The Keeper

by Diane Saxon

  11

  Saturday 27 October, 09:05 hrs

  She didn’t feel like talking. Not the idle chat she’d normally have with her colleagues anyway. Most of the officers in the room had no idea why they were there yet. Rumours spread fast and furious as they always did in the station. Most of them inaccurate. When they dealt with rumours, unlike dealing with their jobs, they tended not to check the facts out before they passed their little titbits on. So, she sat in the corner, choosing a table instead of a chair, at the back of the room, well away from them all.

  Mason, rumpled and weary, ambled over and handed her a cup of coffee. Her third of the morning. She was starting to think her rapid pulse might be better served by not feeding it any more caffeine, but she needed something to keep her occupied. If she’d been a smoker, she would have lit up by now. Several times.

  She reached out and touched the sleeve of Mason’s suit, the concern in his eyes worrying her.

  He wrapped his fingers around hers, gave them a squeeze. ‘Have you heard from the vet?’

  ‘Yeah.’ She nodded. ‘I managed to get hold of Sarah. She operated last night. He’s holding up.’ Relief wallowed in her stomach. ‘His jaw wasn’t as bad as they thought at first. He lost a hell of a lot of blood.’ She shuddered as the vision of Domino floated back to her, so covered in his own blood it had virtually obliterated the white fur. ‘He’ll be in a few days, but she tells me there’s no reason he shouldn’t recover.’

  ‘Poor bastard.’

  She bumped her heels against the table leg, tapped her fingernails on the side of the thick stoneware mug while she watched the hands of the clock on their slow rotation. Gregg had instructed 09:00 prompt. He was unusually late.

  She raised her hand to rub her already weary eyes, stopped herself and dropped her hand onto her knee. She’d almost forgotten she’d put make-up on. It wouldn’t be the best look, black smudges like a panda before the day had even begun. It may have been a mistake. She’d probably have to wash it off when she had her break. If she even had time for a break.

  She placed her coffee on the table next to her, ran the nail of her index finger across the back of her other hand where the flesh had been torn and scratched the night before in her haste to get through the undergrowth. She should have had gloves on, then she wouldn’t have scratched them. Christ, she should have had a proper coat on, then she wouldn’t have almost died of hypothermia. What would her mum have thought?

  What would her mum have thought about her not looking after her younger sister? She’d always watched out for the little wretch. Never in her life had she known anyone get into more trouble than Fliss. If ‘trouble’ had a face, it was Fliss. It wasn’t because she went looking for it, necessarily; it just always found her.

  Awareness of her surroundings returned as silence descended on the room. Jenna raised her head, studied Gregg as he stepped through the doorway ahead of another man. Sharp, she snapped upright, her police-trained eyes quick to assess the stranger. She stared at his oversized feet; size thirteen, she reckoned. Jenna’s gaze tracked up his very expensive charcoal grey suit, made to measure no doubt, too precisely fit to his tall frame to have come off the peg. Taller than Gregg by a good couple of inches. Broad chest covered in a crisp, white cotton shirt. Old-fashioned cufflinks. Pearly grey tie, definitely silk. Too well turned-out to be a police officer. No officer she knew could afford clothes of that standard, nor would they be seen looking so stylish for duty. Maybe a wedding or a funeral. Even then… they were expensive togs.

  She shuffled off the edge of the table, stood tall so she could inspect him over the heads of the other officers, a worm of unease unfurled in her stomach.

  Shoulders back, spine straight; he stood like an Army officer. He dressed like a lawyer. Style immaculate. Colours, boring. Had to be a solicitor. What was he doing with Gregg?

  Dark chocolate brown hair had been sheared a little too close above his ears. Immaculate but severe. Jaw, square. Nose, straight. If she was asked to identify him, she’d have no trouble, he was distinctive. Cheekbones, hmm, nice. Eyes… watching her.

  With a jolt, Jenna shot her attention back to Gregg, but unable to resist, she slid her gaze back to the stranger. As her gaze locked with his, his eyes crinkled at the edges as though he was about to smile, but his mouth remained in a straight line before he moved on to make a perusal of the rest of the officers in the room.

