Payback

by Charlotte Mills

  “Well, they’ve got to keep their profits up somehow, I guess.” She tried to be congenial considering he’d gone to the effort to bring her candles to chase away the darkness.

  He suddenly backed away from the door and said, “Well, I’ll let you get on.”

  She was left wondering what she’d said, considering she had been doing her best to be affable.

  “Thanks for the candles,” she said to the retreating figure.

  “No problem.”

  She watched him disappear into the darkness before closing the door. Maybe being agreeable to the general public was going to prove more difficult after all.

  Chapter 5

  Three emails sat in her inbox. Not one. Not two. Three, all of them asking Kate to call home. To call her mother. She knew she needed to reply, if only to stop the constant bombardment. Grateful she wasn’t texting and calling too, she quickly drafted a reply, saying that she’d been put straight onto a murder case and was working a lot of overtime. Then ended it with a promise to call when she could. Then she quickly closed the application, hoping no one in the office had seen her conducting personal work.

  For the second morning in a row, her new boss had already been in the office when she arrived. She wondered what kind of life she must have, to be work before 7 a.m.

  Quickly opening her final draft of yesterday’s interview report—she wasn’t sure what else to do—she read through the notes. After asking PC Davies for Slim Jim’s real name, she had conducted an internet search for him, as well as for the previous residents of the burned-out house—nothing. Without Sandy’s full ID, they were stumped.

  However, this morning’s visit to see potential witness, Doreen Platt, had provided a slight glimmer of hope. A slight woman, probably in her fifties, Mrs Platt had been shocked at the events happening on her street and seemed a little uncomfortable in her own skin. It was easy to see why her daughter had insisted on installing a security camera system. One camera pointed down the garden, while the other covered the front of the house. From the brief look she’d had at the Platt house, it had a partial view of the path and road. The system had been installed by her electrician son-in-law, who, after a short conversation, had offered to send in all the footage that had been recorded since the last system purge.

  She clicked on her official email for a quick check, just in case the footage was something he could email. Deep down, though, she knew it would be too big and he’d have to post it or drop it off at the station.

  “Virginia.”

  Helen’s words pulled her from her contemplation, and she smiled to herself. Was she actually getting used to her new nickname?

  “The pathologist is ready for us. Get your coat.” Her thick overcoat was already in her hands as she made her way out of the main office.

  Flustered, she made a grab for her belongings and tried to catch up. The fact that she would be face to face with Sandy’s body once again had somehow slipped her mind. Now there was no escaping it.

  “We might have some CCTV after all, Guv,” she said as they both trotted down the steps to the ground floor of the station. She took a sideways look at her boss. She was dressed in a black shirt with matching suit trousers, and it was just possible to make out a small patch of exposed skin near Helen’s hip that became uncovered as she walked, separating the waistline of her trousers from the curved cut of her shirt. She couldn’t take her eyes off the patch of creamy skin. The desire to trace its outline with her fingertips made her hands twitch. It was only the addition of Helen’s heavy coat as they got outside that allowed her to drag her eyes away.

  Helen looked across the top of her car, clearly expecting more, and lifted an eyebrow to prompt it from her.

  Realising she’d been staring, and all too aware that she’d only given Helen half the story, she said, “Uh, Doreen Platt’s son-in-law set up security cameras at the back and front of the house. He’s sending us the footage.”

  “Good. When it arrives, send me a copy and get Davies on it. Oh, and make sure you get the stuff from the back of the house too. The open fields at the back could provide a suitable access without being seen.”

  “Yes, Guv,” she said, remembering their relationship dynamic. Subordinate. Not an equal. She wanted to know more about this woman, but she’d yet to figure out quite how she was going to make that happen.

  Don’t look at it. Don’t look on the table. Don’t do it. Just don’t.

  She would not look directly at the figure on the cold metal table. She didn’t want to. Who would? Instead, she glanced near the body. Near, but not too near. Just close enough that she could vaguely make out the extent of his injuries.

  The bright light of the room exposed the hideous discolouration of skin and limbs. They had been hidden by his heavy, blackened clothing when she had last been this close to him. She looked around the room for something else—anything else—to focus on. Across the room, Helen seemed almost distracted as she looked at the figure. Everyone had their own method of dealing with it. Their own unique way of coping, keeping their distance to do their job effectively. Especially when they knew this particular individual. Like Helen did.

  The pathologist, Dr Henry Nicholls, began outlining his findings. He was a short, mature man with a thick crown of silver hair. His strong Geordie accent seemed to be accentuated by a permanent facial shrug.

  “Formal identification is still in progress. We managed to get some prints from his right hand, which survived pretty much unscathed. The burns are superficial, from the smouldering clothing, but as you can see he sustained some major blunt-force trauma injuries.”

  She had to fight hard to swallow back the bile that threatened as she recalled the smell in the house when she had been filming. She’d been breathing in his burning flesh.

  “Most importantly for you, there was no evidence of soot particles in his lungs, which means he was dead before the fire started.” Nicholls finished with a smug smile.

  “What?” Helen asked with two arched eyebrows directed at the man; to be fair, it was fully warranted.

