Читать книгу CUT DEAD: A DI Charlotte Savage Novel - Mark Sennen, Mark Sennen - Страница 10

No sign of yesterday’s sun, the air cold, the drizzle getting heavier by the minute. Covert ops, DS Darius Riley thought, meant sitting in a car, dry, if not warm, with a newspaper to read and food and drink on tap. Not this. Not freezing your nuts off on a summer’s day in wildest Devon.

To his immediate left DI Frank Maynard sat grinning at him. The DI pulled the hood on his Berghaus up. Mumbled something about ‘the right equipment’, something else about ‘soft city boys’. The joke was wearing thin, but the fact Riley was both black and from London meant it was open season. In Maynard’s eyes, if you hadn’t grown up shagging sheep on Dartmoor then you were a ‘bloody foreigner’ and open to ridicule.

Riley adjusted his position in an effort to make himself more comfortable. Difficult since he knelt in what he could only describe as a ditch, although Maynard had assured him the pile of stone and earth topped with scrub was in fact known as a Devon hedge. Whatever. The only good thing about the barrier was the cover it provided. Twenty metres farther along the hedge DI Phil Davies stood with a pair of binoculars peering through a gap in the vegetation, his grey hair wet and plastered to the top of his head like sticky rice. His stance suggested to Riley he wasn’t enjoying the outing much either. Chalk and cheese the pair of them, but Riley had to admit a certain grudging respect for Davies. Earlier in the year the DI had likely as not saved Riley’s skin, and although the task involved some very dodgy dealing, Riley owed the man. Even if Davies usually moved in circles something akin to the mud squelching beneath Riley’s knees – the murkiest depths of Plymouth’s underworld, a place of backroom bars, wraps handed over in alleyways and girls standing under street lamps waiting for their next trick. But at least there you stayed dry.

Not here. Not on Operation Cowbell.

No. Operation Cowbell meant getting cold, wet and miserable while waiting for people to turn up and buy illegal red diesel from some farmer who was just trying to scrape a living from a few hundred acres of poor quality land. True, the farmer, a man by the name of Tim McGann, had some connection to organised crime over in Exeter, but Riley thought the whole investigation would have been better left to Customs and Excise.

A rustle came from Riley’s left and he turned to see Maynard unwrapping a foil package containing ham sandwiches. Maynard took one out and munched on the wholemeal bread. He’d not be happy either, Riley reflected. It wasn’t his idea to have Riley and Davies along; their assignment to the case was down to DSupt Hardin. Both Riley and Davies had been involved in a failed drugs operation and being shunted to the backwoods of Cowbell was punishment. Three months in and they’d identified a handful of farms selling diesel and recorded dozens of people buying. They’d trekked across muddy fields, staked out isolated barns, and visited parts of Devon and Cornwall so remote that to Riley’s mind they seemed like the wilds of America. They’d witnessed illegal activity, certainly. But was it worth the hours the team had spent compiling the information?

Riley reached into his pocket for his own sustenance only to find the flapjack he’d brought along had got wet and crumbled into a thousand pieces. The mush now resembled porridge. In the back of Maynard’s car there was a bag containing Riley’s lunch – a triple cheese selection and a can of Coke purchased from the M&S close to the station – but the car was several fields away and he couldn’t see Maynard letting him off just yet.

‘How much longer, boss?’ Riley said. They’d been in the ditch since six-thirty and the only vehicle to come along the winding lane to the farm had been Postman Pat’s red van. ‘We’ve been watching McGann’s place for two days and not a snifter so far.’

‘Patience,’ Maynard said. ‘Don’t they teach you anything up at Hendon these days?’

Riley shrugged his shoulders and was about to risk suggesting that when lunch time came they should adjourn to a nearby pub – if there was a nearby pub – when he felt the buzzing of his mobile. He pulled out the phone and squinted at the message.

‘Something’s come up, sir.’ Riley tried hard to suppress a smile as he read the text. ‘Missing person on Dartmoor. DC Enders is on his way and he’ll collect me from the bottom of the lane. Depending on how things work out I might not be back today.’

