by Adam Croft
It would be fair to say, too, that Martin Cummings wasn’t Jack Culverhouse’s biggest fan. Cummings was very much a reformer, keen on merging police resources and centralising everything up at Milton House, the county’s police headquarters. It was only the high success rate of Mildenheath CID’s recent investigations and Charles Hawes’s continued insistence that ensured their unit still existed. Without the continued success or the dogged determination of the Chief Constable, the whole team would’ve been subsumed into Milton House by now, doubtless run by DCI Malcolm Pope — or Malcolm Fucking Pope as he was known to Jack.
It felt like they were hanging on by a thread, and the weight attached to it was increasing all the time.
‘Ah, Jack. Perfect timing. I was just trying to update the Commissioner about the progress on the Tanya Henderson case.’
Culverhouse didn’t say anything; he just stared at Cummings.
‘Are we any closer to finding out what happened?’ Cummings asked.
‘Getting closer all the time,’ Culverhouse replied. ‘All the time.’
Cummings nodded. ‘Good,’ he said, elongating the word. ‘So what can we tell the press? I’ve been fending off their calls all day. They’re pretty keen on this. They’re all over it, seeing as she’s one of their own. They won’t let it go. They want an update.’
‘I’m sure they do. And when we’ve got something we can help them with, or something they can help us with, I’ll let them know.’
‘By which you mean you’re no closer to having a suspect or any sort of usable evidence, I suppose?’
Culverhouse forced a smile. ‘Getting closer all the time.’
‘Right. Only time is the operative word here, isn’t it? From what I’ve been told, I understand there’s a decent chance Tanya Henderson might not pull through this. In which case we’re looking at a murder case.’
‘Yes, I’m well aware of that. But I’m not quite sure what you’ve been told, because the facts are that she’s currently in a stable condition.’ Culverhouse didn’t want to mention the fact that there was also a strong chance Tanya Henderson’s attacker might be trying to get to her again. Some things were best left unsaid, especially around the Police and Crime Commissioner.
Martin Cummings was quiet for a few moments. ‘Do you need some help, Jack?’ he said, almost sounding sincere.
‘Help?’
‘With the investigation, I mean. If it’s a case of manpower, I can have some people sent down. DCI Pope’s very keen to get involved.’
Jack clenched his teeth. He could smell the thinly-veiled threat a mile off. ‘Yeah, I bet he is.’
‘Well, the offer’s there if you need it,’ Cummings said, smiling as he rose from his chair and extended his hand for him to shake. Jack stared at it for a couple of moments before acquiescing. ‘Just give me a call, alright? That’s what we’ve got resources for.’
Resources, Culverhouse thought. Great way to refer to dedicated serving police officers. He said nothing, just watched Cummings leave.
‘He’s got a point, Jack,’ the Chief Constable said from behind him. ‘Seriously. Do you need anything?’
Culverhouse let out a deep breath.
‘Yeah. Yeah, I do. Couple of paracetamol would be great.’
35
Culverhouse quietly turned the brass key, locking the door to the stationery store from the inside. He used his hands to feel behind him, running his fingers along the wooden shelving and down, trying to find a place to sit.
He finally settled between two large boxes containing reams of A4 paper, leaning back against a packet of display-board-sized coloured card. It was dark, quiet, and smelled of fresh paper. It was a comforting scent, and one that he filled his nostrils with as he took deep, calming breaths. In through his nose, out through his mouth. In through his nose, out through his mouth.
He leaned his head back against the vertical shelf divider, feeling it rest in the indentation in the rear-middle of his skull. It wasn’t especially comfortable, but it was more than fine.
The cold of the floor tiles started to seep through his trousers, cooling his buttocks. He raised his knees, brought his feet towards him and rested his arms on his knees.
There was a chink of light coming through under the door, and after looking at it for a few seconds, willing it to go away, he slid one of the boxes of printer paper over with his foot, covering the gap.
Now it was completely black. It was also completely silent.
Closing his eyes, he allowed his mind to rest and inevitably start wandering. He could feel his eyelids flickering, his overactive brain desperately firing pulses to every part of his body as if he’d just downed five double espressos. His head felt as though someone had placed a wet battery on either temple, sending a small charge of electricity straight through his skull.
He’d felt like this once or twice before. It wasn’t often that things got too much for him, but when they did, he knew he had to deal with it in the right way.
The last time this happened had been in the aftermath of the Ripper killings, during which a local psychopath had decided to emulate the murders of the infamous Jack the Ripper right here in Mildenheath. It was a case that had almost ended his career, with national and even international media attention. Far too many lives were lost, including that of PC Luke Baxter, for whom he’d had high hopes. That was, until he’d watched him take a bullet for him before practically dying in his arms.
It was around the time of the Ripper killings that Helen had first returned, swanning back into his life as if nothing had happened. Except things had happened. Too many things had happened. Seeing her again had had a marked impact on Jack. It had brought it all back, all that pain and misery that he was just about starting to leave behind.
