Two Evils: A DI Charlotte Savage Novel

by Mark Sennen

  Riley grinned, but before he had a chance to move up the bed his mobile rang. He stared across at the phone, willing the bloody thing to stop.

  ‘I thought you had the morning off?’ Julie said.

  ‘The morning, yeah, but I’m on call from twelve.’ Riley looked over to the bedside clock. Eleven twenty-seven. By rights he was off duty for the next thirty-three minutes, but as a sergeant on the Major Crimes Investigation Team he couldn’t simply ignore the call. He tumbled off the bed and padded across to where his phone sat on the windowsill. ‘Darius Riley,’ he said.

  ‘Sounds like one of my bad jokes, sir.’ The voice came with an Irish lilt and a couple of laughs. ‘There’s a coffin with a body in it on a beach. Oh, and an ice cream. A ninety-nine has a big part to play in all of this, I kid you not.’

  ‘Patrick,’ Riley said, recognising the caller as DC Patrick Enders. He stared out of the big floor-to-ceiling window. His flat had a good view of Plymouth Sound and the grey sea bristled with whitecaps. The October day didn’t look hot enough for ice creams. ‘Where’s this?’

  ‘Jennycliff. You know, the place over on the—’

  ‘I know where it is, Patrick.’ Riley shook his head. Enders was one for over-explaining. If something could be said in ten words where one would do, Enders would oblige. Riley looked to his left across the water. Lying on the east side of the Sound, Jennycliff was a small open area with sloping grassland and a path which led down a cliff face to a stony beach. ‘In fact I can see the cafe from here.’

  ‘I’m waving, sir. Can you eyeball me?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, I haven’t got binoculars. Get to the point, would you?’

  ‘I got a call that there was a body on the beach and that the circumstances were suspicious. I went over there and found the body down on the foreshore in some sort of coffin or box. The coffin’s on a raft. I reckon the whole thing must have floated in on the tide, pushed up by these strong winds.’

  ‘Male or female?’

  ‘Female, sir. But I only got a peek at the body for a second or two. There was a crowd of people and the PC with me slid the lid back on sharpish. Then we moved the lot of them back up the path and away from the beach. The PC is standing at the top of the path now, stopping anyone going down. I’ve—’

  ‘Fine.’ Riley turned away from the window. Julie shook her head and waved one finger in a playful manner. ‘I’ll be right there, Patrick. Thirty minutes, OK?’

  ‘Naughty boy,’ Julie said, as Riley hung up. ‘Just when things were getting interesting you’re off.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Riley said, as he watched Julie trace a line on her stomach. ‘But don’t do anything without me, OK?’

  Savage and Calter boarded the car ferry for the journey over the Tamar to Torpoint. The trip only took five minutes or so, but every time she made the crossing Savage liked to get out of her car and climb the steps to one of the raised deck areas. Calter accompanied her. Half a mile away to the south, the wide expanse of the river turned east through the Narrows and ran into Plymouth Sound. Torpoint lay ahead, on the west bank of the river, cut off from Devon by the Tamar. To reach the town you had to use the ferry or take a twenty-mile detour via the Tamar Bridge.

  ‘Over there, is it?’ Savage pointed to the far shore. ‘Behind the ballast pound?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. Marine Drive. Jason was out on the mud apparently, but the RNLI and the MoD boats haven’t found him.’

  ‘Christ, I can’t imagine what the mother’s going through. Let’s hope my theory’s correct and he’s just bunked off somewhere and ended up round a friend’s house.’

  The rhythmic clanking of the chain slowed as the ferry neared the far side of the river and Savage indicated they should return to the car.

  Ten minutes later and they’d parked up at the top of a slipway on Marine Drive. A row of houses stood on one side of the road, while on the other lay the estuary, a vista of Plymouth over the water. The tide was out, the beach a mixture of shingle, seaweed, rock and mud. A dozen officers – a mixture of detectives and uniforms – awaited Savage’s briefing. They’d been assigned a list of roads to work along and all Savage needed to do was gee them up a little. She gave her standard talk on the importance of procedure, on how seemingly tiny details could turn into major pieces of evidence, and sent them on their way.

