by Nick Oldham
Flynn had taken off his jacket to drive and was in short sleeves. The brutally cold wind pierced his bones as he reached the Jeep. The driver’s door window opened slowly, revealing the woman at the wheel.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked.
‘Yeah, yeah, reckless sod. Are you?’
‘Yeah. He’d been up my chuffer for a mile or two but I couldn’t find anywhere to pull in.’ He bent his knees and looked into the Jeep across at the woman in the passenger seat. ‘Are you unhurt?’
She nodded. ‘Thanks.’
Both were very attractive and neither seemed unduly frightened by their experience. Cool women, he thought.
‘Did you get his number?’ the woman at the wheel asked.
He nodded and tapped his head. ‘Up here.’
‘Don’t suppose there’ll be much point in pursuing it,’ she said.
‘Probably not. Mine’s a hire car, so I’ll have to pass on details to the company and report it to the police. It was a hit and run after all. Anyway, if I give you my details and you give me yours, maybe we could be witnesses for each other if it comes to it? Whether you want to tell your insurance company or the cops is up to you, but I don’t want to get saddled with a bill I can’t afford to pay. What d’you say?’
‘Good idea.’ She fished out a pad and pen, handed it to Flynn. He jotted down his details and the registered number of the Range Rover. He gave Faye’s address as his own. Didn’t want to get too complicated by bringing Gran Canaria into the equation. He handed the pad back and she wrote down her name and a mobile number. Moments later both vehicles were back on the road.
Flynn discovered that Kendleton was actually not much more than a hamlet. As he drove into it he guessed there was probably no word to describe something that fell between a village and a hamlet. ‘A hamage?’ he mused. Whatever, it was a picturesque little place. To its credit, it had a nice-looking pub called the Tawny Owl which advertised en suite rooms, but as he drove past, he saw a ‘No Vacancies’ sign propped up in a window. There was a shop-cum-post office, a few houses scattered around a tiny village green and a babbling brook fed by water coming down off Great Harlow, the hill that dominated the village to the south. There was also a butcher’s shop and amazingly, a red telephone box that looked as though it had not been vandalized.
Within seconds he had driven through, then the road rose steeply again and after about half a mile, he came to the red-brick detached police house/office in which Cathy James lived and from which she performed her role as rural beat officer for the area.
Flynn remembered a conversation he’d had with Cathy years before in which she had declared her undying passion for animals and nature. Her ambition was either to be a dog handler or a member of the mounted branch, or a wildlife officer, or, failing all of them, a rural beat officer. She had become a dog handler quite early in her service but it had been her failed marriage to another dog handler that put paid to her career in that department. His mates on the branch had given her an underhanded hard time and eventually she’d had enough and managed to move on to the mounted branch, where she had a few good, enjoyable years with a massive piece of sweaty flesh trapped between her legs. Lucky horse, Flynn thought dreamily, pulling up outside the house.
Following mounted she had got the job as rural beat officer here in Kendleton, the biggest beat in Lancashire, covering a wild, sparsely populated area. Her job included a lot of wildlife conservation and enforcement. Poachers, she’d once told Flynn, were a dangerous menace.
Flynn opened the car door a crack. The harsh wind from the upper moors rushed in and almost ripped it out of his hand with its strength. There was more snow in the air now, beginning to fall thickly with the possibility of sticking. Flynn put his jacket on and was about to open the door again, but a sixth sense made him check over his shoulder just in time and slam it shut again as the same black Range Rover that had ripped off his door mirror shot past less than three feet away. It carried on up the hill and disappeared over the crest into the encroaching weather.
‘Gonna get you,’ Flynn promised grimly. This time he made sure nothing was coming before getting out and walking up the driveway, past a selection of bushes and trees, to the front door of Cathy’s house. From inside he heard the sound of a barking dog.
‘Like I said before, it’s as broad as it’s long,’ Henry apprised Donaldson. ‘Now it’ll take us just as long to get back to where we started from as it will to where we’re going.’
