by Andrew Lowe
Sawyer and Klein took their seats, as a shout went up. A group of men had gathered by the veranda. One threw two coins in the air while the others surrounded the ground where they fell, cheering or groaning at the outcome.
Casey called to a passing young woman, chasing a small girl in a floral dress. ‘Drinks, darling!’ She nodded, scooped up the girl, and disappeared into the house.
‘Not the music I expected,’ said Sawyer.
Casey nodded. ‘The traditional stuff comes out later. All that maudlin shit sounds better with a bit of whisky in you.’
He lit a cigarette, held the silence.
More cheering from the men.
Sawyer turned. ‘What’s the game?’
‘You not played Two-Up?’ said Casey. ‘Bit of gambling. The spinner throws up the coins. Everyone bets on two heads, two tails, or one of each.’ He took a drag on his cigarette and yanked it out of his mouth, prodding into the air. The woman reappeared and set down three open bottles of beer. Casey nodded at her and she smiled back. Long hair, platinum blonde, unwashed. She seemed a little too refined for the surroundings.
Sawyer edged his chair closer to the table. ‘Ryan. My name is Lloyd Robbins and this is Marcus Klein. I’m an author. I’m writing a book about Marcus. He was wrongly convicted of murder, a long time ago. We’re working to clear his name.’
Casey frowned. ‘Only one of yiz knows that, though, right? That he was wrongly convicted.’
‘I know it,’ said Klein. ‘I’ve spent thirty years in prison knowing it.’
Casey glanced at Klein, returned to Sawyer. ‘And what’s this got to do with us?’
Sawyer picked up one of the beers and took a sip. Warm. ‘I’d really like to talk to Owen. Your nephew. We think he might remember a couple of things that could help us re-open the case or quash the conviction, get compensation. We could come to an arrangement.’
Casey looked doubtful. ‘I haven’t seen Owen in years. He used to help us with the fights up in the northeast. The boys might know. My boys. They’re down at the ring.’ He stood up. It took him a few seconds to steady himself, then he strode around the table and turned towards the caravans. Sawyer glanced at Klein; they both got up and followed, with the muscled man shadowing behind.
‘Big fight here on Sunday,’ said Casey. ‘It’s going to be quite the party. One or two little rumbles tonight but nothing heavy. McDonaghs have been slagging us off, sending videos. My boy Wesley is going to take on their champ. Head of the family. Calls himself Big Joe.’
He took them past the bonfire into the woodland. They ducked under a jumble of low branches and emerged into a clearing, where a makeshift boxing ring had been set up: two lengths of rope wrapped tight around four corner poles. A tall bamboo torch burned at each corner, casting a pale light over the crowd: all men. The ring was occupied with two topless fighters, circling each other, stepping in for occasional cautious swings. Both were flabby and bottom heavy, with no muscle tone. The crowd watched them in reverent silence, cheering the rare connecting shots.
Casey approached two men leaning on the rope at the far end of the ring. They were similar in size and bearing to the muscled bodyguards on the veranda, but more contained, relaxed. He held up a hand, motioning for Sawyer and Klein to hang back. They stopped by one of the corner torches, the bodyguard waiting behind.
Klein leaned in to Sawyer and kept his voice low. ‘Not happy, Mr Robbins!’
Sawyer looked at him. ‘It’s fine. Just a quick tour.’
The two men at the ring turned as Casey approached. As he spoke to them, he hitched a thumb over his shoulder. They looked up, caught sight of Sawyer and Klein. After a few seconds of discussion, they nodded to Casey, and all three approached.
‘These are my lads,’ said Casey, bright and genial. ‘Wesley’s the big one. Ronan’s the nearly-as-big one.’
Sawyer leaned in and shook the hand of the tallest man, matching his firm grip. ‘Lloyd Robbins. This is Marcus Klein.’
The man nodded. No smile. ‘Wesley.’ He was shaven-headed, with a shaggy black beard and aloof, curious eyes.
His brother—shorter, with an untidy scrub of reddish blond hair—forced a smile and held off the handshakes with his raised palm. ‘Ronan. What’s the score, fellas? You looking for Owen?’
Sawyer nodded. ‘Hoping he can help us balance the scales of justice.’
