Quick off the Mark

by Moody, Susan

  ‘How can I find out who owns the place?’

  ‘Let me put my thinking cap on. Can’t be too difficult a problem. Land Registry or something similar, or there’ll be somebody local who’s in the picture. Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Just covering my bases.’ I wasn’t going to tell him that given its proximity to Honeypot Lane, I was wondering whether Tristan had been taken there and tortured prior to his death, since this was pure speculation on my part. And if the place was abandoned, why not just leave him there to – oh God – decompose, rather than taking the trouble to transport his body to the field where the dog Marlowe had found him? ‘Do you know if the police have been in to check it out?’

  ‘Haven’t seen any recent activity round there, I have to say. Walked that way several times with the dog, since the body was found, kept my eyes open, naturally, but then I always do. Army training: you never know what’s going to come at you out of nowhere.’

  It was one to pass on to Fliss Fairlight. But I would wait until she called me back about Yvonne Landis.

  ‘You don’t see Harkness any more, I take it.’

  ‘Not since Lil’s final visit, when the little’un died.’

  ‘If the place was his, what do you suppose he stored in it? And where was whatever it was going? Didn’t you say he was into disposable nappies, something like that?’

  ‘Could have been anything. But as I told you earlier, I saw an ad for the company in some technical-type magazine. Got the impression they were into widgets or gadgets of some kind.’ The Major frowned. ‘Can’t say I ever saw evidence of anything being delivered. Lorries, trucks, vans and so forth. I’ve occasionally seen lights in the distance, through the trees sort of thing, but not recently. Mind you, the place I’m thinking of is quite a way off the road, down a track leading into the woods. The police might not even know it’s there.’

  ‘You should tell them. I’m sure they’ll be grateful for your information, if they haven’t already sussed the place out.’

  Having said goodbye, I went back to my car and made for Honeypot Lane where I drove down towards the main road. As far as I could see, there didn’t seem to be any kind of a turning off to the left, nor any discernible break in the heavy undergrowth, and on the right-hand side of the lane were only fields. At the bottom of the lane, I did a three-point turn and drove slowly back up. Down here, in the little dip, it still seemed like high summer, although blackberries now glistened in the hedges and early hazel-nuts crackled under my wheels.

  There was still no sign of a path. For the third time I drove along the lane, very, very slowly and this time made out an indentation in the undergrowth. It immediately seemed obvious that this must be a back entrance to the site where this large shed was, because if poor Tristan’s body had been dragged or driven along what I now perceived to be a minimal track or footpath, indications would definitely have been left.

  I drove further down to the bottom of the lane and turned left along the main road towards the town. Sure enough, I eventually found that there was another path, little more than a farm track, but more discernible. It was hard to believe that Garside’s team hadn’t checked the place out, since it was pretty close to where the body had been found, but it was clear that no vehicle had driven this way in the recent past.

  I turned on to the track and drove slowly along it, leaves and branches slapping at the windows of the car and doing God knew what damage to my paintwork. After about half a mile, I reached an open space. A long, low building faced me, made of a course of bricks topped by breeze blocks, reinforced by iron struts. The structure was completed by a corrugated-iron roof which had once been painted green. It wasn’t new. As the Major had indicated, it seemed semi-derelict. Some of the breeze blocks were crumbling and there were gaps in the brickwork. I wondered what had led anyone to build the place in such an isolated spot, surrounded by trees and unkempt undergrowth. When I got out of my car and stood listening, I couldn’t even hear the sound of traffic from the nearby road.

  In the footwell on the passenger side of my car, I keep a heavy wrench. Just in case. Even though I always make sure my doors are locked when I’m driving about, you just never know. Now, I picked it up and carried it with me as I walked around the building, looking for a way in. There was one door in the front, facing the open space where my car stood, but no windows. Nor were there any at either end of the building. At the back, however, I found two windows and three doors, one wide enough to admit a large van, the two others presumably intended for the passage of individuals. Or bodies? All three were painted green though the paint was faded and peeling. And sometime in the not-too-distant past, all three had been fitted with bright new locks, which looked a lot stronger than the doors themselves.

