Beyond the Point

by Damien Boyd

  ‘He also knows you’ll never prove any of it without Stella’s body.’

  ‘He was just a lad, earning a bit of cash to pay for his climbing and scuba diving.’ He dropped his insulin pen into the drawer of his bedside table. ‘And three men died because he undid the wrong bolts.’ Dixon slumped back on to his pillow. ‘Is my insulin still in the fridge at your parents’?’

  Jane sighed. ‘Forgot it, sorry.’

  ‘I’ll have to get it tomorrow. I need a new night cartridge.’

  ‘You’d better put your prescription in too.’

  ‘Yes, doctor.’

  ‘What happened after the platform collapsed then?’ asked Jane.

  ‘He gets his old diving partner to bail him out and switch the bolts on the seabed.’ He turned off the light. ‘Once they were found, the investigation focused on Liam, with Manners safely out of the way in Thailand.’

  ‘And your evidence?’

  Dixon closed his eyes. ‘I can place Scanlon’s work mobile in Kilve the night we think Stella went missing. And then there’s Scanlon looking for Steiner in the Great Plantation. How did he know he was there, I wonder? The connection with Crew—’

  ‘What connection?’

  ‘They were old climbing and scuba diving partners.’

  Jane rolled over. ‘So, basically, what you’re telling me is you haven’t got any evidence.’

  ‘I suppose I am.’

  ‘That’s never stopped you before,’ replied Jane, yawning.

  Rod answered the door in his dressing gown the following morning, watching Jane run past him and into the kitchen, her shout of ‘Nick’s insulin’ just carrying over the rumble of the diesel engine.

  Dixon was parked on the pavement. He wound down the window and shouted over to Rod. ‘We didn’t get you up, did we?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What’s all that?’ he asked, gesturing to a large pile of mud in the front garden.

  ‘Water leak.’ Rod shrugged his shoulders. ‘And because it’s on our property the bloody water board won’t pay.’

  ‘Have you found it?’

  ‘Not yet. I’ve got a horrible feeling it’s under the path.’

  ‘Thanks, Dad,’ said Jane, kissing Rod on the cheek as she ran past clutching a box of insulin cartridges in her hand. ‘See you tomorrow.’

  ‘What’s tomorrow?’ Dixon was watching her climb in the passenger seat.

  ‘Mum’s doing a Sunday roast, pork, if you can . . .’ Her voice tailed off. ‘Your phone’s buzzing.’

  Dixon frowned at the screen. ‘It’s Louise.’

  ‘You’d better answer it.’

  ‘What is it, Lou?’ He switched the engine off.

  ‘It’s not good, Sir,’ she replied. ‘The DNA results are negative. Potter’s here and she’s going to release Manners. Guttridge is here too. Stayed in a hotel last night, apparently.’

  Dixon closed his eyes.

  ‘She was asking me what time you’re due in. Charlesworth’s on his way down too.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said I didn’t know.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Dixon rang off and slid his phone back into his pocket.

  ‘The DNA results?’ asked Jane.

  ‘Negative.’

  ‘What happens now?’

  Dixon glanced back down at the pile of mud in the front garden. He took a deep breath through his nose. ‘What are you doing today?’

  ‘It’s Saturday, so Tesco’s, probably,’ replied Jane.

  ‘Want to help me find Stella instead?’

  Dixon spotted Charlesworth and Potter watching from the huge floor to ceiling windows on the first floor of the Police Centre at Express Park when Jane turned into the visitors’ car park. Roger Poland was already there, leaning on the bonnet of his Volvo estate. He was talking to Dave and Mark. Louise was sitting in the driver’s seat of her car talking on her mobile phone. Parked behind her was a patrol car with PC Cole, Sharon Cox and another PCSO Dixon didn’t recognise.

  ‘Who are we waiting for?’ he asked, sliding out of the passenger seat of his Land Rover. He resisted the temptation to wave at Charlesworth and Potter.

  ‘Donald Watson’s on his way,’ replied Louise. ‘Said he’d be here in ten minutes.’

  ‘Tell him to meet us there.’

