The Night Hawks

by Griffiths, Elly

  ‘Cathbad?’ says Paul. ‘I’ve heard Alan mention you. You’re a druid, aren’t you?’

  ‘That’s right,’ says Cathbad.

  ‘We need the police,’ says someone. ‘Not a bloody druid.’

  ‘I’ve called the police,’ says Cathbad.

  ‘I’ve already rung them,’ says Neil, coming into the circle of light.

  ‘I contacted the Serious Crimes Squad,’ says Cathbad. ‘DCI Nelson.’

  ‘Why would you do that?’ says David. ‘Alan obviously fell into the trench. It’s an awful accident. That’s all.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ says Paul, his voice wavering. ‘There’s blood on his . . . on his head.’

  ‘Don’t touch anything,’ says Cathbad. ‘The murder weapon could be nearby.’

  ‘Murder weapon?’ says David. ‘What are you talking about?’ Cathbad can see his aura now, dark and smoky.

  ‘Let’s just wait for DCI Nelson,’ says Cathbad.

  ‘I can’t believe there’s another body,’ says the young man called Troy. ‘Right where we found the first one.’

  ‘This is a liminal zone,’ says Cathbad. ‘A sacred realm between life and death.’

  ‘Alan was right about you,’ says David. ‘He said you were completely mad.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ says Cathbad. And he sits on the coarse grass to await the police.

  Chapter 22

  Nelson drives fast through the dark streets. His headlights illuminate signposts, scurrying foxes and, once, a deer nibbling at a hedgerow but, as he crosses the marshes, there is only blackness. He arrives at the car park by Cley beach just as the squad car is drawing up. Nelson half expects to see Mark Hammond but, of course, he’s still on leave after his partner’s death. Jesus, was Nathan’s funeral only that morning? Yesterday morning now. Nelson doesn’t recognise the two uniformed constables but introduces himself briefly and leads the way to the shore. It feels strange to be the one who knows the way in this godforsaken place, eerier than ever in the night, with the sea on one side and the whispering grasses on the other.

  Before long, though, he sees lights and hears voices. A group of people are huddled around a tarpaulin. An arc light casts strange shadows on the motley crew, some of them carrying metal detectors and other equipment. And just outside the circle sits a familiar figure, cross-legged on the grass. Nelson knows, just by looking at him, that Cathbad is meditating.

  ‘Wakey, wakey,’ says Nelson, approaching him. ‘Time to come back to the real world.’

  ‘I never left it,’ says Cathbad, standing up.

  ‘What happened?’ says Nelson. Cathbad might be a new-age nutter but Nelson trusts him to tell a story calmly, with the events in the right order. He has sometimes even thought that Cathbad would have made a good police officer.

  ‘Alan White invited me to join the Night Hawks on an outing,’ says Cathbad. ‘But, when I arrived, he wasn’t here. We walked to the site and Paul discovered his body face-down in the trench.’

  ‘Paul?’

  ‘Paul Noakes.’

  ‘I see. Did you see the body?’

  ‘Yes, and I would say that Alan had been hit on the head by a heavy object. Possibly a rock or a piece of flint. I’m praying for his soul.’

  ‘You keep doing that,’ says Nelson, and he strides away to the group around the trench. The PCs are taking names and addresses. Nelson shines his torch into the hole. He sees the body, which is on its side, the head ruined and bloody. Briefly he remembers the body on the kitchen floor of Black Dog Farm. Douglas Noakes, his head blown off.

  ‘Did anyone touch the body?’ he asks. Cathbad had said that Alan was ‘face down’ in the trench but now he’s lying on his side.

  ‘I did,’ says Paul. ‘Just to check . . . you know . . . just to check if he was breathing.’

  Even in the dark, Nelson can see that Paul looks dreadful, white and shaking. He supposes that Paul, too, was reminded of the deaths at Black Dog Farm. And now he has lost the man who, unlike his father, was a positive paternal influence. No wonder he looks as if he’s about to be sick.

  ‘We need to get SOCO here immediately,’ Nelson tells the uniforms. ‘All these others can go as soon as you’ve got their details. Mr Noakes, can you wait a minute?’