  On the whole I don’t go in for sixth senses or presentiments. Yet there was something about this place which was really creeping me out. I turned to scan the woods behind and on either side of me, but could see no indication of anyone hidden away and watching me. A bird suddenly cawed very loudly from a tree above my head, and I jumped, goose bumps forming along my arms, heart thumping. I tightened my grip on the wrench. Was that an avian alarm call? And if so, what was the cause of it, me or someone else moving stealthily between the trees? Blood thumped in my ears as I listened. Nothing. Not even a stray breeze ruffling the leaves. So probably just some bloody-minded crow, trying to scare the living daylights out me.

  Back to the business in hand. Having pushed hard at all three doors and tried hammering the two windows – both fitted with wired glass and at least two feet higher than I could effectively reach – without any luck, I circled the building once again, trying to find a vulnerable spot. On one of the end walls, I noticed a place where several of the bricks seemed to be parting company with the breeze block which sat above them, and a couple had disintegrated and lay on the rough grass below. Was it worth trying to tunnel my way through, like some escaping prisoner, with the difference being that I wanted to get in, rather than out? Breaking and entering was a crime, I knew perfectly well … but murder was far more than that.

  I had a go. My wrench proved very useful at making the small hole much wider. I hammered at the disintegrating concrete, watching as chunks of it fell away. Several times I had to retreat to the woods and stand with head bent and hands on my knees, drawing in deep breaths and trying not to vomit. The stink coming through the ever-widening aperture was stomach-turning. Rotting meat, for the most part, with a nauseating overlay of human waste. I knew I did not want to extend the opening to the point where it was big enough for me to squeeze through. I also knew I had no choice.

  It took another thirty minutes before I had chipped away enough concrete to create a gap wide enough for me to slide through. Luckily I’m not built on massive lines. Although the hole I’d made wasn’t enormous, anybody walking round the building could hardly fail to see the breach in the wall. On the other hand, it wasn’t that big. I managed to cram my way into the warehouse, landing on the rough concrete floor inside. Once inside, the stench of the place was ten times worse, making my eyes water and my stomach heave. Involuntarily I screwed up my face to avoid having any more contact with the smell than I had to. On the force, we used to carry small tins of Vicks to smear under our noses when visiting a scene like this. I wished I had some with me now.

  My heart, as they say in old-fashioned novels, failed me. Holding my breath, I ran over to the two single doors. Using the tails of my shirt, I unsnibbed the lock on one of them and flung it wide, letting in some much-needed fresh air. The space I was in stretched away to the far end, where a load of big boxes, resting on wooden pallets, was stashed against the wall. More stood piled against the wall which opened on to the front of the building. They looked fairly new. One corner of the place had been partitioned off with plasterboard walls to form a small space for tea-making or perhaps a loo.

  At first sight, the empty space seemed harmless enough. Nothing more than it purported to be. A convenient pla
ce for the storage of goods. Until you took in the bloodsoaked hospital gurney which stood in the middle of the floor. Restraining bands dangled. Disgusting pieces of bloody paper towel, dried to a dark brown, had been chucked on to the blood-spattered floor. A couple of galvanized iron buckets stood on either side of the gurney, vibrating with hundreds of shiny green flies, their bodies bloated with blood. Here and there underneath were bits of dried-up matter which – mouth screwed up with disgust – I was able to identify as gobbets of raw meat. Or flesh knifed from the body of my dear friend, Tristan Huber. The floor was heavily splashed with dried blood and cigarette stubs. There were more of them in one of the buckets: could someone really have casually stood there and smoked while a man was sliced to pieces in front of him, before being carted off to be tossed into a field to die in agony? The thought of it, of Tristan’s pain, made me literally sick to my stomach. I contemplated taking some of the cigarette butts as evidence, but reasoned that I had no official status and could be accused of contamination, or worse, if I did so.

