The Bone Field

by Simon Kernick

  ‘She can’t leave,’ he said. ‘I need her where we can see her. Do you still have men nearby?’

  ‘I can have two good men there within twenty minutes. We have a tracking device on her car and her phone. We can follow her wherever she goes.’

  ‘I don’t want her going anywhere. This is very important to me.’

  ‘I will do everything I can.’

  ‘Good. I’m on my way.’

  The Dark Man ended the call and told the driver to turn round.

  It was time to deal with Charlotte Curtis once and for all.

  Twenty-three

  Tina Boyd liked France. She liked the food; she liked the people – they always seemed friendly, especially when she tried her poor French on them; and she loved their roads, which were blissfully traffic-free. Commentators in the UK were always going on about the weakness of the French economy, how it was almost permanently in recession, with constant strikes and hugely powerful unions, but its infrastructure made Britain’s look laughable, and the almost complete lack of traffic on her way to Roquecor had made the journey extremely quick.

  She knew she was probably embarking on a wild goose chase. Charlotte Curtis hadn’t wanted to talk to Ray Mason, so she was highly unlikely to say anything of note to a freelance private detective, and of course it was possible she didn’t have any information to add anyway. But when he’d been in Tina’s office the previous evening, Ray had been convinced that Charlotte was holding something back and that she’d sounded scared.

  The murder of Henry Forbes and his lawyer, coupled with the discovery of the bones of two missing girls, was the kind of case police officers the world over dreamed of. It was that rarest of things in policework: a true mystery. When you’d spent the bulk of the past three years setting up cheating husbands or wives, tracking down errant debtors, and foiling insurance scams, as Tina had, then just the chance to get involved on the periphery of something like this was an opportunity she was happy to grab.

  Before she’d left the force under circumstances she’d rather forget, Tina had been a police officer for sixteen years, and a detective for fourteen of them. She’d developed a good instinct for knowing when someone was lying to her. When Henry Forbes had come to see her the previous week, he’d been nervous as hell. He hadn’t been faking it. He’d known he was a marked man, which was why he was taking steps to protect himself. His contact number was an unregistered phone and he’d paid her in untraceable cash. She remembered his exact words when he’d asked her to find Charlotte Curtis: ‘It’s urgent. And it’s about Kitty.’ He’d said something else as well, just as he was leaving her office: ‘You know, for once in my life I’m doing something good.’ She’d asked him what he meant by that, but his only response was to tell her once again to find Charlotte as soon as possible. And then he was gone.

  So Tina was pretty certain Charlotte Curtis knew something about what had happened to Kitty, and if she did, scared or not, Tina was certain she could get the information out of her. She could be very persuasive when she needed to be.

  Her mobile rang. It was Ray Mason.

  ‘How are you doing?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, according to the satnav I’m only a few minutes away from Charlotte Curtis’s current address. I got your text. I won’t forget to ask her about the tattoo on Henry Forbes’s underarm.’

  ‘Thanks. I also need to know the kind of relationship Kitty had with Forbes. Was it loving, that kind of thing. And did Kitty ever talk about her cousins, Lola and Alastair Sheridan, and if so, what her attitude was to them.’

  ‘Sure, I can do that. You know, you’re a lucky man, Ray. This is exactly the kind of murder case I’d like to be involved in.’

  ‘From what I hear, you were involved in your fair share of interesting cases.’

  ‘I was. And I miss it.’

  ‘Well, you’re involved in this one now. I need you to convince Charlotte to come back with you to the UK so we can question her in detail.’

  ‘What if she doesn’t want to come?’

  ‘You tell her that we’ll offer any protection she needs. We just need to ask her some questions in confidence, that’s all. There’ll be no court case, or anything like that.’

  ‘How do you know there won’t be a court case? You can’t promise her that.’

  ‘I need her to talk, Tina. Even if I have to be a little economical with the truth. And if she still doesn’t want to come over, tell her that we’ll request that the French police hold her as a material witness, and then we’ll force her to talk. And if she decides to run rather than face the music, make sure you don’t let her out of your sight.’

