Carnal Acts

by Sam Alexander

  ‘Me neither.’

  ‘Anything else on Favon?’

  ‘Nay, lad. I retired a year later. Things weren’t the same after that night. I reckon Lord F. pulled some senior officer’s chain.’ Donnie Pepper paused. ‘How are you, Heck? Over that op?’

  ‘Getting there. Been back at work for a bit. I thought Corham MCU would be quieter than the big city. It was until last week.’

  ‘I’ve been following the stories. Getting anywhere?’

  ‘This conversation’s been a help.’

  ‘I’m glad. Listen, Heck. I didn’t want to bother you with this, but since you’re on the line – I heard from the lads I keep up with in the Force that Ned Sacker’s fuckwit brother’s got it in for you in a big way.’

  ‘Not So Lucky?’

  ‘Aye, Ian to his mam. He’s been heard saying he’s going to get you for banging up his brother. Pissed, of course.’

  ‘Not So Lucky hasn’t got the balls, Donnie.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be so sure. He’s got some nasty friends, inherited from that evil bastard Ned. At least that reptile won’t be out for a very long time.’

  ‘Hey, Donnie, you heard anything about Albanian gangs moving north?’

  ‘I doubt I know more than you do, Heck. They’re here and they’re staying.’

  ‘Mm. Even Lee Young said that much.’

  ‘Lee Young? DCI Balls of Wafer? You don’t want to listen to anything he says. He’s dirtier than … dirt.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve heard who’s been cosying up to him.’

  ‘Oh aye.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The foreigners you just asked me about.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘In a very large sandwich.’

  125

  Morrie Simmons and Nathan Gray were in the Kettle and Vulture between Corham and Newcastle. The former still lived in Gateshead, while his DS’s place was near the airport, north-west of the city.

  ‘Well, that was a waste of time,’ Gray said. ‘All the Steel Toe Caps have got armour-plated alibis except Goat Skin and he’s suddenly lost his voice.’

  Morrie downed his pint and signalled for another round. ‘Fuck’s sake, Nathan. You don’t think that’s a wee bit suspicious?’

  His subordinate shrugged. ‘Who cares? We did what we had to do.’

  ‘There’s one very large problem. The sodding general.’

  ‘Aye, I wonder where he’s got to.’

  ‘So do I. None of the tossers claim to have seen him since the weekend.’ Morrie took another deep drink. ‘Course, there’s a related problem.’

  ‘What’s that, boss?’ Gray was drinking orange juice. He’d nearly lost his licence the previous year and had only escaped being charged by getting Simmons to pull strings with the uniforms.

  Morrie sighed. ‘Etherington will have friends in the SAS and such like. The Steel Toe Caps are boot boys. He’ll be keeping his serious operatives in reserve.’

  ‘We can’t find what hasn’t shown itself.’

  ‘Easy for you to say, Nathan. You don’t have to stand up in the briefing and tell that wanker Rutherford we got nowhere.’

  ‘Don’t worry, boss, you’ll get his job soon enough. Anyone can see he hasn’t got over the scalpel in his belly.’

  Morrie emptied his glass. ‘He looks better every day. I remember in the old Newcastle MCU. Lee Young had his nose in every case, but Heck would mope around until something big came up. Then he turned into fucking Sherlock Holmes.’ He punched his DS’s arm. ‘Anyway, you’re forgetting the bitch Jackie Brown.’

  ‘How did I manage that? I’d really like to…’

  ‘You’d really like to stick your cock into the old bag behind the bar, Nathan.’

  ‘Come on, boss. You’d do her if you got the chance.’

  ‘Jack? Not my type.’

  ‘What is your type, then? I’ve never seen you with a bird.’

  Morrie glared. ‘Doesn’t mean I’m not doing it with a lady.’

  Nathan frowned. ‘What?’

  ‘Before your time, lad. Anyway, don’t underestimate Jackie B. She hasn’t only got film-star looks. She’s sharper than you and me put together.’

  ‘Black and brainy. Bollocks to that.’ Gray grinned. ‘And to her.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll sort her out with Rutherford. Then the whole MCU will be ours for the taking.’

  Nathan Gray looked at his watch. ‘Got to go. Something moist waiting for me. But you’ve forgotten the main player. Mrs Normal.’

