A Darker Place

by Rachel Amphlett

  ‘Here you go.’

  Her stomach rumbled as Barnes handed her a wrapped sandwich with the familiar logo of a garage forecourt shop and a steaming takeout cup of coffee.

  ‘Thanks, Ian. Did you phone Pia while you were gone?’

  ‘Yes, don’t worry – she’s used to this these days.’

  Kay smiled. Barnes’s partner worked as a conveyancing solicitor during the day, and she reckoned the woman was a calming influence on her colleague in more ways than one as she watched him tuck into a chicken salad bowl.

  ‘Stop grinning,’ he said, waving the plastic spork at her. ‘Apparently if I’m going to fit into the suit I want to wear to Emma’s graduation, I need to lose a few pounds.’

  ‘I can’t believe she’s graduating this summer,’ said Kay between mouthfuls of tuna sandwich. ‘What are her plans?’

  ‘Travelling to start off with,’ he replied. ‘She’s found a wildlife place out in Thailand she wants to volunteer at for three months, then she’s going to head over to Australia and New Zealand. Pia and I thought we might fly out and meet her there before she comes back – it gives us a good excuse to go.’

  ‘Sounds like a great plan.’ Kay finished the sandwich and scrunched up the wrapper before putting it in her bag as Charlie raised his hand and walked towards them. ‘What’ve you got?’

  ‘The truck’s fitted with a tachograph,’ he said, handing her an evidence bag. ‘The driver’s card was still inserted – thought you might want that straight away.’

  ‘Brilliant, thanks, Charlie. What about mobile phones?’

  ‘No sign of them – whoever did this made sure they wouldn’t be able to call for help.’

  ‘Those bastards,’ said Barnes as the CSI technician returned to his work. He sighed. ‘At least we’ve got the tachograph, though. There’ll be all sorts of information on that we can use.’

  ‘Do you mind dropping this off to the incident room on your way home tonight?’ said Kay, already swiping her phone screen and finding the number she needed.

  ‘No problem.’

  ‘Thanks. Hang on.’ She held up a finger as the call was answered. ‘Gavin? I’m sending Barnes over in a minute with Carl Taylor’s tachograph from the truck cab. When he gets there, can you phone Simon Thomas and ask him to work with you to have the driver’s log downloaded and emailed to us before tomorrow’s briefing?’ Kay paced the verge as she spoke, then paused and peered along the track to where Harriet’s team were working under the arc lights. ‘It’ll help us confirm his last movements, and I’m hoping it’ll also tell us when that temperature gauge was turned all the way down. With any luck, that’ll help us to establish a time when both men were locked inside.’

  ‘Will do, guv,’ said Gavin. ‘I’ll make a note in HOLMES2 to cross-reference that against the CCTV images that Laura and Parker have already made a start on.’

  ‘Good thinking. Let everyone get home by ten, all right? Back for a briefing by seven-thirty tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Guv.’

  Barnes beckoned to her as she finished the call, his brow creased as Lucas Anderson appeared from the opposite direction.

  The pathologist was accompanied by two men from the morgue, and Kay watched silently while he guided them along the track before returning.

  ‘If Will was cold, why did he remove his shoes and his sweater, Lucas?’ said Barnes. ‘That doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘It’s a common feature of hypothermia,’ said the pathologist, finally discarding his protective overalls and gloves before shoving them in a biohazard bin next to the outer perimeter tape. ‘As blood circulation slows and moves away from the extremities to keep the vital organs going, he would’ve felt as if he were overheating. He would’ve started becoming delusional towards the end, stripping away his clothes in an effort to cool down.’

  Barnes shivered. ‘The poor bastards.’

  ‘What I don’t understand is why whoever did this came back here for Carl?’ said Kay. ‘Why wait until he was dead, and then dump his body at O’Connor’s place?’

  ‘I’ll leave that part to you, Detective Hunter,’ Lucas replied, stepping to one side to let the two men carrying the stretcher past, Will’s body now sealed in a black plastic bag. Lucas’s gaze followed the two men to the end of the track, then he turned and pointed at the open doors of the refrigerated truck. ‘What I would say is that whoever did this never meant for Will to escape once they left with Carl – look.’