  ‘Are you paying me for any of this? Because if you’re not, then don’t order me around. I don’t like it.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean it like that. But please do what you can. It’s very important.’

  He sounded like he was under pressure, a lot more so than he had been the previous night.

  ‘How’s the case coming along?’

  ‘Way too slowly.’

  ‘And you think Charlotte might be the key to it?’

  He gave a hollow laugh down the phone. ‘Jesus, I hope so.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can,’ said Tina.

  She ended the call and checked the satnav. The turning to Charlotte Curtis’s house was just ahead, and she slowed down then turned off the main road on to a single-track road which led down between two fields to a cluster of farm buildings a hundred metres away.

  Charlotte’s was the first building on the right. The gates to the courtyard were open and Tina drove inside, parking behind a blue Renault and blocking its exit.

  Tina got out, breathed in the fresh country air, and knocked on the front door. There was no answer so she knocked a second time, then a third. Next she tried Charlotte’s mobile, figuring that she had nothing to lose now that she was here. It went straight to message.

  She walked round the back of the house, and into a terraced garden with a swimming pool. Beyond the swimming pool, the garden dropped away into a valley with a forested hill on the other side. It was a beautiful view and, not for the first time, Tina wondered what she was doing wasting her time in an overpriced house located in an overpriced village that was effectively a suburb of London, with the background noise from the M25 constantly in her ears, when she could be living somewhere like this. It wasn’t even as if she was a copper any more.

  Feeling vaguely frustrated, she approached the back door and looked through the window, and immediately saw a woman walking into the living area, a holdall slung over one shoulder. Tina recognized her as Charlotte from the image on her primary school website. She knocked on the door again and Charlotte literally jumped in shock.

  Tina opened the back door a foot but stayed outside. ‘Miss Curtis? My name’s Tina Boyd,’ she said through the gap. ‘I’ve come all the way from London to talk to you about an old boyfriend of yours, Henry Forbes. It’ll only take a few moments.’

  ‘I’m sorry, this isn’t a good time,’ said Charlotte, coming over. ‘I’m just going out.’

  She went to shut the door but Tina resisted.

  ‘Please, Miss Curtis, this’ll take five minutes.’

  ‘No!’ she snapped. ‘Leave me alone, please.’

  She pushed again on the door, but still Tina resisted, preventing her from closing it.

  ‘Miss Curtis, I’m a private detective working in cooperation with the Metropolitan Police. Here are my credentials.’ She pulled out her ID card and held it up but Charlotte didn’t even look at it. ‘I can tell you’re scared about something. There’s no need to be. We can go for a drive anywhere you like. I just need to ask you a handful of questions.’

  ‘How many times do I have to tell you? I’m not— Oh God …’

  Charlotte’s face went white and her eyes widened as she looked over Tina’s shoulder.

  Tina heard footsteps on the patio, and as she turned she saw a man approaching round the side
of the house, a pistol in his hand, only a few metres away. She heard more movement and saw a second man coming the other way, also holding a pistol.

  Both men were unmasked, which was always bad news.

  ‘Levez les mains,’ said the older, more confident-looking of the two gunmen, gesturing with his gun.

  Tina didn’t speak much French but she knew what this meant and put her hands in the air as the two men moved in and the older one pushed her inside the house. Charlotte put her hands up too, and both women were hustled into the living room.

  The older gunman said something else in French and spun Tina around so she and Charlotte were facing the two men. As the older one stood back, the younger one moved in, pulled Charlotte’s bag off her shoulder and threw it to the floor, then patted her down with his free hand, pocketing her phone. He did the same to Tina, taking her phone as well, while the other man looked on, his gun pointed at Tina’s head, a look on his face suggesting he wouldn’t hesitate to use it.

  ‘On your knees,’ said the older gunman in English, ‘and put your hands behind your heads.’

  ‘Please don’t do this to me,’ said Charlotte, her voice shaking, but she did as she was told.

