CAPTIVE ON THE FENS a gripping crime thriller full of twists

by Joy Ellis

  * * *

  In the Derbyshire office, Ben Radley and Cat Cullen waited impatiently for orders. Cat had just finished a long call from DI Nikki Galena in Greenborough and had passed all the information on to Ben. He in turn had told his inspector, and had got the go-ahead to search the Cavacini property in Appleton Dale.

  Cat looked at her watch again. The warrant seemed to be taking an eternity, and the waiting was killing them both.

  ‘Not long now.’ Ben pulled on his stab-proof vest and thick jacket.

  Cat’s stomach fizzed. It was the feeling she got whenever she was sent to a particularly dangerous or high priority shout. She looked again at the photocopied pictures of the two trees. She, like most of the others, knew nothing about them, but she was sure today was the day when she would be introduced to the famous yellow poplar.

  A uniformed sergeant and a group of men and women entered the office. ‘Ready when you are, Ben. We’ve got the paperwork. Shall we go?’

  Ben took a deep breath, and looked from Cat to the group around him. ‘Okay, you all know the score. There’s the house called Woodlands, and to the back of it, some overgrown parkland, the remains of an old hospital with derelict buildings. We take them at the same time. I’ll have four officers with me to check out Woodlands and its residents. The rest of you take the hospital grounds. So if you’re all clear on that, let’s do it.’

  The drive to Appleton Dale took about twenty minutes, and Cat was acutely aware that dusk would be upon them in two hours. That wasn’t long to do everything that they had to. She looked out of the window. The late afternoon sun over the craggy limestone of the peak was strangely uplifting.

  She and Ben were accompanied by a young detective, DC Murphy, known as Spud, and a team of ten uniformed officers, along with the dog handler. On Ben’s instruction, the three vehicles parked in a lay-by some two hundred yards before the house, and they approached on foot.

  A narrow lane, apparently only ever used by dog walkers, ran along the side of the property and led through to the hospital grounds. DC Murphy and his team slipped silently into the muddy alleyway, and disappeared.

  She, Ben and their group took careful stock of Woodlands.

  Nothing stirred. No screams or cries of the kind the locals whispered about. In fact, nothing at all.

  ‘Go round the back and take a look.’ Ben’s eyes glinted.

  Two constables moved off in opposite directions to the rear of the old property, and Cat and her new colleagues pushed through the front gate.

  The woman who finally opened the door was in carpet slippers. ‘What the hell do you want?’ she said with a suspicious frown.

  Cat noted the chain firmly in place.

  ‘Sorry to bother you, miss. I’m DC Ben Radley.’ He pushed his warrant card almost into her face. ‘May we come in? It’s urgent.’

  ‘No you bloody can’t! I’ve got a sick man here.’ She made to close the door, and found Ben’s size ten in her way. She raised wide eyes from his boot, and her expression turned from anger to fear. ‘You can’t come in! I’m sorry. I’m not allowed.’

  ‘I have a warrant, miss. So I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to step aside. If you won’t grant us admittance, then the door will have to go.’ He indicated the officer beside him, who was holding a heavy metal enforcer. He raised his eyebrows. ‘Your choice.’

  ‘No! No . . . please! Don’t do that. I’ll let you in, but you have to be quiet. My employer is very ill.’

  Ben nodded. ‘Mr Cavacini?’

  She opened the door with shaking hands. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And you are?’

  ‘I look after him.’

  ‘Not quite what I meant, miss. Your name, please?’

  Before the woman could answer, the old house rang with a piercing, blood-thinning scream.

  Cat and another officer immediately ran towards the stairs.

  ‘No! You can’t go up there!’ The woman was almost screaming herself.

  Other noises, like muffled gurgles, were now coming from the upper floor. Ben placed his hand on Cat’s arm. ‘Why? What exactly is wrong with Mr Cavacini?’

  ‘He has advanced dementia, if you must know! And if he gets frightened or disturbed, his medication wears off too soon.’ She climbed a step and looked beseechingly at Ben. ‘Please! Leave him to me and my helper. It takes two of us when he’s like this.’

  ‘Who is your helper? Where is he?’

