Puppet: A DI Charlotte Savage Novel

by Mark Sennen

  ‘Saturday afternoon.’

  Riley cast a glance at Calter. Saturday was the day the victim at the solar farm had been found. Had Raymond strung Faye up late on Friday night, had his fun, and then killed her, only to reenact the performance with Krisztina a few hours later?

  ‘Did Mr Raymond say anything during these sessions?’

  ‘Not much. He said I was good to put up with him being so weird. Well, he was weird, alright, but compared to some of the arseholes, I’d say he was pretty normal. At least that’s what I thought until I saw all the police activity at the shop this morning. I knew then I’d had a lucky escape.’

  ‘Did he ever talk about anyone else during your sessions? A friend perhaps?’

  ‘Yes.’ Krisztina looked puzzled. ‘How did you guess?’

  ‘Just a hunch. What was the friend’s name?’

  ‘Jakab. He said I should meet him someday because he reckoned we’d get on. So I asked him if the man was Romanian. See, I was worried he might know Andrei, but Thomas told me Jakab was Hungarian.’ Krisztina bit her lip. ‘Are you looking for this man?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking, yes.’

  Chapter 28

  Raymond felt liberated. The strings had been attached for too long. They’d pulled him this way and that. Forced him to comply and obey. But now, Jakab had given him permission to break free from the past.

  Do you have a plan?

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  Care to share?

  Raymond ignored the request and bustled away from the city centre. Telling Jakab what he had in mind would only lead to another row. Jakab would disagree and try to warn him off, and Raymond wasn’t going to let that happen.

  On the way out of Oddities, he’d grabbed an old mackintosh and a trilby hat. Now he tugged the coat tight and did up the belt. He rammed the hat down on his head and pulled up the collar on the coat. Cast a sideways glance in a shop window.

  You’re anonymous. Nothing suspicious about you at all.

  Raymond couldn’t tell whether Jakab was being facetious or sarcastic or plain cruel, but it didn’t matter. He kept his head down and slipped along the narrow streets and across to the Cattedown area of the city, to where several lockup garages sat in the shadow of three colossal gas storage tanks. The third garage from the right was Raymond’s, his rusty old van inside.

  You haven’t thought this through.

  ‘Shut up, Jakab.’

  Only trying to be helpful.

  ‘Well, don’t.’

  The van started on the third attempt, the garage filling with black smoke before Raymond rolled out and headed over to the Sainsburys at Marsh Mills. He wheeled a trolley inside and scoured the aisles for pasties, sliced bread, milk and a large kitchen knife. As he placed the knife in the trolley, he saw his hand was shaking.

  ‘Oh Christ,’ he said.

  That’s very appropriate, all things considered.

  ‘All things considered, why don’t you keep quiet?’

  At the checkout, the assistant looked him up and down. ‘Just checking your age, love.’ She smiled. ‘For the knife, see?’

  ‘I’m cutting up liver,’ Raymond said. ‘And onions.’

  ‘Not the bread, though.’ The woman laughed. ‘That’s already sliced, right?’

  Raymond couldn’t see what was funny. He packed away the shopping, paid with a grubby twenty-pound note, and made his way back to the van.

  Now what?

  No strings, Raymond thought. That’s what.

  ***

  Savage sneaked from the crime suite and down to the car park where, rather than take a pool vehicle, she got in her own car and headed along the dual carriageway. She turned off and followed the succession of lanes until she reached the forestry track that led to where they’d found Abigail’s body. She’d stop there and walk through the woods and over the hill to God’s Haven.

  The car bounced up the track and she pulled over at the end. Shut the engine off and got out. Near silence, only a distant murmur from the main road several miles away. The verge was muddy and rutted, but there was nothing to suggest that dozens of police officers had been here a couple of weeks ago other than a few tyre marks. She pulled her waterproof from the back seat, tied it around her waist and retrieved a pair of wellies from the boot. Wellingtons weren’t the best footwear for a trek across the moor, but they’d have to do.

