Now, stooping down to unlock the roller door, Calvin was beginning to regret his earlier zealousness. The smell was definitely stronger than it had been the previous day and it got worse as he eased the door upwards a few inches. His first thought had been that somebody had been storing some old clothes and they’d been put away dirty and damp and had started to get musty and mouldy. But then the smell had intensified and was more like spilt milk or yoghurt that had been left in the fridge too long. He reared back as the door rattled upwards in its tracks, allowing the foul odour to fully engulf his senses. It wasn’t milk or dirty clothes – he’d smelt this before. His older brother had worked at the maggot farm near Thorpe and his overalls had been impregnated with a similar stench. This was the smell of rotting meat; of something dead.
Calvin’s hand went to the phone in the breast pocket of his shirt. He needed to report this. But who to? Mr Hibberts wouldn’t be very pleased if Calvin had the police crawling all over the facility because somebody had left their dead dog in a poorly secured box. If he rang Mr Hibberts he was fairly sure what the boss would tell him to do – find the source of the smell and get rid of it. If there was a mess, contact the person who’d rented the unit and get them to pay.
Lowering his hand, Calvin made a decision. He’d see what was causing the smell and then contact either Mr Hibberts or the client. No point in jumping the gun – it might just be a mouse or a rat that had found its way inside and then died. Calvin shuddered. He hated rodents and he knew that he was kidding himself – one of the reasons he’d been happy to work here for so long was the lack of vermin. Mr Hibberts was scrupulous about the hygiene of the place and checked every month without fail that Calvin had cleared out the rat traps in the outer corridors. That was one job that Calvin hated. It gave him what his grandma used to call the heebie-jeebies because he had to pick up the metal containers and check for dead mice and rats. It wasn’t the dead ones that worried Calvin, but he dreaded finding one that was still alive and pissed off with whoever had tried to kill it. Oddly though, and to his great relief, he’d never found a dead rodent in any of the traps. Which made him think that it was unlikely to be a decaying mouse or rat causing the stink.
Calvin stepped back into the corridor and took a deep breath of relatively clean-smelling air, holding it in his lungs before crossing the threshold into the storage area. There was no going back now. If he had to ring Mr Hibberts, at least he could say that he’d done his job properly.
The space was quite empty compared to some that Calvin had helped to pack and unpack, which surprised him as it was one of their smaller units. There was a rolled-up carpet, a mattress propped against one wall and something that looked like a tent, poorly packed in its stuff sack. Against the wall off to his right, plastic boxes in a range of sizes and colours were stacked up neatly, all fitting together like that Tetris computer game that he’d played as a teenager.
Calvin’s eyes were drawn to the carpet. He’d once found a complete dog skeleton in a rolled-up hearth rug abandoned on the disused railway near his father’s house. This carpet was loosely rolled and could easily have disguised a dead pet. He took two steps closer and gave it a tap with his foot. Dust rose up, motes caught in the light from the corridor, but the smell didn’t get any worse. Another tap and the carpet unrolled slightly, the foam backing flaking and cracking as the fibres straightened.
‘Come on,’ Calvin said to himself, trying to summon up the resolve to investigate properly. ‘It’s just a bloody carpet.’
Bending down he pushed the bulky tube until he could see that there was nothing hidden in the middle and nothing between the layers, lurking like an unpleasant Swiss roll.
The smell seemed to be getting worse but that could just have been his imagination. Calvin seemed to remember though that your senses got used to smells quickly and that often a bad smell could seem to improve or even go away. That wasn’t happening though and, as he turned to the plastic boxes, he struggled not to gag as a wave of rot washed over him. It had to be in the boxes.
Hands trembling, Calvin reached out for the nearest box. Orange plastic obscured the contents as he shook it like a child trying to guess what was in a Christmas parcel. Nothing. It felt empty. Calvin peeled off the lid and peered inside. There was nothing there. Who would store an empty box? It made no sense. He tried another from the top layer. Empty again. Baffled, he picked up a larger box from the next row down. This one wasn’t empty. He felt something shift with a wet thud as he tilted the box from side to side, but the dark blue lid meant that he’d have to look inside to be certain what the box contained.