  Nicholls performed another facial shrug. He looked pleased with the reaction he’d gained from his bombshell. Placing his clipboard on a side table, he walked back over to the body. Using a gloved hand, he pointed to the flesh on the side of the body facing Helen. Thank God she had opted for this side of the room.

  “You can see from the livor mortis he was lying on his side at the time or very soon after death, similar to—if not the same—as the position he was found in.”

  Curious she moved to look at the pale, yellowy flesh that had been in contact with the hard floor, as if his skin had been pressed against a glassy surface, the surrounding skin holding a purple glow. She felt for Helen across the room. The thought of someone she knew and loved being murdered and dumped like a piece of rubbish made her feel vile inside. The condition of his body suggested he’d been dead for some time, which no doubt meant a long list of suspects, as the likelihood of starting a fire when you’re already dead was pretty slim.

  Questions. Those would give her something else to focus on, besides Sandy. “How long has he been dead?” The smell was beginning to get to her now; a mixture of chemicals and decay filled her nostrils. She lifted her hand from her notepad, absentmindedly touching her top lip until she felt the stickiness of the Vicks that Helen had offered her on the way into the morgue. Nicholls’s voice brought her to her senses.

  “More than a week. I should be able to tell you more after I’ve done a few more tests.” Nicholls turned his body as if he was giving a lecture to the room. “Decomposition happens at different rates depending on what the body is exposed to. Immersion in water or burial slows the process. Casper’s law states that one week in the air equals two weeks in the water equals eight weeks in the earth.”

  Ignoring the lecture, she scribbled down the information in her notebook, mentally c
ounting back the days to find the timeframe. It took her a few seconds to realise it coincided with her arrival in the area.

  Nicholls continued with the breakdown of his initial report. “Stomach contents show he’d eaten within an hour or two before death. Looks like ham salad sandwiches and jam tarts.”

  She allowed a little smile to cross her face as she imagined Sandy living it up on jam tarts, probably swiped from a supermarket waste bin. She could think of worse last meals. She blinked away her thoughts as she realised Helen was asking the ultimate question.

  “So, if it wasn’t the fire, what actually killed him?” Helen asked.

  Nicholls looked over at Helen. “These particular injuries are consistent with typical hit-and-run, blunt-force trauma. Like over sixty percent of pedestrian victims, he was struck by the front of the moving vehicle.”

  She frowned and jumped straight in without thinking. “And the rest?” Logically, they had to be struck by the back or side.

  “The rest are mainly side impacts, Detective, which result in different injuries to the pedestrian. This type of post-impact can be classed as a wrap. Primarily, the body is thrown against the front edge of the vehicle, striking the bumper, resulting in leg, pelvis, and chest injuries just as we have here. X-rays show the extent of the bone injuries.”

  He moved across the room to a large screen fixed to the wall and switched it on. The black screen was filled with grey-blue bones that were half-familiar to her. Luckily, Nicholls made an effort to place the mixture of rounded shapes into context, using his index finger to point out the damage.

  “You can see the breaks here, here and here.” He continued to put the injuries into perspective. “The body is thrown forward as the vehicle brakes. The body then strikes the surface of the road as it falls, resulting, in this case, in massive head injuries.”

  The sound of shuffling feet made her look up from her notes. Focusing her attention on Helen, she could see that she was visibly upset by Nicholls’s explanation. Nicholls looked just as surprised by her reaction.

  “I’m sorry, Inspector, did you know this individual?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid I did. He was known locally as Sandy. Nobody knows his full name…yet.” Helen plunged her hands deep into her pockets.

  “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  To her surprise, his words of comfort seemed genuine.

  “Thank you, Doctor. Please go on.”

  Nicholls waited for a few seconds before continuing. “I’ll need some more time to determine the height of the car and if there are any particular models that are compatible with the injuries. The clothes have gone to Forensics and may contain some trace evidence picked up from the car.”

  She scribbled more notes as the doctor spoke, then glanced across at Helen; she looked a little paler than before.

  “I’ve got some more bad news, I’m afraid. Unrelated to the trauma, I found massive tumours in his kidneys. He didn’t have long left; maybe six months.”

  “Shit.” She mumbled under her breath, Sandy was by no means a lucky man.

  Nicholls seemed to ponder his next words as he hobbled from one foot to the next. “Putrefaction has started to occur, the body naturally breaking down. As I said, I need to do more tests to determine a more accurate time of death. If the body was placed in the house soon after death, the lack of central heating and exposure to cool air has slowed the process, reducing the smell, which might have alerted the neighbours sooner.”

  “The back door of the house was open.” she interjected, remembering vivid images of the house.

  Nicholls nodded in her direction at the snippet of information. “I noticed that at the scene, opportunist dumping, and poor concealment. In my experience, when a criminal tries to hide evidence, they do a pretty crappy job, and this was no exception. The body has started to mummify slightly due to the dry air, which explains the slowed process. And that’s it for now.” He dug his hands in his pockets.

  The silence hung between them for a moment while they all took a final look at Sandy. Pulling her hands from her coat pockets, Helen looked as if she was going to offer Nicholls a handshake but then thought better of it.

