by Celina Grace
Theo called up their location on Google Maps. “This joins up to the road that leads back to—wait… It goes back to Cudston Magna and then…” He squinted at his phone. “I think it joins up to the A road that leads back to Abbeyford. I think.” He looked again and shook his phone, cursing. “It’s frozen up. The signal here is shit.”
Kate sighed. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. All it means is the killer could have come from this way as well as from the front of the House.”
Theo tucked his phone back into the back pocket of his trousers. “Yeah. And if Ivor tells us he was killed somewhere else and just dumped here, where will that get us?”
“I know.” Kate inclined her head back to the woodland path. “Come on, let’s get back. Ivor might have something for us by now.”
They walked back. Kate, looking around her at the beauty of the wilderness surrounding her, found herself unaccountably uneasy.
“Do you think that English forests are—are kind of…intrinsically threatening?” she asked Theo.
He looked at her as if she’d grown another head. “What?”
Kate was musing, oblivious to his tone. “I mean, do you remember that film Shallow Grave? That tracking shot at the start, all the way through the woods. So creepy…”
“Mate—”
“What?” Kate looked over to see Theo regarding her with the kind of exasperated patience she normally directed towards him. He raised a dark eyebrow.
“Okay, sorry. Forget I said anything.”
By now, they were back at the scene. White-coated SOCOs were everywhere, some on their knees clawing through the undergrowth.
Kate and Theo walked back to the tent and ducked under the entrance flap. The body bag was already waiting next to the corpse, cover peeled back like the wings of a giant black butterfly. Ivor Gatkiss was packing the tools of his trade away.
“So, Ivor, anything you can give us?” Kate asked.
His glasses twinkled in the floodlights that had been set up. “Well, Kate, Theo, I’m sure you can appreciate that cause of death is pretty unmistakable.”
“Stab wounds,” said Theo.
“Blood loss from stab wounds, yes,” agreed Ivor.
“Anything else?” Kate asked, bending down. Several of the uniformed officers were manoeuvring the body into the bag. One muscular arm fell sideways, hitting the turf. Kate looked at the long, paler fingers. No wedding ring. Not that she would have expected one, given how young he looked.
“What else have you got, Ivor?”
Ivor pushed his glasses up his nose. “All fairly obvious, Kate. He’s a young male, ethnically probably from India or Pakistan, possibly the Middle East. There’s no ID in his pockets, there’s nothing surrounding the body that can help us ascertain anything else.”
“Any defence wounds on the palms?” asked Theo.
“Not that I can see, but I’ll obviously have a much closer look at the PM.”
Kate glanced around at the arboreal surroundings. “Why here?” A quick glance from Theo showed her the foolishness of asking those questions of a pathologist. “Okay, sorry. We’ll await your report.”
The Abbeyford officers stood back as the pathologist supervised the handling of the body. Kate looked at the ground on which the man had been lying. “Is there much blood around him, Ivor?”
“It’s difficult to say. The ground’s so dry…” Ivor indicated to the team handling the body bag that they should carry it to the waiting trolley. Kate blinked. There was something so surreal about a body bag being transported through the tea and crumpets atmosphere of a National Trust property. “We’ll need to get soil samples before I can give you a definitive answer.”
“Okay, well, we’ll leave you and SOCO to it.” Theo jerked his head towards the stately home, catching Kate’s glance. She nodded, understanding his unspoken thought.
The unfortunate person who had found the body was an elderly man, Brian Goodsworth as he introduced himself. He looked upset, but not unduly.
“So, what happened, Mr Goodsworth?” asked Kate after she’d completed the formalities and shaken his hand.
“Oh, it was terrible, terrible.” Brian Goodsworth raised one tremulous hand to push his glasses up on his nose. “I was walking the dog through the woods, we often come here, although not always so early. Anyway, he suddenly went haring off and he wouldn’t come back when I called him, most unusual.” The dog in question, a large black Labrador, was curled around his owner’s feet, eyelids fluttering in sleep. “Anyway, I went off to find him and then I saw the—the poor young lad, just lying there in the bracken.”
