by Adam Croft
He’d had to get out and make sure they’d left no trace. Even the slightest fleck of paint on the wood could lead the police to them. The whole point was to ensure there were no witnesses. Leaving forensic material would be a hundred times worse.
The guns were modified as to be more or less untraceable. If they recovered bullets they’d be able to tell the type of gun used, but that would be about it. There’d be blood from the boys at the scene, too, but that was unavoidable. Anyway, no-one would’ve heard a gunshot out there. The lights had been off in the closest farmhouse the whole time — odd for mid-evening, which meant the occupiers were highly likely to be out. Besides which, gunshots weren’t exactly rare around these parts. Plenty of farmers shot rabbits and vermin on their land. How was this any different?
There would be no trace. A bit of rain overnight would wash any blood through the soil. It would be as if they’d never been there. If it hadn’t been for them reversing into a fucking gate post, that was.
He’d made sure he picked up every last piece of plastic from the broken tail-light. He’d combed the grass thoroughly, and was confident he’d got it all. It had meant they’d had to spend a good few minutes at the scene, whereas they’d been keen to get away as quickly as possible.
The plastic troughs in the back of the van would keep the blood away from the vehicle, just in case. The last thing they wanted was for blood to drip through the bottom of the van while they were stuck at traffic lights. People had been caught for dafter mistakes than that.
In any case, the van would be disposed of afterwards. The group had connections: connections which ensured they were able to get hold of second-hand vehicles with ease, then have them stripped down, destroyed and crushed without anybody asking any questions.
They sure as hell wouldn’t make the same mistakes as last time, either. This time there would be no burial. There’d be no chance of anyone coming across the bodies, because there would be no bodies. The firm had a contact who could, for a hefty fee, ensure the bodies were completely disposed of. He was known to them only as the Acid Bath Man, although the name was misleading, if not the complete opposite of what he actually did. A more accurate name would have been the Alkaline Hydrolysis Man, but it didn’t quite have the same ring to it.
Alkaline hydrolysis was used for a growing number of legal cremations around the world — as well as a few not-so-legal ones. It involved placing the body in a pressure vessel with a mixture of water and potassium hydroxide — caustic potash — which was then heated to 160 degrees Celsius. After five or six hours, what would remain was a greenish-brown liquid of sugars, salts, amino acids and peptides that could be quite legally and safely poured down the drains. All that would remain of the body were soft white bones, which could easily be crushed into a powder and disposed of.
The procedure wasn’t cheap, but it had been decided that they couldn’t risk any other option. Not after last time.
The driver estimated they were probably around fourteen or fifteen miles away from the industrial estate now. Within half an hour the bodies would be out of their hands. Within an hour they’d be rid of the van, too, and they’d be home and dry. The boys would probably go down as missing — if anyone thought to report them — and after a few weeks or months they’d be totally forgotten. It carried its own risks, but it was far easier than the alternative.
He flicked his eyes upwards and to the left as he noticed the headlights in his rear-view mirror. They were a little way off, but he couldn’t be too cautious. The road was too dark and the headlights were too bright for him to make out what sort of car it was, but at a best guess he would’ve said it was white.
He kept his eyes on the road ahead, occasionally glancing in the rear-view mirror. By now he was starting to worry. Something didn’t feel right. Just as he was trying to work out what his intuition was telling him, he jolted as the short warp of the siren and the flashing blue light sent a surge through his body. The driver in the police car was pointing to the side of the road, indicating that they should pull over.
He swallowed hard and looked over at his colleague. They both knew there was no way this van was going to outrun a police car. He was fairly sure they were only pulling him over because of the broken tail light, but it was still an enormous risk to take. What if they searched the van? What if they were being followed because someone had reported the shooting? Either way, there was no other option. The van wouldn’t outpace a trained driver in a police car.
‘Take it easy, alright?’ he said to his colleague in their native tongue as he dutifully indicated and pulled over in a lay-by.
He steeled himself as one officer got out of the passenger seat of the police car and walked towards his door. He wound the window down as the officer approached.
‘Evening, gents. Could you just turn the engine off and step out of the vehicle for me, please.’
He did as he was told. As soon as the engine was off, the driver of the police vehicle got out and joined them.
‘My name’s PC Andria Fliska’, the first officer said, ‘and this is my colleague, PC Elaine Smith. Any idea why we’ve stopped you tonight?’
The man looked at her for a moment and shook his head cautiously.
‘You’ve got a broken tail light on the back of your vehicle. Looks like it’s been smashed at some point. Did you know about that?’
The man furrowed his brow and feigned a look of confusion. ‘Oh. I did not notice. Sorry.’
‘Where are you from, lads?’ Smith asked, noticing a foreign accent.
‘Holbrooke,’ the man said.
Fliska gave a grudging smile.
‘Where are you off to?’ Smith asked.
‘Dropping some materials off at the lock-up, ready for the morning.’
‘Bit late to be out working, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. Long day.’
Smith nodded slowly, then gestured towards the back of the van.
‘Mind if we take a look inside?’
