Beyond the Point

by Damien Boyd

  ‘Only if I ask them.’

  Jane had been fast asleep on the sofa when Dixon arrived home, not even the ping of the microwave waking her up. Monty hadn’t barked when he’d heard the diesel engine either, which was odd, but he’d jumped off the sofa quick enough when he smelled the masala sauce.

  ‘Not a chance, matey,’ Dixon had said, stirring it with a spoon. ‘Fish and veg for you, just like the vet said.’

  He sat down on the edge of the sofa just as the streetlights went off, plunging the cottage into darkness, eating his Slimming World curry by the light of his phone.

  ‘What time is it?’ asked Jane, yawning.

  ‘Half past midnight.’

  ‘Where’ve you been?’

  ‘Going through the statements again. And Crew’s photos.’

  ‘Look, unless Scanlon tells you where she is, the chances of finding her are virtually nil. We’ll probably get a call in a year or so from a dog walker who’s stumbled on her in a ditch somewhere.’

  ‘Unless they buried her,’ mumbled Dixon, through a mouthful of curry.

  ‘That’s worse, not better.’

  ‘There’s still whoever tampered with the bolts on the platform.’

  ‘After all this time? You’ve got to be kidding.’

  ‘Has Monty been out?’ asked Dixon. He got up and wandered into the kitchen, flicking the living room light on.

  ‘No.’

  He dropped his plastic curry tray into the sink, the fork clattering on the plates piled up in the washing up bowl. ‘I’m going to take him down the lane. Won’t be long.’

  Odd that Crew had been a climber, thought Dixon, following Monty along the narrow lane towards Brent Knoll, the moonlight just enough to avoid the potholes. He’d spent several hours flicking through the slides retrieved from Manor Cottage, scuba diving ones mixed in with the climbing.

  Either Crew had been using old equipment or his ice axe dated it by twenty years or so. He’d have been about thirty then. All except one of the photographs was of him too, so he and his mystery partner must have used the same system as Dixon and Jake: take photos of each other and then swap.

  It probably worked the same with scuba divers too, although Dixon hadn’t really been able to identify Crew in the photographs, let alone anyone else, behind the masks and breathing apparatus.

  There was one climbing photograph that wasn’t Crew though – that much was clear from the clothes and the build – but whoever it was had left their balaclava on for the summit pose. It couldn’t have been deliberate. Not back then, surely?

  The reality was that Jane was right. He had Stella’s body to find and no idea where to start looking. And a killer answering ‘no comment’ to every question he was asked, his accomplice dead.

  And what about Angela? She was as much a victim as Stella and Amy. Well, maybe not quite as much, perhaps. He wouldn’t make the same mistake again though. Not that anyone had known, mind you.

  ‘Have you had enough already, old son?’ asked Dixon, looking down at Monty. The dog had stopped in a field gateway and was staring up at him, panting.

  Shame, that. Dixon had been avoiding sleep whenever possible, the vision of Steiner’s head . . .

  Enough of that. Shit happens.

  Ten minutes later he crawled into bed and put his arm around Jane.

  ‘Are you awake?’ he whispered.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Let’s go back to the Lakes next week. I’ve got a tent somewhere if we can’t find a cottage.’

  ‘I’ll find a cottage, don’t worry.’ Jane yawned. ‘Now get some sleep.’

  Dixon had missed three calls from Louise by the time he parked on the top floor of the staff car park at Express Park the following morning. She must have been watching from the windows in the CID Area too, because she was holding the staff door open in one hand, her phone in the other.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  ‘Scientific have got Crew’s DNA in Scanlon’s car,’ she replied, smiling. ‘A hair on the passenger headrest.’

  ‘An accessory before or after the fact. It hardly matters now. What’s Dave come up with on the cameras?’

  ‘Nothing.’ She let the door slam behind Dixon. ‘Wherever they took her, they stayed off main roads and the motorway.’

  ‘What about Mark?’

  ‘He was waiting to hear from Vodafone but he was grinning like a Cheshire cat when I saw him in the canteen.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Twenty minutes ago.’

