Payback

by R. C. Bridgestock

  Annie exhaled, her relief obvious. ‘Of course you do,’ she said, throwing a smile in Ricky-Lee’s direction.

  ‘Is that a yellow streak I see down your back, cowardy custard?’ Ricky-Lee chided. ‘Wilkie and I’ll go, ma’am,’ he said, raising his voice for all to hear. ‘I’ve an appointment in town at twelve.’

  ‘Is that with a sunbed or your face-lifter?’ Annie snapped.

  Ricky-Lee flicked her a middle finger.

  Raising her hand to subdue them, but enjoying their banter, Charley turned her back on the fractious pair. Disrespectful at a crime scene? Charley knew that if you didn’t ‘remove’ yourself from the macabre job in hand, you’d never cope.

  The search team, that had gathered in groups discussing the job in whispers, silently awaited her instruction, eager to begin. With pointed finger and raised voice, Charley began to speak.

  ‘Ladies and gents, the immediate area where the body was is the inner scene, the outer being the graveyard extending into the two fields beyond. Use the natural boundary of the wall and hedgerow as the perimeter.’

  The sergeant in charge of the POLSA team, Sergeant Richard Kay, was reassuring as he watched his officers go about their work. ‘If there’s evidence to find, we’ll find it for you, ma’am.’ His fluorescent coat ballooned behind him. The wind strength was such that most of the ongoing noise was stifled. He looked skywards at the low gathering of the clouds as CSI Naomi Clarke joined them. ‘Some clouds look like fluffy cotton balls, some warn us of approaching storms and others bring rain. I think we need to proceed as a matter of urgency,’ she said.

  ‘Remind me to get the pathologist to take nasal swabs for traces of pollen.’ Charley wrinkled her nose and spoke to no one in particular.

  Naomi frowned. ‘Pollen’s unlikely at this time of year.’

  Charley cocked her head at the CSI. ‘What is likely, is that we won’t be leaving anything to chance, will we?’ Charley’s eyes glinted like steel.

  ‘No. No, of course we won’t,’ Naomi replied.

  Charley lifted her face skyward. Eyes closed, she felt a spot of rain on her cheek, then another.

  ‘Give me a fucking break, will you?’ she pleaded with the Hobgoblin.

  The blanket of dingy white clouds rapidly thickened to the gloomiest shade of grey, peaking here and there in ominous, black thunderclouds. They drifted menacingly from the west, rapidly turning the moorland dark and dismal. The team worked frantically, hoping to secure what evidence they could.

  It became hard to see where the distant hills ended and the sky began, except where an orange glow betrayed a house or two in the valley below. Then the rain came, softly at first, pattering gently onto the land. There was so much to do at the scene and so little time to protect the gifts of evidence they had been given by both the victim and the perpetrator.

  ‘Shit!’ Charley bellowed as, involuntarily, she ducked at the clap of thunder which made all in her sight line cower towards the ground. ‘What did I do to upset you, Hobgoblin?’

  As if to mock her, the sky lit up with a zig-zag flash. There was a precarious half-walk, half-run back to the vehicle, before the rain turned to hard, rippling sheets.

  Charley and Annie sat side by side in her car, both soaked through, but Annie definitely the wetter of the two. She shivered.

  ‘Are there any aerial photos of the area on the database, Annie?’ Charley queried, raising her voice to be heard over the noise of the rain on the roof.

  Water, trickling from her hair, running down her face and dripping from the end of her nose didn’t deter Annie from her focus as she plucked her mobile phone from her pocket.

  ‘If not, I want the helicopter up to get us some, as soon as this damn weather allows,’ Charley said, looking upwards through the driver’s seat window. She shivered, suddenly chilled. She had forgotten how easily the cold could seep into her bones and sap her energy. The younger woman now appeared totally unaffected by the cold, the noise of the rain on the roof or the lightning that hit the ground directly in front of them, so intent was she on the job in hand.

