by Nick Oldham
It was Barlow calling from Lancaster nick. ‘Yes, it is me, Ralph,’ Henry said. ‘Not good . . . Face still sore, swollen . . . Look, Mrs Sunderland’s PM is scheduled for ten-thirty this morning, can you cover it for me? I want to have a look at something and then speak to someone on my way in. It’s . . . I’ve been asked to take over that unsolved murder . . . Yeah, the young girl . . . I think you worked that, didn’t you? Hm, yeah . . . I want to check out the scene and also see Joe Speakman on the way in . . . Yeah, he lives in this neck of the woods . . . I know he’s retired, but I virtually pass his house on the way in, so I’m going to call on spec, get his perspective on it . . . Bye . . .’ Henry hung up.
‘What was that?’ Flynn asked.
‘A cold case I’m reviewing.’
‘One of Joe Speakman’s? I know him, he used to be my DCI way back.’
‘Well, he retired earlier this year, without much notice.’ Henry suddenly had a thought and snatched up the phone and jabbed in a number. ‘Prof? It’s me, Henry – I’ve asked DI Barlow to attend Jennifer Sunderland’s PM in my stead . . . look,’ he dropped his voice conspiratorially, ‘I’d be obliged if you didn’t mention the teeth thing to him . . . Cheers . . . Don’t ask.’
Henry hung up and turned back to Flynn, who had a knowing smile on his face.
‘Keeping secrets?’ Flynn said.
‘Oh shit,’ Henry said.
‘What?’
‘My car! It’s at Lancaster nick . . . and there’s no way I can use Alison’s . . . it’s cash and carry day today.’
‘If you can fit your fat arse into the passenger seat of a Smart Car, I’ll give you a lift,’ Flynn said, an offer accepted with bad grace by Henry.
EIGHT
She had died a brutal death. Savagely beaten in a frenzied attack – particularly about the head – half-strangled, as Henry had seen at the mortuary. The strangulation had not killed her, but the brain trauma from the assault had.
The day before visiting the mortuary he had only half-perused the murder book, but had then read it thoroughly in the early hours of this morning before tumbling into bed with Alison and falling deeply asleep for the next few hours, before taking a convivial breakfast with Flynn.
Joe Speakman, the retired detective superintendent, had been SIO in charge of the investigation into the murder of the unidentified female.
Henry had got on well with Speakman, who was then one of the four detective superintendents heading FMIT. With all the swingeing cost-cutting going on, the chief constable had been looking at the possibility of reducing the number of superintendents on FMIT from four to three and Henry had been right in his cross-hairs. Slightly ahead of the other three in length of service, he was ripe to be pushed into retirement.
It had been a bit of a shock when Speakman had put his ticket in out of the blue. And a pleasant surprise as far as Henry was concerned. It gave him some breathing space. He didn’t want to retire just yet, had found a new lease of life as regards the job and personal life and was happy to be considering his options without the chief breathing down his neck.
But Speakman’s sudden departure had left quite a lot of unfinished business which had to be divvied out amongst the remaining detective supers and Henry had been dealt an unsolved murder. Which was absolutely fine by him.
His reading of the murder book – the book in which the SIO was required to maintain in every murder enquiry, recording decisions made, actions taken, reasons for doing things and a whole myriad of other things relating to the murder – left him slightly puzzled.
Not that there was anything intrinsically wrong with it. It just seemed . . . listless, lacklustre . . . Henry could not quite find the right word. It was like Speakman was bored by what he was doing.
Murder books were usually fascinating reading. As events unfolded, evidence was uncovered, suspects were identified, people arrested . . . whatever . . . they could be as compelling as a thriller and often gave an insight into how the mind of the SIO worked.
Speakman’s murder book was just a bit sparse in every detail.
Maybe it was because he was winding down to retirement that only he knew about. Maybe his heart wasn’t in it and he was just contemplating how to spend his lump sum. Henry had half-heard that he had invested in property abroad.
Henry could not say . . . which is why he wanted to drop in on Speakman unannounced on his way to Lancaster and chat things through.