  After they’d gone, she decided to walk along the foreshore. The main part of the Tamar estuary turned to the east, leaving a vast area of mud to the west. The shoreline curled round to a little bay at the head of which was a boatyard. Before that, some fifty metres from the shore and half submerged in the mud, lay the hulk of an old wooden ship. The curving timbers of the frame resembled the skeleton of a whale and inside the whale stood a real life Jonah. Savage stared across. She couldn’t make out much about the figure poking in amongst the timbers except that he wore a Tilley hat.

  John Layton, their Senior CSI.

  She moved along the shoreline and then walked down to where the shingle turned to mud, watching Layton struggle across a patch of brown towards her. The CSI had an almost obsessive eye for detail and order which, when it came to crime scene management, proved invaluable. His obsession didn’t stretch to his appearance though. Sludge smeared his thigh-high waders and covered much of his clothing. There was even a splodge of sticky gloop atop his hat. Layton reached Savage and with one hand tilted the hat in greeting and then used his little finger to scratch his nose. The nose was Roman, shaped like a ski jump with the end chopped off, and the finger deposited a blob of muck right on the tip. Layton’s other hand held up a plastic evidence bag.

  ‘What the hell are you doing out there, John?’ Savage said. ‘If you’d slipped over you’d have been in a spot of bother.’

  ‘Going to do me for not running a risk assessment, are you?’ Layton said. ‘Only, if I hadn’t gone out there I might never have found this.’

  Layton passed Savage the bag.

  ‘Right.’ Savage took the bag and peered at the contents. Water and mud sloshed around inside, but there was something else in there too, something wooden and bent in a J-shape. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Dirty habit. Mind you, somewhat out of fashion these days.’

  ‘A pipe.’ Savage could see now as she moved the object around in the bag. ‘But what’s it doing out there and how did you know to look?’

  ‘The boy’s mother said Jason used to play around the wreck.’ Layton waved a hand at the expanse of mud. ‘I knew he’d been digging bait down here, but to be quite honest I didn’t know where to start searching. It’s an impossible task, so I figured I’d just take a quick look at the old ship.’

  ‘And what could the pipe have to do with Jason’s disappearance?’

  ‘Somebody was digging out there. Although there’s been a couple of tides, the water hasn’t entirely removed the evidence. You can see spade marks.’

  ‘The pipe could belong to the bait digger.’

  ‘Or the pipe could belong to somebody who was out there when Jason was digging bait.’

  ‘And how the hell do we find out who that was?’

  ‘Our best bet might be over there.’ Layton pointed along the shore to where some sort of houseboat sat on the mud, a zigzagging gangway leading from the structure to the shore. ‘Whoever lives in that old thing would have a good view, wouldn’t they?’

  Chapter Four

  I’m starting to write in my notebook again. Yes, again! The last time was way back in January and now it’s July. In June a cowboy president visited Britain and a concert for Nelson Mandela was held at Wembley Stadium. England were knocked out of the Euros after finishing bottom of their group. Still, the Seoul Olympics are just a couple of weeks away. Did I mention that I’m now thirteen years old?

  Today is Saturday and the weather was fine so we all played football in the afternoon. Jason and Liam weren’t there though. Jason was sick in bed and Liam was doing extra work in the vegetable garden. I should say that Jason and Liam are my best frie
nds. They’re both eleven and I’m thirteen. The age difference doesn’t bother me because the pair of them are bright and clever. Not like the other boys. To be honest, Father doesn’t like me to play with any of them, but given the situation there’s not much he can do about it. Mother doesn’t care one way or another. She’s usually too drunk to notice or off with one or another of the various men she likes to entertain.

  When I say they’re my best friends, I suppose I mean my only friends. Although I go to school, the kids in my class don’t like me much. I guess I got off on the wrong foot when I busted this lad’s nose on the first day I was there. Ever since then most of them have steered clear. I’m not bothered and, besides, living out here I wouldn’t get to see any of them except in school time. I tend to keep my head down and try to stay out of trouble. Break times and lunchtimes I go to the library and study. At parents’ evening my form teacher told my mother and father she was concerned I was a bit of a loner, but other than that she said there was nothing to worry about.