The smell instantly intensified as he peeled back the plastic, but he still couldn’t make out what he’d discovered. It looked like a chunk of bone surrounded by something jelly-like. Was it the dead dog of his imagination? It seemed unlikely as there was no fur. He tried another box, still struggling to contain his gag reflex. This one was bigger, a square box about twelve inches by twelve and, as it was slightly less opaque and white in colour, he could make out a shape inside it. He tilted it to one side and the shape changed, part of it obscured by a dark wave. Another tilt and Calvin dropped it with a squawk of fright and disgust. He threw up on his shoes, doubling over as he heaved up his breakfast. His gaze fixed on the object concealed in the box. He had no doubt that it was a human head and that one of the eyes was staring back at him.
4
‘Good holiday?’ Hollis asked as he struggled to pull the protective overalls up his tall, thin frame.
‘Not bad,’ Kate said. She was glad he’d asked; glad that their relationship seemed to be getting back to what it had been before he’d almost left the force due to family complications. Kate knew it had taken every ounce of Hollis’s strength and character to walk back into Doncaster Central and face his colleagues. He’d felt let down and abandoned and Kate wouldn’t have blamed him for walking away from the job, but it seemed Dan Hollis was made of sterner stuff and she respected him all the more for his determination and dedication.
‘Not bad? A few days away from this in glorious countryside with the man of your dreams?’ He was grappling with the hood which seemed determined to thwart Hollis’s every attempt to cover his impeccably cut blond hair.
‘Dan, it’s November. It was cold and wet.’
‘But at least it wasn’t here. Doing this.’ He gestured towards the police tape across the entrance to the storage unit.
‘Oddly, it wasn’t far off,’ Kate responded, trying to blank out the memory of the familiar face on the darkening hillside. She’d not told her colleagues about the grim discovery during her walk; she didn’t want to discuss it with anybody, at least until the identity had been confirmed. She’d asked the SIO on the case to keep her informed – as a professional courtesy – and he’d grumpily taken her business card with a vague promise to be in touch. She wasn’t holding out much hope, understanding very well the pressures of a busy investigation, but at least he’d given her his contact details.
Hollis laughed, obviously thinking that she was making a joke about how grim the far north of England could be at this time of year and Kate didn’t enlighten him. Instead she zipped up her own protective clothing and waited while Hollis lifted the police tape high enough for them both to duck under.
Kate had noticed the smell as soon as they’d entered the building and hadn’t been surprised to see every opening window gaping as wide as possible and the doors at the far end of the corridor propped open to allow cold air through from the grimy concrete courtyard at the back of the building. Inside the unit, though, these measures didn’t seem to have made much difference.
A team of SOCOs were gathered around a collection of plastic boxes of assorted colours and sizes. Yellow crime scene markers indicated that the contents of other boxes had already been investigated and recorded.
‘Dismembered body,’ one of them said, turning to face her. ‘Not too badly decayed – probably due to the airtight storage boxes and low temper
atures,’ he said, pointing a purple-gloved finger towards the closest container. The lid had been removed and laid on a polythene sheet, dark smudges of fingerprint powder informing Kate that it had already been inspected. She took a step forward until she could see inside the box and immediately recoiled. It contained the lower part of a human arm which appeared to have been neatly severed at the elbow. Another glance told her that the hand bore a single gold ring on the third finger and that it was a left hand. Married then. Somebody might be missing this person – if that somebody wasn’t the one who’d done the dismembering.
‘Is it all here?’ Kate asked. ‘The whole body?’
‘Appears to be. It’s a woman. Looks to be quite elderly. The torso’s wrapped in some sort of nightgown. Have a look. The head’s in a separate box but the face is quite decayed.’
He pointed to a pair of larger boxes further inside the storage unit, but Kate declined the offer. She’d seen what she needed to see and would wait for the post-mortem.
