Puppet: A DI Charlotte Savage Novel

by Mark Sennen

  ‘You heard wrong,’ Riley said. ‘In fact, I was to blame for what happened. I should never have let her go in there.’

  ‘Easy to say in hindsight, harder to predict.’ Davies turned to the desk. ‘Like Tarquin here. We’re trying to cover all the bases, but who knows what will happen come zero hour?’

  Riley looked across. A map of Dartmoor lay open on the desk, little stickers pasted everywhere, fluorescent pen arrowing over the contours.

  ‘What’s this?’ Riley said.

  ‘We’re finalising resources for the meet.’ Maynard jabbed a finger down at the map. ‘Roadblocks, lines of sight, helicopter flight times, vehicle ETAs, locations for possible hard stops. The big day is only two weeks away.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Riley tried not to sound too jealous. While he’d been on the trail of Andrei the pimp, the Tarquin team had been having a blast planning one of the largest drug busts in the force’s history. Sterling undercover work combined with high-tech surveillance, information from a string of informants, and thousands of hours of painstaking detection, left them in a position to take down an entire network of criminals in one swoop.

  Maynard was talking again. Three major dealers from Bristol were meeting a Devon bagman and were bringing with them cocaine with a street value of close to a million pounds. The bagman would check the drugs and, once satisfied, authorise an electronic payment. He’d then deliver the gear to the main players who ran things on the north Devon and Cornwall coast.

  ‘Big market there,’ Maynard said. ‘With the tourist season fast approaching, they can’t get enough of the stuff in Newquay and Rock.’

  ‘Right.’ Riley pulled out the ziplock bag. He handed it to Davies. ‘If I can bring you down to earth for a moment, I’ve got a favour to ask.’

  ‘Sure,’ Davies said, peering down at the scrap of paper in the bag.

  ‘Came across a guy last night and it looks like he’s running a local line. It was one of his runners who stabbed Naomi, almost certainly on his say so. Any ideas?’

  Davies held up the bag, cast a quick glance at Maynard. Lowered his head.

  ‘What?’ Riley looked from one detective to the other. ‘Am I missing something?’

  ‘This is the number for Plym Kids.’ Davies passed the bag to Maynard. ‘The man you want is Dave Smeeton.’

  ‘As in the lighthouse on Plymouth Hoe?’

  ‘Except you spell it double E.’

  ‘Fuck.’ This from Maynard. He dropped the bag and it fell onto the map. Then he brought his fist down on the table with a bang. Several officers on the other side of the room turned. ‘We are bloody screwed.’

  Riley looked at the DI, astonished. He’d never heard Maynard swear like that before, never seen him get even remotely angry.

  ‘Something you’re not telling me, Phil?’ Riley said.

  ‘You could say that.’ Davies reached for the ziplock and handed it back to Riley. ‘Your Dave Smeeton hangs around with a man by the name of Joel Hartson. Hartson goes by the nickname of Howzat because he once played minor league cricket for Devon. Smeeton is Hartson’s number two and acts as his eyes and ears on the street.’

  ‘And that’s a problem?’

  ‘Yes, because Hartson is going to be highly suspicious if you go questioning Smeeton.’

  ‘So?’ Once more, Riley swung his gaze from Davies to Maynard, looking for more information.

  ‘So if Hartson gets jumpy, it will jeopardise operation Tarquin.’ Maynard stared wistfully down at the map. ‘The whole thing could very well go down the pan.’

  ‘Let me hazard a guess,’ Riley said. ‘Joel Hartson is the bagman for the meet?’

  ‘Yes,’ Maynard said.

  ***

  On the other side of the crime suite, Gareth Collier, the office manager, was having to cope with several cases. All were vying for attention, but Abigail Duffy’s murder was, predictably, being given priority.

  ‘All the stops, according to Hardin,’ Collier said to Savage as she came across.

  Collier wore his hair short and liked things ordered as neat and sharp as his cut. He had an eye for precision that suited his role, and he didn’t tolerate slackers lightly. He nodded to where a trio of DIs – Riley, Davies and Maynard – sat at a desk adorned with a large map. ‘Means operation Tarquin will have to make do with a slimmed-down crew, at least until their big day.’ Collier raised his voice. ‘That’s OK with you, right, Frank?’

