by David Barry
He raised his eyes towards the ceiling. ‘Is this a free analysis?’
She found his complacency and flippancy irritating, and her voice rose a trace. ‘You seem to be hell-bent on destroying women. Jack the Ripper without a knife. For knife read penis.’
Lambert was tempted to mock her with the term psychobabble, thought better of it, and said, ‘Each man kills the thing he loves.’
She raised her eyebrows in mock surprise. ‘Oscar Wilde. You surprise me.’
‘Don’t be patronising, Mel. I have got a bit more culture than the odd Chuck Norris video.’
‘Who?’
‘You’ve never heard of...’ He tutted amazement. ‘Your lack of street cred is showing.’
She poked her tongue out at him. He laughed, and could see that she felt more relaxed in his company now. He thought about reaching across the table and placing his hand on hers, but the thought was interrupted by his mobile ringing. Although it was in his inside pocket, it was still shrill enough to pierce the restaurant ambience.
‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘but you know what it’s like.’
‘How could I forget,’ she sighed, casting her eyes round at the other diners, who seemed to be looking at her with a mixture of pity and disbelief.
‘Harry here,’ Lambert announced into the mobile. He listened carefully, his face becoming serious and businesslike. This, thought Melanie, was the other side of the coin. No more flirting. No more chat up. It was down to business now. And she wondered which was more important to him, the philandering or his work. She decided they were on about an equal footing.
‘OK, Tony,’ he said. ‘I’ll be there right away.’
He switched the phone off and paused, taking a moment to show her how apologetic he was. ‘I’m sorry, Mel. I have to go. Let’s continue this another time.’ He waved at the proprietor. ‘Angelo! Could we have the bill, please?’ As he reached for his wallet, he told her, ‘I’ll give you a bell.’
‘Don’t bother,’ she said, rising. ‘I won’t be in.’
Lambert looked genuinely surprised and hurt. She looked across the table that divided them and threw him an apologetic half-hearted smile, like a consolation prize.
‘Harry, you had two chances of us getting together again. Slim and none.’
In spite of his sense of failure, Lambert laughed. ‘I’ll go for the former,’ he said. ‘And live in hope.’
Chapter 7
As he drove out of Swansea, Lambert thought about Melanie’s parting kiss. It had been gentle, full on the lips, which he found disconcerting after what she had said. Perhaps she was curious, wanting to see how she felt towards him physically. He had wanted to prolong the kiss but, just as he was about to reach out to hold her tight, she pulled away, turned and walked off. He stood watching until she was out of sight, admiring the alluring sway of her hips, waiting to see if she looked back over her shoulder. Had she glanced back, he might have been in with a chance, however remote. But she kept walking without turning round. So that was that.
The headlights of an approaching car flashed angrily, reminding him to dip his headlights. ‘Sorry, mate,’ he said, as if the other driver could hear him, and switched his main beam onto dip.
He followed Tony Ellis’s directions and found The Bull without much difficulty, but then missed the narrow turning and had to reverse back for fifty yards. As he climbed the steep hill, his headlights on full beam, the overhanging trees on either side of the narrow road appeared threatening, a tunnel of gnarled and ghostly branches. It was the perfect setting for murder. Even though he’d seen some gruesome sights in his time, as he neared the scene of a crime, Lambert felt a queasiness in his stomach. It was always the same. The anticipation was worse than the event. Once he was at the scene he was able to get on with the job and not allow his feelings to get in the way. He could switch off his emotions and take control. Until that time, about three years ago. She’d been only six years old and the victim of the most horrendous rape and assault. Images of her frail and vulnerable body still haunted him at nights. At the time, most of his team had needed counselling to deal with their feelings. Ever since then, Lambert found crime scenes hard to handle emotionally. He had become squeamish. After the murder of the six-year-old, he had turned to Helen, wept like a baby in her arms. She had supported him, eased the pain, nursed him back from the horror of what he’d seen, and loved him. Loved him! God! What an idiot he’d been, discarding her love like a worn garment.
His hands tightened on the wheel as he reached the brow of the hill. Above and before him stretched the vast night sky, a dark, velvet cloth sprinkled with sparkling silver like hundreds-and-thousands.