The pressure of the Ripper case had certainly taken its toll on him, and he’d barely had time to catch his breath before he was thrown straight back into it. Not only had Helen disappeared off again, still on bad terms with him, but there had been another huge case to deal with as well.
In hindsight, it shouldn’t have been a huge case. A sex offender had been brutally tortured and killed in his own home. It should have been a straightforward murder case, but nothing was straightforward in Jack Culverhouse’s mind at that time. His off-kilter mental state had meant that a second murder — of another sex offender — had been committed before they’d got close to fully investigating the first. And when Jack had foolishly suggested that the investigation wasn’t a priority because the killer was cleaning up the filth for them, it was fair to say that those in authority didn’t agree with him. His ensuing suspension from the investigation had almost destroyed him.
But Jack Culverhouse was a fighter. And, yet again, he’d been there to save the day. He couldn’t not be. He knew that as soon as there came a time when he wasn’t, it would all be over, and that wasn’t a possibility he was willing to entertain.
He wasn’t sure if he’d nodded off, but he was jolted into full consciousness by his mobile phone vibrating in his pocket. He took it out and looked at it, the bright screen making him squint as he struggled to read the name of Antonio García on the screen.
‘Yeah?’ he said, in a hoarse whisper as he answered the call.
‘Jack? Have I caught you asleep?’ Antonio said, sounding more concerned than joking.
‘Oh. No. I’m just in a meeting, so I have to talk quietly.’
‘Ah, I see. Well I won’t keep you long, but I needed to call you to give you an update.’
Culverhouse swallowed hard. ‘Go on.’
‘Leandro called me. He and his colleague have been watching quite closely, trying to get some more information for you, like you asked. Earlier today, while they were watching, they were approached by two men from the Guardia Civil who had also been keeping an eye on the property. It turns out they had been tipped off that this woman and the girl were unregistered immigrants. Since 2007, every person living in Spain for more than three months has to regi
ster with the Oficina de Extranjeros. These two people had not registered. The property was listed as uninhabited, you see.’
Culverhouse could feel his heart racing. ‘Get to the point, Antonio.’
‘Alright, alright. Listen, Jack. They took them in for questioning, the woman and the girl. And they got to the bottom of who they are. It turns out they’re Swedish.’
He paused for a moment. ‘Swedish?’
‘Yes. I’m sorry, Jack, but the girl isn’t Emily.’
36
Wendy quite often got annoyed by Jack Culverhouse’s attitude, and today was no different.
She could put up with him being obnoxious and offensive — she’d learnt to just blank that out in her mind — but she couldn’t deal with him going AWOL for hours on end, effectively leaving her to lead the investigation in his place.
She wasn’t quite sure how she’d got to that point, either. He was the DCI, he was in charge. She wasn’t even the most experienced DS on the team — Steve Wing and Frank Vine had worked on the major crimes unit for years before she’d joined. Even Debbie Weston, although she was only a DC, had years of service on her. But at the same time she knew there was no way that Steve or Frank would ever step up to the mark. Even if the job was going, they wouldn’t go for it. They were perfectly happy being sergeants, waiting out their remaining years before they could retire. That left Wendy as the one who had to step up when Culverhouse couldn’t.
The last thing she knew, he’d got a phone call and had gone downstairs, but that was almost two hours ago, and he wasn’t answering his mobile. In the meantime, there were things that needed to be done. Decisions that needed to be made. Decisions that Culverhouse would no doubt disagree with, and even if he did agree with them, he’d disagree with her making them in his absence. She couldn’t win.
She decided that the best thing to do was some chasing up — that would give Culverhouse an extra half an hour to return. But after that, she’d have to start taking control.
Picking up her mobile, she scrolled through her contacts list to Xavier Moreno’s name and tapped Dial. She knew that even if Xav had no further information, he’d still be friendly about it.
‘Hi Wendy,’ he said, when he finally answered. ‘How are you?’
‘Yeah, I’m good. Listen, I was just wondering if you had any luck getting a closer look at Tanya Henderson’s machine. I spoke to Milton House yesterday morning and requested you personally. I don’t know if it did any good.’
‘My boss did mention something about an approach, but he didn’t seem to take it too seriously. I think he wants to keep me on the team here, to be honest. Thing is, with the budget cuts they tend not to replace civilian staff who leave unless they’re absolutely vital. And I’m probably not.’
‘Ah. Well maybe I’ll have another word with them then. Thing is, we’re pretty stuck at this end. Tanya Henderson was brought out of her coma yesterday, but she ended up getting really agitated and confused so they upped the dosage again. The doctors were worried she was going to cause herself harm, or that her brain would start to swell again.’
‘That doesn’t sound good,’ Xav said.
‘No, tell me about it. But we know there’s stuff on that machine. That’s where she kept all of her work documents and everything. If we can just get into that, we’d be home and dry. We’d be able to find her attacker within hours.’
From the other end of the phone, Wendy heard him sigh heavily.
‘It’s really not that easy, Wendy.’