  They were walking along the landing when Pearce leaned over the balustrade from the floor above. ‘Up here, Sir, if you’ve got a minute.’

  He was standing back admiring a large map stuck to the whiteboard when Dixon and Louise reached the top of the stairs. Dave Harding was sitting on a swivel chair, his eyes closed.

  ‘Nothing on the cameras, Sir,’ said Dave, sitting up.

  ‘What’ve you got, Mark?’

  ‘Mobile phone masts, Sir.’ Pearce puffed out his chest. ‘Stella was last seen leaving Portishead just after 5.20 p.m. on the Friday. We’ve got nothing on the cameras and Scanlon’s mobile phone is pinging the masts in Clevedon all night, telling us he’s at home.’

  ‘Not necessarily. He may just have left his phone at home. And he had two anyway.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Pearce grinned. ‘It’s his work phone. Either he forgot it was in the car or maybe he didn’t think we’d check it. Either way, it pops up in Kilve in the early hours of Saturday.’

  ‘Kilve?’

  ‘There’s a weak signal from the EE mast at Hinkley Point. That’s what put me on to it. Weak on the Vodafone mast at Nether Stowey and then Orange on the A39 west of East Quantoxhead. That makes an almost perfect triangle.’

  Pearce was pointing at the map, but Dixon wasn’t watching.

  ‘A perfect triangle with Kilve right in the middle. And that mast is giving a strong signal.’

  ‘What about Crew’s phone?’ asked Louise.

  ‘That’s hitting the Nether Stowey and Cannington masts, so it looks like Crew’s at home in Fiddington. His phone is anyway – Scanlon left his personal mobile at home, so he probably told Crew to do the same. Or vice versa.’

  ‘Angela said he went out and left his phone on the hall table.’ Dixon walked over to the map on the wall and stood in front of it, his arms folded.

  ‘Here, Sir,’ said Pearce, marking out the triangle with the tip of his pen.

  It didn’t happen often, that feeling when it all drops into place – like a line of dominos going over, or admiring the last piece of a huge jigsaw puzzle. ‘We’ll need a full search team and Scientific Services.’ Dixon allowed himself a sly smile as he turned back towards the stairs. ‘I want the ground penetrating radar too.’

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Twenty-four acres, not including the Great Plantation. It would take the ground penetrating radar most of the day just to cover the open fields. And woods were always slower due to false readings from tree roots. Let’s hope they buried her in the open, thought Dixon, watching the operator pushing the radar along a line marked out with string, the small wheels bouncing over the clumps of grass. It looked more like he was painting the boundary on a cricket pitch.

  ‘Don’t forget under the solar panels,’ Dixon had said, leaving them to it.

  And that was always assuming they hadn’t fed Stella to the pigs.

  The piggery was on the eastern side of Kilverton House, the prevailing wind taking the smell away from the property more often than not. Dixon wiped the raindrops from the end of his nose as he watched two Scientific Services officers wearing white overalls and masks collecting samples from the feeding trough. That would be the easy bit. Collecting and testing the dung would be an entirely different matter.

  A vet had arrived to shut the pigs in. ‘Grim business,’ he muttered.

  ‘How long would it take them to . . . ?’ Dixon’s voice tailed off.

  ‘A couple of days. Lactating
sows have a big appetite and there are four of them.’

  ‘And what’s going to be left?’

  ‘Hair, teeth. Bone fragments, I expect. If they had any sense they’ll have cut her up before—’

  ‘I get it.’ Dixon rolled his eyes.

  ‘The teeth will be the best bet for DNA,’ said the vet. ‘Less chance of the stomach acid getting at the pulp.’

  The solid oak front door of Kilverton House had been opened with battering rams; it had taken two, and the door frame would be expensive to repair, the original cast iron lock buckled. The burglar alarm had gone off too, confirming that Hugh Manners and his family really were out.

  Shame.

  ‘The Great Plantation’s clear, Sir,’ said PC Cole, appearing by Dixon standing in the porch. ‘The protestors have all gone.’

