Bad Blood (14 page)

‘What, abroad?’ Enders said. ‘Tiny Tots Tours, paid for with my taxes?’

‘No!’ Green scowled at Enders. ‘Of course not. He isn’t allowed to leave the country. He stayed in a caravan down in Cornwall. I think it belonged to his parents or something.’

‘On a site?’ Savage said.

‘Again, no. Do you think we’re stupid? The caravan is on a farm. My colleague visited the place to check and found it quite suitable. Remote from beaches, schools and whatever. We stipulated he could only visit if he promised to stay in the vicinity of the caravan, which was fine with him because all he wanted to do down there was paint and let his dog run around.’

‘Paint?’ Savage asked.

‘He learnt in prison. Some sort of art therapy.’

‘Bollocks!’ Enders was shaking his head, close to losing it. ‘The world’s gone crazy. And it’s not as if the therapy worked, is it?’

Green ignored Enders and fumbled in the file. She pulled out a piece of paper and slid the sheet across the table. At the top, a snapshot of the caravan sat next to an address. The picture showed the caravan standing on the edge of a field against a mature wood. Through the trees a hint of blue sea sparkled with sunlight.

‘The farm is somewhere down past Falmouth. As I said, the last time he went to Cornwall was in the summer. August, I think.’

‘Which, Ms Green,’ Savage said, ‘is exactly when little Simza went missing from the Lizard, not much more than ten miles from Falmouth.’

Green put her hand back in the file and rifled through several bits of paper, as if searching for some sort of directive or memo which would get her off the hook.

‘Well?’ Savage said.

Green closed the file and appeared to study the label on the front as if even that might be of some use to her. Then she shook her head, bit her lip and uttered a single word.

‘Shit.’

Two hours up the M5 to visit Simza’s mum and dad, Enders driving, wasn’t Savage’s idea of fun. They left mid-afternoon, immediately after concluding their interview with Nicky Green. The sun was already low in the west, the light projecting an elongated patch of dark on the road in front, the car’s shadow keen to be there before them.

Somewhere between Weston-super-Mare and Clevedon the traveller site flashed by on the left, a cluster of little chalets pushed up against the motorway like debris swept into a corner by a broom. Enders began muttering about discrimination and ethnic cleansing, but before he could get started they were turning off the motorway and doubling back to find the place amongst a maze of lanes which seemed to lead anywhere but to their destination.

After twenty minutes of dead-ends and U-turns they found the entrance to the site, where they asked directions to the Ellises’ place from a bright-eyed, elderly woman with a scarf tied tight around her head. She pointed at a green chalet several rows down. A black pickup truck sat low on its suspension, a dozen rolls of sheep netting and several large fence posts piled up high in the back.

As they drew up outside, the door to the chalet opened to show two people standing there staring out at them, before the woman turned and retreated inside.

‘Tony Ellis,’ the man said. ‘You must be Inspector Savage. Come in.’

Savage went up the steps and into the house, Enders remaining outside, already moving to the neighbouring property, notebook drawn.

Savage wasn’t sure what she was expecting inside – maybe something like the interior of a shoddy mobile home – but she scolded herself for being prejudiced when the living area turned out to be little different from a hundred houses she had visited. The usual TV and hi-fi, some art prints on the walls, white carpet and a yellow pastel sofa and armchairs. No toys though, no brothers or sisters to Simza, nobody to ease the loss.

Savage outlined the recent developments, raising her voice a little so Mrs Ellis could hear in the kitchen as she made some tea. Tony Ellises’ reaction seemed muted. He’d been told on the phone, but Savage thought there would be something more, some anger directed towards the police. Instead Ellis simply sighed and gave a shrug of resignation. They’d expected nothing else, obviously. Savage moved to the real reason for her visit. She explained that other officers would be coming to take detailed statements relating to Simza’s disappearance, but she was here to remove them from the scope of the Franklin Owers murder investigation.

‘Purely routine, Mr Ellis,’ Savage said. ‘Can you account for your movements between Sunday and Wednesday?’

Mrs Ellis entered the room and placed a cup and saucer down on a little side table, her hand shaking slightly. A chink sounded out in the near silence, the only other noise a background hum from the motorway.

‘I was here, wasn’t I, love?’ Mr Ellis turned to his wife, the look one from a man not used to lying.

