Cold Sacrifice

by Leigh Russell

  Sandra swung her steering wheel, slamming on her brakes. The car skidded and slid to crash into the oncoming vehicle at an angle. If the other car had taken similar evasive action, they might have avoided a collision. As it was, the impact was deafening. The airbag blew up in her face as the car juddered to a halt. She was shaking so badly, she could barely manage to reach for the door handle. All she could think of was that she had to get out of the car. It might explode, or burst into flames, with her still inside it. She seemed to be sitting for hours, frantically rattling the door handle.

  Suddenly the door flew open. A face peered in at her. Despite her wooziness, she saw that it was a policeman.

  ‘Help,’ she croaked. ‘Help!’

  She must have lost consciousness for a second, because when she looked again the policeman had vanished. Tears sprang to her eyes at the realisation that she was on her own. Gingerly she tried to move her arms and legs. Everything seemed to be working normally. She told herself she hadn’t been travelling very fast when the vehicles crashed, and it had probably sounded worse than it was. She struggled to slide her legs round so she could get out and as she did so, the sound of a siren reached her. She fell back on her seat, crying with relief. Of course the policeman hadn’t abandoned her. He had been calling for help.

  As if in response to her thoughts, he returned and leaned down to talk to her through the open door.

  ‘Don’t worry.’

  It was such an inane thing to say, she felt like laughing. It occurred to her that her father probably felt similarly helpless. She wondered what he really thought of her attempts to reassure him. He was always polite, and appreciative, but inside he must feel as tormented by the futility of her efforts as she was. The policeman was talking again.

  ‘We’ll soon have you out of there.’

  He looked very young, and very grave. She thanked him quite lucidly and his worried frown relaxed.

  ‘That’s the spirit. You’re going to be OK,’ he said with forced cheerfulness that made her want to cry, because she understood so well how he was feeling.

  The keys had gone from the ignition. The young policeman must have reached in to switch off the engine. Sensibly he hadn’t attempted to move her but had left that to the experts who were already on their way. Before long two firemen were lifting her gently out of the car. They laid her on a waiting stretcher and the paramedics took over. No longer panicking, Sandra became aware that her head was pounding, and her whole body ached as though she was suffering from a serious bout of flu. A paramedic gently felt her limbs and neck and asked her if anything hurt.

  ‘Everything,’ she groaned.

  Having established it was safe to move her, they carried her into an ambulance and she was taken off to hospital for a more thorough examination.

  ‘What about the other driver?’ she asked.

  ‘They’re fine,’ she was assured.

  She closed her eyes and felt unexpectedly peaceful. For once, other people were taking over the responsibility for what was happening.

  ‘Is there anyone we can call?’ a voice asked.

  Without opening her eyes, she gave them her husband’s phone number. As for her father, her brother would have to step in for once.

  * * * * *

  The first thing Police Constable Michael Rogers did on seeing the mangled vehicles was call for urgent assistance. A dark blue Honda had crashed into a red Mini. Behind the Honda, a figure lay motionless on the tarmac. He ran over to the woman who had been run over and knelt down to check for signs of life. The awkward position in which she lay made him suspect that he was too late. As he leaned forward, a putrid smell wafted towards him from the body and he gagged. Dutifully, he pressed on. He couldn’t find a pulse and she didn’t appear to be breathing. He became aware of a rattling sound behind him. Turning his head, he saw the driver’s door to the Mini was being shaken from inside. He ran over and yanked it open.

  A middle-aged woman was sitting in the driver’s seat, moaning. She blinked up at him and called out for help. Michael leaned in and turned the engine off. He wasn’t sure it was safe to move the woman, but she didn’t appear to be in any immediate danger so he decided it was best to wait for the paramedics. They soon arrived, closely followed by a fire team ready with cutting equipment in case anyone was trapped, and a police car. Quickly, Michael brought them up to speed: a driver in the mini, a driver and one passenger in the Honda, and a woman who had been knocked down on the tarmac. A paramedic ran over to the woman lying on the ground. After a few seconds, he stood up and shook his head.

