BAD BLOOD: A DI Charlotte Savage Novel

‘Naughty, Charlotte, naughty,’ Garrett said, entering the Crime Suite a few minutes later. ‘I should slap your wrist. More, according to John Layton.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Owers’ flat. Scene of crime. Layton has gone ballistic.’

‘Shit.’

‘Kept on talking about first dibs for him and his team. Muttered something about cross-contamination too. I told him to calm down but he stormed off.’

‘So John’s gone over there now?’

‘Going to “rip the fucker apart” were his exact words. I hope Owers is our man or else we are going to face one hell of a repair bill.’

‘And Lester Close?’

‘Clean. Nothing else there, he reckons. At least nothing we can find without bringing in the bulldozers, and I’m not ready to do that. Not until we’ve got something more on Mr Owers.’

‘It’s beyond reasonable doubt though, sir. The fact he’s offended before, the stuff we found at the flat, local people saying he acted suspiciously.’

‘Depends whose reasonable doubt we’re talking about.’ Garrett raised a finger and tapped his nose. ‘Everything so far is circumstantial.’

Savage disagreed, thinking a body beneath a patio was way more than circumstantial. She said nothing, guessing the real reason for Layton’s anger was the lack of anything incriminating from Lester Close. Now he’d be hoping to find something in Owers’ current residence, hoping Savage hadn’t mucked things up. She was sorry she had pissed him off. They were on the same side, after all.

Garrett was still talking, moving around the room and raising his voice to include everyone in the conversation. There were three main questions, he said. Who was the little girl in the box, who was the man that Peter Serling, the builder, had met at Lester Close, and where was Mr Franklin Owers? Answer any one of those and they’d be well on their way to cracking the case.

Early days, but so far the inquiry teams had nothing on Owers. Where he was remained a mystery.

Peter Serling would be coming in to give a more detailed statement and to work with the team’s e-Fit specialist to compile a likeness of the man who had impersonated Mr Evershed. The mobile number the man had given him was being traced, but likely as not would turn out to be a pay as you go and worthless.

That left the girl.

Garrett was off to the post-mortem, saying he hoped to return with information which would aid the identification. They already knew she was aged around six, had brown curly hair and a gap in her front teeth where two milk teeth had fallen out. There were so few missing persons of that age that establishing the girl’s identity should have been easy. However, the missing persons’ list didn’t contain any young children.

It wasn’t until Garrett had been gone for half an hour that Savage remembered a news story from last summer.

‘Missing, presumed dead,’ she said to herself. ‘Not on the misper list.’

‘Huh?’ DC Enders looked up from his screen and ruffled his brown hair with one hand. ‘Not following you, ma’am.’

‘Last summer. Pete was away but I’d persuaded Stefan to accompany me for a week-long cruise with the kids. We went down in convoy with another family boat and ended up getting stuck down in Newlyn. A big depression had cleared through, but the sea state kept us in harbour for a couple of days.’

‘Sorry, ma’am. I don’t get it.’

‘I remember the local newspaper headlines. A young girl had gone missing a few miles to the east at the Lizard. The lifeboat, coastguard and an army of volunteers searched the sea, cliffs and coast path, but she was never found. The conclusion was that she must have slipped over the cliff edge while her parents were having a picnic. There was something else too which I can’t quite—’

‘It’s here, ma’am,’ Enders said, pointing to his screen where he had brought up the local police file on the incident. ‘Simza Ellis was her name. Her parents were travellers, down in Cornwall for seasonal work. Ditto everything you said, but apparently the parents claimed there was somebody taking photographs of children, a “weirdo” in their words. There was also the fact that her sun hat was found in a car park set back from the coast. It says here investigating officers concluded the hat had been dropped by a dog or a gull or maybe had been carried there by an updraught from the cliffs, the hat coming off as the girl fell. The facts were considered at the inquest, but the overwhelming evidence pointed to Simza falling into the sea … shit!’

‘Patrick?’

‘… including the discovery of a pink trainer-type shoe by the lifeboat crew.’ Enders shook his head, an expression of distaste spreading across his face. ‘Because they were travellers nobody fucking believed them, did they? If they had then maybe she would be alive today.’

‘It’s easy to be wise after the fact,’ Savage said, moving over to Enders and patting him on the back.

