Bad Blood (16 page)

‘School time, ma’am,’ Enders said. ‘And I don’t think it takes much to work out who was taking the register.’

‘Jesus. Sick bastard.’

Savage walked across the room, stopped at one of the Velux windows and gazed out. A field covered with scrub lay between the byre and the property next door to the farm, a large barn conversion. Wooden beams and glass panelling, an atrium at one end with a pool inside. Beyond the house was a tennis court. There were two other barns in their original state and a stone-built stable block. A gravel drive curled through acres of grass and, parked in front of the house, a silver sports car gleamed in the sun.

‘Think I’ll stick with my postage-stamp lawn, ma’am,’ Enders said as he looked over her shoulder. ‘That would be a little too big for my Flymo.’

‘We’re on the Helford Estuary. There’s a lot of money down here.’

‘Didn’t Madonna buy a place—’

‘Other side of the river Fal from here, I believe.’ Savage looked down from the slanting Velux in the ceiling, following the line of the boarding. About a metre from the floor, it changed direction and became vertical. Savage tapped a foot against the wall. ‘There’s a void.’

‘Ma’am?’ Enders had shifted his gaze too and now he pointed along the wall to a flash of brass. ‘An access panel.’

Savage moved along the wall and lifted the little brass catch. The panel swung open. Behind the panel was a triangular space, easily big enough to crawl into. She crouched down and poked her head in. Inside, the space was pitch black and she could see nothing, but if anything the air in the void seemed hotter and drier than in the room.

‘Simza was in here, I know it. Owers brought her down to the caravan, had his fun and killed her. He stashed her body in the void and later, for some reason, he retrieved her corpse and buried it under the patio back at his place.’

‘But why? He could have buried her in the wood, chucked her in the sea or even left the body here.’

‘No idea.’ Savage stood up, strolled over to the desk. On it lay a Dora the Explorer kid’s colouring book. The pages were yellowed with exposure to sunlight and the glossy cover curled back. Savage flicked through the book. The first ten or so pages had been coloured in, swirling crayon lines in red, blue and green, but the rest were untouched. The final picture in the book was of Dora and her monkey sidekick, Boots, swinging through jungle trees on vines, big smiles on their faces as they made their way to a little house at the top of the page where Dora’s mother could be seen waiting for her daughter.

Little Simza Ellis had never got that far.

By six p.m. Savage was back at Crownhill, the light gone from the day, just a scattering of vehicles left in the car park. Enders scampered off to his car, home to the wife and kids, while Savage sat for a moment reflecting on the trip down Falmouth way.

In the dark interior of the car the memories of what she’d seen in the caravan came flooding back. It was all too easy to imagine what might have happened down there, tucked away out of view, out of earshot. The little girl had probably played along to start with, scared to do anything else. Until Owers had started on his idea of fun. Savage shuddered and tried to free herself of the image of Simza crying and begging. Then she clenched her fists and pressed them to her forehead, knowing that if Simza had been her daughter, simply slapping a pair of cuffs on Owers and sending him off to a courtroom wouldn’t have been enough. She would have wanted to be sure he suffered, sure he didn’t escape justice. Had somebody else felt the same way? Justice was rarely clear-cut, she thought, but in this case the line was pretty obvious. She cast her mind back to the night Matthew Harrison had tried to abduct Samantha. In the end he hadn’t succeeded and he’d driven off in his car. The car had crashed and Savage had had the chance to save him. Instead she had walked away. Judge, jury and executioner.

Savage shivered, then climbed out of the car and walked across to the station entrance. In the sterile lobby the duty sergeant muttered something about ‘trouble’, explaining that her impromptu trip had managed to piss off DCI Garrett, John Layton and a couple of detectives down at Truro nick. However, when she caught up with Hardin in the canteen his reprimand was on the light side and he seemed to be surprisingly relaxed about the whole thing.

‘Bah! You’ve stolen Garrett’s thunder by wrapping up the case for him before he had even got started, that’s all. As for Layton, he’s a complete fusspot when it comes to crime scenes. Treats them like my wife treats a new living-room carpet. And I’ll get onto the boys in Cornwall and let them know you were only trying to save them time.’

Hardin shepherded his tray along in front of the hot-food counter, opting for a ladle of curry poured over a portion of chips, then picking up a pot of tea and a white iced bun.

