A Darker Place

by Rachel Amphlett

  ‘Thank you.’ He watched until the woman had pushed open the front door and then turned to Laura. ‘What do you think?’

  Laura sighed. ‘She wasn’t any help at all, was she? If––’

  A mobile phone interrupted her, and Gavin fished it from his pocket before answering.

  ‘Phillip? Yes – we’re downstairs. She just left. What’s that?’ Gavin held out his hand to stop Laura heading over to speak to Hughes at the front desk and shook his head. ‘We’ll be right there.’

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Incident room – now. Phillip’s got something.’

  He jogged along the corridor and headed for the stairs, hearing the door swing shut as Laura tried to keep up with his long strides but unwilling to slow down for her.

  Entering the incident room, he made a beeline for Phillip Parker’s desk as the constable lowered his phone, a surprised expression crossing his features.

  ‘That was quick,’ he said. ‘What––’

  ‘Show me those tachographs,’ Gavin said, pulling a chair towards Parker’s desk and dropping into it before aiming an apologetic glance at Laura.

  She gave an imperceptible shake of her head and fetched her own chair before joining them while Gavin explained what Bonnie Hopkins had told them.

  ‘These were emailed through ten minutes ago,’ said Parker. ‘I asked Carl’s manager to provide the records for the day Carl drove Bonnie’s route as it wasn’t one he usually took – it’s the only anomaly in his schedule over the past month.’

  Gavin took the printed pages from him and angled them so Laura could read the lines of data at the same time. ‘What does all of this mean?’

  ‘The tachograph in each truck contains retrospective data about each journey, including a GPS coordinate along with the time, speed and other mechanical readings.’ Phillip leaned over and ran his finger down the text as he spoke. ‘Because these are refrigerated trucks, they’re also keeping a constant record on the temperature. If anything goes wrong and the food gets spoiled because a refrigeration unit goes on the blink, the depot needs to have proof for their insurance company.’

  ‘So…’ Gavin looked up, unable to keep the confusion from his voice. ‘How does this help us exactly?’

  Parker grinned, and tapped his finger on a GPS coordinate a third of the way down the second page.

  ‘Carl didn’t go straight to the next customer in Aylesford after visiting Alan Trentithe’s place. Look – the coordinates show him driving north beyond the M20, stopping at the industrial unit for five minutes and then after that he continued on along that road for a mile or so. He stopped there for half an hour, and then returned to the scheduled route. The half-hour stop wasn’t listed on the deliveries for that day.’

  ‘Do you know where he went?’ said Laura.

  Phillip jerked his thumb over his shoulder. ‘I was on the phone to the depot when you got here. They’re going to send us a summary of the delivery dockets.’

  ‘Got them.’ Debbie hurried over and handed them each a one-page document. ‘They just came through on the email so I’ll log it all into HOLMES2 as well.’

  Her words washed over Gavin as he ran his eyes down the text. ‘What time did Carl’s GPS show him at that location beyond the industrial unit, Phillip?’

  ‘Three-thirty.’

  Gavin slapped the signature line with the back of his hand. ‘Six boxes of frozen food delivered to Sandling on the Tuesday afternoon at three fifty-five. The address for Trentithe’s industrial unit has been crossed out. It just says Whites Lane. And look – it was signed for by B Clements.’

  Laura’s eyes widened. ‘Do you think that could be the Barry person that Ann O’Connor mentioned? The one who was in the CCTV images we got from the antiques shop?’

  ‘I don’t know, but given the tachograph information, it’s got to be worth checking out, hasn’t it?’ Opening a map app, Gavin typed in Sandling before switching it over to satellite view and shrinking the industrial estate, peering at the surrounding area. ‘Alan Trentithe’s business is the only link to all of this so far, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said Laura. ‘You heard Kay – they didn’t find anything.’

  ‘That could be on purpose,’ said Parker.

