Born in a Burial Gown

by Mike Craven

  ‘Nor is Carlisle,’ Fluke said.

  ‘Agreed, but if you were planning a murder and were looking for a deposition site, what would you look for, other than the quality of the site itself?’

  Fluke thought about where she was going. He tried to think his way through the question. I’ve killed someone. The murder site’s not in the same place as the deposition site. I have less control over the murder site presumably as the victim has to be present so I’m bound by her movements to a certain extent, but I can choose where I dump the body. I need to transport the body from the murder site to the deposition site. ‘A safe route,’ he said finally.

  ‘Exactly. He needs a relatively trouble-free drive from A to B. It’s possible he knows our back roads and if he uses them, he’ll never get stopped by us. But he knows driving them in the dark isn’t easy, there’s blind corner after blind corner. They’re narrow, only wide enough for one car in places so you have to use passing spaces. You have to crawl past each other.’

  ‘And someone may remember you,’ Fluke said. He thought about it for a while. She had something. ‘He’d also want a decent escape route if it all went wrong.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that, but you’re right.’

  ‘So we rule out the back roads. Now what?’ he asked.

  ‘The next thing I considered was where point A could be. Where she lived. Matt says the bullet used would have been quiet and that he may have used her head to quieten the shot further.’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘And that you think she was hiding from someone. Only reason for the type of cosmetic surgery she had.’

  Fluke nodded.

  ‘If she were hiding in Cumbria, she has two options really: she either hides in some obscure village or hamlet and keeps her head down. We’re a rural county, it’s possible to disappear,’ she said.

  ‘Risky though with these small places. They all talk to each other. Pretty soon the whole village knows someone new has moved in.’

  ‘That’s what I think as well. I’m ruling it out for now. The other option is that she moves into one of the big towns. Tries to blend in.’

  ‘She hides in plain sight,’ Fluke said. ‘Uses people to hide in. Somewhere big enough so she doesn’t stand out. Carlisle or Barrow basically.’

  ‘Carlisle, sir. Not Barrow. The road from Barrow to the deposition site is terrible. You ever been over Corney Fell in the dark? It’s a nightmare; tiny, narrow, up and down, and because it has common grazing rights, no one can put up a fence which means there’s sheep on the roads as well. Even the locals avoid it at night. He’d have to take a massive detour to use semi-decent roads. Too much exposure.’

  Fluke knew she was right. During the day, it was a lovely drive but better suited to fell walkers than drivers. It took about half an hour, and even on a good day, it was exhausting. It wasn’t the route to take if you were transporting a body.

  ‘So I think we focus on the shops around Whitehaven and Carlisle first,’ Skelton said.

  Fluke decided it was worth a gamble. When you hear hooves, sometimes you had to ignore the horses and think zebras.

  ‘Okay, Jo, you’ve convinced me. We’ll run with it. I’ll need you to arrange it though. I’m going to be away until mid-afternoon with our witness. Can you take the morning briefing? Focus on the coffee lead. Send a photo of the vic to all area CID teams but make sure it’s an E-fit. I don’t want cops turning up at posh little bistros with a picture of a dead woman.’

  ‘Requested it last night, boss,’ she said.

  Fluke thanked her and smiled to himself. That was what Chambers would never understand about Jo Skelton. She may not look the part but she was better than any detective working the robbery. She’d had ten minutes to think about the Lucy’s theory while he’d checked his emails and she’d developed a plan to triage the coffee shops. All his team had initiative. Admittedly sometimes it backfired, Towler had used initiative once when he’d given everyone a long weekend after they’d charged the farmer who had drowned his wife in slurry. Fluke had come in to FMIT on the Monday to find the office empty. But by and large, all you had to do was point them in the general direction of a criminal and they’d do the rest.

  ‘One more thing, Jo,’ Fluke said. ‘Can you make sure we keep trying to figure out what the numbers mean. Get a hard copy for everyone and hand them out at the briefing. If it’s a code, I want people thinking about it. Let’s get some lateral thinking going.’

