Two Evils: A DI Charlotte Savage Novel. Mark Sennen

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СКАЧАТЬ reached for the roll and gently teased it open. Wrapped within was a small piece of something like china or white plastic.

      ‘God-bod Biblical stuff,’ Enders said, peering down at the writing. ‘Hellfire and damnation. Sinners will burn in the fires of hell sort of thing. Me being a good Catholic boy, I should recognise exactly where in the Bible this comes from, but I don’t.’

      ‘What’s the white thing?’ Riley asked.

      Enders picked up the object and let the parchment fall back into the box. ‘Looks like porcelain or some kind of fine china.’

      Riley stared at the parchment as the light material rocked back and forth in the wind. Was this part of the publicity stunt? If so, they’d certainly made an effort with the paper prop. The piece of broken china was another matter.

      ‘Nothing else in the tube then?’ Riley asked. Enders picked up the tube and stared inside. He shook his head. Riley pulled out his phone and held it out level in front of him. ‘Put the piece of china on there, would you? I want to look at it more closely.’

      Enders placed the little white object on the glass screen and Riley held the phone up close to his eyes. The surface wasn’t uniform, nor was the shape. It was around half an inch long and bulbous at each end.

      ‘This isn’t china,’ Riley said. He gestured at the item. ‘It’s a piece of bone.’

      The water was creeping round the edge of the houseboat when Savage arrived. A series of scaffold boards had been fixed to uprights sunk deep in the mud and rope hung between the uprights to provide some sort of notional security. She placed a foot onto the first board, feeling the wood strain beneath her, and walked out to the boat. ‘Boat’ was rather a grand title for what amounted to a bodge job of plywood, old window frames and off-cut timber. Beneath the superstructure lay the remnants of an ancient barge, black with layer upon layer of a tar-like antifoul. The boat didn’t look seaworthy and Savage doubted it could get anywhere under its own power. Likely as not this would be the barge’s last resting place and when the owner was dead or gone the boat would rot down to the frame in the same way as the one along the shore had.

      She stepped onto the deck. In front of her, a regular house door in white PVC plastic and glass stood incongruously between two pieces of salvaged teak. She was about to knock on the glass when she saw something move at the far end of the boat. Somebody was back there.

      ‘Hello?’ she said.

      The figure glanced up for a moment before disappearing from view. Savage edged along the side deck until she came to what she guessed must be the stern. Lobster pots and crab creels lay strewn about a large platform. To one side a dozen marker buoys stood in a jumble amid a nest of rope, their flags fluttering in the wind. Nearby there was a stack of white crates and a figure in a huge black cloak was sorting crabs from one crate to another. An unlit wooden pipe stuck out from a full beard.

      ‘If you’re after a lobby, you’re out of luck,’ the man said, the pipe jerking up and down as he spoke. ‘Shrimps I’ve got, or else one of these nice spiders.’

      ‘Police, Mr …?’ Savage moved from her precarious position on the side deck and onto the rear platform. ‘Just a few questions.’

      ‘Larry.’ Larry laughed to himself and then held out a huge spider crab towards Savage. The legs wiggled helplessly in the air while the claws snapped open and shut, searching for something to clamp onto. ‘Larry the Lobster.’

      ‘Detective Inspector …’ Savage leant back, avoiding the creature as Larry moved the crab nearer to her face. ‘Detective Inspector Charlotte Savage. We’re investigating the disappearance of a young boy. He was out digging bait next to the wreck.’

      ‘Gone under, has he? Should have learnt to read the tide tables. Can’t help idiots, I’m afraid.’

      ‘We believe he made it back to the shore. We found his bucket. We also found a pipe out in the mud.’ Savage pointed at Larry’s mouth. ‘You’re a pipe smoker.’

      ‘When I can afford it. And yes, I lost one out there the other day.’ Larry shook his head and then sneered. ‘You think I’ve got him, do you? Down below confined in a giant creel with the others?’

      ‘Larry, this isn’t a joking matter. The boy is eleven years old. He’s a kid.’

      ‘When I was only a couple of years older, I was working for a living out on the blue.’ Larry held up his right hand and Savage saw it had only fingers, no thumb. ‘That was how I lost this. Caught on a trolling hook as the line went over the transom. Right into the bone. Wireline it was, so the skipper had no choice but to cut my thumb off, else I’d have been dragged down to the deeps.’ Larry turned to the crate of spider crabs. ‘That lot would have been eating me, instead of the other way round.’

      ‘He was out there late yesterday afternoon. Some time about five or six o’clock. Did you see him?’

      ‘Seen nothing. Around then I was probably cooking my tea.’

      ‘We have a couple of witnesses who saw him hanging around on the shore near here.’

      ‘Really?’ Larry’s voice was deadpan, wholly disinterested. ‘Told you, I saw nothing.’

      ‘Here.’ Savage reached into her jacket and pulled out the misper leaflet she had of Jason. ‘This is the lad. Maybe you didn’t see him yesterday, but can you tell me if you recognise him? His name’s Jason.’

      Larry held out his hand, the one with no thumb, his first two fingers open like scissors in a rock-paper-scissors game. The fingers clamped shut on the picture. Like crab claws, Savage thought.

      ‘Jason you say? Interesting.’ Larry stared down at the image as if the name would allow him access to some secret hidden in the ink. ‘Jason. I have seen him before, but I didn’t know his name, more’s the pity.’

      ‘When did you last see him?’

      ‘I swapped some bait he dug for a couple of crabs. Some time a few weeks ago. Maybe before that too. Good lad from what I remember. Polite.’

      ‘He came here? Onto your boat?’

      ‘Yeah. Stood right where you’re standing now.’ Larry smiled and then glanced down at the deck. A pile of fish guts sat near a pool of blood up against a hatch in the deck. Larry nodded at the hatch. ‘I invited him in for a cuppa, but the lad said no. Was something in his eyes. I didn’t push it. People talk, love, don’t they? A man and a young boy? Doesn’t bear thinking about what folks would say. Mind you, when folks do talk, you lot don’t do anything, do you?’

      ‘What are you getting at, Larry? Do you know something?’

      ‘Lass, I know a whole lot more than I’m telling, but not about the boy. Seen this sort of thing afore, years ago, but nobody believed anyone then. I’d be looking closer to home if I were you.’

      ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘He was unhappy. I told you, I could see it in his eyes. Deep down.’

      ‘Thanks for the advice.’ Savage turned to go. She didn’t need help from a crazy old fisherman turned psychologist. His pipe may well have been found out near the wreck, but the man knew nothing. ‘If СКАЧАТЬ