CUT DEAD: A DI Charlotte Savage Novel. Mark Sennen

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      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 СКАЧАТЬ