Maynard screwed up the tin foil, put it carefully in his pocket and reached for his flask.

‘Pity,’ he said, smiling. ‘I was just about to pour you a cup of coffee.’

Savage had woken to the radio.

‘The Candle Cake Killer …’

BBC Devon were already using the name, despite the lack of any official confirmation. Callers to the station got the date thing too.

‘Five days,’ one said, anguish in her voice. ‘FIVE DAYS!’

Somebody needed to put out a statement soon, Savage thought. Otherwise the media would be controlling the agenda from the get-go.

Down in the kitchen she continued listening as she prepared breakfast. The station was running a morning special on the history of the case. A chance for listeners to catch up over their cornflakes. Pete hustled Samantha and Jamie to the table and tucked Jamie in. Not cornflakes: toast and Cheerios, fresh orange juice, strong coffee for Savage.

‘So?’ Pete said, buttering a piece of toast and gesturing at the radio with the knife. ‘This for real?’

‘Officially, no,’ Savage said. ‘But as you well know from your line of work since when has “officially” got anything to do with the truth?’

Pete smiled. ‘Well, official or not, be careful, OK?’

‘Be careful?’ Savage went across and kissed Pete and the kids. ‘Makes a change that you’re the one who’s worrying.’

‘If you’d seen the Naval cadets I’m teaching at the moment you’d still worry. Last week a crash-gybe nearly had me—’

Savage didn’t hear the rest of the story; she’d already waved goodbye and headed out the door.

On the drive into the station the roads seemed quieter than usual first thing. Perhaps people were already being careful. They’d remember the last time, of course, memories which should have been consigned to history since the Candle Cake Killer case was dormant, the trail gone cold several years ago. Savage knew a statutory review took place annually, but the general consensus was that the killer was dead. It seemed the only explanation for the cessation of the crimes. At the time the story had been front page news, an unwelcome focus on Devon and Cornwall and one the tourist board wanted to erase all memory of.

It had been the cake, of course, which had given him his name: a Victoria sponge, sprinkled with icing sugar, a varying number of blue or pink candles on top, the candles lit and blown out. The candles and holders were obtainable from any of the large supermarkets, the sponge homemade, rich and moist, baked with duck eggs in a nine-inch tin. One slice of cake cut and removed, crumbs on the floor indicating the missing piece may have been eaten there and then.

Fifteen candles on the first cake, seven on the next, nineteen on the final one. Pink, blue, pink.

Whether the cake was intended to wish someone happy birthday, represented another type of anniversary, or was something completely different, the police had no idea.

The victims were females aged thirty-four, twenty-five and thirty-nine. Not known to each other and having no connections other than living in Devon.

And they had all gone missing on the longest day of the year.

Mandy Glastone had been the first. Thirty-four and recently married, no children, a nurse by profession, she had vanished on the twenty-first June 2006. Her husband had arrived home to find the cake on the kitchen table, along with his wife’s handbag containing car keys, house keys and mobile phone. Nobody on Devon Road in Salcombe, quiet in a summer rainstorm, had seen or heard anything.

Phil Glastone had been the main suspect, a few years older than his wife and previously married to a woman who claimed she’d received more than the occasional beating from her husband. A claim the police saw no reason to disbelieve. Glastone was questioned, investigated, questioned again. He denied having anything to do with his wife’s disappearance.

When some two weeks later a fisherman came across Mandy Glastone’s headless and mutilated body in a river high on Dartmoor, Mr Glastone was arrested on suspicion of murder. Glastone’s car was impounded and a forensic team went over every inch. Hairs from Mandy’s head were found in the boot, but that didn’t prove a thing.