Ronan smiled, revealing a couple of missing teeth. He regarded Sawyer with a predatory scowl. ‘It’s a lifelong struggle, Mr Robbins.’
Sawyer turned to Wesley. ‘You ready for the fight? Hope the opposition is a bit more of a challenge.’ He nodded to the current spectacle in the ring. The larger of the two fighters had stumbled to the ground and was being hauled to his feet by his supporters.
Wesley shook his head. ‘No contest. Fuckin’ “Big Joe”.’
‘Fat bastard,’ said Ronan. ‘Nothin’ else big on him, that’s for sure.’ He nodded to Klein. ‘Where d’ya do your time?’
‘Few different places. They moved me to low security. Had to survive a few scrapes.’
‘Kept your nose clean, eh?’ said Wesley. ‘You really not do it?’
‘Really not.’
Wesley glanced at Ronan. ‘What do you want with Owen, Mr Robbins?’
‘He was in a bit of bother at the time. Long time ago. Thirty-odd years. Minor stuff. We think he might know something that can help us find out who did do it.’
Casey finished his cigarette and ground it into the grass. ‘I have to say, there’s a strong smell of bacon back here. And I’m not talking about the fuckin’ barbecue.’
Sawyer smiled. ‘No police. We tried them but they don’t want to know. Case is closed for them. Thirty years old. We think Owen might be able to unlock it. I’d be grateful for your help.’
Ronan snorted. ‘Can you put a number on that gratitude?’
‘Depends on how quickly we can talk to Owen.’
Wesley chewed his lip. ‘You a fight fan, Mr Robbins?’
Sawyer shrugged. ‘A bit. Boxing. MMA. Not quite up on this scene, though.’
He caught a movement from Ronan and shifted his weight, stepping to the side, deflecting Ronan’s haymaker punch with an open-palmed pak sao block. He could tell from the lack of power in the strike that Ronan had meant to intimidate rather than fully connect, but Sawyer’s deflection was strong and effective, leaving him off balance and exposed for a simple follow-up attack to the side of his knee, body, temple. Instead, he shifted back, into Jeet Kune Do fighting stance: side-on, elbows tucked, fists raised.
Ronan stood off Sawyer and turned to his brother, beaming. ‘Got a fuckin’ live one here!’
Wesley looked on, eyebrows raised. ‘That’s some hand speed for a writer, fella. So if you’re Batman,’ he nodded to Klein, ‘how does Robin shape up?’
Klein held up his hands, palms out, and took a step back. ‘Please…’
Ryan Casey let loose a wheezy laugh and stepped between Sawyer and Ronan. ‘Let’s keep it civil, gents.’ Sawyer shifted out of fighting stance and Ronan backed away. Casey pinched at his forehead. ‘Look. Do you really think I’m going to give up my nephew to a couple of strangers based on some sob story?’
‘We need something from you first,’ said Wesley. ‘I’ve got just the thing. Something to establish a bit of trust. Looks like you can handle yourself, Mr Robbins.’ He gestured towards a tall, wiry man standing at the ringside. ‘That’s Charlie. He’s an up and comer. You give us ten minutes and we’ll call it.’
Sawyer shook his head. ‘I try to avoid fighting.’
Ronan scoffed. ‘Fucker thinks he’s Bruce Lee or something.’
‘He was a childhood hero, yes. The art of fighting without fighting. Look. I’m willing to pay to make contact with Owen. However you want to play it. You can mediate, pass on my questions. I don’t even have to meet him in person. I’m just interested in something he might know. Think of it as a business deal. A finder’s fee.’ He took out a notepad an
d wrote out his number. ‘Whatever you can get me. A number. An address. An email address.’ He handed the paper to Casey. ‘Easy money.’
Klein was silent on the way back to the car. He took the lead for the awkward crossing of the muddy dirt track, steadying himself on the stone wall.
He glanced back at Sawyer. ‘At first, I thought you shouldn’t fight. In prison. On top of the horror of having my life taken away, I had to deal with the other prisoners. And I had to learn quickly. When you first go inside, you’re like a blank slate to them. They want to know what kind of person you are. And in prison, there are only two types. Wolves and sheep. The strong and the weak. It shouldn’t be like that, but it is. Wolves don’t often attack other wolves, but they will target sheep every waking hour of the day. So, the first time you get into a confrontation, you have to show that you’re not a sheep. You don’t have to win the fight. That’s not the point. You just have to fight. You don’t need to become a predator, but you must be willing to fight if you want to avoid being marked as prey.’