  ‘Exactly. Maybe the industrial unit is a front. All of that side of the business is legit, hence why they didn’t find anything,’ said Gavin.

  ‘What about Bonnie Hopkins though? She told us she’s only delivered to Trentithe’s industrial unit, not anywhere else.’

  ‘Maybe something changed the day Carl covered her shift.’

  ‘Or she’s lying.’ Laura turned her back to the whiteboard. ‘Should we take a look at the place before Kay gets back? I mean, we could be right but…’

  ‘… It wouldn’t look good turning up empty-handed twice in one day, would it?’ Gavin paused as he took one last look at the paperwork strewn across their desks. ‘Okay, let’s head over there.’

  ‘I’ll get my car keys.’

  ‘Debbie? Do me a favour, and log it in the system so they know where we’ve gone.’ He shivered. ‘I don’t fancy ending up like Carl and Will, no matter what we find.’

  Chapter Forty-One

  ‘Why do you think Carl and Will were killed?’

  Laura eased the pool car around a mini-roundabout beside the entrance to a supermarket, accelerating as the road widened.

  Urban sprawl gave way to countryside, the hedgerows encroaching onto the slim pavement that petered out within another half a mile until the properties on each side gave way to a panoramic vista over the Kentish landscape.

  Gavin thumbed through his emails as she drove, calling out updates from the team while she kept a lookout for the turning.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said eventually, and lowered his phone as she indicated left. ‘But I wonder if Carl was the target, and Will was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

  Laura checked her rear-view mirror then slowed a little. ‘Okay, so here’s the industrial estate where Kay and Barnes were. According to Phillip we need to head up this road for another five minutes. Ready?’

  ‘Yes.’ Gavin shifted in his seat to look at her. ‘But let’s make a deal, all right? If we think we need to turn around and wait for back-up, then we do. No heroics, okay?’

  ‘Sounds good.’

  Her eyes moved from the twisting lane to her rear-view mirror as they passed different properties.

  She pulled into the verge to let a tractor pass, wincing as an overgrown hawthorn hedge scraped against the door mirror, then shoved the car into gear once more and accelerated away, a nervousness clawing at her chest.

  As they passed the industrial estate, her gaze shifted to the signage above the unit for Alan Trentithe’s catering business and she wondered if he was there now, keeping a watchful eye on his workers or perhaps lying in wait for them at their next destination.

  Despite the bravado in her suggestion to Gavin, she wondered if they should have waited until Kay and Barnes returned to the incident room before venturing out.

  Without the support from her senior and more experienced colleagues she felt exposed, and fought down a pang of fear that was starting to gnaw at her concentration.

  The lane narrowed beyond the industrial units, and save for a handful of stone cottages that huddled behind a low wooden fence leaning precariously towards the road, there was no-one else in sight.

  Half a mile down the lane, she slewed the car over to the verge, the sudden manoeuvre kicking up dust and small stones that peppered the wheel arches.

  Gavin’s chest pressed against his seatbelt and his mobile phone fell from his hands, tumbling into the footwell.

  ‘Jesus, Hanway…’

  He leaned forward, rummaged around and located the phone under his seat, muttering under his breath.

  She ignored him and peered through the windscreen.

  ‘Look.’

  A concealed track stretched beyond the end of th
e asphalt road, lined on both sides with thick conifers and ash. A metal five-bar gate blocked the entrance and a mixture of mud and stones spilled out over the road in front of them.

  Rust nibbled at the edges of a sign that had once issued orders to keep out, the lettering faded under the alternating assault of several winters and bright sunlight.

  On the other side of the gate, the carcass of an old school bus was parked under the trees, its wheels missing and the paintwork covered in rust and moss.

  Gavin squinted through the windscreen. ‘Is this the place?’

  ‘Must be. There’s nowhere else to go – this is the end of the road.’ She turned in her seat to face him, noting the determined expression he wore. ‘Shall we phone in for some back-up?’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘don’t worry – we’ll just take a quick look. We might be wrong about this, after all. Park back by the cottages though.’

