The Assassin King

Many years ago now, before joining the police, Detective Inspector Ben Elias had been an up-and-coming amateur light middleweight boxer with dreams of the big time, more than a little swollen-headed at being the youngest member of the UK & Northern Ireland’s podium squad in training for the Olympics at Sheffield’s Institute of Sport.

The trials had arrived. He’d been put up against the man who’d ultimately gone on to represent the nation at the Games, where he’d lost a heartbreaker of a semi-final against the Cuban gold medallist. The trial had gone great for a round and a half, with Elias jabbing and moving, bobbing and weaving and all the rest of that good stuff, using his long reach, fast hands and dancing feet to put himself so far ahead on points that he’d got complacent, he’d got cocky. Then the bastard had feinted left and smacked him with a right cross that he simply hadn’t seen coming, and from which he’d woken on the mat some twenty seconds later.

He’d rather lost the heart for boxing after that.

The ghost of that wretched day haunted Elias still, every time he screwed up on a case. Which was to say, it haunted him a lot. Yet he didn’t resent it. On the contrary, he welcomed it. It helped him work harder and it kept him humble too.

A peacock strutted out into the road ahead, pecking at spillage from a grain truck. He allowed it a few moments before tooting it from his path. A little further on, he had to stop again, this time for a stray lamb bleating miserably for its flock, even though Elias could see them grazing on cauliflowers in the next field. Crates of muddy potatoes and other produce were for sale by the side of the road. Haystacks gleamed golden from last night’s storm. The air smelled of rot and rain. It was harvest time in rural Lincolnshire, and how he hated it, particularly on these back roads, constantly getting stuck behind combines, produce trucks and the rest, just as he now came up behind a hedge-cutter spraying twigs and leaves across the narrow lane, forcing him to slow down again, stressed by his lateness though he already was.

Elias worked for Lincolnshire Major Crimes, part of the East Midlands Special Operations Unit. His department was always understaffed, but lately it had become ridiculous, thanks to a combination of holidays, sick leave and an exploding caseload, with the county’s villains all deciding to go on a spree. In just one night, they’d had a strangling in Boston, a murder-suicide in Scunthorpe and a fatal bar-fight in Lincoln. Then, to cap it all, a smouldering gang war in Grimsby had burst into violent flame, with a pair of tit for tat killings and the malicious wounding of the heroic young schoolmistress who’d tried to intervene, and who was now on life support.

Enough had been enough. Lincolnshire’s Chief Constable had ordered Elias’s new boss Trevor Wharton to sort it out. Characteristically, Wharton had made a virtue of necessity, putting on his dress uniform to hold a press conference outside Grimsby Town Hall with the local MP and North Lincolnshire’s Mayor. He’d pounded the podium and declared that this was now his personal top priority, vowing to dedicate whatever resources it took to bring the perpetrators to justice and eradicate the scourge of knife crime from the town once and for all.

The hedge-cutter pulled into the side to let Elias pass. He enjoyed a mile or so of clear road before, to his exasperation, he came up behind a tractor hauling a trailer of Halloween pumpkins, shedding mud and stones from its huge wheels that his own tyres spat up against his undercarriage.

No one had yet known it while Wharton was giving his press conference, but Dunstan Warne had already been dead by then, killed – according to their pathologist – in the early hours of Monday morning, then buried in a corner of his own field. It was the kind of case that Wharton would normally have grabbed, what with its sympathetic victim and all the opportunities for holding press conferences and making public appeals; but he’d trapped himself and his top team in Grimsby with his overblown rhetoric, so he’d had to assign it to Elias instead, the only murder detective with any capacity at all, thanks to his being so out of favour.

He’d made a solid rather than a spectacular start, seconding a team of uniformed local officers to search for the murder weapon and go door-to-door for witnesses, none of whom had seen anything themselves, but many of whom had pointed fingers at a smuggling gang widely rumoured to use this stretch of coast to bring in product. It made sense. The shore here was fringed by salt marshes on which even a small boat might founder. Except at Warne Farm, that was, where the marsh was held at bay by the outpouring of fresh water from the River Nene. On a calm night, with a high tide and decent moonlight, a smuggler could bring an inflatable right up to the seawall with minimal chance of being seen.

The tide had been high last Sunday night. The sea had been calm and the sky clear. Perfect conditions for a shipment. And everyone agreed that Dunstan Warne had been a tough old bird, the last kind to tolerate smugglers taking liberties on his patch. So a consensus had emerged that he’d had enough. Maybe he’d sat up that night, or he’d been woken by a noise and decided to go check, setting off in his van to intercept them along his drive, grabbing a spade as a makeshift weapon to go confront them, only for his killer to wrest it from him, turn it sideways and bring it down like an axe upon his head. Then they’d buried him right there in the field, no doubt intending to return his van to the farmyard so that his body wouldn’t easily be found, only to realise too late that they’d buried his keys with him. It would likely have been getting light by then, leaving them no choice but to flee, taking the spade with them to dump elsewhere. It had all fitted together very neatly – or at least it had, until their return last night. And how to explain that?

