Tuesday night became Wednesday morning. It was just after 2am on-screen when Anders stopped playing his pinball machine and said, ‘About here’s where you want to press play. If you want to hear the Stanton Beast.’
Bennet slowed the video to twice real time, and dropped the fast-forward altogether when he saw a green-lit Anders come out of his home. It was obvious why. The microphones caught the faraway crack of wood, and the roar of a throaty engine. The sounds were barely there, which added to the eeriness.
‘I came out because I wondered if the road was being fixed,’ Anders said, leaning over Bennet’s shoulder to watch the screen. ‘The supermarket people, they re-tarmacked early so their suits could ride on down to see the site for the new store. But some people reckon they were planning to start building on the sly, get some momentum going while this thing got argued in court. I was ready to start shouting, what with them doing that stuff at that time of the morning. But then I wondered if some people were pretending to be the Beast, you know?’
If the noise had been a flash, there and gone, anyone might have guessed at a car crashing into the woods. But the sinister sounds continued, a steady mix of throaty growl and crack of wood, reminiscent of the sound effects in horror movies. The faint noise certainly sounded intentional.
‘I didn’t want to get involved if some gang of yobbos was larking about,’ Anders said. ‘Vicious bastards these days, carrying knives and all. So don’t think I’m a wimp for not rushing down there.’
The Anders on screen went back into his building. The mega microphone even caught the sound of bolts being slammed into place as the man who wasn’t a wimp fortified his stronghold. A floodlight came on, lighting up the garden and shutting off the camera’s night vision. The strange noises continued.
But it got no louder or fainter, so whatever it was didn’t move closer or further away from the camera. No vehicle went past. There were no lights out there in the woods.
‘Where did the noise come from?’ he asked Anders.
‘Down to the left. Not close, but I couldn’t tell how far. But I figured it was at the boathouse. Yobbos mess about there all the time.’
The boathouse. Anders was the second man to state that it was a location sightseers liked to visit. If Overeem wanted to fully explore Lampton for his crime documentary, and inject a few unnecessary thrills, and pad the runtime, there was a chance he’d chosen to cover the Stanton Beast myth.
So, the boathouse. A long shot, but all Bennet had left. Besides, just like he’d told the Panorama’s manager, Gemma, ninety per cent of a copper’s work was a waste of time.
37
Bennet returned to the spot on the service road where he’d parked earlier to take a call from Hooper. The intact portion of wall, with a complete arch barred by mesh wire, didn’t interest him this time. A couple of metres to the right, he saw the old stone boathouse in the trees. He was surprised he’d missed it last time. He approached the mesh-covered arch, and got a surprise.
This was where, from the Arrow, he’d noticed a thinness to the trees from road to lake, and now he understood why. From that remote, elevated position, the tops of the trees had hidden what lay below. The ground was clear of trees in a ten-feet strip from the archway to the lake, lined on both sides by a border of mossy stones, many of which were missing or askew. Once it had been a concrete slipway for a boat, but it was virtually gone. Nature had spent years reclaiming it. Underground life, pushing for the surface, had ruined it. Trees crowding its sides had expanded the reach of their branches to smother it. It made Bennet think of a healing wound.
But something had happened here.
Bennet walked around the section of wall and entered the woods. Ahead of him was the boathouse. If the stone building had once stood in a clearing, that was gone. The boathouse was headed the same way. It had only three walls, so one side was open to the elements, and he could see all he needed to without getting close. All that remained of the roof were a few joists. Nature had claimed the floor. There was litter all over the ground, but the cans and crisp packets and bottle labels were all faded with age. Although it looked as if people had been here, there was nothing that looked as recent as Monday night. He doubted the film crew had stayed here and nothing suggested they’d been here to shoot a film scene.
But something had happened here.
He moved left, emerging onto the old slipway. Now, closer, Bennet could see definite damage. Branches to the side and above the slipway had been snapped and shorn. Some hung loose. There was a carpet of busted wood on the ground, where only smaller plants had been left untouched, everything else having been uprooted; but the remaining flora was bent towards the lake, as if straining to reach the water. Locals might have blamed the rampaging Stanton Beast, and Anders might have blamed supermarket engineers working on the sly. But one had no evidence and one was stupid. Liam knew what he was looking at.
But he needed to confirm it, so he walked back to the wall, and around, and approached the wire-mesh archway. Again, proximity equalled enlightenment. He could see a groove in the interior lining of the brick arch where the edge of the chain-link fencing had been slotted. But not with care, for in places it had slipped its housing. The people who engineered this barrier hadn’t done that; clearly the mesh portion had come free at some point and been sloppily reinserted.
He gave a push. The fencing yanked free easily and fell away. Bennet stepped into the arch and looked up. Double his height, at least. Ten feet wide. Big enough to fit the CaraHome. The damage to the tree branches and undergrowth looked like the work of a vehicle of similar dimensions.
If the film crew had entered the woods in their vehicle, why? There was no room to turn on the slipway, no path off it they could have taken. The CaraHome would have suffered scratches from the broken branches, and it would have had to reverse out again. It made no sense.
