Hunted on the Fens

by Joy Ellis

  ‘Then I thank you both.’ Nikki looked at the team of men and women who were exiting the house.

  ‘It’s all clear, DI Galena, but Morton’s gone. We know his vehicle and we’ve already circulated the license number.’ A tall, thin sergeant with close-cropped hair and a weathered complexion was addressing her. ‘Problem is, from the rotting food, I’d guess he’s been away for a week or two.’

  ‘And his dogs?’

  The sergeant drew in a long breath and shook his head sadly. ‘Poor little sods. I’d really like to get my hands on the evil son of a bitch. There was no need for that. There are enough charities who would have taken them. Hell, there’s even a pet sanctuary just west of Pickering.’ His face creased into anger. ‘If you’re an animal lover, as I am, this side of the job really sucks.’ He shrugged then looked at her hopefully. ‘If he should show up in your neck of the woods, would you take him somewhere private and have a quiet word with him from me, Inspector?’

  ‘It would be my pleasure, Sergeant,’ growled Nikki. She thanked him for his help and they made their way back to the car. ‘This was not what I had in mind, Dave.’ She stared at him apprehensively. ‘Far from crossing Morton off the list of suspects, he has just moved up the ladder. I might not have liked the thought of him sitting there plotting terrible revenge, but it was a damn sight better than not knowing where the hell he is.’

  Dave took the keys from her. ‘I agree, and there’s another thing I’m not happy about. Thinking about what you said about Snipe using technology, I asked one of the local guys about Internet access way out here, and guess what? It’s surprisingly good, and Windsor Morton has a router and a printer in one of the rooms, but the computer is missing.’

  Nikki felt her heart sink. ‘Let’s get home, shall we? Before things get any worse.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  It was almost ten in the evening when they arrived back at the station. In the CID office, they found Joseph and Yvonne picking their way through a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

  ‘Have you eaten?’ asked Joseph, wiping his lips with a piece of kitchen towel.

  ‘Grabbed a burger on the way back, thanks, but I could kill a strong coffee.’

  Yvonne stood up. ‘On its way, guv. I hate to say this, but you both look out on your feet.’

  ‘Harrowing trip, wasn’t it, ma’am? Everything considered.’

  Dave looked exhausted, and Nikki suspected the long drive and the booby-trapped cottage had less to do with it than the recent scare over his stolen savings. ‘I think you should get home, Dave, and catch up on some sleep. I’m willing to wager that you got no rest last night.’

  ‘In a nutshell, I never thought I’d sleep again when I saw those empty accounts.’ He gave her a weak smile. ‘But I’d rather hear how the sarge and Yvonne got on before I quit for the night.’

  Yvonne brought the drinks and placed them on the desk in front of Nikki. ‘Actually we didn’t do very well at all, did we, Sarge?’

  Joseph shook his head. ‘I think the French family only agreed to see us in order to let us know that they have long memories.’ His shoulders slumped forward. ‘They really let us have it with both barrels. The phrase “to vent one’s spleen” has never seemed so appropriate.’

  ‘And making us wait an hour for the appointment enabled them to gather the troops.’ Yvonne puffed out her cheeks. ‘We walked into a lounge stuffed with relatives, all ready to take us on.’

  Joseph nodded. ‘Thing was, we couldn’t help but feel for them. Hell, the man was executed whilst in our care. No wonder the son fell apart.’

  ‘So, apart from escaping as quickly as possible, did you manage to get any leads? Any feelings about any of them in particular?’ Nikki already knew the answer.

  ‘Nothing specific, although we both agreed that the hurt they felt was . . .’ he paused, ‘. . . normal? If you get my meaning. Something terrible happened to wreck their family, but their anger and their suffering at the loss of two family members seemed totally justified.’

  ‘And no one,’ added Yvonne, ‘exhibited the same kind of manic, bitter fury that William did originally. No one registered as devious or dangerous.’

  Nikki heaved a sigh. ‘So, we relegate them to the back boiler?’

  ‘I’m not sure we can do that, although I wouldn’t consider them too highly on the list of contenders.’ Joseph poked around in the bucket for another chicken wing. ‘How about your trip, guv? Dave used the word harrowing. That sounds ominous.’

