CUT DEAD: A DI Charlotte Savage Novel

by Mark Sennen

  ‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ Savage said, wondering if it wasn’t Hardin who’d taken some pills. ‘I’m off up there now to see what Layton can come up with.’

  She beat Layton to the scene. But only by seconds. As she pulled off the road and parked behind a patrol car at the south-east end of the reservoir, she saw the CSI’s Volvo looming in her rear-view mirror.

  ‘Had to happen sooner or later,’ he shouted across to her as he got out. ‘But think of it as the exception which proves the rule.’

  The smart Golf lay off the road, parked in a mass of bracken. The offside front tyre had shredded, the alloy wheel all dented and split down the middle. Part of the bumper had been squished and the plastic had cracked.

  ‘Boy racers?’ Savage said as she stood back and let Layton get in close.

  ‘Well they didn’t race it here,’ Layton said, pointing first at the front wheel and then the back. ‘Look at the ground.’

  Savage saw a deep rut caused by the rear wheel, but the front, which was more like the disc from a harrow, had made no impression.

  ‘How then?’

  ‘Towed.’ Layton pointed to some more ruts which ran from the front of the car and curved back onto the road. ‘The front of the vehicle must have been hoisted off the ground for the journey and then they dropped it off here.’

  ‘You mean towed as in a recovery vehicle?’

  ‘Yes, but not a pro job.’ Layton was on his hands and knees now. He examined the front bumper. ‘They simply attached a hook under the car and lifted it up. Didn’t bother about what happened to the bodywork. You wouldn’t do that if you were trying to recover the vehicle.’

  ‘So she had some kind of accident and whoever bumped her brought the car here. A sort of hit and tow?’

  ‘Nope.’ Layton smiled. ‘Where’s the damage to the car? As far as I can see the only problem is the tyre. The damage at the front was caused by the tow chain or rope.’

  ‘It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Unless all you want to do is get rid of the car.’

  Layton stood and then moved to the side. He pressed his face close to the driver’s window and peered in. Then he moved to the rear of the car.

  ‘No parcel shelf, so nothing concealed in the boot. No handbag or clothing. No sign of any blood. All windows intact.’

  ‘So if she was attacked she either knew her attacker or she wasn’t in the car.’

  ‘That’s it, Charlotte,’ Layton said, moving back to the front wheel. ‘She wasn’t in the car because she got a puncture. She must have driven on with it deflated until the tyre destroyed itself and the wheel fractured. We’ll never be able to tell if that’s what actually happened though, not from the remains of the tyre.’

  ‘But they will.’ Savage pointed to an orange sticker in the front window. ‘RAC. If she rang them then there’ll be a record. Especially if when the recovery vehicle turned up she wasn’t where she said she’d be.’

  Savage called through to the station to get someone to chase the RAC while Layton examined the rest of the car externally. He explained that by not opening the doors they’d have a better chance of preserving anything important inside. Then he got on his own phone and Savage could hear him summoning officers for a fingertip search.

  By the time Layton had finished his call Savage had confirmation from the RAC.

  ‘They received a call at nine forty-seven last night from Lucy Hale,’ Savage said. ‘She’d got a puncture somewhere near Cadover Bridge. Whatever, from the state of the rim she didn’t stay put.’

  ‘So she was on the back road to Ivybridge then?’

  ‘Yup. The patrolman came from Yelverton way around half past ten, he passed Cadover Bridge and drove on all the way to Cornwood. Another five miles. Then he doubled back for a second look. Nothing doing, so he called in and said he couldn’t find the vehicle. Apparently that’s pretty common. People solve their problem and don’t bother to call back. The dispatcher tried to ring Lucy’s phone but it was switched off.’

  ‘I think we need to look at the RAC van,’ Layton said.

  ‘You don’t think the mechanic could be involved?’

  ‘Simply a matter of eliminating him. Anyway you’ll need to get the exact route he drove, times and things.’

  ‘And once he’s eliminated?’

  ‘Square one,’ Layton said. ‘Back to.’

  By the time Hardin arrived at Burrator Reservoir a media scrum had assembled behind the cordon of blue and white tape. Savage ducked under the tape and went across to the DSupt intending to brief him on Layton’s findings.