They reached the Mini. ‘They know they have something we need,’ said Sawyer. ‘If I’d done what they wanted back there, that puts them in complete control and they can string us along forever. You’ve already wasted thirty years on this. Ryan Casey knows where his nephew is, no doubt. We need to find him, and find out if he was involved in stealing the hammer that killed Jessica Sawyer. And we might have to use the art of fighting without fighting.’
31
Amy Scott paid the cab driver and wriggled out onto the pavement. She was in first date mode: knee-length cocktail dress, comfortable heels (no risk of totter), light Karen Millen coat. Not too much on show, but a display of good taste with a confident promise of more to come.
The name had wrinkled her nose—Nigel—but he had been surprisingly good value for a Soulmates type. Decent looks, testing the limits early with edgy humour, decisive, no prepared lines. Black mark for slurping his spaghetti, but he’d redeemed himself by not making a show of paying.
She smoothed herself down and checked her phone. Ten minutes early. Myra was a reliable sitter and Amy knew she was on parole after the recent late returns.
She walked to the steps leading up to her door, head fizzing from the wine. Early shift tomorrow. Kick Myra out, herbal tea, few episodes of Suits… She would resist the urge to text or reply tonight. Always better to drift off to sleep with her thoughts full of potential.
At the bottom of the steps, a flush of anxiety. She turned, and walked down the street to the Corsa, parked beneath a streetlight. As she approached, she squinted and studied the windscreen area. Nothing. She moved to the back of the car. All clear.
Amy walked back to the house and began to climb the steps, allowing herself a moment of relief. Halfway up, she fumbled in her handbag for the door key. The motion sensor flicked on the porch security light, causing her to look up at the front door.
Her stomach rolled with nausea.
32
Sawyer watched as Shepherd gathered the core team for the morning briefing. Saturday faces. Sunken cheeks, distant eyes. He had worked on stalled cases before—some of them remained unsolved—and he recognised the gathering sense of frustration. Humiliation, too. Like all good detectives, they had a well-practised weapon against cynicism: they took it all personally. It was a battle of wits and wills. One week in, and they were no closer to catching their tormentor.
He settled on the edge of a desk at the front and unwrapped a boiled sweet. Shepherd caught his eye and he nodded. DC Walker took a chair near the front and turned it slightly, half-facing the others. As requested, Sally O’Callaghan was also present, leaning on Keating’s locked door.
‘Updates,’ said Shepherd. ‘DC Myers. Where are we with the Palmer liver donor?’
Myers sighed. ‘Nothing coming up for any of them. No records. No connections to Bishop or Palmer. No links to each other. Deaths and background all pretty mundane. Feels like we’re chasing our tail on this one.’
‘What about Tyler?’ said Sawyer. ‘Bishop’s heart donor.’
‘I have a bit more on that.’ DC Walker got to his feet, and moved in next to Shepherd, ready to address the group.
Sawyer held up a hand. ‘DC Walker. DS Shepherd is case lead. He’s running the briefing.’
Walker looked confused for a second, and then woke to Sawyer’s meaning. He smiled. ‘Of course, sir.’ He sat down again. ‘The inquest into Tyler’s gym accident holds up. Weightlifting. His spotter fumbled the barbell. Crushed his neck. Induced coma. Died at Sheffield later that day. Interesting background, though. The crash he did time for back in the nineties. Three deaths in two cars. Young couple, Faye and Tony Hansen, and an older woman, Maureen Warren. Tyler’s girlfriend, Rebecca Morton, testified that she was giving him a hand job at the time. Judge wasn’t having it. Ten years.’
Sawyer nodded. ‘She tried to get him off by confessing that she was getting him off.’
Laughter. It wasn’t appropriate, but they needed to vent.
‘He did five years, right?’
‘Yes,’ said Walker. ‘Out on licence in 1996.’
‘Get more on the couple and the older woman,’ said Shepherd. ‘Connections to Bishop. I’d like to talk to Tyler’s girlfriend, too.’