  Morrie’s face fell. ‘True. Imagine having to report directly to her.’

  ‘Exactly. I heard on the grapevine she’s got Lee Young’s nuts in a vice. Seems she’s unhappy about what went on before the Stars and Bars turned to dust. The headless man’s mates?’

  ‘Is that right? I’d better extend feelers.’

  Gray laughed. ‘Speaking of which.’

  Morrie Simmons watched him go. His DS was a lazy, shagging tosser, but he was well connected. The headless man’s mates had beaten the shit out of an Albanian from the club and been charged. DCI Young had been warned about crossing the line before. Had he done that with the Albanians? Selling your soul to the devil would be a picnic compared with that.

  126

  Rosie Etherington had hardly slept. Now, in the first light of day, she couldn’t sit down. She moved from room to room, upstairs, downstairs, into the garage, through what had been the pantry to the larder and out again. She went into Nick’s room and touched the bed, then bent to smell the pillow. She hadn’t changed it, but the smell of him was fading. One wall was covered in framed photos of rugby and cricket teams. There he was, caught in time, never growing older. She choked and wished she could cry. Even that small relief had been denied to her over the past twenty-four hours. It seemed she was growing a shell, a carapace that shielded her from everything that had been thrown at her. The problem was that it also blocked emotions she knew were dangerous – anger, disgust, the lust for revenge.

  She went into Michael’s bedroom. It was little more than a guest room, with a bed and a single chair. He kept it very neat and didn’t allow her to clean it. She opened the wardrobe. His uniforms hung inside clear plastic covers. The bright red mess jacket, the dark green formal uniforms he’d worn at the Ministry of Defence, battle dress … but no camouflage gear. She was sure there had been two sets.

  Curious, Rosie went downstairs. Michael’s hiking boots were not in the drying room. Then she had another thought. She walked to his study. Again, it was preternaturally tidy. The police had taken his desktop computer the day before, but she hadn’t said anything about his laptop. For some reason he’d never explained, he kept it behind a row of large books about the Balkans on the bottom shelf of his bookcase. She looked. It wasn’t there. The police hadn’t found it as she’d been given a receipt for the other computer, so Michael must have it with him. She didn’t know what to make of that, anymore than she had any idea where he was. His mobile was permanently on the answering service. She’d stopped leaving messages asking him to contact her.

  Rosie kept on moving, up and down the corridor on the ground floor. Then her stomach somersaulted. She went up to her bedroom and dug her fingers under the corner of the carpet. The key was where she’d put it after her father-in-law moved in. He’d insisted she take it, ‘in the remote chance some bastard tries to break in when you’re on your own. You need to be able to defend yourself.’

  She went back down and towards the drying room, her heart galloping. The tall steel locker was in the far right-hand corner. She put the key in the lock and turned it. She immediately saw there were weapons missing. She didn’t know much about guns – her husband had never fired one in his life – but she knew there had been a hunting rifle that Michael took up to the Highlands for the annual deer cull on a friend’s estate. It wasn’t there. There had also been two pistols, illegal as Michael said, but souvenirs from his time in the service. One of them was gone. And there had be
en two knives – combat weapons, he’d said. Now there was only one. She pulled it from its leather sheath and moved it from side to side. The light glinted off the polished metal. She touched the edge and blood bloomed on her finger.

  Rosie closed and locked the door. Then she went up to her room and lay on the bed, holding the point of the knife to her throat. She let pictures of Nick cascade before her, moving, ever moving until darkness came to claim her.

  127

  Heck was early into the MCU, though Joni was already there. He took her into the glass cube to tell her what Donnie Pepper had told him, omitting the parts about Not So Lucky Sacker and Lee Young.

  ‘More evidence against Favon,’ Joni said.

  He shook his head. ‘He wasn’t even arrested. It’s only hearsay. I’ll tell Mrs Normal, but I’m not bringing it up in the meeting.’

  ‘He’s involved in this to the hilt, I’m telling you, sir.’

  ‘You may well be right, but we need more.’

  ‘How about this?’ Joni recounted what Pete Rokeby had told her about the hairs that he’d found in the Hilux.

  ‘Interesting. Let’s wait and see what the techies come back with.’

