BAD BLOOD: A DI Charlotte Savage Novel

‘Is there a problem?’ The woman ruffled the mess on the desk again before retrieving a folder from an ocean of manila. She lifted the flap and extracted a single sheet.

‘You could say that.’

‘Right. A problem.’ The woman paused, but when Savage didn’t fill in the dead air she peered down at the piece of paper for a moment before continuing. The way she scrutinised the few lines of type on the page it almost seemed as if she was translating the text from ancient Egyptian. After half a minute she continued. ‘Mr Franklin Owers was the last tenant before the property was sold. He’d been there for a number of years. I remember he wasn’t best pleased to be leaving, but the owner was looking to make a few quid before the market tumbled again.’

‘Do you have a forwarding address?’

‘Mr Owers is still one of ours. Unfortunately.’ The woman grimaced, and then realising Savage didn’t get her joke she added: ‘He rents a property over in Stonehouse, on Durnford Street. One twenty-one B.’

The woman scribbled on a piece of scrap paper and handed it to Savage. Savage passed the slip across to Calter, who took out her phone and left the room.

‘Is there a problem?’ The same words, but this time a quiver in amongst the gruffness. ‘Only maybe I should inform my boss. If you could just tell me what this is all about?’

‘Your tenant did some building work at the property in Lester Close. In the garden.’

‘Did he? They’re not supposed to you know, not without permission. Anything like that has to be authorised, otherwise we can get into all sorts of legal difficulties. The tenant can create a right mess and eventually their DIY efforts come back to haunt us. Is that what has happened?’

‘Haunt you?’ Savage said. ‘Yes, you could say so.’

‘Well, are you going to tell me the details?’

‘No. Do you have a spare key for the Durnford Street property by any chance?’

‘Would it help? You know, keep things quiet?’

‘It might,’ Savage said, knowing nothing would keep what she had seen at Lester Close quiet.

The woman reached across to a cupboard, and opened the door to reveal a pegboard with dozens of keys hanging on numbered hooks. She thought for a moment and then grabbed a set and handed them over, her eyes still asking for more.

‘Watch the news tonight.’ Savage turned and opened the door to leave. ‘Spotlight if you’re lucky. News at Ten if not. Thanks for your help.’

Downstairs Calter stood talking into her phone, nodding every so often as she paced back and forth in front of the bookies. She ended the call and then told Savage what she knew.

‘Franklin Owers has got previous, ma’am. He did seven years for sexual activity with a child. A six-year-old. Spent time up at Full Sutton. You know, where they keep the real nutters. It was a while ago though, he was out a few years back. On the sex offenders’ register for life, of course. Apparently his MAPPA status was downgraded to level one several years ago.’

Savage nodded. MAPPA stood for Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements. Any sex offender had a long list of people involved in their life on the outside, with everyone from probation officers and social workers to housing and health professionals having a say in managing the offender’s activities. The idea was to share resources and information across agencies. Savage suspected a by-product was the ease with which the buck could be passed along the line.

‘We’d better get over to his place now,’ Savage said, glancing up at the window of Dream Lets. The agent stood gazing down at them, a sliver of black pressed against one ear and an unlit cigarette in her other hand. ‘Before anyone else gets wind of the story.’

Chapter Four

Mount Edgcumbe, Plymouth. Monday 14th January. 12.21 p.m.

Later, Riley and Kemp went into the Edgcumbe Arms and ordered lunch, Kemp going for a beef stew, Riley choosing the Thai sweet chilli chicken. Two beers as well, Kemp laughing at Riley’s lager top as he supped his bitter.

‘How did you come to be down here then?’ Kemp said, polishing off the mushroom sauce with the last of his new potatoes. ‘I mean …’

‘You mean because I’m black?’

‘Well, not exactly wall-to-wall diversity in this part of the world, is it? And your accent, posh, educated, but London in there somewhere. South of the river?’

‘Good, Marty. Postcode?’

‘Given enough time I can come up with the colour of your first fuck’s knickers. Still thinking about my original question though. Why?’

‘Nosey, aren’t you?’ Riley said, taking a mouthful of noodles before considering his answer. ‘Let’s just say circumstances.’

‘Oh, those. Plenty of the buggers around. Work related?’

‘Yeah, work related.’