As he wriggled into the passenger seat of the Smart Car, trying not to look too embarrassed by its lack of street cred, his mind flipped over the contents of the murder book and the other related items he’d been reading.
The young woman’s body had been discovered by a dog-walker in Moss Syke wood, a smallish copse within metres of the southbound carriageway of the M6, south of junction 34, which was the Lancaster north exit. The wood was accessible by a lane that ran off the A683, the main road into Lancaster that Henry would eventually be driving along that morning.
She had been dragged a few metres into the woods and discarded there, but with no real effort made to hide or bury her. It was obvious she would be discovered sooner rather than later and the pathologist’s estimate was that she’d probably been left there for perhaps twelve hours and had been murdered about four hours prior to that in a different, unknown, location, probably indoors.
That was the first thing that struck Henry: no real effort to hide the body. What did that say about the killer?
Confidence, Henry guessed. Confident that even though the body would be found, he – or she – would not get caught and that, possibly, she would remain unidentified.
So if the killer knew that, what did it say about the victim?
Henry’s initial thoughts turned straight to people-trafficking, or perhaps migrant workers. Many nationalities came to work the cockle beds on Morecambe Bay, for example, not just the unfortunate Chinese people who had been caught up in the disaster a few years back when twenty-odd immigrant cockle-pickers were drowned after being caught by the fast-rising tides.
If she wasn’t local, and possibly she came from Eastern Europe, as the dental work suggested, then was she here illegally? If she was, then identifying her would be seriously hard. Her fingerprints had already been checked without success. And if she couldn’t be named, that always made a murder investigation much harder.
‘Fuck,’ Henry thought.
And what was the link with Jennifer Sunderland, or was the dental aspect merely just a coincidence? He wondered what the odds were. Two women met violent deaths within, say, ten miles of each other and six months apart, and both had their dental work carried out by the same person.
‘Slim.’
‘What was that?’ Flynn said.
‘Did I say that out loud?’
‘You surely did.’
‘Sorry.’
‘That’s OK.’
They had reached the junction with the A683 at the village of Hornby. Turning left would take them towards Lancaster, passing through and under the bridge that formed junction 34 of the M6.
Flynn had told Henry he did not mind going around to Joe Speakman’s house on the way into Lancaster, then dropping Henry off at Lancaster nick where he could pick up his car.
As Flynn joined the main road in the Smart Car – not a car designed to carry two strapping men in comfort – Henry said, ‘Look, there’s something else I’d like to do before seeing Joe, so I tell you what, just drive me to the nick, I’ll pick up my car and then you can get on with what you have to do. I’ll contact you later if there are any developments. And thanks for the lift.’
‘What do you want to do?’
‘Check out the murder scene re this cold case.’
‘Is it nearby?’
‘Slight detour, but on the way.’
‘I’ll drive you there,’ Flynn said brightly. ‘Just direct me and tell me all about the case if you want.’
Less than ten minutes later, following Henry’s directions, Flynn slo
wed the car and turned left into Grimeshaw Lane, nothing more than a narrow, rutted track off the A683 which ran at a south-westerly angle, but virtually parallel with the M6. The lane passed Moss Syke woods, after which it veered right and crossed the motorway on a narrow bridge.
Diane’s tiny car thudded unhappily, but gamely, in the ruts, until after a few hundred metres they reached the woods, just a few acres of tightly compressed trees, nothing spectacular. Far enough away from any prying eyes, because there were no buildings nearby, but handy enough to dump a body.
Henry had the murder file on his knees and shuffled out the crime-scene photographs, trying to compare them to where he was now and also in relation to a plan-drawer’s map of the location. He kept peering at the documents and glancing up as Flynn drove at a snail’s pace on the track.
‘Stop here,’ Henry said and got out of the car.
The woods were across to his right. Henry leaned on the car roof and took it all in. The motorway was a hundred metres beyond the far perimeter of the woods, but out of sight because of a small hill rise. Traffic noise could clearly be heard, thundering up and down, north–south.
