CUT DEAD: A DI Charlotte Savage Novel

by Mark Sennen

  ‘Shhhhush,’ you say. ‘Not now. Out.’

  You spin him round to face the door and give him a shove. Follow. Back on the patio you push the door shut and lock it. Glance up at the window. Still the noise of running water in the drainpipe. Steam coming from the window. A faint humming.

  She didn’t see you and she’s quite safe.

  For the moment.

  Chapter Twelve

  Mutley Plain, Plymouth. Wednesday 18th June. 7.23 a.m.

  Paula Rowland came down to the sight of some mud and gravel on the floor in the kitchen, a strange musty smell lingering in the air.

  Cats?

  She’d left a window open a fraction a few weeks ago and a tom had squeezed in and urinated on her living room floor. Several applications of carpet cleaner had left the room smelling of chemicals. If the cat had sneaked in again somehow she’d kill the bloody animal.

  The kitchen window was closed, as were all the other downstairs windows. She’d left the bathroom one ajar last night to clear the steam from her shower. Had the animal managed to get in that way? She opened the back door and stepped out onto the patio. The window was high above her. Unless a cat could climb a drainpipe there was no way in up there.

  She went back inside and cleared up the mess, wondering where the clay and tiny white crystal-like gravel had come from. Maybe, she thought, she’d got some stuck to her feet somewhere and the gravel had fallen off in the kitchen. She washed her hands and made herself a bowl of cereal, switching the radio on and changing from BBC Devon to a non-stop music station when she realised the breakfast show was doing nothing else but talk about the Candle Cake Killer.

  Paula was fed up with the over-the-top reporting of the last couple of days. On and on they went, almost as if they wanted something to happen. Even the children at school had picked up on the media response, the older and hardened kids all jokes and bravado, but one or two of the younger ones distressed. The headmaster had said he’d work something into Friday’s assembly, make sure everyone went home for the weekend vigilant but reassured. ‘I want them to know,’ he’d told teachers at a staff meeting, ‘that none of us needs to be worried.’

  Paula switched the radio off as a One Direction song came on, the boys’ crooning not suiting her mood any more than the rant of the news programme. She finished her breakfast with the head’s little speech still in her head.

  None of us needs to be worried.

  Sensible words, Paula thought as she spotted something glittering on the floor. She bent to pick up the piece of gravel and then dropped it in the sink. She turned the cold tap on and the crystal swirled around with the water for a moment before disappearing down the plughole, out of sight and mind.

  First thing Wednesday, Hardin called a meeting in briefing room A to discuss the strategy for the twenty-first of June, along with the current state of play. A dozen members of the team squeezed themselves round the big table, the rest sat on rows of chairs, a lucky few with a view out the window. Gareth Collier had reproduced his countdown chart, the number ‘3’ scrawled on a piece of paper and stuck on the wall at the end of the room.

  Savage pulled up a chair alongside DCI Garrett as Hardin rose from his seat and moved to a whiteboard sat on an easel.

  ‘This,’ Hardin said, ‘is my plan for D-Day.’

  Hardin had linked his laptop to a projector and the first slide glared white on the board, blank apart from a single line of text which read ‘June 21st. Tactics.’ Somebody down the far end of the table murmured ‘pray’ but Hardin didn’t hear.

  ‘The media.’ Hardin keyed the laptop and revealed a series of bullet points. ‘I’ve drawn up a series of releases which will be given to the newspapers and put on our website. Senior officers will take to the airwaves and TV screens to explain and answer questions. The key to everything will be to seek to reassure people and prevent panic. Public order and safety will be dealt with by uniforms and they’ve got their own briefs. However, Major Crimes has a role to play. We can use the media as a positive force to help further the investigation. What we don’t want is anyone deciding to take the law into their own hands. We don’t want trial by social media. I’ve tailored the texts we’ll be using to be measured but at the same time stressing the importance of following our recommended precautions. The Chief Constable will mention the investigative strand in his announcement, but he wants to restrict himself to the one appearance for the moment. We need an air of normality and to avoid chaos at all costs.’