  Maynard took a while to look up, and when he did, it was with a scowl. Neither of the other two detectives spoke.

  Collier ran through the personnel who’d be involved in the investigation and then detailed a list of fast-track actions he wanted to prioritise. After that, he moved across to a whiteboard. There was a map of the crime scene and an image of Abigail Duffy. A couple of lonely Post-it notes appeared to contain the only meaningful leads. The rest of the board was blank.

  ‘I’ve pulled up the material from the Exeter team, and it’s as good as useless. We’re basically starting from scratch.’ Collier pointed to an in-tray where there was a manila folder fat with documents. ‘Unless there’s anything in that.’

  ‘Which is?’ Savage said.

  ‘Some stuff Jack Duffy had couriered over this morning. It’s a personal file of material he’s collated for you, much of it on Zac Francis.’

  ‘Francis? Is he the guy Duffy put away?’

  ‘Yes. Serial rapist. Torturer. All-round loophead. Duffy was the officer leading the case twenty years ago. It might be worth checking to see if there’s anything we need to follow up on, even though the Exeter lot must have been through it all a dozen times. Whatever, ACC Duffy seems keen for us to investigate further.’

  ‘Right.’ Savage picked up the folder. ‘I’ll drive over to see Duffy tomorrow morning. I’ll take DS Calter with me.’

  DS Calter. DI Riley. Several of her colleagues had gained promotion in her absence, and the titles still had an unfamiliar ring to them.

  ‘Sure.’ Collier turned to face the board and gave it a tap with the end of his marker pen. ‘Let me know what you think about Zac Francis.’

  ‘Oh, does the acronym BOC mean anything to you?’

  ‘British Oxygen Company? They supply those gas cylinders you see at hospitals or industrial sites.’

  ‘Could be, but I doubt it. The letters were branded onto Abigail’s inner thigh.’

  ‘Branded? You mean like a cow?’

  ‘Yes. Perhaps it’s not an acronym. Perhaps the letters are the initials of a boyfriend or girlfriend. Maybe it was some sort of teenage gesture of undying love. Be sure to check her social group for anyone with matching initials.’

  ‘Will do.’ Collier scribbled the letters on the whiteboard. ‘Talking of undying love, could the dress be important?’

  ‘Possibly,’ Savage said. The white dress Abigail had been wearing was decorated with lace and had a bodice upper section. It wasn’t the sort of attire you wore for a casual stroll in the woods. ‘Bride or bridesmaid? That kind of thing?’

  ‘Yes, except it makes little sense considering the circumstances. Worth bearing in mind, though.’

  Savage left the crime suite, intending to find somewhere quiet to read through the Zac Francis material. The file comprised a mixture of press cuttings, interview transcripts, court reports and material from the probation hearing which had led to Francis’s recent release. Duffy had gathered everything he could find, and the sheer weight of paper suggested he’d already decided Francis was responsible.

  She headed for her old office, which she’d shared with DI Maynard, only to find it had been requisitioned as the HQ of the city’s new drone unit. Shelves once weighed down with law books and policing manuals now held rows of batteries and boxes of spares. Sergeant Gould, who ran the fledgling unit, was apologetic.

  ‘Sorry, ma’am,’ he said with a shrug of his shoulders. ‘Maynard got moved to a new room, and we didn’t think you’d be coming back.’

  Savage glared at a large drone
sitting on what had once been her desk. A blinking light on top of the drone winked conspiratorially at her.

  ‘Right,’ she said, pulling the door shut and standing in the corridor, for a moment entirely lost.

  The world, it seemed, was moving on without her. Her office had gone, colleagues had been promoted, Doctor Nesbit had hinted he might retire soon, and Hardin was headed for a coronary. Even John Layton seemed down. Perhaps he’d been to one crime scene too many, seen one mutilated body more than was healthy for anyone intending to stay sane. If so, what did that say about her? Still, she needed this. The experience of delivering the PLOD agenda had left her bored out of her mind, and however much she tried to deny it, the air tasted sharper around murder. The anger she felt galvanised her and spurred her to action.