  With a nervous lick of her lips, Jenna dipped her head, sure he’d been able to read her thoughts. It wasn’t her thoughts that were inappropriate, her mind was clear-cut focused on her sister’s well-being. It was the deep, visceral pull in her gut that concerned her.

  Mason sidled closer and propped himself against the table, one leg swinging so the table gave a precarious rock as she slipped back onto it.

  ‘Who is he? The slick prick.’ His gruff whisper accompanied a sharp nudge with his elbow.

  ‘How would I know?’ She kept her voice low, head down while she made a pretence of scrolling through her iPhone messages.

  ‘When he looked over, I assumed you knew each other.’ He turned more fully to face her, bumped her with his broad shoulder. The table rocked harder.

  ‘Never met him before in my life.’ She gave a disinterested shrug in the hope he’d lose interest, but heat rose in her face.

  ‘But…’

  ‘Ssshhh…’ The sound came out sharper than she had intended, and half a dozen officers turned around with enquiring looks on their faces.

  Gregg cleared his throat and, to her relief, in a synchronised move, every head swivelled to face him. ‘Thank you for coming. I apologise for being late. Let’s get down to business.’ Gregg scanned the room to ensure all attention was on him and his visitor. ‘This is Chief Crown Prosecutor Adrian Hall. I’ve asked him to attend due to the complexities of this case.’

  Jenna allowed herself a small cynical smile. Right first time. Solicitor. High end. Pain in the arse. Always were, these types. He looked too young, she estimated thirty-five, to be such a senior lawyer. Possible, but he’d have to be one hotshot lawyer if that was the case.

  He’d come in, read them all the small print on rules and regulations and the guys on the ground would carry on regardless and get the job done. What the hell was Gregg thinking to bring in an outsider? They knew what had to be done, they just needed to get on with it. Complicated it may be, but not damned complex.

  With resignation, she crossed her arms over her chest and waited for the lecture to begin.

  ‘Sergeant Morgan.’

  She almost jumped out of her skin and the table threatened to topple over, its legs scraping across the floor tiles as she leapt to her feet.

  ‘Jesus, I thought you were going to salute.’

  Ignoring Mason’s snarky murmur, Jenna stepped forward. ‘Sir?’ Heat scorched her cheeks, she had almost saluted.

  ‘I know this is difficult for you, Sergeant, but I’d appreciate it if you could come up here and brief everyone on the current situation.’

  Expecting it, Jenna stepped to the front of the conference room and in a smooth, professional repetition of the report she had given Gregg, she relayed the information from the previous night. She paused only for one heart-stopping moment to clear the tightness in her throat which threatened to choke her when the soft gasps of pity reached her ears as she imparted the information regarding Fliss’s disappearance and Domino’s severe injuries.

  She allowed the silence to hang in the room after she told them of the dead body. She let it sink in before she continued.

  ‘I spoke to SOCO just before the meeting commenced and they confirm there is no evidence to suppose Fliss slid further down the embankment. They’ll continue their search along both sides, but it is very obvious where both Fliss and Domino came down the first descent. Samples of clothing, hair, skin, and blood…’ She took a steadying breath. ‘DNA samples weren’t hard to find in the area they’d tumbled down. There’s no reason to assume it wouldn’t b
e as evident if she had continued down the next incline. And she’d have had to get herself over the wall on the opposite side of the main walkway.’

  She scanned the room, Jenna knew not only would these people, her friends and colleagues, do their professional best, but now they had a vested interest in solving this case. She was one of theirs and, by association, so was her sister. She allowed herself that small nugget of reassurance before she continued.

  ‘There is no evidence she went into the river.’ She locked gazes with several officers she’d known since she’d been a young, newly qualified PC. Their silent support strengthened her resolve. ‘What they did find was evidence of someone else coming downhill from above Fliss’s position, directly at her. There are footprints beside a tree where someone stopped for a short time, where their boots sank into the mud. SOCO has a good imprint. They are going to try and trace the make and size of the boot. Initial thoughts are possibly UK size eight or nine. Could be male or female. Fliss wears a size eight in walking boots herself, so…’ she shrugged, watching the faces of her colleagues.