‘Enough said. I’ll not intrude on your misery any further.’ Kemp took a drink of his beer. ‘You settled down here? Got a girlfriend? Plans?’

‘Yes,’ Riley said, thinking of Julie Meadows, the woman he’d met a couple of months ago and had been seeing ever since. Julie worked for NeatStreet, a charity dealing with deprived youngsters on some of Plymouth’s worst estates, and at the tail end of last year she’d wangled him into taking a group of boys from North Prospect up to London to watch his beloved Chelsea play. From that day on he’d been smitten. Now he was unable to prevent a smile forming and, embarrassed, he looked away and out through the pub window. On the far bank of the river Plymouth shone gold in the light from the low winter sun. He turned back to Kemp. ‘For the first time in a long time I suppose I do feel settled. I guess it’s not having to do what you do any more. You know, undercover. I’m not sure I could deal with the crap any more, the fear. Getting settled is easier now I’m away from all that.’

‘Here,’ Kemp reached into his jacket, pulled out his wallet and slipped it across to Riley. ‘My little girl.’

‘Thought you were offering to pay for a moment there.’ Riley opened the wallet, saw the smile before anything else, then the blonde hair and the blue eyes.

‘Elsie. She’s eight. Keeps me grounded. Her and her mother. Trouble, both of them. Trouble you get to love.’

‘Elsie. That in real life?’

‘Not the name, but the picture, yes. Makes it easier to play the part, doesn’t it?’

Easier to play the part, Riley thought, his mind slipping back to his time in London again. Sometimes playing the part was all too easy. You forgot who you were in real life, you went native. And when that happened the inevitable followed: circumstances. He shook his head as he passed the wallet back to Kemp, and bent to his food again.

After the meal they went back outside so Kemp could have another smoke. They watched as a tiny sailing yacht nosed its way out from the Mayflower Marina and into the main channel, one of thousands of boats of all sizes that used Plymouth Sound as a base.

‘If Gavin Redmond had kept a low profile, stuck to something like that, we might never have known.’ Kemp waved his cigarette at the boat. ‘It’s those bloody gin palaces. You can smell the illegality in the fumes whenever one passes. From Russian oligarchs to small-time dodgy car ringers, they all want the same thing: a tanned blonde and a penis substitute.’

As if in response to Kemp’s statement, a loud parp from an airhorn caused them both to look to their right. The sailing boat was drifting in the channel as the skipper fought with a line which trailed behind the boat. Blue language drifted across the water and Riley guessed the rope may have fouled the prop. The horn came from a large motor boat, forty foot or more, moving up the main river and into the pool. On the flybridge a man gestured at the little boat and it wasn’t the friendly greeting of one seafarer to another.

‘Talk of the devil.’ Kemp turned away from the water and leant on the railings, his back to the action. ‘That’s Redmond.’

‘He’s got other things to worry about than spotting us,’ Riley said as the motor boat spurted forward, lifting its nose and sweeping round the sailing boat. A large bow wave washed across and rocked the little yacht and the man hung onto the backstay for balance. He returned Redmond’s gesture with interest, the single finger held aloft followed by a string of obscenities.

A rigid inflatable boat appeared from between the pontoons with two Mayflower staff on board. They nosed up to the yacht and began to guide the disabled vessel back to the marina.

‘Cocky fucker, isn’t he?’ Riley said.

‘All on the surface,’ Kemp said, watching as the white hulk of Redmond’s boat glided up the pool to the Tamar Yacht pontoons, leaving behind a swirling vortex of water. ‘Underneath he can barely hold it together. The business is on the rocks – excuse the pun – and Kenny Fallon has him by the bollocks.’

With the boat gone, Kemp turned to Riley, hand outstretched.

‘Well, I’m off, back up the motorway. Pity I won’t be here for the bust, but Mr Kemp needs to stay low in case he’s needed again. I’ll be seeing you. In court, I hope. When it’s all over we’ll have some more beers and you can introduce me to your girl. She must be sweet if she can make you smile like you did just now.’

He shook Riley’s hand and walked away without looking back, disappearing round the corner of the pub and into another life.

‘Cocky fucker,’ Riley said again.