‘Basically we’re in the middle of nowhere,’ Donaldson concluded morosely.
‘Pretty much,’ Henry agreed. He looked to the north-east again. The view was quickly disappearing as the black, snow-laden clouds moved quickly towards them, a bit like the devil in the film Night of the Demon, Henry thought. The film had scared the living daylights out of him whilst watching it on TV once, when he was a home-alone teenager. He swallowed nervously and cursed the weather forecast. There had been the possibility of snow, but it had definitely shown just a light dusting down the Northumberland coast, at least a hundred miles away from his present location. Something had gone seriously wrong in the stratosphere, he thought bleakly. A north-easterly which had probably begun life somewhere over the steppes of Russia was now blowing bitterly, and was bringing a huge blanket of snow with it.
He saw Donaldson wince again as a severe griping pain creased his guts. He had been to the toilet again – ‘Shitting a fountain’ had been his wonderfully evocative description of the act – and it was now apparent he was suffering from something far worse than a hangover. Diagnosis: food poisoning. Something he laid well and truly at the door of the landlord of the Tram & Tower, and its chicken-based menu to be precise.
‘Musta been that chicken,’ Donaldson said.
‘I had chicken too,’ Henry said. ‘I think I’m OK.’
‘Not the same dish,’ Donaldson pointed out. ‘Sorry pal, I need to go again.’ He shot behind a rocky outcrop, out of sight, and yanked his trousers down with a long groan.
Henry’s jaw rotated thoughtfully as he glanced at his mobile phone. Still no signal, which seemed ironic being at such a height above sea level. If it was food poisoning, the journey ahead was going to be tough. Henry knew how debilitating it could be, even the mildest dose. To have been stuck out here even on a sunny day would be bad enough, but, as his eyes took in the approaching weather front, this was going to be extra, extra difficult.
The snow, which had started as a sprinkle, had become much heavier, something Henry hadn’t seen the likes of for twenty years.
He glanced down at his map and compass, the only items he’d thought he would need for the walk, and cursed. He had a GPS at home, thought it would be unnecessary, now wished he’d brought it along.
Donaldson emerged from cover, gave Henry a sheepish smile. ‘Feel slightly better.’
‘OK to push on?’
‘No choice, is there? Can hardly stay up here.’
A sudden gust of wind caught the two men, almost knocking them over with its ferocity. It carried sleet with it, slashing across Henry’s exposed face as though he was being pebble-dashed. It hurt. He tugged his bob cap down over his ears and pulled his jacket hood over too. He turned so his back was against the wind. Ahead was a sheep track, heading due north.
‘Need to be going in that direction.’ He pointed.
‘Yeah, let’s go, pal.’
Flynn knocked. The dog barked louder. He knocked again, bent down to the letter box and flipped it open to peer through. The whole of the rectangular gap was filled by the snout and menacing, bared, snarling teeth of a very large German shepherd dog. Flynn jumped back with a little squeal as the dog snapped nastily at him.
‘Nice doggy,’ he said. He took a couple of steps backwards and checked the front of the house. It had probably been built in the 1960s and was of typical design for a police house of that era, with the exception that it had been extended on one side for the office and on the other by a double garage with a
bedroom above. Flynn knew that the force had done its best to get rid of all the rural beats covering far-flung countryside areas where nothing much seemed to happen and the cost of policing was disproportionate to the results achieved. The powers that be had managed to close a lot of the rural stations, but Kendleton had remained open because of vociferous public and parish council pressure. And the fact that Cathy did a fantastic job. She had been single – newly divorced – when she took up the post before the cost-cutting started. Within a year she had wormed her way into the heart of the community and got quantitative results as well as the touchy-feely stuff. When the force tried to close the beat down, there had been severe ructions from the tribal elders and they had to back down.
She had also done a deal to buy the house, with the promise she would continue to stay on as local beat officer. The house, considered prime real estate, had cost a fortune, but marriage to Tom, a DC in Lancaster, had eased the pain of purchase.