  Jason and Liam don’t go to school of course. They have their own private tutors who come in. There’s a psychologist too. Isobel. She’s supposedly an expert in child behaviour. She visits on a Wednesday and talks to the boys one-to-one. The older lads like her a lot. She’s very pretty and has long dark hair and a smile which makes them blush. Her breasts stick out and all the men apart from my father stare at her as if she’s Samantha Fox. I asked Jason what she does and he said she makes him look at abstract pictures and asks what he sees in the patterns. Gobbledygook, my father calls it. If he had his way he’d stop her from coming, but she’s part of some government scheme so he can’t do anything about her. Mother doesn’t like Isobel either, but that’s for different reasons. Recently Mother has been getting friendly with this man from the Home Office and I think she’s worried this man and Isobel might meet and hit it off. She needn’t fret. He comes on a Friday, usually in the evening, and I don’t think he’s interested in women like Isobel. To be honest, despite what he gets up to with Mother, I don’t think he’s much interested in women at all.

  The Shepherd isn’t at home this morning. He’s in a high-ceilinged room in a barn on the moor. He rented the barn for a song and paid a year’s money in advance. The place is isolated. Nobody comes here. No one’s going to disturb him. For the Shepherd’s purpose the barn is perfect.

  He breathes in, his nostrils assaulted by an odour of grease and oil. In front of him, on a workbench, an array of tools lie in neat rows. Pliers, hammers, wrenches, saws, screwdrivers, spanners, punches, clamps. Tools for making. Tools for breaking and holding. For cutting bits of metal, bending bits of metal, drilling bits of metal.

  He stands back from the bench and turns to the centre of the room. There. A shiny creation of gleaming metal and stainless steel and cogs and wheels and rods which turn or slide round and round or back and forth.

  God’s altar.

  The Shepherd gasps. His creation is both beautiful and terrifying, the implications profoundly disturbing. Right now the sight is too much; he must escape the confines of the room. Fresh air is what he needs.

  Outside he leans against a wall and slumps down, his shoulder snagging on the rough stone of the barn. He slips to the floor and sits there, exhausted. He lets out a long breath and the air clouds in front of him, the vapour drifting up into the brooding sky. Finally, after weeks of toil, his work is complete.

  For a moment he lets his mind wander to the man with the skull. You see, he knows all about the man who buries things in the dirty earth.

  The boy who digs in the grubby soil …

  Yes, that’s what this is all about.

  The Shepherd holds his hands out, clasping them together in prayer.

  ‘Please, God. Don’t forsake me now, give me the strength to carry out your wishes.’ As he says the words he feels a rush of adrenaline. There’s a part of him which fears what is to come, fears the eventual outcome, but he knows he has to fight against his demons in order to succeed.

  And with God’s blessing he will.

  He presses his back against the stone wall of the building and looks at the streaks of mist scudding low across the moor. Earlier, the dawn had been veined with skeins of vermilion, the undersides of the clouds patterned like the web of some giant spider.

  ‘Red sky in the morning,’ he mutters to himself, smiling. ‘Shepherd’s warning.’

  He struggles to his feet, a gust tousling his hair. He turns and looks west to where a sheet of rain marches across the landscape. The first drops reach him, spattering in the mud at his feet and then wetting his face.

  Soon the storm will sweep over the hills and the valleys and rush through the villages and the towns. The wind will scour the sinners until they are naked. Then the Shepherd will lead them to the altar and there they will prostrate themselves before God and beg for forgiveness. And at the end will come the boy who plays with the skull.

  And he will be judged too. And he will not be forgiven.

  Chapter Five

  Jennycliff, near Plymstock. Tuesday 20th October. 11.47 a.m.

  At Jennycliff, Riley turned off and drove down the access road to where the wooden cafe sat at the top of the cliffs. He spotted DC Enders standing by the path which led down to the shore. Enders wore a high-end red Berghaus, the hood raised against a light drizzle swirling in from the sea on a gusty breeze. A tangle of brown hair poked out of the hood above his boyish round face. The DC was a good few years younger than Riley and already married with three kids, but despite their differences, he felt an affinity with Enders. Perhaps it was because Enders’ Irish roots were, in a way, similar to his own distant Caribbean heritage. Perhaps it was because he just liked the lad.

