Death Watch

by Deborah Lucy

  DEATH

  WATCH

  DEATH

  WATCH

  DEBORAH LUCY

  ROBERT HALE

  First published in 2018 by

  Robert Hale, an imprint of

  The Crowood Press Ltd,

  Ramsbury, Marlborough

  Wiltshire SN8 2HR

  www.crowood.com

  This e-book first published in 2018

  © Deborah Lucy 2018

  All rights reserved. This e-book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of thistext may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978 0 71982 653 5

  The right of Deborah Lucy to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Dedication

  For Andrew – my chief supporter

  PROLOGUE

  25 June 1984

  HE COULD NEVER quite remember how long he had tried to waken his mother before he realized she was dead. He was too young then, to register the act of murder.

  When he first saw her, he thought she was sleeping. He tried to wake her, but she just lay there. He pushed at her arm, gently at first. He called to her. Pushing harder, impatiently, he called louder. Shouting, he tugged hard at her limp arms in a bid to raise her. She was playing a game.

  Then, suddenly, he knew. As he studied her lifeless face with her mouth slightly ajar, his seven-year-old mind registered this wasn’t normal. His young, vibrant mother was dead.

  As tears filled his eyes, he felt something leave his body. He lifted his head up. A piercing shard of sunlight shone through the leafy awning outside, bleaching his sight. Looking into the sudden white light, his mind ripped through a kaleidoscope of events in a bid to try and make sense of what was happening.

  He’d been out for hours that morning, under the warm summer sun of a mini heat wave. He’d virtually skipped the half-mile downhill track through a corn field to the ancient stone circle at Avebury. A source of wonder and mystery for tourists, the large megaliths were his playground twice a year.

  The stones held a fascination for him. He’d run around each one of them, memorising their shape, his small fingers exploring, finding the familiar ancient dents and ridges. His eyes studied the small, sparkling lights trapped in the granite as he’d tried in vain to finger them free.

  He’d tried to climb them, moving from one to another, his small feet finding natural hollows and ledges that allowed some purchase. Time and again, he fell back onto the soft grass, as if the stones themselves had shaken him off, indignant at his assault.

  His mother told him they were magic. There seemed to him to be a lot of magic in his world.

  At night, things moved as they didn’t move during the daylight. The earth moved, literally. He’d seen it for himself as he’d wandered silently and unobserved amidst the familiar densely scented haze surrounding the smoking grown-ups as they gathered around fires and in their tents. Sometimes, the ground rippled beneath his feet and once, he almost felt he could fly. He’d learnt that if he kept quiet he could see and learn a lot. Only a couple of evenings ago around the stones, he’d seen crowds of people chanting, the beating of drums, the familiar smell of the earth and wood smoke. Amongst this, he saw the stones move, reach out to him, beckon him inside. And this morning, when he’d gone back in the light of day, to go inside, they wouldn’t let him in.

  Unknown to him, he’d entertained an elderly couple who watched his antics from the distance of their camping chairs. As they admired his persistence to conquer the stones, they knew his tiny frame would do no damage to the ancient solid rock of Sarsens.

  Suddenly, he’d realized he was hungry and that had been the trigger for him to go back.

  He’d run all the way, cutting across the fields, his feet following the thin tracks left bare from seeding. The ripening wheat came up to his waist and as he ran with outstretched arms, his hands skimmed across the tips. The heat of the midday sun enwombed him. He’d chattered happily to himself as if in the company of an invisible friend, his voice rising excitedly the nearer he drew to home and what was familiar to him. He had no cares or worries. When he reached the caravan, he leapt across the threshold of the always open door. At that point, his life changed forever.

  Looking down at the lifeless body of his mother, the shock hit him. He suddenly withdrew his hand. Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw something move. Suddenly, a figure lurched forward, hand extended, reaching for his throat. Quickly, instinctively, he moved.

  In seconds, the hand took a fistful of his light blue t-shirt and turning him, shoved him hard in the chest. His small body flew backwards. As his head hit hard against the side of a shelf, his jaw snapped, causing him to bite deeply into his tongue. His legs gave way and he slid to the floor against a small stove. When he looked up the figure had vanished, leaving him alone with the dead body of his mother.

  Fear overwhelmed him. Blood filled his mouth. He didn’t know whether to spit or drink it down. He did both.

  Fright gripped him and he pressed his back against the stove, drawing his legs up away from her. He was as far as he could be from the door and he couldn’t get out of the confined space. The door was open, but he couldn’t move. He should run for help, but outside was his attacker.

  He sat with his arms clasped tightly round his knees, shivering from the assault. It was unbearably hot inside the caravan and the body began to decompose. Gradually the place started to smell. Now and then his eyes would close. Every time he forced his eyelids open, hoping this was a dream, he saw her lying there. Still he kept his silent vigil.

  Then the flies appeared. Lots of them. By then he was too rigid with fear to shoo them away. He remained like that until he was found. Two days later.