  He glanced back up at the windows above, where Lewis had now joined Charlesworth and Potter. Charlesworth was waving his arms, Lewis shaking his head; Potter’s arms were folded. He could imagine the discussion taking place: Charlesworth wanting whatever it was he was up to stopped; Lewis telling him to let Dixon play it out; Potter sitting on the fence.

  Then Charlesworth pointed at Jane sitting in the Land Rover. ‘And what the hell’s she doing here?’ Dixon sighed. You didn’t need to be a lip reader to understand that one.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to speak to him?’ asked Poland, looking up.

  ‘If I’m right, I won’t need it, Roger. If I’m wrong, it won’t help.’

  Dixon slid Stella’s card out of his coat pocket; her message smudged, but every bit as powerful as the day she had fixed the flowers to the railings under the Second Severn Crossing.

  Still fighting . . .

  ‘Let’s go before Charlesworth comes down,’ he said.

  Donald Watson was waiting for them in a lay-by on the A39 and pulled out behind the line of vehicles, two other Scientific Services officers sitting with him in the front of the van. Three should be enough, thought Dixon, as they turned into Kilve.

  ‘This is nice,’ said Jane, as they drove down through the village.

  No smoke coming from the Great Plantation this time, but then the protestors had moved on.

  ‘The entrance is on the left,’ said Dixon when he noticed the brick wall on the nearside. The lane opened out on a bend beyond the field, the wall on the left curving away to ornate steel gates that were standing open, the pillars of red brick each with a stone orb on top.

  ‘Bit posh, isn’t it,’ muttered Jane.

  ‘Must’ve got a taxi home,’ said Dixon, when Jane parked outside Kilverton House, the front door of the house swinging open before she had switched the engine off.

  Manners was pacing up and down in the porch with his solicitor, Guttridge, who was dialling a number on his mobile phone.

  Dixon waited until the line of police vehicles had parked behind his Land Rover and then climbed out of the passenger seat.

  ‘What the bloody hell is going on, Inspector?’ shouted Guttridge, sliding his phone back into his pocket as he strode across the gravel turning area in front of Kilverton House.

  ‘Where are your wife and children?’ asked Dixon, turning to Manners.

  ‘Staying with friends.’ Manners stepped back behind Guttridge. ‘They’ll be back later today. We’ve got no cars, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

  ‘My client has been released. So, unless you have another search warrant—?’

  Dixon looked at Louise and raised his eyebrows. She stepped forward.

  ‘Sir Hugh Manners, I am arresting you on suspicion of assisting an offender.’ Her voice was loud and slow, but Dixon wasn’t listening, instead watching Manners. And the blood drain from his face.

  Manners turned to stare at Dixon when Louise’s lips stopped moving.

  ‘You still have not got a single piece of evidence. Your search found nothing,’ said Guttridge, breaking the silence Dixon had left hanging.

  ‘Wait here,’ he said, striding off in the direction of the barn, painfully aware of the umpteen pairs of eyes watching him, the only sound the crunching of the gravel beneath his feet. Looking like an idiot he could live with; Manners getting away with it would be tough; not finding Stella? That was the stuff of sleepless nights.

  Dixon stood in the doorway of the barn, looking up at the climbing harness hanging on a nail. An old chest harness, simple faded red and yellow nylon webbing, with no padding on the belt. It was the type climbers used forty or
fifty years ago, maybe, and the type companies still gave out as safety equipment to staff. Uncomfortable, but cheap.

  He unhooked it and looked at the label. Nothing.

  Then the webbing belt. A single word written on the inside in black marker pen; faded, but still visible. Just.

  CENTRIX

  Manners was whispering in Guttridge’s ear, his back to Dixon as he walked over from the barn.

  ‘Bag it up,’ he said, handing the harness to Louise in front of Kilverton House.

  ‘My client believes he may have done some work for Centrix in the past,’ said Guttridge. ‘That still doesn’t prove anything.’

  Dixon took a deep breath, then turned to the Scientific Services officers waiting by their van. ‘Dig up the pig. Then keep digging.’

  Manners spun round, his eyes wide.

  ‘She’s buried under Esmeralda. Isn’t she, Sir Hugh?’