  ‘Clever stuff,’ Towler said, after Fluke had explained the direction Jo was taking the coffee lead. ‘May turn up fuck all, but least we’re being proactive, for a change. All we’ve done so far is chase fucking shadows.’

  Fluke nodded. He felt the same. The previous night, he’d found Lucy’s theory interesting. After speaking to Skelton, he’d upgraded the theory to promising. He lapsed into silence and reread the preliminary post-mortem report. Something had been bothering him but he’d drawn a blank. Something Skelton had said that morning had made him revisit it, and he’d been thinking about it since they’d turned onto the A66. As the main road connecting the west to the east, they’d travelled it often. The wind buffeted the car and Towler had to grasp the steering wheel with both hands. Although widely regarded as one of the most beautiful roads to drive in the UK, it held few fascinations that day. Not even the wild and empty Pennines.

  Towler was talking about something his daughter had said to his mother the previous night but he wasn’t really listening. Towler doted on his daughter and wasn’t afraid of showing it, and if anyone took the piss, they only did it once.

  ‘You remember the PM, Matt?’ Fluke interrupted. ‘There was something Sowerby said that I thought was a bit odd.’

  Towler briefly took his eyes off the road. ‘What?’

  ‘The bit about there being no fall injuries,’ he replied. ‘You’re a professional killer, right? You have a gun that will kill at… what distance?’ Fluke asked.

  Towler thought for a few seconds. ‘Like I said yesterday, ten feet to be safe. You shouldn’t miss the head from that distance. Not if you know what you’re doing.’

  ‘So why kill her with a contact shot.’

  ‘Told you, contact shot with a subsonic bullet. The skull and all the liquid in it act as a silencer. Quiet, very quiet.’

  ‘So why not just use a silencer. He has the contacts to get the gun, yes? So why not get a silencer at the same time. Do it from a distance of what, say six or seven feet? Still kills her but there’s no chance of any evidence transferring from her to him. Why stand right next to her?’

  There was only one obvious answer. ‘He had to catch her. Wherever he was, he didn’t want her falling to the floor. Why though?’

  ‘That’s been bothering me as well. Didn’t even know it had been, but Jo got me thinking about the victim differently. About how she’d hid. About the two options. Now, if she’s hiding in a remote cottage then so what? He walks up to her and shoots her. No one is going to hear that, and even if they do, guns are common in the country. More importantly, no one would hear her fall. No dramas.’

  ‘Makes sense. No point getting close to your victim unless you have to,’ Towler said.

  ‘Exactly. I think he killed her up close as he had to catch her. I think that if she’d fallen, someone might’ve heard. I think she lived in a flat.’

  They discussed the case for the rest of the journey, everything they knew and everything they didn’t. Fluke struggled to remember a case with so little to go on after forty-eight hours. Numbers in a notebook and a worthless bullet were the only bits of hard evidence he had to work with. The rest was conjecture and that was dangerous. It was worrying. An unknown victim, an unknown killer and no motive. Chambers wasn’t going to stand for that for too much longer.

  ‘Probably ex-military,’ Towler said, as they passed the army ranges at Warcop. They’d spent time there when they were serving. Fluke had burnt his nose sunbathing with mortar troop one hot summer.

  �
��It could just as easily have been a paintballer,’ he said.

  Towler snorted. ‘Bollocks.’

  Towler pulled into the Old Elvet area of Durham, and parked as near to the prison as he could.

  As they walked up the hill, past the barrister’s chambers towards the entrance gate, Fluke said, ‘And Matt, don’t wind up the prison officers this time.’

  Durham prison was deceiving. It looked old. It was old. An ancient cathedral of human misery. But until a couple of years before, it had been part of the high-security estate so it had state-of-the-art gate facilities. They had their fingerprints taken at the gate with a biometric scanner, and a photo ID was printed off for them before they moved to the search area. They sat in the metal chair that detected anything concealed inside the lower body and moved on to the queue to be physically searched.

  As they waited, Fluke glanced at the imposing Prison Service signs on the wall. White writing on a blue background, they clearly listed prohibited items, along with the penalties for smuggling them in. Mobile phones, keys, money and cigarettes. None of it could be taken in. They’d been on enough prison visits to know what they could and couldn’t bring in, and after Towler had left the car keys in a locker, they went through to security.