  Five minutes later, they approached the track on foot and Laura paused to take a series of photographs on her phone in case she needed to log them into HOLMES2 on their return to the incident room.

  A rattle of metal against metal reached her ears after she snapped an image of the rusting sign and she turned to see Gavin cradling a padlock and chain in his hand.

  ‘It was unlocked,’ he said, hooking it over the top bar of the gate and pushing it open.

  She closed the gate and eyed the abandoned bus with a mixture of disgust and intrigue. ‘That’s been here a while.’

  ‘Yes, but these tyre tracks are new – look.’ Gavin pointed to a series of crisscrossed lines that were carved into the dirt, all different tread marks churning up the ground.

  She bit her lip and trailed after her colleague as he set a brisk pace along the right-hand edge of the track, making sure they avoided standing on the tyre marks.

  Part of her wanted to be the one to find the breakthrough in the investigation, the other half was fighting the twist to her guts that reminded her they were at least thirty minutes away from any back-up should something go wrong.

  On each side of the dirt track, lined up like an ailing honour guard, were a mixture of cars, panel vans and an old Bedford army truck in various states of disrepair and rot.

  ‘This must have been a scrapyard at one time,’ she said, keeping her voice low as her eyes swept her surroundings for any sign of activity. ‘I wonder why they didn’t get rid of them…’

  ‘Scenery, perhaps,’ said Gavin. ‘A way to make it look as if there’s nothing going on down here.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  The track continued past an iron shed, twisting left before widening out into a stony yard cluttered with discarded plastic hubcaps, rusting carburettors and other vehicle parts.

  At the far end and nearest to the concrete motorway bridge were three steel shipping containers, the doors facing the track and resolutely closed.

  The roar of traffic filled the air, and Laura raised her gaze to see a series of articulated trucks with German and Hungarian lettering along the sides tear past the reinforced safety barriers that hugged the motorway. A lone siren passed on the opposite side, a pitiful bleat that faded into the distance within seconds.

  ‘Let’s have a look around,’ said Gavin.

  He crossed to the left side of the yard, hands in his pockets as he stooped to peer at some of the junk discarded around the fringes, before he moved forward once more and disappeared from sight behind the remains of an old pick-up truck.

  Laura swallowed, then wove between the carburettors and abandoned radiator grilles, her eyes skimming over the vehicles.

  Exhaling, she turned her attention to the three shipping containers, wondering whether to phone Parker and tell him the information from the delivery company was wrong, that there was nothing out here.

  Her breath caught in her throat at the sound of an approaching motorbike engine, and she spun on her heel.

  ‘Gavin! Someone’s coming.’

  She heard the sound of running footsteps and then a muffled curse and a clang as her colleague tripped over an engine exhaust pipe.

  ‘Here.’ He beckoned to her, and she ran across to join him beside an industrial-sized waste bin filled with empty cardboard boxes that were flattened and squashed under the protruding metal lid.

  She ducked behind it as a moped trundled into view, its rider fighting to keep it upright while weaving his way around the potholes and deep ruts.

  Gavin’s breath tickled her hair while they peered over the bin, and she frowned as the rider brought the moped to a standstill next to the two nearest shipping containers.

  He climbed off the bike and flipped up the visor to his helmet before removing it to reveal the acne-ridden face of a teenager.

  The rider then flipped open a large plastic box fitted to the back of the moped, reached in and extracted a set of squashed nylon bags.

  He let the lid fall back into place on the box and shook out the bags before he ambled over to the container farthest from where Laura stood and rapped his fist against the dark-blue surface above a metal handle.

  Laura couldn’t prevent her sharp intake of breath as the door swung open and a cloud of steam escaped through the gap.

  The aroma of frying oil, garlic and more wafted on the wind to where they hid, and she heard Gavin’s stomach rumble in protest as a woman in her thirties handed the teenager two pizza boxes.

