Bad Blood (9 page)

‘Simza,’ the voice said; Tony Ellis listening but not needing to know, not wanting to know either.

‘Back then,’ the policeman continued. ‘Well, it turns out you might have been right all along.’

Ellis opened the front door and stepped on to the veranda of his little park home, out of earshot of Lisa, his wife. A cold dampness touched his face and he heard the roar of the traffic on the M5. A blur of cars and lorries sped by on the embankment above, the monotonous whooshing like waves pounding a beach.

Back then. Last summer. No beach, but a series of jagged rocks at the bottom of the steep cliffs of the Lizard. A huge swell from a distant storm way off in the Atlantic crashing into the shore, the spray misting his face but the water warmer than today’s drizzle. Rainbows dancing in the morning sun, and Simza laughing as he had thrown sandwiches out into the void where gulls swooped and caught them.

Then she was gone. Just like that, when their backs had been turned for one moment.

Within minutes the Lizard lifeboat had been launched, the orange craft rising and falling on the waves as it searched the water below the cliffs. Fifteen minutes later and a rescue helicopter roared overhead, the tourists gawping at the free airshow. Within an hour a coastguard cliff-rescue team and half a dozen police officers were scouring the clifftops too, guys in harnesses abseiling down to check unseen ledges, voices crackling in radios.

‘
That’s a negative down here, repeat, negative.
’

‘What about the fat guy with the camera?’ Lisa had whispered to him. The one with the strange smile, all-too friendly as he patted Simza on the head as he passed by on the coast path.

A word to the officer in charge had brought a shake of the head. That sort of thing didn’t happen down here. Not in Cornwall. He promised to organise a search of the nearby car parks and maybe station a patrol car up the lane. However, when Simza’s pink trainer was plucked from the sea by the lifeboat crew all efforts were once again concentrated on the water.

‘But he’d been taking pictures,’ Lisa said. She remembered him leering from behind a white van parked down by the gift shop.

‘No, love,’ the officer said. ‘I can understand why you’d want to think that, to cling onto some glimmer of hope, but no, she’s gone over the edge. Happens every so often. It’s why we have the fence. People don’t realise how dangerous the coastline is.’

‘Mr Ellis?’ The voice was still on the line as Ellis collapsed onto the white plastic chair on the veranda. Now the officer was asking Ellis some questions, mentioning a name or two, did they sound familiar?

You might have been right all along.

‘Do they sound familiar, Mr Ellis?’

Ellis could barely hear the voice above the traffic roaring past on the motorway, the noise of waves pounding a beach. His fists pounding to a bloody pulp the face of some pervert who’d taken his little girl.

Nr Bovisand, Plymouth. Wednesday 16th January. 8.27 a.m.

Wednesday morning, and Savage stood outside with Pete waiting for the kids to emerge from the hallway for the trip to school. Pete was shaking his head, pointing at various bits of the house which needed attention. Roof, guttering, windowsills, the damp-proof course, they all needed work. He took Savage’s hand and smiled at her. Lucky he was going to be around for a bit, he said.

Peregrines was a sprawling structure, hardly beautiful except in its oddity. The original open-plan single-storey building had been added to over the years, growing various appendages until it had a number of different levels and wings and more resembled a bodged-up Greek island villa than a house. The previous occupant had been an admiral and at first Savage and Pete had rented the property from him while he embarked on a round-the-world sailing trip with his second, and somewhat younger, wife. Three years in, still not having fully explored the Caribbean, he decided he was never coming back and sold them the house. Over the years they’d reached the conclusion that the place hadn’t been so much a bargain as a gift horse, but short of doing what the admiral himself had done, Savage didn’t think they’d be leaving anytime soon.

The position, high on the eastern side of the Sound near Bovisand, was incredible. Surrounded by fields on three sides, and on the fourth, the sea. Cliffs plunged to the surf line, and were home to numerous birds, including the occasional marauder, the eponymous peregrine. The only downside to the position was the westerly wind which battered the house in bad weather.

Right now the air was still, the sky clear and cold. Pete went to start the car and Savage shouted in at Jamie not to forget his scarf and gloves. Jamie came running out of the front door whirling the scarf around his head and then skidded on the lawn, landing on top of a molehill.