  Tina followed suit, but slower, as she tried to work out what to do. This was a serious situation. She’d been in similar ones before but had always had that grim feeling that one day her luck would run out. What she hadn’t expected was for it to happen here – she’d been caught off guard. Whatever these two men wanted, it wasn’t good, and particularly not for Tina, as she was no obvious use to them. She was just an inconvenient witness.

  From her position on the floor, she looked at the two men in turn. The older one – silver-haired, in his fifties – looked hard, and there was a coolness about him that suggested he’d done this sort of thing before. The younger one – early thirties, dark hair – appeared more nervous, as if he hadn’t. But in the end, it made no real difference. She was trapped, and for the umpteenth time in her life she cursed her bad luck for turning up at the wrong time.

  But at the moment she wasn’t dead, so there was still some hope.

  The older gunman pulled a phone from his pocket, and made a call. He had a conversation in French for about a minute, never once taking his eyes, or his gun, off Tina.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked Tina, still keeping the phone to his ear.

  She couldn’t think of a lie fast enough so she told the truth. ‘I’m a private detective. From England.’

  The gunman repeated this information into the phone in French, and Tina felt her stomach clench. Her breaths came fast and she had to work to control them.

  The gunman continued talking for another minute, his tone brusque and professional, then ended the call, turned to his colleague and gave him an order in French. The younger gunman turned and went out of the back door, leaving just the three of them in the room.

  Beside her, Charlotte’s trembling was getting worse and she let out a great racking sob.

  ‘It’s going to be OK,’ Tina reassured her. ‘Be brave.’

  ‘It won’t be. They’re going to kill us. I know it.’

  ‘Tais-toi!’ snapped the gunman, taking a step towards Charlotte. ‘Quiet, or I will hurt you.’

  For just a couple of seconds the gunman’s attention was focused on Charlotte and, with a burst of adrenalin and no thought at all, Tina leaped at him, keeping her body low. He was already swinging the gun round to shoot her but she just managed to knock his gun arm to one side as he pulled the trigger, and his bullet missed her. At the same time she launched an uppercut with her free arm that caught him directly under the chin, sending him crashing back into the dining-room table. The gun went off a second time but she couldn’t hear it, having been temporarily deafened by the first shot; she saw only the muzzle flash.

  Her punch had been a good one, and the gunman was lying on his back on the floor, trying to lift himself up and aim the gun. His eyes were unfocused and he looked dazed, but he wasn’t going to be like that for long.

  Grabbing Charlotte by her shirt, Tina yanked her to her feet, yelling at her to follow. Together the two of them ran past the gunman. Tina threw open the back door and they raced out on to the patio. She could hear the sound of a car on gravel coming from the front of the house so they couldn’t get out that way. Instead, still holding on to Charlotte’s arm, she ran in the direction of the swimming pool and the drop beyond, taking just the briefest glance over her shoulder. Two cars had driven into the courtyard, and she could now see three men, including the younger gunman. The men saw them running and immediately their guns appeared. Someone shouted for them to stop, but there was no way Tina was stopping now.

  Letting go of Charlotte’s hand, she ran along the edge of the pool, not really sure where the hell she was going. As she reached the end, she saw there was a sheer drop of ten feet down to a footpath. She didn’t hesitate and jumped straight down, hoping that Charlotte would follow her. She hit the ground hard, feeling a sharp pain shoot up both legs as she rolled over in the brush, banging her shoulder on something hard. Fuelled with adrenalin, Tina was on her feet in an instant. She left the path and ran into the undergrowth that led directly down to the valley, ignoring the cuts to her face and body. The hill was steep, and as she accelerated she lost her footing, fell forward and rolled down the rest of the hill, hitting bushes and tree roots before landing on another path at the bottom with a bump.

  As she clambered back to her feet, she saw Charlotte come crashing down a few feet away. Tina grabbed her arm and they pushed their way through more undergrowth, emerging into a long, overgrown field.

  ‘This way,’ panted Charlotte, hardly able to get the words out, and they ran through the field, keeping low, until they came to the shelter of a line of trees by the banks of a gently meandering stream.