He looked to his right, back down along Grimeshaw Lane towards the A683, which he could see in the distance.
To his left the track carried on to the motorway bridge, beyond which it became Ridge Lane and went on to the Ridge Estate in Lancaster, a fairly middling council estate. The road over the motorway bridge was nothing more than a track, servicing the farmland either side of the motorway. Henry turned to look at the vast area of countryside behind him to the east. Then he turned back and looked at the woods.
Flynn got out and joined him.
Henry pointed. ‘She was discovered just in there.’
Flynn nodded. Henry hadn’t told him very much – hardly anything – about the girl’s murder, even though he had asked, but he said, ‘Victim, location, offender . . . usually a link of some sort.’
Henry nodded. It was a standard quote, one right out of the Murder Investigation Manual. ‘Unfortunately only the location is known in this case.’
‘Still,’ Flynn pulled a ruminative face, ‘the location usually says a lot . . . I take it she wasn’t murdered here, though?’
‘No.’
‘Not a place you’d trip over by accident,’ Flynn said.
No, it wasn’t, Henry thought. Whoever dumped her here would probably have had local knowledge.
‘Are you going into the woods today?’ Flynn asked.
‘Maybe later. Let’s call on Joe Speakman first.’
Henry had once been to Speakman’s house, a few years earlier for a party of some sort, but for the life of him could not remember the event clearly, because he had been drunk. Possibly a fortieth, but he did recall where the house was and could direct Flynn there. It was not far from Moss Syke wood, but he attached no importance to that.
Flynn did a six-point turn in the tiny car and bumped it back down Grimeshaw Lane without ripping the sump off it. From there it was almost straight across the A683 into Denny Beck Lane, then over the River Lune via Halton Bridge into the village of Halton itself. Then he bore right, travelling east with the river on his right, up to Halton Green, where he found Speakman’s house. It was large, detached, with quite extensive private grounds, bordered by Leylandii trees and high fencing.
Flynn gave an appreciative whistle. ‘Nice one. Obviously supers are paid too darn much.’
‘Not nearly enough,’ Henry said. ‘I think it helps that his wife is, or was, something big in local government, on a similar whack to him.’
Flynn pouted and did the arithmetic. One-fifty grand plus per year. A nice little earner if you can get it.
Flynn drove up the curved drive and stopped at the front of the house alongside a TVR Tuscan in a silvery-purple colour that changed and sparkled depending on how you looked at it. He gave another whistle.
‘Literally,’ he said, ‘they don’t make ’em like that any more.’
‘What do you want to do?’ Henry asked him.
‘I wouldn’t mind saying hello. Then I’ll keep out of your way.’
Henry nodded, got out and went to the front door and rang the bell on the door frame. He stood back and surveyed the front of the house with admiration. He was joined by Flynn, doing much the same thing.
But there was only so much admiring they could do before getting bored, as no one had yet answered the door. Henry pressed the bell again in a way which he hoped conveyed his impatience. He could hear it ring hollowly inside. Somewhere at the back of his mind he recalled that Speakman owned a dog of some sort. He remembered it being a noisy beast . . . but maybe it had died. It was a long time since he had been here and he still couldn’t recall the reason for the party. Had it been a twenty-first?
‘Maybe they saw you coming and hid,’ Flynn suggested. ‘Like my gran used to do when the rent man came.’
‘Maybe they saw you.’
Henry was about to hold his thumb on the doorbell again when he noticed that the door, though it appeared to be closed, was just pushed tight against the frame and there was a tiny gap all around the edge. He gave it a gentle nudge. It swung open easily onto a wide hallway.
And Henry froze, instinctively shooting out his right arm to prevent Flynn from entering.
One of those sensations of utter dread shimmied through him from chest to toe as he saw the reason why the dog had not barked.
It was a red setter, one of those daft, bouncy, never exhausted dogs that went through life with an optimistic, never-say-die attitude, backed up with little brain.
He remembered the dog’s name in that instant: Carlo.