  Fluke made Towler go through first. The previous time, he’d gone second so Fluke hadn’t been able to stop the commotion that followed. Towler objected to the treatment of police officers by prison staff. He always had. He objected to being fingerprinted. He objected to queuing with solicitors and prisoner’s families. He objected to having a chair check his anus for drugs and mobile phones.

  But most of all, he objected to being searched.

  It was a clash of egos, and prison officers seemed to be able to sense when they had a police officer who was going to cause trouble. With the law on their side, it was entertainment in an otherwise dull task. He’d been refused entry on at least two occasions: once for refusing to hand over a mobile for safekeeping as it contained evidence he wanted to show a prisoner and another time for refusing to take off his belt. This time, he went through with no problems and Fluke breathed a sigh of relief.

  They were directed up the stairs and through a couple of security doors. If the prison had still been a Cat A, they would have been escorted everywhere but as a Cat B, they were simply given directions; up a set of stairs to the official visitors’ suite where they identified themselves and were let in. Suite was a grandiose term for what was essentially a series of dirty square boxes on each side of a wide room. Eight to a side. The rooms had clear Perspex on three sides to ensure the prison officers could see into every room. It had an entrance at either end. To Fluke it looked like a small, dirty call centre. The type of call centre that might sell pornography or erection pills instead of insurance.

  Each room was painted a drab green and had a table and four fixed chairs and nothing else. They were stark. The smell of disinfectant was invasive. It was the sort used when cleaning had to be quick but thorough. An institutional smell. More signs on the wall listed the suite rules. Fluke knew that the entrance at the far end was the prisoners’ and presumably led back into the main prison complex. There was a desk on their right, with prison staff looking busy. Fluke and Towler said who they were there to see and were allocated room six. They entered and waited. Ackley’s name was called out.

  ‘Jesus, look at the state of this,’ Towler said as Ackley exited the prisoners’ entrance.

  Chapter 16

  The sallow, skeletal figure standing in the door looked like the picture in his file, but only if he’d been dead a week. The word ‘gaunt’ popped into Fluke’s head. He clearly hadn’t showered or washed recently, and a sour stench quickly permeated the room. Neither Fluke nor Towler commented on it. Long, lank hair framed a pallid face. White gunk formed at the corners of a mouth surrounded by spots. His teeth were badly decayed. A sheen of cold sweat glistened on his forehead. So that was what a lifetime on the game looked like. Fluke wasn’t up on the rates for rent boys but guessed that Ackley was working the cheaper end of the market.

  Despite being a remand prisoner, and therefore entitled to wear his own clothes, he was in standard prison-issue clothing of tracksuit bottoms and a green sweatshirt. The prison had probably decided the clothes he’d arrived in were a health hazard and removed them. He stood at the door, looking at them, vigorously scratching his arm.

  ‘Come in, Darren,’ Towler said.

  As he sat down, he started to shake. Fluke initially thought he was scared. He was, but that wasn’t the reason for the shakes.

  He buried his head in his hands. ‘I’m clucking like a cunt, man.’

  Fluke looked at him blankly. He knew most Cumbrian phrases but that was a new one.

  Towler interpreted for him. ‘He means he’s withdrawing, boss.’

  Fluke said nothing. Towler would lead on the interview.

  ‘Bastards won’t put me in the hospital,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Darren, look at me.’

  Ackley looked up. His bloodshot eyes were vacant.

  ‘Do you know why we’re here?’

  Ackley shook his head. ‘Nah, man. Leave us alone.’

  ‘Where were you Monday night, Darren?’

  There was no surprise on his face. He’d obviously been expecting that.

  ‘Fuck off man, I’m badly.’

  Badly, Fluke thought. Of all the Cumbrian sayings, he hated that one the most. No wonder people called them Dumbrians.

  ‘I don’t give a shit,’ Towler said. He waited until it was clear Ackley wasn’t going to say anything.

  ‘Look, Darren, we know what happened. You saw a man dump a body. You left a note and now you wish you hadn’t.’

