Written in Blood
by Stephen Puleston
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Written in Blood is the sixth Inspector Drake mystery. The story is based in North Wales an area rich in history and beautiful landscapes.
After graduating from London University I trained as a solicitor. For many years I worked in a small practice representing clients in the criminal courts and doing divorce work all of which has given me valuable raw material for my novels. I still live and work in North Wales where the Inspector Drake novels are set.
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Details can be found at the end of Written in Blood.
Background
In England and Wales the legal profession is divided into solicitors and barristers. The term ‘lawyer’ can be used generically for both. Solicitors make up the largest profession and barristers generally specialise in court work. Barristers are based in ‘chambers’ in the larger towns and cities, whereas solicitors have offices open to the public.
A circuit judge hears the majority of criminal cases in the Crown courts and is usually appointed from the ranks of the barrister profession. The role is prestigious and carries the title His/Her Honour Judge.
Chapter 1
Nicholas Wixley poured the last mouthful of the Taittinger 96 into a cut-glass champagne flute. The last time he had savoured the same vintage was in the company of Mandy, and she had been just as energetic tonight as she had been that evening. He walked over to the picture window and watched as the last of the milky moon slipped behind a bank of dark cloud. It had been a good day, a good few weeks. Now he looked forward to a week of sailing on the waters of Cardigan Bay, which stretched out below him. A friend described the sport as a great leveller among men, but Nicholas Wixley thought differently. It was a sport he had to push to its limits; he challenged himself to win every race, stretching the sail until the wind squeezed every last knot of speed from it.
He smiled as he reminded himself that every eventuality had developed exactly as he had anticipated. Now he planned to enjoy the rewards. The prestige, and the investment plans carefully nurtured over the years would maximise his income, his wealth and status.
A ripple of moonshine crossed the surface of the water reminding him of the salt on his lips and the sea air on his face that afternoon. Sailing for a few hours had been the tonic he needed after three testing weeks in the Manchester Crown Court. During one case, he had even gently corrected the judge about a point of law although he had no idea why he did so – the old fool was retiring very soon. Then things would change.
He moved his gaze across the long beach below the headland and noticed torchlight and a fire – youngsters having a late-night barbecue. He sipped on the expensive champagne; the fizz had gone but the taste of luxury remained. He grinned to himself, he would sleep well tonight.
He’d shower before bed, allow the remains of the evening’s exertions to be washed away. In the morning, he’d open the windows and clear the place of the smell of sex and perspiration. It could be thick in the air, especially in a house that had been closed for most of the winter. He turned back to face the room. Mandy’s pink gilet lay on the sofa. Tomorrow he’d discard it in a bin near the marina.
Deciding a decent slug of a twenty-year-old malt whisky would be his nightcap, he ambled through into the kitchen where he poured himself a generous measure. Leaving the kitchen, he stopped and stood in the hallway on hearing the sound of movement outside the front door.
Mandy must have returned for her gilet.
She had left only a few minutes ago.
He opened the door. His face darkened.
Chapter 2
Monday 25th March
9.34 am
Ian Drake pressed the top of a coffee flask and watched as a hot liquid dribbled into the heavy china cup he had collected from a table near the entrance of the training suite. Since the creation of the Wales Police Service after the amalgamation of the four previous forces, more all-Wales events took place. That day’s session for young aspiring detectives, on being part of a major crime squad, was no different. Drake picked up accents from numerous places, including Cardiff – the voice of one female officer reminded him so much of Annie they could have passed for sisters.
Lisa Robinson from HR and another civilian fussed around, making certain there were adequate pads of paper and bottles of water on each table before turning their attention to the PowerPoint presentation. An inspector from Wrexham was going to lead the first session. Drake’s hour-slot wasn’t due to start until eleven and he idly wondered whether anyone would have noticed his absence had he not arrived first thing. He could have stayed in bed with Annie for another hour. The prospect made him smile to himself. She was working from home that morning – lecturing at Bangor University’s history department certainly had its perks, Drake thought.
Later that week the group of probationers would be visiting an outward bound centre – a converted farmhouse in the mountains – for a full day’s activities. Gareth Winder and Luned Thomas, the constables on his team, had both recently participated, tramping through the mud and gorse. Paintballing would probably have been a lot more effective and a lot more fun, Winder had announced when they’d returned to headquarters.
‘Good morning, boss,’ Sara said, arriving by his side without him realising she was in the room. Drake turned to face her and she smiled. Her auburn hair looked neatly trimmed, and her navy jacket with a cream blouse underneath made it very clear to the young probationers that she was a detective sergeant.
‘What was the traffic like this morning?’ Drake said.
Asking about the traffic was almost as popular as asking about the weather, particularly as the roadworks on the A55, the main route along the north Wales coast, affected everyone working in Northern Division; it could dominate conversations.
Sara gave a world-weary shrug as though there was nothing new she could say. ‘Did you travel over this morning?’