  Kay pivoted to see what he meant, and watched as Harriet’s team lowered another cardboard box from the truck.

  In the glare from the powerful lamps, she could see that the panel on the inside next to the right-hand door had been obliterated, plastic shards protruding from it and wires hanging loose.

  ‘Whoever shut him inside with Carl broke the safety release mechanism,’ she murmured.

  ‘It’ll be Friday morning at the earliest before I can do Will’s post mortem,’ said Lucas, ‘but at least by the end of the week you’ll have the full picture.’

  She thanked the pathologist, then watched as he walked back to his car, and shuddered. ‘As if this week couldn’t get any worse.’

  Chapter Eleven

  When Kay followed Barnes into the incident room the next morning, she spotted a familiar figure in the office behind her desk, his back turned to the room.

  She wandered across and hovered at the threshold, running an appraising eye over the cardboard boxes under the windowsill, the contents only filling half of each.

  The topmost drawer to a filing cabinet was open with various folders and documents strewn over the top of hanging files.

  ‘You’re going then?’ she said.

  Devon Sharp glanced over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow, a sheaf of loose papers in his hand.

  The Detective Chief Inspector was rarely seen at the town centre police station due to his responsibilities growing to include more time spent at the new Kent Police headquarters, but his presence was always welcomed by the team.

  Ex-military police, his close-cropped hair greyer these days, he still walked with the agility of someone who exercised regularly. His charcoal-coloured suit jacket bore the tell-tale marks of a man who had spent the morning shredding inconsequential documents, and Kay’s mouth twitched as she crossed the room to where he stood.

  He leaned against his desk with a stifled groan and loosened his tie. ‘The Chief Super’s made it quite clear that she expects me to join the rest of her team at the new headquarters in Northfleet now that Sutton Road is closed. I’ve tried arguing the point that I prefer being here so I can be hands on, but my argument is moot. Times are changing, Kay.’

  ‘It’s the end of an era, guv.’ She turned her attention away from his pitiful attempts at packing for a moment while voices and ringing telephones filtered through from the incident room.

  ‘It is, isn’t it?’ He rubbed his fingers across the pockmarked surface of the desk. ‘Apparently, I’ve been given new furniture over there.’

  ‘Thank God for that.’ Kay patted the metal arm of one of the visitor chairs. ‘We’ve been telling you for years that this stuff is falling apart.’

  She frowned as he ran a hand over weary eyes. ‘Are you all right, guv?’

  ‘Politics, that’s all. It comes with the territory unfortunately.’

  Kay pursed her lips. ‘Doesn’t sound good.’

  ‘It isn’t. Anyway, tell me about the investigation.’ He got to his feet. ‘How are you getting on?’

  ‘I was about to brief the team. Would you like to join us?’

  ‘I will, thanks – I’m due at a media conference in an hour so I’d like to make sure our information is up to date.’

  ‘Give me a moment, and we’ll make a start.’

  She wandered out of his office and over to a water cooler, poured a cupful then took another over to where Sharp mingled with the rest of the investigative team as they gathered around the whiteboard.

  Her mentor had alwa
ys had a way with people, listening to younger and less experienced officers, doling out advice where needed and trying to remain part of the team he had led for so long before receiving a well-deserved promotion three years ago.

  He took the cup of water from her with a grin. ‘I take it the coffee’s still shit, then?’

  The gathered officers laughed, and then Kay signalled to them that the briefing was starting.

  ‘Thanks for all your hard work yesterday – I appreciate it was a long shift,’ she said. ‘Let’s start with Carl Taylor. Does anyone have any further updates with regard to where he was found?’

  ‘Guv.’ Laura rose to her feet. ‘Lucas confirmed that it’s going to be Thursday before the soft tissue thaws out enough that he can conduct a proper post mortem.’