‘Wife’s book club night,’ he explained as if he needed to absolve himself of the guilt. ‘Now, where do you see us going with the Owers case?’

‘Simza’s father is one possibility. He admitted to us that he had been down here on Tuesday. Owers was likely as not dead by then, but Mr Ellis is still a suspect in my mind.’

‘You really think he did this?’

‘Could be, could be some other family member, a friend, somebody else in the community, or it could be nothing to do with travellers at all. Maybe there are other victims we don’t know about. Then there is Stuart Chaffe. We are trying to establish a connection between Mr Ellis and Chaffe. Perhaps this was a paid hit.’

‘What about the earlier offence Owers was convicted for?’

‘From our records it appears as if the family concerned in that case have moved abroad. Italy, I believe.’

‘Doesn’t put them out of the frame, does it?’

‘No sir, it doesn’t. Just bumps them down the list a little.’

‘Right.’ Hardin smiled at the lad on the till and fumbled at the buttons on the card reader. Then he picked up his tray, moved to a nearby table and sat down. ‘You not joining me, Charlotte?’

‘No, sir. I’ll be off home, I need to sort out some material for the Standards interview next week.’

‘Nothing to worry about there, everything will be fine. I’ll be with you and everyone knows how much the Chief Constable admired your efforts in catching Matthew Harrison. You’ll get a telling off, no more.’

Savage hoped Hardin was right. She thanked him and bid him goodnight, asking as an afterthought what his wife was reading at her book club.

Hardin smiled and used his fork to extract a jumbo-sized chip from beneath the steaming curry. He studied it for a moment before popping the chip in his mouth and mumbling out an answer.

‘Ian bloody Rankin,’ he said.

Riley came round with a bad head and an ache in his shoulder he couldn’t touch because his arms had been secured behind him. He moved his hands, feeling the cold metal around his wrists and hearing the clink as he tried to jerk free. Handcuffs. Ironic that. As he opened his eyes the world seem to tumble. Upside down. The wrong way up. For a moment nothing made sense until he realised he was lying on his side facing a wall. He rolled over, gasping at a jab of pain the movement caused. He looked around.

Straw, dark-stained wooden panelling to head height, stonework above, a door which was full height but somehow cut in two horizontally across the middle, and a window high in one wall, no glass, simply wire mesh. Riley pushed himself upright into a sitting position using his elbows, and tried to understand what he was seeing. In the corner of the room was a galvanised trough with a bright blue PVC pipe running down to a brass fitting and hanging on the back wall, a bundle of hay in a large net.

A stable.

It explained the smell of horse shit, piss and animal sweat, but didn’t help much when he tried to work out where the hell he was.

He scrunched his eyes and swallowed, tasting blood from a split lip, the back of his throat as dry as parchment. He shuffled across to the trough on his knees, falling once flat on his face, grateful the floor had such a deep layer of bedding. In the shadows the water appeared black, but the surface seemed clean enough. He took a precautionary sniff and stuck his face down and gulped in several mouthfuls. The cool liquid stung the cut on his lip but eased his thirst.

Better.

Riley moved away from the trough and slumped against one wall, shivering as water ran down his neck. His breath clouded in front of him, rising to meet beams of light which came through an airbrick in one wall. He wasn’t dressed for this sort of weather, but then he hadn’t been expecting to wake up in a freezing stable. Far from it. He wore a shirt and a light jacket, lightweight trousers too. The coldest thing were his feet: they’d taken his shoes and socks. Real pros, these guys. You didn’t get very far, very fast without footwear.

What the hell was this? Something connected to
Sternway
? It seemed unlikely. He wasn’t the one undercover, taking the risks. He handled the intelligence, sure, but the information he had was shared amongst the team. A beating and kidnapping didn’t seem Kenny Fallon’s style either. He wouldn’t be stupid enough to stir things up by snatching a police officer. As soon as Riley’s disappearance was noticed there’d be massive resources deployed. If so much as a sniff suggested Fallon’s involvement, his life would be turned upside down and any chance of the shipment making it in undetected would be gone.

If not Fallon, then who?

London. Had to be.