Sara probably knew that he hadn’t. Once she had discovered Annie was on the scene Drake had felt a distinct change in her attitude towards him. Sara seemed more relaxed now in his company and working alongside him. He shook his head. ‘I stayed over.’ It was all he needed to say.
‘Do you think this is a valuable use of our time?’ Sara said.
Drake took a sip of the bitter coffee and smarted, feeling the acrid taste clinging to the side of his mouth.
‘I can think of better things we could be doing this morning.’ Drake’s mind drifted to the series of robberies in some of the isolated villages on the island of Anglesey. A man brandishing what looked like a replica handgun had threatened shopkeepers demanding the contents of their tills. ‘Have you made any progress with the photofits for those robberies?’
‘All of the shopkeepers have got a different version. I’m not certain we’ll ever make headway without CCTV.’
Drake nodded as Lisa Robinson jerked her head towards the front of the room. Two tables and chairs had been set out facing the rows of seats reserved for the probationers.
‘Time to begin,’ Drake said.
He left his coffee, depositing the cup and saucer on the table next to a plate of custard creams and a plastic mug full of dirty teaspoons. Sara followed him, and they sat down.
Drake and Sara listened to Lisa Robinson explaining what would happen that day. She nodded at Drake and Sara when she mentioned their names as the two officers leading on ‘complex murder investigations’.
Two-dozen enthusiastic pairs of eyes gazed over at Drake and Sara. As unlikely as it seemed, looking at them now, these are the detectives of the future
, Drake thought. Some of these young officers would go on to become inspectors, superintendents, maybe even higher up the chain of command. Others, from his own experience, would leave the force, unable to handle the stress, having their ambitions thwarted by office politics, or seeing less able colleagues promoted ahead of them.
Drake gave Robinson a serious nod of acknowledgement.
She turned to the other inspector who was about to begin his presentation.
A uniformed sergeant entered the training suite and walked purposefully down the side of the room, and Drake realised he was heading towards him. Robinson gave him an inquisitive, almost troubled, glare as though she were personally offended he was interrupting.
The sergeant leaned down and whispered in Drake’s ear. ‘Superintendent Price wants you to call him. It’s urgent.’
As Drake stood up Sara nodded her understanding that he had to leave.
The sergeant led Drake into an office warmed by banks of computers and monitors. A whiteboard on one wall had weekly rosters of officers pinned to it. ‘Use one of these phones.’ He pointed to an empty desk.
Drake drew up a chair and punched in the right number.
‘I tried your mobile earlier.’
‘I’m in this training session, sir.’
‘Of course, of course,’ Price sounded flustered as though he were annoyed with himself that he had forgotten.
‘There’s a report of a body in a house near Pwllheli. And it’s the worst possible morning for something like this to happen. Detective Inspector Hawkins should have taken it but he’s on holiday in Turkey and it’s impossible to get hold of him.’ It sounded as though Price had contemplated the possibility of getting Hawkins back from Turkey to be in charge of a murder inquiry on the Llŷn Peninsula.
‘I’ll need to notify Lisa Robinson.’ His mind accelerated. ‘Are there officers at the scene?’
‘Get on with it, Ian. I’ll tell the people from HR what’s happening. I want you and Detective Sergeant Morgan en route within five minutes. I’ll get operational support to contact you with all the details.’
The line went dead.
Drake got to his feet. The night before, he had practised the PowerPoint presentation several times, absorbing Annie’s suggestions – she had called it ‘constructive criticism’ – and that morning he had been rehearsing the comments he intended to make. Part of him was disappointed that he couldn’t actually share his experience with the recruits.
It lasted a fraction of a second.
There was a murder scene to get to.
Drake hurried back to the training suite and gestured at Sara to join him.
He motioned for Robinson to leave with Sara, and the frown on her face deepened. The Wrexham inspector’s voice droning on became a muffled sound as Drake made for reception.
Sara was the first to arrive.
‘We are leaving now. A body’s been found in a house near Pwllheli.’
Robinson joined them. She opened her mouth to say something, but Drake cut across her. ‘We have to leave. Superintendent Price wants to speak to you.’
Drake and Sara jogged to his Mondeo parked in the police station’s secure car park. He swiped his security pass and sped out of the industrial estate towards the main road out of Caernarfon.
‘Call area control.’ Drake snapped.
As they reached the outskirts of the town, the traffic slowed their progress and he cursed that he wasn’t in a car equipped with blue flashing lights and a siren loud enough to sweep all vehicles to one side. Getting to the crime scene was a priority, even though there was a dead body that was going nowhere except the mortuary. It reminded Drake that high on his list for sharing with the trainees that morning was the importance of the first twenty-four hours after the discovery of a corpse. Eyewitnesses would have to be traced, house-to-house enquiries commenced, recollections were at their best in that period. Impatience clawed at his chest as he watched a slow queue of traffic dawdling its way over the roundabout at Bontnewydd. There had been talk of a bypass for years and Drake had even visited an exhibition in the village with his mother but in an age of austerity and tight budgets, the plans had been shelved.
