Detectives Merry & Neal Books 1-3

by JANICE FROST

  As he concentrated on scrambling over the piles of rocks and boulders, Neal found respite from the negative thoughts that had been plaguing him since Angie Dent’s chilling assault on his sister.

  A herd of red deer in the Coire Leis valley below caught his eye. He tracked them for a few moments, then picked out a camp of three brightly-coloured tents and a small group of hikers eating breakfast around a campfire. Neal took a deep breath of mountain air into his lungs and held it until he felt light-headed. A feeling vaguely reminiscent of joy stirred in his heart.

  A cairn at the end of the knife-edge ridge marked the beginning of the Ben’s north face. The sheer size and bulk of the mountain took Neal’s breath away and he stood beside Jock, gazing up in awe at the imposing mass of solid volcanic rock. Even Lachie stood still, his roving spirit momentarily tamed.

  “It’s a humblin’ sight, right enough,” said Jock quietly. “Ye canna but respect it.” Turning to Neal, he added, “Ready for the long hard trudge to the summit?”

  Jock wasn’t joking. The last part of the walk was not difficult, but it was a relentless slog and once again, Neal found that the sheer physical exertion and focus required to reach the top of the boulder-strewn slope drove all other thoughts from his head.

  * * *

  “Not often you get a view like this up here, especially at this time of year,” Jock remarked. He was unpacking provisions from his backpack — a small flask of tea, a water bottle, sandwiches, and fruit and some chicken and biscuits for Lachie. Neal joined him on his boulder and unpacked a similar feast. They ate in silence, absorbing the views.

  Neal was aware of Jock giving him sly glances from time to time. Any conversation on the route up the Ben from Torlundy had been instigated by Jock. Neal made no apologies for his taciturnity. He knew that Jock neither expected nor needed any. The two of them had known each other so long that they were entirely comfortable in each other’s company. They were brothers in all but blood.

  It was Lachie who coaxed Neal to utter his first unprompted remark. He watched the dog lick chicken from Jock’s fingers and couldn’t help commenting. “Ach, you shouldn’t let him do that. It’s unhygienic, man.”

  Jock gave a bellowing laugh. “I’m a bloody doctor, Jimmy. I know a wee bit about hygiene.”

  “You could have fooled me.”

  “Lachie’s the cleanest dog in Scotland, aren’t you, pal? Anybody ever tell you that you can be a right grumpy bastard, Jimmy?”

  “Aye, you, often enough.” Neal smiled and it felt good. Maybe it was true that simply exercising the facial muscles involved in smiling released the endorphins. He stood up, stretched, and stamped some feeling back into his numbed feet.

  The Romantic poets had been right, Neal thought on their descent, there was a restorative power in nature that could balance our darkest thoughts.

  By the time they were walking through Glen Nevis on the lower slopes of the Ben, the light was beginning to fade, but Neal’s mood was brighter than it had been for weeks.

  * * *

  “You ready to talk yet?” Jock asked him later, over a fish supper in a cosy pub in Fort William. Neal glowered at him. But he realised he was no longer angry.

  “You’re a cardiologist, not a bloody psychiatrist, Jock.”

  “Come on, Jim. You know you’re like a brother to me.”

  “Aye, I know. And you to me.”

  “Right, well, now that’s out of the way, tell me you’re not still blaming yourself for what happened to Maggie.”

  A sigh. “I just keep going over it in my head and wondering what would have happened if I’d handled things differently. Or if the ambulance hadn’t got to her so quickly.”

  “Let it be, Jimmy. Maggie’s alive. Do you know how many lives I’ve seen slip through my fingers on the operating table? If I blamed myself for every patient that ended up dead, I’d give up the job. Then where would the patients I could have helped be?”

  Neal nodded. On one level he knew that his friend was right, but there was a part of him that refused to accept it. “I thought about resigning. I’d never really considered that my job could put the people I care about in danger.”

  This was quite an admission and Neal could tell from Jock’s silence that he appreciated the confidence.

  “Are you still thinking along those lines?”