DCI Derek Walsh, the SIO at the time, hadn’t been entirely happy with the case, specifically the marks on the body. A criss-cross of cuts overlaid with spirals and other shapes. River creatures had been at the corpse, but the cuts hadn’t been made by them. As far as the pathologist could tell the woman hadn’t been beaten and cause of death couldn’t be determined. Were the marks a sign of some kind of ritual killing? Was the date significant, the murder something to do with pagans, the summer solstice, mumbo-jumbo and witchcraft? Then there was the clay, a lump found down in her throat below the point at which her head had been severed, the purpose of the material not clear.

With no further evidence and the complications of the cake and the cuts, the CPS decided charging their suspect was a step too far. ‘No evidence, no motive’ they’d told the team and Phil Glastone had walked free.

Twelve months later, June the twenty-first again, a twenty-five-year-old woman disappeared after having spent the evening in her local pub. Single, employed as a manager in a shoe shop and living in a rented flat in Paignton, Sue Kendle was never seen again. When friends called round the next day to collect her for a prearranged outing they became worried when she didn’t answer the door. Two police officers gained entry and found signs of a struggle: furniture tipped over, a picture frame smashed, the carpet in the hallway rucked up. And in the kitchen a Victoria sponge with seven candles on it, a slice missing, crumbs on the table.

Glastone was brought in once more. Under intense questioning he broke down and admitted beating Mandy, but denied killing her. The interrogation team pushed hard but it turned out that this time he had been away on business in Switzerland; his alibi appeared to be cast-iron. He was released without charge.

No body this time either and despite ongoing searches, Sue Kendle was never found. With no leads, the investigation went nowhere.

Twenty-first June 2008. Thirty-nine-year-old Heidi Luckmann lucked out. She had risen early and driven her car to Burrator Reservoir from her home in Horrabridge, a village between Plymouth and Tavistock. A couple in the car park at the eastern end of the reservoir remembered the rather tatty red Vauxhall Corsa and the attractive woman with the Border Collie. As they geared up for their walk – stout boots for the moor and waterproofs against the summer drizzle – the dog had bounded across for a chat, Heidi coming over and apologising, the couple not minding one bit.

When they returned four hours later they noticed the dog lying by the side of Heidi’s car, waiting for his mistress.

The Dartmoor Rescue Group and a search helicopter scoured the surrounds of the reservoir and the nearby moor all that afternoon and well into the evening until the light faded from the sky sometime after ten p.m. They found nothing.

Police forced their way into her cottage in Horrabridge and in the kitchen they found the cake. Nineteen candles. Missing slice. Crumbs. There was no sign of Heidi Luckmann and despite an exhaustive search over the following weeks she, like Sue Kendle, was never found.

The story broke then, someone leaking details about the cakes which previously had been kept from the press. The media lapped it up and trust the good old Sun to come up with the name which would stick: The Candle Cake Killer. Not good English but fantastic copy nevertheless.

For a while hell descended on Devon in the form of various TV companies from around the world and dozens of reporters, but with no more bodies, no leads, and never a word from whoever was responsible, the interest dried up.

The next year the police were ready. Early June and they put out measured warnings, trying not to alarm the public but appealing for vigilance on and around the twenty-first of June. The media became fired up again, hoping for another misper, praying the cycle would continue.

It didn’t. Nobody went missing. Nobody was murdered. There was a brawl outside a pub, a boy racer killed himself and his girlfriend when their car overturned on the A38, a house fire claimed the life of a much-loved family pet in Plymstock. All good stuff, but hardly justifying the presence of television crews from across the globe. The TV vans packed up, the reporters paid their hotel bills and the police scratched their heads. Had the warnings worked? Or had the killer got scared and decided to give this year a miss?

A year later and again nothing happened. The media had lost all interest now, no TV crews and only an occasional feature appearing in the national press. There was nothing much more to say and for the police, nothing much more to go on. The case remained open, but in the absence of fresh leads it lay dormant. Waiting. Like Heidi Luckmann’s dog.

Crownhill police station was on the north side of the city, situated in a tangle of arterial roads. The twin grey-brown concrete buildings at first sight resembled two upturned cardboard boxes. Rows of narrow slits had been cut in the side of the boxes to serve as windows, but Savage thought the place looked more like some sort of bunker than anywhere people might work. She slotted her car into one of only a few free spaces in the car park and went inside.

