by Gwyn GB
‘I'll get the guys on it.’
Once she’d briefed her team, DCI Barker returned to Harrison, who'd taken a spare helmet out of his Harley Davidson saddlebag and was waiting for her.
‘Any excuse,’ she said as she came to stand next to him, admiring the Harley, ‘but it’ll be a lot quicker with you than going by car.’
Sandra Barker took the hand he offered and swung a leg over the seat. Riding pillion had never been something she'd expected to get into in her fifties. She'd seen too many motorbike accidents in her career, but with Harrison she felt safe. He had that effect on people. She also had another motive for wanting to get him on his own.
They pulled up outside an ordinary house on an ordinary street, except in this home, the misery inside was anything but ordinary.
DCI Barker was relieved to see they were the first to arrive. ‘The vultures haven't got here yet, that's good. Bloody Twitter has a lot to answer for.’
They both looked at the house in front of them, the curtains half drawn across the sitting-room window. An attempt to keep the world out.
She sighed for the job ahead and got off the bike. She was about to walk away, then remembered. ‘Harrison, he's a good cop you know, even if he's a prat sometimes.’
He knew exactly who she was talking about.
‘He's having a tough time right now. Marie’s struggling with motherhood, and he's finding it hard. Cut him some slack, would you? Please? I need you both working together on this.’
‘Sure.’
DCI Barker nodded in thanks, then turned and headed up the path. As soon as she was through the gate, a woman's face appeared at the window. Within seconds, the front door had opened.
Harrison watched as DCI Barker went inside. He caught a glimpse of her through the sitting-room window, and then she disappeared from his vision. He didn't need to see her, though, to know what she was saying. Harrison heard it. The wailing, gut-wrenching, heart-breaking, guttural cry of a mother who had just been told her worst fear.
3
Sally Fuller looked at the scene around her kitchen table and smiled to herself. Their two children, three-year-old Sophie, and seven-year-old Alex, had just finished eating a bowl full of Coco Pops each and were now excitedly bantering about swimming. They both sported chocolate moustaches from where they'd drunk the milk left in their bowls. What she loved was the sibling bonding that was taking place across the breakfast debris.
‘I'll teach you to swim, Sophe,’ Alex said, his face beaming with big-brotherly pride. It was a trait Sally loved about him. He'd never been jealous of his new sister's arrival; instead, he loved being two instead of one. Increasing their family size had been hard won. They'd tried for three years to give Alex a sibling, and there had been four false starts, miscarriages that had ripped at her heart with each failure. She'd begun to think Alex would remain an only child, when they were finally blessed with a successful pregnancy and Sophie came along.
Although three had been in the original game plan, they'd stuck with two. Not only could they not face another round of potential miscarriages, but having kids proved to be more expensive than they'd realised. Sally needed to go back to work, but with the cost of childcare that wasn't financially viable until both children were at school. Even then, she wondered how they would manage the school holidays. The result was that her husband, Edward, did as much overtime as possible to keep them afloat.
This Saturday was a rare one when he didn't have to go into the retail warehouse where he worked. They were going to make the most of this family time together. Sally had decided that with all four of them at home, it was a good enough excuse to take the big steak pie out of the freezer. It was a luxury one, some famous chef's brand, and out of her usual budget, but she'd bought it at a reduced price because the packaging was a bit damaged. It had been in the freezer for a few weeks, waiting for a day that was worthy of their eating it. Today was that day. They could have chips and frozen peas with it, and maybe she'd make a rice pudding. The kids loved that. To top it off, she put a bottle of Pinot Grigio in the fridge and already had earmarked a movie to watch later.
Alex had earned his ten-metre swimming badge last month, which he'd pinned to the corkboard in his bedroom, along with tickets from Alton Towers, the Warner Brothers' Harry Potter Tour, and a merit certificate from school. He'd been the fastest in his class, so he’d also won two free tickets to their local pool. He was desperate to share his new skill with his sister and his hard-earned prize with them all. While Sally wasn't a particular fan of indoor swimming pools, she knew the kids would love it, so they'd agreed that today's treat would be to go for a swim. The one advantage was that it wouldn't require driving in the car. They could walk, which would save a frustrating journey, sat in traffic with two impatient children, and the nightmare of trying to find parking.
