Puppet: A DI Charlotte Savage Novel

by Mark Sennen

  A scuffle and a whisper, and then, thirty seconds later, a man emerged from the dense thicket of plants. The flies on his jeans were down, and his knees were brown and damp from the rich loam. He had a full beard and thick, blond locks tied back in a ponytail.

  ‘Pruning,’ he said with a smile. He flicked a hand up to where a dead leaf had lodged in his hair. The leaf fluttered to the ground. For a moment, he stared down at the leaf before turning as a pretty young girl of not much more than seventeen or eighteen pushed through the stems of two ferns and joined him on the path. She wore a short summer dress, traces of earth on the hem. ‘My assistant gardener, Tabitha.’

  ‘So she’s responsible for these as well, is she?’ Savage pointed to a nearby cannabis plant. ‘Commercial cultivation is a serious business.’

  ‘Weeds,’ Kenner said. ‘But it’s the price to pay for going organic, I guess.’

  ‘We’d like a word, Mr Kenner.’ Savage gestured at Tabitha. ‘In private.’

  ‘Sure.’ Kenner turned to the girl. ‘Run along, sweetheart. I’ll catch up with you later.’

  Tabitha wore a coy expression as she stepped past Savage and Calter and skipped from the greenhouse. Savage reached out and pulled a five-pointed leaf from one of the plants.

  ‘We’re here about Abigail Duffy.’

  ‘Abigail.’ Kenner lowered his head. ‘I heard the news. She was a nice girl. A bit mixed up, but aren’t we all?’

  ‘So what do you know?’ Savage twirled the stem of the leaf between her thumb and forefinger and dropped it to the ground. ‘If you can help us, then we might forget about this little outfit.’

  ‘Outfit? No, I told you they’re weeds. Must have seeded naturally. I’ll have to see about thinning them out.’

  ‘DS Calter here is a keen gardener. She’s a dab hand at weeding, so she’ll give you a hand, won’t you, Jane?’

  ‘Love to, ma’am.’

  ‘She’s going to cut down the plants one by one, and she’ll carry on until I’m ready to leave, understand?’ There was a blank expression from Kenner, so Savage gave Calter a thumbs-up signal. The DS walked over to where a range of tools lay in a wooden trug, pulled out a pair of clippers, and moved in amongst the ferns to the nearest cannabis plant. She bent and snipped the plant at the base. ‘One down, another hundred to go, right?’

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ Kenner said. ‘You can’t.’

  ‘I want to know about your relationship with Abigail. How it started, when it ended, and when you last saw her.’ Savage indicated another plant. ‘Do your duty, Jane.’

  Calter reached down and snipped a second plant.

  ‘OK, but tell her to go slow, right? Real slow.’

  ‘Take your time, Jane.’ Savage turned and pointed through the door into the garden. ‘Let’s leave her to it.’

  Outside, Kenner couldn’t wait to get started. He’d met Abi the previous January at a house party in Torquay, and she’d cadged a lift with him back to Plymouth.

  ‘Bit of a nightmare, to be honest. Fit, glorious body, but not right up there.’ Kenner tapped his forehead. ‘She was looking for a place to crash, but I got the wrong end of the stick because it was all she wanted. I was fine with that, but what I didn’t like was the upper-class angst.’

  ‘But you knew who she was?’

  ‘I had no bloody idea until I saw the pictures on the news. There’s her old man in full uniform, stern as anything. I nearly crapped myself.’

  ‘But you didn’t think to inform anyone she was safe and well?’

  ‘Not my business to shop her, was it? Anyway, nobody here would want coppers sniffing everywhere.’

  ‘Still…’

  ‘Look, Abi was trying to be rebellious. Girl like that isn’t supposed to end up in a place like this, is she?’ Kenner stared back at the orangery. ‘But it was her choice. None of us were going to hassle her about it.’

  ‘So what happened when you brought her back here?’

  ‘She moved in, but pretty soon I could see it wasn’t going to work out.’ Kenner raised a hand and thumbed at the house. ‘There’s a dozen people living here, a dozen different worldviews. Living a sheltered life as she’d been doing, she soaked it all up. She started reading all these books on consciousness and stuff and staying up late into the night arguing about religion and politics. One week she’d come over all radical feminist, the next she was convinced Buddhism was the answer to the world’s problems.’

