by David Hodges
Noble grunted. ‘Why doesn’t that surprise me?’ he said.
Shaylor didn’t bite. ‘My place is next one up,’ he said, clutching at Kate’s arm.
She pushed his hand away, but grabbed Noble’s arm. ‘We stay together, Jimmy,’ she directed. ‘No lone-wolf stuff.’
The stairs made surprisingly little sound, despite the apparent dereliction of the place, and they reached the landing with hardly a creak. Flat Two and Flat Three opened off on either side and Kate smelled rather than saw the bathroom in front of them. ‘Which one?’ she asked Shaylor and he pointed to Flat Three.
A check revealed that the door had also been forced and for a moment all three stood there listening. Nothing, save the blare of a television from the flat opposite.
Shaylor was on the point of pushing the front door open, when Kate smelled the petrol. ‘Out!’ she screamed and slammed into Noble, sending him staggering back down the stairs as Shaylor thudded after them in a panic.
They had only just made the hall when the explosion lifted them off their feet and a massive orange fireball rolled down the stairs in pursuit, literally blowing them out through the front door into the street.
Behind them the whole building was engulfed in flames as windows blew out with a sound like snapping limbs, and the screams of those trapped inside were shortly drowned by the crash of collapsing timbers.
Once again, Twister had proved himself to be ahead of the game and once again carnage had followed in his wake.
chapter 12
‘NO ONE DEAD, but three badly burned – Shaylor and two other guys in the next flat,’ Hayden Lewis said, the shock still written into his expression as he brought Kate her breakfast in bed on a tray. ‘Forensics say they think the swine disconnected a gas-pipe, then attached some sort of explosive device to a couple of petrol cans.’
Kate nodded. ‘Quicker than searching for the cigarette packet Shaylor left there,’ she observed with a grimace, ‘though how the hell our man knew that Shaylor had the car number in the first place is a total mystery to me. How’s Jimmy Noble?’
Lewis gave a faint smile. ‘A bit scorched, that’s all. Still swearing his head off in hospital apparently, but he should be released shortly.’
He stared at Kate intently. ‘You don’t look so hot yourself, you know.’
‘I think hot is the wrong word under the circumstances,’ she replied. ‘And I’m sorry about poor old Shaylor and the two residents, but at least we all survived. This creature is like a one-man war.’
He settled on the corner of the bed. ‘Listen,’ he began. ‘Sorry about my touch of pique yesterday. I was just rather upset and—’
She laid a hand on his wrist and smiled wearily. ‘The flowers downstairs are lovely,’ she said. ‘And you don’t have to say anything else. In fact, I was rather chuffed.’
He frowned. ‘Chuffed?’
‘Yes, no one has been jealous of me before.’
His frown deepened. ‘Well, it won’t happen again, I promise.’
She feigned indignation. ‘And why not?’
He gaped and then shook his head several times. ‘No, no, I didn’t mean that I won’t be jealous again…. Well, I did, but what I actually meant was—’
In spite of everything, Kate was laughing now. ‘Hayden, you are such a lovable nitwit. If you’re in a hole, as they say, just stop digging, OK?’
He gave her a sheepish smile and patted her arm, before getting up to go. ‘Well, I have to be off. DI says you’re to stay in bed until you feel fit enough to get up.’
‘He said that?’
He grinned. ‘Not exactly. What he actually said was “I suppose the lazy bitch won’t be in today at all now?”’
He got to the door, then half-turned. ‘Oh, by the way, they’ve found what they think is Shaylor’s mysterious Volvo.’
She sat up quickly. ‘You what? Where?’
‘Car-park of a nature reserve out on the Levels. Burned out apparently. Early turn uniform responded to a fire service call day before yesterday, but put it down to joy-riders until all this got out.’
‘And it’s definitely the car?’
‘Seems so. One index plate was found some yards away. Someone’s been to see Shaylor in hospital and he says that the number sounds about right. DVLC have confirmed it was a red Volvo and the rear bumper bar is certainly missing. Motor was stolen from the forecourt of a Taunton used-car dealer about a week ago apparently. Some idiot of a salesman left the keys in the ignition.’