Kate nodded, taking notes. She let Mr Goodsworth talk, eyeing him thoughtfully. Although it was extremely unusual for a murderer to claim innocence as the discoverer of the corpse left behind, it wasn’t unheard of. She made a mental note that someone would have to look into Brian Goodsworth’s background and antecedents.
Once they’d taken his statement and let him go, Kate and Theo conferred.
“What do you think?”
Theo stretched and yawned. “He’s probably legit. Elderly gents don’t normally go in for stabbing young men, do they?”
Kate was silent. Inevitably, her thoughts were thrown back to Roman and the people in London who had been killed yesterday. She also thought about a case they’d solved a few years ago, where the bodies of several young men had been found in graveyards, bloodless and pale. That had been the case that had shattered Anderton’s career.
Shaking off the melancholy thoughts, she turned to Theo. “Stab wounds. That might be relevant, don’t you think?”
Theo raised his eyebrows. “In what way?”
“Well, if we were in London, it might be more commonplace, particularly with a young male victim. But around here…” Kate took another disbelieving glance at the arboreal setting, the stately home glowing golden in the autumnal sunlight. “Here? Nothing makes sense. That kind of violence? That’s probably, what, a crime of passion, right?” She looked up at the cloudless blue sky though the branches of the trees. “I know, we’re not supposed to use that term anymore…”
Theo rubbed his jaw, yawning- “Oh, mate, I don’t know.”
“Yes, I know.” All of a sudden, Kate felt totally exhausted, catching Theo’s yawn. She attempted to rally her thoughts. “So, I’m guessing there’s not much chance of CCTV around here? Maybe around the main building?”
“We can check.” Theo yawned again.
Kate clucked with annoyance. “Keeping you up, am I?”
“Sorry.” Theo looked smug. “Nicola and I had a bit of a late one last night.”
“Oh. Right.” Kate felt she should ask something else at this point, but she’d had a fairly complicated relationship with her former DCI and didn’t feel up to it making it worse by saying the wrong thing. “Anyway, let’s leave the docs to it and head back to the office to see what our next steps are.”
***
It was nine o’clock that night by the time Kate reached home and pushed open the door to a dark house. Anderton was out with some of his golfing chums. Kate dumped her handbag in the hallway and kicked off her shoes. Flicking on the lights, she followed Merlin into the kitchen. She took a ready meal from the fridge and punctured the film in preparation for the microwave, but before she set the timer, she fed Merlin, who was yowling as if Anderton hadn’t fed him breakfast at all. Running her hand down his silky back, she brought up Chloe’s number on her phone, her stomach knotting. Kate took a deep, steadying breath and pressed the call icon.
Chapter Five
Kate, Theo, Martin and Rav were in the office early next morning. Olbeck scribbled on the whiteboards next to taped-up pictures of the dead man. Try as she might, she couldn’t help but keep glancing over at Chloe’s empty desk. Their conversation last night had been—well, surreal was the only way that Kate could have described
it. Chloe’s voice had been flat, and she hadn’t cried, although at points, her voice had thickened, and Kate had had to swallow down hard on the lump that she felt in her own throat. She knew herself how grief could take you. Sometimes with numbness, sometimes with anger, sometimes with the idea that you couldn’t go on, you couldn’t… You couldn’t live with that much emotional pain. Kate suspected that Chloe had either been drunk or on some sort of tranquiliser, but in her years as an officer, Kate bloody well knew that doing all that sort of stuff was pointless in the end. All that mattered in that situation was surviving. Because, that was the choice, wasn’t it? You survived or you died.
But now, if Chloe wanted to drown her sorrows, spend all day with her face to a pillow on the sofa or in bed, then Kate was happy—well, happy was the wrong word—okay with that. All Kate could do was reiterate her sorrow, offer her love and tell her that she would be thinking about her. She made a concentrated effort to wrench her thoughts back to work and the case at hand. Olbeck stepped back from the whiteboards.