Flynn thought about this as he walked along the front of the house, past the huge bay window of the lounge, down the side then through the unlocked gate into the back garden. It was a massive, unkempt chunk of land. Flynn walked along the back of the house, peering into the windows, seeing no one. However, by going on tiptoe he could see into the garage and there was a car parked inside, a VW Golf. For some reason, he thought this was likely to be Tom’s car. When he got back around to the front, he started knocking again, clattering the letter box and generally driving the dog bonkers.
Jack Vincent had a pen in his hands, a cheap ball-point, holding it between the thumb and first finger of both hands.
The cabin door opened and the lorry driver called Callard stepped in. He had just returned from his third delivery of aggregate of the day. His vehicle was now going through the power wash. He had done his last run.
Vincent’s eyes refocused from the pen to Callard’s nervous figure. ‘What?’
‘I want out,’ Callard spluttered.
Vincent’s lips twisted into a cruel grin. ‘You want out? Out of what?’
‘This.’ He made a sweeping gesture with his hands. ‘This whole fucking thing.’
Vincent looked at him for a few moments, licked his lips, then placed the pen down slowly on the desk without a sound.
‘I can’t do it,’ Callard admitted. He’d been taking a big chance that day, knowing the cops and the ministry were out and about. The evening before he had got seriously drunk down at the village pub and had continued drinking once he got home, only flopping into bed at 4 a.m., horrendously pissed. His alarm had gone off at six, but a shower, shave and copious amounts of coffee had done nothing to alleviate his condition. So he had driven drunk and had continued to sip from a bottle of whisky throughout the day, maintaining the level.
Drinking had been Callard’s problem before, the reason why no one else would touch him with a barge pole. Since Vincent had taken him on, he’d kept himself sober for the driving, but last night had tipped him over the edge again. And the reason he got drunk wasn’t connected in any way to the demons that haunted his past: the divorces, the depression, money troubles, the deaths.
The reason for last night’s bender was helping to clear up a blood-soaked crime scene.
Two dead black guys. One with his throat blasted out, the other with half the side of his face missing. And the fibreglass walls of the cabin splattered with blood, gore and brains.
And the shotgun had still been in Jack Vincent’s hands, literally still smoking.
Callard had just been under the crusher at the quarry, refilling his lorry with hardcore, had driven to the weighbridge and was ready to get back on the road when Henderson swung up on to the footplate and leaned in the driver’s window.
‘We need some assistance.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Switch off, come with me.’
Callard shrugged. He got out, followed the big fitter to the cabin. Vincent was standing at the door, talking to the woman who did the admin at the other cabin. She was a wiry woman in late middle age called Penny. They stopped talking as the two men approached and Penny took a step back, angling herself to one side to let the men stand in front of Vincent. It was then that Callard noticed the shotgun hanging loosely in Vincent’s right hand, at his thigh, a wisp of smoke coming from the barrel.
‘Been some bother,’ Vincent said. A major understatement. He stood aside. Henderson went past him, looked down the cabin, then glanced at Vincent and sniffed up.
‘Crusher?’ he asked efficiently.
‘One of ’em, the other’s cat food.’
Callard had no idea what they were talking about. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Take a look,’ Vincent gestured in a ‘be my guest’ kind of way.
And from Callard’s reaction, Vincent knew that he was going to be a problem. Drunks always were. Untrustworthy, self-absorbed and pathetic.
Vincent now looked at his driver, having expected something like this. He wouldn’t have minded, but he knew of Callard’s past. There was violence in it, he’d once been a minder for a low-level drug dealer, had broken fingers in his younger days, made people squeal for mercy. Now he was an alcohol-riddled wimp. He said, ‘It’s gone beyond that, Larry. You’re too much a part of it now. All that drug transporting, now helping me to dispose of two bodies, one of which you took in the aggregate this morning.’ He smiled at Callard, his eyes hooded. ‘Accessory to murder at the very least. You’re locked in, pal.’
‘Jack, I won’t say anything . . . I just . . .’