  ‘Let’s get the Suffolk lot to check the camp at Sizewell. We still need Fly as a witness.’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  Then Louise appeared in the hall, holding her mobile to her shoulder. ‘They’ve picked him up at Heathrow, Sir,’ she said, smiling. ‘He was in the Plaza lounge at Terminal 4 with his wife and kids, waiting for a plane to Houston. He said he was going to visit her parents.’

  ‘I bet he did.’

  ‘They’re bringing him down now.’

  The fireplace in the living room was large enough to stand in, the mantelpiece covered in highly polished silver frames; the photographs of children, mainly.

  ‘It’s Lewis.’ Dixon was frowning at his phone. ‘Yes, Sir,’ he said, looking up at the ornate carved wooden ceiling.

  ‘I’ve had Charlesworth on the phone again.’

  ‘One day he’s going to piss off and let me get on with my job.’

  ‘I’ll ignore that.’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘You do know Hugh Manners is a baronet?’

  ‘Does that make a difference?’ Dixon sighed. ‘He’s a suspect in a murder investigation.’

  ‘You’ve arrested a peer of the realm.’

  ‘A baronet is not a peer, Sir.’

  ‘Don’t split hairs with me.’

  ‘No, Sir.’

  ‘Look, Charlesworth bends my ear and I bend yours. That’s the way it works. I just hope to God you know what you’re doing.’

  ‘She’s here, Sir.’

  ‘Well, you’d better find her then.’

  Lewis rang off, leaving Dixon admiring the oil paintings on the wall, his phone still to his right ear. Gilt frames with small brass nameplates on each identifying the subject of the portrait, all of them bearing the name ‘Manners’, the oldest – John Manners, 1st Bt. – dated 1531 to 1587.

  ‘He’s a baronet?’ asked Louise.

  ‘Apparently so,’ replied Dixon, sliding a copy of Burke’s Peerage off a bookshelf. He tipped his head. ‘Look, the twit’s marked his own entry with a yellow sticky. He’s the twelfth baronet, which makes that one his father,’ he said, pointing to a painting in between the front windows.

  ‘It’s like something out of the National Trust,’ said Louise.

  ‘It’ll probably end up in the National Trust if he goes down.’

  ‘I wonder if you can have the title withdrawn?’

  ‘No idea,’ replied Dixon, staring at the Manners family coat of arms on the wall above the door: a red shield with a crown above and a large snarling dog either side rearing up at it.

  ‘It’s another world, isn’t it?’

  ‘They’re human beings, Lou, just like you and me. I’m more interested in what he’s done than who he is.’

  ‘With Stella, you mean?’

  Four floors, twelve bedrooms, an annexe; it was going to take some searching. Then there were the outbuildings, stables and the barn. Dixon glanced out of the window just in time to see a Range Rover Evoque being loaded on to a flatbed lorry.

  ‘His Discovery was in the short stay car park at Terminal 4,’ said Louise.

  ‘Were their tickets single or return?’

  ‘I’ll find out.’

  Dave Harding poked his head around the door. ‘They think there are secret passages upstairs, Sir,’ he said, ‘but we can’t find the door.’

  ‘There may be some plans somewhere. Where’s his office?’

  ‘We haven’t found it yet, Sir.’

  ‘Let’s get a surveyor out here then,’ said Dixon. ‘Before anyone starts knocking down walls.’

  ‘Shall I ask DCI Lewis to authorise the fee?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The radar’s done the back field and they’ve found nothing,’ continued Harding. ‘They’re going to do the walled garden next.’

  ‘Tell them to do the fields at the front next, Dave. No one’s going to bury a body under their own vegetable patch unless they absolutely have to, are they?’

  ‘It’s enough to put you off your asparagus,’ muttered Pearce, his voice carrying from the corridor.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be fun if these bookshelves hid a door.’ Louise was smiling as she tugged at each in turn.

  ‘You’ve been watching too much telly,’ said Dixon, stepping back out into the hall.

  ‘The office is in the corner of the library, Sir.’ PC Cole was standing at the bottom of the stairs, gesturing to the door opposite. ‘In the far corner. The door looks like bookshelves but it isn’t.’

  ‘Any plans?’

  ‘No.’