  She wrung her hands. ‘He should be here by now. Mr Cavacini will settle again if it’s quiet. He must have heard you and got scared.’

  ‘Not one for giving names, are you, miss?’

  ‘Call me Janet. And my helper is John.’

  Ben gave her a withering look. ‘Janet and John, huh? Nice one. Well, Janet, I’m afraid we have to search the house and garden.’

  ‘What for? There’s nothing here, I promise you. Just John and I. Oh, and the gardener, Keith.’ She pointed up the stairs. ‘Oh yes, and one barmy old man!’

  ‘What, Freddie Carver’s father, you mean?’ Cat said.

  Her gamble paid off. Janet’s mouth went slack, and her frightened eyes told them everything, even though her mouth asked, ‘Who? I’ve never heard of any Freddie Carver.’

  Ben called to one of the other policemen. ‘Get outside and find the other two, bring them in, then we’ll have to go up and see the old man.’ He turned back to the woman and tilted his head towards the first floor. ‘Is Cavacini locked in?’

  Janet gave a dry bark of a laugh. ‘Damn right he is!’ Then her face softened. ‘The poor old sod, he has about one or two lucid moments every day, and that’s all. For the rest of the time, if he’s not sedated . . . well . . .’

  ‘Then he belongs in a proper facility.’

  ‘Really! You don’t say.’

  Something clicked. Cat thought, that’s it! Freddie Carver hadn’t stuck his father out here in the sticks because he was ashamed of the poor old man. He was afraid of him! Because of those one or two very dangerous lucid moments! Moments when he could talk about his dear son and what he got up to.

  ‘I need the telephone number of Mr Cavacini’s son, please,’ Cat asked urgently.

  ‘I don’t have it.’

  Ben butted in. ‘Oh right! Come on, Janet! You look after this sick old man and you don’t have a number for his son?’

  The woman bit her lip. ‘I mean it. He rings us, twice a day.’

  Cat looked at her. ‘And you don’t think that’s just a teensy bit odd? Or maybe he pays you so well you don’t care.’

  Janet glared at her venomously.

  ‘Ben! We’ve got the gardener, but can’t find the other one.’

  ‘Okay, one of you stay here with these two. Keep them together in the kitchen. Cat, Dino, come with me, we’re going visiting the sick.’

  Janet’s hands flew to her mouth. ‘No! Please! Don’t go up there.’

  The three officers turned their backs on her and headed for the stairs.

  Only one door was locked, and from behind it, Cat could hear a scuffling noise.

  Screwed into the doorframe was a small hook. Ben took the key from it, and unlocked the door. Knocking firmly, he said, ‘Please don’t be alarmed, Mr Cavacini. It’s the police, sir. If it’s alright with you, we’re coming in now.’

  There was no answer. They all heard a sort of scampering, then silence.

  ‘Okay, sir. Stand away from the door.’

  The smell hit them first.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ The constable called Dino put his hand to his nose and mouth before moving forward into the room. ‘Is that what I think it is?’ He pointed to the brown stains smeared across the walls.

  ‘I’d say so.’ Cat tried unsuccessfully not to breathe in too much. ‘Does anything else smell quite like that?’

  Ben looked around. ‘Mr Cavacini?’

  The room was sparsely furnished, although an effort had been made to make it comfortable. A television screen flickered mutely in one cor
ner. The single bed was a mess, the sheets wet and screwed into a ball on the floor, pyjamas tangled among them.

  ‘Where the hell . . . ? Oh shit, I think we need help.’ Ben looked at Cat, then said to Dino, ‘Get an ambulance out here. We can’t cope with this.’

  Cat looked towards the window. An elderly man, who had to be Cavacini, crouched on the wide sill like an animal. He was naked. His white, hairless legs, a mass of scrawny, leathery skin, were drawn up to his unshaven chin, bony arms wrapped around them. He rocked backwards and forward, and shivered every time his bare backbone touched the cold glass behind him. His face was fixed in a broad, snaggle-toothed smile and the rheumy unfocused eyes seemed fixed somewhere between Cat and the end of his own nose.

  Without a word to each other, they left the room and locked the door.

