STALKER ON THE FENS a gripping crime thriller full of twists

by Joy Ellis

  ‘You feel that strongly about working with him?’ Nikki looked at her shrewdly. ‘What exactly happened between you two?’

  Cat sighed loudly. ‘I’d rather not go into it, ma’am.’ She pulled a face. ‘Let’s just say that he has a problem with women. I don’t think anyone ever explained to him about gender equality in the workplace.’

  ‘Then he’s going to love having me as a boss, isn’t he? DI Gill Mercer is a pussycat compared to me, and even she had to throw him out of the playground.’ She gave Cat a tired smile. ‘Stick it out, kid, it’s not forever. The team needs you. I need you. And your lovely old mate Dave is back today, hernia all repaired. He really will need you.’

  ‘I know,’ Cat grumbled. ‘It’s people like Dave who make the team what it is, not loners like Eric.’ She stopped and thought for a moment, then added, ‘But yeah, thinking about it, why should he push me out? This is my team, not his.’ She looked at Nikki, her old determination returning. ‘Sorry, boss. I had a bit of a wobble there, all better now.’ Her grin was back, ‘But if he steps out of line, I might just have to do him some damage. Okay with you?’

  Nikki was relieved at Cat’s turnaround. ‘If he steps out of line you’ll have to fight me to get at him first, and that’s a promise. But seriously, Cat, he is here to learn something. Gold Braid wants him reined in and hobbled, and it’s my job to do that. Don’t give him any ammunition or he’ll use it on you. I want to go home each night with unruffled feathers and dream sweet dreams, all right?’

  ‘I’ll be a perfect angel, ma’am.’ She smiled angelically, and added, ‘While I’m counting off the days until he goes.’

  Nikki was about to reply when her door opened and Joseph stuck his head in. ‘Thought you’d want to know that Dave’s here. I’m gathering up the Welcome Back party.’

  ‘Brilliant. We are finished here anyway.’ Nikki touched Cat’s shoulder and whispered, ‘I mean it about the ammunition. Just keep your cool and don’t rise to the bait, okay? I know you can do it.’

  Cat nodded. ‘Got it, ma’am. Just call me Frosty.’

  * * *

  At ten o’clock, Helen was halfway through doing an essential oils order for the new clinic, when the phone rang. ‘Newlands Clinic, how can I help you?’

  The phone crackled for a minute, then went dead. She stared at the handset, then switched it off and returned to her list. She needed Melissa, Chamomile Roman, Clary sage, Tea-tree, Eucalyptus . . .

  It rang again. This time Helen felt a tingle of anxiety as she answered, a feeling that intensified when she heard the howl of a disconnected line, followed by silence. This time she punched 1471, only to hear that the caller had withheld their number. She replaced the handset. ‘Andrew? Where are you?’

  There was no answer. Mild anxiety escalated to something else. ‘Andrew!’ Helen hurried out of the treatment room and climbed the stairs to the lounge. It was empty. The kitchen and bathroom were the same. But he’d been on the phone to the locksmith just before she went to place her order, so where was he? She limped across to the window, just in time to see him coming through the back gate, his coat pulled up around his chin and his mobile phone clamped tightly to his ear. Relief and concern flooded through her as she waited for him to come inside.

  ‘Cold out there, sweetheart.’ He hung his coat in the hall cupboard, then turned and looked at her, ‘Hey! You look awful! Whatever’s the matter?’

  ‘What were you doing, Andrew? Why were you outside?’

  He stared at her blankly. ‘Checking that jungle that our neighbour laughingly calls a garden. You could hide an elephant in there and no one would know.’ He blinked a few times. ‘Why?’

  ‘I had two anonymous calls, and I couldn’t find you.’

  He hurried across and put his arms around her. ‘When, babe?’

  ‘Just now.’

  He frowned, ‘Like dirty calls? Heavy breathers?’

  She shook her head against his chest. ‘No, but there was someone there, I know it. Then it went dead.’

  Andrew gently pushed her away and looked at her with undisguised compassion.

  ‘You silly baby! You’ve been getting all upset over nothing. That was my office. They just caught me on my mobile while I was outside.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Helen asked.

  ‘Absolutely. One of our field agents needed to speak to me. She had a dodgy signal, nothing more sinister than that, I promise.’