“Right,” he said. “We’re up to speed but I’ll repeat the facts. Young male, probably of Indian heritage, found dead yesterday morning. Violently stabbed to death. We still don’t know who he is.” He glanced at Theo. “Theo, I want you on that; you’re good at tracking people down.”
“Fine.” Theo looked more awake this morning than he had been yesterday. Kate rubbed her eyes. She’d not slept well after speaking with Chloe. “I’ll check MISPER and I’ll bike over the DNA swabs on the fast turnaround. Hopefully, he’ll be on the system.” He paused for thought and added, “Do you think I should do dental records as well?”
Olbeck shook his head. “We might get lucky on the DNA and we’ll know tomorrow if so.” He looked at Chloe’s empty desk just as Kate had done. “Unfortunately, we’re a bit short-staffed with poor Chloe being off. I’ll see if I can get a transfer. We can use uniforms for the house to house.”
“House to stately home,” said Rav, grinning.
“Well, quite. Now, as a National Trust property, there’s going to be a whole heap of volunteers who will need to be interviewed. Kate, could you head that up? See if we can grab an incident room at Bucklesbury House and process them all as quickly as possible.” He pushed his hands through his hair in a way reminiscent of Anderton, and Kate was struck with a longing to see her partner. I’ll text him, she promised herself, once we finish here.
Olbeck continued. “Okay, the post-mortem is booked for tomorrow, so someone will have to attend that; I’ll leave it up to you lot to decide who.” He checked his watch and exclaimed in horror. “Oh, God, I’m so late. Right, carry on. I’ll catch you guys later.” They all said goodbye as he hurried out of the office.
Even though it was probably on Kate’s least favourite task of her job, she felt she should offer. “I’ll do the PM, if you like.”
Rav shook his head. “No, it’s okay. I’ll go. You need to start on the interviews.”
“Okay. Thanks.” Kate fought back a yawn. “I’ll drive over there now.”
The golden weather had departed. Kate negotiated the country roads under a blank, grey sky. She had the radio on, until the relentless coverage of the terrorist attack drove her to hurriedly shove in a CD. Her thoughts flitted from Chloe, to Roman, to Anderton, to the dead man. Why had he been at Bucklesbury House? Young men of Asian heritage, in Kate’s experience, were not the target demographic of the National Trust. We’ll know more once we have an ID, she told herself.
She’d called ahead to arrange a meeting with the manager of the site, and he was waiting for her in the visitors’ carpark, a Mr Bernard Roland. Kate shook hands, showing him her warrant card.
“Pleased to meet you,” said Mr Roland, looking anything but. He looked bludgeoned by shock. “I don’t know—I mean, I don’t know how I can help you.”
“I understand.” Kate switched into reassuring mode, long perfected through years of experience. “It’s a difficult time, I know, Mr Roland, and I’ll try and make it as simple and as easy as I can.” She explained the need for an interview room, and he nodded.
“Of course, you can use one of the rooms in the house. Not the public ones,” he added hastily. “But we have various private ones that might be suitable.”
“Thank you.” As they walked towards the main entrance to the house, Kate was struck once more by the incongruity of the crime with regards to the surroundings. “As I said, I’ll need a full list of everyone who works and volunteers here.”
“I have that here.” Mr Roland handed over a sheaf of papers, stapled at one corner. Kate repressed a sigh at the length of the list.
She was directed to a small office at the back of Bucklesbury House and settled herself in, commandeering one of the desks. Sitting down, she flipped open the list of employees and volunteers and picked up a pen. May as well make a start.
Judging by the photo on the website, Rosamund Kite, the deputy manager of Bucklesbury House was a slightly plump, rather mumsy fifty-something with a penchant for scarves and drapey woollens. She looked very nervous as Kate ushered her into the interview room, sitting down abruptly on the seat opposite Kate’s and plaiting her fingers together.
“Please don’t be alarmed, Mrs Kite. This is just standard procedure.” Kate clicked her pen and brought her notebook closer to her. “We have to interview everyone that works here, I’m afraid.”
“Yes—yes, I understand.” Rosamund sat up a little straighter. “What is it that you want to know?”