Unless they had been hiding…
He walked down the overgrown slipway, stepping in clear spaces where he could, and brushing aside long, thin branches that had flexed with the passage of a vehicle and sprung back into place in its wake. Now out of the woods, he could see the whole lake stretching away to his left. It was still. The treeline held a position a couple of metres from the water’s edge, creating a clear border around the lake. But it was not wide enough to permit a vehicle and the rocky earth would have posed a problem even for a bicycle. His eyes returned to the water. It was clear on top but faded to black just a few feet down, as if a film of water lay upon a mass of oil. But in that silver skim he saw another colour, specific to a point directly before him, and as his eyes soaked in the details it took a shape. Oblong, perhaps seven feet by ten.
Bennet took a step into the water, sinking his foot a few inches, leaning forward, staring at what appeared to be a submerged white floor, and his heart started to thump. But upon his next step, to lean ever closer and confirm a growing suspicion, solid ground evaporated. As if he’d stepped off a ledge, his entire foot sank and he pitched forward.
He felt his torso strike the cold water, but stop dead as if it was a sheet of ice. But it was his hands and knees that had broken his fall. This close, his eyes an inch above the water, he saw the white floor all around him, but directly beneath his hands was a square black abyss. He raised a hand and slammed it down, and felt the impact of his flesh against an invisible barrier across the black hole. But he was confused no more.
Glass. A black window in a white floor that was no such thing. Right then he knew he knelt upon the flat back end of the CaraHome, nose down in the lake.
Part II
38
‘Did you find Mum?’
Bennet had to wipe an eye and it took a few seconds before he responded to his son. Thankfully, the boy couldn’t see down the phone.
‘No,’ Bennet said. He thumped a fist into his own leg. ‘Look, I need to go. I’ll call you soon.’
He hung up and turned. The uniformed police constable held his hand out for the phone. B
ennet shook his head. ‘I’ll be keeping this.’
The constable hadn’t expected that. ‘I was supposed to take your phone back after the call.’
‘Go tell your superior I refused to hand it over. It’s my phone and it’s staying with me. And the statement’s done.’ He pointed at two sheets of paper on the bed. ‘And I haven’t had any breakfast yet. And find out if Superintendent Hunter is here yet.’
The constable didn’t press it about the phone. Different police services or not, Bennet was still a DCI. The uniform took the sheets and left.
Bennet approached the window of the hotel room. Outside, police cars seemed to fill the grass car park, and beyond the closed gates were more vehicles. Not police though. These belonged to people with cameras and microphones, all eager to talk to someone in the Arrow Hotel. One of the reporters saw Bennet at the upper window and aimed a camera. Bennet shut the curtains.
There was all sorts of noise from outside the room. But not from traditional guests: the eight present had been kicked out to accommodate the abrupt influx of Derbyshire’s finest. The Arrow Hotel had been commandeered as a police command centre/incident room, a welcome change to a tiny room in a police station or a truck rolling around the village.
And because it was close to a major crime scene.
Bennet lay on the bed, stared at the ceiling, and waited. He’d been here for about three hours. Earlier, he’d been debriefed, here in this nice room with a cup of tea. Just one copper unloading info to help another. They’d given him his phone back and some of the hotel manager’s old clothing to replace his sodden gear. And they’d politely asked him to remain on-site in case they had more questions.
But Bennet knew the game and he wasn’t fooled. His chat with the other detective hadn’t been recorded, there had been no mention of a solicitor, but Bennet knew the ‘debrief’ had actually been the first of many interviews. He had his phone, but they’d taken it away for the first hour to scrutinise recent activity. His wet clothing was going for analysis. The door wasn’t locked, but a uniformed officer was stationed outside. His chief inspector status got him the sweet treatment, but he knew they hadn’t yet ruled him out. They were fifty–fifty on whether he was a witness or a suspect.
Such was the honour of those who discovered dead bodies.
The officer came back a few minutes later. Bennet didn’t even look away from the ceiling. ‘Superintendent Hunter arrived a few minutes ago. He will see you soon.’
Bennet said nothing, but he rose and headed for the door. The officer looked concerned.
‘No, you shouldn’t leave yet, sir. I’ll come get you when it’s time. You should stay here.’
Bennet had spoken to four different policemen and each one had used shouldn’t instead of can’t, but Bennet didn’t see the difference. However, the officer knew he couldn’t manhandle his charge, and Bennet stepped out of the room.
He was followed down the stairs, to the foyer. Immediately, he saw two suited men amongst the casually-dressed detectives and police officers. Seeing him, they approached. One was a middle-aged man, quite bland, with a bald head. The other was the dapper Superintendent Hunter. Hunter got there first and stepped into a quiet corner with Liam.
‘I was coming to see you,’ Hunter said. ‘Liam, are you okay?’
‘I seem to be being treated more like a suspect than a witness, sir. Did you read my statement?’
‘Yes. And I’ve spoken to people at the scene. There are inconsistencies, Liam.’
‘They think I lied?’
Hunter looked disappointed. ‘What’s going on? What happened out there? I mean, what really happened out there?’
Inconsistencies. Bennet’s thoughts turned to Joe, and the lie he’d told to his own flesh and blood.