Kate’s legs were already pushing out from under the duvet and Lewis frowned. ‘And where the devil do you think you are going,’ he snapped.
She grinned. ‘Well, a shower first,’ she replied. ‘But then the nick. After all, we mustn’t add to poor old Roscoe’s blood pressure, must we?’
The haunting boom of a bittern erupted from the depths of the wetland reserve, like the low resonant sound of a ship’s foghorn, as Kate stepped out of her car into the car-park. She was just in time to see the burned out Volvo more or less in situ – a low-loader was already in the process of lifting it on to the back of the truck and the driver cast her the usual appreciative once-over with the sort of grin she knew so well.
He wasn’t the only one there either. Phil Sharp was just about to get into his CID car as she arrived and he turned towards her, a quizzical look on his face. ‘Thought you were sick?’ he said, walking over to her.
‘I don’t know where you got that idea from,’ she retorted. ‘I’m just on my way in.’
‘So what are you doing here?’
‘Thought I’d drop by on the way.’
‘How did you know where to come?’
She shrugged. ‘I do have the control-room’s number, you know.’
He grimaced. ‘Guv’nor won’t like it. He don’t like free-range operators – and you’re supposed to have a chaperone with you everywhere you go anyway.’
‘He won’t know, unless you tell him.’
His cocky grin surfaced suddenly and he jerked a thumb towards the lorry, now trundling away towards the exit with its load of scorched metal. ‘Not much left of that anyway. Why do you suppose your psycho mate dumped it here – it’s miles from anywhere.’
She shrugged. ‘Your guess is as good as mine. I’m more interested in how he got away afterwards.’
‘What do you mean?’
She sighed, as if trying to explain something to a backward child. ‘Well, either he likes long distance walking or he drove away again after torching the Volvo and, since even he couldn’t drive two cars at once, he must have been in another motor.’
Sharp frowned and stared about him, as if trying to draw inspiration from the encircling trees. ‘So you’re saying he must have nicked another car – maybe from here?’
She shook her head in disbelief. ‘Bravo, Phil, you’re there.’
The sarcasm was lost on him, however, and he frowned again. ‘Nothing in our bulletins about a car being nicked from around here.’
A sudden chill possessed her. ‘Given Twister’s track record, maybe the driver wasn’t in any fit state to report his car stolen.’
Sharp’s eyes widened and he glanced around him again, a little nervously this time. ‘I’ll suggest that to the Guv’nor when I get back,’ he said, turning away from her towards his car. ‘Get a team out here.’
‘You do that,’ she called after him. ‘I’m just going to have a bit of a mooch around first.’
‘Better watch out for the bogeyman then,’ he chortled through the open window and promptly drove off.
The big brown rat had returned. Ever since finding the corpse under the hide she had been helping herself to the most succulent bits, instinct leading her to the softer parts of the abdomen first. With a large family to feed, she knew that she could not afford to pass up the opportunity.
But another denizen had also sniffed out the partially gutted remains and the only thing that until now had kept the mangy fox away was the glint of the water
in which the body lay partially submerged. Finally, however, Reynard’s empty belly had won the day and, plucking up the courage, he scrambled down the shallow bank into the reeds and sent the rat racing to safety as he began to take his share of the feast. The ropes holding the corpse in place were already frayed from the rat’s attentions and the weight of the fox severed the remaining strands on one side. As the body began to drift outwards with the water, Reynard bolted even faster than the rat, leaving the corpse projecting slightly from under the hide, held by just one rope; its empty eye-sockets – pecked clean by feathered marauders – staring sightlessly up through the narrow gaps in the planking above.
Kate heard the fox’s panic-stricken flight through the boggy reeds as she approached the hide and she turned quickly at the sound, her heart thumping. Then she caught a brief glimpse of the scavenger as he disappeared into the woods and released her breath in a heavy relieved sigh. ‘Bloody Reynard,’ she mouthed silently, one hand held against her chest; he’d given her the fright of her life.