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The hole was deep. Deeper than Dixon had expected. Moving Esmeralda had not been easy either, the job finally done by his Land Rover, two planks and a rope tied to his tow bar.

  Now he was standing in the wet grass with Jane, his feet soaked through, watching Donald Watson kneeling in Esmeralda’s grave, scraping the foul smelling earth away with a hand trowel.

  Was it Stella’s grave too?

  They’d find out soon enough.

  ‘My feet are soaking wet,’ whispered Jane.

  ‘Mine too.’

  Manners was standing by the pig pen, flanked by PC Cole and PCSO Sharon Cox, his hands cuffed behind him. Guttridge was pacing up and down, talking into his mobile phone.

  ‘Charlesworth’s here,’ said Poland, glancing over Dixon’s shoulder at the sound of wheels crunching the gravel in front of Kilverton House. ‘The harness should be enough to keep him happy, surely?’

  ‘She’s here, Roger,’ replied Dixon.

  ‘We’ve got something,’ said Watson, his arm outstretched. ‘It’s a rug. Let me have a brush, someone.’

  ‘Is it her?’ asked Charlesworth, looking down into the hole with his hands on his hips.

  ‘There’s a body,’ continued Watson. ‘We’d better have the tent and lamps.’

  ‘You were right.’ Manners sighed. ‘They wanted me to feed her to the pigs, but I—’

  ‘I’ll call you back.’ Guttridge spun round, hastily disconnecting his call. ‘You don’t have to say anything, Hugh.’

  ‘Yes, I do. I should’ve said something long before now.’

  Dixon glanced at Louise, but she already had her notebook out, ready to go.

  ‘I couldn’t do it,’ continued Manners, his head bowed, the long hair almost hiding his face. ‘So, I buried her under Esmeralda.’ He took a deep breath through his nose. ‘You were right about the Severn Crossing too.’ Looking at Dixon now. ‘I was working at Centrix at the time and Ray Harper told me to get a job on the bridge with Crook Engineering. He told me which bolts to undo. I was in Thailand when I found out men had been killed. That I’d—’ He slumped back against the wall of the pig pen.

  ‘Just to be clear, it was an accident,’ said Guttridge. ‘My client did not intend—’

  ‘I put Harper in touch with Jim and he got me off the hook,’ continued Manners, stepping forward and looking down into the grave. ‘I never saw either of them again after that. I tried to forget about it and move on but she made that impossible.’

  Guttridge cleared his throat. ‘You’ve said enough, Hugh.’

  ‘She got hold of a photo album.’

  ‘What—?’

  Dixon raised his hand, silencing Charlesworth.

  ‘Jim found it in the daughter’s room at Hinkley and burned it. They were pictures of the search for the bolts under the viaduct. He’d taken them and they had his name on the label.’ Manners shook his head. ‘It meant Stella made the connection between Jim and Philip Scanlon; they were both involved in the Severn Crossing thing and now here they were, together again at Hinkley Point. Scanlon had no choice, he said. He had to kill her.’

  ‘My client was not involved in the murder of Stella Hayward. I just want to make that absolutely—’

  Manners dropped to his knees in the wet grass. ‘They just turned up with the body and wanted me to . . .’ His voice tailed off.

  Dixon waited.

  ‘I’d never even met Scanlon before,’ continued Manners, tears trickling down his cheeks just visible through the straggly hair. ‘The next thing I know, they’ve found Stella’s daughter working in Hinkley and they needed to get rid of her too. So, I told them about Steiner in the Great Plantation.’

  ‘Right, that’s enough,’ said Guttridge.

  Dixon stood over Manners, the significance of what he had just said not lost on him either. ‘Hugh Manners, I am arresting you on suspicion of conspiracy to murder Amy Crook. You do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in court.’

  Cole and Sharon Cox dragged Manners to his feet.

  ‘Anything you do say may be given in evidence,’ continued Dixon. ‘Did you get all of that?’ he asked, turning to Louise.

  She grinned, snapping her notebook shut.

  ‘Get him out of here then, before his family turns up.’

  ‘It seems you were right all along, Dixon,’ muttered Charlesworth.