‘Look, come in proper, don’t stand there. Let’s chat. This’ll be OK. Seriously. No worries.’
Callard hesitated, then stepped into the cabin, his eyes quickly moving to the far back wall on which most of the flesh and blood of the dead men had been splattered. Now you couldn’t tell. Once the bodies had been dragged out and disposed of, Vincent had set Callard to work with a power washer inside the cabin. As the furniture in that section was all cheap plastic, it hadn’t mattered about it getting soaked. Callard had covered his wooden desk with a plastic sheet, pulled open the drain plug in the cabin floor and got to work, hosing it all away. He’d gagged at first, then gone on to autopilot. Dazed, shocked and simply doing what he’d been told to do, terrified of the consequences of refusal. The washer had done a good job and Callard had spent extra time spraying the water jets into the nooks and crannies, transfixed as the resultant liquid mix gurgled away down the plughole.
And that was after he’d helped to get rid of the bodies.
He and Henderson, who had been completely unaffected by the task, had dragged the first body all the way to the stone crusher. Henderson adjusted the machine to spew out the finest grade of rock and then they’d hauled the body on to the conveyor belt, switched it on and watched it feed in.
The second body was more of a conundrum as far as Callard was concerned. He could see the reasoning in getting rid of a body through a crusher. It was pounded to nothing. Spat out on to a pile of hardcore, then tipped into a lorry and would eventually be part of the foundations underneath the stretch of motorway the hardcore was dumped at.
No body. No evidence. A very good way of disposing of it. Even Callard could see that.
But the second body?
He and Henderson had heaved it on to the back of Vincent’s Toyota four-wheel drive. Henderson drove up beyond the working quarry, on rough, deeply gouged tracks, up on to the rim of the disused quarry that Vincent also owned on the hillside behind his house. This was fenced off by a high, thick chain-link fence with many ‘Danger – No Entry’ signs posted on it. Henderson stopped at a gate, unlocked it and drove through, then around various tracks until they came to the old single-storey explosives store on the far edge of the quarry. Under Henderson’s instructions they dragged the dead body off the flat-back and dumped it inside the store, which was about the size of a small garage.
Henderson drove back to the cabin. Callard was told it was his job to clean up the mess,
then power wash the back of the Toyota too, which was smeared with blood as though they’d had the carcass of a deer in it.
All these awful memories were still vivid in Callard’s brain as Vincent sat him down.
‘You owe me big style,’ Vincent said. ‘No one else would take you on, but I did. It’s not as though you didn’t know what you were getting into, is it?’
Callard stared numbly at his boss. Then blurted, ‘The drugs, yeah – but killing! Fuck me, Jack! You in a turf war or something?’
‘Sometimes the shit hits the fan. Bad things happen and they have to be dealt with – and that’s what happened here.’ Vincent slid open a desk drawer, took out the money box and opened it. His hand came out with a big roll of notes crushed in his palm, the same ones he had shown the now deceased H. Diller and his equally dead backup, Haltenorth. ‘But we always get good money for what we do, don’t we?’ He looked at the cash. ‘I don’t know how much there is here, but it’s yours for what you did yesterday.’ His hand stretched out to Callard, offering it.
‘Don’t want it,’ he said stubbornly. ‘Just want out. I can’t take what’s going on.’
Vincent’s mouth tightened. Slowly he slid the money back into the cash tin and locked it. He pocketed the small key and rested his right hand, fingers slightly outstretched, across the box, which was just small enough for him to pick up with the one hand, like a brick. He picked it up as though he was going to replace it in the drawer.
Then he smashed it across Callard’s head.
The tin wasn’t particularly heavy. But it was sturdy and well constructed. It was a secure money box, after all, made of quite thick metal. The force of the blow deformed Callard’s whole face for a moment and he crashed off the chair on to his hands and knees. Vincent discarded the box and reverted to his fists, pounding Callard’s head until, finished, he stood up slowly and breathless. Callard scuttled away across the cabin, whimpering and groaning. Vincent stood over him.