The man looked at the two officers’ chests. They weren’t wearing body cams, so there’d be no video evidence of their faces. There would likely be a camera in the front of the police car, but they’d managed to keep side-on where possible, and in any case the camera would be unlikely to show much under these conditions.
He’d made a quick calculation of risk. They were going to look in the van whether he liked it or not. Saying no would immediate arouse suspicion. The officers would likely close in, expecting them to do something rash. If they stayed calm and looked as if they were complying, they’d have that extra couple of seconds, which could make all the difference.
‘Cherez etot probel. V derevya. Na tri,’ he mumbled to his colleague. ‘Sorry, I’m translating for him,’ he said, by way of explanation to the officers, before they’d even asked. ‘Adeen.’
He took a couple of steps towards the back of the van and placed his hand on the handle.
‘Dva.’
He pulled on the handle and opened the door slightly, before stepping back. He gave it a split-second for the officers to be stunned into inertia by what they saw, before barking ‘Tri!’ as the pair darted off through a gap in the hedge and into the copse.
‘Shit!’ Fliska said, clambering after them as quickly as she could, while jabbing at the button on her handheld radio. ‘Whiskey Tango 162. Urgent. Males making off on foot into trees south of Baskenhoe Road, heading west. We’ve found two bodies during a routine stop. Chasing on foot. Please send dog and helicopter plus immediate backup.’
34
Jack turned his key in the door and pushed it open, feeling the warmth from the house flood out. Even with the heating off, the house turned into an oven during the summer days. Conversely, when he came home during the winter the house was colder than an igloo.
All that was in his mind now, though, was what he’d seen whilst on his way home, stuck in traffic near the roadworks on Darwin Road. He thought the car had looked familiar when he saw it parked there two
nights earlier, but he certainly hadn’t expected to witness what he saw that evening. Already, a plan was starting to come together. He filed it away at the back of his head, ready to use when the time was right.
He threw his bag down onto the hall floor and made his way through into the kitchen. His mobile phone was waiting on the work surface for him. He’d only realised he’d forgotten it once he got to work, but he had secretly been quite happy to be forced to have a day without it. He often lamented the death of the time when people could go five minutes without looking at a screen, and it had been a pleasure to spend the day not listening to it buzzing and bleeping in his pocket. He’d been pleasantly surprised at how much time it had freed up for other stuff.
He took the kettle from its base, held it under the tap and filled it up with water. It was something that Helen always used to tell him off for. Mildenheath was a hard water area, and filling the kettle up straight from the tap would give it a life expectancy of about six months, but he didn’t really care. Kettles were cheap enough, and it was still far less of a faff than messing around with water filters and softening cartridges. Bearing in mind the little time he actually managed to spend at home drinking tea and coffee, it really wasn’t something that concerned him.
He scraped a bit of white limescale from the spout with his thumbnail, then put the kettle back on its base and switched it on. He glanced over at his mobile. He knew he’d have to break his moratorium at some point, so it might as well be now.
He didn’t know whether to be pleased or disappointed that there were only six notifications on the screen. Five emails (most of them junk) and a BBC News app alert telling him that a folk singer he’d never heard of had died.
He half-wondered if perhaps he should text Chrissie. Would it look too sad or desperate? Or would she think he was being rude if he wasn’t the first person to initiate conversation every once in a while? He figured there was no harm in firing off a quick ‘Hi’. He unlocked his phone and navigated to the Messages app, before tapping on Chrissie’s name.
He looked at the screen for a few moments, his tongue poking at the inside of his cheek as he bit down on it.
‘Emily? Can you come here a minute, please?’ he called up to his daughter.
A few seconds later, he heard the sound of Emily coming down the stairs, before her head poked around the doorway of the kitchen.
‘What’s this all about, Em?’
‘What’s what about?’ she said, with a smile on her face.
Jack held his phone up. ‘The text messages. What the hell are you playing at?’
Emily shrugged. ‘Thought you might like to see her again. You said as much yourself.’
‘This is my private phone. You have no right to go sending messages to people, pretending to be me. That’s fraud, you know.’
‘No it isn’t, don’t be stupid. And anyway, what does it matter? You said you wanted to see her again. What are you going to do? Call her and cancel?’
Jack sighed.
‘No, of course not.’
‘Then what does it matter? I’ve done you a favour, haven’t I?’
Jack looked at his daughter, and saw a woman far more advanced than her years would have him believe.
35
Culverhouse knocked on the door of the Chief Constable’s office, having had word that he’d arrived in the building only moments earlier.
‘Come in,’ Hawes called, and Culverhouse obliged.
‘Ah. Jack. I had a feeling you might be first in here this morning.’
‘You’ve heard, then?’
‘Of course I’ve heard. Everyone’s heard. What have they got so far?’
Culverhouse could tell by the tone of Hawes’s voice that he hadn’t heard the full story yet.
‘Are you aware of the IDs of the victims, sir?’ he asked, knowing the answer before he said it.
‘No, why? Who were they?’
‘Milan Nikolic and Zoran Petrovic, sir. The two Serbian lads who reported the sex trafficking. The boys who came to us because they feared for their lives.’
