CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

 

Bill Hickey was behind with his work. With the boss away, things had backed up, especially the paperwork.

He had a small office area in a converted store attached to one of the barns, and although it was late, he decided to stay on and check the invoices. Bill was a methodical man, and the heap of unopened mail was offending his tidy mind.

It didn’t take him long, but just as he was throwing the last torn envelope into the bin, he glanced out of the window, and saw a pinpoint of light inside the farmhouse.

The police had left some while ago, telling him that Micah Lee had been apprehended again, and Tanner wasn’t home yet, so who the blazes…?Bill jumped up, grabbed his key-ring from the desk, and ran silently around the outside of the barn and across to the house.

The front door was unlocked, and Bill had checked it himself after the police left. He frowned, took a deep breath, and slipped inside.

He stood just inside the door and heard soft sounds coming from the upper floor. And from the direction they came, it sounded as if the intruder was in Tanner’s room. For a moment Bill was undecided what to do. He should call the police, but he was curious to know who it was in the boss’s bedroom. He smiled in the darkness, and he certainly wasn’t frightened. Bill had done a stint in the Army and he still looked after himself. As he stepped towards the stairs, he decided he would call the old bill, but not until he’d got the burglar by the scuff of the neck.

Bill carefully moved along the landing. He had been right about the location of the thief. Tanner’s door stood open, and he could see a hunched figure and a torch beam being directed towards a large wooden desk in the far corner of the room.

Bill was across the floor and had the man in an arm lock, before the intruder even realised what was happening.

The man screamed in shock and tried to wriggle away from Bill’s powerful grip. But he was no match for Bill, who dragged him up and across to the doorway, where he threw on the light.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Bill growled, staring at the terrified face of a young man.

‘I, I..,’ The man began to shake all over, his terror seeming to be far greater than it should be, but he said no more.

Bill frowned. This wasn’t exactly your stereotype robber. He loosened his grip a little. ‘Okay, what were you after? Money?’ He pointed with his free hand towards the jumble of papers and items on the desk. ‘Because you clearly were looking for something?’

Again he received no answer, and now the man seemed to be fighting back tears.

Bill’s frown deepened. The man had no bag with him, had nothing stuffed into the pockets of his old check jacket, and seemed totally unequipped for a burglary.

Then Bill remembered the front door. Unlocked, but not forced.

He pulled the man closer to him, thrust a hand into his jacket pockets, and pulled out an old-style door key. Exactly the same design as the one on his key-fob.

‘Who the devil are you?’ asked Bill, as he pushed the man ahead of him towards the desk. ‘Why have you got a key? And what were you doing with the boss’s things…?’ He stopped talking as his eyes fell on the items lying on the desk.

Credit cards, an open wallet, a Filofax, a signet ring. And a passport?

As soon as he saw the name Tanner, Bill tightened his hold on the man, and picked up the telephone.

 

‘It’s Bill Hickey, ma’am, he’s asking for you, Guv.’

Kate licked at her torn lip, and wondered if she had any paracetamol in her desk drawer. ‘DCI Reynard.’

She listened carefully to the hurried message, then said, ‘Stay there. I’ll get some officers over to you straightaway.’ She hung up and looked at the others. ‘That’s the farm manager at Micah’s lodgings. He’s caught an intruder.’  She downed her coffee, winced, and grabbed her jacket. ‘Jon? With me. Gary, ask uniform if they could get a car over there. From what Hickey told me, we need to see this for ourselves.’

 

The intruder sat on the end of the bed, his head bowed. But they recognised him immediately.

‘Asher Leyton?’ Kate said incredulously. ‘I think you have a lot of explaining to do, don’t you?’

Asher slowly looked up at her. His face was a sickly pallor, his hair unkempt and his eyes, red and sore. ‘I’ve nothing to say.’ he whispered.

‘Well, I think otherwise.’ said Kate grittily. ‘What is your connection with Toby Tanner? And what were you doing with his belongings? Particularly his passport.’

Asher shook his head, but stayed silent.

‘Ma’am?’  Jon was checking the items on the desk. He lifted up the Filofax and turned the pages with gloved fingers. ‘There’s no entry in his diary about travelling abroad.’ Jon looked at everything carefully. ‘And no boarding cards or flight information either.’

Kate’s gaze travelled from Asher Leyton to Bill Hickey. ‘You said he’s gone to Germany.’

The big man shrugged and looked puzzled. ‘That’s what he told me. And he always made his own arrangements for things like that, so…?’ He shrugged again. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Do any of us? Perhaps you could explain, Mr Leyton?’ asked Kate icily. ‘Oh yes, and your lovely fiancée has been to see me. She’s worried sick. She begged me to find you, now she’ll be so pleased when she knows that you’re safe.’