  Joni opened her mouth.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said, looking away. ‘I’ve got some notes to write up before the briefing.’

  Heck watched her go, aware she wasn’t being straight with him. Women. Then he thought what Ag would say to that and felt embarrassed. Not for long. He had a decision to make. Should he tell Mrs Normal about Lee Young’s alleged dirtiness or not? He’d never liked the guy, but they’d worked on several big cases in the Newcastle MCU and he couldn’t fault Young. The bugger was good at politicking too. But there had been whispers about where he got some of his leads. No one had proved anything, although some detectives reckoned Young was on the take, fitting up gangs on the word of the opposition. If he was in with Albanians, he could have vital information. He called the ACC and was in her office two minutes later.

  Ruth Dickie listened without interrupting, her fingers in a pyramid beneath her snub nose. ‘This man Pepper,’ she said, when Heck finished. ‘You trust him?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. But he’s out of the game now, so his sources might not be reliable.’

  ‘No, I think they are.’

  Heck failed to disguise his surprise.

  ‘You see, I’ve had a close watch on DCI Young since the headless-man case was linked to the Albanians. This is highly confidential, of course. If Lee Young gets wind of this, I’ll know who to blame.’

  Anger coursed through Heck. ‘I brought this information to you, ma’am. I’m hardly likely to tell Lee.’

  ‘Stranger things have happened, but all right. The chief constable is aware of this, by the way.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘We should go down to the briefing.’

  She led him down the stairs. ‘I hope you’re getting somewhere with the various cases,’ she said, over her shoulder.

  ‘So do I,’ he said, under his breath.

  The MCU was full. They walked to the front and Heck began.

  ‘The missing Albanian girl?’

  ‘Nothing further, sir,’ Joni said.

  ‘Oliver Forrest is still unaccounted for, too. General Etherington?’

  ‘His Jaguar hasn’t been seen by Traffic Division,’ Pete Rokeby said. ‘No sightings of the man himself.’

  ‘Nick Etherington?’

  ‘Canvassing of the houses further from where he was found has drawn a blank,’ Joni said. ‘No black 4×4s have been found with any damage, but that’s a dead end anyway, given that his bike has no paint residue on it. The likelihood is that he swerved when the vehicle came close and went off the road.’

  ‘And then someone stoved his face in,’ Morrie Simmons said.

  Joni gave him a sharp look. ‘Traffic Division hasn’t found any skid marks. It appears the car came to a halt without braking hard, then went back so that the driver or passenger could commit the murder.’

  ‘Nasty,’ Nathan Gray said.

  ‘Professional,’ Joni riposted. ‘At least it could be.’

  ‘Less speculation, please,’ Ruth Dickie said.

  ‘Nick’s phone has still not been recovered.’ Joni looked across the room. ‘DC Andrews?’

  ‘We’ve got the records from his service provider. There are calls to Evelyn Favon’s mobile and to his home number in recent days. Nothing else that sticks out, but I’m checking back further.’

  Heck raised a hand. ‘The Steel Toe Caps?’

  ‘Apart from Goat Skin Shackleton, who’s in a cell downstairs, their alibis are as tough as Corham Steel,’ Morrie Simmons said. ‘Then again, look what happened to that.’

  There were a few titters.

  ‘Spare us what you fondly imagine is wit, DI Simmons,’ the ACC said. She turned to Heck. ‘This is going from bad to catastrophic, DCI Rutherford.’

  Before he could speak, Joni butted in.

  ‘There have been some positive developments, ma’am. DS Rokeby?’

  ‘Although the tyre prints taken from the moor near Oliver Forrest’s quad bike didn’t match any of the Favon estate vehicles, I found some hairs – probably animal, the lab’s checking – in the cargo compartment of the red Hilux. It may be the vehicle that was spotted near the wood where Suzana Noli was last seen.’

  Ruth Dickie’s face had hardened when the name Favon was mentioned. Joni saw that and pressed on.

  ‘Lord Favon told us that his factor Dan Reston and his wife Cheryl are on leave. We ran a check on them. Reston himself came up clear, but Cheryl has numerous prostitution charges going back to her youth in Bristol, and later she served two years for inciting child prostitution.’

  There was silence in the room.

  ‘Where does that leave us, DI Pax?’ Heck said sharply. He was unimpressed about having been kept in the dark.