  Nikki told them what had happened, and didn’t forget to praise Dave for his observational skills regarding the trip-wire. ‘I was seeing the red mist. Thank God, Dave had his professional head on!’

  Joseph and Yvonne had both leaned forward to listen.

  ‘So, we have a real suspect in Morton?’ Joseph’s eyes flashed. ‘And he’s gone AWOL from his country retreat, so he could be somewhere here?’

  ‘Yes, he could be Snipe.’ Nikki sighed. ‘He’s proved he’s ruthless by killing his animals.’

  ‘And he has a computer that was valuable enough to take with him when he left.’ Dave tried to stifle a yawn, and failed miserably. ‘Sorry, ma’am, can I take you up on that offer of calling it a day? I don’t think I’m going to be much use until I’ve had some sleep.’

  Nikki smiled. ‘Go, and thanks again for what you did today. I owe you one.’

  ‘Forget it, ma’am. We’re a team, aren’t we? What one misses the other picks up on. That’s how it works.’

  ‘Thank heavens!’ She looked at the others and saw two tired faces staring back. ‘And by the look of you two, I think we should all take a leaf out of Dave’s book and get some rest.’ She finished her coffee, watched Yvonne and Dave leave the room, then looked back to see Joseph clearing up the remnants of his makeshift meal. ‘And Tamsin? Can I assume from your calm exterior that she’s made it home?’

  He bagged up the rubbish and threw it in the bin. ‘She’s safe. Well, I hope she is.’ He grimaced. ‘First thing in the morning, her mother and her new partner Gavin are taking her to stay with a cousin for a few days, and even I don’t know the address. I thought it best that way, as long as they phone in regularly to assure me of her safety.’

  ‘And Niall?’

  ‘He grabbed a couple of hours’ sleep and he’ll be on his way back now. I told him to go straight home and we’d see him tomorrow.’ He stretched, then smiled. ‘He’s a good kid, and he certainly made an impression on Tamsin.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. Niall’s a nice-looking young man and he has a lot of good old-style values.’

  ‘She could do a lot worse, I guess, except for one thing . . .’

  ‘He’s a copper, and the last man you want your girl involved with is a copper, right?’

  ‘We’ve lived it, Nikki, haven’t we? Your husband? My wife? Very few people really understand what drives us.’

  ‘I know, and even if they do, they can’t always cope with it.’ She shrugged. ‘Still, they’d make a brilliant couple with his looks and her . . . well, I know she’s your daughter, Joseph, but she’s a stunner.’

  Nikki saw the pride in his eyes, and hoped against hope that father and daughter could make things work. ‘Come on you, let’s go before I fall down on the office floor in a deep sleep. And let’s pray that Snipe gives us a night off.’

  Joseph pulled on his jacket. ‘Amen to that.’

  * * *

  While her colleagues wearily made their way home, Cat was wide awake and working steadily on her computer. The boss had asked her to use her new search pathways, as well as some of the old ones, to see what she could unearth about Jeremy Bow, both past and present. But although she had discovered a multitude of interesting facts, nothing really made her sit up and take note. Bottom line, it was all pretty sad stuff really. The guy would not, or maybe could not, admit that his son had caused his own death, that of a close friend, and injured another boy. It was far easier to blame someone else, in this case the poli
ce, than admit that your talented and precious son was off his head whilst in charge of a lethal weapon.

  Cat sighed, blinked a few times to ease her aching eyes, closed the laptop and sat back against her pillows. She didn’t know Jeremy Bow, but she recognised a grieving parent and a man who, if the blogs and articles she had found were to be believed, probably pushed his son far too hard into getting good grades and succeeding. And from the messages placed on Facebook by his school friends after his death, there had been no need to pressurise him. Adrian was brilliant. He would have sailed through to university with no trouble at all.