  Neal shook his head. “Like you said, it’s all a question of balance. Fancy another pint?” Neal could feel Jock watching him as he crossed to the bar. Jock was well aware of his tendency to brood. It was all very well to say forget about the past, but time and time again in his work, Neal had seen how the past could affect or infect the present. He wasn’t a great believer in all this letting go — or any of that psychobabble that kept the counsellors in business. All of us are made up of elements of our past, they make us what we are and we forget them at our peril, he thought. But the truth was he was growing weary of running the attack on Maggie over and over in his head until it hurt.

  Maggie’s attacker was heading for a long jail sentence — or a high security hospital. Seeing justice done would go a long way to restoring the balance. And Maggie had thanked him for saving her life, not blamed him for almost getting her killed. Maybe it was time to move on.

  Neal thought suddenly of his colleague, Ava, who seemed to have no problem with moving on. In their first case she’d nearly killed a man and seemed to have had no regrets. Her sessions with the police counsellor had left her seemingly untroubled. He could do with a bit of her self-belief. With a pang of regret, he recalled Ava’s attempt to reach out to him after the attack on Maggie. He’d been too self-absorbed to acknowledge her concern. It occurred to him that Ava might have troubled feelings of her own about the incident. Sooner or later, he’d have to talk to her. The barman put two pints of beer in front of him. Neal paid, lifted the glasses in the air and nodded at Jock. He walked back to their table.

  Then he grinned, plonking Jock’s beer in front of him. “So when are you going to ask Maggie out?”

  Chapter 4

  The discovery of the body at Stainholme was reported on the local evening news. A police artist’s sketch accompanied a description of the man. It was said that the police were treating his death as suspicious and the usual appeals were made for information. Ava watched, hoping someone would come forward quickly. She looked at the drawing of the man’s sallow, bearded face on the screen and wondered if anyone seeing the same image was reacting with shock, recognising a loved one in the artist’s carefully drawn outlines.

  “That the bloke you saw this morning?” her brother Ollie asked.

  “Yeah. It’s a pretty good likeness.” She was glad that she remembered his face after all.

  “How do you go about finding out who he is?”

  “Well, if we’re lucky, someone might recognise him and get in touch.”

  “And if they don’t?”

  “It takes a bit longer.”

  “DNA, dental records, fingerprints, that sort of stuff?”

  “Maybe. But that only works if the victim’s details are in the system. We also do routine things like checks of missing persons to see if we can find a match. Of course, it can take a while for someone to be reported as missing and not just absent. Our victim might not have been missed yet. But to be honest, there have been instances where it’s taken years to identify a murder victim. But, hey, let’s be positive and hope someone comes forward in this case.”

  * * *

  Ava had barely walked into her office when Reg Saunders summoned her to his part of the building. “We know who our John Doe is,” he said by way of greeting.

  Ava was surprised. “Has someone identified him from the sketch or the description we put out?”

  “No. There was a robbery out at Ridgeway Farm the night before last. Thieves made off with a truckload of pesticides and some farm machinery.” Ava listened, wondering what this had to do with their body. “Local police searching the area found a discarded wallet in the w
oods bordering onto the farm. Cash and cards had been taken but there was a mini statement still inside with the account number on. And a driver’s licence. Got his details from the DVLA. His name is Ewan Cameron, from Edinburgh.”

  “Was he one of the thieves?” Ava asked.

  “Don’t know yet. His bank account’s in Edinburgh and his home address is there too, so you wouldn’t think so. But who knows? I’m about to contact the Edinburgh police to see if they can help.”

  “DI Neal’s in Edinburgh,” Ava said.

  Saunders gave her a blank look. “So?”

  “He could make some enquiries on our behalf.”

  Saunders shrugged. He looked hungover. “Contact him if you like.”

  His lack of enthusiasm seemed odd to Ava. It was a lucky break to discover their victim’s identity this quickly. She would have expected his mood to be a bit more upbeat. She recalled his attitude the day before, how he had stood smoking and chatting while she and the SOCOs combed the wood, acting like the whole case bored him.