  The route to God’s Haven took her past the bluff of rocks where they’d found Abi. The vegetation was crushed and battered from the officers who’d searched the area. They’d walked back and forth, covering the ground twice over, but had found nothing aside from the puppet discovered by PC Galloway outside the search grid half a mile from the byre. As she walked, she considered that. Why so far from the body? She wondered if it was because it was placed after Abigail had been found. Perhaps whoever had left it hadn’t dared enter the search grid since the area would have been teeming with police officers.

  Savage stopped. There was a red and white marker pole off to her right, showing the extremity of the search area. Somebody had obviously failed to collect all the poles at the end of the day. It was somewhere near here where Galloway had found the puppet. If she remembered correctly, it was next to the wood’s boundary wall, close to a stile. She turned her head and spotted the stile a little way off. She walked across. The wall consisted of enormous granite blocks hugging the ground and disappearing over a distant ridge. God’s Haven was in that direction. She moved to the stile and was about to clamber over when she spotted something a few metres along the wall. Probably a marker Layton had put down. She edged closer, a chill rising when she saw the arms and legs and the little wooden head.

  Another puppet in precisely the spot where Galloway had found his.

  Savage whirled round, all of a sudden fearful. For the first time, she realised the weather had closed in. Low cloud was kissing the moorland, rolling across the ground in her direction. She was indecisive for a second or two but then realised she needed to call Layton and get him to come and pick up the puppet. She pulled out her phone. Zero signal. She turned and headed back to the woodland.

  A thick haze hung layered beneath the trees, tendrils of mist swirling in the air. She hurried back down the trail until she reached the bluff of rocks. If there was any chance of getting a mobile signal, it would be up there. She turned off the trail and pushed upwards, moving between the cleft and onto the plateau. The stone byre sat on the far side, but as she took out her phone to make the call to Layton, she spotted the metal sheeting had been pulled aside from the doorway. A string of police tape fluttered in the breeze, dancing like the tail of a kite.

  She moved over to the byre. Inside it was gloomy. She went in, scrunching her eyes closed for a second and pausing to let her vision adjust to the darkness. She could make out the shallow depression where Abigail had been buried, but that was about it. Nothing looked amiss. It was probably kids. But then she remembered the puppet. Why had a new one been left in the same place?

  She flicked the torch on her phone on. The light was weak, but it allowed her to find her way deeper into the building. She stepped through the muck and detritus towards the back wall, panning the torch from left to right. Nothing. The old straw bales didn’t look to have been moved, and there was no sign anyone had been here since the search teams. She reached the rear wall and turned, placing a hand out to steady herself. Her fingers touched something wet and sticky. She jerked her hand away and shone the torch on her hand.

  Blood.

  She turned back to the wall and directed the torch at the stones. A curtain of red painted the dark granite. She played the light on the wall, following the colour up to the ceiling where globules of crimson hung in drips. For the first time she realised the barn had an upper level. She spun about, looking for some kind of access. A ladder stood by one wall, rising to a mezzanine that hung over half the lower area. She ran across and climbed up the ladder, holding the phone-torch in one hand and trying not to slip or
fall. She crested the top and heaved herself over.

  This was once a hayloft, but there were no longer any bales, just a thin layer of straw scattered across the wooden floor. She moved to the rear and shone the torch. There was a large X shape painted on the wall. She drew closer, realising the X wasn’t painted at all but was three dimensional. Arms raised aloft, a head, legs splayed wide. She edged across the floor and raised the torch until the light fell on the face of Zac Francis. He hung from an old pallet attached to the rear wall, blood dripping from his wrists and ankles where six-inch nails had been driven into the bone.

  She stopped a couple of paces away and knew – just knew – exactly what was going to happen next. She was right. A gurgling noise came from the husk of a man before her, and his head lolled back, the eyelids flipping open, pain and terror in his eyes.

  ‘Help… me…’ he said.

  ***

  Savage stood frozen to the spot, a slight tremble in the hand holding the torch her only movement. She took in the huge nails, the blood-soaked clothing, the smell of shit and piss, the stench of approaching death. Then came a wash of panic as she realised there was nothing she could do for Francis. Without tools there was no way to remove the nails.

  ‘Help is coming, Zac,’ she said, fumbling with her phone. ‘It won’t be long.’