Up in the crime suite excitement was writ large. A huge sheet of paper on one wall was adorned with a giant ‘5’, below, in smaller writing, ‘days left’. Savage thought about the caller to the radio show. Tension, amongst the general public as well as within the investigation team, could only rise as the days ticked by.

A dozen officers and indexers sat at desks in the open plan room. Each person had a keyboard with two screens and a phone headset to hand. Steam rose from several cups of coffee, one officer passed around a bag of M&Ms, while another bit down on a bacon roll. Most focused on the screens in front of them, where a cascade of documents threatened to overwhelm the casual observer. Savage stood by the entrance for a moment. She felt a frisson of emotion. She knew most of these people well, they were her second family. Each had their good points as well as a whole host of foibles, but each understood that they would only succeed in their task if they worked together as a team. Savage respected all of them and liked most; for one or two she even had an affection approaching love.

She went across the room to speak to Gareth Collier, the office manager. He’d abandoned a fishing trip but was sanguine about having to come in even though he’d booked a few days’ leave.

‘Was supposed to be out at Eddystone today,’ he said. ‘After a few pollack. To be honest I’m not bothered. Sea’s a bit lumpy and I had a couple too many last night.’

Savage couldn’t imagine Collier having too many beers, nor could she see him being seasick. He was ex-military, with a severe haircut to match, discipline his middle name. She cocked her head on one side. Collier held his hands up.

‘Alright. It’s my brother-in-law. He’s down for the week and this is better than spending eight hours stuck on a small boat with him.’ Collier shook his head, embarrassed at the lie. ‘Anyway, Radial. The name.’

‘Radial?’ Savage said. ‘Where did you get that from?’

‘Don’t blame me. You know how it is. The computer spits out the name of the operation at random. Mind of its own.’

‘You put that up?’ Savage pointed to the countdown.

‘Yes. It’s called an incentive. Something to focus the mind.’

DC Calter raised her head from a nearby desk and glanced over.

‘Something to scare us all shitless more like,’ she said.

‘That too.’ Collier allowed a hint of a smile to show on his face. ‘But knowing the date when the killer is likely to strike at least means we can organise our resources more effectively. We can also use the fact to lean on external agencies to pull their fingers out. If they don’t we can blame them when things go tits up.’

‘Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,’ Savage said. ‘Now explain this to me.’

Collier had manoeuvred a number of whiteboards into the centre of the room. The middle one had ‘POA’ written in marker pen at the top.

Plan of Action.

The office manager began to outline his thinking. Confirming identification, he said, would be the key. Once established beyond doubt the bodies belonged to the missing women, they could proceed on the basis that this was the work of the Candle Cake Killer. Until then they could only assume.

‘But we’ll go with the assumption for now,’ Collier said. ‘Because we’ve sod all else.’

‘And once we’ve confirmed ID?’ Savage said.

‘We move through my plan.’

Collier indicated a set of bullet points, lines leading away to boxouts where he’d scrawled instructions. Savage picked out an awful lot of uses of the word ‘review’: Review victim case history. Review connections between victims. Review family suspects. Review forensic evidence. She expressed her concerns to Collier. Didn’t the word imply the previous investigation had missed something?

‘Yes.’ Collier reached up and scratched the stubble on the top of his head. ‘Of course it does. And they did miss something. Else I’d be out on that bloody pollack boat with my brother-in-law.’

Collier moved on. Off to one side of the board he’d boxed out another area. Inside the box was the word ‘profiling’. As he pointed the word out a smirk slid across his face.

‘Dirty word, hey?’ he said. ‘Round here, anyway.’

The trek back to the lane for the rendezvous with Enders took Riley forty minutes. The route had to be circuitous to avoid any possibility of being seen and at two points he had to crawl on his hands and knees. By the time he reached Enders’ car he was muddy, soaked and in a foul mood.

‘Did you bring my stuff?’ Riley said as the young DC’s smile emerged from behind the steamed-up glass as the window slipped down.

