Rope Enough (The Romney and Marsh Files Book 1) (27 page)

Romney hadn’t seen Julie Carpenter for nearly forty-eight hours. It felt longer. As the work day wound down, the activities, excitements and exertions of the previous night and the strain of the investigation were taking its toll on his energy reserves. As the office gradually emptied and the workplace bustle died away his energy seemed to drain away with it. It was with some effort that he roused himself from his chair, pulled on his coat and left the comfortable warmth and agreeable silence of his office for the wind and wet of the winter world outside.

He was grateful to Providence for setting aside Julie Carpenter for his enjoyment, temporary of otherwise. The short time that he had snatched from life with her had reopened his eyes to what lay outside of work. It had impressed upon him the necessity of the distraction, without which he would gently slide down into that sterile pit, void of emotion that it would be so difficult to climb back out of. That acknowledged, Romney was not sorry that she had a prior social engagement for the evening, unused as he was to juggling a professional life with a private one, especially one with such an energetic and insatiable woman.

*

In the morning he made his way to work with the kind of excitement fermenting in his gut that he associated with first dates. He’d been right about everything regarding Park and his involvement, he was certain of it. He’d read the youth like a favourite comic, and now he needed to be able to tie it all up. Being right meant nothing without convictions.

After a final briefing, Marsh was put in charge of the execution of the warrant to search Park’s home and common areas of the small block in which he and his mother lived.  She left with four other officers to make herself unpopular and with little expectation that anything pertinent to the investigation would be recovered. But appearances must be maintained. As far as the operation was concerned her remit was to give the impression that the police had taken the place apart searching for that crucial piece of evidence that Romney was almost certain wouldn’t be there.

At the last moment and to his obvious disappointment, Romney held the seasoned DC Grimes back from the search. ‘How do you fancy a nice stroll on the cliffs?’

‘In this weather, gov? What on earth for?’

‘Grab your coat and check out some wellies. I’ll tell you on the way.’

Grimes made a face to no one. ‘You’re the boss, gov.’

‘I know,’ said Romney, smiling. ‘See you in the car park in ten minutes.’

*

They stopped at a take-away patisserie and Romney treated them both to coffee and a pastry. It seemed to take the edge off Grimes’ apprehension at being singled out by his DI with no explanation, although the mystery of their outing appeared to still disconcert the long serving officer.

At nine o’clock in the morning their vehicle brought the total number of cars in the White Cliffs car park to one. The cafeteria behind them was boarded up for the season. The only people attracted to the bleak and open landscape at that time of year were hardy ramblers, the occasional joy-rider and the odd couple engaged in something mucky. As they sat looking out over the heaving brown expanse of the English Channel, sipping their drinks from Styrofoam beakers and chewing on their food, Grimes wondered what Romney had in mind for them. He hoped it was just a walk.

‘I want what we’re doing up here to remain between us for the time being, OK?’

Grimes didn’t find that encouraging. ‘OK, gov,’ he said, slowly.

‘The super knows and DS Marsh but that’s all.’ Romney offered Grimes a cigarette. ‘You still regularly walk up here?’ Romney had chosen Grimes for his well known knowledge and experience of the area as well as his experience as a copper.

‘Yes, gov. I still do the walk to St Margaret’s Bay a few times a year.’

‘Good. I need someone with some local knowledge. I want you to think about places where someone could conceal a pistol.’

Grimes breathed out a lungful of smoke as the penny dropped. ‘From the rapes?’

‘Yes. I’m working on the idea that Park gave Roper his send off from here the night before last. The pistol hasn’t been recovered and it’s the only thing I can think of that would persuade someone to the cliff edge.’

‘That would make it not a fake weapon then,’ said Grimes.

Romney nodded as he cracked his window. The wind howled in the narrow opening as the smoke was whipped away. ‘If Park is as guilty as I’m sure he is, that makes him a particularly nasty piece of work. And particularly nasty pieces of work don’t get rid of that sort of hardware once they’ve got it, especially as it was probably hard to come by.’

‘Where the hell would he have got a real gun from?’

‘I hope to be able to ask him that, but first I need it.’

‘What makes you think that it’s up here somewhere?’

‘It’s just a hunch. A long shot. I think that they might have spent the time we were looking for them hiding out up here in one of the old World War Two anti-aircraft emplacements.’ Grimes nodded. ‘If I’m right, and Park did see Roper off the cliff at the point of the gun, why not keep it hidden up here? If it does get found, so long as it’s clean, Park’s got nothing to worry about. It can’t be connected to him. If he’s hidden it well enough, then it’ll be secure for him for when he needs it next.’

Grimes, thought it through, ‘But if you find it and it’s clean how can you tie it to Park?’

The DI smiled. ‘Let’s find it first.’

Romney produced and opened up a detailed OS map of the area. He spread what he needed of it on the dashboard between them.

‘Roper went off here,’ he said, indicating a crude red ink cross. ‘This is the closest structure marked on the map.’ He pointed to a symbol that indicated the location was an historic monument. ‘You know it?’

Grimes studied it for a moment. ‘Yes.’

‘We’ll try there first.’

‘It’s a needle in a haystack, gov. I mean, if it is up here, it doesn’t have to be in one of the derelict structures. He could have buried it anywhere.’

‘I know,’ said Romney. ‘But Roper went off about midnight. It would have been dark and wet and cold up here. And lonely. My guess is that Park wouldn’t have had the tools to go digging a hole. And he probably wouldn’t have wanted to hang about in the weather. In the dark he would just have wanted to find somewhere recognisable, somewhere that he could easily find his way back to in a day or so. I doubt that he’d have imagined the police would be up here looking for it less than forty-eight hours later.’