  ‘I… I… I…’ The voice was a rasp, not much more than air escaping his lips.

  ‘Don’t try to speak. Conserve your strength.’ She peered down at the screen on the phone. One bar. She dialled triple nine.

  ‘I need to… to tell… tell you…’ Francis sucked in air. Gurgled like water emptying down a plughole. ‘I… didn’t… kill… Abigail.’

  Savage moved closer and tilted her head so her right ear was mere inches from Francis’s mouth. ‘Who did, Zac?’

  ‘Don’t… know.’ The rasp had become a hiss. ‘Not… us.’

  ‘Us?’

  ‘Me.’ Not much more than a puff of air. ‘The… Puppet.’

  ‘You’re the Puppet?’

  ‘No.’ Francis’s head swung down and his mouth dropped open. He gasped. ‘Didn’t… want… to… kill… Couldn’t… stop… myself. Made… me. Black… mail.’

  ‘Who made you?’

  At that moment the call centre answered the phone. Savage stated who she was, gave the controller the information as quickly as possible, and hung up.

  ‘The ambulance is on its way, Zac,’ she said. ‘Try to stay awake.’

  Francis’s head lolled in response. ‘I’m going,’ he said. ‘God… help… me.’

  ***

  Back at the station late afternoon, Riley presented Collier with the new evidence from Krisztina. Collier, in turn, confirmed the woman’s account when he informed Riley about the discovery of an attic room at Oddities.

  ‘Ropes and pulleys rigged up on the roof trusses, just like Krisztina told you,’ Collier said. He paused. Scratched his head. ‘One slight issue John Layton wants to make you aware of, though.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘The ropes and how they were tied at Oddities is completely different from the solar farm.’ Collier showed Riley a series of photos on his tablet. ‘At the solar farm, the cord was a mixture of plain nylon, baler twine and various odds and sods. Granny knots were used and there was no method to it.’

  ‘And at Oddities?’

  ‘Neat and tidy. The rope was an eight-millimetre double braid, white with a gold fleck. It’s the sort of stuff you can only get from a chandlery, of which there are many close to Oddities. The knots were the type used by a sailor, a climber or a boy scout. Round turn and two half hitches, figure-eight bends, poacher’s knots, and bowlines, to name but a few of the ones used. The person who tied them knew what they were doing.’

  As somebody obsessed with puppets might, Riley thought. Different scale, sure, but the same attention to detail. The mess and tangle of cord, evident in the pictures from the solar farm, hadn’t been set up by the same person who’d rigged the ropes in the attic at Oddities.

  As he was about to head off home, he received a call from Derriford Hospital. Naomi Hester was doing well but had asked the PC stationed outside her room to contact Riley as she had something important to tell him.

  Riley cursed. He’d sent flowers from everyone at the station, but he hadn’t been there since the night of the stabbing. He’d been so busy he’d sent a DC to take Hester’s statement. That, he told himself, was bang out of order, so he called home to Julie, apologised for running late, and drove the short distance to the hospital.

  The officer guarding the room rose as he approached. It was PC Chris Galloway.

  ‘Sir,’ Galloway said. ‘Once again, I’m—’

  ‘Forget it, Chris,’ Riley said. ‘We all make mistakes. Learn from it and move on, OK?’

  ‘Sure. Thanks.’

  Riley smiled and eased open the door. Inside there were two beds, one empty and the other occupied by Naomi Hester. She lay flat on the bed with no pillows. A tube ran from her nostrils and was taped to the side of her face, while some sort of wire cage held the bedsheet away from her stomach area. Her eyes were closed.

  ‘Naomi?’ Riley whispered.

  ‘Sir.’ Hester opened her eyes and smiled. ‘Pleased to see you.’

  ‘Not sir, Darius. And I’m ten times as pleased to see you.’ Riley pulled a chair away from the wall and moved it close to the bed. Sat. ‘How are you?’

  ‘I’m good, sir. Food’s going in via a tube and crap’s going out via a tube. Other than that and being bored out of my mind, I’m rocking.’