‘Sorry, ma’am, but look at her.’ Enders pointed to a picture of the girl on the screen and clicked to make it bigger. ‘Didn’t she deserve a bit more?’

Brown curls cascaded to the edges of the image and a red tongue poked out from a pretty, playful face intent on mischief or fun, or both.

‘She’ll get the attention now, of course,’ Enders said, clicking the image shut.

Savage turned away, thinking that the young DC was right. Traveller or not, cute or not – and she was very cute – the girl had deserved more. But now was too late. Way too late.

Later, Savage climbed the stairs to Detective Superintendent Conrad Hardin’s office to give him the news on the situation at Lester Close. Hardin resembled a beached whale as he tipped his office chair backwards, interlocking his hands around his stomach and groaning.

‘Went to an afternoon buffet at the Guildhall. Bloody councillors, wasting public money on pointless functions.’ Hardin’s eyes roved to the jar of liquorice sticks he kept on his desk as part of his diet regime. He shook his head and huffed out a gallon of air. ‘Good food though.’

Being in Hardin’s office alone with the DSupt always made Savage feel uncomfortable. The sheer physical bulk of the man led to the illusion of him filling the room entirely, and in any prolonged silence the stark walls offered few distractions. At least the out-of-date calendar of Greek islands Hardin had had on the wall for the past two years had been replaced. The new one was of Dartmoor landscapes and January’s picture showed a suitably wintery scene with two children and a pony in the snow, the dark rocks of Haytor brooding in the background.

‘The girl in the box,’ Hardin said, following her gaze. ‘Where are we at?’

Savage filled Hardin in on the details, noting his eyes narrowing with anger when she told him about the pink training shoe, as if somehow the physical object made the horror more real.

‘Any ideas who she is?’ Hardin gritted his teeth and reached for his mouse. ‘And more importantly, who put her there?’

‘We’ve got a hunch she could be a girl who was thought missing after supposedly falling from a cliff down in Cornwall. As for a suspect, a previous tenant at the property turns out to be on the register. Committed a serious sexual offence a few years back. Layton and his team are all over the man’s place now, but there is no sign of him as of yet.’

Savage continued talking as there was a knock and DCI Garrett entered. Garrett, despite having spent the day tramping around a muddy patio and attending the post-mortem, looked immaculate as ever. Savage went on to outline the steps the inquiry was taking, Garrett nodding every now and then but seeing no need to interject. At the end of Savage’s summation Hardin looked at Garrett for his opinion.

‘A tragedy,’ Garrett said, ‘but no accident. Preliminary findings from the PM suggest the girl was strangled. Nesbit couldn’t say if she was sexually assaulted or not, but if we assume she was I don’t think we’d be going out on a limb. Could well be this Franklin Owers is our man, but first we’ve got to find him.’

‘To which end,’ Hardin said, ‘the media is not bloody helping.’

Hardin reached to one side of his desk where a folded newspaper stuck out of his wastepaper bin. He pulled the paper out and laid it on the desk. Dan Phillips’ headline had done the Herald proud. ‘Get Him!’ Below the headline was a picture of Franklin Owers’ grafittied front door, with an inset thumbnail of Owers himself. Hardin thumped the desk and then pointed to a subheading beneath the pictures: ‘Police Clueless in Hunt for Paedophile Killer.’

‘That,’ Hardin said, looking at Savage and Garrett in turn, his face beginning to redden, ‘is nonsense, isn’t it?’

Savage said nothing.

The Sternway meeting went ahead at six-thirty in Briefing Room A, the acronym for which never failed to raise a smile from the more infantile of the Crownhill officers. Darius Riley liked to think he was above such things.

He’d spent the afternoon summarising Kemp’s final report and dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s on a longer document which pulled together a whole mass of intelligence from numerous sources. Now he slid copies of the document across the table to DSupt Hardin, DCI Garrett, DI Phil Davies and DI Savage. Savage smiled at him and Riley thought she looked happier than she had for a while. Her husband had returned from a long stint away so maybe that was the reason. It could certainly explain the sheen of her red hair and the smartness of her attire; Riley couldn’t remember seeing her appearing quite so attractive before.