Durnford Street was in the Stonehouse area of the city, on an odd-shaped piece of land reached by an isthmus running between the ferry terminal and the Royal Marine Barracks on one side and a creek on the other. Surrounded by water on three sides, and accessible only across the isthmus, the location had risen in affluence relative to the rest of Stonehouse. The latter had acquired a reputation for vice, hardly helped by the presence of Union Street and its array of nightclubs at its centre.

‘We’re too late,’ Savage said to Calter as they parked up.

They got out of the car and approached the imposing terrace of four-storey houses. At number one twenty-three a young woman stood holding a baby. She was talking to Dan Phillips, the Herald’s crime reporter, while a photographer took shots of the next door property, where someone had spray-painted the immaculate gloss-white door with the vivid red words ‘Paedos rot in hell’.

‘Detective Inspector?’ Phillips turned and came down the steps, blocking her way along the pavement to one twenty-one. Pinprick eyes scanned her face trying to read her mind from her expression. ‘A child’s body is found under a patio and next, the police are visiting the house of a certain Mr Franklin Owers. According to my sources he’s a known paedophile. Anything to say on the matter?’

‘Give us a chance, Dan.’ Savage wanted to ask him how the hell he had got here before them, but instead she pointed to the graffiti. ‘I can tell you the idiots who did that have got the wrong address. Or maybe I should say you have got the wrong address.’

‘Hey!’ Phillips said. ‘You don’t think I would do such a thing, surely?’

Savage pushed past the smiling reporter, knowing that spraying the door himself just to get a good picture was exactly the sort of thing he would do. She opened the little iron gate to one side of one twenty-one and descended a narrow set of steps, leading down to a basement flat which lay below the level of the road. At the bottom, the small concrete area had flooded at one end and a plastic bin had fallen on its side, disgorging its contents to float on the grimy liquid. A distinct odour of dog shit hung in the air, overpowering the whiff of the rubbish, and Savage spotted little piles of the stuff half-submerged in the water.

‘Ma’am?’ Calter had joined Savage at the bottom of the steps and now she crouched in front of the frosted-glass door, peering through the letter box. ‘Doesn’t smell too nice inside either.’

Savage rapped on the glass and waited. Nothing. She tried again, and when a third lot of knocks failed to produce an answer she pulled out the set of keys.

‘Let’s try these, shall we?’

She snapped on a pair of latex gloves before inserting the key into the lock.

The door opened into a hallway, a sheet of pale blue lino leading towards the rear of the property, the edges torn and cracked. Three piles of dog shit lay near to a doorway to the right where a pool of yellow liquid flowed across the lino and off the edge. The urine had seeped into the pine floorboards, turning the wood dark.

‘Police, Mr Owers,’ Savage said. ‘We’d like a word.’

Nothing.

Then they heard a yapping and a noise halfway between a purr and a growl.

‘You don’t like dogs, do you, ma’am?’ Calter said, moving past Savage and into the flat. ‘Better let me deal with this.’

At that moment something the size of a large cat came shooting at them from the rear of the hallway. A pink tongue lolled from jaws surrounded by a black face, atop a fat and stocky tan body. The thing stopped a couple of metres away and horrid little round eyes stared at Savage for a moment before she stepped aside to let the dog run through the front door. The animal scampered by, splashing through the flood and up the stairs to the street.

‘Pug, ma’am. Poor little thing. Must have been shut in here all the time. Lovely breed of—’ Calter stopped as Savage glared at her. ‘Anyway, now we know about the dog shit.’

Thank you, Jane.’ Savage said, closing the door. ‘Let’s stop the bloody creature getting back inside at least.’

‘Three piles of poop. I’d say that means the dog has been shut in here for a while.’

‘Feel free to investigate further. Personally I am going to leave that to John Layton. I am sure he is an expert in canine faecal deposits.’

Savage negotiated a way between the piles of poo and the pool of urine and went into the room to the right, a living room with thin, moth-eaten curtains and a raffia rug. One corner of the rug had been chewed and bits of palm leaf lay scattered around. A television stood in the corner on a triangular pine video cabinet which was trying its best to look antique. Judging from the age of the television it wasn’t far off. The only other piece of furniture in the room was a sofa covered with a tatty blanket. A Freemans clothing catalogue lay open on the sofa, faces of little girls smiling, happy. The coloured tab at the top of the page said ‘Ages 5-7’.

‘Bloody pervert,’ Calter said, coming into the room and wrinkling her nose as she peered at the glossy pictures. ‘Still up to his games, I reckon. So much for that downgrade to MAPPA level one.’