  Having passed the responsibility for dealing with the victims on to those who were equipped to help them, Michael busied himself setting up a cordon to keep the public out of the car park. It wouldn’t be long before people started to gather. When more police officers showed up, he returned to the scene of the crash to find out the extent of the damage. The bodywork of both vehicles was badly damaged. The drivers and passenger were suffering from shock, but appeared to have escaped serious physical injury. The pedestrian who had been knocked down was dead. A white-faced boy of about twelve was sitting in an ambulance, wrapped in a silver blanket, shivering, while a paramedic was chatting quietly to him.

  ‘He was driving the Honda,’ the paramedic told the constable.

  Seeing the policeman’s uniform, the boy glared, blinking furiously. Michael had the impression he was on the point of tears so he spoke to him gently.

  Macauley Hobbs was thirteen. He had found the car with the keys in the dashboard, so he had driven it round the car park ‘for a laugh’, no doubt intending to impress his companion, a little blonde girl who was sitting in another ambulance, crying hysterically. Even if Michael had been trained to question underage witnesses, he would have to wait for a suitable adult to be present. The two children’s mothers had both been contacted and were on their way.

  ‘Your mother will be here soon,’ he reassured the boy who shook his head vehemently, and looked more frightened than ever.

  ‘You can’t tell my mum. She’ll kill me if she finds out what I done.’

  First to arrive was a blonde woman in a black coat who was escorted through the cordon and over to the ambulance where the young girl was still sobbing. Soon after that, there was a commotion at the cordon and a fat voluble woman marched into the car park, waving her arms in the air. Michael recognised her companion, a female constable called Susan Bailey who was trained to question children.

  ‘Where is the little sod?’ the fat woman was shouting.

  Michael hurried to intercept them.

  ‘You must be Macauley’s mother?’

  ‘Where is the little sod?’ she repeated loudly.

  ‘Mrs Hobbs –’

  ‘It’s Miss.’

  ‘Miss Hobbs, your son has just been involved in a collision and he’s in shock. You’ll need to give him time –’

  The woman rounded on him, her large face quivering with anger. Her cheeks were pink, and there was a faint sheen of perspiration on her forehead.

  ‘Don’t you tell me how to deal with my own son.’

  As soon as Macauley’s mother saw the boy inside the ambulance, her whole demeanour altered. Her shoulders drooped and she ran forward, arms outstretched, her face creased with emotion. She had to be restrained from enfolding the boy in her arms before he had been thoroughly checked for internal injuries.

  Privately Michael wondered if they were all being a bit soft. The boy had stolen a car and driven it. As a result of his boyish escapade, a woman had died. They needed to establish her identity. Neither of the drivers involved in the crash seemed to know that there had even been a pedestrian knocked down in the accident.

  ‘Who is she?’ Michael asked.

  ‘We haven’t got an identity yet,’ a constable told him. ‘She must have been knocked down, and no one noticed, with all the noise and ruck of the crash.’

  ‘What a sad way to die,’ Michael said softly. ‘No one even noticed.’
<
br />   36

  FEELING GUILTY THAT HE hadn’t remembered to leave a note, Ian was home by early afternoon. He even remembered they were meeting friends for a drink that evening. But when his work phone rang soon after he reached the house, he answered without hesitation. He would never have admitted as much to Bev, but he was eager to get back to the station and find out how things were going. Checking online or by phone wasn’t the same as being there, in the bustle and pressure of the physical team. Her expression darkened when he said he was on his way before he rang off.

  ‘What did you say?’

  Her eyes grew bright with anger as he gave an apologetic shrug and explained he had to go.

  ‘Go where?’

  ‘I’ve got to go and follow something up.’

  ‘You can’t. It’s Sunday. It’s your day off. You’ve only just got home.’

  ‘Unfortunately there’s no law that says people can’t be killed at weekends. It would make my life a whole lot easier if there was.’

  ‘You’re not supposed to be working today. We’ve arranged to go out later on.’

  ‘You’ll have to go without me.’