‘Can I wear my Elsa costume?’ Sophie pleaded.
‘Yes,’ Sally replied.
‘Can we go to McDonald's after?’ chimed in Alex, looking from his father to his mother and back again.
Edward had been finishing his toast and coffee at the end of the table and looked at Sally with a wink in his eye. ‘We'll see,’ he replied.
‘Is that a yes?’
‘That's a “We'll see”,’ he replied to Alex's cheeky grin.
Alex mimed a jubilant cheer at his sister, and she copied him. His little apprentice.
‘Go clean your teeth,’ Sally said, gathering the bowls.
‘Elsa?’ Sophie added.
‘Yes. I'll come and find your Frozen costume in a moment. Now go on.’
Fifteen minutes later, Sally was in the hallway, sorting out coats. She hadn't had time to fill the dishwasher yet, but that could wait. The priority was having fun as a family. The dishes would still be there when they all got home.
‘Alex, where's your coat?’ she shouted up the stairs.
There was no answer, so she shouted again.
‘Coming,’ shouted Sophie, her little feet running along the carpeted hallway upstairs.
‘Edward, is Alex up there?’ Sally called up to her husband.
She heard him go into Alex's bedroom; the door opening, then shutting.
‘Not up here,’ he replied, coming to the top of the stairs and looking down at her. Sophie wriggled underneath his arms and came down the stairs on her bottom, bump-bumping down one step at a time.
‘Alex?’ Sally called again. ‘Alex?’
She heard the back door open and shut. Alex, already coated, wandered into the hallway.
‘Where were you?’ Sally asked.
‘Giving Snowball and Squeaky their breakfast,’ he replied, ‘You were all taking so long to get ready.’
‘Go wash your hands,’ Sally said, aware Alex usually forgot to after feeding the guinea pigs.
Edward came down the stairs just behind Sophie, who'd finally bumped to the bottom step, a big beaming smile on her face.
‘You'd better get used to that, son,’ he told Alex.
‘What?’ Sally asked.
He smirked. ‘Waiting around for you women to be ready.’
4
DCI Barker's team worked out of Europe's largest purpose-built police station in Lewisham High Street. It had its advantages over her last office at one of the traditional stations that had since closed. The fact that it was a new purpose-built, modern building was one. The canteen floor tiles weren't covered with countless spilt drinks and unrecognisable food smears, which would have taken forensics a year to decipher. Plus, the toilets and locker rooms weren't straight out of a 1980s horror movie scene. It also still had the buzz of a working police station, unlike Jubilee House in Putney, where some of the other Major Investigation Teams worked. Here they had the largest custody suite in the Met, with a noisy, smelly melee of suspects with whom she could still get her adrenaline fix if she needed a break from the mundaneness of office bound work. Plus, there were a couple of added bonuses. If she was stressed, she could go stroke one of th
e horses in the mounted division stables. Their big, patient faces would look at her while she wound down from her latest case. She loved the smell in the stables. That mix of hay, horse, and leather. The station was open 24/7. Crime didn't stop, and neither did they.
In their incident room, the status board was already updated. This was no longer an abduction case, but a murder enquiry. The photo of a smiling Darren Phillips—which had been in every national newspaper that week—was now accompanied by a shot of his final resting place. A map with a triangular line connecting his home, abduction point, and Felton Woods sat between the two. The fresh-faced boy beamed out from the board, reminding everyone in the room exactly why they were about to spend the next week and more putting in overtime.