  ‘Her boots were a good make, quite unusual, Italian, which made it easier to track her. Her footprints show her route all the way along the upper path, where she stopped. There seemed to be a scuffle there, but the dog wasn’t so easy to trace as he’d charged…’ Knowing him, she could picture the frantic rush as he raced all over the hillside, kicking up his heels in wild abandon. ‘Charged all over the place, scuffing up leaves and making slide marks in various places. But when he fell, the long slide down is obvious. Traces of skin, fur. They found the branch they think split him open, dropped on that upper pathway. It has skin, fur, flesh, blood attached. He may already have been unconscious when he fell.’ She paused, swallowed while everyone stared, no longer sympathetic but attentive and eager for the details.

  ‘Where Fliss went down, the skid is more obvious, the heels of her boots dug in, we assume to try and slow her slide down. She was conscious. This is the point at which we believe the dog walkers on the other side of the Severn heard her second scream.’ She paused to make sure she still had the room’s attention. No one moved, every one of them had their gazes fixed on her while she scanned around, held the gazes of those she knew well, moved on to engage the others.

  ‘No tracks came out at all after the fall. Heavy footprints from the other boots show on the main pathway. They are currently tracing these, but unfortunately a lot of the evidence has been ruined by the amount of activity from all of us last night – Mason, myself, Chris the dog handler and Blue.’ She shrugged. ‘We had no idea at that point that this was a crime scene. We believed there’d been an accident.’ She narrowed her eyes to stop the sharp prick of tears. ‘The vet drove her van along the main concourse. SOCO put a more extensive cordon around; in fact, basically, they’ve restricted the entire hillside, so they can try and trace the other footprints and see where they originated. As I said, he appeared to have come from above Fliss, so he may have come over the top from Pattern’s Rock, Broseley or Red Pool. They’re trying to trace him back to a vehicle. At this stage, we have no idea.’

  Frustration and fury rolled together, but she held them down. ‘He may have come on foot, in which case, if he was carrying my sister he wasn’t going to get far.’ She knew the only way her sister would have gone was if she’d been unconscious and he’d carried her. ‘At five foot eleven inches, around nine stone six pounds, at least that’s what she admitted to me.’ A thread of humour rumbled through the room. ‘The offender would need to be strong. There was no evidence of anyone being dragged.’ Which could mean she was dead. Her mind stumbled over the thought, but she refused to turn from it. Every possibility had to be investigated. Perhaps he’d tossed her into the water after he’d killed her. It was a long reach and he’d have to be exceptionally strong, but something worthwhile checking out.

  Reluctant to admit her thoughts, she flicked open a folder, took out copies of a photograph of her sister and passed them around. It had taken her some time earlier in the morning to find one Fliss wouldn’t have objected to. She could hear her sister’s voice in her head. ‘Oh Jenna, look at my hair, it’s a mess. Why would you choose that one? I’m squinting into the sun on this one. For goodness’ sake, do you want me to look dreadful? That’s my fat side. If it’s going to be the last photo of me circulated, at least have the decency to make it a good one.’

  In the end, she had picked one of Fliss and Domino. Head and shoulders of both. Almost cheek to cheek, but a good clear likeness of Fliss. She heard the ‘aahhs’ and ‘awws’ mainly from the female officers, she assumed because of the dog.

  ‘As I said, five feet eleven inches or one point eight metres, and nine stone six pounds, about sixty kilograms. Not terrifically heavy, but tall. If someone carried her out of there, he must have been pretty fit and strong, despite his small feet.’

  She let the silence hang heavy in the air, only to be broken by a fresh-faced young PC raising his hand as though he was still in the classroom. At Jenna’s acknowledgement, he dropped his hand back down to his side, flushed to the roots of his strawberry blond hair and stuttered out his question.

  ‘What about the body you discovered, Sarg?’

  Relieved to side-track from the subject of her own sister for a moment, Jenna spoke to the room in general but directed her gaze back to the youngster several times, locking eyes with him, taking in the intensity of his stare. The interest. The passion.