He leant back in his seat and wondered if he might be considered infantile himself for thinking his boss was looking sexy. Davies sat opposite and he glanced at Savage and then looked across at Riley and winked. There was no chance of anyone thinking Davies was sexy, Riley thought. He slumped down in his chair in a crumpled brown number which Riley wouldn’t have been surprised to learn had come from a charity shop running a discount promotion for items they couldn’t clear. Even from across the table Riley could smell several nights’ worth of beer and fags in the clothing.

Mike Garrett’s clothing had, literally, been cut from a different cloth. Riley didn’t think much of the older detective’s abilities – the man was too cautious, too rule-bound – but he’d always admired his suits.

Hardin was Hardin. Bursting out of his shirt, almost knocking over the pot of coffee when it arrived, and then grabbing a couple of biscuits with one hand while typing on his laptop with the other.

‘OK, Sternway.’ Hardin turned to his laptop and clicked again. He reached out and adjusted the angle of the screen, and for a moment Riley feared he was going to swing the computer towards them and show one of his dreary PowerPoint presentations. Instead he leant back in his chair and ran his tongue over his lips before continuing.

‘So, Darius had his final meeting with our undercover officer earlier, nom de plume Mr Martin Kemp. Mr Kemp is returning to his force and Darius,’ Hardin nodded over at Riley, ‘is off on holiday in a couple of days. Now we’re just waiting on the intel. As soon as Kemp gets the word he’ll let us know. I’m pleased to say Sternway is finally drawing to a close and there will be no happy ending for Mr Kenny Fallon. Not this time.’

Riley switched off as Hardin began to map out the final stages of the operation. He knew the details back to front, had worked on them with Kemp and Hardin. As the DSupt elaborated on the endgame Riley hoped his words wouldn’t come back to haunt them, since Hardin had been placed in charge of Sternway precisely because of the failure of previous investigations. Usually an operation focusing on somebody such as Fallon would have been dealt with by SOCIT – the Serious and Organised Crime Investigations Team – however, rumours had been spreading of one or two bad apples within the police, someone even going so far as to distribute flyers around city car parks which accused the team of corruption. The allegations were without any evidence or reason, but the brass over at force HQ in Exeter had panicked and decreed the next major operation dealing with organised crime would be run independently of SOCIT and by someone with an unimpeachable record. Enter DSupt Conrad Hardin, mates with Simon Fox – the Chief Constable, friends in the local military and bogey golfer who could cheerfully lose to the worst. With Mr Clipboard, checkbox, do-it-by-the-book Hardin in charge, what could possibly go wrong?

Riley blinked as he heard Hardin mutter his ‘bloody good policing’ catchphrase and peer over at him for an answer. He had no idea what he was talking about but he managed a ‘yes, sir’, and Hardin continued.

‘If our intelligence is correct, the cargo vessel we are interested in may even now be loading in Rotterdam. At some point in the next few days the vessel will be passing approximately ten miles south of Plymouth, where it will drop a package overboard. Once the vessel is well clear, Gavin Redmond will head out in one of those f-off yachts of his and pick up the goods.’

When Riley had first come onto Sternway and heard of the arrangement he’d had to concede it was clever. The pickup boat never had to go more than a few miles offshore and never anywhere near the ship which dropped the drugs. All it required was knowledge of the tidal streams and a short-range tracking device. Plus a little faith from the crew on the cargo vessel that the millions of pounds worth of drugs they were heaving overboard were going to end up in the right hands. All Customs and Excise’s fancy plotting equipment – which mapped out the closest point of approach of suspect vessels and watched for small boats making regular trips across channel – proved useless against such a tactic.

The ploy might have gone unnoticed if Fallon hadn’t made the mistake of using Tamar Yachts and Redmond as a way of washing money too. Tamar owned a subsidiary charter company in Nassau, out in the Bahamas. A swish website showed a number of top-end crewed yachts costing tens of thousands of dollars a week to hire and every month a payment appeared in Tamar’s bank account, the funds originating from a Bahamian bank. Twice a year Tamar Yachts paid Fallon a hefty dividend from his shares, the sums involved matching the supposed income from the charter business. An HMRC investigator, risking the wrath of her boss, decided to take an unauthorised trip to the Bahamas. She discovered nothing. Literally. The charter company didn’t exist, other than as a managed office sharing an address with hundreds of other companies. It was then that HMRC had contacted the police, realising the income flowing in from the dummy charter operation was most likely drugs money.