‘Yes.’ Lisa dabbed at a drop of tea on the table with a tissue. ‘Here. All night.’

Which night? Savage thought. She hadn’t asked about a specific day.

‘Do you know what ANPR is, Mr Ellis?’ Savage said. Both man and wife shook their heads. ‘No? Then I’ll elaborate. It stands for Automatic Number Plate Recognition. Now I’m not at liberty to tell you how many or exactly where the cameras are, but there are a number of units between here and Plymouth. If you’ve driven down our way then we are going to know about it.’

‘OK, OK, so I came down on Tuesday.’ Ellis held his hands up, palms outward. ‘I drove around a bit, bought a couple of local rags and read the stories. I discovered whereMr Owers lived, but he wasn’t there was he? You guys were, and the place was cordoned off. Didn’t know what to do then. I went over to the house where you found Simza and then …’ Ellis stopped, shook his head, breathed in and out. ‘I came home.’

‘Impotent,’ Lisa said. ‘That was his first word when he arrived back. Wasn’t it, Tony?’

‘Yeah. Impotent. Nothing I could do.’

‘And this was Tuesday?’

‘I got the call from your lot in the morning and a local officer comes round, shows me a couple of pictures and takes a statement. Set off midday Tuesday and mooched around the city in the afternoon and evening. Small hours of Wednesday by the time I got back here.’

‘Two o’clock,’ Lisa said. ‘I stayed up waiting.’

‘Even allowing for the journey, that was a lot of hours to spend in Plymouth just driving around.’

‘I had a few drinks afterwards, didn’t I? Probably shouldn’t have driven home. Woke with a sore head to the news that the paedophile had been offed. If it hadn’t been for the hangover I’d have poured myself a shot in celebration there and then.’

‘At the moment, Mr Owers is no more than a suspect for Simza’s murder.’

‘Do me a fucking favour. I’ve seen the pictures, remember? Slimy fat git. Recognised him straight away. Guilty. End of.’

‘Due process,’ Savage said, pushing herself up from the chair, thinking she was on the wrong side of the argument. ‘It means respecting legal rights.’

‘What about Simza’s legal rights? The police laughed at us. Said we were wrong.’ Ellis moved to the door and opened it, waving Savage out as if she was a cat which had crapped on the carpet. ‘Legal rights? What a joke. My daughter would be alive if your fucking due process had been followed.’

Savage went out on the veranda and turned to say something, but Ellis slammed the door, the entire chalet reverberating in response.

‘I have to concede, Mr Ellis,’ Savage said to herself as she went down the steps, ‘that you may have a point there.’

They drove back westwards at dusk, pushed along by a mass of rush-hour traffic heading towards Exeter, an equal number of cars coming the other way, their headlights blazing against the darkening sky.

Enders, as it turned out, had met with blank stares as he’d roamed the rest of the site.

‘Nobody wants to say a word. They’ve got a natural suspicion of authority, and of the police especially.’

‘You can’t really blame them for that, but I’m disappointed you didn’t get anything.’

‘There was the old woman, the one we met at the entrance. She was keen to talk.’

‘And?’ Savage asked.

‘She said something disturbed her, woke her up late at night. Sounded like a car.’ Enders began to laugh and glanced across at the oncoming traffic on the opposite carriageway. ‘Next she pointed up at the motorway and said that wasn’t unusual round here. Then she told me to piss off.’

Central Plymouth. Friday 18th January. 4.30 a.m.

The phone beeped out an alarm at four-thirty Friday morning, not much more than an hour after he had fallen asleep. Riley groaned, threw back the duvet and staggered to the bathroom and had a shower, the last twenty seconds full blast cold. Drying himself, he went to the kitchen and flicked the switch on the kettle. A cup of instant coffee – strong and black – and a round of toast later, and he was beginning to wake up. As he munched the toast and slurped the coffee he stared out the window of his flat. The drone of a large vehicle rattled the glass and moments later a yellow light strobed past. A gritter. Riley allowed himself a smile. In twelve hours’ time he would be dipping his feet in the Caribbean Sea, and the only thing sub-zero would be the ice in his drink.