The office was packed with personnel and computers, plus a good dose of used coffee cups and fast snacks. DCI Barker had twenty-one detectives, a police sergeant, and two civilian staff on her team. She was three detectives down from her full quota, but finding experienced officers wasn't easy. She had just one detective inspector, Tom Goodman, whom she'd asked to be SIO on a stabbing on Wandsworth High Street. He was also due in court soon for another case they'd worked on last year. Add to that a suspicious death in the homeless community that she was SIO on, plus a potential lead in Portugal for an attempted murder from last year, and their caseload was full. She also had a vacancy for a detective sergeant and had been told a new recruit would start any day. She hoped he’d be ready to hit the ground running.
Her boss, Detective Superintendent Robert Jackson, had promised extra cavalry from one of the other MITs if they were overwhelmed. This was their highest-priority case right now, and she'd make damned sure she used every available resource she had.
It was why she'd requested Harrison Lane's help. DCI Barker had worked with him before and knew his specialist knowledge would give them a head start. She'd been relieved when he'd said he was available. His reputation was spreading beyond the Met. Last she'd heard, he'd been helping the Manchester police with a particularly complicated case, and the team up there had made a series of arrests after getting nowhere for months. While there were some who still steered clear of his slightly maverick ways, plenty of others knew his results spoke for themselves.
Harrison was a unique blend of psychologist, ritualistic crime expert, and tracker. It was a potent combination at a crime scene. He wasn’t one to share much detail about his life, but he’d told her that when he was young, he and his mother had lived with a Native American tracker, who’d been part of the elite Shadow Wolves. They helped patrol the Mexico/USA border looking for drug runners. His stepfather, Joe, had taught Harrison tracking and survival skills. DCI Barker worked for the first time with Harrison a couple of years ago. It had been that unique combination of knowledge which had ensured they caught a paedophile who would have otherwise got away. The man was a wealthy banker with a private jet lined up ready to get him out of the country. Luckily Harrison had seen through the man’s attempt to frame someone by saying they had an occult motive, and when he went on the run, could find him quickly. The man was now languishing at her Majesty’s Pleasure for a few years, and would be on the sex offenders register for life. Harrison definitely helped get the right results. She hoped he was going to do just that again on this case.
In the incident room, most of her team were now either on computers or phones or milling around, waiting for the briefing to start.
Into the hubbub walked DS Salter, talking animatedly on his phone. ‘Of course I will. I promise. Yes, I'll call. Look, I have to go. You too. Bye.’
He pocketed his phone just as Sergeant Steve Evans spotted him. ‘Salty, how's that boy of yours?’ he asked in his unmistakable Welsh accent.
Jack checked himself for a fraction of a second, then sloughed off the gloom, and his face returned to its usual cheeky grin. ‘Taff, mate. He's doing great. Soon be teaching that bunch of Welsh schoolboys a thing or two in the Six Nations.’
‘In your dreams!’ Evans replied, slapping him on the back for good measure.
Behind them, Harrison Lane entered and nonchalantly pulled off his leather jacket. At least half the women in the room—and a couple of the men—couldn't help stop what they were doing to watch him and the solid biceps that stretched the cotton sleeves of his T-shirt.
‘Here he comes,’ snarked Jack to anyone who'd listen. ‘Managed to park your broomstick, doc?’
Harrison ignored him and crossed to the back of the room, where he found himself a quiet spot to lean against the wall, just as DCI Barker came out of her office. She wasted no time with pleasantries. Every minute was precious. The room instantly fell silent.
‘As you all know, Darren Phillips's body was found this morning in Felton Woods,’ she began. ‘We don't believe this is where he was killed. Indications are he wasn't sexually assaulted and just one man was involved. You should all have read Dr Lane's initial notes about the nature of the crime scene, as well as the profile of Darren's killer. Darren was missing for over a week. He was kept somewhere, and we need to find out where. I want every frame of CCTV, every building in the area checked. If you've already looked at it, give it to someone else; I want it looked at again. I want every family member and friend re-interviewed. And I want every church and religious group visited. Sergeant Evans will dish out tasks, so get to it. I don't need to tell you the media will be all over the story. No one is to discuss this with anyone outside of the team.’