  ‘Yes, Sir.’ He was watching Manners being led through the long, wet grass towards the patrol car.

  ‘Well done.’

  ‘Thank you, Sir.’

  ‘The CPS may want to charge him with murder.’ Charlesworth turned back to his car. ‘But we’ll see what it looks like after you’ve interviewed him.’

  Jane took Dixon’s hand and squeezed it. ‘It’s over.’

  ‘I’d like to have met her,’ he said, staring down into the grave. ‘She was a fighter and she never gave up.’

  ‘A bit like someone else I know.’

  Stella’s face had been revealed now that Watson had pulled back the rug and scraped away the mud. Her eyes were open, rolled back into their sockets; her hair thick with mud and congealed blood; her right hand visible, the skin yellow and black, the fist clenched.

  Defiant to the last.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  It had been Jane’s idea to park on the beach. Another few weeks and the council would be closing the gate and charging six quid for the privilege, so why not make the most of it while we can, she had said.

  It was a special moment too, thought Dixon, opening the back of the Land Rover and watching Monty tear off after his tennis ball, kicking up the wet sand behind him. A few short days ago his dog had been at death’s door and now here he was, running along the beach. Thanks to Jane.

  ‘Tabi said no tennis ball.’ She scowled.

  ‘Just a couple of goes.’

  The tide was going out, leaving behind it lines of seaweed and foam. Above that, dry sand was being whipped along at ankle height by the wind.

  ‘Which way?’ asked Jane, watching the sandstorm at her feet.

  Dixon slid his hand into his coat pocket. It was still there, the small black velvet jewellery box. And now was as good a time as any, surely? Before he found himself going blind.

  Yes, he would tell her. And give her the chance to walk away.

  ‘Let’s go that way,’ he said, nodding towards Burnham and a huge tree stump that had been washed up on the tide months before. They would sit on that for a few minutes – they always did – and that would be his chance.

  ‘Your folks didn’t mind me skipping lunch, did they?’ Dixon kicked Monty’s ball along the beach. ‘I just didn’t fancy roast pork, somehow.’

  ‘They were fine,’ replied Jane. She sat down on the tree stump, right on cue. Not that she was a creature of habit, or anything. Apart from the mild obsessive compulsive disorder, of course, but Dixon had learned to live with that.

  ‘Have you dropped something?’ she asked, frowning at him.

  He smi
led. ‘Try to think of another reason why I might be down on one knee.’

  ‘Oh, shit!’

  ‘Not quite the reaction I was hoping for.’

  Jane tipped her head. ‘Did you have something you wanted to ask me?’

  ‘I’ve been carrying this around for weeks,’ he said, taking the jewellery box out of his pocket.

  ‘Weeks?’

  ‘Just waiting for the right moment.’

  ‘And this is the right moment?’

  ‘On a deserted beach, with our dog.’ Dixon opened the box. ‘It’s perfect.’ He took her hand and looked into her eyes – just a moment’s hesitation: ‘Jane, will you marry me?’

  She leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Of course I’ll marry you.’

  They kissed, ignoring the raindrops that were running down their noses.

  ‘Now what’s he doing?’ Jane looked down at Monty digging right next to her, slowly covering her shoes with clumps of sand. ‘Why doesn’t he just pick the ball out of the hole?’ She laughed. ‘Stupid dog.’

  Both front paws scrabbling for all they were worth, sand spraying out behind him; it was usually his ball, sometimes a stick. Sometimes nothing at all. Dixon smiled to himself as he watched Jane laughing at Monty.

  All was well with the world.

  Almost.

  Then he slid the ring on to her finger.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ she mumbled, waggling the fingers on her left hand, watching the diamond glinting through the raindrops.

  Dixon reached behind her head, pulled up the hood on her coat and kissed her again, the rain heavier now, if anything.

  ‘Your phone’s buzzing.’ Jane sighed. ‘I can feel it in your coat pocket.’

  ‘That’s my heart fluttering.’

  ‘You’re taking the piss now, aren’t you?’

  Author’s Note

  A great many people have offered their assistance with Beyond the Point and it would be wrong not to acknowledge that while I have the chance, particularly when I have been almost entirely dependent on others for much of my research.