  Hardin paused for breath and then began to outline his thinking on policing and detection. There was a balance to be struck, he said as the existing slide dissolved and was replaced by another set of bullet points, between reassuring the public, protecting them and catching the perpetrator. The three strands were essentially incompatible. Reassurance came from bobbies on the beat and patrol cars up and down every street. In the real world – a world unfettered by such political niceties – protecting the public depended on an efficient response. Units spread across the city and the county might look good, but responding to an incident would be a logistical nightmare. Finally, catching the killer required a breakthrough to be made before the twenty-first or the setting of some kind of trap which could be sprung on the day. Both methods would require huge resources which couldn’t be spared from the other two objectives.

  Hardin raised a hand to wipe his brow and reached for his glass of water.

  ‘Thankfully the deployment issue is out of my hands. The Chief Constable will be making such decisions. All we have to do is get on with the job in hand. Which is catching the bastard. To which end; Charlotte, Mike?’

  Thanks a bundle, Savage thought as she got to her feet.

  ‘Phil Glastone. He’s a database programmer. He lives over in Salcombe.’

  ‘Guilty!’ somebody shouted from the back of the room.

  ‘Very probably,’ Savage said. ‘At least of having too much money. Apart from that you’ll all know he was fingered for the killing of Mandy Glastone the first time around. He wasn’t charged and had an alibi for the Sue Kendle disappearance.’

  ‘Good?’ an officer said.

  ‘Yes. He doesn’t have a plausible alibi for last year though so it’s imperative we go back and see if we can find any new evidence which might disprove his original statements.’

  ‘Shaky ground, Charlotte,’ Garrett said. ‘The CPS didn’t want to proceed back then. I can’t see them being very happy with us trying to disprove an old alibi. Then there’s the intervening time gap. Why did he stop?’

  ‘We don’t know. I’m seeing the psychologist, Dr Wilson, later. I hope he’ll shed some light on possible scenarios.’

  Somebody groaned and a burst of muttering spread across the room. From the very back row came a noise like a duck quacking.

  ‘OK,’ Hardin said. ‘I still think Glastone’s worth keeping an eye on. Especially on the twenty-first. Next. Mike?’

  As Savage sat down Garrett got to his feet. He began to detail his suspect, a sex offender who’d been five years inside. The dates didn’t quite match the quiet period, but Savage had to admit the man was a more plausible suspect than Glastone.

  After Garrett had finished there were two more presentations from other senior detectives, but neither seemed to Savage to be worthy of serious consideration. Hardin came across to her at the end.

  ‘Dr Wilson. You’re seeing him later, right?’ Hardin put his head on one side. Savage nodded. ‘Well let’s hope he’s got something more substantive than this lot. Else we’re buggered.’

  Savage glanced across at the far wall. Collier was removing the piece of paper with number three from the board. He folded it once and then dropped the paper in a nearby waste bin.

  By Wednesday lunchtime Riley and Davies were scrabbling around for scraps. Davies’ visit to HMP Channings Wood the previous day had resulted in a long list of prisoners Corran had worked with, but the man himself – dead or alive – was proving elusive. With the hell that was the
Candle Cake Killer kicking off in Plymouth they’d been reduced to doing the door-to-door work themselves with just the members of the Tavistock Rural team to lend a hand. Bright and keen as they were to help, there were only three of them: two PCSOs and a PC. Operation Radial it wasn’t. They managed to finish the last street in Princetown by one o’clock but their notebooks were as empty of substantive facts as the sky was of clouds.

  ‘Dinner,’ Davies said, meaning to Riley’s way of thinking, lunch. Davies added ‘not here’ and they set off to drive over the moor to the Warren House Inn a few miles north-west of Princetown.

  The only reason Davies appeared to have chosen the place seemed to be so he could show Riley the fire in the bar.

  ‘Nice,’ Riley said, not quite understanding the significance of the smouldering logs until Davies told him the fire had been burning continuously since 1845.

  ‘About the time Operation Cowbell started,’ Davies said. ‘At least that’s the way it feels to me.’

  Now there was an uneasy silence between the two men as they sat and waited for their meals. Riley, not for the first time since they’d been working together, was trying to get a handle on the older detective. What made him tick, what kept him going, despite his unpopularity?