  Maybe it was all she had been through in the last few days, but Cat felt tears welling up and spilling over onto her cheeks and into her dressings. She dabbed at them with a tissue. ‘Silly cow’, she muttered to herself, but the thought of such a bright teenage life being snuffed out so tragically had really got to her. Life suddenly seemed so precarious, every wrong move or bad decision left you vulnerable. Like Danny. If he’d gone out with Dave instead of her, he’d be alive now and his little boy would still have a father. The tears fell faster.

  With a snort of disgust at her weakness, Cat grabbed her glass of water and drained it. Hell, she’d just closed up Operation Windmill, which was no mean feat with no PNC and no team to back her up, and here she was blubbering over a crack-head from an old case. This would not do at all. And it wouldn’t help her to find Snipe. She reopened the laptop and double-clicked on one of Travis’s underground info sites. Work was obviously the antidote to feeling bloody sorry for herself. And with Snipe still terrorising her friends, she was the only one who had plenty of time and every opportunity to do some unorthodox detecting. In fact, it was her duty.

  ‘Okay, who is next?’ She narrowed her eyes and typed in “William French.” ‘Right, William, my dead little friend, it’s time to tell me your secrets.’

  ‘And do you like communing with the spirits of the dead?’

  Cat turned abruptly, and saw the agency night-nurse lounging against the doorframe. ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Asking the dead to divulge their secrets? Sounds pretty spooky to me.’

  Cat tried to recall the man’s name, but ended up squinting at his badge. ‘Sorry, Todd, and not that it’s any of your business really, but I’m just doing some research on the Internet.’ She glowered at him. For some reason she felt uncomfortable when he was around. He asked questions that had nothing to do with her health and, as far as she was concerned, as a nurse that was all he should be interested in.

  ‘Ooh, a tad touchy tonight, aren’t we?’

  He threw her a wide smile, but it only served to make her feel more irritated.

  ‘Well, if there’s nothing I can get you, I’ll leave you to your research.’

  After he’d gone, Cat stared long and hard at the empty doorway. Even though she knew that a police officer was stationed outside and only a few feet away in the corridor, she felt unaccountably nervous. ‘Creep,’ she muttered, returning her attentions to the computer, ‘The sooner I get out of here, the better.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The night had been Snipe-free, something that worried Joseph almost as much as facing an immediate threat from him. His silence left Joseph fretting that the killer had taken a day off from Lincolnshire bobby-baiting in order to head north and stalk Tamsin. It wasn’t until he’d spoken to her that he felt any kind of relief.

  He looked up from his computer and saw that even though it was just after eight thirty in the morning, the team was at full strength and hard at work. To make things easier they had commandeered the whole CID area as a central work hub, and the place was humming. Printers were spewing out documents, phones were ringing and officers swapped information, and then swung back to their computers.

  From the relative calm of his tiny office, Joseph noticed the two IT guys, Stuart and Travis. They were sitting facing each other across a shared table, staring avidly at the screens of the extra computers that they had set up the night before. Niall and Yvonne were working together at desks hastily pushed up against Dave’s, and somehow, DI Jim Hunter’s team had slipped in seamlessly to join them. Joseph had to admit that he had never seen such a well-managed combined effort for a single case. Then again, it was a case that involved colleagues, one dead and two injured, so it was not to be wondered at. Outside her office, Jim Hunter was talking animatedly to Nikki, and although Joseph knew that she had deferred to Jim taking the lead, there was an unspoken agreement that they share the role of officer in charge.

  Four whiteboards had been set up, one for each possible candidate for the role of Snipe. Three bore only a name and a centralised photograph, but one had two names and two pictures, those of James and William French. In a relatively short time, when the morning meeting had finished, the boards would be filled with information, data that could make one stand out above the others.

  Joseph scanned them carefully, taking in each face as if memorising it.

  Windsor Morton. The photograph showed a tall man with hair cropped so short it was impossible to tell the colour. The face was that of a fighter, with a spread nose and sunken eyes, and his stance was aggressive. He wore a thick hiker’s anorak with a check shirt beneath. The photo had been taken not long after his sister had been sentenced for murder, and the anger at what he felt was a set-up burned steadily from those deep-set eyes.