39
This statement (consisting of …2…pages each signed by me) is true to the best of my knowledge and belief and I make it knowing that if it is tendered in evidence, I shall be liable to prosecution if I have wilfully stated in it anything which I know to be false or do not believe to be true.
I am a police officer of the South Yorkshire Police…
(page 2)
…I entered the woods. At the end of an old slipway, I looked into the lake and saw something two or three feet beneath the surface that looked white. I waded in, but the land slipped away after just a few feet and I fell forward. I landed on the object below the surface, which I realised was the flat back end of a vehicle with a window in it. My assessment was that the vehicle was a Weinsberg CaraHome belonging to Overeem. The vehicle had gone into the water, dropped over the submerged edge, and sunk nose down.
I ducked under the water for a closer look, using my phone torch. I could see a human body pressed up against the back window. I also saw three more bodies, sitting in the front seats with their seat belts in place. At this point my weight broke the back window and the body against the glass floated out and up to the surface of the water. Because she was face up, I visually identified the body as that of Lorraine Cross, my son’s mother. She floated to the shore and lodged there. I got out of the water and called the police…
40
Bennet and Hunter stood on the veranda, staring out at Lake Stanton. At the activity taking place at the crime scene. The treetops obscured the slipway and the service road, but amongst the green Liam could make out the white of vehicles and the shimmer of police officers moving around. By the shore, divers entered and exited the water. Heavy machinery was en route to remove the CaraHome. It pained him that he was here, not there.
The bodies, according to Hunter, had been retrieved and were already at the mortuary for urgent post-mortems. The CaraHome would be out before nightfall. The scene had been cordoned off by simply blocking both ends of the service road and the entrance to Anders’ garden centre, but in such a wide open area it was impossible to prevent prying eyes. Bennet could see people in ones and twos and larger groups scattered around the far shore of Lake Stanton, and even some creeping closer on the off-limits side. Lampton locals eager to learn news, and journalists eager to sell it. Lorraine lay dead, and these bastards were loving the break in backwoods monotony. He wished he had a sniper rifle.
‘Why did they take over this hotel?’ Bennet asked.
‘Closer to the crime scene,’ Hunter replied. ‘I think one of the locals arranged it.’
Bennet had suspected as much. And he had a bad feeling he knew who. ‘That someone called Councillor Richard Turner, by any chance?’
‘I think I heard that name. Who is he?’
And there it was. Lampton locals didn’t want a police invasion of their little enclave and Turner had worked his magic, just like he had way back when Lampton hit the headlines because of a missing girl. Maybe he’d heard the news from a fox-hunting detective buddy, and had called his Freemason friend the chief constable. But he’d failed to stop word spreading, given the bastards amassed at the gate like a hungry zombie army.
‘Has anyone contacted Lorraine’s husband yet?’
Hunter was staring down at the Arrow Climb. ‘For ID? Her driver’s licence was found in her purse. We did it by photo. He confirmed.’
‘How did he take it?’
It might have been a silly question to some, but not veteran detectives. In their time, both men had seen every imaginable reaction to news of a dead loved one. Hunter had often told a tale from his detective days when he was dumped with a death knock. Informed of her husband’s death in a traffic accident, a wife had excused herself and ran to the bathroom, but it wasn’t vomiting or distressed shrieking he’d heard. And when done laughing, she’d asked Hunter out for dinner.
‘Numb,’ Hunter said. ‘Are you going to go see him?’
Bennet shrugged. He really didn’t know. At the minute it seemed wrong to. And wrong not to. ‘Am I going to be arrested?’
It was the second time Bennet had asked the question. After the first, Hunter had brought him out here, for privacy. But he hadn’t answered it.
‘What inconsistencies?’
‘You said the window in the back of the motorhome broke and Lorraine’s body floated out. DCS Sutton thinks you made sure to mention that you got fully submerged, to explain your wet clothing. He thinks that although the window was big enough to get a body through, it’s doubtful Lorraine’s would have floated out. Primarily because the bodies haven’t been dead long enough to enter the bloat stage. None of them would float yet. Next, he doubts your ability to have seen other bodies. The divers indeed found three more, seat-belted in place in the cabin. The motorhome is nineteen feet long. The divers said that even with their lights, the water was so murky visibility was only about ten feet. They were halfway into the vehicle before they saw the three other bodies. Not possible from the vicinity of the back window.’
‘So what does he think happened?’
Hunter grunted in frustration. He held up the two pages of Bennet’s official first statement. ‘Liam, old friend to old friend, is this bullshit? Did you go inside that motorhome?’
‘That’s a preposterous suggestion, sir. Of course I didn’t.’
41
Superintendent Hunter arranged for him to be allowed to leave the Arrow Hotel. Bennet’s Pathfinder was in the car park, but DCS Sutton had wanted Bennet to be driven home because he was under strain and in no condition to drive – or so he’d said. But when Bennet refused an escort, the truth emerged: given Bennet’s relationship to one of the dead, Sutton didn’t trust him to stay away from the investigation. Only upon a promise to Hunter had Sutton relented.
Cold Blood Page 14