He reached Warne Farm at last, speeding up its long drive in a forlorn effort to make up time. The cobbled courtyard was still a mess from last night’s storm, muddy and covered by leaves and other detritus. A pair of squad cars and a blue Scene Of Crime van were already parked by the farmhouse door. He added his Leaf to their number then wiped his feet and went inside. There were muddy bootprints on the carpet, along with yellow evidence markers. He stepped carefully around them. Frank Mason, his Crime Scene Manager, was going about his business at the top of the stairs, along with two assistants. He called up to let them know he’d arrived then made his way through to the kitchen, where a uniformed woman police constable was sitting at the table with a mug of milky coffee, tapping away at her laptop.

‘Who are you?’ he demanded.

‘Who are you?’ she retorted, taking off her headphones, jacked into a police recording device.

‘Detective Inspector Elias,’ he told her, showing her his warrant card.

‘Oh.’ She half rose to her feet in apology. ‘WPC Maria Quinn, sir.’

‘Quinn,’ frowned Elias. ‘You’re the one who found Warne’s body, aren’t you?’

‘One of them. Yes, sir.’

‘You left before I got here.’

‘We do have other duties.’

Elias nodded. It had become his habit, as a detective, to make swift appraisals of people he met. Their height, build, looks, complexion, clothes, hair, ethnicity, accent, tattoos, marital status and the rest, all filed securely away for future retrieval. Quinn looked maybe twenty-six or twenty-seven years old. She had bright red hair and pale freckled skin that made her look a little soft, along with a glint in her eye that invited him to try it and find out. Her uniform was freshly pressed; her shirt neatly ironed. These assessments were automatic and strictly impersonal, yet he still felt a small but undeniable pang when he saw her wedding ring. Not for the first time either. There’d been that new waitress in his favourite Nettleham café, and then Anna Warne at Peterborough Station. Anna Warne, for Christ’s sake, her uncle just murdered and herself a suspect. She’d noticed too, and had given him an old-fashioned glare, provoking him into needless hostility. And now Maria Quinn gave him an equally disapproving look. ‘So last night,’ he said hurriedly. ‘Any trace of the intruders when you arrived?’

‘I didn’t get here first,’ she said. ‘That was Anderson.’

‘And? Where is he? She?’

‘Gone home. His shift was over and he had to get his girl to school. But no, they’d already gone. He saw a vehicle speeding off, but it was too far away to make out, and he decided that getting here came first. Making sure Ms Warne was okay.’

‘Quite right,’ he said. ‘Speaking of whom…?’

‘Gone for a walk.’

‘A walk? Are you kidding me?’

‘She was badly shaken,’ said Quinn. ‘And she’d already given her statement.’ She patted her recording device. ‘I thought you’d want it typed.’

‘Don’t we have voice-to-text for that?’

‘The software’s rubbish. I’m making the edits now.’

Elias grunted. He was still wound up from his drive, but that was no excuse for taking it out on Quinn. Yet somehow he couldn’t bring himself to apologise. ‘Did she say where she was going?’

Quinn nodded at the kitchen door. ‘I asked her to stay within earshot.’

‘Oh. Okay. Good. Well done.’

‘Thank you, sir. But before you go…?’

‘I helped find Mr Warne’s body, like you said. It was easy. His van was parked right there.’

‘Yes,’ said Elias dryly. ‘I have read the report.’

‘Sorry. It’s just they’re saying you think he was maybe sitting up in wait for them, or that he was woken by a noise of some kind.’

Elias checked his watch. ‘Can this wait? Only I really need to speak with Ms Warne while everything’s still fresh.’

Quinn flushed. ‘Of course, sir. My apologies.’

He headed out the kitchen door. It was a grey, chill, damp morning, not quite sure yet whether to mist or rain. Everything was wet. The small back lawn was enclosed by flower beds and a low hedge beyond which the farm ran flat and open to the grassed embankment of the River Nene as it made its way down to the Wash, at which point it turned ninety degrees to the left and became a seawall instead. Despite the gloom, therefore, he spotted Anna Warne at once, standing in the gap between two fields, her head bowed as if in contemplation. He set off briskly towards her, his black brogues soon glistening from the dew on the grassy verge, littered with shrivelled corncobs left behind by the recent harvest. ‘Hey,’ he said, when he was still a dozen yards away, to warn her of his approach.

She looked up, pale yet composed. ‘Detective.’

‘I hear you had quite the night.’

‘Still think I murdered my uncle?’

‘I never thought it was you. But it’s my job to make sure. Want to tell me what happened?’

‘I already told your colleague.’

‘She’s still writing it up. And I’d much rather hear it from you. Please.’

‘Fine,’ she sighed.

He bowed his head in concentration as she described how she’d been woken by a loud noise and had gone out to check the barn, only to spot two men on the far side of the tractor who’d chased her into her bedroom and broken down its door. ‘And then?’ he asked.