‘You all know your roles,’ Hardin said, leaning forward and jabbing a finger at each officer in turn. ‘Phil will liaise on additional evidence, Mike will run the interviews, Charlotte will manage the post-arrest local inquiry teams, and Darius, when you return from your jaunt, you’ll be collating the threads and working with the team to turn what we have into something the CPS will wet their knickers over. Finally the Tactical Aid Group will be carrying out the raids and you can bet I want you guys there as well to prevent the trigger-happy cowboys messing everything up. Apart from that it is just a waiting game. Questions?’

There were dozens. Operational, technical, legal, Hardin dealing with each in turn in his methodical manner. An hour later and he wrapped the meeting up with a final pep talk.

‘The objective is to shut down the city’s drug supply network and catch Fallon red-handed. Once we have Fallon we will be able to round up everyone from him down. It’s been tried before and we’ve always made a hash of the endgame; Fallon has always evaded us.’ Hardin paused, looking gloomy, before smiling and adding with a whisper: ‘Until now.’

Riley glanced across at his fellow officers. Garrett wore a serious expression whereas Davies grinned, eager to be up and at them, kicking down doors and smashing heads. DI Savage smiled at him again.

Afterwards, as they left the room, Savage came across to them.

‘If, Darius – God forbid – this all goes wrong, you’ll be glad to be on a beach four thousand miles from here.’

‘If this goes wrong, ma’am,’ Riley said, ‘I think a million miles might be a safer distance.’

Alec Jackman lay back on the bed in a state of post-orgasmic exhaustion. The girl beside him slept, almost silent, the only noise the faint sound of her shallow breathing. Jackman traced the line of the sheet as the material rose along her legs to her hips and fell down to her waist. She had pushed the sheet down from the top half of her body and Jackman let his eyes rest on her breasts. Round, but small and pert. Tiny goosebumps marked the mesmerising curves and her nipples stood erect.

As Jackman pulled the sheet up to cover her, the girl stirred and yawned, but she didn’t wake. She would be tired. Worn out. Sometimes the young ones were shocked at what he could do. What he could still do. Most men of his age weren’t as fit as him, most were heading downhill toward a six-foot hole in the ground and oblivion. At times like this Jackman almost believed he would live forever. Rubbish, of course, but there was no reason he shouldn’t go on enjoying himself as long as possible. And he usually went on a long while. The coke helped, although he hadn’t done much. The drug was mostly for the girl’s benefit. A little inducement to keep her sweet.

Jackman glanced at the bedside clock. He ought to be out of here, he had an important meeting to get to and then home to his wife, Gill. He had promised he wouldn’t be too late and he didn’t want to push things, even though he realised she probably had an inkling of what was going on. She knew the score. Understood the price to pay. All those shoes, handbags, the hired help, the nice house. The goodies cost money and the girl was payback. One squeak from Gill and she could say goodbye to the little treats and the lifestyle as well. Glamour, parties, trips abroad, local recognition. Without him she had nothing.

Then there was his brother-in-law, Gavin Redmond. Gill owed Jackman for him too. The idiot should have been rolling in dough with the yacht business he ran, but he seemed to piss away the stuff. A few years back Jackman had helped him get the company back on a sound footing by finding a new investor and an extra revenue stream. The sideline was far from legal, but nobody got rich keeping to the rules. The bankers proved that.

He sighed and got out of the bed, found his jacket and rummaged in a pocket for his pack of cigarettes. Like the cocaine, he knew he shouldn’t, but this would be the first of the day. Self-control. Like with the girl. He’d come as the gasp from her own orgasm spread a smile across her face. Now Jackman smiled too. A real cutie, this one.

The lighter flared and he drew on the cigarette. Redmond was pissed off about the girl. As he would be, the girl being his own daughter, Jackman’s niece. Not blood related of course, but still, the frisson was there. Something to do with some of his wife’s genes being in the girl, Jackman suspected. He thought about Redmond again. In truth the idiot worried him. Lately he’d looked tired and nervous. Jackman had told him to get a grip. He only had to hold himself together for a few days and then they’d be quids in. All of them. On the other hand, one wrong move and everybody was going to get screwed.