‘I know it isn’t. But there’s the slightest possibility, right? You need to help me, Xav. I’m at my wits’ end.’
Xav was silent for a few moments. ‘Are you in tonight?’
Wendy looked at her watch. ‘Yeah, I’ll be home around half six. Why?’
‘I’ll pop over at eight,’ he said.
She beamed a big smile, somehow hoping he might be able to see it at the other end of the line. ‘Thanks, Xav. You’re a star.’
The sound of Wendy putting the phone down coincided with the clatter of the door to the incident room opening, followed by Jack Culverhouse marching through to get to his office. He didn’t say a word, but everyone could quite clearly see that it would be best not to try and speak to him.
Wendy looked down at her list of other people she needed to chase, wondering how much time that might take up.
37
It’s often said that in times of stress and anxiety, man reverts to type, and that was certainly the case with Jack as he made his way back to the incident room. Without saying a word, he secreted himself in his office, locking the door behind him and lowering the blinds.
Although he had an office of his own (or, rather, a stud-wall partition with some windows in it) he rarely used it, except for times when he really did not want to be disturbed or had to speak to someone in private. The rest of the time he preferred to be out there on the floor, keeping up to speed with what was going on. To him, offices meant managers, paperwork and red tape; they didn’t mean policing.
Sitting down at his desk, he logged on to his computer, the bubble in the corner of the screen telling him he had twenty-three new emails. Thankfully, the bubble disappeared after a few seconds.
He opened up his web browser, went to Google and typed in Pevensey Park. The ancient internet connection took an age to load the results, but when it did he was met with a list of pages, most of which seemed to refer to Pevensey Bay, in East Sussex. He searched again, this time with the words in speech marks. That should give him a list of exact matches.
The results list showed him some pages regarding property prices in a couple of streets called Pevensey Park Road, and then a link to the website for a park in the state of Victoria, Australia. Although it advertised itself as ‘the perfect place for kids to play and enjoy activities’, it looked more like a graveyard than a play park. Besides which, it was situated on the other side of the world. What possible connection could Tanya Henderson have to it? The web page told Jack nothing else; it just simply linked to a list of other similarly depressing-looking parks in the area.
Going back to the Google results page, he kept scrolling down. It was all about property prices. The second page had nothing either, but he skipped on to the third page just to be sure. There, nestled at the bottom of the page, was a link to the Mildenheath History Society’s website.
Jack’s heart skipped a beat. This had to be the connection. He clicked the link.
The page seemed to take forever to load, but when it did he was met with a rather garish-looking black background laden with dense white text and some very 1990s-style animated GIFs. He mused to himself that the Mildenheath History Society must have used the same web designer as county CID did for their intranet.
In the centre of the screen was an old black and white photograph of a vast expanse of field, a couple of trees dotted about and some children sitting on a picnic blanket, enjoying the summer sun. The caption read Local youths enjoying themselves, circa 1937.
He skim-read the article, trying to pick up the salient points as quickly as possible before going back and reading the whole thing through again. There was one paragraph that caught his eye.
Following the outbreak of the Second World War, the Mildenheath area was designated as a prime location for evacuees from London. With the increase in local population, the growing urbanisation of the town and the very real threat of bomb attacks or invasion, the district council sped through long-talked-about plans to build a hospital on the outskirts of Mildenheath. A number of locations were mooted, but the council quickly settled on Pevensey Park. New play areas were built nearby, on Rothesay Street and McKittrick Drive.
He sat back in his chair. Pevensey Park used to be located on the site where Mildenheath General Hospital now stood. The hospital in which Tanya Henderson was currently lying in an induced coma. But, try as he might, he couldn’t quite see a connection. At least, the only one he could see was incredibly disappointing.
&nb
sp; As a journalist living locally, it was entirely possible that Tanya Henderson could have been more than aware of the history of the town. After all, this seemed to be publicly-available knowledge. It would be there in the back of her mind while she was in the hospital, and in her anxious, delirious state she’d simply mumbled the thoughts of her subconscious mind, the same way sleepwalkers sometimes do. Jack was no medical expert, but it all seemed to make perfect sense.
He scrolled back up the top of the website and clicked on the Contact button. The page that loaded had a contact form on it, as well as a phone number for the Society’s secretary, Colin Walsh. He picked up his mobile and called the number on the page. It rang a few times before going through to voicemail, giving him the phone network’s standard anonymous greeting.
He paused for a couple of moments, then logged onto the Police National Computer system and loaded up the Drivers database. This particular database was kept up to date by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency every morning, and it contained the names and details of everyone in the country who either held a driving licence or were banned from driving. He typed in Colin Walsh’s name and narrowed the search down to the local area. A few seconds later, he had an address.
Walking over to the door to the incident room, he unlocked it, pushing it open just enough to get his head through the gap.
‘McKenzie, in here.’
DC Ryan McKenzie did as she was told, quickly walking into Culverhouse’s office and closing the door behind her.
‘You’re young,’ Culverhouse said. ‘What’s that thing you can do where you find out who owns a website?’