  The estate manager spotted the tired old Land Rover with the long, dirty looking, lichen covered caravan towed behind. It was vaguely familiar to him, he’d seen it and the like there in previous years. They were drawn to an area on the estate, where twelve old, tall beech trees stood in a perfect circle. Up a track that was hard to find except to the initiated, the trees created a mystical atmosphere which at Summer Solstice drew people like a magnet. With this natural leafy awning as its centre, the invaders created a temporary encampment around the circle of trees by erecting a variety of odd shaped canvas and plastic sheets, using bushes for structure. Walking through it after they’d left, the estate manager thought it took on the guise of a latter day Robin Hood style hide-out.

  Try as he might, he couldn’t keep them off this piece of land. For all their so called ‘green’ credentials, these free-spirited types, ‘the crusties’ as they were referred to, left a bloody mess. He was left to clear up the human excrement and that of the dogs they brought with them, the remains of their spliffs and needles, tins, bottles, rags, you name it, they left it. And although they damaged the surrounding area – the trees, the crops, the flora – he knew it was much worse down south at Stonehenge.

  The annual Stonehenge free festival looked like a refugee camp in a third world country. Free from the constraints of authority, thousands of festival goers pushed against the boundaries, creating their own society, determined to kick the established order hard where it hurt in the process
. Thousands of them swarmed into the area in their rickety untaxed trucks, vans and cars or on foot with their tents to camp en masse in the fields surrounding the Stones. On their way there, they drove through hedges and fences, camping in farmers’ fields, private gardens and roadside verges. Like locusts, they ensured they caused maximum destruction as they left their turds in the woods, on neatly edged lawns, and stole from shops. They indiscriminately cut down trees, fences and gates for their camp fires, stole washing from lines and tools from sheds, in short, ran rampant. Where they met with resistance, they pissed on shop counters, over fresh produce and in shop freezers, forcing the shopkeepers to throw out all the goods.

  Over the years, London drug dealers gradually moved in and between them and the Hells Angels, supplied vast quantities of hash, LSD, heroin and everything in between, supplies and prices advertised to their customers on boards like betting odds at a race day. Into this anarchic chaos, women brought their babies and young children who were left to wander while their mothers joined the party. Some became so high on drugs that they danced in the flames of their camp fires. Those who overdosed in their squalid tents were left for dead to be found by the St John’s Ambulance, a permanent presence on site. Due to the sheer numbers and incidents, the behaviour went largely unchallenged.

  It was quieter at Avebury. It attracted a quarter of the numbers. About a hundred returned to this particular site on the estate year after year, despite him hiring extra security. He could see why they came back; the place did have a sense of other-worldliness to it, particularly when the haze of the smoke from their camp fires wafted through the trunks of the beech trees. But it was the vantage point from beyond the woodland that drew them back. The ground outside the beech circle was a high spot and gave a perfect view towards the Avebury Stone Circle and solstice sunrise. It was also in walking distance.

  They’d all gone by now, moved off to another site, to Glastonbury Festival mostly. As an estate manager, he wasn’t interested in talking to them, particularly as they were uninvited and he had to clean up after them. But the estate workers said that some of them, despite their matted hair and filthy appearance, had cut glass accents. These were the ones with public school backgrounds and were sons and daughters of barristers, stock brokers and even an Earl or two.

  He saw the caravan and Land Rover just on the edge of the beech copse. On his approach he had already started to curse, thinking it had been left abandoned. He could smell the familiar whiff before he even reached the open door. He thought that the smell of death might be an animal, a dog perhaps that had been trapped inside, so he wasn’t prepared for what he found when he crossed the threshold.

  The moving black and white mass drew his eyes to the body. It was a woman’s form, lying on a makeshift bed, her blonde hair just visible under the swarm of black noisy blue bottles and moving maggots gorging on her face. He staggered backwards, his hand instinctively covering his mouth and nostrils. Half in and half out of the door, his eyes flicked around the rest of the small space. His legs felt weak. As he was about to stagger back out, he saw something.

  Another pair of eyes looked up at him. Big brown eyes, in a dirty little face.

  He desperately wanted to get away from the stench, but now had to reach the little boy blinking back at him. He forced himself forward into the mass of dark flies and scooped the boy up in his arms. Easily putting him over his shoulder, he carried him the short distance out of the caravan door and into fresh air. He gulped it in and waved his free arm around at the blue bottles that had followed them out. As he set the boy down, his stomach lurched and he had just enough time to turn his head away as he vomited. The half-digested contents of that morning’s full English hit the ground with such force it sprayed in all directions. The boy was forced to wipe away the glutinous splashes as it touched his legs. Still bent over, the estate manager hurriedly wiped his mouth on his sleeve. They had to get back to the office. He had to call the police.

  CHAPTER 1

  Present day

  WITH HER WRIST tightly restrained by a knot tied underneath her palm, her limp hand dropped, like a head hung in shame. Her gut jolted. From the pit of her stomach, the leaden feeling of dread flooded through her body. She desperately tried to quell her rising panic as her heart raced, vibrating like a bass beat in her chest, the sound throbbing in her ears. Her eyes flicked to his black, leather gloved hand.

