Gallows Drop

by Mari Hannah

  The man scanned her ID. ‘Murder detective?’

  ‘Yes. Have you got a moment?’

  ‘This about Graeme Foster’s son?’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘Horrible business.’ The man held up his pint glass. ‘Can I get you one?’

  Kate declined.

  ‘Coffee?’

  ‘Thanks, I’m fine.’

  They moved to the same table Kate had been sitting at earlier with Willis. This character was about the same build: thick-set, with neck muscles Schwarzenegger would’ve been proud of. Here in the sticks, men were built to last. This one was dressed in an old pair of jeans and a tatty donkey jacket, the like of which she hadn’t seen in years. Beneath a beanie hat, a pair of healthy, shiny eyes stared back at her.

  ‘I’m Paul Dent,’ he said. ‘How can I help?’

  He sat down opposite, proffered a grubby hand. It was as rough as sandpaper. Kate noticed the fingernails were bitten to the quick, ingrained with muck. She had him down as a farmhand or forestry worker.

  ‘Were you at the show in Alwinton yesterday?’ she began.

  ‘No, I was working.’

  ‘May I ask who for?’

  ‘I’m a sole trader supplying logs. I had a rush job on. My lad went to the show. I picked him up here at around this time last night.’

  ‘You were in here last night?’

  ‘No. I’d had a couple of pints in here at lunchtime. I can’t afford to lose my driving licence, Inspector. No transport equals no business. I have a mortgage to pay, a family to feed. I sat in my truck outside.’

  ‘Very wise,’ Kate said. ‘When you say “around this time” can you be more specific?’

  ‘I said I’d collect him at six thirty. He was late, as usual. Kids!’ he grumbled. ‘Who’d have ’em, eh? They grunt at you all week and treat you like a taxi on a weekend. You got any yourself?’

  ‘I’m not here to talk about me,’ Kate said, her clipped tone warning him that she was a busy professional with little time for chatty conversation. It would be hours before she was finished for the day. ‘Were you outside the whole time or did you drive around looking for him?’

  ‘I was here. I had a few calls to make. When my son arrived, he was a bit worse for wear, to be honest. The wife went ballistic and sent him straight to bed when we got home. He went too. Made a detour to the bathroom to hoy his guts up. Lucky it didn’t happen in my cab – I’d have given the sod a thick ear.’

  Kate smiled in sympathy. ‘You waited where exactly?’

  Dent thumbed through the window. ‘Just opposite, where I’m parked now, give or take a metre or two.’

  Kate glanced through the window where a hefty pick-up truck was parked in front of her Q5. ‘Is that your Toyota Hilux?’

  ‘Yeah, I could do with a new one.’

  Kate’s detective brain was working overtime. She was thinking how easy it would be to sling someone’s bike in the flat-bed section of a Hilux, or pass someone off as his drunken son, when it might in fact have been the injured victim he was shifting. ‘And you didn’t enter the pub?’

  Dent was shaking his head. ‘Like I said, I waited in the truck. I like a drink, Inspector. If I’d come in for one, I’d have been tempted to have another. From what I could see from outside, there was only one customer in anyhow. Not someone I’m that keen on.’

  ‘Would this be Matthew Willis?’

  Dent smirked. ‘You know him?’

  ‘I spoke to him earlier today.’

  ‘Not the most riveting company, is he?’

  Kate didn’t rise to the bait. ‘Were there any other vehicles around at the time?’

  ‘A few.’ Dent wiped his face with his hand, stifling a yawn. ‘Most of the show traffic was gone. It made life difficult all day. There were some windy drivers on the roads – doing thirty in a sixty limit – pain in the fucking arse. Slowed me down.’

  ‘I can imagine.’ Kate had witnessed it too, but kept that to herself. ‘Do you recall any particular vehicles passing through the village while you sat waiting for your son?’

  Dent thought for a moment. ‘A catering van took the Otterburn road. I don’t remember what kind it was. It was fairly large, like a burger van.’

  ‘Any others?’