Sara was on the phone. She nodded occasionally, and asked for a postcode and details of names, and the anticipated arrival time of a forensic team. When she finished, she turned to Drake.
‘Victim is a man called Nicholas Wixley. His cleaner found him this morning – his throat had been cut and his body mutilated.’
‘Any more details? Family?’
‘That’s all I got, boss. Operational support is going to send us the postcode.’ Before Sara could continue, her mobile phone buzzed. She glanced at the screen and punched the details into the satnav.
‘Thirty-five minutes,’ she said.
In the rear-view mirror, Drake saw the traffic backing up behind him. He tried to think of an alternative route that would get them there more quickly. Going left at the roundabout would take them back around Caernarfon, and he dismissed the possibility of going via Beddgelert and Porthmadog, guessing it would add ten miles to their journey at least.
Gradually the traffic moved on through the roundabout.
‘Find out about the CSIs.’ Drake hovered his hand over the car horn ready to blast the vehicle in front, which appeared to be slowing to turn right across the slow-moving traffic approaching them.
‘Mike Foulds and his team are behind us,’ Sara said, referring to the crime scene manager.
The team would have come from headquarters. Drake could well imagine that Superintendent Price would have organised a high-speed escort, lights flashing and siren blaring, to cut through the inevitable delays.
After Bontnewydd the traffic thinned as the roundabouts and junctions gave way to clear stretches of road. It pleased Drake when the traffic in front of him took the left-hand slip road by a roundabout for Porthmadog. He followed the directions for Pwllheli and the Llŷn peninsula. After another collection of houses lining the road he floored the accelerator but it was a single-lane carriageway and soon he saw a van and two cars in the lane ahead of him. ‘Why the hell do we have all these Sunday drivers on a Monday morning?’
Sara didn’t bother responding.
Despite the initial delays to their journey, they made good time and within twenty-five minutes they were slowing down as they neared their destination. The satnav instructed Drake to follow a narrow, gravelled road up towards a headland. To his left were two timber-framed properties under construction. Further on to his right were detached bungalows overlooking the sea.
In the distance a uniformed officer stood by a gate to a house.
After parking, Drake walked over and introduced himself. ‘I am glad to see you, sir. Constable Tony Roberts; I’m based in Pwllheli.’
Drake glanced over the young officer’s shoulder. The property was an older style with large windows, its immaculate Welsh-slate-clad roof broken by two dormers. A Mercedes S Class, its plates less than two years old, sat outside a garage with old oak doors.
‘This way,’ Roberts said as he turned on his heels, nodding at the same time to the inside of the building. ‘The cleaner found his body a little after nine-thirty this morning.’
‘Is this a holiday home?’ Drake said.
Roberts nodded. ‘Apparently she’s worked for the family for twenty years.’
Roberts turned a brass knob on the dark-blue front door and they made their way inside. The property felt modern, with white walls and ceilings, stripped-down and minimalist. Alcoves displayed small sculptures, and artworks hung from the walls in carefully curated groups. The owners wanted to broadcast that they had lots of money.
Drake glanced at Sara, knowing she had an interest in antiques and art. ‘Anything you recognise?’
Sara shook her head but seconds later she spoke. ‘Any sign of a break-in? Anything missing?’
‘The cleaner is in a pretty bad way. We haven’t been able to get much out of her. We’ve got the
contact telephone number for Mrs Wixley and we’ve given all the details to area control.’
Drake nodded. He could hear activity in what he assumed was the kitchen to the left of the hallway, but he followed Roberts through to the right. The property felt larger on the inside than it looked from the outside. At the far end of a passageway a door was ajar.
‘He’s in there.’ Roberts stopped a few feet short of the doorway itself, his face a sickly grey.
Drake turned to Sara. They exchanged an encouraging glance, not knowing what to expect.
Drake snapped on a pair of latex gloves. Sara did the same and followed Drake inside until he stopped and stood, looking down at the body of a middle-aged man, naked apart from a pair of red football socks.
‘Christ Almighty,’ Sara exclaimed, pressing a hand to her mouth.
The letter E had been stencilled into Wixley’s stomach. His neck had been severed, which meant there was blood. Lots: on his body, on the white sheets of the bed, on the headboard, on the pillows and presumably all over the killer.
Drake slowly took in everything about the room. A glass tumbler and a half-filled champagne flute stood on a bedside table. A killer had been there hours earlier.
‘He’ll be covered in blood.’ Sara turned her back to the man on the bed.
‘It could have been a woman.’
‘You should take a look at this, boss.’ Sara was looking at a makeshift corkboard nailed to one wall with protruding six-inch nails. On it were cuttings from various newspapers reporting the outcome of court proceedings – ‘child killer gets life’, ‘prosecutor describes life of depravity’. The name of the prosecutor stood out – Nicholas Wixley. Looking at the headlines, it struck Drake that their immediate suspect could well be in the pot of criminals Wixley had prosecuted. But how many of them would go to the trouble of staging such a scene?
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