  ‘Superintendent Hardin,’ a BBC reporter asked as Hardin got out of his car. ‘Do you believe the Candle Cake Killer is still at large?’

  ‘No comment,’ Hardin said as he began to stroll down the road alongside Savage.

  ‘Can you assure the women of Devon they are safe?’ ITN.

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘There’s a girl missing, isn’t there?’ The Times.

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘The Candle Cake Killer has her, doesn’t he?’ CNN.

  ‘No com—’ Hardin stopped. Resisted the tug on his arm from Savage. Turned around to face the pack. ‘No he bloody well doesn’t! We have a missing person. Usually it’s all we can do to get you lot even vaguely interested, but because you want the killings to continue you’re sniffing around like the gutter rats you are. If you’d only behave like human beings and show some compassion to the family then perhaps we can bring this to a satisfactory conclusion.’

  ‘Are you looking for a body?’ Sky News.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ Hardin turned to pick out the voice. Moved towards the man and raised a fist.

  ‘Sir?’ Savage said, gesturing towards the cordon.

  Hardin seemed in two minds for a moment, but then he lifted the tape, ducked under and strode across to John Layton. Layton was watching as Lucy Hale’s Golf was being winched onto the back of a flatbed truck. Nearby, CSIs continued to work on the soft verges, taking photographs and measuring impressions in the grass and mud.

  ‘This,’ Hardin said to Layton as he approached, ‘had better be nothing to do with the Candle Cake Killer.’

  ‘Promising nothing, sir,’ Layton said. ‘But I think the best we can hope for is a copycat.’

  ‘Copycat.’ Hardin looked at the car as it was secured to the bed of the truck. ‘Completely different MO. Not at all like the others. Yes. Good. Excellent.’

  Savage was about to say something about not being premature when her mobile rang. Calter. Round at Lucy Hale’s flat in Ivybridge.

  ‘Don’t know what it’s like with you, ma’am,’ Calter said, ‘but there’s a bloody circus here. Reporters, TV crews, members of the public with nothing better to do than revel in someone else’s misery.’

  ‘And the flat?’

  ‘Been a team in there for half an hour. So far there’s no sign of anything amiss. They’ve not finished yet but one thing they are sure of is there’s no cake. Something else too.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Luke Farrell, the FLO, well, he’s been with the parents for the past hour. I just spoke to him. No baby, ma’am. No way a pregnancy could have been concealed. They only live a few streets over from Lucy and see her at least once a week. Never mind the TV soaps, in real life you can’t hide the fact you’re pregnant.’

  Savage ended the call.

  No cake, no baby, not the longest day and Wilson dead and out of the picture. For a moment the scene around her seemed to fade. Colour leached from the trees and the sky and a grey fuzz blurred her vision. The hubbub from the reporters vanished in a hiss of white noise. Savage had the sensation of falling. Not just her, but the whole world, everything tumbling down in some entropic dance, everything coming to a slow but inevitable end.

  She shivered, blinked a couple of times and then reality snapped back. Vision, sound, a gruff voice.

  ‘Well, Charlotte?’ Hardin said. ‘What the fuck’s going on?’
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br />   ‘Peter Wilson could not have abducted Paula Rowland,’ Savage said, pulling herself together. ‘Nor could he have abducted any of the other victims. However he was involved it wasn’t in the actual kidnappings. Wilson had an accomplice, someone who did the dirty work, and now he’s operating on his own. He’s gone rogue, if you like. Without Wilson there he’s killing at random. Lucy Hale was just unlucky. This is no copycat. It’s part of the sequence.’

  ‘Oh my God.’ Hardin breathed in hard. ‘Please tell me you’re joking?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Shit. Fuck.’ The DSupt moved across to the fence at the side of the road and grasped a post as if for support, as if he was experiencing the same physical reaction Savage just had. He grunted and then stood up straight. Spoke. ‘So where do we go from here?’

  ‘Wilson’s connections. Family, friends, acquaintances, people he’s worked with. Somewhere in that group is the killer, but unless we act quick Lucy Hale won’t be the last victim.’

