A Poison Tree

by J. E. Mayhew

  “Fill the forms in and come back tomorrow,” she said, frowning at Blake in a kindly, puzzled way. “It’ll be fine…”

  “She craps everywhere too. Won’t use the litter tray… do you think that might put people off?”

  “Are you sure you want us to take her?”

  Blake nodded his head. “Yes. I just… I don’t know. She belongs to my mother and I’d hate for her to get rejected or something…”

  Leaning against the door frame, the woman looked him up and down. “You could always get an animal psychologist in.”

  “Animal psychologist? Are there such people?” Blake muttered. “What do they do?”

  “They deal with problem behaviour, making a mess indoors, aggression towards people, that sort of thing. Hang on.” She vanished again for a few seconds and then appeared with a scrap of paper. “Ring this number. I’m sure she’d have a look at your cat for you.”

  Blake stared down at the scribbled note:

  ‘PAWS FOR THOUGHT’

  Laura Vexley: Behaviour Saviour.

  “Behaviour Saviour,” he said with a grin. “Sounds a bit kinky.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Really?”

  “No…” Blake stammered. He really needed to remember that he didn’t have to say everything that passed through his head. “I meant… I was just trying to be funny… Erm, thanks for this. I’ll have a think and get back to you.” He stuffed the paper in his pocket and, as he hurried away back to his car, Blake thought that catching thieves and murderers was easier than this.

  ◆◆◆

  The coffee cup shook violently in her hands but it was from exhilaration rather than fear. She’d never felt like this before. In all her life of regret, recrimination and darkness, she’d never felt so free. It was like someone had thrown a switch. She was a different person; unafraid, bold. She should have done this years ago.

  She’d been following the girl for weeks, tracing her movements, getting accustomed to her routines so that, eventually, they became so predictable. The moment she saw her, she knew who she really was. Of course, the more she saw of the girl, the way she moved, spoke and treated people, the truth about her was so obvious. When the idiot boy, now an old man, had appeared in the woods, it only confirmed what she had suspected. And only made matters even more delicious. Because events had been set in motion, hadn’t they? By the return of the idiot boy, the idiot man. The girl was doomed the moment that man showed his idiot face. Idiot, idiot, idiot.

  She felt a certain detachment when it actually happened; as if she wasn’t there at all. She was watching a play on a dimly lit stage. She’d imagined the girl’s eyes bulge wide; her face redden as her neck was crushed against the railing. And when the girl finally lay cold and dead, she thought he would try and hide the body; instead, the fool took his trophies, his pathetic keepsakes and left her lying there. Scurrying off like an old beetle. Pathetic idiot man.

  She sipped her coffee, letting the bitter liquid burn her mouth. Nothing could harm her. She couldn’t feel a thing. Now there was work to be done.

  Thursday October 24th

  CHAPTER 3

  DCI Will Blake stood perfectly still. This was old woodland; close to the banks of the Mersey but you could be miles away from the river right now. He knew it from his childhood. Over a century ago, this wood had been a pleasure gardens with a zoo and fountains. Daytrippers had come across the Mersey on paddle steamers to Eastham Ferry to enjoy the gardens. Nature had claimed it back for its own over the decades and the specimen trees and bushes had overgrown the walls, bear pit and boating lake. Even though it was maintained by the local council, it still had a lost, forlorn feel to it. Especially now under these circumstances. The world was waking up. In a couple of hours dog walkers would be strolling along these paths. It was a popular spot. The area needed to be made secure. He knew he’d need to have a word with the park rangers but that would come later.

  Blue police tape fluttered in the cold breeze, strung between branches and hedges like some macabre tinsel. Blake shivered in the feeble grey light of dawn and blinked at the flashing torches that raked across the leaf mould of Eastham Woods. The old bear pit was a circular hole, lined with large sandstone blocks. Steps led down below ground level and through a low gateway. The bear must have had a miserable existence, Blake thought, sitting at the bottom, being stared down on by Victorian tourists from Liverpool. The white incident tent crouched in the bottom of the pit, like a giant, pale fungus. Crime Scene Investigators scanned the ground around the railings above, picking up and bagging anything of interest.

