by Ford, P. F.
He checked in the mirror. Yeah, he looked okay. A last quick check around his little house to make sure everything was clean and tidy. They were only going down the pub for a drink, and he wasn’t planning to bring her back here, but you never know your luck.
It was just as he reached for the door that his mobile phone began to ring. He thought about ignoring it, but that was easier said than done. He looked for the incoming number. If he didn’t know the number calling he would ignore it. Definitely.
He signed when he saw who was calling. Shit, I can’t ignore that one.
“Yes?” he said into the phone.
“And a good evening to you, too,” said the surly voice of tonight’s duty sergeant.
“It’s my bloody night off,” said Slater. “So I’m hardly going to be pleased to hear from you, am I?”
“Look, I’m just doing my job, alright? Like everyone else here I have to obey orders from above, so when the big boss tells me to track you down, that’s what I have to do.”
“Right,” said Slater. “So you’ve tracked me down. Now what do you want?”
“You have to take charge of a crime scene out at Haunted Copse.”
“What? Now?” asked Slater.
“No. Next bloody week,” snapped the sergeant. “Of course now, you numpty. Otherwise I wouldn’t have wasted a bloody phone call, would I?”
“You’re kidding me, right?” asked Slater. “I’m just going out on a date.”
“You were just going out on a date,” corrected the sergeant, evidently taking great delight in Slater’s disappointment. “She probably would have been disappointed anyway.”
“No. Sod it.” Slater gripped the phone angrily. “I’m entitled to time off just like everyone else. Tell the old man to stick it. I’m busy.”
“Hold on,” said the sergeant. “I’m not your bloody servant. I’ll give you his home number. You can tell him yourself. And do I need to remind you that you’re a police officer and you have a duty to perform? Now, where’s that number? Oh, here it is. Have you got a pen?”
“Aw this just isn’t friggin’ fair-”
“Life’s not friggin’ fair, Detective Sergeant Slater. It wasn’t fair on the poor bugger they’ve just found dead out by the woods. It’s not fair on the poor sods who are out there now scraping body parts up and putting them in a bag. But I don’t hear any of them complaining, only you. They’re just getting on with the job while they wait for a nice detective sergeant to come along and take charge.”
“Oh, bollocky, bloody shite!” stormed Slater. “Why can’t someone else do it? How about Norman? What’s he doing?”
“He’ll be coming out there to join you, just as soon as I get you off the phone and get hold of him. And I bet he won’t make half the fuss you’re making.”
“Alright!” snapped Slater. “You’ve made your bloody point. I’ll be on my way in five minutes. I’ve just got to make a phone call first.”
“Why thank you so much,” said the sergeant. “Give my love to your girlfriend.”
“Oh, piss off,” said Slater as he cut the call.
He thumbed through his contacts until he found her number.
“Hi, Jelena. I’m sorry, something’s come up at work. I’m not going to be able to make it tonight…”
This had better be bloody good, he thought five minutes later, as he closed his front door and headed for his car. But, he knew if Norman was being called out too, it had to be something pretty big.
As he started his car and began to drive, his irritation lifted and he began to feel a sense of relief, because in all honesty, he was actually rather glad he was going to miss his date. He didn’t know the reason why, he just knew deep inside that she wasn’t right for him.
Chapter 6
As Slater arrived, he could hear the noisy, rattling, hum of a generator filling the air. Under cover of a hastily erected, larger than normal, tent, copious photographs were being taken and numerous samples collected. Slater saw the police surgeon climbing into his car, shaking his head. He had obviously been summoned to pronounce the death, and from his outfit, he had obviously been in the middle of some fancy dinner. Slater always found it grimly amusing that even in the cases where it was patently obvious someone was dead, the police surgeon still had to have his dinner interrupted to come and confirm that yes, the man without a head was in fact dead.
It was 8.30 now, and the car park was overflowing with vehicles, so Slater parked on the narrow road and walked the few yards into the car park. PC Flight was the first face he saw.
“Well now, Flighty,” he said, jokingly. “If you want to get me out here for some car park fun it’s no good inviting all this bloody lot as well. Unless, of course, you like an audience.”
She looked startled for moment, and her mouth opened and shut without saying anything. He wondered if perhaps he’d shocked her with his suggestion, but surely she’d heard much worse than that before? Maybe she wasn’t as worldly as she made out. To his relief, though, she seemed to recover her composure quickly.
“I’ve told you before. It’s PC Flight, and you’d be the last person I’d call wherever the venue was. I’ve got a perfectly good husband at home. I don’t need the attentions of some old has-been like you.”
They often had these exchanges, and as her put-downs went it was quite mild, but this time he felt there was actually some real venom behind it. He considered a retort, then thought better of it. Maybe she’s just had a bad day. Whatever.
“So what have we got?” he asked her.
“I’ll take you up to the scene, and sign you in if you like,” she said, all business-like now, as she headed off towards the copse.
He had to run a couple of steps to catch her, then fell in alongside as she began to speak.