‘Thanks, I’ll pass,’ she said, and the man gave her a knowing smile. She wasn’t one of those detectives who felt the need to view gory crime scenes just to establish her ‘hard’ credentials and to prove that she had a stomach as strong as those of her male colleagues.
Hollis was scanning the small room, seemingly oblivious to the stench of decay and the foul remains.
‘We need to find out who rented this space,’ he said. ‘And who has access.’
‘Already on it,’ Kate told him. ‘You stay here and see what else turns up. I’ll see where Matt’s got to.’
DC Matt Barratt had been the first one on the scene and Kate knew that he’d have followed her instructions to the letter. She’d asked him to secure the scene and wait for the SOCOs. He’d also been tasked with keeping tabs on Calvin Russell who’d called in his grisly find, after throwing up all over himself.
Kate headed back to reception near the main entrance, hoping that she’d correctly memorised the route through the maze of corridors. Pushing open a door behind the main desk, Kate found Barratt and Calvin Russell deep in conversation. Russell glanced up at her as she pulled up a chair and sat next to him, fear and distrust clear in his widely spaced blue eyes. Even sitting down, Kate could see that Russell was short. He looked to be in his mid-twenties and was wearing dark blue work trousers and a white polo shirt under a black zip-up fleece. His dark hair was cut close to his skull, reminding Kate of the ‘realistic’ hair on her cousin’s Action Man doll from the nineteen seventies. Something about his expression suggested that Russell didn’t fully understand what was happening.
‘Are you the boss?’ he asked, his voice little more than a whisper.
‘I’m the senior investigating officer, Detective Inspector Kate Fletcher.’ She held out her hand. The man looked at it and then back at her face as if unsure how he was supposed to respond. Then, slowly, he reached out for the briefest of handshakes before pulling his arm back as though he’d been stung.
‘I understand you were the one who found the remains? You were the one who called the police?’
Russell nodded.
‘Calvin and me have had a long chat,’ Barratt said. ‘I’ve got it all written down.’
The DC’s tone was placatory, as though reassuring a small child and Russell shot Barratt a grateful look. Kate understood. Russell probably had mild learning difficulties which explained Barratt’s gentle tone. Barratt was good with people, seeming to have an instinctive understanding of what would work with each individual and Kate valued his adaptability and insight.
‘That’s fine,’ Kate said. ‘I just want to clarify a few things if that’s okay?’
Russell nodded again, chewing his thumbnail as he studied her face.
‘Have you got a record of who rented the storage unit where you found the remains?’
‘On the computer.’ Russell’s face became more animated as he explained. ‘Mr Hibberts showed me how to put the details in. I’m good with computers.’
‘Can you show us?’
Russell got up and led the way back through to the reception desk. He sat down in front of an ancient PC and his fingers danced across the keyboard. ‘Here,’ he said, jabbing his finger at the screen.
Kate leaned over his shoulder.
‘In this column is the unit number – thirty-six. The rental period agreed was one hundred and eighty days from October the first. Amount paid – six times the monthly fee – three hundred pounds. Name Martin Short. Address 62 Kimberley Avenue, Thorpe.’
‘How did he pay?’ Kate asked as Barratt texted the name and address to their colleague at Doncaster Central. She knew that if he’d paid by card or bank transfer the man would have found it more difficult to hide his identity and he might have left an electronic trail that one of her team could follow. She wasn’t convinced that the name or address would be real – not considering the contents of the storage locker.
‘See the green asterisk?’ Russell jabbed at the screen again. ‘That means he paid cash.’
‘Is that common? Do a lot of people pay cash?’
‘Sometimes,’ Russell mumbled. He kept his eyes on the screen and Kate sensed his discomfort.
‘What sort of people?’
‘Friends of Mr Hibberts – my boss. He sometimes lets them pay in cash.’
‘So, this man, Martin Short, was a friend of your boss?’
‘No. He wasn’t a friend of mine.’