  While Annie spoke to Force Control, Charley sat looking out into the bleakness, listening to Annie’s cajoling and gentle persuasion. It was more than apparent that the things she was requesting would be sent directly. Charley considered the situation and began to feel that, actually, luck was on her side. Neal’s three-hundred-and-sixty degree filming of the scene, along with digital stills, had been secured – invaluable to her and the investigation. These would be used to brief not only the team members yet to be drafted on to the enquiry, but also the Home Office pathologist.

  ‘Done!’ Annie’s mobile phone was raised shoulder high in triumph. Her face was glowing. ‘What d’you want me to get on with next?’

  Charley smiled. ‘I’ll liaise with the Coroner’s Office; hopefully the post-mortem will be done today. Next, we need to get the incident room established.’

  The rain finally ceased and Charley wound down her window. Mist had engulfed the inside of the windscreen. A myriad of thoughts raced through her head as she recalled each police procedure she must adhere to. She rhythmically ticked off every stage one by one with a tap of a finger on her steering wheel while she waited. And waited. Her impatience showed when she took her handbrake off long before the windscreen was clear. Automatically she clicked onto full beam. Looking in her rear-view mirror, she saw nothing but a dark moorland abyss. She put her foot on the accelerator and had travelled only a few metres forward when a dark figure suddenly appeared in front of the bonnet. Charley shouted and immediately slammed her foot on the brakes.

  ‘What the fuck?’ Annie squealed.

  Chapter 4

  Charley’s heart missed a beat as she waited for the inevitable thud, but none came. Instead she heard a man’s deep voice as he came alongside. Deep heat ran though her veins. Her eyes began to sting and as her heartbeat grew in intensity she was taken to another time, another place. She knew those eyes; they had penetrated her soul in past times and she felt them searching now from the mask he’d worn then and still maintained now. She wound down her window.

  ‘Welcome home, Charley,’ he said, in a smooth, broad Yorkshire accent.

  ‘Why, Dan! Top man! What the hell!’ Annie was first and foremost relieved – and then surprised. ‘Are you trying to see us off?’ She put her hand to her heart. He acknowledged the younger woman with a dip of his head and the slow removal of his flat cap. It shocked Charley to see curly white hair framing his face down from his temples to his well-kept jawline. He wasn’t old. His facial hair was jet black, matching his dark, seemingly empty eyes.

  Danny Ray was the local newspaper reporter. Now a lot chunkier than she recalled, she noticed he still wore a charismatic smile – and obviously hadn’t lost his way with the ladies.

  ‘Now, I ask myself, what would a girl like you be doing in a place like this, on a day like today?’

  He looked over his shoulder and then around him, as if checking to see if anyone else was listening – which they weren’t, because few people knew about this spot and what had happened here, and he knew that as well as she did. He got down on his haunches.

  ‘Unless … it’s murder?’ he said, in a whisper that was carried away on the breeze. Charley could smell stale cigarettes and it made her recoil.

  It was as though the rain had washed Charley’s features away; her face had become blank and pale, as if she had seen a ghost.

  ‘Can you spare me a minute?’ asked Danny Ray. He stood up straight and his hand found the handle of Charley’s door. ‘Don’t worry, it’s stopped raining,’ he said, misreading her reluctance to leave the car. He opened the door wide and courteously held his hand out for her to take. ‘I’ve got some nice pictures of the countryside, including that tent of yours, and what I need now is some narrative to go with it. Can’t think of much worse than a murder happening on your first day back. Can you?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know…’ Charley’s eye’s narrow
ed. ‘Anyway, how do you know it’s my tent?’ she asked as she stepped out of the car, brushing away his outstretched hand.

  Danny tapped his nose on the side. ‘I make it my job to know … you know me.’

  Her eyes spoke volumes: I thought I knew you, but turned out I didn’t … they said.

  Annie leapt out of the car and the spell was broken. ‘I’ve just done the media course,’ she enthused. ‘Can I do this?’ she pleaded.

  Charley shrugged her shoulders. ‘Go for it,’ she said in a monotone.

  Annie ran around the car bonnet and stood directly in front of Danny, her womanly frame making his six-foot-six physique look all the broader … and more masculine.