  Glad to have a reason to get in touch, Ava sent Jim Neal a text asking him to contact her. His reply was instant, but it was a phone call not a text and it took Ava off guard. Hearing his voice made her edgy. They hadn’t spoken for a couple of weeks, not since that time in the hospital when he had all but ignored her.

  “Hello, sir,” she said, tentatively, unsure how she’d find him. To her surprise, there was genuine warmth in Neal’s tone when he greeted her. After wishing Neal a happy New Year, Ava moved quickly to business, not wishing any awkwardness to arise between them. “We had a John Doe. Out at Stainholme — you know, the old abbey ruin where they used to hold concerts back in the eighties?”

  “Yes, I know it. Fascinating history. Archie’s class did a project based around it in Year Five. Suspicious circumstances?”

  “Looking that way.” Ava explained about the wallet. She paused. “I know you’re on leave, sir, it’s just that the victim’s wife lives in Edinburgh and I wondered . . .”

  “You wondered if I could break the news to her?”

  “I know the local police could do it, sir, but we really need to have a positive ID on the body as soon as possible and . . .”

  “I’ll do it,” Neal said. “As long as the local force are in agreement. Email me the details.”

  Ava sent them immediately, including the wife’s name and her current address. She attached a copy of the artist’s sketch of Ewan Cameron. Would their conversation end as soon as Neal received her message, she wondered, or could she risk a question? She cleared her throat and took the plunge. “Er . . . how are you, sir? I mean after the . . . after Maggie’s . . . um . . .”

  Not unexpectedly, the silence from the other end extended into seconds. Just as Ava was about to stammer her apologies, Neal said in a gruff voice. “I’m fine, thanks, Ava. And Maggie’s fine too. She’s seen a consultant up here and she told her she’s unlikely to suffer any lasting damage. Physically, at any rate.”

  “I’m glad to hear that, sir. Will you be returning to work soon?” She bit her tongue.

  “Yes. Who are you working the case with?”

  “Reg Saunders.”

  “Ah.” Neal’s tone was telling. “How’s that working out?”

  “I think we got off to a bit of a bad start. I don’t think he likes me much.” Tactfully, she left out what she thought of Saunders. She waited for advice from Neal on how best to handle working with Saunders, but none was forthcoming.

  “I’ll call you when I’ve spoken with this . . . Laura Cameron,” Neal said.

  “Thanks, sir. Enjoy the rest of your leave.” Another gaffe. Neal was not on leave to enjoy himself. He had gone away to recover from the trauma of seeing his only sister almost bleed to death in his arms. At least she hadn’t said ‘holiday.’

  It had been good to hear Neal’s voice again. She’d missed his soft Scots accent, the way he sometimes slipped in words she’d never heard before, or said ‘aye’ instead of ‘yes,’ when he wasn’t thinking. There were other things she missed about him too. Jim Neal was not the sort of person who wore his emotions on his sleeve. He had a kind of brooding aura about him, a way of thinking deeply about the most straightforward things. Straightforward to Ava, at any rate. She tried to avoid over-analysing, life was too short. Despite the differences between them, Ava sensed that she had feelings for Jim Neal, but they were complicated and Ava didn’t like complications in her life. Life was too short for those too.

  Her phone rang again and Ava was pleased to hear Dan Cardew’s voice. “Hi, Dan. Have you got something for me?”

  “Hi, Ava. A ranger in the lime woods area near Stainholme has reported finding an abandoned car. Ham Bell’s been out to take a look and he’s confirmed it belonged to our victim. I’m going out there now to give it the once-over and take some photographs. We’ll carry out a full examination of the vehicle when we get it back here, of course. Just thought you’d like a heads-up in case you want to come meet us out there.”

  “Thanks for that, Dan. I’ll probably see you at the site. Does DI Saunders know about this?”

  Dan told Ava that he’d leave it to her to liaise with Saunders. She got the impression that Dan’s opinion of Reg was about the same as her own.