Asher sank lower into the chair, stared at his hands, gripped tightly together in his lap, and miserably said, ‘I’ve nothing to say.’

As Kate tried to coax him into talking, Jon checked the Tanner’s belongings again, but there was nothing to indicate a trip. He carefully replaced everything in its original position, ready for the SOCOs to bag and tag it, then looked at the gold signet ring. He lifted it, slipped through the end of his pen, and as he did, he felt the slightest of vibrations pass through his hand.

Jon closed his eyes, and a vivid picture filled his mind. It was all he could do not to exclaim, but he covered it swiftly with a little cough. The picture was extraordinary; it seared itself into Jon’s memory, and then was gone in a flash. But Jon recalled every detail. A row of cages, in a dark, dirty room. Cages with big, crudely painted name plates on them.

‘Jon?’ Kate’s voice echoed in his head.

‘Sorry, ma’am,’ he muttered, placing the ring back on the desk.

She looked at him shrewdly, then beckoned to two uniformed constables who were waiting by the door. ‘Take Mr Leyton to the station.’ She shot Asher a cold stare. ‘He may feel more like talking when he sees the quality of accommodation that we have on offer. Hardly Granary Court, I’m afraid.’ Kate turned to Bill Hickey. ‘We’ll be closing this room up, and I’ll need you to call at the station to make a statement, sir.’

The man agreed, and went down stairs with the two policemen and Asher Leyton.

When they were alone, Kate frowned at Jon. ‘What did you see?’

Jon told her. ‘But I don’t know what it means.’ He stared at the passport. ‘Tanner never went abroad, did he?’

‘No. And he disappeared just around the time we made the discovery at Windrush. I think Mr Toby Tanner and Micah Lee were in this together.’ She shook her head. ‘But what on earth has our little curb-crawler got to do with it?’

Jon suddenly blinked. ‘Hey! What if they are all members of the drinking club?’

‘They could be, couldn’t they?’ Kate tried to smiled, then yelped and dabbed at her bloody lip. ‘And in Leyton’s case, that would tie in with the fact that one of the prostitutes down at Dock Street confirmed him as a regular. Maybe life with Hannah Montana isn’t fulfilling enough for Mr Leyton?’

‘So he gets his jollies with old Toms and at illegal sex parties.’

‘Mm. And Tanner?’ Kate looked at the ring, her eyes narrowing in thought. ‘I wonder..,’ she looked at Jon, and he saw what he could only describe as light dawning.

‘Earlier on, I saw a dead man. A hanged man. He was dressed in tough, outdoor clothing, strong boots, had no ID on him and no jewellery. Although I did see a pale line in the weathered skin around his little finger.’ She pointed to the signet ring. ‘A pinkie ring maybe?’

Jon exhaled. ‘Tanner didn’t go to Germany, he bloody killed himself! Either because he couldn’t live with the shame of being branded a pervert, or…’

‘Or because he knew what was beneath the ground at Windrush.’ Kate’s eyes were bright. ‘Time to get back to the station, my friend, but before we go..,’ She walked to the bedside table and picked up a small alarm clock. ‘I’ll get Prickles to cross-check the prints on this with those of the hanged man.’ She looked at him earnestly. ‘If we get a match, then I’m willing to bet that Tanner contacted his pervy little friend Asher Leyton, and let it slip that he was planning on topping himself.’ She frowned. ‘God knows how Asher knew he’d be at the mill, but I’m sure he’ll tell us in the fullness of time.’

Jon took one last look around the room. ‘Asher took Tanner’s ID to slow down the identification process. Naming a John Doe can take forever, so I kind of understand that, but why bring them back here?’ He walked to the door.

‘Are we sure he was bringing them back?’ Kate shrugged. ‘He may have been looking for something else, and then taken everything with him when he left.’ She walked after him. ‘I want this place searched from top to bottom.’

 

The CID room was thinning out as officers went home, but Rosie, Scott and Gary still worked on.

‘The boss is on her way back,’ Rosie hung up the phone. ‘I’ll order the pizzas now, shall I?’

‘May as well,’ said Scotty. ‘Extra cheese and no anchovies for me, please.’ He turned to Gary, ‘How about you, Gazza?’

‘Eh, yes, whatever you’re having is fine.’

As Rosie ordered the food, Scott smiled at the older policeman. ‘You’re quiet tonight, mate?’