He eased the car gently over the stony track. As he started the descent into the valley below, he could see the glow of the halogen lights at the murder scene, making it appear unreal, like a night shoot on a film location. As he neared the farm, he saw the congestion of police vehicles in the narrow lane, so he parked his car about a hundred yards up the lane and walked the rest of the way. He was met by Sergeant Ellis at the farm gate, his face glowing red and his forehead glistening with perspiration and wearing white coveralls.
‘Tony,’ Lambert acknowledged with a nod. ‘How long have SOCO been here?’
‘A good hour.’
Having donned a pair of overshoes, coveralls and latex gloves from one of the SOCO vans, Lambert accompanied Ellis towards the cordoned-off section of the farmyard, past flashing blue lights and officers in coveralls searching the area for evidence. One of the officers took their details and checked them in. But before they reached the cordon, Lambert stopped suddenly, as if reluctant to visit the crime scene.
‘What’s the story so far, Tony?’
Indicating the murder scene with a tilt of the head, Ellis replied, ‘The victim’s an old boy called Ted Wilson.’
‘Is he the owner of this dump?’
Ellis nodded. ‘But he didn’t do much farming, by all accounts. Piss artist from way back, he was.’
‘How d’you know this?’
‘Chap who found him told us. Bloke by the name of Tom Jones. Not the singer.’
Lambert stared impassively at him.
‘Yes, well,’ the sergeant continued, ‘Mr Jones was on his way round to collect a debt.’
‘And he doesn’t get his money so he kills the bugger?’
‘For fifty quid? When I phoned you, I said the victim was shot, didn’t I?’
‘So? Most of these farmers own shotguns.’
Ellis shook his head. ‘This was no shotgun. It was a high-power rifle. And it appears that Wilson was shot from a distance. From somewhere over there. Around seventy-five yards at a rough guess.’
They continued towards the murder scene, ducking under the police tape, and met the SOCO officer in charge.
‘Hello, Hughie,’ Lambert greeted him. ‘What you got for me this time?’
The officer, round-faced and double-chinned, his eyes glinting, pursed his lips and shook his head. ‘D’you wanna take a butchers? It’s not a pretty sight.’
‘I can live without it. I’ve just had a lasagne.’
In spite of his reluctance to see the bloody mess, Lambert forced himself to look down at the corpse.
‘Brains and face spattered all over the bloody wall,’ said Hughie with undisguised relish.
Lambert wondered whether it was because Hughie was a bloodthirsty little sod, or whether he enjoyed seeing his fellow officers squirm. Whatever the reason, he seemed to have a passion for grisly crimes, the more gruesome the better. It was his world. His raison d’être. And he loved it.
Lambert’s expression gave nothing away when he saw the farmer’s exposed penis. He turned to Hughie. ‘What about his tackle?’
The officer smirked. ‘Nothing pervy about it. Guy was taking a piss. Bang. The
lights go out. Is nothing sacred any more?’
‘Sergeant Ellis tells me he was shot with a high-powered rifle.’
‘Yeah. Strange that. It looks like a professional job. Whoever did this was a marksman.’
‘Could have been a nutter from a gun club.’
‘There is that.’
‘Where’s the bloke who found him?’
Hughie nodded in the direction of one of the vehicles. ‘With DC Maynard.’
Lambert glanced over towards the far side of the farmyard, where he saw a middle-aged man in track suit bottoms, wellington boots and a check shirt, leaning against a patrol car and being handed a disposable cup from DC Maynard. Lambert noticed Maynard was wearing her tight black trousers again. Because she always seemed to wear the same thing, dirty jokes and speculation about Maynard’s lack of hygiene in the nether regions had gone round the station among Lambert’s male colleagues. Though Lambert, perhaps because he found Maynard strangely attractive with her snub nose, rather pugnacious jaw, but mysterious aquamarine eyes, gave her the benefit of the doubt, and liked to believe she had several pairs of identical trousers.
As he started to walk over, Hughie said, ‘You haven’t asked me what I’ve got in my little plastic bag here.’
Lambert stopped and turned back. Hughie was holding up the bag containing what looked like an apple.