The trip would be his first real holiday since he had arrived in Plymouth a year ago and while he’d miss his new-found friends and colleagues it would be good to blow away some winter blues. Ostensibly the purpose of the trip was to visit a couple of relatives, a great-aunt and some cousins he’d never met. When one of them had invited him to her wedding Riley had thought of the vivid blues and whites of the sea and sand, remembered from an earlier visit many years before. In the end it had been too much to resist after the appalling autumn weather and he accepted the invitation and booked flights and a hotel. But the prospect of two weeks on Martinique wasn’t the only reason he was happy to be off.

Julie.

Short hair, funny nose, cute. Riley had fallen for her big time. Too much to resist there as well.

He remembered the minibus trip back from watching the Chelsea game. They’d chatted for a couple of hours before Julie fell asleep. At first her head had rested on his shoulder, but later she nuzzled into his neck and murmured how much she liked him. Usually talk like that would have him running for the exit. Most often the morning after the night before. Somehow this was different.

At first the relationship had been casual, but it quickly developed into something Riley had never expected. Which was how he came to ask Julie if she would like to join him for the second week of his holiday. He would have liked her there for the whole time, but she couldn’t get two weeks off so soon after Christmas. Still, she’d arrive for the big wedding and the party.

A horn blared out front for a second and Riley was scrabbling into the rest of his clothes, rushing to open the front door and signal to the taxi to hang on, and then returning to check the place over. The heating was down low, everything electrical off except a light on a time switch. Keys, passport, wallet, phone? Got them. He grabbed his bags and went outside, almost braining himself on the icy pavement. The driver, an older woman with a round, sagging face and a substantial chest, popped the boot and asked if he was going anywhere nice.

‘Caribbean,’ he said, as he hefted the bags in.

He ducked into the back so he could stretch out, and soon he was half-asleep, listening to the driver’s conversation as they drove through deserted streets and then sped along the A38 towards Exeter, where a flight to Paris would connect him to the transatlantic service to Martinique.

The rhythmic cadence of the headlights sweeping the inside of the cab began to loll him into a dream filled with sun, sand and sea. The waves washing up the beach: whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. Making love with Julie in a hotel bedroom, a big fan on the ceiling spinning in time with their gasps, Julie calling his name over and over as she came …

‘Excuse me?’

‘Huh?’ Riley blinked awake. The road noise had stopped, through the windscreen nothing but the faint outline of a hedge, beyond trees set against a hint of dawn light.

‘Puncture,’ the woman said. ‘Do you think you could change the wheel for me, only my back has been giving me a bit of gyp recently. Jack and spare are in the boot.’

‘Shit,’ Riley said and then sat upright. ‘Yes, of course. Sorry, must have dropped off.’

‘You were talking in your sleep, love. Julie? Sounds a like a nice girl.’

‘Yes, she is.’ Riley got out of the car, wondering exactly what he’d said, and then opened the boot and retrieved the jack. The driver remained in her seat and Riley tapped the window. ‘Where are we?’

‘Just beyond Ivybridge, couldn’t see a lay-by so I took the first turn-off.’ The window had only slid down a couple of inches and the woman raised her hand and flicked her thumb backwards. ‘It’s the offside rear, my lover. No rush.’

Charming, thought Riley. She couldn’t even be bothered to get out of the car and talk to him while he did the dirty work. He moved to the back of the car and knelt to position the jack. Strange, the tyre didn’t appear punctured. Riley stood and tapped the window again. The woman glanced out at him for a moment and then looked at her watch. A quick movement of her hand and a buzzing noise came from the door. She had activated the central locking.

‘Hey, what are you doing?’ Riley grabbed the door handle and wrenched it up, aware of headlights approaching up the lane. Fast. He flattened himself against the car, raising his arm to shield himself from the glare. The vehicle roared past, a screech from the tyres as it braked hard and stopped a few metres down the road. Riley had time to register that the vehicle was a white transit van before the rear doors opened and two guys in ski masks jumped down. One held a long piece of wood, something like a pickaxe handle, and he bounded forwards, swinging the weapon. Riley raised an arm and the wood smashed into his wrist. He recoiled from the pain, stumbling backwards and falling to the floor. The other man ran across and planted a kick in Riley’s stomach and then something hit him in the head.

Groggy, he tried to get up, but instead felt himself being grabbed by each arm and dragged towards the van. His body crashed into the rear bumper, before the two men bundled him up and inside.