Ricky-Lee scoffed. ‘I come from the inner city, ma’am. We don’t have much to do with horses, unless they’re policing a footy match.’

  Charley parked her vehicle inside the wire perimeter fence over which tumbled an abundance of thick ivy of various shades. As the two detectives got out of the car, they were immediately reminded of the activity at the crime scene. The POLSA search was taking place in a field below, the officers were on their knees using their fingertips to search. Their elevated position gave the detectives a good overview of the dump site and its surrounding area from where they stood, side by side, for a moment or two. Charley broke the silence.

  ‘Why the mass planting of trees down there, do you think?’ she asked, pointing towards the area of the little stream at the bottom of the hill. She was thoughtful and her eyes didn’t stray from the focal point. ‘To help reduce flooding maybe?’ she uttered in answer to her own question.

  It was obvious to Ricky-Lee that she didn’t expect an answer from him. He studied the scene for a moment or two. ‘Well, that’s what they say. However, the benefits of creating natural flood defences by planting trees and creating water meadows may have been slightly overstated.’

  Charley frowned. Taking her eyes off the scene for a moment, she turned to him. ‘You think? You seem to know a bit about nature and the countryside, for a Towny that is.’

  He nodded and smiled. She noticed he had a nice, reassuring smile.

  ‘I studied Geography and Criminology for my Masters. Autumn’s a good time to plant saplings and that’s when I think those were dug in.’

  Ricky-Lee’s eyes met Charley’s gaze. For some unknown reason he was pleased to see she appeared impressed.

  Fifteen minutes later, the detectives were ushered into the principal’s study, where a tray with a pot of tea, a jug of milk and a sugar bowl stood alongside a plate of chocolate digestives. Ricky-Lee’s eyes lit up.

  ‘In my experience, a person who stumbles across a body is as likely to need support as the family of a murder victim. Shock takes on many forms. For some the horror lasts for a few seconds, others are haunted for life,’ Charley said to him.

  The two boys entered the principal’s warm, stuffy study, soft-footed. They stood, heads bowed, the smaller of the two with his hands clasped together in front of his tiny frame. The other, the taller and broader of the two, gripped his left forearm with his right hand. They both looked scared.

  Charley immediately praised the youngsters for their actions and they relaxed a little, even raising their heads enough to look Charley directly in the eye when she introduced herself and Ricky-Lee to them.

  ‘Tell me, David, Kenny, how did you know it was a dead body and not a mannequin?’ she asked.

  The smaller of the two studied the detectives, deciding they looked trustworthy and sympathetic, for police officers at least. Slowly he unclenched his hands and pointed to the ground with his index finger, hesitantly, as if recalling the act. ‘I touched it. It was freezing cold,’ David said. He stepped back and closed his eyes to the horror. A shudder ran through his little body and when he opened his eyes he continued to stare at the carpet. ‘The birds were singing after days of rain…’

  Kenny, the taller of the two and the more brusque, cocked his head and dramatically jabbed the air with an imaginary weapon. ‘I prodded it with a stick, just like that. It didn’t move. I’m not daft. That’s what happened when my grandad’s dog croaked.’

  ‘In your own words, can you tell us what happened this morning?’ said Charley.

  David was pale and looked unsteady on his feet. Ricky-Lee offered him his seat. The little boy took it with a sideways glance at the officer that told him he was grateful. Kenny took the lead. ‘We were walking to school, kicking a football between us, weren’t we, Davy?’ He looked down to his friend for confirmation. David nodded. ‘The football rolled off the path and down the hill and it stopped by what I first thought was a pile of clothes. I wondered if it was a human being, but a hat covered the head. When I poked it, I knew we’d found a dead body.’

  David put his head in his hands, rested his elbows on his thighs and groaned. Holding his stomach, he retched and promptly threw up on the carpet.

  It was ten o’clock when the detectives arrived back at the incident room. DS Blake was studying intelligence reports, his shirt sleeves rolled up, one elbow on the table and his knuckles supporting his head. He didn’t look up at their entry, but, pen in hand, continued flicking through the pile of papers, page after page, scanning the information and making notes.

  ‘Mike, I need you to keep a watchful eye over the Kylie murder enquiry. Just while we fin
d out the cause of death for this latest body. My gut instinct tells me we’ve another runner,’ Charley said.

  He looked across at her, his eyes bloodshot. ‘Yeah, will do.’

  ‘Anything?’ she said, as she walked the few extra yards to stand by his chair.

  ‘No, nothing.’ He covered his mouth with the back of his hand. Arching his back, he stretched and yawned, slipping a pile of papers with names on across the desk in her direction. ‘Nothing but a list of those we’ve spoken to.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Some were sincere, meant well,’ he said with forced cheerfulness. ‘But most were clearly either barking mad, looking for someone to talk to or out to get a bit of notoriety.’

  ‘We’re still listening to anyone who has anything to say though, right?’