by David Hodges
Acutely conscious of the fact that Leroy might already be making his way towards her, she shrank back from the door, glancing quickly around her. Apart from the doors to the male and female toilets, there was a door at the end of the short passageway with a big ‘Exit’ sign above it and she lunged towards it, grabbing the handle and bursting through into a small square yard with a pair of open gates to her right.
Beyond the gates was an empty car park – hardly surprising it was empty, since the village had become an island with the only road in under at least six feet of water. Following the wall of the public house along to the end, she found herself at the front of the building – at which point she froze again. Far from coming to look for her, Leroy was actually on his way out of the bar again, turning up the collar of his coat against the driving rain.
Surprised, but very relieved, Kate considered her options. She could return to the relative security of the bar, or she could seize her chance and make for her borrowed boat; at least then she would be out of harm’s way. But neither option appealed to her. She was bothered by Leroy’s reaction to the information he must have gleaned from ‘Peroxide’ that she was in the village. She would have expected him to have made an effort to find her, to exact some sort of thuggish revenge, but instead, he had simply left the place – almost as if the fact that she was there had spooked him. But why? And where was he off to in such a rush?
Curiosity winning the day, she stepped out into the rain-soaked street and went after him, keeping her distance and moving only very slowly in case he happened to glance behind him, yet keeping his distinctive figure in view the whole time.
Leroy was obviously a man on a mission and someone who knew exactly where he was going, and he looked neither left nor right, but ploughed into the rain with quick urgent steps, his shoulders hunched into his short coat and his hands thrust deep into the pockets.
A couple of hundred yards from the pub, he turned into another narrow street, flanked by a row of terraced cottages on one side and a high stone wall on the other. Shortly afterwards the wall made a right-angled turn across the street, effectively sealing it off as a cul-de-sac, and Kate spotted a tall wooden gate directly ahead.
Leroy didn’t hesitate but, briefly pausing by the gate, he reached upwards and tugged on something – presumably a bell of some sort. A brief conversation evidently followed, though Kate could not make anything out, except a growling sound from a hidden speaker and Leroy’s characteristic ‘Yo,’ before the gate – apparently electronically controlled – slid back to admit him. Then he vanished inside and the gate started to close.
Instinctively, Kate went for it at a run, the edge of the heavy frame clipping her shoulder as she dived through the opening.
Beyond, a neatly manicured driveway snaked through six-foot high shrubs to a big, two-storey Victorian-style house, with a single square tower at one end. Bright lights showed in virtually all the windows and the tower radiated a dimmer more ghostly glow through what appeared to be narrow elongated apertures, like those of a castle keep. The architecture of the building reminded Kate of a folly she had once seen in the grounds of a National Trust property, but, unlike the latter, this place had about as much welcoming warmth as a mausoleum.
Leroy was only yards ahead of her now and, fearful of being spotted by the dealer should he happen to look round, she ducked into the shrubbery to her left to give him time to put a little more distance between them. As it transpired, however, she allowed him too much time, for when she finally stepped back out on to the driveway, he had disappeared.
For a moment she stood there, staring at the house through the gaps in the shrubbery and listening intently. The only sound was the rain drumming on the driveway and rattling on the broad leaves of the bordering shrubs.
Now what? She was in but in where? What was this place and why had Leroy made a beeline for it after learning of her arrival in the village? Could this be where Horse’s ‘Mr Big’ was holed up? Her stomach was beginning to churn again and she tapped her thigh to make sure her police radio was still there. Her fingers touched a flimsy harness, but nothing else. The radio was not in it anymore. As acid spurted into her stomach like molten lava, she suddenly remembered that she had inadvertently left the set in the car when she and Hayden had been carrying out their house-to-house inquiries. She hadn’t thought about the thing at the time, because she hadn’t needed to use it – even the control room call had been made to Hayden instead of to her, otherwise she would have been alerted to her lapse when the call had come through. ‘You stupid bitch,’ she breathed. ‘You’ll forget your bloody head next!’ Now she was cut off completely. Her colleagues couldn’t even pinpoint her location by using the digital tracking device that was built into all the force’s sophisticated TETRA radios, or if they did, the signal would home in on wherever the CID car happened to be at any given moment – more than likely the car park at the nick or her home address in Burtle where Hayden had gone to wolf down a sandwich! What a prize cock-up!
Common sense dictated that she beat a hasty retreat, returned to the dinghy; quit the village and called for backup from the first available phone. She just hoped the inflatable was still there, because it had suddenly dawned on her that, as well as leaving her phone in the car, she had stupidly left the key in the boat’s ignition, which meant that, if some wandering ‘tea leaf’ happened on to the thing, it might not be there by the time she got back anyway.
And even more fundamental to the issue was one glaringly obvious fact – she had got into the grounds of the house all right, but how the hell was she going to get out again? The exit gate was electronically controlled and the wall enclosing the property had to be at least nine feet high with what looked like gleaming strands of barbed wire along the top. Coupled with which, if by some miracle she did manage to get safely back to the inflatable, exactly what would she be requesting backup for? So far all she had established was the fact that a known drugs dealer had made a visit to a big Victorian house; no crime there and Roscoe would do his crust if this turned out to be yet another red herring that impacted on the NCA operation.