‘I’ll get some diesel,’ Pete said, climbing back out of the car. ‘That will teach the little blighter. Half a litre and he’ll think twice about doing it again.’

‘Diesel?’ Stefan came out onto the porch, raised his eyebrows and held the front door open for Jamie as he trooped in to get a fresh pair of trousers. ‘Is that the British way? Wouldn’t be allowed in Sweden.’

‘The mole, you daft turnip. You pour it down the hole and they bugger off.’ Pete grinned. ‘Although now you mention it perhaps I could spare a bit for Jamie. Might have the same effect.’

‘Cool,’ Samantha said emerging from inside, fingers pressing keys on her phone as she spoke. ‘I’m going to post that right now.’

Savage stood on the doorstep, shaking her head at her family’s antics, reaching for her own phone as it trilled out.

‘DC Enders, ma’am,’ the voice said. ‘We’ve found Franklin Owers.’

‘Great. Are they taking him to Charles Cross? Tell DC Calter I’ll meet her there and we can work out an interview strategy together. Make sure DCI Garrett is informed too. Better get onto his MAPPA contact as well.’

‘He’s not going to the custody centre. He’ll be going to Derriford,’ Enders said.

‘Resist arrest did he? Get hurt in the struggle?’ Savage followed Jamie upstairs to help him get changed. ‘Well make sure somebody stays with him at the hospital, we don’t want him slipping away.’

‘Not A and E, ma’am, the mortuary,’ Enders said. ‘He’s dead.’

In a tower block in Plymouth city centre, Jackman glanced at the bedside clock. He groaned. Despite his intentions of the previous night he’d stayed over, phoning his wife and telling her he’d met an old colleague and they needed to catch up. After his meeting at Jennycliffe he’d returned to his flat, woken the girl and entered her, fucking her slowly for a good thirty minutes. Afterwards he had done a few hours’ work while the girl slept and then they’d ordered some food in, fucked again, slept.

Fantastic, last night. And not just the stuff with the girl.

He couldn’t resist viewing the material once more, so he heaved himself out of the bed and, naked, padded across to the desk next to the window where his laptop sat. He glanced out for a moment, taking in the grey morning, before he flipped up the lid on the machine and logged in. Last night he’d transferred the movie from the poacher’s phone to his computer and deleted the original file. Now he navigated to the folder he wanted and opened the new copy.

Full screen on the laptop the quality of the video was worse than ever, but after a few seconds the image was unmistakable: a woman stood next to the wreckage of an upside down car, bathed in a headlight beam coming from somewhere off-camera. Her bright red hair nicely foretold what was about to happen, Jackman thought, as he heard a man’s voice echoing out, pleading for help. The woman ignored the pleas and turned and walked away. A little later the car exploded in a fireball which overloaded the camera’s sensor in a white flare, before the exposure compensated and the raw beauty of the yellow and orange flames became visible. For a few seconds an awful screaming rent the air, but the noise didn’t last long. Jackman knew from the newspaper reports that there hadn’t been much left by the time the fire brigade had arrived; only a set of charred bones, the flesh and fat having burned and bubbled away.

Even though he had watched the film several times the footage was still causing Jackman’s heart to thump. Not that he was concerned about the man in the car. No, he’d been a murderer and burning was almost too good for him. What raised Jackman’s pulse, what made him think life might be about to get even sweeter, was the woman. She shouldn’t have walked away and she shouldn’t have lied about doing so either. Not when she was a Detective Inspector with Plymouth CID.

Jackman closed the movie file, flipped the lid on the laptop down and smiled. Power and control was what the movie gave him. Given the situation with Redmond, the poacher’s night-time encounter had brought some timely good fortune.

Thinking of Redmond, his mind turned to the girl. He looked over to the bed and feasted his eyes on her body. Curves not yet fully developed, face angelic, mind uncorrupted. He liked them that way. She was seventeen and legal, of course. He was no pervert and it was best to keep things above board, even if the affair with the girl – his niece – would be an unforgivable misdemeanour. Especially for a married man who was the deputy leader of Plymouth City Council, and a member of the Devon and Cornwall Police and Crime Panel.