  ‘You know I can’t.’

  Losing patience, he spoke harshly.

  ‘A woman’s been run over and killed, and the car involved is registered to someone we’re currently investigating. I don’t have a choice, Bev.’

  ‘You do have a choice,’ she muttered crossly.

  He didn’t bother to answer. They had been through this many times before. She should know by now that he wasn’t going to leave his job. He had been through too much, and come too far to quit now.

  ‘You go on ahead if I’m not back in time,’ he said. ‘I’ll join you when I can.’

  He didn’t stop to argue any more. Scene of crime officers would already be crawling all over the site of the car crash in Margate. A forensic tent would have been erected. A forensic medical examiner would be looking at the body where it lay, before a post mortem was carried out once the body arrived at the morgue. As far as he knew neither of the drivers was seriously injured. They had both been taken to hospital to be checked. But he wasn’t going there to find out about the crash. He wasn’t concerned about the underage driver, or even the fatality. The reason for his interest was that one of the vehicles involved in the collision was registered to Henry Martin who had telephoned the police to report it stolen earlier that morning. This was Ian’s chance to find out exactly when the car had been moved from outside Henry’s house in Herne Bay, and have it thoroughly searched again by forensic officers. There was a chance Henry had paid someone else to dump it, and the job had been bungled. He imagined finding a knife with one sharp edge and a bent blade, a knife stained with Martha’s blood and Henry’s prints all over the handle. With growing excitement, he put his foot down.

  Apart from emergency vehicles, there were two smashed-up cars in the car park, beside a forensic tent. A pick-up truck was standing ready to tow the cars away once SOCOs had finished with them, and a row of police vehicles were waiting along one side of the car park. Looming above the scene, the massive metal structure of a disused rollercoaster swept eerily across the evening sky. After glancing at a badly damaged red Mini, Ian went over to take a closer look at the Honda that belonged to Henry. A faint stench of rotting flesh grew stronger as he approached the car and he wished he had put on a mask to diminish the smell. He called out to the scene of crime officer who was working inside the vehicle.

  ‘Have you found anything?’

  The officer clambered out of the car and straightened up, wiping his brow with the back of his sleeve.

  ‘You’ve only got to stick your mug in the boot to know she wasn’t involved in a fatal accident this morning. The body was in there for a while.’

  ‘A while?’

  ‘I’d say a day at least, but don’t quote me on that. I mean, it’s pretty obvious, but we need to get the DNA results before we can say for certain that the body on the tarmac was the cause of the stench in the boot.’

  Briefly, Ian told him about Martha’s fatal stabbing. The forensic officer nodded and said he had heard about it. His eyes widened when he heard that the Honda belonged to the husband of the woman who had been murdered.

  ‘So is he a suspect then?’

  ‘He’s the only suspect so far.’

  Ian didn’t add that he wasn’t convinced Henry was guilty.

  ‘Leave it to us, Sarge. He’ll have left something incriminating here. They always do. We’ll find it if it takes all night.’

  With a parting grin, he climbed back in the car and resumed his scrutiny of the upholstered front seats.

  Ian wasn’t sure what to do next. An officer who was trained to interview juveniles had gone to the hospital to talk to the two children who had been in the Honda when it crashed. Ian was impatient to know exactly when they had taken the car from outside Henry’s house, but there was nothing he could do to speed up the process. All he could do was wait for the report. He was going to speak to the driver of the Mini himself, although he wasn’t sure how talking to her was going to help. Before he left, he pulled on a protective suit and went into the forensic tent to see what was happening in there. He recognised the doctor kneeling beside the body at once from his skinny frame. Dr Millard was skeletal, from the dome of his large bald head to his bony fingers. Ian stood for a few seconds, watching the doctor at work. His hands flitted deftly around the dead woman’s throat, searching, probing. As though he could feel Ian’s eyes on him, he twisted his head round and looked up.

  ‘Oh, hello again, Sergeant. How are you keeping? I hear you’ve lost your sharp inspector.’

  ‘She’s been transferred to the Met.’