  ‘Ambulance and a doctor on its way. What are we going to do with the woman and the gardener?’

  Before Ben could answer, his radio crackled into life. ‘This is DC Murphy, we’ve got a situation here, we need back up! Over.’

  ‘Ben here, Spud. What’s occurring?’

  ‘We’ve found your bloody trees all right! Along with three men, one dead. Shot at point blank range.’

  ‘Accidentally?’

  ‘Hardly. Unless he could reach the back of his own neck with his hands tied. More like an execution.’

  ‘Have you got the other two apprehended?’

  ‘Affirmative.’

  ‘Are they the killers?’

  ‘Doubtful. They deny it. They are shit-scared, and they look shocked enough to be telling the truth. And, Ben, there’s an old storeroom, near the trees, it’s full of filthy old blood-stained bedding, torn clothes, and some tools, including wire cutters. I think we’ve found where the girls were held.’

  Cat looked at Ben’s face. He looked elated and emotional.

  ‘At last! Okay, good work. Now, report all this to the super and get the SOCOs down here. Secure the whole area, understand? All of it. Our situation here is still active, so Roger and out.’

  The other policemen were staring at him, waiting for orders. Cat knew that he was near to tears. After all this time, they’d finally found the place where little Fern and the others had been imprisoned. Now they really could nail the bastards that had hurt them.

  ‘This is it, guys! We’ve finally found it.’ Ben spun round and glared at the man and the woman. ‘Radio in for more men, and get these two back for questioning. We just need the missing man.’

  He marched over to Janet and stuck his face close to hers. ‘Okay. Where is he? Where’s he hiding? Your bloody John?’

  She was shaking. ‘I don’t know. He must have heard you and run off.’

  ‘What does he look like?’

  She shrugged. ‘Er, tallish, dirty fair hair. He wears an old weatherproof jacket — brown it is.’

  ‘And he lives here?’

  ‘No, he lives in the old stable block.’

  Ben looked at the constable who had gone after him.

  The man nodded. ‘Found the place, but it was empty, Ben.’

  ‘Right. You two, look after this pair and wait for the ambulance. Cat, you come with me. He’ll be around here somewhere, hiding probably, if he’s seen the others. We’ll get him.’

  Ben turned tail and ran from the house, with Cat at his heels.

  By now, the sun was sinking, and shadows were beginning to spread across the ground. Everything glistened, as the fading golden sunlight shone through the evening dew. Cat’s boots were sodden from the wet grass, and she heard Ben mutter, ‘Footprints . . . there should be footprints where he ran across the long grass.’ He ran to the old stable and searched around it for the path the fugitive had taken.

  Then Cat spotted it, and began to run. ‘Over here, Ben! I think he’s gone this way, towards the river.’

  Faint tread marks led off along a narrow track of mainly gravel and mud. Ben caught her up, and they ran together for about two or three hundred metres, then came to a fork.

  They hesitated. ‘It’s difficult to see which way he went, it’s just moss and short grass here.’ Ben looked around. ‘Okay, you go one way, I’ll go the other. And yell like hell if you eyeball him.’

  The ground was slippery and the track sloped down quite steeply towards the river. Several times Cat skidded and almost fell. The rush of water grew louder, and then she heard a different noise. Cat stopped her headlong dash, clutched at a low branch to steady herself, and stood silently, listening for the sound to come again.

  There it was! A soft crunching. The sound of someone attempting to move silently through dying bracken.

  Cat crouched down, hardly daring to breathe, and strained her ears to try to make out exactly where the noise was coming from. Cat had never been one to pussyfoot around. As soon as she thought she had it sussed, she charged headlong towards it.

  The man gave a small gasp of surprise, and continued his wild race down to the river.

  ‘Police! Come back here! There’s nowhere to go! Ben! He’s here!’ Cat swore and cursed and crashed along behind the man.

  Suddenly, her quarry slipped and lost his balance. Cat grasped at the waxy material of his sleeve.

  ‘Oh shit!’ The wet jacket slipped from her grip, and after a swift backwards glance at her, the man lurched on down the hill.