  Tears threatened to spill from her eyes, so she turned away. How could she be so overwrought over a missed call? What on earth was the matter with her?

  Andrew placed his hands on her shoulders and gently drew her back against him. ‘Look, why don’t we forget what we were doing and go and chill out in front of the television? Let’s watch a hammy film or some reruns of something funny, huh? I’ll make a pot of coffee and we’ll have a bit of “us” time until the locksmith gets here.’

  Helen nodded mutely. A black cloud of depression was descending over her, and with it came a feeling that something was in motion. It was something that a few new locks would not stop. She wanted nothing more than to snuggle down on the couch with Andrew, but all the time she would be on edge, just waiting for the office to ring again, and Andrew would be gone.

  This was ridiculous! She physically shook herself. This was helping no one.

  ‘That would be lovely, darling. We don’t get much down time together, so my order can wait. You make the drinks and I’ll see what’s on.’

  During the second half hour of the Big Bang Theory, Andrew fell asleep, his arms still wrapped tightly around her, and Helen started channel hopping.

  A kid’s cartoon. A cookery programme. A search for crap in your attic. A police car chase. A war documentary. She paused there, listening to the monotone of the narrator. “The bombing continued throughout the night. Thousands of families were made homeless as the bombs rained down on the once beautiful city . . .”

  The darkness crashed around her like a heavy suffocating blanket, and she fought for breath. Her nostrils were clogged with dust, and her chest felt as if every rib were broken. She coughed painfully.

  ‘Is someone there?’

  This time the voice was familiar to her, but again she couldn’t speak.

  ‘Hello? Are you hurt?’

  From her resting place, half-covered by fallen debris, she knew exactly what he would say next.

  ‘I’m sorry, I can’t get to you. My legs are trapped. Are you badly hurt?’

  She swallowed hard, and stuttered, ‘I think I am. There’s blood, and my legs, I can’t feel them! I’m frightened, what hap—?’

  ‘You’re alive! That’s what counts, and I don’t know what happened.’ There was the sound of movement and then a muffled curse, followed by, ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Helen,’’ she groaned. The effort of talking was costing her dearly.

  ‘Hello, Helen. I wish I could get to you.’ There was another series of scrabbling sounds, then a small cry and more cursing. ‘Talk to me, Helen. Tell me what you look like.’

  ‘Fucking awful!’ she managed.

  The laugh was gentle. ‘I didn’t mean now, I mean normally. Are you blonde, brunette, or ginger maybe?’

  She knew what he was doing, trying to keep her conscious, but she just wanted to close her eyes and sleep. ‘Brown hair, brown eyes, broken legs, I think.’ A small fall of loose rubble stopped her, and she began to cry.

  ‘Keep still! The rescue services will get to us soon. Just try not to cause anything to move, okay?’

  ‘Damn it! I can’t move at all!’ Her cry sounded slightly mad, even to her own ears.

  ‘Sshh, it’s all right. Listen, as soon as they get here, they’ll sort you out. Just try to take some deep breaths and relax.’

  ‘Who . . . ?’ The tiredness overcame her. She heard him talking, but could not understand him. Just a few words here and there through the fuzzy state of bewilderment that she found herself in, then the pain became almost t
oo much to bear.

  ‘Helen! Helen! Talk to me!’

  She struggled to keep her eyes open, and something like awareness crept back into her mind. ‘Thank you, for being there for me.’

  She heard a long sigh on the other side of the collapsed wall.

  ‘Did you tell me your name?’

  There was a long pause, and after a while she realised that it was not him, but the fact that she was still drifting in and out of consciousness.

  ‘I’m losing you, Helen, aren’t I?’ The voice was soft and full of pain.

  Her head throbbed and she could no longer answer him.

  ‘I wish I could have helped you, but you are going to die too, just like her.’

  Somehow she fought to hold on. Die? What was he saying? Somehow, despite all that had happened, she had never even considered the thought of dying. Sleep, yes, but dying? She strained to hear the man, whose voice was now little more than a whisper.

  ‘You sound so nice, Helen, but you wouldn’t like me if you knew me. You see, I’ve just left a woman in my bedroom. She’s dead, and I killed her.’