“Young woman out walking her dog found a dead body up near the copse. Poor girl was in bits. She must have fallen on top of the body. She’s covered in all sorts of smelly shit. Jolly Jane’s gone with her to the hospital. She’ll try to get a bit more of a statement, but that’s about it really.”
“Do we know anything about the body?” he asked. “Any ID?”
“To be honest I couldn’t even tell for sure if it was just one body,” she said.
“What? Are there two heads or something?”
“You’ll see what I mean when you get in there,” she said. “You won’t find it so funny then.”
They walked on in silence until they neared the tent.
“That’s a bloody big tent, isn’t it?” asked Slater
“It had to be,” she said, grimly. She’d stopped walking now. “I’ll wait out here if that’s alright. I’d rather not see that again.”
Slater looked at her in surprise. He’d never known her to be even remotely squeamish before. In fact, she had a reputation for having the strongest stomach in Tinton, so this must be a bad one.
“Okay,” he said. “No problem. Thanks for filling me in.”
She gave him the obligatory white paper suit, a pair of latex gloves and offered a jar of menthol cream to smear under his nose, then signed him in.
Women, he thought, as he headed for the tent.
He stood outside the tent and donned the suit and gloves. He could already smell the body, so he dabbed a liberal amount of the menthol under his nose, then pushed his way inside the tent. The blinding flashes from not one, but two, photographers made it hard to see at first, but after a few seconds his eyes adjusted and he was able to take in the scene.
“Bloody hell!” was all he could think of to say.
Two figures, dressed in paper suits, were bent over what appeared to be the head end of the body. One of them looked up from where he was kneeling on the ground.
“DSDS,” he said. “About bloody time.”
“Becksy?” asked Slater, not sure at first if it was Ian Becks, although he didn’t actually know anyone else who referred to him as DSDS.
Becks was Tinton’s equivalent of a forensics department
. It was just him, a small team of three, and a tiny lab, but even so, they managed to continually perform minor miracles. Just as well, really, because they were under constant budgetary pressure, and if their standards were to drop just a little below brilliant, Slater knew they’d all be out of work.
“What do you think?” Slater gestured at the mess on the ground. “Flighty thinks there might be more than one body.”
“Pathologist assures me there’s only one head.” Becks indicated the other man on the floor. “But I’ve never seen anything like this before. I don’t want to make a joke of it, but it’s like one of those cartoons where someone gets run over by a boulder or something and the body ends up being flattened and twice as wide, you know?”
“Except this isn’t Looney Tunes,” said Slater. “So what are you telling me? That this person was run over by a steamroller?”
The pathologist stood up and took the two steps to join them. He looked pretty grim.
“I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to get a specialist in to do this one,” he said, addressing both of them. “I’m used to dealing with dead bodies, and I’m happy to help out, but I’m way out of my depth with this.”
“Can you tell us anything?” asked Slater.
“I can tell you it’s a dead body,” said the pathologist. “And I’d hazard a guess it’s female from the clothing, but after that…”
His voice tailed off.
“That bad?” asked Becks.
The pathologist nodded sadly.
“It would be wrong of me to even start,” he said. “I know what I’m good at, and I know when something’s out of my league. By all means bring the body over to the hospital mortuary and use our facilities, but you need to get someone damned good to make sense of this mess.”
“Okay, doc,” said Becks. “Look, don’t beat yourself up about it. It’s much better to be honest than bugger something up, right? I’ve got a number I can call.”
They agreed Becks needed to make his call before they decided what to do about the body. If they were going to move it they’d need to shovel it up into bags, and then it would be almost impossible to recreate the scene in the mortuary.
The daylight was beginning to fade outside but there was still enough to see fairly well so Slater decided to take a look around out there while Becks made his phone call. He took a walk all around the outside of the tent. One thing was for sure; they could forget about the steamroller. In fact, they could forget about any vehicles. The grass was at least knee-high all around here, and apart from the narrow path they’d walked through it, it was totally undisturbed. He walked around again, one thought nagging away at him. How the hell had this body got here?
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of ironic cheering coming from the tent. He knew it was disrespectful for them to be having a laugh when there was a dead body splattered on the ground inside the tent, but he also knew it was big doses of black humour that helped most of them deal with this stuff.
He wandered back to the tent to see what was going on. A rotund figure with an unruly mop of thick curls was threatening to burst one of the paper suits. The ironic cheers came from the forensic technicians, who looked pleased to see DS Norman arrive on the scene.
“It’s all very well for you to say one size fits all,” he was saying from the entrance of the tent to PC Flight. “But it obviously doesn’t, does it?”
Flight said something Slater didn’t catch because he was too far away.
“That’s a very un-PC remark to make, Constable,” admonished the struggling Norman. “Maybe you need to attend one of those courses where they teach you how to address the ‘larger person’.”
Slater was much closer now and he heard her response quite clearly.
“With respect, sir,” said Flight patiently. “No-one else has this problem getting into these suits, so I suggest that perhaps the problem lies with the ‘larger person’ and not the suit.”