  ‘Was she with anyone?’

  ‘You mean shagging?’ Kenner shook his head. ‘No. A couple of blokes tried it on, and to be honest, I did too, but she wasn’t interested. Kept her knickers on and politely declined all offers.’

  ‘When did she leave?’

  ‘A couple of months after she arrived. That would be around March or April last year, I guess. She began sharing a room with this quiet lass who was into some weird God stuff. Jess. Don’t know her surname. She seemed to calm Abi down. I hardly saw her after that except to say “hi” to her in the kitchen or pass in the hallway. Then the pair of them upped and left without a word. Rumour was they went to join some religious retreat.’

  ‘Religious retreat?’ Savage’s interest was piqued. ‘Can you remember the name and where it was?’

  ‘Don’t think so,’ Kenner said, disinterested. ‘Haven something or other. Up on the moor. Can’t be too hard to find, surely?’

  ‘God’s Haven?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s it.’ Kenner looked back over his shoulder. Calter was on her fifth plant and reaching for another. ‘That’s all I know. Can you ask her to stop now?’

  ‘If this turns out to be crap, we’ll be back to do some more weeding, OK?’ Savage beckoned to Calter. ‘Come on, Jane, let’s leave Mr Kenner to talk to his plants in peace.’

  ***

  The storage facility turned out to be more of a scrapyard come rubbish dump lying half a mile beyond the Langage power station. The tall chimney of the station towered in the distance, silhouetted against a sky turning grey as clouds rolled in. A rough, pot-holed track weaved across a field and ended at a chain-link fence. Warning signs plastered a set of tall gates, the most worrying sign displaying a picture of two Dobermans. Beyond the fence, old shipping containers lay in haphazard rows on a wasteland of rubble and hardcore.

  ‘I don’t think the owner welcomes visitors.’ Riley said, gesturing at the signs as they parked up, got out, and walked to the gates.

  ‘Not law-abiding ones, anyway,’ Davies said. He pulled free a length of rope and swung one gate open. ‘Perfect place for a piece of scum like Dave Smeeton.’

  On the far side of the yard stood a wooden building that was little more than a shack. A stovepipe poked through the roof, smoke rising from a misshapen cowl. A glow came from behind a cracked window, and as they approached, the door to the shack opened, framing a thin figure stick-like against the light from inside.

  ‘That’s Sharpy,’ Davies said. ‘The so-called nightwatchman.’

  ‘We’re closed, so you’d best bugger off.’ Sharpy’s voice came out thick and slurred. ‘That is unless you want me to set the dogs on you.’

  ‘There ain’t no dogs,’ Davies said. ‘The RSPCA took them away a couple of months ago. As I understand it, charges of animal cruelty are pending.’

  ‘Bloody lies.’ Sharpy tottered out, an iron bar in his right hand. He raised the bar and waved it in their general direction. ‘I loved them bitches.’

  ‘Yeah, you loved them a bit too much from what I heard.’

  ‘You fucker, I’ll have you.’ Sharpy lurched forwards, stepped off the veranda, and fell flat on his face.

  Davies walked across and stamped a foot down on Sharpy’s hand. ‘Assaulting a police officer is a bit more serious than shagging a dog, so I’d drop the bar if I was you.’

  Riley followed Davies, and for the benefit of any doubt, he pulled out his warrant card and waved it down near the man’s face.

  ‘You don’t need that,’ Sharpy muttered. ‘Seen
you in the papers. You’re that coloured cop from up London.’

  ‘That’s not very nice.’ Davies bent and, while keeping his foot on the man’s hand, he reached for the fingers and yanked them skywards. There was a crack and Sharpy screamed. Davies stepped back. ‘This is the modern police force. We’ve got all sorts these days. There are even a few middle-aged white men like me left to do the dirty work.’

  ‘You’ve broken my fucking fingers.’

  ‘Perhaps that’ll teach you to keep them out of your dogs’ backsides.’ Davies took a breath. He turned towards the maze of containers. ‘Now, Dave Smeeton rents a unit from you. Which one is it?’

  ‘I don’t know a Dave.’ Sharpy rolled over and sat up. He tried to flex his fingers. ‘Jesus, I need to go to A&E.’