Gary leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms out in front of him. ‘I’m missing something, Scotty. And it’s driving me nuts.’ He looked around the office. ‘Why would you dig up a body, and move it somewhere else?’

‘Because I was the murderer and didn’t want her found.’ said Scott immediately.

‘But the girl Fleur died of malnutrition.’

‘So he starved her to death,’ Rosie replaced the handset. ‘That’s murder too.’

Gary heaved in a big breath. ‘Mm, I suppose so.’

‘Or..,’ said Scott thoughtfully scrolling up and down on his computer. ‘I had to dig her up.’

Gary blinked. ‘For what reason?’

‘I was thinking of my mate’s dog actually. He’d buried his ashes in the garden, then his wife wanted to move, and he was gutted about leaving the dog behind, so he dug the urn up and took it with him.’

‘That’s possible.’ Rosie chewed on a thumb nail. ‘And thinking along the same vein, what if you had to dig her up because something was going to happen to the place she was buried?’

Gary stood up and walked around the office, stopping when he reached the evidence boards. ‘Yes, now that is a very good point indeed.’

The phone shrilled out, and Rosie picked it up. ‘It’s the lab.’ She said with her hand over the mouth piece. ‘Prickles has an urgent message for the Fox.’

‘Then I’d better take it, hadn’t I?’ said Kate, as she and Jon marched into the room.

‘Sorry, ma’am.’ Rosie handed her the phone sheepishly.

‘DCI Reynard here.’

Gary watched as her face changed. Whatever she was being told was important, and the whole team had picked up on it. When she hung up, three sets of eyes were staring at her hopefully.

‘Prickles has isolated two identical, and viable, prints from the Children’s Ward.’ Kate looked at them excitedly. ‘There is no match on our database, but from where he found them, they almost certainly belong to our killer.’

‘Where were they?’ asked Jon.

‘One on the underside of one the hospital beds; and the other on a clothes rail.’ She pulled out a chair and sat down. ‘And as Jon and I have just sent him some dabs from Toby Tanner’s house, we might have answers very soon.’ She exhaled and looked at Jon. ‘You tell them about our adventures down on the farm. My face hurts to talk.’

Gary half listened to the Sarge telling them about Asher Leyton and the hanged man, but something still niggled away in the back of his mind. He had felt very close to it, and then the DCI and the Sarge had arrived, and his train of thought had evaporated.

‘So does this mean we have to let Benedict Broome go?’ asked Scott. ‘We took his prints when we brought him.’

‘Not yet. Just because his prints weren’t in the Children’s Ward, doesn’t mean he’s not involved, and we still have to wait for forensics to tell us what occurred in that caravan.’ Kate shuddered. ‘That’s one report I’m not looking forward to reading.’

 

The food arrived and they ate at their desks. The initial thrill of knowing they had lifted prints from the scene had worn off. They still had to have a suspect to tie them to. And Kate was beginning to feel the effects of having been bulldozed to the ground by Micah Lee.

She had retreated to her office, simply because her mouth hurt so much that eating was almost impossible, and seeing their boss dribbling was not good for team morale. But still, she needed to eat if she was to keep her brain in gear. As she tried to force down a small piece of food, she thought about what Jon had told her about Fleur’s multiple injuries. It was almost certain that they were the result of serious abuse, but where did you start to look when the girl had been dead for two decades?

She washed down the gooey pizza topping with some coffee, and gave up on the crispy base. Apart from anything else, she couldn’t get Micah’s words out of her head. According to him, she had destroyed everything. And he had also said, “Let’s see how your family likes being torn apart.” The emphasis was on the word your, seeming to imply, that she had destroyed his family. But what family? Maybe he was referring to the dead girls? Kate thought that was probable.

A bark of laughter echoed in from the CID room. She looked through the open door and saw Gary practically levitate from his chair. Kate pushed the massacred pizza to one side and went out to see what was happening.

‘My God!’ Gary let out a shaky breath and looked at her apologetically. ‘Sorry, ma’am, but I’ve come to a terrible.., a really awful conclusion.’ He stopped, took a deep breath, and as the team watched him open-mouthed, he said, ‘It’s about Fleur, and Scott’s mate’s dog, and the onion processing plant.’

Kate blinked several times. ‘I’m not easily confused Gary, but you’ve done it with flying colours.’

Gary flopped back into his chair. ‘We were talking about reasons why you’d dig up a body, hence the dog’s ashes. Then Rosie said what if something was happening to the place where it was buried, and that’s just it! The rose arch. The place where the Sarge keeps seeing Fleur?’ Gary looked at her intently. ‘I now know where it is!’