Enders jerked a thumb towards a holdall sitting on the rear seat. Riley got in the back and as Enders started up he opened the holdall and began to change into the spare kit. The clothing was gym gear Riley used if he fancied running home from the station, but it was better than remaining wet.

Before long they reached the main road and headed north. Within half an hour they drummed across a cattle grid and onto Dartmoor. They left the jumble of little fields behind and the rugged moorland terrain opened out before them, the road sweeping its way north-west, climbing towards Princetown.

Riley had expected the weather on the moor to be dank and dreary, what with the earlier mist and rain. However, as they climbed upwards they emerged into sun and blue sky, leaving behind a bank of cloud hugging Plymouth and the lowlands. The rolling hills and granite tors appeared flat, washed of any contrast by the harsh light. Riley leant back in the warmth and wondered if Maynard and his foil-wrapped sandwiches had been just a bad dream.

Enders interrupted his thoughts by filling him in on the misper. He told him the bare facts as he knew them from the brief he’d been given: the man, Devlyn Corran, was a prison officer at HMP Dartmoor and he’d disappeared yesterday morning after he’d finished his night shift and left to cycle home. He never arrived and there’d been no word from him since. No sign of his bike either.

‘Horrid place to work,’ Riley said. ‘On a good day it looks like Colditz Castle. Dread to think what the inmates are like.’

‘You’ve been watching too many movies,’ Enders said. ‘Dartmoor is only one step above an open prison. If you were hoping for a load of baying psychos you’re going to be disappointed.’

‘Actually I’m tired and wet so what I really fancy is to get my head down for a few hours in a segregation cell. Do you think the Governor can fix that for me?’

Before Enders could answer they spotted a white Land Rover up ahead. The vehicle was crawling along on the wrong side of the road with its offside wheels bouncing on the rough verge. The words ‘Mountain Rescue Ambulance’ ran along the body of the Land Rover above a chequerboard of orange and white reflective squares.

‘Dartmoor Rescue Group,’ Enders said. ‘They must be searching for Corran.’

To the front of the vehicle, about twenty metres away, a man and a woman were striding through the moorland heather parallel to the road. A Border Collie ran back and forth, sniffing the air as it covered the ground in great scampering bounds.

‘Callum Campbell,’ Enders said. ‘He’s one of the group’s leaders. Met him last year when I went on that moorland hunt with DI Savage.’

Enders accelerated past the Land Rover, beeped the horn once, pulled over and they got out. Campbell raised an arm and walked across. He towered over them, a giant of a man with blond hair stuffed under a fleece hat, eyes the colour of the clear sky, a Scottish accent when he spoke.

‘Nicer weather than last time,’ Campbell said to Enders, before turning to Riley and shaking his hand.

Riley introduced himself and recalled Enders’ trip across the moor had taken place during the night in appalling conditions. In sleet and snow the team had fought their way to a remote tor, only to discover a body which had lain there for weeks. Enders had told Riley the story at least half a dozen times.

‘Any sign of Corran?’ Riley asked.

‘No. We were out all yesterday afternoon and evening, but I wanted to conduct a more detailed search this morning. We started at Dousland, where he lives.’ Campbell looked back down the road the way they had come. ‘The village is about three miles yonder and we’ve done the right-hand side only. Figured if he got knocked off his bike he’d be on this side, since he was heading home. I am pretty sure we didn’t miss anything on the first pass, but I wanted to make sure.’

‘He was definitely on his bike though?’ Riley said.

‘Yes. Apparently he cycled to and from work most days. It’s about five miles from the prison to his house and mostly downhill, so he could have done the trip in fifteen minutes or so.’

‘Not much time for something bad to happen,’ Riley said. ‘Assuming, that is, something bad did happen.’

‘Well, if it didn’t then where the hell is he?’ Campbell spread his arms in an expansive fashion, sweeping them round to encompass the wide open panorama. Then he shrugged and plodded back onto the rough ground to continue the search.