  She shook herself free of her thoughts and strode back down the corridor. There was a nook in the crime suite over by a window. She crossed the room, pulled up a nearby chair, and began to go through the material Duffy had sent.

  A brief read of the newspaper cuttings from the court case filled her in on Zac Francis’s appalling crimes. He’d been into bondage and S&M, but was known in the scene for being somewhat extreme, and he’d had trouble finding partners. The community, long concerned with safety, had flagged him as somebody to be avoided, as a persona non grata. Francis didn’t play nicely, and there were rumours he had little regard for breaking the unwritten rules that everything was based on informed consent. Ostracised from the one place he could find people willing to indulge his fantasies, Francis had gone looking elsewhere. And this time he hadn’t been bothered about obtaining consent.

  There’d been seven victims the police were aware of, but there were undoubtedly others who were reluctant to come forward. Reading on, Savage understood why. The experience had been painful, frightening, and degrading. There’d been ropes involved. Needles and knives. Hours of subjugation as Francis fulfilled his perverted fantasies. The newspaper articles skimmed over the details, so she turned to the crime reports. There were photographs of Francis’s setup and statements from the victims. Savage shivered as she read. One victim had endured two days of torture before Francis had dumped her, naked, at a remote location. Another, twice as long. It was his final victim who’d been his undoing. She’d managed to escape and raise the alarm, bringing police to his lock-up on an industrial estate outside Crediton. Within minutes the officers realised they’d found the lair of the serial rapist they’d been hunting for two years; within an hour, they’d tracked Francis down to a flat in the town centre and arrested him.

  Confronted with the evidence, Francis claimed the victims had been willing participants, a story he clung to right up to the moment the judge sentenced him to be detained on an indefinite sentence. It was then he’d uttered a chilling threat: ‘When I get out, I’m coming for you all,’ he’d shouted. ‘And I’ll be your worst fucking nightmare.’

  Savage put aside the court report and reached for a document compiled by the probation service. She skimmed through it. For the first couple of years, Francis had rebelled. He’d assaulted a prison officer and several fellow inmates. He’d been generally disruptive. Then he’d appeared to have had some sort of epiphany and transformed into a model prisoner. Twenty years after he’d been sent down, now forty-four and with an Open University Degree and an exemplary behaviour record, he qualified for parole. He was, according to the parole board, no longer a danger to the public. He’d admitted his crimes and was remorseful. There was no reason to keep him locked up. Release under licence, albeit with strict conditions that included a period in a halfway house, was recommended.

  She flicked over to a page where there were two photographs. One was of Francis soon after he’d arrived in prison, the second shortly before he’d left. The second picture looked different from the first, the wild, stringy hair now short and combed and the angular, youthful face fully fleshed out. But the eyes, why hadn’t the parole board considered the eyes? Savage knew there was no change there. The same intent she sensed from the dark pupils in the picture from way back was also present in the one taken recently. Whatever the parole board had decided, they’d been wrong. Zac Francis was still a very depraved and psychotic man.

  ***

  Riley, Davies and Maynard sat in virtual silence. Operation Tarquin was in serious trouble. The problem, unspoken but understood by all three of them, was if Riley investigated Dave Smeeton for the stabbing of DC Hester, the bagman – Joel Hartson – would suss that something was up. He’d take extra precautions, possibly change the time and place of the meet, or perhaps even abandon it altogether.

  ‘Fuck.’ Davies slammed a hand onto the desk. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck.’

  ‘Any chance the meet could be brought forward?’ Riley felt guilty for trashing the operation and was trying to find a route through the mire. ‘That way, we can stall the investigation into the stabbing. If we don’t finger Smeeton for a few days, he might just think we’re slow on the uptake.’

  ‘Like we’re supposed to phone up all the participants and tell them it would be helpful to the boys in blue if we could find a new date?’ Davies gave an ironic laugh. ‘Forget it.’

  ‘We have to get Smeeton onside.’ This from Maynard. Calm. Matter-of-fact. The sort of logical argument from someone who brought a packed lunch and a flask of tea into work. ‘It’s the only way we can pull this thing off. There could be some benefits too.’