‘Could have been the killer’s lunch or tea,’ Hughie explained. ‘Found it on the hill up there, just behind the barn. Looks like he took one bite out of it, then chucked it.’
‘Good. Even if forensic don’t get a good pattern, there’ll be some saliva on it.’
‘Very much doubt that. In the sunshine we had today it would probably have evaporated.’
Lambert sighed. ‘Well, anyway, at least if we get a suspect...’
The forensics officer interrupted, pulling a toothy face with a teeth gnashing sound like a demented rodent. ‘The teeth patterns will match.’
‘Yeah. Thanks, Hughie. Keep up the good work.’
‘See you in a bit.’
Ellis at his side, Lambert continued towards DC Maynard and the witness. As he got close to them, he noticed the man had a red nose and cheeks, but the area round his eyes was white, as if sunglasses were worn regularly, although Lambert suspected it was more likely to be a skin condition caused by excessive alcohol. If Lambert was asked to guess what he did for a living, farmer would be the obvious choice.
‘Mr Jones?’ he said. ‘Detective Inspector Lambert. You found the body, I believe.’
Mr Jones sniffed and pulled at his nose with an oil-stained finger and thumb before replying. ‘Aye. Fifty fucking quid he owed me.’
‘You can kiss that goodbye.’
‘Don’t I know it. Owed every bugger money, he did. Not a lot. Fiver here, tenner there. But fifty! Never should’ve lent it him.’
‘So why did you?’
Jones grinned sheepishly. ‘Pissed, weren’t I. And the crafty fucker...’ He checked himself and turned towards DC Maynard. ‘’Scuse my French, miss.’
DC Maynard’s eyes blinked several times and she nodded non-committally.
‘Go on,’ Lambert prompted the farmer. ‘You were explaining why you agreed to lend him fifty pounds.’
‘Oh yes, well, he gives me a cock and bull story about how he’d won the lottery - five numbers, like. Huh!’ He paused and slurped his tea noisily. ‘Reckoned he had a few grand due.’
Ellis, wondering why Lambert seemed so intent on pursuing what seemed to be a fairly irrelevant line of questioning, said, ‘Mr Jones reckons he spotted the killer’s car.’
Lambert stared at the witness. ‘Oh?’
‘Black it was.’
‘And the make?’
‘Ain’t got a clue. Cars is not my strong point.’
Ellis exchanged a disappointed look with Lambert, which Jones appeared not to notice as he began to relive the scene.
‘Some of these buggers drive like lunatics. On my way here, on the main road just before The Bull, there’s a sharp corner, and I nearly hit one of them fancy four wheel drive fuckers.’ He looked contritely at DC Maynard and started to apologise again.
‘Don’t worry,’ she told him. ‘Pretend I’m not here.’
‘Yes, well,’ continued the farmer, ‘nearly hit the bastard. Shook me up it did, I can tell you. Then when I pulled in here...’
He broke off as the memory of discovering the corpse hit him.
‘You found Wilson?’ Lambert said with a little more urgency.
‘I thought I was going to throw up. That’s when I heard this car starting up - just up the road there. He drove right past the gate, going like the clappers. Smashed my fucking wing mirror.’
This time, having decided the occasion excused the use of bad language, Jones avoided looking at DC Maynard.
‘D’you manage to get a look at him?’
‘It was getting dark. And he was going too quick. It all happened so sudden, like.’
‘But you could see it was a man?’
‘Oh, it was a bloke all right. I could see his shadow, like. Young bloke, I think it was. With short hair.’
‘What I’d like to do, Mr Jones,’ said Lambert, with a sideways glance at DC Maynard, ‘is to get you a book of makes and models of cars, to see if you can pick one out for us.’
‘Well, I’ll try. But the way these buggers drive round here, he could be halfway to John O’Groats by now.’
‘Maybe,’ said Lambert thoughtfully. ‘Maybe not.’
This wasn’t lost on Ellis, who recognised Melanie Kokolios’s influence on his boss’s reply.