  ‘We currently have no information on the body. Other than the description I’ve already given, there’s nothing. Naked, no visible identifying features, no jewellery, nothing. No missing persons we know of immediately who fit the description, but we will need to conduct a thorough search. We’ll be checking with other Forces to see if anyone further afield can identify her. There was nothing on her to indicate where she came from. So, either she was murdered and dumped there – strange place to dump a body – or she was murdered there and stripped of evidence on site. It seems very cold and calculated if that’s the case and means the person we are dealing with may well have known how to cover their tracks. Forensics should be able to confirm whether she was killed on site or dragged there after the fact. I’ll let you know when the post-mortem takes place.’ She paused, allowed the team to absorb the information they had been given. ‘Any further questions?’

  She skimmed her gaze around the room, watched for their reactions, aware of Gregg moving to stand beside her. His steady, stoic support was welcome as the team turned their attention to him.

  ‘Thank you, Sergeant Morgan. You all have your packs.’ He slipped Jenna’s actions book from her fingers and turned to the room. ‘I want you out there. SOCO are doing their bit. They’ve an enormous job to complete and time is of the essence. It’s quiet this time of year in Ironbridge, but it won’t have been entirely deserted. Somebody, somewhere, will have heard something, seen something they thought was just “off” at the time. If you jog their memories, we may well turn up evidence. Feed it through.’ He indicated a lean, dark-haired man near the door. ‘Frank Bartwell is lead intel analyst on this case. If you have information, pass it to him.’

  Frank’s shoulders hunched as the attention of the room centred on him, but Gregg continued.

  ‘There will be witnesses, people in the area. PC Walker has supplied names and addresses of the dog walking group he questioned last night. For anyone who doesn’t know, they’re the twilight walkers. They’ve been a great source of information in the area whenever there’s an offence. Normally minor. They walk their dogs, they chat, they know things. I want them questioned again. Other than that, was there anything suspicious? A person acting out of character. A husband arriving home with blood on their clothes. T.I.E.’ As the young PC’s hand shot up in the air, Gregg nodded at him. ‘Trace. Interview. Eliminate.’ The hand slipped back down again. ‘Anything else?’

  With the rumble of excited voices to cover him, Gregg turned to Jenna. ‘Could you please wait in my
office for me?’

  She opened her mouth to query his instruction and stopped herself as she stared into his calm deep eyes filled with solemnity and wisdom, which brooked no argument.

  With a slight incline of his head, he turned back to the room and grabbed their attention once more. ‘Detective Inspector Taylor will take the lead on this case…’

  ‘But, sir,’ Jenna interrupted, only to have Gregg’s attention wither her to the spot.

  ‘My office, Sergeant.’ His voice was gentle, but there was no mistaking the look in his eye that commanded compliance. With a sharp nod of her head, Jenna stalked to Gregg’s office.

  Three minutes of pacing seemed like a lifetime and as Gregg walked through the door, Jenna almost leapt at him.

  ‘Take a seat, Jenna.’

  She flung herself into the nearest chair as fast as she could, sat ramrod straight, fingers linked to stop them twitching, feet flat on the thin marble grey carpet tiles, gaze straight ahead.

  ‘This is a very difficult situation, Jenna. Unusual, to say the least.’ Gregg leaned against his desk, crossing his arms over his chest. ‘I can’t tell you how very sorry I am about your sister.’

  She was silent, waiting. For fuck’s sake, she should have seen it coming, but she’d not given it a second thought, all her focus on Fliss, Domino and a Jane Doe.

  ‘I can’t let you work on this case.’

  Tension grabbed her throat, choking her. She knew at any moment she was going to be incapable of speaking, that the tears she had been holding back so desperately were rising and if she started, there would be no consoling her. So, she sucked it in and drew her body even straighter.

  ‘Sir…’

  ‘Jenna, you can’t possibly be on this case. It would compromise everything. You know. You have been in the force for how many years? Eight, almost nine? We need continuity of evidence. We need absolutely everything cut and dried. We cannot risk catching the murderer and him getting off because he can claim you’ve tampered with evidence. We can probably get away with your initial findings simply because you weren’t aware at that stage what you were looking at and you were in the constant company of Sergeant Bennett and PC Ellis, but we can’t risk any further involvement in the case by you.’