  His breathing was heavy. He studied the knot, the purple veins visible under the tissue-thin skin. He was satisfied her wrist couldn’t become easily dislodged from where he had tied it to the mahogany bedpost.

  Her mind spun, trying to find the words that might stop him. She also knew it was important for her not to show her fear. She knew where that got her.

  ‘It’s too tight. It hurts,’ she said, her mouth dry. Her free hand tried to loosen the knot.

  She looked at his face, trying to appeal to him by making eye contact. Ignoring her protest and her gaze, he walked around to the other side of the bed and roughly pulled her arm. She had to act now. Or was it better just to lie there, get it over with? It might be quicker.

  He was strong. Maybe he wouldn’t hurt her if she just let him do what he wanted? Switch off, she told herself. Just switch off, like all the other times. Let him do this just once more and then never let it happen again. Ever. This was the last time.

  Repeating the process, he took her other wrist and tightly knotted another scarf around it.

  ‘I like inflicting a bit of pain along with the pleasure,’ he said, flatly.

  She knew this. She knew how much he loved to humiliate her and there was nothing like pain or the prospect of it, to control her. But he looked different this time.

  Her arms now restrained, his eyes roamed over her naked body as she lay, her limbs stretched out on the bed. He suppressed his growing excitement at her helplessness and the anticipation of the gratification to come. He’d wait – but not for long.

  ‘I could do anything I liked to you now, you’re so beautiful …’ Stretching his hands in the black leather gloves, his voice was devoid of any trace of affection. Looking down on her on the bed, the sense of power he had over her intoxicated him. It always had. He hadn’t had to coerce her when they first knew each other. But then he discovered she’d found someone else to give her favours to while her husband was away and that’s when it started.

  Unable to protect herself from his gaze and acutely aware of her vulnerability, reacting to her fear, her body started to tremble. She felt sick; the leather gloves were an indicator at what was to come.

  He’d taken the greatest pleasure from the fact that he could take away everything she had.

  ‘You’re hanging by a thread, just one word from me …’ he’d say to her and she did anything he told her to do. It was this that now fostered a sense of contempt in him and had fuelled a dangerous desire to see how far he could go with her humiliation. He couldn’t help himself; he couldn’t resist the bait of beauty and vulnerability.

  But he knew that this would be the last time he’d be able to blackmail her with the threat of discovery. He already knew she was going to lose all that she had – and she would know too, very shortly.

  He blindfolded her. The dark would enhance her fear and thereby his gratification. He then looked at his watch. He needed time to think it through – think of what he could do to her, anticipation was half the pleasure. He would have her all night, all to himself.

  ‘I’m going to leave you now. You’ll have to wait until I come back.’

  ‘What? You can’t leave me like this …’ she pleaded.

  While it was easy for him to ignore her protests to be untied, as he looked at her, her nakedness and vulnerability stirred an almost overwhelming desire to degrade her there and then.

  ‘I can do what the fuck I like, as you well know.’ Why wait, he asked himself. But he’d been here before and delay always heightened the sense of release. ‘See you later.’

  Her senses n
ow acute, she heard the door open. She heard him going down the stairs and the front door shut behind him.

  A car engine started and wheels crunched on the gravel. He was gone.

  CHAPTER 2

  ‘SIR, GOT SOMEONE here reporting a woman dead. Sounds dodgy.’ The experienced control room operator knew her words would catch the full attention of the inspector.

  At the same time, another operator had her hand in the air, signalling for the inspector to go to her. The look of urgency on her face made him decide to see to what she wanted quickly, before attending to the report of someone already dead.

  ‘It’s Chris Rees’s wife, boss. She’s hysterical. She says he’s just had a heart attack, the medics are with him and he’s dead.’

  His mind registered the words. There was nothing like the death of a serving officer to affect a workforce and this was no exception.

  Inspector Bob May looked up at the Control Room clock. It was 08.09 hours. It was going to be another shit day.

  May’s stress levels were already high with what had come in during his 1800 to 0600 night shift, which included a vendetta kidnap and murder in Swindon. As if this wasn’t enough, he’d had to stay on duty due to the sickness of the ‘day’ inspector and now he just wanted to find someone else he could hand the baton to and go home. Financial cutbacks ensured a skeleton staff, no overtime and demanding more for less. Everyone was at breaking point. Everyone, thought May, except those at the top.

  Remaining calm, showing the operator no undue emotion, May took the call from the operator. He knew Rees, but not his wife and he set about consoling her. He spoke to a paramedic at the scene, ensuring they would stay until he could get a senior officer to them. The operator’s comments had been overheard and had flown around the control room. There was a palpable sense of shock, as if a collective intake of breath had left the room without oxygen. For a few seconds there was clear disorientation. All eyes were on May and his attempts at bereavement counselling.