  ‘What do you want with Paul?’ says one of the Hawks, a tall man in glasses that, rather disconcertingly, have turned dark in the glare of the lights.

  ‘I need to ask Mr Noakes a few more questions,’ says Nelson. ‘And you are?’

  ‘David Brown. I work with Ruth Galloway. We met the other day.’

  ‘Oh yes. I remember. Well, if you’ve given your contact details to my colleagues, Mr Brown, there’s no need for you to stay.’

  Even Ruth’s irritating lecturer can hardly ignore this dismissal. He turns and walks away, looking back once or twice as he does so.

  ‘That man has a very hostile energy,’ says a voice in ­Nelson’s ear.

  Nelson arrives at King’s Lynn police station just as dawn is breaking. The night sergeant is preparing to go home but he makes Nelson a cup of coffee which he takes upstairs to his office. Nelson is tempted to try to get a few hours’ sleep in his chair, but he doesn’t fancy being caught napping by the team when they come thundering in at nine. There is, of course, a sofa in Jo’s office but being woken up by Jo in her early morning jogging kit would be worse than the squad barging in. So Nelson drinks his coffee and makes notes while the scene on Cley beach is still fresh in his mind.

  Paul Noakes said that Alan had been dead when he found him, the body cold. Even from a cursory glance it was obvious that Alan had been hit over the head with a heavy object and – Cathbad had been right – a blood-stained rock had been found by SOCO a few metres away. Alan had then fallen, or been pushed, into the trench. Ruth, he thinks wryly, would be almost more shocked about this than the murder. He wonders if David Bloody Brown will tell her the story when she gets into work this morning.

  They don’t have a time of death yet, but the body hadn’t been stiff which makes Nelson think that the murder occurred less than an hour before the Night Hawks arrived. Alan had told Cathbad to meet him in the car park at midnight, a rendezvous he hadn’t been able to keep. Alan had also, apparently, been worried about something. ‘I think he wanted my protection,’ said Cathbad. ‘He must have been desperate then,’ Nelson had replied.

  Alan had been scared and now Alan is dead. Alan had been there when Jem Taylor’s body was found, he had been outside the farmhouse when Douglas and Linda had died. Somehow the history teacher, the mild-mannered man with his metal detector, had taken centre stage. Had someone arranged to meet Alan before the Night Hawks had convened in the car park, hit him over the head and pushed him in the trench? Why? Was it linked to the treasure itself, to Black Dog Farm, to Cambridge Bioresearch? Nelson doesn’t know and he has to find out.

  Words and voices are starting to swim through his head.

  They could have been a votive offering. An offering to the sea gods.

  Armed police. We’re coming in.

  A couple of men out walking in the fields.

  His eyes are made of hellfire and, if you see him, you die within the year.

  I thought he’d be fine by Thursday morning. And now he’s dead.

  You see strange things sometimes, when you’re far out to sea.

  Dad used to say that there was a dead body in the garden.

  We hated our father. We’re glad he’s dead.

  The next thing he knows, Leah is standing in front of him.

  ‘I’ve made you some coffee.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Nelson rubs his eyes. ‘Sorry. I must have fallen asleep.’ His head feels thick and muzzy. He shakes it.

  ‘At first I thought you were late,’ says Leah, ‘but then I saw your car was in the car park.’

  ‘I’ve be
en here since four a.m.,’ says Nelson. ‘I was called out in the night.’ He takes a gulp of coffee. It’s as if it’s a molten stream cutting through the moss in his brain. He looks at his watch. Eight thirty. ‘Is everyone here?’

  ‘Tanya’s here. Judy’s on her way up, I think.’

  ‘Grand. Tell them there’s a briefing at nine. And Leah?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Any chance of a bacon butty?’

  Leah often pretends not to understand him when he’s being Northern, but she sighs and says she’ll see what she can do.

  Ruth is preparing for her first lecture of the day when David appears at her door. She gathers up her papers to show that she doesn’t have time to chat.

  ‘Have you heard?’ says David, ignoring the hint.

  ‘Heard what?’

  ‘Alan White’s dead. We found his body in the trench.’

  ‘What?’

  David seems pleased with the sensation he has caused. He leans against her door with his arms crossed.