  Davies dropped to his haunches, his face inches from Sharpy’s. ‘Listen, you shithead, if you don’t tell me which container belongs to Dave Smeeton, a few broken fingers will be the least of your worries.’

  ‘Dave, Dave, Dave.’ Sharpy smiled, showing missing front teeth. Blackened gums. ‘Oh, you mean that Dave.’

  ‘Bingo. You should enter Mastermind. Now, which one?’

  ‘Back of the lot, far right. Green with plenty of rust.’

  ‘And have you seen him?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘For fuck’s sake…’

  ‘Smeeton,’ Riley said. ‘Have you seen him recently?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Sharpy was getting to his feet. He made a play of wiggling his fingers again. ‘Friday, as a matter of fact. He paid me the rent and said he might not be around for a few weeks. Told me in no uncertain terms to keep out of his unit.’

  Davies reached out and tapped Riley on the shoulder. ‘Let’s take a look.’

  Sharpy opened his mouth to say something but changed his mind.

  They headed for a pale green container up against the boundary fence. A power cable snaked across the dirt and squeezed in through the doors.

  ‘Friday,’ Riley said. ‘Sounds as if Smeeton’s turned us over. He was never going to play along. Straight after our visit, he splits. He’s got four days on us. Enough time to warn Hartson and for everyone involved to make new plans.’

  ‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.’ Davies pulled at one of the container doors. Metal ground on metal and light flooded out into the dusk. ‘Bloody hell. We’ll need gas masks.’

  A heavy stench of marijuana plants washed over them. Inside, a sequence of lights hugged the ceiling, and a mass of foliage hung on metal racks. There was the soft hum of a fan somewhere, a gentle movement of air. The racks stretched to the back, where a polythene sheet hung obscuring the rear wall of the container.

  ‘Nothing but a prep room.’ Riley pushed into the container, brushing past the hanging plants. ‘We’ll need to call it in, I guess.’

  ‘Not so fast.’ Davies stood alongside him. He took a deep breath. ‘The smell.’

  ‘You’re not getting high?’ Riley took a gulp of air himself. It was heady and sweet with scent. There was something else, though, a thick tang above the odour of resin. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  Davies walked down between the racks. Riley followed. The container was double length, some forty feet long, and filled with freshly harvested plants. Riley did a quick calculation in his head. It was a nice little side hustle for Smeeton to run alongside his dial-a-wrap business.

  They reached the rear of the container where the plastic hung down. The wiring for the lights and the fan led behind the sheet. A fly buzzed at Riley’s face and he swatted it away.

  ‘This is an enterprise-level operation,’ he said. ‘Never mind what we promised him, he’s looking at a long stretch for this.’

  ‘No, he ain’t.’ Davies lifted the polythene sheet. ‘Not now.’

  Riley stared beyond the sheet. A scrawny figure stood up against the rear wall. A length of rope rose from a belt round the man’s neck and ran up to a bracket. The man was naked aside from a pair of boxer shorts, and his skin was bruised and blotchy. He hung from the belt, his feet brushing the steel floor. The sweet smell of earlier had changed to something putrid and deeply unpleasant. Riley had an urge to gag and a stronger urge to get the hell out of the container and into the fresh air. He turned away and saw Davies grinning.

  ‘Dave Smeeton,’ Davies said. ‘Not so much a long stretch as a suspended sentence, right?’

  Chapter 13

  Raymond felt anxious after his conversation with Jakab about the police. Come late afternoon, he busied himself sorting through a box of silver cutlery, trying in vain to focus on something other than his years behind bars. You make one mistake, he thought bitterly, and it follows you for the rest of your life. You think you’ve escaped, but there it is, tapping you on the shoulder and reminding you of what you’ve done.

  He leaned back in the chair, and for a second, his gaze roved to the ceiling. He remembered what had happened up there in the attic. Felt something stir within him. He slipped his hand into his trousers. Closed his eyes.

  The papers had said she was seventeen, but Raymond never believed that. To his mind, she’d seemed older. He’d been twenty-four, and she’d convinced him she was only a couple of years younger. A woman, not a girl. Pink lipstick and pushed up breasts. Hair done at a salon. Nails painted with red varnish. A bitter pill coated with shiny icing sugar.

  Lena.