The mute button was instantly released, and the hubbub resumed as the team jumped into action. Any fresh case brought a surge of adrenaline, but when it involved a child, the effect was even stronger. At least half the officers felt a sense of failure at not having been able to save the boy. They'd been searching for him for a week; it had been as though he'd disappeared into thin air, and now he was dead. Their numbers had been bolstered by colleagues pulled off some of the other cases, and they needed to be briefed on what had been done and found to date. It was a race against time. The longer it took to find the killer, the colder the trail would get. DCI Barker was throwing everything she had at this.
DS Salter and Harrison followed the DCI into her office. She liked to be in among her team, so it tended to function more as a conference room than a private office. If she ever shut her door, then you knew not to disturb her. There was a long table down the left side, and DCI Barker's desk was in front of the door as you entered, with a couple of filing cabinets topped by a sickly-looking aloe vera plant. She tried to keep the space uncluttered and tidy; in fact, she was a little obsessive about keeping it tidy. If things piled up, it was as though their doppelgänger piled up in her head. The decor and furniture were modern utilitarian, but she had one vice besides the old, worn leather desk chair that squeaked as she sank into it; her waste bin was already displaying her colourful addiction. Around six chocolate wrappers lay at the bottom of an otherwise-empty bin. The DCI sighed, and her hand subconsciously went straight to the top drawer of her desk.
‘I need to speak to the press bureau, get a media statement out before the papers start making it up.’ She unwrapped a purple Quality Street and popped it into her mouth, chewing for a moment while she thought. ‘Jack, you're acting as deputy for me on this one, but I need you out there following any leads the team brings in. Make sure Harrison gets all the interview transcripts, would you? I'd like you to take a look through everything we've collated so far, Harrison. You might spot something we didn't.’ She threw the screwed-up empty wrapper into the bin along with its spent colleagues. ‘And Jack, I want you in charge of the re-interviews with the family.’ She studied him more carefully. ‘Is Marie all right?’
Jack looked slightly embarrassed at the question and threw a glance at Harrison. Before he could answer, there was a knock on the open door, and a young detective constable stepped over the threshold.
‘Ma'am, Dr Jones said there’s something you and Dr Lane should go see straight away at the Greenwich mortuary. They're just starting the post-morte
m on Darren.’
‘That was quick,’ the DCI said. ‘Knew we could rely on Nicholas. Please let this be something good. Jack, you carry on while I'm out. Anything crops up, just call.’
Dr Tanya Jones was waiting for them with the pathologist, Dr Nicholas Aspey, who was showing her something in one of the exhibit trays. He had on a blue hair cap and white mask, with his blue hospital scrubs covered by a plastic apron and his hands protected with latex gloves. Only his ears and eyes were visible, and these held glasses to his face. He clearly had just started the post-mortem but not got very far. Harrison was glad they hadn't got round to opening him up. He had a fairly tough stomach for most things, but even he found the stench that came from a person's entrails less than comfortable.
All the furniture in the room, from the wheeled trolleys to the cupboards and shelving, was gleaming stainless steel. At every station, the bright white rectangles of lighting in the ceiling were also enhanced by examination lamps. Harrison found the gleaming steel created an icy chill feel, which was a completely irrational concern, seeing as anyone who had to lie on one of the examination tables was already dead and stone cold.
Darren was the only occupant of the steel room. The critical need to ensure no contamination meant the other team of morticians would have to work in another room, but as this was the weekend, it wasn't an issue.
The body of Darren Phillips lay, much as they'd found him, only this time he was on a metal table, not a forest floor. He looked like a sleeping angel. One of the lab technicians was photographing him from every angle as though it were a macabre modelling shoot. In the air was the hint of cleaning fluids combined with the slightly pickle-like odour of formalin.
As they walked in, Dr Jones looked up. ‘Ma'am, we've literally just brought Darren in, but I think you should see this now. It confirms what Dr Lane suspected.’ Tanya's eyes skipped quickly from the DCI to Harrison and away again.