Carlo, the red setter. If it was the same dog, that is.
But Carlo was now splayed out dead in the tiled hallway, half its head blown away, lying in a pool of thick treacly looking blood. One of the dog’s back legs jerked, then stopped moving.
‘Holy shit,’ Flynn hissed in Henry’s ear.
Henry was still frozen to the spot, but his mind was moving.
Flynn was right up by his shoulder and the two men exchanged a glance.
‘I’ll make my way around the back,’ Flynn whispered.
Henry nodded. Flynn split away.
Henry sniffed up and even through his damaged face could smell the reek of cordite. He stepped into the hall and moved to the edge, trying not to step in the blood, but also trying to listen hard, his senses on fire, heart slamming, palm clammy, forehead starting to sweat. His throat was dry and saliva did not want to form as he tried to imagine what hell he had blundered into here.
The stairs to the first floor ran up from the centre of the hallway up to a landing that split in two directions.
Henry moved forward, remembering that dead ahead was the door to the kitchen at the back of the house, a large open-plan room with a dining area leading out to a massive conservatory. It was all coming back to him now.
To his left was the door to the main lounge, which was closed. Over to the right were doors to the downstairs loo, another to a smaller hallway, off which were two further ground-floor rooms, a study and a small lounge converted to a music room with a big sound and vision system.
Ahead was the open kitchen door.
Henry went to it, stepping over blobs of blood, and halted on the threshold.
The kitchen was as he recalled it. Huge enough for a central island with an extractor hood hanging above it.
It was silent in here.
Then Henry saw a pair of feet jutting out from the far side of the island. Slippered female feet, not together, but apart.
He stood there for a few more seconds, not breathing. Looking, listening . . . and only then did he step into the kitchen, again keeping to the edge by the cupboards, and manoeuvred himself into a position from which he could see the rest of the body which lay half-propped against the island.
The injuries caused by a shotgun were horrific. A stomach shot, punching a hole the diameter of a mug into the stomac
h, and one straight in the face. Close range, instantly fatal, and although Henry could not see the exit wounds, from the amount of blood he knew they would be huge.
It was Joe Speakman’s wife, Stella.
Dead, having been shot and then staggered back against the island, and slithered down to her current position.
She was wearing a dressing gown over a nightdress. On the work surface by the sink was a kettle and two mugs. Steam wisped out of the spout of the kettle, only recently boiled. Henry glanced into the mugs. Instant coffee in each, ready to be made into a brew. Next to these items was a toaster with two pieces of toast popped up, ready to be buttered.
Stella Speakman had been preparing breakfast for two and had been shot to death in her own kitchen. It didn’t take a detective to put that one together.
Henry’s instinct was to squat down and have a closer look, but he could see everything he needed from where he was.
The hairs did rise on the back of his neck as he asked himself the next questions: Where was Joe Speakman? And had he done this?
Had there been some horrendous domestic dispute here, one of those ‘murder all the family, then commit suicide’ scenarios? Or had a burglar called?
Henry backed slowly out of the kitchen into the hallway, wondering where Flynn had gone. He pivoted on his heels, eyes pausing on the dead dog, then at the other doors off the hallway, each one closed. He listened hard – not easy because of the pounding in his ears.
A squeak, a scratching noise from upstairs. Or not?
It was tempting to go up, but he had to check the remainder of the downstairs rooms first, horribly aware that someone could be hiding, still armed with a shotgun.
He did the rooms quickly. They were empty. No bodies. No gunman.
Then he was at the foot of the stairs, behind him the dog. It had stopped twitching.
He went up slowly, feeling a second gush of adrenaline. The steps were carpeted and did not creak, so he could move silently.
At the top he turned to the door to his right, knowing it led into the main bedroom. He recalled collecting his coat from the bed when he was leaving the party. He pushed open the door gently. The entrance to the en-suite was on his left, then beyond the room opened out into a very large bedroom with a sitting area and French windows leading out to a balcony. The view from the balcony, he recalled, was stunning, sweeping down the fields to the river.