Kate turned to see a short, muscular man in an expensively-tailored dark suit leaning round from the reception desk. His dark blond hair was slicked down above a narrow face and his large front teeth gave him a rodent-like appearance. She hadn’t heard him come in and, judging by the startled look on Barratt’s face, nor had her DC.
‘I’ll take over for now, Calvin,’ Hibberts said to his employee. ‘You wait in the back room.’
Russell got up from his chair and did exactly as he was told. Hibberts took Calvin’s seat and turned it to face Kate. ‘I have no idea who this man is,’ he began. ‘Calvin must have made a mistake. And what he told you is only half true. I have, on occasion, allowed friends to use this facility as emergency storage. And they have sometimes paid cash. It’s not the way I normally run my business and I can only assume that Calvin got the wrong end of the stick when this…’ he glanced at the screen, ‘…Martin Short, made his booking.’
Kate wasn’t at all convinced by the ‘favours’ that Hibberts sometimes did for his ‘friends’. It wasn’t uncommon for people to use storage facilities like this one to house stolen goods until they could be sold on. She wondered just how many green asterisks there were in the records.
‘You think Calvin just assumed that this man was a friend of yours because he was offering cash?’
Hibberts shrugged. ‘I don’t claim to know what goes on in Calvin’s head. You probably noticed he’s a bit simple. Nice enough, but not the sharpest tool in the box.’
And probably easy to confuse and manipulate, Kate thought, trying not to react to the word ‘simple’.
‘I’m going to need access to your records,’ she told Hibberts. ‘And any CCTV footage you have from around the time unit thirty-six was rented.’ She’d noticed a camera placed high up above the main entrance. It was trained on the desk and would, presumably, record customers coming and going.
‘Doesn’t work,’ Hibberts said, pointing to the camera. ‘It’s just for show.’
Kate wondered how long the camera had been inactive. And if that was in any way linked to Hibberts’s cash-paying clients not wanting a record of their transaction.
‘Calvin’s got a good memory, though,’ Hibberts continued. ‘He’s great with numbers and stuff. He might be able to give you a good description.’
‘My colleague has already spoken to him,’ Kate said, as Hibberts stood up and reached out to open the door behind the desk. ‘Mr Russell has told him everything that he can remember.’
She was about to ask Hibberts a few probing questions ab
out his business dealings when Barratt stuck his head round the door of the back room.
‘Sorry to interrupt but I think you need to get back up to the body. Dan’s just texted down. Looks like they’ve found something that might help us to identify the victim.’
5
Hollis held up a plastic evidence bag as soon as Kate crossed the threshold of the storage area. He looked oddly as though he were trying to ward her off with the contents of the bag instead of allowing her to see inside.
‘What is it?’ Kate asked, taking the package from the DC and holding it up so that the light from the corridor would illuminate whatever was inside.
‘It’s a locket,’ Hollis said. ‘It was found in the box with the torso. There’s nothing inside it. The SOCOs have taken photos of it in situ so you can have a look later. It didn’t look unusually placed to me, though. The chain was all tangled up with the locket underneath.’
Intrigued, Kate turned the bag over so that she could get a better view of the gold object. It was heart-shaped and roughly the size and weight of a pound coin, with a fine chain attached. One side was engraved with an intricate rose design, the other was hallmarked and appeared to have been scratched or engraved.
‘I think it’s got an inscription on one side,’ Hollis said. ‘Hang on.’ He pulled his phone out of his pocket and flicked the screen, scrolling through a series of photographs.
‘Look at this one.’
The letters were unclear in the picture but there was definitely something on the back of the locket. Kate tilted the item slightly, but she couldn’t make out whether she was seeing letters or numbers or just a design.
‘Dan. Torch.’
Hollis tapped the screen and passed her his mobile with the torch activated. At first Kate couldn’t get the light to stop reflecting off the plastic surface of the bag then, briefly, she got the angle just right and the scratches formed shapes that made sense.
Reunion: a gripping crime thriller (DI Kate Fletcher Book Book 4) Page 3