  The books were painted on the door, so it was just for effect. Dixon puffed out his cheeks. The shelves were full height, perhaps fifteen feet from floor to ceiling, with a ladder on wheels. He ducked under it and stepped into the office.

  Another fireplace, modern shelving this time, two filing cabinets, computers, and a single photograph on the wall, blown up and mounted in a thin chrome frame. A dark picture with a burst of sunlight reflecting off rippled snowfields – a mountainside definitely, tiny figures on a ridge in the foreground, well above the photographer. The sun low in the sky. Dawn, maybe? Were the climbers going up or down?

  The photograph might have been blown up from a slide, possibly. It was tenuous at best. The real search was taking place outside. Without Stella he had nothing and he knew it.

  ‘Look for photographs,’ Dixon said, still staring at the photograph on the wall when a Scientific Services officer walked in. ‘Climbing or scuba diving. Anything with other people in.’

  Jim Crew, preferably.

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  Dixon tore off his latex gloves as he walked out through the kitchen and into the rain, heading for the outbuildings. A double garage on the right, the doors open, a climbing rope and an old style harness hanging on a hook just inside the door.

  ‘They’ve got something in the field behind the pig pen,’ said Louise, running around the corner of the house. ‘This way, Sir.’

  He followed her around the front of the house, across the gravel drive and along the track towards a group of officers staring at the ground in front of them. They were in the corner of the field, screened from the house by the piggery and a line of trees along the boundary of a tennis court.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Dixon, climbing over the fence.

  ‘Here,’ said the radar operator, rain dripping off his wide-brimmed hat. He was pointing at a black and white screen. ‘The waves penetrate the ground and bounce back. You see them as horizontal lines on the screen. Anything down there creates a wave in the returning signal. ‘See, these are pipes, a small one and a bigger one there. This wave here. It’s much bigger. That’s something else.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It could be a body. It’s consistent with what we’ve seen before, but we won’t know for sure until we dig it up.’

  ‘How deep is it?’

  ‘Three feet or so. The ground’s wet, and it’s clay soil, so the waves can’t penetrate much deeper than that anyway.’

  Dixon sat in the driver’s seat of his Land Rover and watched the Scientific Services officers setting up a large tent over the scene of the dig, the radar operator continui
ng his search of the rest of the field, the radar in one hand and an umbrella in the other.

  The search of the piggery had been abandoned in favour of the dig, the officers taking advantage of some respite from the smell. And if the signal in the ground proved to be Stella, then further examination of the piggery would be a waste of time anyway. It made sense.

  Dixon recognised the Volvo estate parking behind his Land Rover and watched in his rear view mirror as Roger Poland got out, waving at him when he spotted him watching. Dixon leaned over and opened the passenger door.

  ‘How’s it going?’ asked Poland, climbing in the passenger seat.

  ‘They’ve got a signal. They’re just starting to dig now.’

  ‘I had a call to say there might be a body.’ Poland opened his bag and took out a Thermos flask, handing Dixon a steaming cup of coffee. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘this’ll warm you up. I bet you haven’t eaten either, have you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’ll have to be chocolate. Will a Kit Kat do?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘What happens if it’s not the victim?’ asked Poland.

  ‘We keep looking. There’s still fifteen acres to search and the pig shit to—’

  ‘He’d have had to chop her up for that.’

  ‘So I’m told.’

  Poland smirked. ‘You do know he’s a baronet?’

  ‘I’m sure there’s a reason people keep mentioning that, but I can’t think what it might be.’

  ‘I’ll shut up,’ said Poland, smiling.

  Donald Watson had arrived to take control of the dig and it wasn’t long before he was poking his head around the side of the tent and waving at Dixon.

  ‘You’re not going to like it,’ he said, shaking his head.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘See for yourself.’

  Dixon looked into the bottom of the shallow grave. And it was a grave. Just not Stella’s.

  ‘Fuck it,’ he muttered. ‘Is the vet still here?’

  ‘My guess is it’s swine flu,’ said Watson, the light from the arc lamps reflecting off the pale skin of a dead pig, the earth brushed back to reveal its front legs and head. ‘Either that or foot and mouth. Months ago too.’ He pinched his nose. ‘Not weeks.’