  ‘First of all, let’s cut the “sir” nonsense. Second, I want to apologise. I mucked up. I never should have sent you into the party in the first place. I’ve made a report and emphasised that what happened was in no way your fault.’

  ‘It’s OK, sir.’ Hester smiled again and gave a giggle. ‘Sorry, Darius. They tell me I’ll make a full recovery, and I should be back on duty within a few months.’

  ‘That’s good, Naomi. Great, in fact.’

  ‘And I want you to know I’ve learned stuff too. About being unprepared. I’m going to ask DS Calter if I can enrol at her Taekwondo school so the same thing won’t happen again.’

  ‘Right.’ Riley felt himself choke up, astonished this young officer was so candid and open. Perhaps it came with her naivety. He hoped she wouldn’t lose that. Too many in the force had become jaded and embittered.

  ‘But that’s not why I asked Chris to get you here.’

  ‘I should have come before, but it’s all kicking off.’

  ‘I heard from Chris. He’s a good lad. Comes in here and tells me what’s going on. I couldn’t believe the stuff that happened on the bridge at the weekend. Tragic.’

  ‘Yes, but at least the children’s lives were saved.’

  ‘And the girl who stabbed me, Faye. Chris says she’s the victim up at the solar farm.’

  ‘Yes, she is.’ Riley wondered if he needed to have a word with PC Galloway and warn him to be a little more circumspect. ‘But her death isn’t related to what happened on the night of the party.’

  ‘That’s just it, sir, it is.’ Hester closed her eyes for a second. Yawned. When she opened her eyes, she smiled again. ‘Funny how when you’re lying in bed all day long, you still get tired.’

  ‘Should I go?’

  ‘No, sir. You need to hear this, for the girl’s sake.’

  ‘Go on then.’

  ‘It only came back to me when I was watching the live feed from the bridge. All those God nutters. Chris told me DI Savage was investigating the community for abuse, and the people there might be connected to the killing of Abigail Duffy. Is that right?’

  ‘Yeah, pretty much.’ Riley decided he would definitely have a word with Galloway.

  ‘I knew it!’ Hester moved her head. Winced. ‘You see, Faye stabbed me pretty much as I said in my statement. I was trying to listen at the door and she pulled me into the bathroom and knifed me. I felt at the t
ime it was because she knew I was a police officer, but she couldn’t have, could she?’

  ‘No,’ Riley said. ‘It seems unlikely.’

  ‘So I went back over what happened. She dragged me into the room, shouted at me for being an eavesdropping little bitch, and then slapped me. I fell to the floor and she turned to leave. Only, as I was crouching on the floor and about to push myself up, she changed her mind.’

  ‘And that’s when she became even more aggressive?’

  ‘No. It wasn’t aggression. It was fear, possibly panic. She looked at me and screamed, “you’re not taking me back.” I thought she meant not taking her into custody, but the word was back. It was only then she took out the knife and stabbed me. It was like she underwent some kind of alteration.’

  ‘Sorry, Naomi, I’m not getting this.’ Riley put out a hand and touched Hester’s arm. He didn’t want to sound negative, but she wasn’t making much sense. ‘So it was something you said or did that triggered the attack?’

  ‘Not something I said or did, something I was wearing.’

  Riley wondered if the drugs Hester was on were altering her state of mind.

  ‘Are you saying she was jealous or something?’ He tried to stifle a laugh. He remembered the humdrum clothes Hester had been wearing on the night of the party. ‘Is clothes jealousy a girl thing?’

  ‘No, sir.’ Hester snapped. ‘She wasn’t jealous and it wasn’t my clothes that triggered her. I plainly remember her staring at me as I crouched on all fours. She was looking here.’ Hester slowly raised a hand and pointed at her chest.

  Now Riley wondered if she really was delusional. Naomi Hester was a sweet and attractive girl, but she really had nothing to shout about in the boob department. And why on earth would one woman stab another over the size or otherwise of a pair of breasts?

  He was about to say something when he saw Hester’s hand reach inside her gown. There was a silver chain wrapped in her fingers, a cross dangling from the chain.

  ‘She saw the cross, sir. Stared at it. And when she saw it, she shouted the thing about not taking her back and then rushed forwards and stabbed me.’