  ‘I haven’t finished, sir. DS Rokeby and I went up to the area around the Favon estate yesterday evening. We split up and asked questions about the Restons in the local pubs. They aren’t popular, to put mildly.’

  ‘How about putting it meaningfully?’ Heck said.

  Joni kept her eyes off him. ‘Dan Reston has been barred from two of the places. He gets violent when he drinks and threatens people. No reports of actual violence.’

  ‘There was talk of him abusing women in the labour gangs that work on the estate,’ Pete added. ‘Though he seems to have stopped that in recent months. He orders tenants around and gets any who talk back thrown out by the noble lord.’

  ‘Is this going anywhere?’ the ACC asked, her expression grim.

  ‘Cheryl Reston doesn’t go to the pubs, but she does have a reputation for picking up senior schoolboys. Nothing’s been reported as the boys are too scared to talk. Some parents got it out of them and complained to Lord Favon last winter. He said Cheryl’s duties would be confined to the estate. She hasn’t been seen outside much since then.’

  ‘So, we have a bully and a sexual degenerate,’ Ruth Dickie said. ‘Hardly unusual and not directly connected with any of the cases we’re investigating. Haven’t you got anything better to do with your time, DI Pax?’

  Morrie Simmons and Nathan Gray exchanged grins.

  ‘As a matter of fact I have, ma’am,’ Joni said, with a cold smile. ‘Lord Favon was caught in a raid on a Newcastle city-centre brothel two years ago. He used his contacts to escape arrest.’

  ‘That’s enough,’ the ACC said. ‘DCI Rutherford, DI Pax, in there.’ She pointed to Heck’s office. ‘What exactly is going on here?’ she demanded, when the door closed behind them. ‘I told you to leave the Favons alone.’

  Heck glanced at Joni. ‘We haven’t been in further contact with them, ma’am.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear that, but why did you authorise DI Pax and DS Rokeby to question people in the local pubs? That’ll get back to Lord Favon, you can be sure.’

  Joni was about to speak, but Heck cut her off.

/>   ‘I’m not convinced he’s being straight with us, ma’am. He says the Restons aren’t there, but he flat refused to let us go to their house.’

  ‘But what can any of this have to do with the Albanian girl – a firm murder suspect, I might remind you – and Nick Etherington’s killing?’

  ‘The Favons have business connections with the Albanians,’ Joni said.

  ‘You mean via the ganger? Hardly very incriminating.’

  ‘Suzana Noli was last seen on the moor adjoining the Favon estate,’ Heck said. ‘And Ollie Forrest was up there too.’

  ‘Maybe he abducted the girl.’

  Joni and Heck looked at each other.

  ‘Maybe he did,’ the latter said. ‘Ma’am, Lord Favon is into S&M. He hurt a working girl badly in that brothel in Newcastle. It has to be a possibility that he was in the Burwell Street brothel last Sunday night.’

  ‘We don’t deal in possibilities, DCI Rutherford. Leave the Favons alone. We’ll never get a warrant with so little evidence.’

  Pete Rokeby knocked on the door. Heck waved him in.

  ‘Sorry to interrupt, but I thought you’d want to hear this. The SOCOs confirm there were dog hairs in the Favon Hilux. Dobermans, to be precise. Two of them.’

  The ACC sighed. ‘So Dan Reston has dogs. Perhaps Lord Favon didn’t know.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Heck said. ‘But a Doberman could have ripped out Gary Frizzell’s throat. Pete, ask Dr Volpert to compare what remains of the wound to a Doberman’s bite pattern.’

  ‘Sir.’ Rokeby left.

  ‘This is getting more confusing by the minute,’ Ruth Dickie said. ‘Put together whatever kind of case you can, but don’t take action without my permission. It’s Friday. We all need the weekend to reflect on this.’

  ‘We should be on the estate looking for Dan Reston,’ Joni said.

  ‘We need more evidence,’ the ACC said. ‘Lord Favon said the Restons aren’t there. I can’t accuse him of lying without due cause.’ She turned and left.

  Joni looked at Heck. ‘Thanks for…’

  ‘Don’t ever do that again, Joni. You didn’t tell me you were going to the pubs up there and you didn’t tell me what you heard. You hung me out to dry.’