  ‘Only one,’ Dent said. ‘It must’ve been about five or ten minutes later. A Telford’s coach pulled up. White. The Border Duchess written on its side. Fifty-five reg I think. Jedburgh firm seems to ring a bell, though don’t quote me on that. A group of men and a couple of women piled out. I thought my lad might’ve hitched a lift. I looked for him getting off.’

  ‘And did he?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you recognize any of the passengers?’

  ‘They weren’t from round here.’

  Kate raised her head from her notes. ‘You’re sure about that?’

  ‘Positive. The divvis tried to access the pub from the side and had to come round the front to get in. They must’ve booked a meal in the pub cafe. That struck me as odd. I’m sure I saw a sign on the door to say it was closed on show day. I was envious – having worked all day, I was bloody starving. My lass is no contender for the Great British Bake Off, Inspector. I need a woman at home who does what she’s supposed to and puts food on the table the minute I walk through the door. Mine’s too busy with her yoga classes. Tasty though, I can’t deny her that. Curves in all the right places.’ He smirked at Kate, seemingly unaware that he was being sexist.

  ‘So, the cafe was privately booked?’

  ‘I guess so. Not open to regulars anyhow.’ He gestured towards the landlord. ‘Ask him.’

  ‘I will. Anyone else?’

  ‘Not that I noticed.’

  ‘Did the coach just drop the strangers and head off?’

  ‘No. The driver let them off, backed up and parked at the bus stop.’

  Dent glanced through the window, then at Kate. She stood up, looking out at the stone bus shelter, her eyes travelling in a direct line from the pub to the church across the village green. If the witness proved to be reliable, the coach he’d seen would have blocked the view entirely. Was this why Willis couldn’t see the melee from the pub doorway? She filed that thought for further examination.

  15

  Leaving the warm pub behind, Kate walked out into the fresh air and turned right. Dent’s account of a coach being parked at the bus stop added credence to Willis’s insistence that the fracas going on across the village green had been heard but not seen from the doorway. He might well have heard a female voice, but he’d have needed to clear the parked coach on his way home to have seen the ‘dot of light’ he suggested might have come from a mobile phone. Clearly, he had more explaining to do.

  She knocked on his door, hoping to question him again before Atkins got to him. There were no lights on inside. She stepped up to the window and peered through the glass. With no TV and no phone, she thought he might as well have dispensed with electricity altogether. It didn’t surprise her when there was no reply.

  Kate scanned the village green, her frustration increasing as a car passed by. Since the roadblock had been lifted, Atkins should have ordered a stop on every single vehicle travelling through the village tonight. His failure to arrange it was a missed opportunity. The arc lights and CSIs were long gone, the phone box taped up to prevent further use. Dent’s Hilux was still parked on the roadside.

  Clearly, he was having more than two pints tonight.

  Kate checked her watch as she neared her Audi. Ten past seven. She’d have to drive like a maniac to make the post-mortem on time. Turning left out of the village, she pressed a button on her steering wheel, speaking Jo’s landline number into the hands-free, hoping she’d be at the other end to pick up.

  Seconds later, she answered with a cheery hello.

  ‘Am I interrupting something?’ Kate asked. ‘You sound breathless.’

  ‘I’ve just been for a run.’

  ‘Wish I had. How far did you get?’
/>
  ‘You know me. I’m an all-or-nothing kind of girl. I did our usual, the full length of Jesmond Dene, up and round Freeman Park and home again. In fact, without you there slowing me down, I ran a personal best.’

  ‘I’m impressed.’

  ‘Liar. What’s up?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound like nothing; I can see your pet lip from here. Put it this way, you’re a little underwhelmed for someone about to go on holiday. Is it this awful hanging?’

  ‘You don’t miss much, do you?’ An image formed in Kate’s mind of Jo in Lycra, a towel hanging round her neck, skin gleaming with sweat, phone against her ear. Kate hadn’t meant to sound flat. She apologized immediately. ‘I just called to hear the sound of your voice and tell you I can’t wait to get away.’

  ‘Me too! Are you packed?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘You did remember we’re out with Emily tomorrow night?’

  Emily was a psychologist friend from university. Jo had worked with her at HMP Northumberland on a Home Office initiative examining the treatment of dangerous sex offenders. Jo had taken a temporary secondment there, a break from her role as criminal profiler with the police and her main job as forensic psychologist at the Regional Psychology Service. On so many levels, it was a disastrous period for all three women, but that was history. Jo was now back where she belonged, working with the Murder Investigation Team.