  Eastham was on the edge of Merseyside Police’s remit; at one time, it was part of Cheshire. The suburban sprawl was dotted with open spaces and trees. Eastham Country Park, as it was known, was accessible from just about every angle; a business park to the north, playing fields and the A41 to the west and Eastham Village to the south. The trees and bushes offered any number of hiding places for would-be assailants. He’d been trying to keep his mind off what was to come next. Blake hated it when bodies turned up. Especially kids.

  It didn’t have to be a murder. The young girl in question might easily have come-a-cropper in the dark and landed awkwardly against a branch and somehow fallen into the pit. Accidents did happen and keeping an open mind was paramount. But, in his heart, Blake knew this was the beginning of something bad.

  He ducked under another tape, flashing his ID to the constable on guard and signing into the crime scene. A figure in white coveralls approached him, waving a rubber-gloved hand. “Got here half an hour ago, sir,” Detective Constable Kinnear said, the hood of the coveralls framing his long, pointed face. Kinnear always seemed to have a faint smile that made him look as if he wasn’t taking things seriously enough. “Thought I’d have a peek.”

  Blake shook his head. “Have a peek?” He pulled on a pair of coveralls. “Give me strength. We’re police officers, soft lad. We don’t ‘have a peek’ okay?”

  Kinnear squinted at Blake in the dull twilight. “Are you alright, sir? Only you’ve got…” The young DC traced a finger across his forehead. Unconsciously, Blake touched the long red lines that his cat, Serafina had carved. Thankfully, his thick thatch of greying, blond hair covered the rest of her handiwork. He wasn’t going to explain how he had spent the first half hour of this early morning trying to get the stupid cat down out of a tree. He wasn’t sure why he’d bothered; he didn’t even like cats.

  Mum did, though.

  “Cat trouble Kinnear,” Blake said, brusquely as if it was something everyone encountered on a daily basis. “The others here yet?”

  "Everyone’s here, sir,” Kinnear said and Blake could hear the implied criticism. Except you.

  “Who found her?”

  Kinnear rummaged for his notebook. “A Mr Chowdry,” he said. “Walking his dog, blah, blah, blah…”

  “Blah, blah, blah?” Blake said. “Is that what he actually said? Blah, blah, blah?”

  Kinnear swallowed. “No, sir…”

  “Then don’t you say it,” Blake snapped. “There’s nothing ‘blah, blah, blah,’ about any of this.”

  “No sir, sorry sir,” Kinnear said, looking down to his notes once more. “Mr Chowdry was walking his dog at about five forty-five when the dog would not come back when called. He came over to find the dog sniffing at the body and called the police on his mobile.”

  “Good. What kind of dog?”

  Kinnear scanned his notes yet again. “A black standard poodle, sir.”

  “Better,” Blake said. “A standard poodle. Is that the big kind?”

  Kinnear shrugged.

  “Why was he out so early?”

  Kinnear shrugged again. “He always walks his dog at that time, I guess…”

  Blake drew a long, disappointed breath. “Don’t shrug, Kinnear and don’t guess,” he said, exhaling. “We aren’t paid to guess. We’re paid to find out the truth. The truth about this girl’s death. I want to know the colour of that dog’
s collar, what it had for breakfast, how many bags Mr Chowdry normally carries for scooping up its crap and how many he used this morning. Understand?”

  “Yes sir,” Kinnear said. “Right away sir.”

  “And Kinnear!” Blake yelled.

  Kinnear froze. “Yes sir?”

  “I want to know if the standard poodle is the big kind or is there a bigger one, right?”

  Kinnear pursed his lips. “Yes sir,” he said and scurried off up the woodland path, leaving Blake to descend into the pit.

  After the gloom of the woods outside, the tent seemed unsuitably bright. An electric light had been set up and it reflected off the white interior. Two Crime Scene Investigators and a female detective sergeant huddled inside. Blake looked down at the girl on the ground. How old? Blake thought. It was hard to tell; late teens, probably. She lay on her side, almost in the recovery position, one arm folded behind her, the other under her head as if cushioning it from the muddy ground. Her blue eyes stared off into the distance. She looked cold, her skin had a greyish tinge to it. For a moment, Blake wanted to pull her up and wrap her in a blanket. Poor kid. He swallowed down the emotion. Detached himself.