“How dare you?” came the reply, thick with fake indignation.
“Alright, Constable, that’ll do,” said Slater as he passed her. It was harmless banter, but this was a serious case, and as senior officer he had to make sure it didn’t get out of hand.
“Evening, Norm,” he said, as he followed his colleague back into the tent. “Looks like the team’s back in business. What do you think?” He nodded at the grisly sight on the floor.
“I think I’m glad I haven’t got to go home and cook after this,” said Norman. He took a good look around.
“I also think ‘what the hell happened here?’” he said.
“Come and take a look outside,” suggested Slater. “I can’t see how the body could possibly have got here. See if you can make sense of it.”
They went back outside and Norman began to wander around, looking at the knee-high grass just as Slater had done earlier. He disappeared from view behind the tent, studying the ground as he walked.
PC Flight was still outside the tent, studiously ignoring Slater since he’d asked her to stop arguing with Norman. Suit yourself, he thought. He didn’t have time to worry about her tantrums right now. At the moment, he was trying to think what they should do next. It would be dark soon, and once that happened their options would be seriously limited. Just then, his thoughts were interrupted by a curse from PC Flight.
“Oh shit,” she said, looking towards the woods. “Here comes that stupid bloody dog again. He’ll be all over the place if we don’t stop him.”
In the fading light, Slater could see the shape of a large dog heading rapidly in their direction. He looked friendly enough, but they didn’t need him charging all over their crime scene.
“Has he got a stick in his mouth?” asked Slater.
“I threw one in there to get rid of him earlier,” said Flight. “Maybe he’s bringing it back. Mind you, that was ages ago. I’d forgotten he was still out there.”
“See if you can get hold of the stick,” suggested Slater. “Perhaps we can grab the bugger between us.”
“Here, Danny,” called Flight. “Good dog. Fetch the stick.”
To Slater’s surprise, the dog ran straight up to her and dropped the stick at her feet.
“Bloody hell,” said Slater. “You should be a dog handler.”
Flight bent down and collected the stick. Slater saw her suddenly look down and stare at the stick in her hands.
“Oh, crap,” she said, her lips curling with distaste.
“What?” said Slater. “What’s up?”
“Well, I’m no doctor,” she said. “But I’m pretty sure this is no stick. It looks rather like a femur to me.”
“Bloody hell.” Slater reached for the bone. “Where the heck did he get that from?”
Just then, Norman reappeared from behind the tent.
“My guess,” he said, striding over to them. “We’re dealing with an alien abduction. They took the body, performed some weird experiments and then dumped it here. They didn’t even land. Maybe they have some sort of rubbish chute or something.”
For the first time he noticed the looks on their faces.
“What?” he said. “Did I miss something?”
Slater waved the bone at him. The dog made a lunge for it but Slater was too quick for him.
“Femur,” he announced. “It looks like the ‘Hound of the bloody Baskervilles’ here has found a bone yard.”
“Where?” asked Norman.
“Yes, that’s the problem.” Slater pointed back in the direction the dog had come from. “Over there somewhere. But Flighty reckons he’s been gone for hours, so it could be 10 yards away or 10 miles away.”
“Oh, terrific,” said Norman. “That’s all we need. But we can’t start a search now. Not that vague. Not in the dark.”
He looked at Slater who returned his gaze blankly. “I think we need a plan,” said Norman.
“I think you’re right.” Slater nodded thoughtfully.
“I think we should probably start by asking the path
ologist if this really is what we think it is,” said Norman. “He is still here, isn’t he?”
Slater nodded again.
“In the tent.”
They trudged wearily back into the tent where the pathologist was just getting ready to head for home.
“Can you tell us if this is what we think it is?” Slater offered him the bone.
The pathologist took the bone, moved under one of the bright lights and began a cursory examination.
“Oh yes,” he said, a few moments later. “Definitely a human femur. It’s a bit on the small side.”
“Not a man, then?” asked Slater.
“Can’t say for sure, without a proper examination,” said the pathologist. “But if I had to guess, I’d say it was a small woman or maybe even a child. I’d also suggest this body’s been dead for a good few years.”
“Oh, wonderful. Just wonderful.” Slater sighed. It was going to be a long night.
Chapter 7
The Haunted Copse was one of those rare pieces of natural, old, native woodland. It didn’t cover a particularly large area, less than 10 acres in total, and in places it was barely 50 yards from one side to the other. No one really knew where the stories of ghosts and ghouls had originated, but it had could well have been from the plain and simple fact the place was very old. To be honest, Slater found it just plain spooky.
Two paths ran through the woods, bisecting it from north to south, and again from east to west. The original body had been found just to the south of the copse, so it was decided to begin the search from that side and to sweep through in a northerly direction. If they didn’t find anything in here, they would widen the search beyond the woods.
Slater and Norman thought it could take ages to find a grave and their time would be better spent investigating the body they already had, so they had chosen to call in a search co-ordinator who would organise and take control of the search for the place from where the dog had unearthed the small femur. They would take back control if, or when, a grave was found.