Sawyer popped the sweet into his mouth. ‘Any sightings of the recently stolen cars?’
‘Nothing,’ said Moran.
‘Forensics?’
Sally shook her head. ‘DI Sawyer, I’ve been working this job for many years now, and I have never seen scenes so clean. We’ve found nothing meaningful on the bodies, in the bodies, at the deposition sites, at the victim houses and vehicles, at the suspected killing locations.’
Sawyer squeezed his eyes closed. ‘So, what now?’ When he opened his eyes, Sally had fixed him with a look: urgent, eyebrows raised. He knew it well.
‘We go wider,’ she said. ‘Conduct new searches further from the centre.’
Sawyer stood and stalked away, to his office. ‘DS Shepherd, talk to the Sheffield nurse. If she still pushes back, get busy with a court order for the donor records. I want to know who gave Palmer his alcohol-free liver. Walker, keep on the Tyler victimology. Full bios on the deceased. Talk to his girlfriend. Moran, find me those recently stolen cars.’ Moran started to protest, but Sawyer silenced him with a wave. ‘Go from scratch. Where were they left when they were stolen? Track all the ANPR data you can find and triangulate. It might give us some idea about his workflow.’
As Sawyer reached his office door, Stephen Bloom got to his feet.
Sawyer glared at him. ‘Tell them they’ll get a conference when we have something new to say.’ He paused. ‘Okay. Prepare something for tomorrow. To run if we get another blank on the stolen cars.’
‘Dean Logan’s been in touch, sir,’ said Bloom.
‘And?’
‘He seemed happy, for once. Said to tell you personally that he’s working on the story and it’s progressing well.’
Sawyer stared at him. ‘Sally. A word.’
He entered his office and gazed down at his desk, tracing the patterns in the leather texture, thoughts churning.
‘Jake.’ Sally, from behind.
He nodded and crashed down onto his chair. Sally closed the door behind her.
Sawyer propped his elbows on the desk and covered his face with his hands. He slid his palms apart like curtains, providing an opening for his mouth. ‘Is it good?’
Sally approached the desk. ‘Sorry?’
‘The thing you want to tell me in private. Is it a good thing?’ He dropped his hands and looked up at her, smiling. ‘Or is it a bad thing?’
She looked nervous. ‘Good thing. I think. Do you want the full-fat science or the Dorling Kindersley version with nice illustrations?’
‘Stick to the detail I need to know. Easy on the Latin, if possible.’
She gave a thin smile. ‘I had an independent analyst run a couple of tests on the Sam Palmer body scene and the
road outside his house.’
‘Why independent?’
‘I’ll get to that. We found a chemical trace, using chromatography and spectrometry. Methods of determining unknown substances, detecting trace elements. We use a specialist company to deep-clean scenes. CTS Decon. Comes from “Crime and Trauma Scene Decontamination.”’
Sawyer slumped onto the desk. ‘More illustrations!’
‘They use some pretty specialist chemicals to sterilise scenes. Death has that smell. You know it. You never get used to it. Rotting eggs, sulphur, faeces, mothballs. Depends on the stage of decontamination. Once it gets into something porous, there’s no shifting it. You need to throw away the thing and get a new one.’ She sat down. ‘But non-porous material is easier. Three-step cleaning process with pretty standard chemicals. But we found traces of an industrial strength detergent. It’s thorough. And expensive. You can get it online, but it would be unusual. You’d need specialist knowledge to use it safely.’
Sawyer crunched into his sweet. ‘And you found this before the company had completed its clean-up?’
Sally nodded. ‘And here’s the really interesting bit. We have plenty of techniques to find even the tiniest trace of blood. Luminol, phenolphthalin, haemoglobin test. But when you absolutely, positively, have to remove all trace of blood, then you can use detergent with active oxygen to stop the blood being detected. Which is exactly what we found at the Palmer scenes.’
‘So if you put both those things together…’
Sally lowered her voice. ‘This is not a standard layman attempt to conceal evidence with Dettol and a scrubbing brush. This is fucking hardcore.’
‘An insider? Someone from CTS Decon, or another crime scene clean-up company?’
Sally said nothing.
Sawyer took a moment to digest it all. ‘Can you trust your “independent” analyst”?’
‘With my life. Known him for many years.’