  “Mallachy,” he said, nodding to the Crime Scene Manager. He smiled at the policewoman. “Vikki, good to see you.”

  “Sir,” the detective said, returning the smile. Blake liked Vikki Chinn. There was no side to her. She’d worked hard to get where she was and got there on merit alone. He knew she’d put up with a lot on the way, be it comments about her height or her Chinese heritage. She frowned at him, making a subtle gesture towards her face.

  “Cat trouble,” Blake murmured. The confused frown that lingered on Chinn’s face betrayed her nod of understanding.

  “This is Callum, new CSI,” Mallachy said, flicking a thumb towards the other person in the tent. Callum gave a half wave, clearly uncertain how to greet Blake under the circumstances.

  “Any ideas?” Blake said, after a brief nod to Callum. “Do we know who she is yet?”

  Mallachy shrugged. “No ID.”

  “We’ve had two girls reported missing in this area in the last twenty-four hours, sir,” Chinn said. “So we’ve sent officers to the houses for photographs, just in case.”

  Blake grunted and gave a nod. “Good.”

  Malachy pointed to the displaced mud around the girl’s body. “Looks like she fell down here. Quite an impact, too.” Her socks were brilliant white against the black leaves and brown dirt. “There’s been a scuffle up at the railings. You can see the leaves and mud churned up there. See the bruising around the neck? Could be strangulation but we won’t be sure without a post-mortem.”

  Blake frowned. “Where are her shoes?”

  Mallachy shrugged again. “Don’t know but there are no traces of mud on her socks as far as I can see. They’re clean…”

  “Someone took her shoes off after she was dead?” Blake said.

  “That would be the most logical explanation. Perhaps they were valuable. Kids these days go mad for expensive gear.”

  “Perhaps,” Blake muttered. “Want to hazard a guess on time of death?”

  Blake wished Mallachy didn’t shrug so much. It underlined the uncertainty of the whole procedure and reminded him of Kinnear. At this point, he always felt like he was stumbling around in the dark without a clue. “I’m not a pathologist but can’t be very long ago, no obvious decomposition” Mallachy said. “But it was a cold night. Body’s still stiff…”

  “Last night then?” Mallachy’s shoulders rose up and down yet again. Blake ground his teeth and then looked up at Sergeant Chinn. “We need to get the body away; this place will be swarming with dog walkers soon. I don’t think the pathologist needs to view her here. What do you think Mallachy?” Blake regretted the question the moment he said it and was rewarded with a shrug. “We’ll need to get any park rangers interviewed.”

  “Yes sir, I’ll get that sorted,” Chinn replied and headed out of the tent.

  Blake knelt down next to the body. “Fully clothed. Have you checked her pockets?”

  “A bit of loose change. Front door key. No phone,” Callum said. “It hasn’t turned up out there.”

  “If there is one,” Blake said.

  “All kids carry phones on them,” Callum said, blinking at Blake as if he’d just said the Earth was flat.

  “Unless they forget to charge them or lose them down the back of the sofa or have them stolen or break them,” Blake said, wondering if he preferred Mallachy’s non-committal shrugs. “I hope a phone does turn up. It’ll give us something else to work on.” He leaned forward and eased a strand of damp hair back away from the girl’s neck. “Nasty bruises.”

  “Murder?” Callum said.

  Blake winced. It was like breaking a spell. Jinxing the whole investigation. “Not necessarily.” It sounded feeble, standing next to the broken body of the girl. How did she end up down here if she wasn’t thrown? How did she get those bruises on her neck?

  Chinn returned with the news that a couple of constables were being assigned to interview rangers when they turned up for work and that a photograph of one of the missing girls had come through.

  “One of the young ladies turned up at home a bit worse for wear, sir,” she said, holding out her phone so that Blake could view the picture. “The other missing girl looks a bit like the young lady here. Of course, I hope not but…”

  Blake nodded. He looked at the image of the girl on the phone: flowing blonde hair, mascara and those weird pouts that kids seemed to do these days. He glanced down at the glassy-eyed corpse at his feet. “Yeah it’s her. We’ll need to get next of kin to identify her formally, though,” he said and sighed. “It doesn’t get any easier, this, does it?”