  ‘It is what it is – he can’t risk warming up Carl’s body too fast,’ said Kay. ‘He thought it would be Friday before he could do Will’s post mortem. Any news from Harriet’s office about the car that Carl was found in? Someone drove it and parked it on O’Connor’s forecourt, so is there any trace evidence?’

  ‘Whoever did it was careful, guv,’ said Gavin as Laura took her seat once more. ‘Harriet says the steering wheel, gearstick and door handles were all wiped down with bleach and she thinks whoever was driving was wearing full PPE – overalls, gloves, the lot – similar to what she and her team wear.’

  A collective groan filled the room.

  ‘But,’ said Gavin, raising his voice over the noise, ‘she has managed to find a hair in the headrest of the car, and there was dirt in the footwell, which she’s sending off to be analysed.’

  ‘What’s the timeframe on the soil testing?’ said Kay.

  ‘Two weeks.’

  ‘Shit.’ Kay sighed, added the updates to the board, and then turned back to face her team. ‘Who’s been running background checks on Carl Taylor?’

  ‘Me, guv.’ Phillip Parker raised his hand. ‘Carl started working as a delivery driver four years ago after being made redundant from his job as a manager at a retail outlet in town here. Simon Thomas reports no issues with his work – Carl was the sort of bloke who turned up fifteen minutes before his shift. Thomas’s words were “conscientious”. Nothing on our records about him, not even a speeding fine.’

  ‘Was that why Thomas selected him to train up Will Nivens?’

  ‘Yes – he said Carl had been good at getting their apprentices up to speed without cutting corners. Will was the third to join the company this year.’

  ‘Thanks, Phillip.’ Kay ran her thumb down the side of the report the HOLMES2 database generated and eyed the next actions to cover.

  ‘When Tim Wallace reached the truck’s location yesterday afternoon, both back tyres were flat and it looked as if a knife had been used to slash them,’ she said. ‘Where’s Debbie?’

  A hand shot up from the back of the group. ‘Here, guv.’

  ‘Could you work with Phillip to have a look at the CCTV footage along Carl’s route on Friday, particularly the last drop he made before the truck was abandoned? I want to know when those tyres were slashed and whether someone did this while he was parked at his last drop-off to create a slow puncture.’

  Sharp nodded as he listened. ‘Meaning by the time he got to that lane where the truck was found, he’d have had no choice but to pull over.’

  ‘They were ambushed, guv,’ said Barnes. ‘They were deliberately made to stop there, then murdered.’

  Kay took a step back from the whiteboard and eyed the map Gavin had tacked to the cork board beside it before turning to back to the team. ‘Barnes – I want you with me when I speak to Louise Nivens, Will’s mum, after this briefing. Gavin, Laura – get yourselves over to Ann O’Connor’s place and speak to her about her husband’s used car business. If she’s chasing him for money, she might know why Carl’s body was dumped there. I want to know more about their business arrangements at that restaurant they owned, and since.’

  ‘Yes, guv.’ Laura lowered her head and turned to a new page in her notebook.

  ‘In the meantime, Debbie, can you work through the list of the places that were on Carl’s route last Friday and split them between us? I want all the interviews conducted by the end of today. I also need someone to follow up the tachograph data from Simon Thomas to find out exactly when that truck pulled over, and when the temperature was turned down.’

  ‘Understood, guv.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Kay rested her hands on her hips and exhaled. ‘We need to make some good progress today, everyone, and I’m grateful for the effort you’ve put in so far. We’ve got a long way to go to find out why these two men were targeted but don’t make the mistake of rushing – we’re going to need every lead and piece of evidence we can get. We’ll reconvene tomorrow. Dismissed.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Barnes eyed the red-brick façade of the Nivens’ family home through the car windscreen and exhaled.

  Warm sunlight caught an upstairs dormer window that protruded over a single garage at the front of the house, while a recently mowed lawn to the right of the driveway was bordered with fern-like plants and colourful shrubs.

  He pushed open the car door, tucked his sunglasses into his jacket pocket and peered over the vehicle at Kay as she emerged from the passenger side.

  ‘Do you want me to lead this one?’