  ‘He’ll only print what he wants either way,’ said Charley, shrugging off the hand that had found her elbow. She noticed his clothing was dry. And that he wore a wedding band.

  ‘That’s not fair,’ he said quietly.

  With her hands firmly thrust into her coat pockets, Charley turned away and walked the few steps over to the dry-stone wall, cold, gritty and slimy to her touch. She gazed across the valley, remembering the last time she’d seen him. A shudder ran down her spine. Trust had been at the root of their friendship. In her mind’s eye she saw them, as they once were, running amongst the boulders hand in hand, him picking her up when she fell, her hands forming a foothold so he could climb a tree, him hoisting her up to swing from the branches, squealing and enjoying themselves immensely, her parents’ admonitions to be careful long ignored, not in a defiant way but in a carefree, childlike way.

  Brought back to the present by Annie’s girly laugh, Charley’s stomach suddenly felt as if she’d swallowed a handful of nails. How dare he act now as if nothing had happened between them?

  Annie was studious when she looked in his direction. ‘OK, so how’s this sound Danny? Police are treating the discovery of a body, found hanging from a tree in the graveyard this morning, as suspicious. They think it’s a dump site. An investigation is underway, led by Detective Inspector Charley Mann.’

  Danny Ray’s eyebrows rose and he pushed his bottom lip out in a boyish way. ‘Is that right?’ he drawled, his eyes found Charley’s, the police mask she wore unreadable to him.

  Charley remained silent, all-consumed, watching his interaction with the younger woman, the younger woman from whom he wanted something. Putting one foot in front of the other she found herself being drawn towards them, magnetically. In an almost maternal role, she would not – could not – let him use that tool to coax her into his world. She might have trusted Danny once, loved him even, but he had betrayed that trust by trying to control her. She hadn’t noticed it happening at the start. The psychological games were subtle and insidious. But when the control became more physical – and when it had all finally come to a head on that fateful night before her departure for London – he had shown a side of himself that she had been glad to run away from. Maybe she had spent a long time denying what had happened, but faced with his manipulative charms again, she realised she would never stand back while he tried them on another woman.

  A change of tone in Annie’s voice broke Charley’s reverie.

  ‘This was a gruesome find. The enquiry is in its infancy and the body has been recovered to the mortuary.’ She looked thoughtful and continued. ‘The scene remains sealed by uniformed officers and a Home Office pathologist will carry out a post-mortem as soon as possible, after which we will obviously understand more. We are unaware of the deceased’s identity at this moment in time. Hence we are appealing for anyone who has a female family member or friend who has recently gone missing, to contact us.’

  ‘Body ‘bin there long, do you reckon?’ Danny asked Charley.

  ‘How long’s a piece of string? As DC Glover said, we’ll know more once a post-mortem has been carried out. And now, if you don’t mind, we need to crack on.’

  ‘Of course.’ Danny stepped to one side and allowed her to pass.

  She spoke to Annie. ‘And now, of course, we’re going to have to ring the press office.’

  ‘Because otherwise we’ll be accused of favouritism,’ Annie said in a sing-song voice, giving Danny her best wink.

  ‘I’m very grateful to you,’ he said, his words aimed at Charley. Charley took her seat behind the steering-wheel and his eyes found Annie’s over the roof of the car. His boyish smile had returned. ‘Just give us a five-minute head start, will you?’

  Sitting perfectly still, hands on the steering-wheel, Charley brought her focus to the best way back to the main road as she waited for Annie to get in the car. The pain was still so sharp it took her breath away. ‘The clock’s ticking,’ she said flatly, looking down at the watch on her left wrist. Charley’s parting tight-lipped smile at Danny Ray disappeared as quickly as if she had been doused with a bucket of water. As she drove off, there was purposefully no backward glance. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Annie’s lips moving, but she heard none of her chit-chat.

  ‘Give me a minute,’ she said, as they reached the junction. Her hand shot to her temples. ‘I need to think.’ There were too many thoughts crowding her head. Annie obediently sat in silence for the rest of the journey, aware of Charley’s need for quiet, but unaware of the reason for it.