  Only then did Tina look back towards the house.

  Three men stood in a line at the top of the hill next to the swimming pool, staring down at them. But it was the one in the middle who caught Tina’s attention. He was wearing a black fedora and, although he was smaller in stature than the others, there was something cold and confident in his bearing that unnerved her, as if he knew exactly where they were going and how to catch them. Even from this distance, Tina could feel his gaze upon her.

  Turning away, she started running again, knowing that whatever was going on, it wasn’t over yet.

  Twenty-four

  Dan Watts had once been a promising amateur welterweight boxer, with a ferocious left hook dubbed the Megawatt by his local paper that had seen him win sixteen of his twenty fights by KO. He’d only narrowly missed out on making the GB team for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, and was all set to go professional. But then, in fight number twenty-one, he caught his nineteen-year-old opponent with a punch so hard that he put the guy in a coma from which he never emerged.

  Dan Watts never fought again. The story went that he sank into a deep depression and only pulled himself out of it when he found God. Apparently, he was going to train as a lay preacher, but decided instead that he could do more good in the world by becoming a police officer. I wasn’t sure if this part was true or not. He never talked about his past and I never asked. But I’d enjoyed working with him because, like me, he saw what he was doing as a true vocation – a righting of some of society’s wrongs – not just a job with a salary.

  As I crossed Regent’s Park towards the Hub Café, I could see Dan standing a few yards off to the side of the café entrance, still looking as lean and wiry as ever. He was wearing a smart suit underneath an even smarter raincoat. He was also wearing a flat black cap, which he somehow managed to carry off.

  The clouds had beaten back the earlier blue sky and a breeze blew across the park, leaving it quieter than usual for the time of year.

  Dan and I shook hands and started walking away from the café.

  ‘I hear Fast Eddie’s running the Forbes murder case,’ Dan said, using another of Olaf’s nicknames, thi
s one earned through his spectacularly slow finishing time in the Met’s charity 5K run a few years earlier, in which he’d been overtaken by an eighty-two-year-old retired WPC. No one dared call him that round Ealing, even behind his back.

  ‘That’s right,’ I said.

  ‘You trust him?’

  ‘Yeah, he’s a good guy. Why? Shouldn’t I?’

  ‘No, I think you’re right to trust him. He’s done thirty years’ unblemished service, and I’m certain he’s on the money. But I don’t know about the rest of your team, so what I tell you today, I don’t want it going further than him.’

  ‘I can’t give you that promise, Dan. Olaf’s my boss. If he wants to bring in the rest of the team, he can overrule me.’

  ‘Then you tell him you got the information from an anonymous source. I’m serious, Ray. If what I tell you leaks to the wrong people there are lives at stake.’

  The last thing I needed was to start dropping anonymous tips and refusing to name my sources. I was sailing close enough to the wind as it was. But I also figured I had little choice. ‘OK. Fair enough. What have you got?’

  ‘You worked organized crime for a while. Did you ever come across the Kalaman outfit?’

  ‘I’ve heard the name like everyone else, but I don’t know a lot about them. Wasn’t the guy who runs it, Cem, supposed to have killed his old man?’

  Dan nodded. ‘That’s the story. Cem’s father, Volkan, was one of the first Turkish gangsters to operate in the UK. He ran brothels and gambling dens in Soho in the late sixties. Unlike a lot of the people operating back then, he kept on expanding his operations in the seventies and eighties, and started making some serious money. We’re pretty sure he was involved in a couple of murders along the way but, even so, he was considered old school and not especially dangerous. He had two daughters and a son – Cem. Volkan didn’t want Cem to go into the business. Like a lot of immigrant parents he wanted his son to excel and become a doctor or a lawyer, but Cem wasn’t interested in any of that. He insisted on joining the organization, and the rumour was he was a very savvy businessman, and ruthless with it. As Cem moved up the ranks, he tried to push his father out. The two of them had a major falling-out, and it looked like the organization was going to end up split in two. Then a few months later, Volkan was assassinated along with his bodyguard, and Cem took over.