  ‘You found him in the trench?’

  ‘Yes. Remember I told you I was going out with the Night Hawks? Alan wasn’t at the meeting place but, when we got to the trench, there he was.’

  ‘Murdered?’ Ruth realises that she’s whispering.

  ‘That’s what your friend thinks. The druid bloke. Cathbad.’

  ‘Cathbad was there?’

  ‘Yes. And he called your other friend. DCI Nelson. Seems that he has him on speed dial.’

  ‘Jesus.’ Ruth had stood up when she heard the news. Now she sits down again, heavily. ‘What did Nelson say?’

  ‘He did all the officious police stuff. Asked for names and addresses. Cleared the site. Except for Paul.’

  ‘Paul?’

  ‘Paul Noakes. He was the one who found the body.’

  The name rings a faint bell somewhere in Ruth’s brain. Paul, the man she saw with Alan by the trench. The other Night Hawk. Then she remembers Nelson talking about ‘the Noakes children, Chloe and Paul’.

  ‘How did Alan die?’ she asked.

  ‘Cathbad seemed to think he might have been hit over the head with a rock. He’s quite the detective.’

  There’s a definite sneer this time. David really doesn’t like the police, or even amateur sleuths.

  ‘So he was definitely murdered then?’

  ‘I thought it was an accident at first,’ says David, sounding more human suddenly. ‘Poor Alan. I just can’t believe it. He loved that beach.’

  So do you, thinks Ruth. And so does she. Yet there’s no doubt that something very dark is happening along this stretch of beautiful coastline. She hears her father’s voice. A load of swords just lying about on the beach. Isn’t that a bit dangerous?

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says to David. ‘This must be a terrible shock for you. Do you want to take the day off?’

  ‘No, thanks,’ says David. ‘I think I’m better off here at work. It stops me thinking about it.’

  David looks terrible, thinks Ruth, observing him properly for the first time. He’s cadaverous anyway but now it’s as if you can see the bones beneath the skin. Of course, he has probably stayed up all night. Ruth bets that Alan’s ridiculous dig started at midnight.

  ‘Do you have any idea what happened?’ she asks.

  But the tired human has gone, and the irritating smirk is back.

  ‘Are you a detective now, Ruth?’

  No, I’m your head of department, Ruth wants to say. But she doesn’t want to argue with David when he has just lost his friend.

  ‘Take it easy today,’ she says. ‘Maybe go home early.’

  It’s a dismissal of sorts, however gently phrased, and David takes the hint. As soon as her office door shuts behind him, Ruth rings Cathbad. He sounds remarkably chirpy although he too has been up all night.

  ‘I knew something was going to happen,’ he says. ‘Alan did too. He told me that he’d heard the Black Shuck barking.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Alan was worried. He must have had a premonition of his own death. He mentioned the Black Shuck, the omen of death.’

  ‘You said he wasn’t always a bad omen.’

  ‘Not always but, in this case, he was the harbinger of death.’

  You can’t really argue with that, Ruth supposes. ‘Did Alan say what he was worried about?’

  ‘No. He said that he wanted to talk to me about something, but he couldn’t tell me on the phone.’

  ‘Do you know what it could have been?’

  ‘No, but I think it had to do with the deaths at Black Dog Farm. There are lots of links between the Night Hawks and the farm. You know that Paul Noakes actually found the body?’

  ‘Yes, David told me.’

  ‘Ah yes. David Brown. He’s a strange man, isn’t he? He has a very hostile energy. I said as much to Nelson.’

  ‘What did he say to that?’

  ‘He took it in, I think.’

  ‘David said that Alan’s body was actually found in the trench. Our trench.’

  ‘That’s right. I keep thinking about what Nelson said the day we did our dig on the beach. You remember I said that I thought our man – our skeleton – might have been a priest involved in some sort of sacred rite or sacrifice, or a king because of the knife in his hand. And Nelson said, “A murder victim, most likely.”’

  Ruth remembers. ‘“Or a murderer”,’ she says.