  Davies looked across at Riley and chuckled. He shook his head. Stared down into his pint. Spoke.

  ‘That business earlier in the year. Kenny Fallon. I wondered whether an explanation might be in order.’

  ‘Sir?’ Riley pulled his pint nearer, took a sip. Kenny Fallon was the kingpin in the Plymouth underworld. A man who’d worked his way up from the grim streets of the North Prospect area of the city to the point where he was now worth millions, half his businesses legit, the other half kept at arm’s length. Riley had been part of a long-term drugs op which had aimed to catch Fallon as he smuggled several million pounds of coke in aboard a luxury motor yacht. The operation had, quite literally, sunk, Fallon escaping without charge.

  ‘I know what you think. You and Savage.’ Davies took a sip of his own pint, the foam from the Guinness painting a moustache for a moment before his tongue slipped out and wiped it away. ‘Bent. Am I right?’

  ‘You were in league with Fallon, feeding him information so he could get the gear in under our noses. That operation – Sternway – was years in the planning, months of work. It all went down the pan.’

  ‘You were undercover, Darius, up in London?’ Riley nodded. ‘It’s like that with me. I’m not undercover, but I’m down there with the scum, mixing it up, they know who I am. “Phil Davies? He’s that dodgy copper. Don’t worry about him.” Without me, there’d be no little birdy telling us about some scrote selling smack outside the local school. No one would tip us a name when there’s been a particularly unpleasant murder. We wouldn’t know who’s who in the organised crime network.’

  ‘With respect, sir, that’s complete bollocks.’

  ‘Yeah, you think so?’ Davies shook his head and chuckled. ‘You’ve got a lot to learn about how things operate down this part of the world, Darius.’

  ‘Like getting a wad of fifties in a brown envelope?’

  ‘Allegedly.’ Davies winked. ‘Makes me legit in their eyes, doesn’t it? Anyway, if it hadn’t been for Kenny Fallon you’d have been mincemeat. Ricky Budgeon would have cut you up into little pieces.’

  ‘If I remember correctly it was good detective work by DC Calter which saved me.’

  ‘And if I remember correctly there was a large element of luck too. On the other hand Fallon led me and Savage right to you.’

  There was that, Riley had to concede. Ricky Budgeon, a man Riley had crossed up in London when he had been undercover, had captured Riley. Intent on killing him, the cavalry had arrived in the nick of time.

  Riley’s phone rang. Nick of time again. He answered it and got up, stepping away from the table and making his way outside the pub. He spoke to the caller for a minute or two and then hung up.

  ‘Corran,’ Riley said, when he returned to the table. ‘The financial stuff has come through. The wife’s taken out a life insurance policy recently. On Devlyn.’

  ‘Canny bird.’ Davies took several gulps of his beer. ‘How much?’

  ‘Two fifty K.’

  ‘Nice little earner.’ Davies whistled and then considered the froth on the remains of his pint. ‘So, there’s several possibilities. One, the whole thing is a set-up and Corran isn’t dead. He’s holed up in some cheapo hotel watching daytime TV, waiting for a call from the Mrs. Being a PO he’ll be canny, he’ll have met cons on the inside who tried this kind of thing and failed.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘They’ll play it long. Very long. When she’s got the cash she’ll move away, back up North probably. It’ll be in a year or two’s time, but then they’ll be able to collect.’

  ‘Without a body?’ Riley shook his head. ‘That’s not going to happen, boss. There’ll have to be an inquest, evidence from us. We’re back to the bike lamp again. Doesn’t prove a thing.’

  ‘OK,’ Davies conceded, ‘number two: Mrs C killed hubby. Somehow she’s made it look like a hit and run. The body will turn up and she gets the dough.’ Davies tipped the remainder of his beer down his throat and then banged the glass down on the table. ‘Tell you what, I reckon we get back down there and press her. Take her into Crownhill and let her sweat.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Riley shook his head. ‘There’s a little girl, the daughter. Distraught. No way the mother was acting, which means she didn’t do it.’