  ‘I haven’t forgotten,’ Kate said. ‘I’ll pack when I get home tonight.’

  ‘Make sure you do.’ Jo’s jokey tone dissolved. ‘Might I have seen him yesterday? The wrestler?’

  ‘You might. Young lad. Distinctive tattoo on his hand.’

  ‘Oh no! I do remember him—’

  ‘Ohmigod!’

  ‘What? Kate? Are you OK?’

  ‘Yes, yes I’m fine.’ Kate’s eyes were glued to her windscreen. ‘You will not believe what I’m seeing here: a tawny owl with a wingspan of three or four feet. It’s flying along the road in front of the car. In all the years I’ve been driving, I’ve never seen that happen. It’s really magical. Oh, he’s gone. I wish you’d seen it.’

  ‘I do too.’

  The B road twisted this way and that. Finally, Kate reached the T-junction, turned left and put her foot down, the conversation returning to the case she was grappling with. ‘I take it the hanging was on the evening news?’

  ‘Radio,’ Jo said. ‘A DCI whose name I didn’t recognize was appealing for witnesses and I bumped into Lisa on the way out of the station earlier.’

  Kate slowed a little. ‘I didn’t know you’d been in.’

  ‘I wasn’t there long enough to chat. Besides, I knew you were busy.’

  ‘Did you manage to deliver your report on the Curtis case?’

  ‘That’s why I was there. Lisa filled me in on your latest. Sounds nasty.’

  ‘Aren’t they all?’

  ‘I didn’t mean the case,’ Jo said.

  ‘Oh.’ Lisa had said more than she ought.

  ‘Why is this Atkins guy giving you grief? More to the point, why don’t I know about him? I thought I knew all your secrets.’

  ‘No one knows all my secrets.’ No one ever would.

  ‘Ha! Wait ’til we get to Scotland.’ Jo dropped into a mock German accent: ‘I have ways of making you talk, Ms Daniels.’

  Kate was looking forward to some deep and meaningful pillow talk with Jo, but not on the subject of Atkins, even though sharing that particular secret would explain much to her former partner about the way she’d run her life. Kate had a valid reason for holding back on the history that existed between her and Atkins. She simply couldn’t bear to be reminded of it.

  ‘C’mon,’ Jo pressed. ‘Stop holding out on me.’

  ‘What’s the one thing we both dislike over everything else? And I’m not talking Marmite.’

  ‘So, Atkins is a bully. That much I knew. Lisa was spitting bullets when I saw her earlier. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so riled. She reckons Hank is ready to sort him out—’

  ‘He’d better not!’

  ‘He won’t.’

  Jo’s hesitation made Kate think that he might.

  ‘Don’t pull him about it, Kate. He might be busting a gut to give Atkins what for, but he’s not going to risk his career over it. I shouldn’t have said anything. Lisa asked me to keep it to myself and not bother you with it. Why don’t you call in for a drink on your way home and you can tell all? Problems are best shared . . .’ She let the sentence trail off.

  Kate wound her window down. She needed air. ‘I wish I could, but I’m due at the post-mortem now and I’m still thirty minutes away. It’ll be late when I finish. Don’t worry about Atkins, or me, I’m fine. How bad can it get? Tomorrow is my last day. The case will be his problem then.’

  ‘You sure you can bear to leave the children?’ Jo was referring to the squad.

  ‘Are you kidding?’ Kate stared out at open countryside, buoyed by the promise of more to come as they headed north across the border. ‘Seriously, I can’t wait.’

  ‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ Jo said. ‘Are you sure you don’t mind us taking Nelson? I could always ask Emily to dog-sit. She’d enjoy the company. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind looking after him.’

  ‘Don’t be daft. It’ll be fun – as long as he doesn’t mind me sharing your bed.’

  ‘I was rather hoping he’d have to get used to that.’