  Helen heard screaming. Terrified, agonising screams. Who was it?

  ‘Helen! For God’s sake, darling! It’s me, it’s Andrew. What on earth is wrong?’

  As she realised what was happening, she burst into tears. The screams had been her own.

  * * *

  Nikki stared at the memo that her office manager, Sheila Robbins, had placed on her desk.

  ‘They’ve pulled a body from the Westland River, ma’am.’ Sheila raised her eyebrows. ‘That’s three in six months and all in the Halbeck area of town.’

  ‘Gang-related again?’ Nikki asked.

  ‘Well, from the ID found on him, he has a name that I can’t pronounce, and seems to have been involved with some Russian migrants that one of the other CID teams were interested in, so drugs or people smuggling would be my guess.’

  It was an increasing worry for Greenborough. The impact of migration on local policing had been immense. Taskforces had been set up and extensive recommendations made. There were offices within her own police station that Nikki had never even set foot in, but she knew they were exclusively operating to produce facts and figures and intelligence about the effects of the large influx of migrant workers. She knew that old Greenborough folk didn’t walk some of the streets at night, and that a chunk of their budget was taken up by translation costs. She knew that she was spending increasing amounts of time at ‘Good Relations’ public meetings, trying to find solutions to the challenges that population change had brought into her town. She also knew that the old market town and its hundreds of acres of farming land needed the migrant workers to survive, and most were hard-working, decent people. It was a double-edged sword.

  ‘Am I needed at the scene?’

  Sheila shook her head. ‘The river retrieval unit has it under control. DI Mercer has taken the shout and she has a doctor there. The body should be on its way to the morgue fairly shortly. I just thought you should know.’

  ‘Thanks, Sheila.’

  The office manager returned to her desk, and Nikki glanced down at a daily paper that she had left behind. Greenborough had been named one of the worst crime spots in the country. Great, she thought. Just great!

  It was tempting to ball up the rag and throw it in the bin, but she supposed she should see what the world was being told about her town. She picked it up, but her phone rang and she was temporarily saved.

  ‘Whoa! Hold it, Andrew! Slow down. Now, have you called a doctor?’

  She listened silently to his uncharacteristic outpouring. Finally he seemed to run out of steam. ‘I should have listened to you, Nikki. I’m so sorry. Could you come, do you think? It’s you she wants to talk to.’

  ‘Keep her calm, Andrew. Tell her I’m on my way.’

  Nikki grabbed her bag and called for Joseph. She kept her voice low. ‘It’s Helen. She’s had some sort of traumatic flashback. Andrew is beside himself with worry. Are you free to come with me?’

  He nodded quickly. ‘We’ll take my car. Let’s go.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  By the time Nikki and Joseph arrived, Helen was considerably calmer. Nikki noticed a slight tremor in her hands, but her voice was steady.

  ‘It was a memory. No doubt about it. He was with me in that cellar. A man was with me. I recalled everything he said.’

  ‘What triggered it?’ asked Nikki.

  ‘A history programme on the TV, about the bombing of Dresden.’ She swallowed. ‘One minute I was watching the screen, the next I was back in that cellar.’

  ‘Well, that’s an understandable trigger for a flashback. And where were you, Andrew?’ Joseph asked.

  ‘Right here on the sofa, my arm around Helen. I was exhausted and I went to sleep. I woke up to hear Helen screaming. She’d slipped down onto the floor and was shivering like it was twenty degrees below. She was terrified.’ Andrew looked more disturbed than Helen. He sat fiddling with his hands, looking plaintively at Nikki and Joseph.

  Nikki was looking at Helen. ‘So what did this man say that has frightened you so much?’

  Helen’s lip quivered. ‘He confessed to a murder. He must have thought I was dying, or maybe dead already, because he told me he’d killed a woman.’ Her eyes widened. ‘Nikki, do you understand me? He confessed to killing someone!’

  Nikki remained calm. ‘Did he tell you who he’d killed?’

  ‘Just said a woman. He’d left her in their bedroom.’

  ‘Did he tell you his name?’

  ‘I think he did, but I can’t recall everything. I was semi-conscious some of the time and often completely out of it.’