No, all she could do for the present was have a look around; see if she could find anything that would warrant calling in the heavy mob – provided she could get out of the place again to make the call afterwards, of course.
To approach the house on a direct route was not a good idea – though she could see no sign of surveillance cameras, she had no idea who might be looking out of the windows – so instead she ducked back into the shrubbery and made her way through it to one side of the old building. Then, emerging from cover in a darker area, she crossed a section of hard-standing and hugged the side of the building until she reached an enclosed yard at the rear, accessed via a wide un-gated archway, set in a high stone wall.
Overall the yard was pretty unremarkable – just a large flagged area, flanked on one side by the house and on the other by two slate-roofed barns equipped with tightly padlocked double doors. But her curiosity was aroused by the presence of two large lorries, parked close together, facing towards the archway. They appeared to be horseboxes, but climbing on to a rear wheel of each and shining her torch through a side window, she found that they were both completely empty.
She frowned, cupping her hands over her face to wipe off the rain. One horsebox would have been quite normal, but two did seem a bit weird – especially as there was no sign of a stable in the yard nor any sight, sound or smell of horses. Re-checking the barns, she found that, though closed and padlocked, the doors did not quite meet in the middle. Shining her torch through the narrow gap in each, she saw only a stack of large wooden crates and certainly no horses or the customary wooden stalls.
Kate was now totally mystified. True, the animals could have been in a field before the floods and then moved to somewhere more secure afterwards, as was the case with a large proportion of the Levels livestock, but those big empty wagons looked somehow incongruous in the bare walled yard and she
couldn’t help wondering what possible purpose they served.
Moving closer to the rear of the house, she checked a small recessed door, but found it was locked and the windows flanking it heavily curtained, so it was impossible to see into the room. It was the same story a few yards further on – a locked door and curtained windows that didn’t even betray a chink of light. Someone obviously valued their privacy a great deal.
But then, maybe ten to fifteen yards from an archway set in the corresponding perimeter wall at the far end of the yard, she noticed a ghostly light spilling out on to the paving stones. It seemed to be coming from somewhere low down and, peering through the rain, she glimpsed an iron railing enclosing a faintly glowing rectangle, close to the house wall. A basement of some sort, she guessed.
A few strides and she was leaning over the railing, peering down into a narrow enclosure, accessed by a flight of stone steps. There was another door and beside it, a window, curtained like the others, but issuing a wide swathe of light where the curtains had only been partially pulled across.
Intensely curious, she took a chance and followed the steps down, then stared in astonishment through the gap. The room inside was about thirty feet square and kitted out as some kind of laboratory. There were three long benches, two with integral basins and stubby taps and carrying a variety of glass test tubes, retorts and bulbous jars, some linked by rubber tubing. The third bench incorporated three electric hotplates and an array of bottles and shallow pans. A six to seven foot high section of shelving against the far wall was stacked with tins, bottles and plastic containers and alongside this were positioned two enormous American style refrigerators, their indicator lights glowing fiercely like tiny green eyes. The whole place was lit by high level strip-lights and in two corners big ugly ventilation tubes protruded from the ceiling.
Kate had seen something similar to this – though on a very much smaller scale – during her time attached to the drug squad in Bristol and she suspected that what she was looking at was a very sophisticated laboratory for the manufacture of illegal narcotics.
The lab appeared to be empty now, which meant that either the ‘cooks’ had flown or they had taken a break from their labours. Either way, she needed to get into the place to confirm her suspicions. Risky, but essential.
Holding her breath, she tried the small door – only to find it was securely locked. Damn it! She had to find another way inside the house or all her efforts would have been for nothing.
Climbing back up the steps to the yard, she moved on and this time got lucky. There was a frosted sash-type window some thirty feet beyond the basement area, just before the second archway, which had been left partially open at the bottom. Even before she ducked down to peer through the gap, the distinctive raw smell emanating from inside told her that she was about to break into the house via a downstairs toilet. Ah well, c’est la vie.
Checking that the place was empty, she heaved gently under the lower part of the window frame with both hands and was able to raise it a couple of feet, wincing at its squeal of protest. Then, clambering up on to the low sill, she grabbed hold of the frame again, to swing one leg over the sill and squeeze through the gap.
Fortunately, the toilet seat was down, which at least provided a firm footing for her as she hauled herself inside, but it was a tight squeeze and she felt her anorak rip on the window catch before she managed to touch the floor.
Silence but for the sound of a washbasin tap spurting and gurgling loudly. Irritated by the sound, she reached over and turned the tap off. The window then began to rattle in a draught and she reached behind her to close it completely before moving slowly towards the door.