Two words were all the directions Savage needed from Enders to reach the crime scene: ‘The Hoe.’ Fifteen minutes later and she drove up Hoe Road, swung past the army fort and turned right up the narrow access ramp onto the Hoe. A row of flagpoles bordered a huge expanse of tarmac, the flags hanging down, sad and unmoving. In summer the place thronged with pedestrians, kids on bikes, roller skaters, skateboarders and dog walkers. A grassy slope to one side of the tarmac was a fine place for picnicking and offered fantastic views over the Sound. Right now the area was deserted apart from a BBC outside broadcast car, a cameraman taking some establishing shots, and a pretty young female reporter in a hideous purple coat. Behind them stood the iconic red and white lighthouse. Whether it acted as a beacon or a warning probably depended upon your view of the city.

Savage parked alongside a patrol car, a van and Layton’s Volvo. Layton stood next to the car, phone pressed to ear, his free hand agitated, the crime scene manager doing most of the talking. As Savage got out he looked across at her, nodded and pointed over towards the public toilets. The toilets lay at the eastern end of the Hoe, not far from the Hoe Lodge Restaurant, which, notwithstanding the grand name, was in reality nothing much more than a snack bar. Despite the weather a number of people were sitting outside, DC Enders and a uniformed PC weaving between the tables, taking statements.

Savage retrieved her PPE kit from the boot and struggled into a white coverall before crossing the tarmac to the path which led round to the toilet block, a low, brick building which had a number of roof lanterns poking up from a flat roof. One of Layton’s CSIs stood next to a couple of poles with blue and white tape and he proffered a log, which Savage signed, before pointing down the path to the male toilets. DC Carl Denton was waiting at the entrance, a couple of strands of his hair falling loose from the hood on the white suit.

‘Ma’am, shall we?’ Denton rubbed his hands and stamped his feet as Savage approached. ‘Only I’ve been here for ages and I’m dying for a cup of coffee.’ He nodded in the direction of the Lodge. ‘I hear the cafe is giving out free ones to our lads.’

‘Is it Mr Owers?’ she asked as she led the way in, padding across the damp floor of the entrance and into the toilets proper.

‘I think so. The body matches the description anyway. Take a look. Third one along,’ Denton said. ‘Not that you need telling.’

‘So somebody caught up with him before we did,’ Savage said. ‘Rough justice.’

‘Not really rough. All things considered.’

‘No.’ Savage thought of Simza Ellis. Missing, presumed drowned. Never, until Monday morning, assumed sexually assaulted and murdered by some pervert. ‘You’re right. Simply justice.’

The man’s body almost filled the cubicle, a mass of flesh the colour of lard prostrate before the toilet. On the seat a dusting of white powder contrasted with the black plastic, but the man’s head was bent forwards, away from the powder, his face down in the bowl, as if he had been trying to get a drink of water, like a cat lapping up milk. His faded blue jeans and grey boxer shorts had been pulled down to his ankles, exposing a brown mess which had exploded from the deep cleavage of his bottom and been smeared all over the buttocks. The left arm hung down and brushed the wet floor while the right one lay at a funny angle up by the head, as if trying to grope for something. Impossible, since the forearm ended with two sticks of bone surrounded by ripped and bloodied flesh.

Jesus, Savage thought, life or death didn’t get much more appalling than this. Or if it did, she really didn’t want to know about it.

‘Glad I’m not doing the recovery, ma’am,’ Denton said. ‘They’ll need a bloody crane to get him out.’

Denton was right, Savage thought. The man must weigh thirty stone at least. Extracting him from the toilet would be tricky. If they were to use any sense of decorum in retrieving the corpse the team would need to dismantle the cubicle. The alternative would be to dismember the body.

Savage moved closer, not wanting to, but needing to see more. She held onto the door for support as she leant in. Franklin Owers, definitely. The mugshot which had been distributed hadn’t been a good one, but there was no mistaking the round face, the receding hairline and the little goatee beard. Now she was closer she spotted a short piece of black cardboard, rolled in a tube, protruding from the man’s left nostril. Gold print ran across the glossy surface, but Savage couldn’t make out the words.

‘He’s got a business card shoved up his nose.’ Savage pointed to the powder on the seat. ‘Do you think that’s cocaine?’

‘Forgive me, ma’am. Given the circumstances, I didn’t want to taste it to find out. However, down in the bowl there’s a bag floating in the water and it’s stuffed with white powder too. I’d say the bag contains four ounces or so.’