Unless …

The meeting could change things and swing the possibility of success their way. Jackman went to the bathroom and then quickly got dressed.

Thirty minutes later he pulled into the car park at Jennycliff, a parkland area to the south of the city which sat above cliffs on the eastern edge of Plymouth Sound. Over the sea the light had long gone from the sky. The daylight, anyway; a swathe of orange off to his right painted the underside of the clouds and below, the city glowed.

Jackman sat in his car, tapped his watch, waited. He shivered as the air in the car cooled. Early evening dog-walkers returned from the park and loaded their charges into the back of cars. A couple of hardy runners headed home.

The minutes ticked by and the legitimate visitors all left. A car cruised in, followed by another, and then another. They parked up one end, the interior light in one car flicking on, a woman and a man visible inside, while a couple of men climbed from the other cars and skirted the vehicle, cameras in hand.

Usually the proximity of sex would have aroused Jackman, but not tonight. He turned his attention away from the free show and towards the car park entrance where a pair of headlights announced a new arrival. This time the vehicle didn’t head up the slope to the top but pulled alongside Jackman’s car. Even in silhouette the pickup looked like it had seen better days. Patches of white filler adorned the dark bodywork and one wing had a large dent. When the interior light went on it illuminated a bulky man with a beard. A woolly hat perched on his head struggled to cover large ears.

The man nodded across at Jackman and then reached over and opened the passenger door. Jackman got out of his car and ducked down into the passenger seat, closing the door. The light went off and Jackman heard the man sniff and cough, a waft of bad air coming Jackman’s way a few moments later.

‘Well?’ Jackman said. ‘This isn’t the sort of place I usually come for a meeting so let’s get on with it.’

‘It?’ the man said.

‘Kenny Fallon said you had something for me. You hand it over and he lets you go about your business.’

‘Cash. Up front. He promised.’

‘Look, you’re a poacher, a petty housebreaker when you get the chance. Some pheasants, a rabbit or two, a laptop or phone if you spot an opportunity when you’re out and about. I can’t see what you can have come up with that’s got Kenny so excited, but if it’s good you’ll get your money.’

The man stirred, shifted in his seat as he retrieved something from a pocket. A little screen popped into life in the gloom.

‘A phone? I hope you’re not winding us up. Where did you nick it from?’

‘I didn’t, it’s mine.’ Fingers swept over the surface of the phone and a movie clip started to play. ‘I want five thousand for this.’

‘Five thousand? You’re crazy.’

‘When you’ve watched it, you’ll pay.’

‘Let me see then.’ Jackman leant over, trying not to inhale the mixture of bad breath and sweat.

Poor quality video played on the screen. Black and grey chunks of pixels swirling. Static on the audio track. That, and the sound of heavy breathing. Jackman was about to ask the man what the hell he was playing at when a bloom of light grew and danced in the centre of the picture as the camera zoomed and struggled to focus. Then the image steadied and Jackman was able to resolve the jumble of light and shadow. As the film ran on he realised this was dynamite, and a minute or so later when the clip finished he had to struggle to contain his excitement.

‘Good, eh?’ A finger touched the screen and the man pocketed the phone. ‘Five thousand.’

‘How the hell did you get that?’ Jackman felt his heart beating, but tried to remain calm. ‘I mean, were you waiting there or what?’

‘I was in the area on business. There’s a holiday home, couple from London. They’re down here every weekend and they’ve got careless. They started to leave a few things around the place and I spied them through the window. There’s a key under the flowerpot for the cleaner. They’ve got the brains to earn all that money but really they’re as thick as they come. I—’

‘Alright, I understand. Get on with it.’

‘I heard an almighty smash as I was going through their stuff. When I rush out I see the car upside down. I recognised her immediately. I was about to make a run back into the woods when something made me stop. I whipped out the phone and started to film. Twenty minutes later the place was crawling with police, the fire brigade, ambos, everything. That’s when I legged it.’

‘Give me the phone.’ Jackman reached into his back pocket and extracted his wallet. Pulled out all the cash he had. Two fifties and a bunch of tens. ‘Here.’