  I walked over and checked out the stacked boxes. Numbers and letters were stencilled on the sides in black, plus some oriental pictographs. Using my elbow and some brute force, I managed to shunt the top box of three of the piles sideways, so I could see if there was any indication of what they contained. And there was. Bags, I read. St Laurent, Valentino, Michael Kors … they were names I knew to be the envy of a world where people needed expensive accessories to give them validity and were willing to pay ludicrous prices to acquire them.

  A second box appeared to contain watches, very expensive ones, Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin and the like. As I bent my head to read more of the names, I heard a noise coming from the little kitchen area. I froze. Was someone else already here? Someone with a right to be here? That didn’t seem likely: they would have heard me breaking in long ago and come to investigate. Nobody could have snuck in through the open doors without me being aware. What if it was someone who shouldn’t be there …?

  The sound came again, a kind of scratching ripping chewing noise. Rats! I immediately knew it had to be rats. Oh God! I took a couple of steps nearer the kitchen area. More likely it was a bird which had somehow got in via the roof and couldn’t find its way out again. I approached the room sideways, hoping to see what was causing the noise without actually having to go into it. I saw jeans, trainers, the edge of a shirt. It looked as though someone was lying on the floor. A body, or someone still alive? Wrench in one hand, I moved nearer the door so that I could peer round it more easily. No question, I was looking at the body of a young man, his head lying in a pool of coagulated blood. It looked like he’d been hit on the back of the head with some force. Above his jeans he wore a torn T-shirt with a logo for the university chess club and underneath it, an image of a white Queen and a black King and the words: MAKE THE RIGHT MOVES. As I approached, a rat burrowed its way out from under the body and ran to the corner of the room, where it disappeared. There was blood all round its evil little mouth.

  Although it was clearly pointless, I nonetheless knelt carefully down beside him and laid a hand against his cheek. There is something about the chill of a dead body which is colder than frost. It’s the haunting sense that not only has the heart stopped pushing blood through veins and arteries, but that there is nothing there any more, the spirit has fled, along with all the dreams and hopes, the loves and hates, the memories. There were some signs of decay, mostly a plumped-up look beneath the T-shirt and a bit of a pong, and it was clear that some predator – the rat I had seen? – had somehow got in and had chewed at the boy’s right hand. The flesh had been stripped to the bones of his first two digits, and a dark hole gaped where there had once been a little finger. Even more chilling was the realization that this was the third violent death locally in less than a month.

  I went back into the main space and called DCI Fairlight. Told her what I’d found and how I found it. Emphasized that I’d opened the doors, walked across the floor, inspected the boxes, but hadn’t touched anything else except the poor chap’s cheek, that insofar as possible, I’d kept contamination to a minimum. ‘There’s probably identification on him,’ I said.

  ‘Do you think this is the same perp as the one who offed Tristan Huber?’

  ‘No idea … but it more or less has to be. Garside needs to get down here ASAP.’

  ‘Is this an anonymous tip from a concerned citizen, or shall I tell him it came from you?’

  ‘Let’s go with the anonymous tip,’ I said. ‘He’ll already be pissed off that his team hadn’t looked carefully enough round the area. Much worse if he knows I did. There’s cigarette butts,’ I added.

  ‘Someone obviously knew about the place,’ Fliss said.

  ‘Even if you find out who owns or leases it, it doesn’t mean he or she is the one responsible for the body.’

  ‘I imagine not.’

  ‘Could just as easily, if not more likely, have been someone local.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘Has Garside got any theories yet as to how and why Tristan’s body was removed from the torture scene – which I’m willing to bet a substantial sum on being the warehouse – and dumped along Honeypot Lane?’

  ‘He may well have. But if so, he hasn’t divulged the info to me.’

  ‘By the way, what did you find out about Yvonne Landis? If anything.’

  ‘Nothing.’ There was something clenched about Fliss’s voice which immediately made me suspect that she was lying.