  Ackley doubled up in pain. A stomach cramp, no doubt. Fluke wasn’t sure how long they’d be able to carry on. He didn’t look well at all. If he were in police custody there’d be no way the doctor would allow them to interview him.

  Towler continued, ‘Do you know what an Osman Warning is, Darren?’

  Ackley shook his head.

  ‘It’s where the police have a duty to warn someone that they’re in danger. When you’re released, I will personally serve the Osman Warning on you. And then I’ll walk off and not give two shits about what happens to you.’

  Ackley sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve. He said nothing.

  Towler stared at him. Ackley held his gaze for as long as he could but soon put his head back in his hands and rocked back and forth.

  ‘Look, I’ll lay it out for you. We have someone who dumped a body. They seem to know what they’re doing, so we think it was someone who’s done this type of thing before. But this time, he’s seen. And he’ll know by now, there’s cops all over the building site. How long before he starts looking for the witness? How long before he finds out it was Darren Ackley who saw him?’

  It was clear that it wasn’t the first time Ackley had thought about that. He looked terrified.

  It was funny, Fluke thought, how sometimes those with so little to live for clung onto life so fiercely.

  ‘I think you got yourself remanded so you’d be safe. And I understand that. If I were in your position, I might have done the same.’

  Ackley looked at them both. His eyes screwed up and he wept.

  Towler pressed his advantage. ‘But how safe are you in here, really? We both know people can be got to in prison. There’s people in here with nothing to lose, they’re never getting out. They’ll do pretty much anything for a pack of cigarettes or some drugs. You know this, Darren.’

  Ackley sniffed up some snot that had been making an escape, and wiped his eyes with his sleeve. ‘So what do you want me to do?’

  ‘The only thing you can do, Darren,’ Towler said. ‘Help us catch this prick.’

  Towler picked up his pen and opened his notebook, a signal that he was ready to work and that he expected Ackley to do the same.

  Ackley told them everything. They prodded and poked, and were eventually
satisfied that they knew everything he did. It wasn’t much and most of it they’d already guessed. By the end, they were no closer to moving the case forward. The only thing that happened was they softened towards Ackley. He was a tragic figure.

  He told them how he’d met a man in a Whitehaven club and they’d had sex in the toilets. Afterwards, he’d offered Ackley a place to sleep. The office on the building site of the new hospital. It was warm, it was safe and no one knew about it. He’d jumped at the chance. He’d been sleeping in there for two weeks by his reckoning, but he had a casual attitude to time, so it was only a guess.

  ‘This good Samaritan, did it for free, did he?’ Towler asked.

  That got a reaction.

  ‘Did he, fuck. He was there at seven o’clock every fuckin’ morning wanting sucked off. Fuckin’ old cunt never even paid me after the first time. Just came in, got his cock out and stuck it in me mouth. Soon as he shot his load, I had to fuck off. I wasn’t allowed back till it was dark again.’

  ‘And that was every day?’ Towler asked.

  ‘Near enough. There was one day, must’ve been a Sunday ’cos he brought some food with him, that he came in the afternoon. I was supposed to be grateful.’

  ‘And you weren’t?’

  ‘Was I, fuck. The dirty bastard didn’t give a shit about me. Soon as I finished, he went and got a blow-up mattress from his car and he fucked us on it the rest of the day. He got fifty quid’s worth of sex and I got some scabby chicken and minging cabbage.’

  ‘This man, what did he look like?’ Fluke asked, the first time he’d spoken since Ackley had arrived. He thought he knew the answer but wanted to hear it first-hand.

  ‘Old bastard. Shorter than you. He was from Whitehaven, I’d seen him hanging round the club a few times. Shittin’ himself most of the time. Typical fucking breeder. Wants cock but won’t leave his wife to get it.’

  Christian Dunn. The site foreman who’d called the police. No wonder he looked shifty. Seemed he was using his office as his personal shagging nest. Nothing wrong with that, each to their own. But he’d lied to Fluke about not knowing who’d left the note and for that, he was going to be arrested. Fluke couldn’t do anything about the way Dunn had treated Ackley, but Fluke would make sure he never lied to the police again.