  Chapter 23

  The bacon butty does the trick and Nelson finds a new surge of energy for the briefing. He tells the team that Alan White’s body was found at the archaeological site on Cley beach last night. He appeared to have been beaten about the head with a heavy stone. His body was found at approximately twenty past midnight and reported to the police five minutes later. Initial examination seemed to suggest that Alan was killed about an hour earlier. SOCO were currently on site.

  ‘Alan White’s car is parked in the car park near the beach,’ says Nelson. ‘There’s no CCTV there but he might have been picked up by a speed camera on his way from his home in Sheringham. I want us to go door-to-door today, talk to his neighbours. Time of death will be very important.’

  ‘Who actually found the body?’ asks Tanya, who has her notebook out.

  ‘Paul Noakes,’ says Nelson, pausing to let the name sink in. ‘You know how I feel about coincidence. Judy, Cathbad was at the dig – did he think that Noakes was acting oddly?’

  ‘He thought he seemed nervous,’ says Judy. ‘But apparently he’s rather a nervous man.’

  ‘Noakes could have killed Alan earlier and then joined the Night Hawks for the dig,’ says Tanya. ‘It seems rather suspicious that he was the one to find the body. Gives him an excuse when we find his DNA all over it.’

  ‘Exactly,’ says Nelson.

  ‘But why would Paul kill him?’ says Judy. ‘I thought they had a good relationship. Alan White was Paul’s history teacher, he inspired him to study history at university.’

  ‘Do you remember what Douglas Noakes is meant to have said to Alan White at some parents’ evening?’ says Nelson.

  Judy flicks back through her notes. ‘“You’re corrupting my son,”’ she reads. ‘“You’re a disgrace to the profession.”’ She looks at Nelson. ‘Do you think that Alan White could have been abusing Paul Noakes?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ says Nelson. ‘But it’s a line of enquiry. Tanya, did you speak to the school where Alan White taught, Greenhill?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Tanya. ‘The head, Steph Brice, said that Alan White was a much-loved teacher. There were never any safeguarding issues.’

  ‘Much-loved,’ says Nelson. ‘I’m always suspicious of teachers who want their pupils to love them. Go and talk to them, Tanya. Maybe we need to dig a little.’

  ‘What about the link to Black Dog Farm?’ says T
ony. ‘Alan White was on the scene of the murders there, he was the one who reported hearing the shots.’

  ‘That’s right,’ says Nelson, pleased that the new recruit is thinking this way. ‘Alan White and Neil Topham, who was also on the excursion last night. Tanya, what did you make of Topham when you interviewed him?’

  ‘He seemed a little stressed,’ says Tanya. ‘Said he didn’t sleep well. That’s why he was out walking with Alan that night.’

  ‘Neil Topham taught with Alan White,’ says Tony. ‘He might know more about his relationship with Paul Noakes.’

  ‘Good point,’ says Nelson. ‘Let’s speak to him again. We need to interview all the so-called Night Hawks who were out last night. Ruth’s colleague, David Brown, was one of them.’

  ‘He turned up at the Black Dog Farm excavation,’ says Tony. ‘He arrived just as I was leaving.’

  ‘Yes, he was with Ruth when they found the dog’s bed and stuff. Did Chloe and Paul have anything to say about that?’

  ‘Paul said they’d never had a pet,’ says Judy. ‘His mother bought him a hamster once, but his father made her take it back.’

  ‘Yes,’ says Tanya. ‘Chloe said that her father hated animals.’

  And Nelson sees that kitchen again: the Aga, the swinging herbs, the smell of blood, the open newspaper. And the calendar hanging by a nail from the wall. A calendar made by the charity supporting Guide Dogs for the Blind.

  Ruth is teaching all morning and so doesn’t get Nelson’s text until lunchtime.

  Call Me. N.

  How long would it take to type ‘please’? Ruth thinks. And why sign off N when she knows it’s him? But she’s given up trying to reform Nelson’s texting habits. It can’t be that urgent, anyway, otherwise he would have left a voicemail. Ruth gets a sandwich from the cafeteria and takes it back to her office. Then she rings N.

  ‘Where have you been?’ says Nelson. ‘I called over an hour ago.’

  ‘Teaching,’ says Ruth, wondering how many times they’ve had this exchange. Fifty times? A hundred?

  ‘Have you heard about last night?’ says Nelson.