Chapter 8
Evans switched on the interior light, took a pen torch from the glove compartment and studied the Ordnance Survey map for a while. He had to hurry, in case someone decided to pull in and park behind him in the lay-by. A heavy lorry thundered past and the car shook in the draught. He peered through the window on the passenger side. There was a half moon tonight, giving just enough light for him to see the ivy covered trunk of an enormous oak tree in a field on the other side of the fence. This was as good enough a place as any. But would he be able to find it again? He took another look at the map, memorising the landmarks in the immediate area, then took the Browning from the holdall and wrapped it in a plastic bag. He could bury it in the field, near the oak tree, just the other side of the fence.
***
‘What a shithole,’ Ellis said as they stepped inside the squalid farmhouse. ‘Stinks too.’
Gerry Simpson, an exhibits officer, was already inside, videoing the room. He switched off the camera for a minute and acknowledged Ellis and Lambert with a nod to each of them. ‘Hi, Harry. Hi, Tony. Yeah, it smells as if the occupant never had a bath in his life. Thank Christ I’m almost done in here and I can get some fresh air.’
‘Hang on, Gerry,’ Lambert said and opened a wartime utility sideboard, one leg broken, and rooted through the contents, finding empty beer bottles, crisp packets, a copy of Penthouse, some blue and white china that might have been worth something once but was badly chipped and cracked, and an old rusting biscuit tin containing an assortment of nails and screws.
‘Just junk,’ he declared. ‘Filthy bloody junk. And what does that tell you about the victim, other than the fact that bluebottles found him attractive? You may as well get a shot of the contents, Gerry.’
Simpson switched the camera back on and shot the inside of the cupboard. Afterwards he grinned at Lambert, switched it off, saying, ‘I’ll leave you both to it. But I don’t think you’ll find much of interest in here. Guy was such a loser one wonders why anyone’d bother killing him.’
As he exited, Lambert heard him taking a deep breath as he stepped outside.
Ellis stopped searching for a moment and shrugged
. ‘Nothing. Wilson may have had a roof over his head but he lived like a vagrant.’
‘It’s incredible,’ Lambert agreed. ‘There’s not a single shred of evidence that indicates he had a past. No photos, no ornaments, nothing. But, according to old Tom Jones, he lived here for thirty odd years.’
Ellis found an old coal scuttle used as a waste bin, overflowing with paper and tin foil cartons. ‘Yeah, and had Chinese takeaways and fish and chips every day of it.’
Underneath a bundle of old newspapers, mostly copies of the Sun and Sunday Sport, Lambert found a small coronet.
‘Take a look at this.’
‘What is it?’
‘Some sort of crown, the kind children dress up in. Must be quite old. Look how rusty the metal is.’
Ellis sighed with frustration. ‘A bit of Wilson’s history? Or just more rubbish?’
‘No, the rest is rubbish. This is junk as in bric à brac.’
DC Maynard entered hurriedly, breathless with excitement.
‘Sir, Jones thinks the man may have been driving an Audi. Not a hundred per cent certain but at least it’s something to go on.’
Lambert slammed the coronet onto the sideboard. ‘Right! Get onto records. There can’t be that many black Audis in...’
Maynard interrupted him, looking pleased with herself. ‘I’ve already done it. Apparently there’s less than three dozen in the Swansea area.’ She handed him a handwritten list. ‘Have a look at number ten on the list.’
Lambert read it aloud. ‘A black Audi, registered in the name of G. Evans. Ex-paratrooper and SAS.’
‘I ran the list by Criminal Records and they came up with his name. He was charged with GBH when he was a young squaddie. The sentence was suspended.’
Lambert stared at Ellis. ‘It’s got to be him.’
Chapter 9
Evans poured himself a large Jack Daniel’s and took a sip. The drink felt good, warm and soothing. Now that it was almost over, he could relax. His eyes darted to the Armalite beside him on the sofa. He pictured the bloody corpse of the farmer, brains and blood spattered across the wall of that disgusting farmhouse, and considered his feelings, probing inside his mind for the slightest hint of an emotion. There was nothing but a vast emptiness, a cavernous silence inside his head. Unthinkingly, he patted the Armalite’s stock, as if it was a sweet child to be congratulated for a job well done, and listened to the night-time sounds of the flat; the mechanical hum of the fridge and the creaking and shifting of the fabric of the building as it expanded and contracted in the changing temperature of the coming dawn.