The door opened with just a faint creak and light flooded into the room. She peered round the frame in both directions. To her right was a blank wall, but to her left a long thickly carpeted corridor led away from her. A couple of gilt embellished white doors opened off on both sides of the passage and big terracotta pots, boasting three-foot high exotic plants, stood between each of them, a wooden staircase thrusting its way into view just beyond. The corridor itself was deserted.
Her feet made hardly any sound in the thick pile of the carpet and, ignoring the closed doors on either side, she made straight for the staircase, pausing at the bottom and looking around her for the stairs leading down to the basement. She found them after backtracking a few feet, hidden behind a curtain drawn across what at first sight appeared to be an alcove of some sort. Unlike the main staircase, which was thickly carpeted like the corridor and seemed to be constructed of solid oak, the basement stairs were made of plain wrought iron and even from where she was standing, she could detect the strong smell of chemicals rising from below.
The stairs rattled as she began the descent and she felt the whole structure shaking under her, as if the nuts and bolts that held it together were straining against themselves and gradually loosening. She was only too pleased to reach the bottom and relieved that she had met no one else coming up, but now, in the dimly lit basement corridor, she felt a sense of impending calamity and almost turned round and ran back up the stairs again.
Resisting the urge, she moved on, passing a couple of built-in cupboards on her left, the first of which she found to contain a massive water tank, fitted with an immersion heater and a tangle of electrical wires and pipes and the second, an ancient stone-cold boiler which filled the entire space. A third and final door on her right, just before the corridor ended in a solid brick wall, turned out to access the laboratory. She was surprised to find it unlocked – but there again, why would anyone worry about security when access to the house was controlled by an electrically operated gate and the grounds enclosed by a nine-foot high wall, surmounted by barbed wire?
An even stronger chemical smell rushed out to greet her as she opened the door and she pulled out a handkerchief to cover the lower part of her face before stepping inside. The fumes were lethal, despite the inbuilt ventilation system, but she had no intention of staying longer than necessary anyway and satisfied herself relatively quickly by checking some of the tins, bottles and plastic containers on the shelves she had noted earlier.
Most of them had innocent labels, suggesting the contents to be mundane products, such as sports drinks, apple juice and Pepsi Cola, but others were labelled more blatantly. Several crudely written labels jumped out at her – sodium bicarbonate, acetic anhydride, iodine, ether, anhydrous ammonia, ephedrine and pseudoephedrine – chemicals she remembered from her Bristol drug squad days as being used as precursors in the manufacture of such illicit narcotics as methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin and morphine.
She emitted a low involuntary whistle, appreciating the importance of her discovery. This was not some amateur backstreet drugs kitchen, but a state-of-the-art laboratory – manufacturing not just one kind of narcotic but a whole multitude of them – which suggested the involvement of a team of experienced professional chemists. It was like some kind of obscene criminal supermarket, supplying whatever the illicit market demanded, with dealer clients certain to be not only in Somerset, but throughout the UK and beyond.
She knew from past experience that many of the criminal gangs involved in drugs trafficking had now moved out of the cities into the rural areas because of the heat generated by the police and enforcement agencies, and this underworld enterprise was a classic example of this new trend, if it could be called that.
No wonder Ellie Landy and poor little Polly had been eliminated.
Ellie had obviously stumbled upon the activities of the syndicate through Polly and both had paid for the disclosures with their lives. Proving the link between the cartel and the murders would not be easy, but the lab was a very good start. All Kate had to do was to alert the police control room to what she had discovered, but in her present circumstances, trapped inside this big rambling property in a marooned village, with no means of communication with the outside world, ‘all’ was a very big word.
CHAPTER 13
DI Ro
scoe got the telephone call mid-afternoon and he stiffened in his chair when he found out who the caller was, as if sensing that more bad news was on the way.
‘Lydia Summers,’ the forensic pathologist announced cheerfully. ‘Got some interesting info for you about the Ellie Landy case.’
Roscoe grunted. ‘Like what?’ he replied warily.
There was a heavy sigh on the other end of the phone. ‘You don’t have to sound so enthusiastic,’ Summers said.
Roscoe pushed his gum to the side of his mouth. ‘Get on with it, Doc,’ he said. ‘I’m busy.’
Another sigh. ‘Aren’t we all, Ted. Well, the fact is, I sent samples from the scene of the incident to specialist forensic botanists – a lichenologist and a limnologist – and we have just had preliminary reports back, which make interesting reading. I’m about to send you copies over by email, but I expect to receive the full definitive reports in the next few days.’
‘And what’s a lichen … whatever, and the other thing, when it’s at home?’
She laughed. ‘Lichenologists study lichen and fungi; Limnologists, aquatic organisms.’
Roscoe snorted. ‘Something else I’ve learned then,’ he said drily. ‘So, in a nutshell…?’
Summers took the hint. ‘Tests on the material found in the torn fingernails have revealed the presence of a new form of a rare Lecanactis or Churchyard lichen—’
‘So?’
‘I’m not a lichenologist, but I understand that this particular organism is only found in churchyard environments, which would suggest that the deceased’s hand came in contact with an affected surface at some stage.’