  Cat stopped. In that craggy, unshaven face, she had seen an expression of pure terror. And something else. Her mind felt like a combination lock. All the numbers were there, none of them in the right place. She screwed up her face and closed her eyes, desperately trying to make sense of what her brain had told her.

  The fleeing man had now made it to the riverbank, and was preparing to wade out into the fast-flowing water.

  The numbers clicked into place.

  Slowly she followed the terrified man down the incline and stopped, watching the water darken the man’s trousers and creep up towards his calves

  ‘Graham! Graham Hildred! It’s alright! It’s over!’

  Her voice rang across the glistening frothy waters of the river, and the man froze.

  ‘Graham! We’ve got the others! We know all about Freddie Carver. I mean it, it’s all over. You can come home, Graham.’

  The man turned, disbelief on his face, and then his jaw slackened and his body went limp. With an almost animal cry, Graham Hildred pitched forward into the shallow waters of the river’s edge.

  * * *

  Graham sat in the back of the ambulance with a thermal blanket wrapped around him. Cat and Ben sat beside him.

  Graham’s eyes were still wide with fear. ‘Before you do anything else, you have to listen to me. You must get Jessie to a place of safety! Carver will go after her now. It’s not your fault, but you don’t know what you’ve done in coming here! She’s in terrible danger.’ Tears mingled with the river water running down his cheeks.

  ‘It’s okay. She’s safe at Greenborough nick, mate,’ said Ben softly.

  ‘No, she isn’t! Carver has someone on the inside! He has someone in his pocket. She must not stay at Greenborough police station! Believe me, that’s the last place she should be. Get her to a safe house, now, before all the shit hits the fan and Carver finds out — if he hasn’t already.’ Graham began to shake. ‘You have no idea what that man has in mind for Jessie.’

  Cat hopped down from the ambulance and called Nikki Galena. She told her boss the incredible news — that amazingly they had Graham Hildred safe with them. Then Cat passed on his exact words of warning.

  ‘Oh no! Oh fuck!’

  ‘I know, ma’am. But you have to do as he says. He knows what he’s talking about. You wouldn’t believe what we’ve seen here — dead men, mad men — oh God, I can’t tell you!’

  ‘Cat, I will get her to safety, promise Graham that, but she isn’t here right now, and that is worrying me a lot.’

  Cat heard an intake of breath and a groan.

  ‘At least she is with Joseph, so that is a blessing, but they are
heading out to a remote spot on the fen, and you know what our bloody county is like for radio and mobile signals, you can be damned sure there will be no contact. I’m going to go after them myself, right now, okay? And don’t tell Graham she is not here. He’s been through enough, I’m sure.’

  ‘Go careful, ma’am, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course, but I’m not having that monster threaten one of our own, not on my watch!’ She paused then added, ‘And Cat, you’ve done a brilliant job, but now it’s time to come home, okay?’

  Call ended.

  * * *

  For possibly the first time in his life, Freddie Carver did not know what to do.

  In the last ten minutes Carver had experienced anger, pain, confusion and fear. Now he felt nothing but pure fury.

  Everything he had been working towards was slipping away from him. From the calls he made that had gone unanswered, he knew that rats were jumping from the sinking ship.

  His father was God knows where. His brief was banged up, albeit nothing to do with him for once, and he had no idea how many of his operatives had been taken into police custody. On top of that, and possibly worst of all, one of his spies had seen the police leading his tame policeman prisoner to an ambulance. For the filth to have found his father’s house, it had to have come from Hildred in the first place. The man must have found a way to get a message through. Well, he had been warned. Now the gloves were off. Freddie owed him nothing now.

  One thing was for sure, he would keep his promise to Graham Hildred. Vic was no longer available, but he knew a man who could do the job.

  Carver picked up his phone and called Mr Fabian.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Unaware of the drama unfolding in Derbyshire, Joseph and Jessie were chasing the little red van across the fen lanes. Jessie let out a low whistle. ‘I had no idea this place was so confusing.’

  ‘I know. It’s one of the few places sat nav can’t find, and right now I’m very grateful for our postie friend, Nigel. I’d hate to be out here at night.’ Joseph peered out at the winding lane and the increasing number of potholes.