Culverhouse watched Hawes’s face drop as the realisation set in. There was no way they could come out of this smelling of roses now.
‘They were shot, weren’t they?’ Hawes asked, his voice quiet and weak.
‘Yes, sir. At least it would have been quick and fairly painless. If being shot dead can ever be considered painless.’
‘There’s no need to be smug, Jack.’
‘Trust me, I’m not being smug.’
Hawes sat in silence for a moment, before taking a deep breath and letting out a sigh.
‘So, what do you want me to do?’
‘I want you to do what you should have done days ago, sir. I want you to authorise a full surveillance operation on the property the lads reported. Unless you want to risk any more innocent victims being murdered on our patch.’
‘You don’t need to talk to me like that, Jack. You’ve made your point perfectly well, thank you. I’m man enough to admit when I’ve made mistakes. We’ll need special budgetary clearance for this, though. I’ll call Cummings right away and see what he says. I can’t see him saying no, but it’s his prerogative.’
‘Are you serious? He’s already got us over a barrel about supporting him in his stupid fucking election. He’s threatened to close us down and merge us with Milton House. There’s no way I’m licking his arse just so I can carry on doing my own job.’
‘Jack, it’s not about licking anyone’s arse. It’s about policy and procedure. Anyway, you don’t have to speak to him at all. I’ll do it. That’s my job.’
‘No. I’m not having it,’ Jack said, raising his voice. ‘What do you think he’s going to do when he gets wind of the cock-up we made over those two lads? That’s prime material for doing exactly what he wants with us. It’ll give him carte blanche to get rid of Mildenheath CID. I can see the wording now. “Not fit for purpose.”’
‘So what else do you suggest we do? You said it yourself: we can’t risk more lives being lost.’
‘Don’t you worry about that,’ Jack said, standing and heading for the door. ‘There’s no risk. I’ll sort it. Just make sure you don’t breathe a word to Cummings.’
‘And if you don’t sort it?’
‘I will.’
Hawes nodded slowly. ‘Right. On your head be it, Jack.’
36
Culverhouse found it difficult to contain his fury following the meeting with Hawes. These were the sorts of things that made modern policing so infuriating to him. That something as critical as a literal life-or-death situation could be reduced to a debate over budgets and political posts was absolutely exasperating.
It wasn’t like this back when he started working for the police. Back then, all you needed was an instinct (or your ‘copper’s nose’) and a way of convincing people to tell you the truth, and that was it. Nothing was computerised. Money didn’t come into it. And if a politician ever set foot within a hundred yards of a police station, it was to report that their house had been broken into. Now, though, it was all different.
He wondered what DI Jack Taylor, his mentor during his years in CID, would’ve made of the modern developments. Taylor always was a man of immaculate timing, and it appeared that he’d timed his departure from the police force — and life — to perfection. Things seemed to start changing from that moment on, as if Taylor had been the magnetic force that had been keeping everything on the straight and narrow.
Even the town’s petty criminals knew that you didn’t bullshit Jack Taylor. He’d always know, and he’d come down on you ten times harder for it. There was almost a badge of honour to be had in having him nab you. Back in those days, it was said that you weren’t a real criminal until you’d been handcuffed in a room with Jack Taylor for two hours. There was almost a grudging admiration towards him from the town’s lags, and that made his legend only stronger.
Working for Taylor was like being thrown in at the deep end. But
over time Culverhouse had grown to admire the man. Over the years he’d tried to model his own style on that of Taylor, but the times were changing and the people were different.
No criminals in Mildenheath would be on first name terms with CID these days. Things had changed. They’d only ever see a CID officer in an interview room, and even then it would likely be a different officer every time. It was all back-office politics now. Any person dropped blindfolded into the back rooms of a modern-day police station would likely think they were in the offices of an insurance company or a stationery wholesaler. Except the stationery wholesaler would probably have enough pens and staplers to go around.
Even Culverhouse would grudgingly admit that many of the changes in the police force had, undoubtedly, been for the better. Advances in forensic science and the ability to track criminals using their mobile phones and modern technology was an incredible advantage for the police. It was much more difficult to evade capture nowadays, and for that all officers were thankful.
But sometimes — just sometimes — the old methods had to be employed. He wasn’t stupid: he knew that doing anything which went against official guidelines could jeopardise a case. But in situations where the investigation was already going nowhere, they often had nothing to lose. A court would throw out a case where procedure hadn’t been followed precisely, but sometimes it wasn’t all about court. A conviction wasn’t necessarily the only thing that would stop someone offending — often quite the opposite. Jack was old school. He didn’t give too hoots about convictions. He just wanted to do whatever it took to make Mildenheath a safer place, whether that meant a successful prosecution in court or a quick word in someone’s ear.
That was why he’d taken the decision he’d silently made in Hawes’s office. If his superiors weren’t going to give him the support he required — despite the fact that it was their fuckup which had caused the problem in the first place and meant that lives had been lost — then he’d just have to do things his own way, and to hell with everyone else.