  Stephen Cox. This was one face that Joseph didn’t need a photograph to recognise. He shuddered, deciding not to look at the picture at all. He still saw that face in nightmares, one half devastatingly handsome, and the other half devastated. Burnt, scarred and twisted, like the man’s black heart. Joseph’s gaze moved quickly to the next board.

  Jeremy Bow. Unkempt, even back then, at the time of the enquiry. He had long hair, was unshaven, and wore clothes that looked as if they had been slept in, and indeed that was most likely the case. Intelligent, piercing eyes set in a face ravaged by grief and another emotion that Joseph decided could be guilt. A father who had failed his son, but could never admit to it?

  And lastly, James and William French, both deceased.

  James was an upright man with a full head of wavy grey hair and an expression that showed both strength and a sense of humour. He looked the epitome of a lovable rogue, and the kind of man any orphan would dream of having for a father. And William did share a family resemblance, but there it ended. A newspaper shot of the young man at James’s funeral clearly showed anger, anguish and bitter resentment of what had happened to his father, and there was a desolation too, a terrible, inconsolable grief.

  Joseph stared hard at that last board. He had a strange feeling that there should be a third photo up there, someone else, someone living. Someone who mourned either James or William with a hurt that could only be assuaged by taking revenge?

  He sat back and wondered who that could be. As Yvonne had noted, the rest of the family showed none of William’s fury. And from the little information they had unwillingly given up, there was not a brother, an uncle, a cousin, or a best friend that seemed deep or devious enough to be Snipe. He let out a sigh, then saw that Nikki was closing her office door and approaching the front of the CID room. He stood up and collected his notebook. It was time for the morning briefing.

  * * *

  Nikki looked around at the assembled officers, at their pensive faces, and opened the meeting by cutting immediately to the chase. ‘The person who is targeting us has no scruples and wants us dead. We and those around us are in acute danger until we have a name and someone to go after.’ She leaned back against the wall. ‘The superintendent, DI Hunter and I have done an extensive analysis of old cases, and we can find nothing other than the four men that we are now investigating. So, Jim and I are asking you to give us all the time that you can afford to make a concerted effort with this search, and every piece of new information that you dig up, bring it to either Jim or me, okay?’

  There were murmurs of assent.

  ‘Then we’ll take e
ach of these old cases in turn and see what we know. Okay, Yvonne? Perhaps you would be kind enough to add our findings to the boards?’ She passed the older woman a marker pen and turned to the first board. ‘I’ll start here, with Windsor Morton, as this is the man Dave and I were working on. It should be noted that he went missing from his home over a week ago, and that makes him a strong suspect for Snipe.’ Nikki took a breath. ‘This is a brief overview of the original case.’ She paused and indicated the photograph. ‘Windsor Morton is the father of Ruth Engle, nee Morton. Ruth and her husband Brandon Engle were convicted six years ago for the murder of their lodger, Charlie Bardell. Morton was convinced that the police falsified evidence and although it was proved beyond doubt that the Engles were guilty, he continued to harass us for several years. Briefly, Brandon and Ruth appeared to be the salt of the earth, entering zealously into charity work and saintly good deeds.’ Nikki gave a sour look. ‘But it was all a facade. In fact they were predators, and they preyed on the vulnerable. Although Charlie Bardell had learning difficulties, he was completely integrated into society. He was, however, easily influenced and he soon fell under the spell of the charismatic couple. Pretending kindness, they offered him a home, then bled him dry. They drained his quite substantial savings, and when he had nothing left to give, they bludgeoned him to death and blamed a local drug addict, another poor soul that had been taken under their roof in the name of charity.’

  ‘Why was the father so adamant that they were innocent?’ asked DI Jim Hunter, ‘Sorry, this case was before my time here.’

  ‘Mainly because Ruth was his golden girl and could do no wrong. He totally believed her to be a good Samaritan and that evil spongers had taken advantage of her generosity. However, before she married Brandon Engle, his daughter had had a brief affair with a young police officer. Apparently it ended badly when Engle arrived on the scene. Windsor Morton stated that the police officer had practically stalked Ruth in order to get her back and had threatened both Ruth and Brandon on several occasions. He reckoned it was payback, and that evidence was planted at the scene in order to get her convicted.’