  ‘Not good.’ Hardin shook his head, pulled his phone from its case, ran his fingers across the surface. Then he looked back at the camera crews for a moment. ‘The problem is, what the hell are we going to tell that lot?’

  Collier had already been working on Wilson’s connections, but the material from the house search had produced no information about next-of-kin. No family photographs, nothing useful in his address book, no personal letters or emails.

  Back in the crime suite Savage went through some of the other information they had. Outside of his work colleagues Wilson only had a couple of social contacts. Both were from the village of Crapstone, but according to the door-to-doors they were casual acquaintances. For all his talk of being best buddies with the Deputy Director of the FBI, it didn’t look like he’d made many friends. Savage thought about the picture on the wall in Wilson’s office at the surgery. Thought of the psychologist staring at it while somebody sat and poured out their innermost feelings.

  You should have heard them trying to justify their actions. They were so self-obsessed, so full of self-pity. They made me sick.

  ‘Of course!’ Savage said to herself. ‘The bloody patients. That’s how he knew about the adoptions.’

  She reached for the phone and in a few seconds was through to the exhibits officer on the case. Savage asked about Wilson’s office. They’d removed Wilson’s personal possessions from his office, yes? What about the Rolodex file, did they have it? A clatter of keys told her the officer was searching the computer and then he was telling her, yes, they had the Rolodex, did she want it?

  Ten minutes later and Savage plonked the strange contraption down on a desk in the crime suite.

  ‘It’s like something from another age, ma’am,’ Calter said, coming over to look.

  ‘Wilson didn’t like computers,’ Savage said. ‘He boasted to me that he helped the FBI capture a serial killer without any recourse to one. I guess that’s why he used this to keep patient records.’

  ‘But the health centre must have records on their system?’

  ‘Sure, but Wilson wouldn’t have trusted that.’ Savage began to leaf through the file, stopping at ‘M’. ‘No Katherine Mallory, but here’s another Mallory, her mother, Marion. Riverside Road, Dittisham. She must have been a patient of Wilson’s. In therapy she would have told him all about her life. It’s inconceivable she didn’t mention her daughter’s pregnancy and the subsequent giving up of the baby for adoption.’

  ‘And the others?’

  ‘One mo …’ Savage flicked back and forth through the index cards. ‘They’re here too. Mandy Glastone, Sue Kendle, Heidi Luckmann and Paula Rowland. The first three were his patients before he left the UK. There was no breach of the database, no dodgy goings-on at the registrar’s office. Wilson just sat in his big leather chair while the names were served to him on a plate.’

  ‘You think people who gave up their babies were more likely to seek therapy?’

  ‘I don’t know, but it’s probably irrelevant. Over the years he had hundreds of patients. Statistically, a number of them would have matched.’

  ‘Why did nobody make the connection?’

  ‘Before he went to the States Wilson worked alone. He would have been in charge of record keeping. The names on the card index may be the only records he kept.’ Savage shook her head. ‘And if you’re in therapy it’s not necessarily something you shout about either, is it?’

  ‘Doesn’t help us with Wilson’s accomplice.’

  ‘No,’ Savage said, spinning the cards round once more. ‘It doesn’t.’

  Chapter Forty

  Central Plymouth. Thursday 3rd July. 7.00 a.m.

  Riley was still in bed at seven when the doorbell rang. Once, twice and then continuously. He leapt out of bed and padded down the hallway to the entry phone. Davies’ face filled the screen. Riley buzzed him up.

  ‘Boss,’ Riley said as he opened the door. ‘This is too early.’

  ‘Tell me about it. Maynard’s called. Something’s happening on the diesel case and he wants us up at the farm.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  ‘Put something on or you’ll scare the neighbours. I’ll be outside.’

  Five minutes later, having brushed his teeth and squirted on some deodorant, Riley joined Davies in the car. As Davies started up and pulled away, Riley asked what was up.

  ‘Intel.’ Davies cut in front of a taxi and a horn blared out. ‘You know all those fuel tanks round the back of McGann’s place? Well, it appears as if he’s started to dismantle them.’