  “Okay. Thank you, Dr Nicholls.”

  “I should have more answers in a week or two. I have some maggot work to do first. I’ll send a full report through when I’ve concluded the tests.”

  She nodded at the doctor before following Helen out of the room. She certainly didn’t envy his job, messing around with maggots and dead bodies. Shaking her head didn’t manage to dislodge the visual. “So, what are we saying here? He was run over then dumped in the house, and a few days later the same person or somebody else sets fire to the house to get rid of the evidence?” Seeing Helen cringe at her words, she felt guilty for her insensitivity; Sandy had been her friend, or acquaintance at least.

  “Maybe. Whoever they are, they’re local. They knew where to put the body, where it wouldn’t be discovered.”

  “Until the fire,” she reminded her.

  “Exactly.”

  They walked in silence down the corridor to the car park.

  “The body has remained more or less intact. It wasn’t covered in petrol with the aim of getting rid of evidence,” Helen mused. “So why would you draw attention to it?”

  “Unless you wanted it to be found,” she added as they approached the exit.

  Glancing across at her boss and spotting the raised eyebrow again, she asked, “By the killer or someone else?”

  “Who knows? We need to find the scene of the accident. Sandy always had a trolley of crap with him. It has to be somewhere.”

  Opening the door, she welcomed the fresh air into her lungs. She knew the scene would hold some of the answers, including skid marks which would help determine the speed of the car. She frowned. Didn’t she mean murder? Not only did they not help Sandy; potentially they’d hidden the body preventing anyone else from finding it. Realising she still had an unsightly layer of what probably looked like snot under her nose, she dug into her jacket pocket for a tissue. Finding a balled-up, hardened lump that once had been a tissue, she attempted to peel it open as they walked, startled when a fresh tissue appeared in front of her. She looked up, meeting Helen’s warm gaze.

  “Thanks.” Taking the tissue, she rubbed at the skin under her nose, scrunching it up to join the other one she had secreted back in her pocket.

  Helen pulled out her keys as they approached her car. “We should get that arson report today; chase it up if it’s not there when we get back. Actually, I’d better do that; don’t want you falling out with your boyfriend again.”

  She gave Helen a sideways look as she got in the car.

  “We need to start getting some answers, not more questions.” Helen continued.

  “Yes, Guv.” A twinge in her stomach drew her attention to her watch. “Can we have lunch now? I’m starving,” she whined as they put their seat belts on.

  “What?” She asked as she caught Helen’s eye.

  “I was just about to ask if you are always this irritable, or just when you’re hungry, but then I remembered who I was talking to.”

  She cast Helen another sideways glance, hoping she wasn’t in for another bollocking.

  “Okay, what about a nice, healthy salad from the deli?” Helen asked as they made their way out of the car park.

  “I missed a meal yesterday. Can’t we have something hot?”

  Helen stopped the car at the exit. “Right. Well, we can’t have that then, can we? How about the Wheatsheaf? They do a great vegetarian lasagne.”

  “Vegetarian!” she cried with what she deemed justifiable distaste.

  She watched, pleased with herself as Helen seemed to supress a smile. She was beginning to enjoy the banter they shared, even if she was the butt of many of the jokes.

  “Or horse-flavoured, of cour
se, if you prefer.”

  “Oh, I definitely prefer horse and chips. I’m not a rabbit, you know,” she said as she read the latest motherly email threatening to visit if she didn’t get in touch soon. Rolling her eyes, she wondered how she was going to placate her this time.

  “Okay! Last one inside pays for lunch!”

  She looked up as Helen made a grab for her door handle. Her reactions were fast. But her progress was somewhat hampered as she eyed the large wooden pole rooted behind her door.

  “What the fuck?” She turned to see that Helen had already exited the car—graciously leaving the door open for her. All she could do was watch in awe as Helen sprinted into the side entrance of the pub. Realising she’d already lost the bet, she sat back in her seat, her skull against the headrest. She hadn’t seen this coming. She’d witnessed Helen’s sense of humour, liked it even, but this was different; this was mischievous and deserved a suitable response.

  Climbing out of the car, she noticed the keys still in the ignition. She made her way with them into the pub. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she spotted Helen sitting at an oblong, wooden table, a menu in front of her. She placed the keys on the table as she sat down opposite.

  “Hey, slowpoke. Don’t worry, I already ordered you horse and chips.” Helen was grinning, looking far too pleased with herself as she organised the cutlery and condiments on the table she was sat at. “I hope you’ve brought your money with you. I’ve worked up quite an appetite jogging in here.”

  Returning to her desk after lunch wasn’t a problem. Getting anything done, however, was. It was too hard to focus. All she could see was the grin on Helen’s face as she had entered the pub. Looking across the room towards Helen’s office now, she could see Helen engrossed in reading some paperwork. She took a deep breath, applying herself to the various tasks at hand, and began making enquiries about the missing person, Richard Jarvis. Contacting his employers to get some background and checking if he had surfaced resulted in a big, fat nothing. She called the hotel where he was meant to be staying, to be told that he hadn’t even checked in. All the other hotels in the area—she’d checked just to make sure—yielded the same result.