  ‘No way Smeeton is going to roll over,’ Davies said. ‘He’s too cocky, too canny.’

  ‘Perhaps he will,’ Riley said. ‘Stabbing a police officer is a serious business. There might be a deal to be made.’

  ‘Have you got enough evidence?’

  ‘As long as Smeeton believes we have, does it matter?’

  Maynard scratched his chin. ‘But if word gets out he’s in an interview room with a couple of detectives, then Hartson is going to assume he’s blabbing to save his skin.’

  ‘Then we need to do this on the hush.’ Davies lowered his voice. He gave Riley a wink. ‘Unofficial.’

  ‘Unofficial?’ Maynard said. ‘I’m not sure I like the sound of that.’

  ‘You leave it to us, Frank.’ Davies pointed at the Dartmoor map on the table, moving his finger down to where Plymouth sprawled in along the bottom edge. ‘First thing tomorrow, Darius and I will pay Mr Smeeton a visit. Explain the situation. I’m sure we’ll be able to persuade him to see sense.’

  ‘I don’t need the details.’ Maynard pushed himself up from the table and walked away.

  ‘Did I read that right?’ Riley said. ‘Frank Maynard all but condoning a bit of dodgy dealing?’

  Davies raised a finger to his pursed lips.

  ‘Shush,’ he said.

  Chapter 6

  Dear Police

  I want to write to you and explain what is going on because of the girl in the wood who is Abigail Duffy. I do not remember murdering her but I must have because of things I know about. I am also sorry about the next one to come and I probably will not remember doing her either but once I get started on a job there is no stopping me (people always say I am reliable and they are right because I always finish my work on time and I never complain even though sometimes it is very hard).

  When I was a kid I did cruel things like all kids do. I remember playing with an ants’ nest and a box of matches. The ants sort of shrivelled up when I burned them. I liked that. Next I found some woodlice and burned them too. Then I got a whole load of frogspawn and grew the tadpoles into frogs. I did not bother with matches with the frogs because I could not get any so I used razor blades to cut their legs off like the French do. When I grew up I stopped being cruel but ever since the accident things have been different. I have to take pills and there are a lot of them. The pills make me have bad dreams and sometimes the dreams come true and sometimes I have fuzzy vision with tears and sometimes I get angry with the world like when I was younger.

  You will want to know why I killed Abigail Duffy and I will tell y
ou it is because of the voice in my head. The voice tells me to do things and I do them. If I do not do the things the voice asks I know I will be punished like in the old days. When I do the things the voice asks I get rewards like having a cuddle with a girl (and more as well but that is private).

  Anyway I’ll be off now and don’t try to trace this letter because I wore gloves when writing it with my left hand and posted it in a post box about eight and a half miles from where I live.

  Your friend

  The PUPPET

  Chapter 7

  By close of play Thursday, operation Farlight, as the Abigail Duffy murder investigation had been named, was in full swing. Collier briefed the neighbourhood teams, and they began conducting enquiries in the area close to the crime scene. Officers knocked on doors in the villages of Lee Moor, Cornwood and Sparkwell and spoke to residents. They stopped dog walkers and asked them if they remembered anything suspicious happening several months ago. They showed people photographs of Abigail and tried to jog hazy memories. Over at the religious community of God’s Haven, four DCs spent Thursday afternoon interviewing all one hundred and twenty members of the community, ticking off names, and collating and corroborating details.

  First thing Friday morning, Savage, along with DSupt Hardin and Rob Anshore – the force’s PR guru, reluctantly gave a short press conference. The interest from the national media wasn’t unsurprising, but she was perturbed by the sheer number of reporters present.

  ‘Told you,’ Hardin said afterwards. ‘Ghouls, the lot of them.’

  Anshore winced. ‘We need them onside, sir. Publicity is a powerful weapon.’

  ‘Sure.’ Hardin gave one of his characteristic sneers. ‘But it’s also a double-edged sword, a dog that can turn on you if you’re not careful.’

  Back in the crime suite, Savage wanted an update from Collier. What had they got so far?