  Nikki knew that when she and Joseph had scrambled down into that hellhole, Helen was almost unresponsive, and quite alone. She racked her brain for something constructive to say. ‘Helen? On the phone, Andrew said something about you wanting me here officially. So, apart from being here as your friend, what is it you want me to do?’ Egg shells, or what?

  Helen’s expression was difficult to read, but Nikki saw anger there. Through taut, thin lips she said, ‘Don’t you get it? I am reporting a murder. I want you to follow the procedures. I’m also telling you, officially, that one year later he has found out that I am still alive and he’s bitterly regretting using that cellar as a confessional! He’s out there, Nikki. He’s watching me, and he’s going to kill me.’

  * * *

  Outside, Joseph shook his head slowly from side to side. ‘I’m sorry. Earlier I was convinced that she had a stalker, or at least a peeping Tom, but now I think Helen needs help, and not the kind that Greenborough Police has to offer.’ He unlocked the car and they both flopped heavily into their seats.

  ‘I don’t understand it,’ Nikki said. ‘She made an almost miraculous recovery. Lord, you saw the state of her twelve months ago! She got on top of everything, even got herself back to work. Now she’s a wreck.’

  ‘Perhaps she never really addressed all the issues, and they’re catching up on her.’

  Nikki shook her head. ‘No, I’m sure it’s not that. You don’t know her as well as I do. She’s one of those people who just copes with things. Whatever life throws at her, she gets on with it. She’s very much like you, all beautifully balanced and calm. She used to teach yoga and meditation before she specialised in aromatherapy. I’m sure it’s this thing about someone following her that’s sent her off the rails. She nearly bit my head off in there, and that’s not Helen. All this is so out of character, but whatever, she really believes what she just told us.’

  ‘So, do you think it’s some kind of mental aberration, or a real memory?’

  ‘I don’t know, but she’s not an idiot. If she thinks she is being watched, then that’s good enough for me. We are too close to all this to think clearly. What would we do if a member of the public, someone unknown to us, made a serious claim?’

  ‘We’d check it out.’

  ‘Exactly. So that’s what
we’ll do. We start at the beginning, at the crash site. And we also see if anyone else suspects a prowler in the area of the Westland Waterway.’

  Joseph took a deep breath. ‘You’re right. It’s certainly worth making some enquiries. I’ll get Dave to check the day book on the computer when we get back, see if anyone else has reported seeing anything suspicious in her area recently. And Cat, or our new boy, can fish out the old accident reports on the crash.’ He looked across at her. ‘Yes, this is the way to go. Study the facts.’

  Nikki nodded as she pulled her seatbelt across her. ‘After what Helen’s been through, she deserves us to do our job properly. So I’m going to try to forget that she’s my friend and inject a bit of clarity into my thinking. Back to basics, Joseph.’

  ‘Back to basics, ma’am.’

  * * *

  Cat had promised the boss that she would be on her best behaviour, and she was really making an effort, but Eric Barnes’ veiled sarcasm was really getting to her. Poor old Dave. Though he was clearly more than happy to be back at work, he seemed less than keen on being a peace-keeper in the middle of a war zone. Cat could see he was valiantly trying to hold things together, but the atmosphere in the CID room was not exactly warm and amicable.

  Dave looked at them. ‘Okay, guys. We’ve got some work to do, and as I’m office-bound, the boss has asked me to delegate.’ He handed them each a sheet of paper. ‘Cat, would you take a fresh look at the Blackmoor Cross incident, particularly any mention of the cellar in which Helen Brook was found.’ He turned to Eric. ‘And would you check the day log and see if anyone has reported anything out of the ordinary in the area of Westland Waterway.’

  Cat was glad of something to do that did not involve talking to Eric, and buckled down immediately.

  The accident had been one of the worst that Greenborough had ever suffered. Staring at the screen immediately took her back to the horror of that particular RTC. Even the bland “official speak” of the reports failed to hide the chaos that the lorry had caused, or the devastation to lives and families. The driver of the articulated vehicle had suffered a massive heart attack and the coroner stated that he was dead before the lorry finally came to rest. Cold comfort for the bereaved, she thought. Cat scanned a list of names but decided that wasn’t what she was looking for. She exited the window, brought up another, and found herself looking at a crash investigator’s report. ‘Uh-oh!’