  ‘If you don’t mind,’ she said, shuffling between the car and a six-foot-high privet hedge that separated Louise Nivens’ home from the neighbouring property. ‘It’ll give me a chance to listen and compare my notes to what we know about Carl at the same time.’

  ‘No problem. What time are uniform sending someone over?’

  ‘Any time now. Debbie’s put in a request for another FLO as well, but given that Sharp told me that resources are tight at the moment…’

  Barnes curled his lip, wishing they could do more, then led the way to the front door.

  After ringing the bell and hearing a sonorous two-tone response somewhere along the hallway beyond, he buttoned his jacket and took a deep breath.

  Breaking the news of a loved one’s death was the worst part of the job.

  Attending traffic accidents or the after-effects of an arson attack, post mortem examinations – those were bad enough, but this––

  The woman who opened the door wore her hair in a messy topknot, the fine lines in her face puckered by days of worry. Green eyes peered at them before widening, her mouth falling open at the sight of the two detectives on her doorstep.

  She staggered backwards, her hand fluttering to her lips.

  ‘Will, no…’ she managed.

  Barnes stepped over the threshold and took her by the elbow, steadying her as Kay followed and closed the door.

  ‘Mrs Nivens, I’m Detective Sergeant Ian Barnes,’ he said gently. ‘This is Detective Inspector Kay Hunter. Shall we sit down somewhere?’

  The woman nodded mutely, gestured to a door off to the right at the foot of a staircase, and let Barnes guide her through into a living room.

  A television was on in the corner, a shopping channel playing silently while the presenter used over-the-top gestures to demonstrate a vacuum cleaner.

  The air smelled musty, and as Barnes led Will’s mother to an overstuffed armchair next to the door he spotted a mobile phone on an occasional table beside it, along with a remote control.

  He reached out for it and turned off the television as she dropped into the armchair, tears spilling over her cheeks.

  ‘Here.’

  Barnes turned and took the packet of paper tissues Kay held out to him, plucked one from the wrapper and crouched beside Louise.

  ‘Mrs Nivens, we’re very sorry to say that we found the body of a young man late yesterday evening. He was carrying his driving licence in his wallet.’ Barnes leaned back on his heels as the woman’s shoulders shook. ‘I’m sorry to tell you that we believe it’s your son, Will Nivens.’

  Gasping sobs filled the silence as Louise covered her face with h
er hands.

  ‘What happened?’ she mumbled through her fingers. ‘Why…?’

  ‘At the moment, we’re still in the process of establishing the facts but we do know that he and his colleague were attacked while on their delivery route on Friday afternoon,’ said Kay. ‘I’m sorry we can’t tell you more at the moment, I really am.’

  ‘Is there anyone we can call for you?’ said Barnes, moving to a second armchair beside the woman while Kay sat at one end of a matching two-seater sofa. ‘Do you have a friend or relatives close by who can stay with you for a while?’

  ‘M-my neighbour, Sheila.’ Louise wiped her eyes before clutching the sodden tissue to her chest. ‘She isn’t at work today.’

  ‘We’ll ask her to come and keep you company,’ he said. ‘Louise, I realise this is a terrible time for you, but would you mind if I asked you some questions about your son?’

  The woman nodded, and closed her eyes.

  ‘Did Will have any concerns about his work for the delivery company?’

  ‘No – not at all. He didn’t have a job for six months after being made redundant from his last one, so we agreed at Easter that I’d pay for him to do a training course to get his truck driving licence and he’d pay me back. He liked working with Carl, too – said he was learning loads.’

  She wiped away fresh tears before continuing. ‘He was making plans to save for a place of his own – they have long-distance trucks at that place, too and he wanted to get the next licence up so he could drive one of those. They pay more for that, you know.’

  ‘He sounds like a wonderful son,’ said Barnes.

  Louise nodded, then pulled a fresh tissue from the pack. ‘After his dad died six years ago, he looked after his sister and me as best he could. Hard for a fourteen-year-old, but I’m so proud of him… was…’

  ‘Can you tell me about Friday? When did you last see him?’