How anyone had managed to find him down here he didn’t know. Then again, his relocation hadn’t involved a new identity or anything. It wasn’t thought necessary as the risk level had been assessed as minimal, and there were officers who were meant to be keeping tabs on the people involved. Unless they’d got careless.

He dismissed that possibility as unlikely and pushed himself to his feet again, using the wall and the trough to help him get off the ground, and walked over to the air brick. The round dots of light told of a bright sunny day outside. He put an eye to one of the holes and squinted out.

A neat grass lawn, several farm buildings and an expanse of gravel on which sat a left-hand drive silver Porsche Panamera. The bodywork gleamed in the sunlight and Riley could just make out a black and white scarf stretched across the rear parcel shelf. All of a sudden Riley knew exactly who his kidnapper was, remembering the face staring back from the front of the transit, the grin full of gold teeth, the crazy look of the man’s eyes.

Yes, London.

And that wasn’t good. Not fucking good at all.

Union Street, Plymouth. Saturday 19th January. 1.05 a.m.

Dixie Lowdon was fourteen and loving it. Hating it too. Weird that, but then everything was so mixed up, on and off, that half the time he didn’t even know which day of the week it was. Something to do with his hormones. He’d learnt about that at school in his personal and social development class. The one run by the lush Ms Ferndale. The lesson was basically a chance to have a piss around while the teacher tried to educate them about love, relationships, caring and crap like that. All he knew was if he got Ms Fondle alone some day he’d like to teach
her
a thing or two about
his
personal development.

Right now, hormones had landed him and his mate, Rab, in a heap of trouble.

The whole thing had kicked off when Dixie had sauntered across the dance floor and brushed against the girl’s tits. Rab made a move for her arse at the same time, giving it a squeeze and then running his fingers down the thin material of her dress and slipping them between her thighs.

Idiot. Rab should have paid more attention in PSD.

Dixie reckoned the girl had been up for it until Rab had gone too far, too fast. Now she was screaming and the only person up for it was the guy she’d come into the club with. And his mates. All five of them.

Dixie ducked down and dived beneath a table, coming out on the other side amongst a group of older women, part of a hen party. Up ahead he saw Rab sprint across the dance floor and he jumped up and followed. Behind him, a scream caused heads to turn as the girl’s boyfriend and his mates shoved their way through the hens, spilling drinks and knocking one of the women to the ground.

Rab slid the last couple of metres across the floor and smacked the bar on the emergency exit. He held the door for Dixie and then they both dashed down the stairs. The two of them flew round and round, down four flights, and crashed through another door at the bottom.

They emerged onto a side road. Several large blue rubbish containers stood to one side of the door, one full with beer bottles. Farther away, up near Union Street, a bouncer had come round the corner from the club entrance on the main road and was having a slash up against a wall. Steam rose around him, yellowing as the vapour caught the glare of a street lamp.

Dixie grabbed Rab by the arm and told him to slow down. The two of them walked towards the bouncer and the main road.

‘Alright lads?’ the bouncer said. ‘Had a good night?’

‘No,’ Dixie said. ‘There’s some guys in the stairwell. They tried to sell us some gear.’

‘Did they now?’ The man fumbled with his zip and bent to the radio clipped to his lapel. He muttered a ‘thanks lads’ and moved towards the emergency exit.

‘Nice one!’ Rab said when the bouncer had gone.

Dixie shrugged. He was beginning to regret having gone to the club, but they’d only tried to get in for a laugh. He didn’t think they’d had a chance, but Rab was big for his age and the two cute girls they’d queued behind had helped. The older one had knockout tits and she hadn’t been shy about showing her cleavage to the guy on the door. He waved the four of them through without a second glance at Dixie and Rab.

Back on Union Street horns blared out as taxis zipped to and fro. The first groups of people were beginning to spill out of the clubs, which meant it must be one o’clock at least. Dixie knew he’d get a clip round the ear from his old man and he wondered if the little adventure had been worth the hassle.

They strolled up Union Street in the opposite direction from Dixie’s home in Stoke, Rab saying he would cough for a burger for both of them. As they passed the front of the club Dixie spotted the bastard from inside. He stood with two of his mates. One of them had him by the shoulder and was trying to get him to come back in. A taxi pulled up on the curb beside Dixie and a horn beeped. The guy spotted them.