‘It’s on the Hurn Point road.’ said a perplexed Rosie. ‘I did tell you.’

‘Yes you did, and you said that the ground has been razed, but the plans have been held up on the onion waste plant, right?’

Rosie nodded. ‘Has been for while apparently.’

Gary wrung his hands, like an angst-ridden, male Lady Macbeth. ‘Well, it’s only just come to me what used to be on that land.’

‘But I checked it, Gary. It was a riding stable. It went bankrupt.’ Rosie frowned and looked uneasy. ‘Did I miss something?’

‘No, Flower, you didn’t, but I did. It was what was there before, that I should have remembered.’ Gary looked almost sick. ‘There was a big house on the adjoining plot of land. It’s long gone, but it was called Alderfield.’

Kate stiffened. The name was familiar.

‘Alderfield was the home of Simeon and Charlotte Mulberry. Simeon, the man who killed his wife, then shot himself, in front of his children.’

Silence filled the big room, and Kate’s head danced with confusing thoughts and suppositions.

Fleur, the girl who was beaten and starved to death, was leading them constantly back to Alderfield.

And she was the oldest body in that dreadful underground burial chamber.

The first girl to be placed gently into a carefully made bed.  Fleur; the first of so many innocent girls.

Suddenly Kate found her voice. ‘Were you on that investigation, Gary?’

‘Not exactly, ma’am. I was at Harlan Marsh when it occurred, but it was such a sensitive case that most of us lower ranks were kept unaware of the full details.’

Kate looked across to where Jon was sitting quietly at his desk. He hadn’t spoken a word since Gary began his out-pouring. ‘Jon? Are you alright?’

He nodded slowly, then he rolled up his sleeve to expose a pure white hand print on his lower arm. Then, just as Kate was about to speak, she saw it fade and disappear.

‘She smiled at me.’ Jon sighed with relief. ‘I don’t think I’ll see her again. We may not have the full story, but we’ve made the connection, now she can rest.’

Kate’s head was still spinning. ‘We are going to have to uncover every damned thing we can about that case, especially where the girl fits in,’ she looked at Gary. ‘Do you know anyone who’d help us? Anyone who was involved in the original enquiry?’

‘Maybe, although whether he’ll talk is another matter.’ Gary puffed out his cheeks. ‘It was a bad business, ma’am, Harlan Marsh dealt with it, well, as far as they were allowed to. Then one evening a special unit arrived, and everything was magic-ed away. Evidence, reports, statements. Everything, including the DI that was heading up the enquiry. He was moved on over night, and in a month’s time, it was like it had never happened.’

‘Why?’ asked Kate in surprise.

‘We never asked, Guv. It was made very clear at the time that it was in our own interests to let it lie.’ He shrugged. ‘We knew the powers that be weren’t messing around when the DI, the only man to ask questions, found he’d been posted a very long way away.’

‘But you know where he is now?’

‘He retired years ago, but he came back to this area last autumn. He lives at Fosdyke; got a little place on the river towpath.’

‘Why all the secret squirrel stuff?’ asked Scott. ‘What made it so sensitive?’

‘The children, Scotty. They saw Simeon blast their mother across the room, then do the same to himself. It was to protect the children.’

‘Naturally, but surely there had to be more to it than that?’ Rosie frowned. ‘Evidence and investigating officers don’t usually get spirited away unless there’s either an in-house investigation, or someone hath right royally blundered?’

‘Maybe we’d better ask your old colleague, Gary. What’s his name?’

‘Duncan Hewitt, ma’am.’ Gary ran a hand through his hair. ‘But as I say, don’t hang by your eyelashes. This case was bad news for DI Hewitt, and last I heard he was still bitter as aloes about it.’

Jon packed up the left over pizza boxes and threw them in the bin. ‘If we are to find out what Fleur wants us to know about Alderfield, we are going to have to make him to talk to us, aren’t we?’

‘Tomorrow.’ Kate tried to yawn without stretching the torn skin on her lip. ‘Gary and I will go see him in the morning. After we’ve sorted out interviews with Asher Leyton, Benedict Broome and Micah Lee, if he’s not still away with the fairies.’

‘Can I make a suggestion?’ Gary asked Kate. ‘It might be a good idea not to mention anything about Alderfield, the Mulberry deaths, or ex-DI Hewitt to the Superintendent just yet.’

Kate’s eyes narrowed. ‘Believe me, I had no intentions. Explaining the simple stuff is hard enough, but telling her that we are sniffing around a closed and highly controversial case? Contrary to popular belief, I don’t have a death wish.’