  Charley had an overwhelming feeling of distaste at Danny’s reaction to seeing her. Never in all the time she’d investigated serious crime had it occurred to her that one day she would be a victim.

  Hands-free, she spoke to the press office as they neared the station, repeating what Annie had told Danny Ray. Necessary, but also as an excuse not to have to make idle chatter. She needed to remain focused.

  The HOLMES team were in the process of getting an incident room up and running at Peel Street when Charley and Annie arrived. The team was a mixture of well-versed and well-rehearsed personnel, with a very broad spectrum of experience. It was organised hustle and bustle, using established police procedures. They were a godsend to the SIO, and it was a comfort for Charley to see them all getting on with it.

  Five burning questions fought for supremacy: who was the corpse? From where had she come? How had she been murdered and when? And, finally, why?

  ‘Professor Matthew Whitehead is the on-call,’ Ellen Tate said stiffly, blinking habitually, her sandy lashes drooping over pale eyes of indeterminate shade.

  ‘He’s presently in Sheffield, but traffic permitting, ETA is five o’clock.’ She sat down, opened her perfectly arranged drawer and took from it a new notepad and pen.

  ‘Dick and Liddy are here,’ called Annie from the kitchenette where she was making a cup of tea. ‘They want to know where you want the furniture putting, Tattie?’

  Reluctantly the office manager moved out of her chair and scurried across the floor in order to organise them, chuntering to herself all the way about Dick and Liddy having no common sense.

  ‘I remember when we had to make use of whatever space we had in the old station. Them were the days … All this palaver; sheer waste o’ money if you ask me,’ said Dick, taking off his flat cap and looking distastefully at the pile of furniture yet to be put in place. He turned his cap over and looked at the lining; it was a very old hat. Still counting under his breath, he spun the cap around in his hand and brushed some dust from the brim. ‘I suppose we’d better get on.’

  Annie saw an opportunity and, to Dick’s surprise, she snatched the hat from him, swapping it for a mug of tea. She placed the cap on her head and pulled a face. He looked at her and shook his head.

  ‘Eeh,’ she said, nodding her head sympathetically. ‘No more smoke-filled rooms wi’ t’matchboard stained brown, plastered with e-fits and paper files all over t’shop. And t’index filing system that meant t’incident room floor had to be reinforced to cope with t’weight … Ey, them were’t days.’

  Dick chuckled and took a sip of tea. ‘You can mock me young ’un, but it was difficult to keep track of the number of potential suspects we might have in a murder enquiry back then. What with the
limited technology we had, let alone the hoax calls and thousands of time wasters who clogged up the system. You don’t know you’re born nowadays. Everything had to be handwritten in my day and then put on a manual card system. It was a slow process and difficult to keep up with at times.’

  ‘And I guess there were the drunken callers ringing in claiming they knew who the culprit was?’

  ‘That there were,’ he said, with a nod of his head.

  ‘Now’t’s changed there then,’ Ricky-Lee piped up as he walked past them and out of the office, papers in hand.

  ‘Aye, the buggers were only out for the reward money. And, of course, every crime would be in the local paper, back then, even a bit of pilfering. Papers were printed every day; everybody read ’em…’ Dick sighed. ‘Sadly, too much of the information we got vanished in the backlog. It’s a wonder we solved anything when I were a detective. Good old-fashioned common-sense policing in them days, it was. That’s what we had to have in our time, an abundance of common sense.’

  Tattie’s eyes were disbelieving. ‘Really?’

  He met her eyes and cracked a smile. ‘Better crack on,’ Dick said.

  Annie watched the men at work. ‘Thank God for the likes of Dick and Liddy,’ she said to Charley, tossing her head casually in the direction of the huffing and puffing pair, putting Ellen Tate’s orders into practice.

  ‘Making optimum use of space is critical for running a productive and efficient workplace.’ Tattie’s words were reiterated more than once and, too often, fell on deaf ears.

  ‘Just as important as manners and tea,’ said Annie, a forced smile upon her face, too busy mimicking Tattie to notice DC Ricky-Lee Lewis walking back into the room.