  ‘Good job we’re not on a surveillance job,’ she hissed.

  ‘Sorry. Hang on, there’s someone else coming.’

  She craned her neck so she could see past him and back along the track.

  Sure enough, a second moped was bobbing and weaving its way towards them, the rider wearing a full-face helmet with the visor flipped up, his face one of determination while he tried to maintain his balance.

  A third rider appeared before he reached the yard, and within minutes Laura counted six moped riders milling about in front of the three shipping containers.

  ‘This is Alan Trentithe’s real dark kitchen,’ Gavin murmured. ‘These are all delivery riders, aren’t they? This is the start of their shift. Look – there goes the first rider.’

  The moped zipped past, the rider flicking down his visor before he reached the track and then drove away.

  Laura turned her attention back to the shipping containers at a shout from the third container set farther back from the others in time to see the door swing shut.

  She frowned, wondering whether the shout was one of warning or otherwise and then emitted a surprised snort as the door opened once more and a broad man emerged with a huge bag of frozen chips slung over his left shoulder.

  When he turned to shut the door behind him, Laura slapped Gavin’s arm.

  ‘Bingo,’ she said. ‘That’s the bloke Ann O’Connor identified from the CCTV footage. That’s Barry.’

  Chapter Forty-Two

  ‘Dammit, I knew we were right about him.’

  Barnes slammed the heel of his hand against the steering wheel, then reached up and loosened his tie.

  They fell into place behind a liveried patrol car, its lights blazing as it carved a path through the afternoon traffic and headed towards Sandling.

  Kay held her breath and gritted her teeth as Barnes overtook a bus, then closed her eyes when he shot across the first set of traffic lights without lifting his foot.

  Her colleague continued to mutter under his breath as the landscape flew past her window, and she reached out a hand to steady herself as he cornered the car into a left-hand junction.

  Her stomach protested as the car descended a hidden dip in the road, Barnes turning the wheel with ease as he negotiated the twisting bends in the lane and sped towards the industrial units.

  He braked hard, spinning the wheel right and sent the vehicle bobbing over the raised concrete ramp into the car park.

  ‘Next time, I’m driving,’ she muttered as he came to a standstill behind the patrol car outside the building belonging to Alan Trentithe’s catering business.
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br />   The occupants of the patrol car were already out and running into the open maw of the warehouse doors.

  Their shouts echoed from within the dark space while they rounded up the few workers who helped Trentithe keep up the pretence of a busy catering company operating out of the industrial unit, and then Kay heard the unmistakable sound of a constable’s boots thundering up the internal staircase beyond the front door and heading for the offices above.

  She took a step back and peered up at the first-floor window as the constable came into view, then groaned as the man shook his head.

  ‘Shit, we’re too late.’

  ‘Guv?’ The other uniformed officer called from the warehouse. ‘There’s a back door, guv – it leads out to a field.’

  ‘Go.’ Kay nudged Barnes forward before following him, pushing past an array of kitchen equipment.

  She turned her face away from a line of four chip fryers, heat from two gas stoves and boiling water in pans spitting at her skin as she passed, and tried not to slip on a splatter of oil that coated the painted concrete floor.

  The constable who’d called out to her kept a hand on the arm of a burly man in chef’s whites and pointed towards an open door.

  ‘It’s a fire exit, guv. I saw someone go through it when I was arresting this one.’

  Barnes was already heading through the door, and Kay gulped in a lungful of cooler air as she found herself on a rough concrete space overgrown with weeds at the back of the industrial units.

  Only a few metres wide, it was lined with large metal bins that amassed a wave of flies when they hurried past.

  Beyond the concrete, a wide field lay barren and separated from the units by a wooden fence with three rails between each post.

  A small cloud of dust rose from the middle of the scrubby pasture, and she squinted through it to see Alan Trentithe stumbling away, his progress hampered by large clods of dried mud, twisted brambles and tree roots that had taken over the paddock.