  “No, sir,” Chinn said. “Not nice.”

  Blake nodded and slapped a hand on Mallachy’s shoulder before he could shrug. Callum gave a vague nod then continued taking photographs. “Do we have a name?” he said to Chinn.

  “Rebecca Thompson. Aged sixteen. Local girl. Lived in the estate right next to these woods. That’s all I’ve got so far.”

  “Right,” Blake said. “Focus on the body, Mallachy. Get everything you need and then get the poor girl down to the pathologist. We’ll get a family Liaison Officer to the house and then get her formally identified before the postmortem. We can see what we’re dealing with after that.”

  “Will do,” Malachy said, crouching down beside the body.

  “You and I, Detective Sergeant Chinn are going to make sure this place is as tight as a duck’s proverbial.”

  “Sir?”

  Blake looked at Chinn. “We need to secure the area. Nothing ever happens in these parts and we’re slap-bang in the middle of a wood. The Press’ll have a field day. In an hour or so, it’s going to be a bloody circus round here.”

  CHAPTER 4

  It was still early and Blake didn’t really expect anyone to be in the visitors’ centre but he thought it might be worth checking. If he could forewarn the rangers that the woods had become a crime scene, then it might save a lot of grief later on. He walked down the well-trodden sandstone path, memories of his childhood springing out from every bush. He’d lived just up the road as a child and this had been his playground. Soon, he found himself looking out across a carpark and beyond that, the River Mersey. A tarmac road led alongside the carpark where his trusty old Manta sat waiting patiently, down towards the river and the Ferry Hotel. On the right was a walled yard which housed the visitors’ centre and other buildings.

  A toilet block made up one side of the yard and a reconstruction of a smithy flanked the entrance. Everything was made of the red sandstone so common to older structures on the Wirral. To Blake’s right, a large young man in green overalls was unlocking the information centre.

  “Can I help you, mate?” he said. Blake figured that the man worked-out, judging by his broad shoulders and narrow waist. He seemed about to burst out of his work clothes.

  “And you
are?”

  “I’m one of the rangers here,” he said. “Do you need the gents or something?”

  Blake frowned and then shook his head. “No,” he said, pulling his ID from his pocket. “DCI Blake. I’m investigating a serious incident that occurred last night in the woods.”“What, here?” the ranger said, blinking at Blake. “What kind of incident?”

  “We’ve found a body down in the bear pit. We’ll need to cordon off the area.”

  The man looked stunned. “Wow, right,” he muttered. “I’d better tell my boss.”

  “If he needs to get in touch with me,” Blake said, handing the man a card. The man reached for it but Blake held on. “Sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

  “Eric,” the ranger said. “Eric Stafford.”

  “And you work here full time?”

  “Yeah, Monday to Friday.”

  “And last night,” Blake said. “What time did you finish? Did you notice anything out of the ordinary?”

  The big man thought for a moment. “I knock off around five. I don’t live far away. I’d say about five. I locked up this place and went. I didn’t hear nothing. Didn’t see nothing. Wouldn’t do if the body was found in the bear pit, would I?”

  Blake nodded. “Possibly not,” he said. He’d taken his notebook out while Stafford had been talking and jotted the main points down. “And is there an address we can get you at if we need to ask any more questions?”

  “Sure,” Stafford said but there was an edge to his voice as if he didn’t like the idea. “But, like I said, I wasn’t here after five and I didn’t hear nothing. I live at four Spital Cottages, just down by the train station. Is the death suspicious?”

  Blake scribbled quickly. “I can’t really tell you at the moment, I’m afraid, Mr Stafford but thanks for your help. If you could pass that card on to your manager, I’d be very grateful. We’ll make your superiors at the local authority aware. Officers will be searching the area and parts of the woods will be no-go, for the public, I’m afraid.” He turned and walked down the path, the ranger’s eyes boring a hole in the back of his head all the way.