  Finding abandoned vehicles, particularly farm vehicles stripped of their parts, wasn’t unusual out in the countryside. It was a mistake to underestimate the extent and nature of crimes committed in rural areas and the level of violence they could involve. Thefts of tools, ATVs and quad bikes, oil and diesel and pesticides, high-value agricultural equipment, machinery and livestock were common. Tractors had been stolen in Stromfordshire only to turn up in Eastern Europe or sold on to developing nations. Far from being a rural idyll, the countryside was fast becoming a hotbed of organised crime. Even hare coursing involved high levels of organisation and surprisingly large amounts of money were connected to gambling or good breeding dogs. Murder was less common but it happened every so often. A shotgun used in self-defence during a burglary, domestic violence resulting in the death of one of the partners. Then there were the cases of manslaughter resulting from road traffic accidents, or farm labourers killed by faulty machinery. It wasn’t outside the realms of possibility that Ewan Cameron had stumbled upon some night-time criminal activity and lost his life because he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ava put in a quick call to Saunders and was relieved to hear that he was tied up in court for the rest of the day.

  * * *

  The Stromfordshire lime woods lay in a stretch of the Stromfordshire Wolds designated as an area of outstanding natural beauty. They had once been a vast ancient forest and still covered almost three per cent of the land in the county. Nowadays though, they were no longer a single forest but a collection of woodlands interspersed with fields and roads, rural villages and hamlets. The wood at Stainholme Abbey where Ewan Cameron’s body had been dumped made up only a tiny area of the lime woods. The location Dan had given Ava for the abandoned car lay a little farther to the east and was in a larger, denser stretch of woodland.

  Ava found the ranger station at the entrance to the wood. She could see Dan Cardew’s van parked in a small staff car park and she pulled up alongside it. One of the rangers was inside the station working at a PC. She looked up as Ava knocked and entered.

  “Police?” she asked. Her name was Faye Wellings and she explained that the head ranger, Bran Gallagher, was out showing ‘that nice forensics boy’ where the car was.

  “Was it Mr Gallagher who discovered it?” Ava asked.

  “No. Actually, I did. I was down at the lake taking some water samples when a glint of metal in the sunlight caught my eye. It was concealed in the trees. I expect your people would have found it when they got around to searching this part of the woods.

  “You discovered it this morning?” Ava asked.

  “Yes. Sorry, I don’t know how long it’d been there. It could’ve been dumped overnight. You’d be surprised wha
t gets dumped around here.”

  Probably not, Ava thought. They’d already found a dead body. “Maybe forensics will be able to tell how long it had been there.”

  Faye Wellings’s face lit up. “Yeah, it’s just amazing what they can do nowadays, isn’t it?” The CSI effect again. These shows had duped the public into believing that there was no crime that forensic science couldn’t crack. To those actually doing the day job, forensics complemented good, solid investigative police work. It didn’t substitute for it.

  “Has there been any unusual activity in the area lately?” Ava said.

  Faye considered the question. “Not really, just the usual stuff.”

  “The usual stuff being?”

  “Dumping of all sorts in the lake, minor vandalism, poaching, destroying bird boxes and other wildlife habitats. The farmers hereabouts get their share of thefts. There was one the same night as the murder, as a matter of fact. Did you know that?”

  Ava nodded. “Do you live locally?” she asked Faye Wellings.

  “Yes.”

  “Are people talking about the murder?”

  Faye rolled her eyes. “What do you think? We don’t get that many murders hereabouts.” She screwed up her face. “So, yeah, there’s been a bit of talk.” Ava waited patiently. People seldom needed encouragement to gossip or speculate.

  “Everybody’s a bit shaken up, to tell the truth. A lot of us around here live some way off the beaten track. Even the houses in the village are quite far apart from one another. My friend, Olivia Darby, lives alone with her young son and I know she’s nervous. She was trying to keep the news from Zak, but of course kids always get to hear about these things.”

  “Do you think you could point me in the direction of the car?” Ava asked.

  “I’ll take you down there myself.” Faye shut down her computer and stood up. She looked dubiously at Ava’s immaculate brown suede ankle boots.