  ‘But they’re full.’

  ‘Exactly. He’s going to have to shift a job lot of diesel and Maynard’s got wind it’s going to happen today.’

  ‘About time. At least we can wrap this up and go back to proper detective work.’

  ‘I wouldn’t bank on it. Word is Maynard wants to form some sort of agricultural crime squad. He told me sheep rustling is the next project on the agenda. Seems like a load of swillyites have been going up on the moor and indulging in a bit of amateur butchery. In hard times, even your supermarket gristle brand isn’t cheap enough.’

  ‘You’re joking, right?’ Riley looked across at Davies. ‘You’re not, are you?’

  Davies shook his head. Riley leant back in the seat. Nightmare. Fifteen minutes later and he woke with a start. They were outside Plymouth, Davies gunning the car off the main road and onto a lane to Bickleigh. Minutes later they passed the barracks and then the road wound round, climbing all the way to Wotter and Lee Moor. Either side of the road great heaps of white clay spoil transformed the countryside. When Riley had first moved from London he’d seen the pits from down on the coast. At the time he’d thought the white was snow. Seeing as it had been early September, Enders had never let him forget his mistake.

  ‘That girl broke down somewhere along here,’ Riley said.

  ‘Be nice,’ Davies said, chuckling, ‘if we could do McGann for her as well. Maybe he’s got her working the till in his DIY service station.’

  To their right the countryside sloped down towards Plymouth and the sea sparkled in the distance. Lucy Hale had known she was somewhere on the road, but hadn’t been able to orientate herself. At night, despite the lights from the city, the task would have been impossible.

  ‘Here we go.’ Davies took a turn and they bumped down a track towards a little wooden bungalow. The garden surrounding it bloomed with flowers and neat little gravel paths ran this way and that. The place faced away from the road and out back a deck spread from the property as the garden fell away.

  ‘What’s this?’ Riley said. ‘I thought we were going to McGann’s place.’

  ‘What – and sit in a mucky ditch all day long?’ Davies stopped the car. ‘No bloody way. I’ve pulled us a cushy little number.’

  Before Riley could enquire further Davies was out of the car and had bounded up to and through a little wicket gate. A dog barked inside in response to his knocks and then the door opened to reveal an elderly woman, her
hair the same colour as the fur of the white Westie which yapped around her feet.

  Once they’d been shown through to the deck where chairs surrounded a plastic table, the woman offered them some tea. While she bustled around inside Davies explained that Mrs Kimberly had allowed them to use her property for the next few days since she was off to Bournemouth for the weekend. Davies gave an expansive wave of his hand and Riley could understand why. McGann’s place lay around a mile and a half away somewhat to the right and below them. The track leading to his farm wound back up to the main road. Close obs and you were better down in the ditch, but up here you could see everything.

  Mrs Kimberly served them tea and then Davies was away to the car, returning with a pair of binoculars and something in a padded bag.

  ‘Spotting scope,’ Davies said. ‘Maynard’s pride and joy. Says if anything happens to it we’ll both be back in uniform.’

  Davies unpacked the scope and set the instrument up on a small tripod.

  ‘May I?’ Riley said.

  ‘Kid gloves, Sergeant. The thing is a Swarovski. Austrian apparently, and according to Maynard worth the best part of two and a half thousand. And that’s not including the carbon fibre tripod.’

  ‘Shit,’ Riley said, wiping his hands on his trousers before moving over to the scope. One hand went to the handle on the tripod and the other to the focusing knob. He bent to the eyepiece. ‘Wow!’

  ‘Good, eh?’ Davies said.

  Good was an understatement. Riley swivelled the scope and pointed the lens down towards the farm. In the garden out the back a woman stood next to a washing line. Riley could make out the lace edge to the piece of clothing as she pegged a pair of knickers to the line.

  ‘What magnification is this?’

  ‘Up to seventy. What you looking at?’

  ‘There’s a girl down at the farm doing something with her underwear. I’m so close it feels like I could touch her. This must be a perv’s dream come true.’

  Davies jostled in close and Riley moved aside. With his naked eye he could just about make out the farm. The woman was but a dot.