‘Have a look through those, would you?’ Savage pointed at the row of DVDs stacked on a rack beside the TV and DVD player. She left Calter and went down the hallway. At the rear of the property, a doorway to the right had a ribboned fly curtain and no door. Behind the curtain a minuscule kitchenette contained a grubby and dangerous-looking gas cooker and a little fridge sitting on a stained worktop. To the left was the bedroom. A single duvet, out of place on the double mattress lying on the floor, wore a Barbie cover. Savage’s stomach churned; until a few years ago her own daughter had had exactly the same one. In the centre of the duvet a small depression had been formed right on Barbie’s impossibly thin waist and a few black and tan hairs were visible on the cotton.

To one side of the bed a tea chest appeared to function as a linen bin and was full to the brim with jogging bottoms, jeans, shirts and underwear. The stench from the unwashed clothes invaded Savage’s nostrils and she tried to breathe through her mouth, but that just meant she gagged on the smell instead.

Apart from the bed and tea chest the bedroom was bare like the living room. Either Franklin Owers hadn’t believed in having possessions or else he couldn’t afford them. All in all it seemed a depressing existence, and for a moment Savage sensed the man’s need for the uncritical type of companionship which perhaps might only come from a dog. Or a child. But then, for a man like Owers, mere companionship with a child wouldn’t be enough. Savage turned from the room and shook her head. Haunting wasn’t the half of it.

Ricky Budgeon stared out of the window to where a patch of late afternoon sunlight painted a nearby field, the warm glow in stark contrast to the dark patterns cast by the clouds. He guessed the harsh light presaged a bout of heavy rain. The stream which ran past the rear of the house would fill, bank-full, and gurgle through the night. If he left the window open the noise might help him sleep. Assuming the pain stayed away, that was.

The headaches had got worse in recent weeks and moments when he was free of worry were like the brush-strokes of gold on the field, either side of which were black shadows. One day those shadows would close in for good.

He reached out for the rough wall to the side of the window and touched the lacquered stonework. The barn conversion had been nicely done, the place luxurious. A rich man’s pad. Not home though. Never that.

From another room he could hear the sounds of the boy, gurgling like the stream, his mother clucking to him in Spanish as she prepared a meal. He should be in there with them, playing with the boy, pulling him close with one hand, the other reaching out for the girl. They were family after all, living with him, and Budgeon knew he should be trying to make the place more of a home. Somehow he couldn’t bring himself to do that. They meant something to him, sure, but he knew the woman only hung around because of the money. An ugly mug like him with a pretty girl on his arm? He’d seen it often enough in his line of work. When she was on her knees in front of him, head bobbing, he didn’t kid himself that her actions were anything to do with love or attraction.

And the boy?

The boy was cute. Dark hair, dark skin, a real punchy little kid with an iron grip and eyes that promised an intelligence which Budgeon knew he himself lacked. The boy would be someone, wouldn’t spend half his life inside. Not if Budgeon had anything to do with it.

He wasn’t sure if the feeling he felt for the little lad was love or some kind of vicarious ambition. Still, the next week or so, if things went well, would see the kid sorted, the boy and his mother set up for life. One worry gone, one ache salved.

Budgeon sighed and then reached forward and picked up the local paper from the windowsill. The lead story was of a dead girl beneath a suburban patio, a paedophile missing, police doing all they could to find the man, confident they would be making an arrest soon.

Fat Frankie.

Budgeon had never liked him. He remembered an argument with Big K one night way back, must have been twenty years ago. The three of them in the little room Big K had above the offy. Handy for free takeouts. Round the corner from the massage parlour too, often a couple of girls spreading themselves over one of the sofas, lips pouting like fish in a tank wanting a mouthful of food.

‘It’s the figures.’ Big K looks up from the table, chucks his cards in. Folding. Nodding across to the third guy in the game. ‘Lexi, he’s canny with the politicos, you and me, we know the streets, and Frankie does the numbers.’

‘He’ll be on the numbers before long. Frankie Fiddler – and I ain’t talking an Irish jig.’

‘You’re right there, Ricky.’ Lexi this time. All too friendly. Collecting up the chips in the centre. ‘Trouser dance while watching the kiddies is the only rhythm he’s beating out. We still need him though.’