‘The shorter guy wanted to leave. But the taller guy was in charge, and he wasn’t having it. He walked up to me, holding a large flat-headed screwdriver and a torch.’

‘Which was in which hand?’

She closed her eyes for a moment. ‘The screwdriver was in his right hand. Why? Does that make him right-handed?’

‘I grabbed my bedside lamp to defend myself. I braced to hit him with it. He stayed just out of range. He was going to stab me, though, I’m sure of it. It was the way he tensed up as he tried to pick his spot. But then he kind of froze. His mouth fell open. I saw his teeth.’

‘Anything distinctive?’

Again she paused for thought. ‘He maybe had a gold filling. Back here.’ She touched her lower left molar. ‘But I wouldn’t swear to it. And there was something weird about his lips, though don’t ask me what.’

‘Thin? Fat? Light? Dark?’

‘What does “don’t ask me what” mean where you come from?’

Elias had to fight not to smile. She made little effort to hide what she thought of him, yet he couldn’t help but like her. ‘You say he froze. Any idea why?’

‘I’d already called you guys by then. Your dispatcher, god bless her, was saying that two cars would be with me in less than a minute. Maybe he believed her.’ But then she shook her head. ‘Except that wasn’t the sense I got. It was more like he’d just got a shock.’

‘As if he’d recognised you?’

‘Maybe. Though I didn’t recognise him.’

‘How would you have, if he was wearing a balaclava?’

‘He was very distinctively built. And I saw enough of his face that I think I’d have known if I’d met him before. Anyway, his mate tugged his arm again, and this time they left. I heard them on the stairs then driving off. I’ve no idea what in; I was too scared to look. I locked myself in the bathroom instead, until your man arrived.’

‘You did brilliantly.’

‘It doesn’t feel like it. It feels like shit.’

‘You’re alive. That’s a big win. You’ve no idea how much paperwork it’s saved me.’ Her laugh was short and reluctant, yet still good to hear. ‘Any chance you’d recognise them again? From photos, say?’

‘Not from photos, no. Maybe if I met them.’

‘Both white, I’d say, though I wouldn’t swear to it. The shorter one was maybe five foot eight or nine. But big, you know? Olympic weightlifter big, with a ridiculous chest and neck, and massive short limbs. The other guy, the boss, he was around six feet two or three, I’d say. He ducked his head coming into my bedroom, so you could use that as a guide. And he was really thin too. I mean cadaverously so. He made me think of that old Nosferatu movie. And not just in the way he looked.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘The smaller guy, he frightened me. But in a normal way. I was terrified he’d hurt or even kill me. But the taller one, he gave me the horror movie shivers. There was something just creepy and repellent about him. I can’t describe it better than that.’

‘Did they have accents?’

‘They only said a few words each.’ She closed her eyes again. ‘But I think the shorter one may have been foreign.’

‘What kind of foreign?’

‘He said about two words, Detective, while his mate was about to stab me with a screwdriver. He may have been foreign is the best you’ll get.’

‘And the other?’

‘Kind of plummy. But hammily so, like he was putting it on. They both might have been, to be honest.’

‘The taller guy, I’d say about fifty. He rubbed his back in the barn, like it was sore from stooping. The other one, maybe late thirties. But I could be way out.’

‘Anything else?’

‘About them? No. Sorry.’

‘Not just about them. About anything.’

She took a breath. ‘There is one thing. Maybe. Though probably not. I honestly don’t know how to judge any more.’

‘Tell me anyway. Let me do the judging.’

‘Okay. It’s just, Uncle Dun used to do a round of the farm every evening. To make sure everything was as it should be, you know. Shipshape. I’d go with him whenever I was here. It was a nice way to end the day. So, after you guys left last night, I did the same. Not to make sure it was shipshape, exactly, but…’

‘To do him honour.’

‘Yes. Exactly.’ For the first time, she looked at him with something approaching warmth. He found that he liked it. ‘Anyway, I came this way. See these footprints? I don’t think they were here last night.’

He crouched for a better look. The two fields were separated from one another by a hedge and a drainage ditch half filled with water. But there was a gap in both the hedge and the ditch at this point, for tractors and other farm vehicles to pass between the two. It was a churned-up mess right now, thanks to the recent harvest and last night’s rain, yet he could see two distinct pairs of bootprints in the mud, treading back and forth over one another as though searching for something. At first glance, they looked similar to the bootprints on the farmhouse carpet too. He took out his phone to photograph them. ‘You didn’t see these last night?’ he asked. ‘Or they weren’t here?’

‘I don’t know. Not for sure. They might have been here, I suppose. Though the ground was drier before the storm, so I doubt it would have taken them so well. And they’d be more washed out, wouldn’t they?’

Elias circled around their other side to take more pictures. Then he stood back up. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘It’s probably nothing. But thanks for telling me. You never know what will matter and what won’t.’ He put his phone back in his pocket. ‘Now how about we get back to the house, eh? I’d kill for a cup of tea.’