  ‘Well, I can’t say I envy her.’

  Ian grunted in acknowledgement, if not agreement.

  ‘So what have you found for us, doc?’

  ‘If you think she was run over and killed, you can think again.’

  Ian nodded. He already knew the victim had been dead for at least a day, and had probably been stored in the boot of the Honda.

  ‘You’re thinking it was the kid in the Honda who knocked her down,’ Millard went on.

  With a non-committal grunt, Ian waited to hear what the doctor had to say about it.

  ‘Well, it wasn’t. And before you ask, it wasn’t the driver of the Mini either. Are you surprised?’

  Ian didn’t answer.

  ‘Oh, I know there was a car crash,’ the doctor went on briskly, ‘but that wasn’t what killed her.’

  ‘Are you telling me this death had nothing to do with the crash here this morning –?’

  ‘If she was knocked over and killed this morning, she must have been one of the walking dead,’ the doctor replied, getting to his feet and facing Ian. ‘She died at least thirty-six hours ago, and she wasn’t run over. She was strangled and then kept in a confined space.’

  Gently he lifted a tress of her hair with a plastic gloved finger. One side of her face was livid where blood had pooled while she lay on her side after she died. Her flesh was already beginning to acquire a faint greenish tinge of putrefaction but the blackened line around her neck was still clearly visible where she had been strangled with a cord of some kind.

  ‘D’s the initial on her key ring,’ the doctor said. ‘It might not be hers, of course, and we don’t have a full name yet.’

  ‘It’s hers, all right,’ Ian replied, staring at the dead girl’s face. ‘She called herself Della, although her real name’s Jade Higgins.’

  ‘You know her?’ Millard didn’t seem surprised. ‘Was she connected to the owner of the Honda? I take it he’s the one you’re investigating.’

  Deep in thought, Ian left without answering.

  Polly was standing just outside the tent, chatting to a gloomy middle-aged constable in uniform. Ian joined them.

  ‘I was just telling the detective constable here how Dreamland used to be the number one place to visit,’ the uniformed officer said.
‘Looking at it now, you’d hardly credit there was a time when it was one of the top ten tourist attractions in the UK, would you? Back in the day, people used to come from all over. You know we had a Big Wheel here, years before the London Eye. They’re all over the place now, of course, Manchester, Liverpool, Brighton, Torquay – you name a town, they’ve got a big wheel. But I remember the Dreamland Big Wheel from when I was a kid, and that’s going back a bit. It was something special in those days. Then they took the Big Wheel down and sold it off to some theme park in Mexico in the mid-nineties, and the whole place shut down about ten years after that.’ He gazed around and heaved a sigh. ‘And look at it now. It’s like a graveyard.’

  ‘Literally,’ Ian muttered.

  Ian led Polly back towards her car. On the way he told her about Della.

  ‘So Henry’s been unlucky and lost his alibi,’ he concluded.

  ‘Or he’s stopped her from admitting she lied about being with him the night his wife was killed,’ Polly said.

  ‘Does it strike you as odd that she was strangled thirty-six hours ago and yet she turns up here, at the scene of a car crash, looking for all the world as though she’d been run over?’

  Polly shrugged and he went on.

  ‘It seems so clumsy, doesn’t it? Obviously we would know straight away that she hadn’t been killed in the accident, but had been brought here and left at the scene. Why would anyone do that?’

  ‘Perhaps it wasn’t like that,’ Polly said. ‘Perhaps she was sitting in Henry’s car all the time, and she was thrown out in the crash.’

  She wasn’t being serious, but Ian seized on the idea.

  ‘Of course! That’s it. Millard said she had been kept in a confined space –’

  They both turned to stare at the Honda. The answer was staring them in the face. The door to the boot was open. It was the work of a second to establish that it had been like that when the first officer had arrived on the scene. As the Honda had crashed, head on, the nearside doors and boot must have burst open on impact. The body had been thrown out onto the tarmac behind the car without anyone involved in the accident noticing it. Jade’s body had been in the boot of Henry’s car all morning, possibly longer.