She heard the boom of the bittern again as she went up the ramp to the door of the hide and jerked it open, her knee-length black boots clumping hollowly on the wooden planks. As she’d expected, the long timbered building was empty and the viewing hatches were all shut. Reaching across the bench seat, she opened one of them and secured it with its wooden latch. The lake seemed somehow dark and threatening and very little bird life was in evidence on the water. Once she heard something make a loud ‘plopping’ noise below the hatch and glimpsed the tell-tale air bubbles of a large fish, but otherwise everywhere was deathly still.
What the hell was she looking for? A body perhaps? But why here? If Twister had topped the driver of the car he was now using, he would hardly have stuck him in the hide for some visiting twitcher to find; he would have buried him somewhere deep in the undergrowth outside or dumped him in the lake.
She frowned and turned for the door, only to stop abruptly. The aluminium flask glinted at her from the shelf which ran the length of the hide under the hatches. Curious, she picked it up and unscrewed the top, making a face when she sniffed the stale coffee inside. The beverage was cold, so it had been here awhile. She screwed up the flask again and slipped it into the pocket of her woollen coat. It could have been left there by anyone, of course. The hide was probably used a lot by twitchers and nature lovers - any one of them could have left it behind, but she felt strangely uneasy about it and her gut instinct was to hang on to it for the time being anyway.
Closing the hatch she had just opened, she went outside again, blinking in a sudden burst of sunshine. More booming from the invisible bittern accompanied by the splashing and squabbling of a few ducks somewhere on the lake. A heron rose from the reeds to one side of the hide and she watched it soar gracefully over the trees, its huge wings making hardly a sound. Had it not been for the circumstances which had brought her here, she could quite easily have stayed awhile and listened to the vibrant sounds around her. Maybe there was something to all this bird-watching after all and perhaps twitchers were a lot brighter than she had once believed.
Yes, but if that was the case, why had one of them left his precious flask behind and where was he now? She had a really bad feeling about it and, as she made her way back to her car along the boardwalk, the musty smell of rotting vegetation rising from among the trees bordering the track assailed her nostrils like the stench of a newly opened grave.
chapter 13
‘YOU LEFT HER there?’ Hayden Lewis’s normally good-natured face had become an ashen mask and his fists were clenched into tight balls by his sides. Phil Sharp stepped back hurriedly, as if fearing a physical attack.
‘But – but she said she’d be OK,’ the DS bleated. ‘And there was no sign of anyone else there anyway.’
‘You waste of a skin,’ Lewis grated, even in the midst of his anger refraining from using the sort of obscene expletives his other colleagues might have produced in such circumstances.
The incident-room was hushed, the faces of the other members of the team fixed on the pair in gleeful anticipation. Phil Sharp had never been a popular member of the department because of his arrogant toadying nature and the confrontation was a welcome development as far as his colleagues were concerned.
‘You can’t talk to me like that,’ Sharp exclaimed. ‘I’m a detective sergeant.’
‘You’re still a waste of a skin,’ Lewis retorted, turning towards the board holding the ignition keys for the team’s car pool. ‘It could have been given to someone else.’
But even as he reached for a black key tab, Kate pushed through the double doors of the incident-room, with a grim expression on her face.
‘See? What did I tell you?’ Sharp snarled. ‘She’s fine. Just wants to make a bloody entrance, like the proper little drama queen she is!’
‘At least she doesn’t cut and run when a leaf rustles,’ Lewis threw back and followed Kate into the SIO’s office, where the DI was waiting with a quizzical expression on his battered face.
As Sharp made to join them, Roscoe kicked the door shut in his face.
‘Right, Kate,’ Roscoe growled, turning to face her, with his back against the door, ‘Mr Ansell’s at the morgue for the PM on Malone, but you’ve obviously got something you’re bursting to unload. So, you’d better let me have it before he gets back?’
She frowned, throwing a quick glance in Lewis’s direction as he perched on the DI’s usual window sill seat. ‘There was another car in the reserve car-park when the Volvo was dumped there and torched,’ she said abruptly.