  She’d written her name in a note slipped between two books on a shelf in Oddities way back when his father had run the shop. She stood on tiptoes as she pushed the piece of paper in, her skirt riding up her thighs, her head turning to Raymond as the tip of her tongue touched her top lip. He bent to a dustpan and hurriedly swept the floor until she waltzed from the room. Then he dashed over to the shelf. Biographies. General George S. Patton to one side, Samuel Pepys to the other. He read the note, scarcely able to believe the words or his luck.

  L. E. N. A. Luscious. Exciting. Naughty. AVAILABLE.

  Raymond wondered for a moment what the two great men might have made of the note; Patton would have been censorious, Pepys undoubtedly keen to join in the fun.

  And fun it was. To start with.

  Lena led him a merry dance. He took her out for an ice cream, splashing the cash for a double 99. Their next date comprised a meal and a drink afterwards. He’d very much wanted the night to continue, but Lena said he had to be patient. What was on offer was so special it was worth waiting for.

  Definitely, Raymond thought. Back then, his experience with women was limited to a stack of Mayfair magazines he’d found when accompanying his father on a house clearance. Golden skin and airbrushed pubic hair. Two dimensional. Not like Lena.

  Another date in a pub, and afterwards a couple of minutes in a deserted side street, Lena allowing him to get a hand up her skirt and inside her knickers before she twirled away from him and ran for the taxi rank.

  For their next meeting, she wanted to come to the shop. ‘Such an amazing place. All those nooks and crannies.’

  Sure, Raymond thought. Nooks and crannies. Amazing.

  She came round one wet Saturday afternoon. Raymond’s father had disappeared to the betting shop up the road a few minutes earlier, and the shop was devoid of customers. Lena burst through the door in a sodden mess, the transparent material of her top leaving nothing to the imagination. She was all smiles as she gave Raymond a quick peck on the cheek.

  ‘Show me around. Show me everything.’

  ‘Yes,’ Raymond said, averting his eyes from Lena’s breasts. ‘Everything.’

  He started with the antiquarian books and maps, trying to impress her with the values of some of the stock his father kept in a locked glass case. ‘Five hundred pounds for this,’ he said, opening the case and retrieving a rare nineteenth-century lithograph of ships at anchor in Plymouth Sound. ‘A thousand for the encyclopaedia of tropical birds.’

  ‘A thousand for that boring old book? Never!’ Lena fluttered her eyelids. ‘Come on, show me somet
hing interesting.’

  Raymond nodded and led her through the shop. The stuffed animals were met with expressions of ‘Cute!’ and ‘Urgh!’ In the military room, Lena wanted to know if the guns actually worked. In the Victoriana section, she wanted to try on a white night robe.

  With visions of Lena slipping out of her wet things to the fore, Raymond took the nightdress from the clothes rack, disappointed when she asked him to make her a hot drink and bring her something to eat.

  ‘Then we can go to your room while I wait for my clothes to dry, right?’

  Right!

  Raymond headed to the office where his father kept a kettle and teapot and a stash of chocolate biscuits.

  When he returned with the tea and biscuits, Lena was nowhere to be seen. The nightgown was on its hanger, and a trail of drips led down the back staircase.

  He found her in the antiquarian room, the bird book stuffed in the back of her jeans, her hands hurriedly trying to roll up the lithograph.

  ‘Lena?’

  She jumped and backed away from him until she pushed up against a display case.

  ‘Raymond, look—’

  ‘I know why you were making me wait. Not for something special that you’ve got, but for what’s special here.’ Raymond jabbed at the lithograph. Lena’s damp t-shirt had smeared the ink into an unholy mess. The piece was worthless now. ‘Well, you’ve got what you came for. Now I want what you owe me.’

  Lena turned, for a moment unsure which way led to the shop front and the way out. Then she darted left and ran through an opening between two bookcases.

  ‘Wrong choice,’ Raymond said.

  ***

  Layton and his team of CSIs arrived at the storage facility within the hour.

  ‘Jeez, this takes me back,’ Layton said as he poked his nose into the container. ‘Any chance of a takeout bag? Personal use only, of course.’

  ‘Smeeton sure as hell won’t miss any of it,’ Riley said. ‘And since you’re in charge of securing the evidence, anything goes, I guess.’

  ‘Are you sure it’s him?’ The jollity had gone as Layton peered past the racks of cut plants to where the body hung.