‘Look at it this way.’ Big K points to the pile of chips next to Lexi. ‘Tonight, you and me lost. Lexi’s taken me for a oner, you the same twice over. Tomorrow he’ll let us win it back because he knows if he doesn’t we’ll beat the shit out of him. But real life doesn’t work like that. The house never loses unless you’ve got an edge. Frankie is the edge.’

‘Still don’t like him.’

‘I’m not asking you to eat grapes from between his arse cheeks. All you’ve got to do is tolerate him.’

‘Think you can do that, Ricky?’ Lexi again. Smiling. Big K as well. Like they are sharing the punchline to some joke you don’t understand.

Lexi and Big K. Too close sometimes. All that talking and planning. Lexi in particular has a face with two sides. Trying to work him out is like trying to catch hold of a fart; for a moment there’s a stink but then comes a quick burst of air freshener and nobody is any the wiser.

‘The amount of money Frankie has saved us,’ Big K says, starting to laugh, ‘he’s worth his weight.’

‘Even if he is particular to kiddies?’

‘It’s a fuck or be fucked world, Ricky. You told me that.’

From the kitchen a clatter of pans brought Budgeon back to the present, the noise jarring through his head. He raised a hand and squeezed his temples to try and relieve the building pressure, then looked through the window where he could see the sun had been swallowed up by a mass of cloud which brooded on the horizon, far to the west.

Frankie should have stayed in Plymouth and not come west last summer. Once he’d been given a tour of the area, shown the tourist hotspots, he’d been gagging for it. Let loose for a few hours, the pervert had been in little-girl heaven.

‘Urges, Ricky,’ Frankie said afterwards, eyes downcast, knowing he’d walked into a trap. ‘They’re prick-teasers. All of them. She was cute, so very cute. I couldn’t help myself.’

So Frankie had helped himself.

The pans clattered again and Budgeon closed his eyes. This time the noise caused white light to crackle across a grey background, and he balled his fists as needles of agony pierced his temples. He clenched his teeth and swallowed. He wanted to go into the kitchen and hit the woman. Slap her for being so clumsy. Instead he opened his eyes and lashed out with his arm, sweeping a vase of daffodils from a nearby table. The flowers fell in slow motion and then the vase exploded on the slate floor.

A second later and the girl was at the door with the child on her hips. A hand went to her mouth, lips quivering, tears forming at the corners of her eyes. The kid smiled across, for a split second his expression reminding Budgeon of someone from his past. He creased his forehead, willed the kid to repeat the smile, tried to recall the face again but the moment was gone. Then the boy sensed the tension and began to cry.

Budgeon nodded at the girl. Remembered to breathe. Said it was OK and then waved her away. He stepped from the window, crunched over the remains of the vase and eased himself down into the creaking leather of the big sofa. Tucked down behind a cushion he found his bottle of Scotch. He pulled the bottle out and fumbled with the screw top, necked a draught straight from the bottle. A burning sensation caressed the back of his throat and he felt the tension fall away. He cradled the bottle in his lap like a newborn and closed his eyes again.

Big K’s face floated in the grey mist, mouthing the words from all those years ago: fuck or be fucked. Well, what goes around comes around, Budgeon thought. Payback time; the stuff with Frankie only the start, an illustration that he was serious and a prelude to something much grander. Something to take away his final worry and which would bring his old pals a whole symphony of pain and misery and suffering.

Chapter Five

Crownhill Police Station, Plymouth. Monday 14th January. 2.10 p.m.

Early afternoon, and Savage headed back to Crownhill. Inside the Major Crimes suite Operation Brougham was in full swing, the information discovered earlier in the day entered into the system by the indexers, actions already mounting up as each incoming lead generated numerous tasks for the inquiry teams. Three pairs of DCs had begun working the area around Lester Close. So far they had nothing but gossip. The story coming out of the neighbourhood was that Franklin Owers was a loner, frequented local playgrounds and by common consent, deserved castration. People were glad he’d moved away. The tale was similar over Stonehouse way, in the maze of streets surrounding his flat. Owers had only moved in a couple of months back, but already someone had noticed him hanging around outside the local primary school. Nobody questioned in either area had any idea where he might be and his MAPPA team were equally clueless. So much for monitoring sex offenders, Savage thought.