‘What sort of car?’
‘I don’t know, but there had to be one to enable the killer to quit the scene – unless he was picked up afterwards by an accomplice, which I doubt. Assuming it was Twister, he always works alone.’
‘He could have belled for a taxi?’
‘Hardly likely under the circumstances, though, is it, Guv?’ Lewis joined in, then shut up quickly under the DI’s glare.
‘Tyre tracks?’ Roscoe went on.
‘Lots – the place is used regularly by twitchers, dog walkers and, of course, the reserve’s wardens, so there’s nothing for us in that respect. But I did find something else rather interesting.’
She reached into her pocket and produced the slim aluminium flask. ‘It was on a shelf inside the hide.’
The DI looked unimpressed. ‘So it’s a coffee or tea flask. I should think any number of twitchers carry them and this one was obviously forgotten by the owner.’
‘Maybe it was, but it looks quite expensive to me and, if you look closely at the base, you will see it is engraved with the initials RCJN. Someone obviously valued it enough to have that done, so I would have thought they’d have been back for it before now – unless something nasty happened to them.’
He snorted. ‘Now you are jumping the gun.’
‘Am I, Guv’nor? Think about it. Someone visited that hide pretty damned recently – was probably the last one there before me – otherwise something like this would either have ended up in the lucky finder’s pocket or been handed in. And anyway, as I’ve said already, whoever dumped and torched that Volvo must have had wheels to enable them to get away afterwards. Whether both things are linked or not, the whole thing stinks to me.’
‘So you’re saying we’ve got a stiff out there?’
‘I don’t know, but my gut tells me it’s possible, yes.’
‘Possible?’ He gave her an old-fashioned look. ‘And you expect me to authorize a plod team to carry out a search of a two hundred hectare reserve on the basis of your gut?’
She shrugged. ‘Your call, not mine.’
‘Thanks.’ He turned for the door. ‘Any other bright ideas?’
She saw Hayden wink and she flushed for a second. ‘Not as yet, Guv, no.’
The big brown rat had been put to flight once again by the arrival of the heavy boots and from a safe distance among the reeds her little gimlet eyes had watched the uniformed police off
icers in their gumboots spread out along the bank of the lake on either side of the hide, probing the undergrowth with their long wooden poles, as their digital radios crackled incessantly. It was already 3.30 in the afternoon and she knew instinctively that she wouldn’t have long to wait before she was able to resume her feast. The watery sun had already disappeared and the shadows were rapidly lengthening. Soon it would be too dark to see anything – unless you were a rat, of course.
Under the hide, the remains of the corpse bobbed up and down in the shallows, just the single length of frayed rope lashed to one of the supporting piles now preventing it from floating out into the middle of the lake. In the building above, Kate tapped the toe of one boot impatiently on the rough plank floor as she scanned the hide in the dim light which filtered into the place through the wide open hatches for anything she might have missed on her earlier visit.
She was still trying to puzzle things out when the door creaked open behind her. At first she thought it was Lewis, but started when the lisping voice spoke. ‘Doing a spot of bird-watching then?’ Clement Norton said with a short laugh.
She swung round in surprise. ‘What are you doing here?’ she exclaimed, unwittingly wrinkling her nose at the strong perfume smell he brought with him.
He shrugged, thrusting his hands into his pockets and giving the hide a cursory glance in the gathering gloom. ‘Heard where you all were, so I thought I’d pop over to see if you’d turned up anything,’ he said, letting the door close behind him. ‘Visiting crime scenes is part and parcel of a criminal psychologist’s job nowadays. Helps him to get a flavour of things first-hand and to form judgments based on his own perceptions, rather than what he is told by others.’
She flicked her eyebrows in acknowledgment. ‘So what do you make of all this then?’ she said.
He adjusted the tinted glasses on his nose and stared round the hide more intently. ‘I gather from Mr Roscoe that you believe our psychotic friend murdered someone else in here?’
