Two Evils: A DI Charlotte Savage Novel. Mark Sennen

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СКАЧАТЬ grinned, but before he had a chance to move up the bed his mobile rang. He stared across at the phone, willing the bloody thing to stop.

      ‘I thought you had the morning off?’ Julie said.

      ‘The morning, yeah, but I’m on call from twelve.’ Riley looked over to the bedside clock. Eleven twenty-seven. By rights he was off duty for the next thirty-three minutes, but as a sergeant on the Major Crimes Investigation Team he couldn’t simply ignore the call. He tumbled off the bed and padded across to where his phone sat on the windowsill. ‘Darius Riley,’ he said.

      ‘Sounds like one of my bad jokes, sir.’ The voice came with an Irish lilt and a couple of laughs. ‘There’s a coffin with a body in it on a beach. Oh, and an ice cream. A ninety-nine has a big part to play in all of this, I kid you not.’

      ‘Patrick,’ Riley said, recognising the caller as DC Patrick Enders. He stared out of the big floor-to-ceiling window. His flat had a good view of Plymouth Sound and the grey sea bristled with whitecaps. The October day didn’t look hot enough for ice creams. ‘Where’s this?’

      ‘Jennycliff. You know, the place over on the—’

      ‘I know where it is, Patrick.’ Riley shook his head. Enders was one for over-explaining. If something could be said in ten words where one would do, Enders would oblige. Riley looked to his left across the water. Lying on the east side of the Sound, Jennycliff was a small open area with sloping grassland and a path which led down a cliff face to a stony beach. ‘In fact I can see the cafe from here.’

      ‘I’m waving, sir. Can you eyeball me?’

      ‘Don’t be stupid, I haven’t got binoculars. Get to the point, would you?’

      ‘I got a call that there was a body on the beach and that the circumstances were suspicious. I went over there and found the body down on the foreshore in some sort of coffin or box. The coffin’s on a raft. I reckon the whole thing must have floated in on the tide, pushed up by these strong winds.’

      ‘Male or female?’

      ‘Female, sir. But I only got a peek at the body for a second or two. There was a crowd of people and the PC with me slid the lid back on sharpish. Then we moved the lot of them back up the path and away from the beach. The PC is standing at the top of the path now, stopping anyone going down. I’ve—’

      ‘Fine.’ Riley turned away from the window. Julie shook her head and waved one finger in a playful manner. ‘I’ll be right there, Patrick. Thirty minutes, OK?’

      ‘Naughty boy,’ Julie said, as Riley hung up. ‘Just when things were getting interesting you’re off.’

      ‘Sorry,’ Riley said, as he watched Julie trace a line on her stomach. ‘But don’t do anything without me, OK?’

      Savage and Calter boarded the car ferry for the journey over the Tamar to Torpoint. The trip only took five minutes or so, but every time she made the crossing Savage liked to get out of her car and climb the steps to one of the raised deck areas. Calter accompanied her. Half a mile away to the south, the wide expanse of the river turned east through the Narrows and ran into Plymouth Sound. Torpoint lay ahead, on the west bank of the river, cut off from Devon by the Tamar. To reach the town you had to use the ferry or take a twenty-mile detour via the Tamar Bridge.

      ‘Over there, is it?’ Savage pointed to the far shore. ‘Behind the ballast pound?’

      ‘Yes, ma’am. Marine Drive. Jason was out on the mud apparently, but the RNLI and the MoD boats haven’t found him.’

      ‘Christ, I can’t imagine what the mother’s going through. Let’s hope my theory’s correct and he’s just bunked off somewhere and ended up round a friend’s house.’

      The rhythmic clanking of the chain slowed as the ferry neared the far side of the river and Savage indicated they should return to the car.

      Ten minutes later and they’d parked up at the top of a slipway on Marine Drive. A row of houses stood on one side of the road, while on the other lay the estuary, a vista of Plymouth over the water. The tide was out, the beach a mixture of shingle, seaweed, rock and mud. A dozen officers – a mixture of detectives and uniforms – awaited Savage’s briefing. They’d been assigned a list of roads to work along and all Savage needed to do was gee them up a little. She gave her standard talk on the importance of procedure, on how seemingly tiny details could turn into major pieces of evidence, and sent them on their way.

      After they’d gone, she decided to walk along the foreshore. The main part of the Tamar estuary turned to the east, leaving a vast area of mud to the west. The shoreline curled round to a little bay at the head of which was a boatyard. Before that, some fifty metres from the shore and half submerged in the mud, lay the hulk of an old wooden ship. The curving timbers of the frame resembled the skeleton of a whale and inside the whale stood a real life Jonah. Savage stared across. She couldn’t make out much about the figure poking in amongst the timbers except that he wore a Tilley hat.

      John Layton, their Senior CSI.

      She moved along the shoreline and then walked down to where the shingle turned to mud, watching Layton struggle across a patch of brown towards her. The CSI had an almost obsessive eye for detail and order which, when it came to crime scene management, proved invaluable. His obsession didn’t stretch to his appearance though. Sludge smeared his thigh-high waders and covered much of his clothing. There was even a splodge of sticky gloop atop his hat. Layton reached Savage and with one hand tilted the hat in greeting and then used his little finger to scratch his nose. The nose was Roman, shaped like a ski jump with the end chopped off, and the finger deposited a blob of muck right on the tip. Layton’s other hand held up a plastic evidence bag.

      ‘What the hell are you doing out there, John?’ Savage said. ‘If you’d slipped over you’d have been in a spot of bother.’

      ‘Going to do me for not running a risk assessment, are you?’ Layton said. ‘Only, if I hadn’t gone out there I might never have found this.’

      Layton passed Savage the bag.

      ‘Right.’ Savage took the bag and peered at the contents. Water and mud sloshed around inside, but there was something else in there too, something wooden and bent in a J-shape. ‘What is it?’

      ‘Dirty habit. Mind you, somewhat out of fashion these days.’

      ‘A pipe.’ Savage could see now as she moved the object around in the bag. ‘But what’s it doing out there and how did you know to look?’

      ‘The boy’s mother said Jason used to play around the wreck.’ Layton waved a hand at the expanse of mud. ‘I knew he’d been digging bait down here, but to be quite honest I didn’t know where to start searching. It’s an impossible task, so I figured I’d just take a quick look at the old ship.’

      ‘And what could the pipe have to do with Jason’s disappearance?’

      ‘Somebody was digging out there. Although there’s been a couple of tides, the water hasn’t entirely removed the evidence. You can see spade marks.’

      ‘The pipe could belong to the bait digger.’

      ‘Or the pipe could belong to somebody who was out there when Jason was digging bait.’

      ‘And СКАЧАТЬ