  ‘Which leaves number three. The two of them knew Corran was in danger, they were aware of the threat. The policy is just what it says on the tin. Insurance. In which case she knows, right?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘There you go. My plan still holds. We question her hard. Use the child as a bargaining tool. Social services, child protection, the works. The mother will be squealing before too long. Promise.’ Davies stared down at his empty glass and then nodded to where a waitress was bringing their food across. ‘Now, I’ll need something to wash this lot down, Sergeant. Your round I think.’

  Savage’s appointment with Dr Peter Wilson was for Wednesday afternoon, the psychologist back from London. ‘Home Office business,’ his secretary had said. ‘Meetings.’

  Wilson had a suite of rooms attached to a smart new private health centre in Plympton. The sign at the entrance announced various treatments and practitioners including an acupuncturist and a reflexologist. Wilson offered psychotherapy. The good folk of Plympton obviously had more money than sense, Savage reflected as she pushed through the entrance doors and made herself known to a receptionist.

  Dr Wilson was a stick-like figure, made slighter by the huge mahogany desk he sat behind. When Savage entered he rose and extended a hand across the vast green leather top, bare apart from a rather smart Rolodex-type card index, a little flip calendar, and a pile of well-ordered papers. Savage couldn’t help but think the desk was about status and not utility.

  ‘DI Savage,’ Wilson said. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

  The grasp of Wilson’s palm felt bony, like shaking hands with a skeleton. His arm seemed to telescope out from the sleeve of his suit, the suit itself of high quality, but ill-fitting. Wilson had no presence, his neat but nondescript brown hair sitting on an angular face with little eyes which were unable to meet hers for more than an instant before flittering off in another direction. Perhaps for a moment even alighting on her breasts, waist and legs. Hell, Savage thought, this was Walsh’s fault. Preconceptions were clouding her judgement.

  ‘Call me Charlotte,’ she said as way of reparation, before sitting in a high-backed chair set to one side of the desk.

  ‘I hope,’ Wilson said, ‘I can be of more use to the investigation this time. I am certainly older and wiser.’

  ‘Dr Wilson, you have to understand we’re not officially involving you at this stage, but we would value your opinions on the case. Specifically how any new evidence might fit i
n with your previous analysis.’

  ‘I see.’ Wilson glanced over at a photograph on the wall. The picture showed Wilson shaking the hand of another man, the pair standing in front of some sort of crest. Wilson looked back at Savage. ‘FBI. I spent some time over in the States. That’s the Deputy Director thanking me for a paper I presented at a conference a few years back. Funnily enough, the paper was entitled “When the Killing Stops” but I guess you guys know everything there is to know about serial murder so perhaps we should call it a day and I’ll get back to work.’

  Savage sighed. ‘You have to bear in mind the failure of the previous investigation still rankles. There was also a personal matter concerning your behaviour with a member of staff. I don’t know the ins and outs of what happened and maybe there were jealousies involving other people. Memories are long.’

  ‘The woman … well, I was younger. To coin a phrase, I had a moment of madness. As a psychologist you may say I should have known better, but I’m human too. However, I’ve learnt from my errors. I’m now in private practice and I can’t afford to make the same mistakes again. And as to the failure of the investigation, well that’s why I want to help now. The inability to catch the killer infuriates me as much as it does you. Or, for that matter, DCI Walsh.’

  ‘Ex-DCI Walsh. He’s retired.’

  ‘Has he really?’ Wilson smiled. The question was rhetorical, Savage realised. The psychologist knew damn well Walsh was no longer with the force. ‘Well, I can understand retirement must be tough for him. Knowing he’s not going to be involved. Realising he didn’t prevent the killer claiming yet more victims. Living with failure.’

  ‘We’re consulting him.’ Savage waited to see the reaction – a slow intake of breath – before she continued. ‘Just as I’m consulting you now.’

  ‘The Deputy Director always used to comment on my methods of working.’ Wilson reached out and touched the Rolodex. The thing was some sort of executive version, made of wood. Wilson thumbed through a few index cards. ‘I brought this over to the US from the UK and the thing became a bit of an “in” joke. You see, I helped track down a killer by the name of Peeking Paul and I did it without the use of computers or technology.’