  Kate said nothing. So aroused was she by the promise of intimacy she could almost feel Jo’s hands on her skin, exploring every inch of her as they used to. If it were possible, she’d drop the fantasy and head over there for the real thing. The illusion dissolved, cold hard facts barging their way into her head. Within the hour, she’d be visiting the morgue; writing up the case in order to hand over to Atkins by close of play tomorrow. She knew one thing: there was a lot more progress on her list than there was on his.

  ‘How far have you got?’ Jo asked. ‘With the enquiry, I mean.’

  ‘Not very.’ Kate wondered if the sudden change of subject was nervousness on Jo’s part. A nifty sidestep. Neither of them knew what the future held. Maybe it was better that way. ‘I have two crime scenes. That’s never a good thing.’

  ‘Lisa said the victim was assaulted in Elsdon and not at the gibbet.’

  ‘Correct. I found out that he called his mother last night, pissed, stoned or in dire need of help, poor sod. Problem is, his mobile phone is missing.’

  ‘Maybe he used someone else’s or the public box. There is one.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. I’m on it. His mother’s phone will confirm where he made the call from and pinpoint the exact time. That’ll help. If it was the call box, either before or after the assault, Atkins will have to trace callers via the people they rang and that’ll take time.’

  ‘Won’t they just be strangers passing through after the show?’

  ‘Probably. He’ll still have to talk to them.’ Kate dealt in certainties, not probabilities. Often it was some innocuous scrap of evidence that solved a case, something a potential witness had seen or heard that they hadn’t thought valuable to the police. ‘They may not even be aware of what’s gone on locally,’ she said. ‘Anyway, that’ll be Atkins’ headache, not mine.’

  16

  The Home Office pathologist was female. Apart from her age, early forties, the woman was about as far removed from her Silent Witness foil – Dr Nikki Alexander – as it was possible to get. She had short cropped, dark hair, prematurely grey. She wore sensible black tights and what Kate could only describe as functional spectacles.

  No designer frames here.

  Kate apologized for her late arrival, explaining where she’d been and why. ‘No offence,’ she said, ‘but I was expecting Tim Stanton.’ He was her friend and longstanding colleague – the pathologist Hank had requested to cover the post-mortem.

  The woman peered over the top of her specs, a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. ‘None taken. Don’t
look so worried. I’m out of senior school. Promise.’

  ‘I wasn’t, I didn’t mean—’

  ‘Lighten up, Chief Inspector. I was joking.’

  Kate relaxed. ‘Sorry, it’s been a very, very long day.’

  ‘For you and me both.’ The surgeon smiled warmly. ‘Tim was called away at short notice. His kid fell off a swing in the playground and was taken to hospital.’

  ‘Ed or Maddie?’

  ‘Ah, you know the family?’

  ‘Quite well.’

  ‘Figures. He talks about them constantly.’

  ‘Isn’t that what all parents do?’ Kate smiled. ‘I bet it was Maddie.’

  ‘Good guess!’

  Kate was beginning to like the new surgeon. ‘She’s OK I take it?’

  ‘She’s absolutely fine, despite being kept in for observation. I gather she’s sitting up in bed being spoiled rotten by her daddy, eating all sorts of crap and being promised more treats when she gets home. If I were her, I’d be throwing myself off the swing on a regular basis.’

  Kate laughed, relieved to hear that Stanton’s kid was none the worse for her ordeal. ‘You’ve spoken to Tim?’

  ‘He just got off the phone. Said to tell you that you’re in good hands. I’m Su, Morrissey. It’s good to meet you, finally.’

  ‘Likewise, I’d shake your hand only . . .’ Kate pointed at the surgeon’s bloody scalpel and nitrile gloves.

  ‘I’ve heard a lot about you, Kate.’

  ‘All good, I hope.’

  ‘Hmm, so-so.’ Morrissey flashed a smile. ‘Tim is very fond of you.’

  ‘The feeling is mutual. You seem to have the advantage.’ Kate hadn’t seen her around or heard Tim speak of her.

  ‘You mean he hasn’t talked about me? I’m crushed.’ Su was teasing. ‘I got lucky after graduating. Spent the last ten years working for the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at UBC. I’ve not long been back in the UK.’

  ‘UBC?’

  ‘University of British Columbia.’

  ‘You’ve been there since qualifying?’