Kate pushed a photograph of the dead man’s face across the table. “Do you recognise this man?”
Rosamund blanched and recoiled. “Oh—oh, my—no. No, I didn’t, I’m sorry. I mean, I don’t know him.” She appeared to collect herself. “He’s terribly young, isn’t he? How awful.”
“Yes. Yes, it’s very sad.” Kate, observing her, took in the wedding ring, worn at the edges. The sensible shoes, the green padded gilet. “I was wondering if he was a volunteer or a worker here, but it seems as though he wasn’t.”
Timidly, Rosamund took another look at the photograph. “We don’t have any, um, ethnic—um—Indian volunteers the moment.”
Kate nodded. At that moment, there was a knock on the door, causing Rosamund to jump. She immediately apologised. “I’m sorry, I’m just very nervous. I’ve never been interviewed by the police before.”
“Don’t worry,” said Kate. She was used to this kind of reaction. “Come in,” she called out to the person knocking and was pleased to see, when they came into the room, that it was her team of uniformed officers, there to help her conduct the interviews.
It was a long and tiring day. Even with four officers conducting the interviews, the team didn’t manage to get through more than half the list of staff and volunteers. Nobody admitted to recognising the body, bar one of the gardeners, Nick Riley, who had hesitantly put a finger on the photograph, frowning. He’d said “I did see someone in the lane about a month ago who looked like this. But it was from a distance and—I don’t know—all I could see was he was young and—and dark.” Nick had looked at Kate, dubiously. “That’s literally all I can tell you.”
Kate regarded those meagre notes now. Sighing, she made a list of everything to be done tomorrow. Crime scene information boards at each entrance and exit to the park, asking if anyone had seen anything. More interviews with staff and volunteers. Catch up with Rav, once he’d attended the post-mortem, to see if anything relevant had come to light. Martin —what was Martin supposed to be doing? She wracked her brain, trying to remember if she should be chasing him up on it. She needed to see if Theo’s quick-turnaround DNA sample had yielded any leads. She remembered looking at the body with Theo, who’d said something pertinent. Trouble is, for the life of her, Kate couldn’t recall what it was. Never mind, no doubt it would come back; she could check with him later.
Kate sighed again. She stretched, reached f
or her coat and bag, and went to find Bernard Roland, to thank him and say farewell until the following day.
Chapter Six
“I thought I’d cook tonight,” were the pleasing words Anderton greeted Kate with that night when she got home.
“Thank God. I’m ready to drop as it is.” Kate unbuckled her boots and slung them into a corner of the hallway. She scooped up Merlin and made for the living room.
“Bad day?”
“Not bad. Just…frustrating.” Kate flopped onto the sofa carefully, so as not to dislodge her cat. “We’ve still got zero idea who the victim even is.”
“You’ll get there,” Anderton soothed. “Remember those drug overdoses? We thought we’d never find out the identity of that first one, did we? But we did.”
“I remember.” Kate recalled, with an inner shiver, finding that first, long-dead body. She accepted the glass of red wine that Anderton held out to her with grateful thanks. “Did we use dental records on that one? I can’t remember.”
“Nor can I, to be honest.” The beeping of the kitchen timer sounded from the next room. “Right, wait here, I’ve got stuff to do.”
Kate lay back and sipped her wine, absently stroking the cat’s silky fur. His purr vibrated comfortingly against her stomach. How are we going to ID the victim? Kate prayed that the DNA swab had come up trumps. Perhaps the house to house had yielded something? Although, probably not, since the only residential houses near Bucklesbury House were situated a good mile and half from the estate. But you never knew…
The doorbell rang, startling her. Kate looked at the clock on the mantelpiece: almost nine o’clock. Groaning, and hoping it wasn’t Jehovah’s Witnesses or charity collectors, she heaved herself off the sofa, Merlin jumping down in a lithe move to follow her to the door. Who the bloody hell came calling at this hour, especially uninvited? Bad form. Kate slipped the chain onto the door as an elementary safety precaution and pulled it open to the full extent of the chain.