  Enders stood next to a PC, the officer explaining to a dog walker with a lively border collie why she couldn’t go down to the beach.

  ‘No access until further notice, ma’am,’ the PC said. ‘In police jargon, it’s what we call an ongoing incident.’

  ‘Nicely put,’ Riley said, as the dog walker moved off.

  The PC shook his head. ‘Never seen anything like it, sir. She’s naked down there. Butchered. God knows who would do such a thing. Horrible.’

  ‘Right.’ The PC was working himself into a frenzy, Riley thought. ‘Well, you remain up here and DC Enders and I will go and take a look, OK?’

  ‘Yes, sir!’ The PC swallowed. Nodded enthusiastically.

  ‘Do you remember your first body?’ Enders asked as they negotiated the tortuous path down the cliff face to the beach. ‘Mine was a homeless guy down under the flyover at Marsh Mills one January. The poor bugger had frozen to death over Christmas, but by the time he was found the weather had turned. Terrible stink. Yours?’

  ‘A stabbing,’ Riley said. ‘Never would have believed anyone could bleed so much.’

  ‘That way.’ They reached the beach and Enders indicated off to the right. ‘She’s over in the next cove.’

  The gravel crunched under their feet as they trudged along. Little waves came up over the gravel and sucked at the stones as the water fell back. The tide, Riley thought, was on the way in. But he might have been wrong about that.

  ‘What a beauty,’ Enders said, gesturing out into the Sound. A large yacht slid by a couple of hundred metres offshore, the crew on board well wrapped up in oilies and obviously returning from some serious sailing out beyond the breakwater. ‘Beats London, doesn’t it?’

  Riley thought for a moment. ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘Only sometimes? Don’t tell me you’d honestly swap this for a crowded, polluted city?’

  Riley pondered the question. He’d been down in Devon for a couple of years now. He’d got together with Julie and recently she’d moved in with him. He knew he should feel settled and content. Yet being a black officer in a white force, a London lad in a provincial city, he did sometimes feel like a fish out of water. He missed the vibrancy of London, the diversity of people, the clubs, bars, the fact that twenty-four hours a day
something was happening.

  ‘Maybe on Saturday night, but come Sunday morning I’m quite happy here.’ Riley glanced at the yacht. ‘I’d be even happier if I could afford one of those things.’

  ‘Yeah, right. Fat chance on a police salary.’

  They rounded a rock promontory and there, halfway up the beach, was some sort of raft. The thing atop the raft was more of a box than a coffin. Rectangular. Like a crate used to ship goods. The box lay on two eight-by-four pieces of plywood, the plywood supported by a criss-cross of wooden beams. Beneath the frame, a dozen plastic barrels provided the flotation.

  ‘The question is,’ Riley said as they approached, ‘how long has it been here?’

  ‘No idea.’ Enders pointed to the yacht again. ‘We need someone who knows about tides and stuff. DI Savage or John Layton.’

  They stood next to the raft now. Riley clambered up onto the structure and Enders joined him. The raft creaked and shifted under their weight and then settled. Riley pulled out a pair of latex gloves from his pocket, took a gulp of fresh air and reached out and lifted the lid of the box.

  She was naked, just as the PC had said. The right arm had been severed above the elbow, the amputated limb lying neatly alongside the torso. The left arm was still attached, but the hand was missing three fingers. On the stomach a series of burn marks patterned the surface like zebra print, while near the breasts there was evidence a cutting device had been used. The head was the worst. Where the eyes should have been there were nothing but gaping holes where some kind of drill had twisted its way in and the mouth was nothing but a froth of bubbled plastic.

  Riley reached in with his hand and flicked the right arm with a fingertip. The limb made a hollow ringing sound.

  ‘Oh,’ Enders said, a smile spreading across his face along with a tinge of red as he stared down at the mannequin. ‘Sorry, sir. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have called you out. I took the PC at his word and I only caught a glimpse before he whipped the lid back on. That’s where the ice cream came in. There was this kid up on the raft with a ninety-nine. The whole thing was about to fall off the cone and land on the body.’