  ‘Not even though I gave you a name, an address and a telephone number for her?’

  ‘Not even then, Quick.’

  So there was a trail for me to follow, and quickly. I like driving, but I groaned at the thought of flogging down to Alcombe, finding South Street, and forcing my way into Ms Landis’s life. She had sounded open on the phone. And nice.

  I took one last look around the warehouse, imprinting it on my memory. Questions drummed in my head. Why had the boy come or been brought here? What state had he been in when he arrived? Was Tristan really tortured to death here? And if so, the same queries pertained. How had he been brought to this particular spot? And why here? Was there a connection between the warehouse or its owner and Tristan, or had the killer merely known about the shed and decided it provided the perfect torture-chamber?

  I took a deep breath – and immediately wished I hadn’t. I walked out of the open door and pulled it to. I ran to the edge of the woods, and threw up. It would be a long time before I’d be able to erase from my mind that improvised killing spot and its contents.

  When I felt steady enough, I drove home.

  TWELVE

  Mrs Yvonne Landis. Strathmore House, 33 South Street, Alcombe, near Maidstone. It wasn’t hard to find the place, which proved, as I’d expected, to be yet another of those pleasant houses that the well-heeled English inhabit. I walked across the graveled area in front, wondering what I was doing there. Surely the police had access to the same information that I had … wouldn’t they have contacted the woman by now? She hadn’t mentioned it when I spoke to her that morning, telling her that I would be in her area and might I drop in.

  I was wondering what it was about Yvonne Landis that had made Fliss Fairlight clam up so tightly. And also why the name should initially have rung bells for her, however faintly.

  As I approached the house, the front door opened and a bubbly sort of female stood on the threshold, waiting for me. Well-cut dark-blue slacks. Navy cardigan with an Hermès scarf tucked into the neck. Pearl studs at the ears. Bridge once a week, pampering at the local spa once a month, I reckoned. Plus regular visits to the beauty parlour, which accounted for the sugar-frosted effect of her hair.

  ‘Ms Quick?’ she asked.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Do come in!’ Her voice added exclamation marks to everything she said. If I’d had to sum her up in a single word, it would have been ‘perky’.

  I followed her down a hall which appeared to bisect the h
ouse, noticing the number of locks and bolts there were on the solid front door. Added to the CCTV camera I’d glimpsed in the trimmed juniper in front of the house, and the alarm pad by the entrance, it could have meant that this was a security-conscious couple living in the kind of area often targeted by thieves, or that this was a security-conscious couple with something to hide. Or to be afraid of.

  There was a glass door at the end of the passage, giving a glimpse of garden: orderly hedges, freshly-mown lawn, roses, lavender bushes heavy with purple spikes.

  ‘I’ve got coffee in the garden room!’ Mrs Landis said.

  The garden room was basically one of those conservatory additions, like Edward Vine’s, which had been slapped on to the rear of the house. It was full of comfortable-looking wicker furniture – sofas, chairs, coffee tables – with chintz-covered cushions everywhere. Plants in pots stood about on the tiled floor.

  ‘Nice,’ I said, since comment seemed to be called for.

  ‘Thank you!’ She settled us both down with cups of coffee and a plate of digestive biscuits between us. ‘Now, how can I help?’

  I’d decided on an approach which I thought might explain why I was there. ‘As I told you on the phone, I’m a long-term employee of Huber Associates,’ I said. ‘This terrible murder of the boss … well, you can imagine we were all devastated. And as a long-standing friend of him and his family, it was suggested that, in a purely unofficial capacity, I make a few enquiries.’

  ‘And who asked you to do this?’ Yvonne reached for a brass-banded glass box containing a stash of filter-tip cigarettes, removed one, offered the box to me and closed it when I shook my head. She lit up and threw back her head then emitted a dragon-worthy plume of smoke. Gaahd! I tried not to recoil. I considered producing a hacking cough and thumping my chest a bit, but it wasn’t my house and besides being rude, it would probably have the effect of alienating her.