‘With respect, gov, that’s a lot of what ifs and maybes. Then again,’ he added with a resigned tone, ‘that’s police work for you. Don’t you think that we could have done with a few more in the search party?’

Romney shook his head. ‘If we find it, we’re leaving it.’ Grimes gave Romney a strange look. ‘At the moment I don’t have anything to convict him with. We find the gun, we leave it here and let our boy go. Keep an eye on him and sooner or later he’ll be back, especially if he’s worried that he didn’t hide it very well in his rush.’

‘And we’ll be waiting?’

‘Someone will be. That’s why there’s only you and me. Wherever we look I don’t want the ground ending up looking like someone’s been herding coppers. We’ve got to be careful. I don’t want to leave a trace.’

‘You want him badly don’t you, gov?’

‘Yes, I do. He’s a serial rapist, a murderer. He is depraved and he has no conscience for his actions. He’s a sociopath and he’s only twenty-one. He has to go away before he wrecks other lives, which he will, I’ve no doubt whatsoever. It’s in his eyes.’

An icy wind cut an unimpeded swathe across the top of the cliffs worrying at the scattered low gorse bushes and throwing gulls around like discarded shopping bags. The men stood at the rear of the vehicle pulling on wellingtons and fastening coats. Grimes looked up into the low cloud and picked out an umbrella.

‘In this wind?’ said Romney. ‘You saw what happened to Mary Poppins?’

‘It’s going to rain.’

‘Then we’re going to get wet,’ said Romney.

Grimes waited and watched as the DI pulled on a thick waterproof coat, matching waterproof trousers, hat and gloves, thinking that he would have liked a bit more notice to kit himself out for a bracing stroll on the top of the world in winter. He stuffed his hands into the thin pockets of his flimsy and aged waterproof jacket and they set off, bending into the stiff breeze.

They were soon off the tarmac of the car park and heading single file along a narrow muddy footpath. The well-worn track followed a curved outcrop, a perilously long drop just feet away, and then descended steeply before rising at a similar angle to level out for some distance. Romney set a pace that Grimes found difficult to maintain between wiping at the dew-drops from his nose and his watering eyes. The surface beneath their feet was at once slippery and sucking. It was as though the elements and the geography were making sport of them. Not another living soul could be seen other than a few hardy ponies sheltering together. Grimes was soon wishing he’d been on the inside detail pulling apart a bath panel or going through a chest of drawers. The wind and terrain made conversation impossible as they pushed on to the first possibility.

The concrete and brick squat structure, incongruous with the surrounding greenery, sat jutting out from the contour of the land. A thick reinforced flat concrete roof over-hung the gaping viewing aperture beneath. Seventy years ago men sheltered here their eyes and binoculars trained on the skies for airborne enemies; a sentry of the last war that had been mercilessly battered by the elements since. The concrete shell was pitted and chipped as the rain and frost had penetrated and combined to blow the surface layers away. Rusting iron work carved up the grass: tracks that the anti-aircraft guns would have swung around on. The only sign of the twenty-first century was the Graffiti of a modern disrespectful youth.

It was completely open to the elements that blew in unchecked from the continent, people and any stray grazing animals. The evidence of all three was there for all to see. Weathering, rubbish, more graffiti – who was supposed to see this urban scrawl up here? Didn’t it miss the point of graffiti? – and the ubiquitous sheep shit that characterised abandoned country wartime installations.

They began by scouting around the outside, investigating any loose masonry and any likely concealed pockets in the soil, but there was nothing. Inside they used torches to peek into the darkest recesses. They kicked beer cans and scattered detritus of unhealthy picnics. In the shadows, Grimes stood in something soft that, disturbed, released a foul odour. He shone his torchlight down at his boot and was disgusted to see the brown excrement of what looked like human faeces smeared up his instep.

They rooted around for several minutes before Romney broke the silence. ‘It’s not here.’

‘Doesn’t look like it, gov,’ said Grimes, preoccupied with wiping his boot on the turf that had sprouted to carpet the inside.

‘Christ, what’s that stink?’ said Romney.

‘Some dirty bugger parked his breakfast in the shadows and I stood in it.’

‘That could be evidence,’ said Romney.

‘It’s evidence that whoever it was should see a doctor. Must have been blocked up for weeks.’

They took advantage of the shelter to smoke, but the smell from Grimes’ boot was overpowering and nauseating and they soon moved off in search of the next structure, a similar but smaller building some half a mile further along.

Grimes dragged behind trying to get the faeces out from the tread of his boots. His mood was not improved when he felt the light smattering of rain on his already frozen face.

Romney entered the narrow opening of the structure as Grimes came alongside one of the small apertures that served as a window. A pair of sheltering pigeons, startled by Romney’s entrance, exploded in a mass of thumping wings and feathers through the unglazed opening. Startled, Grimes reared up, slipped and fell backwards to land on his backside on the sodden earth with an angry cry. Romney hurried out of the structure believing that Grimes had found something only to find the man struggling to right himself. Romney was faced with a full view of Grimes’ mired backside.

‘Everything all right?’ called Romney, over the wind.

‘Fine, gov,’ shouted Grimes. ‘Lost my footing that’s all.’

Again they scoured the building inside and out, worrying any stone or surface that looked unstable or loose. But again, after some minutes, they were forced to accept that no weapon was hidden there.

They found some temporary shelter out of the worst of the weather.

‘Shit,’ said Romney, ‘I felt certain we’d turn it up.’ He retrieved the folded map from his inside pocket and wrestled with it as the wind played around them. Grimes pulled at his sodden backside. ‘The next one is about a mile along the cliff,’ said Romney, ‘although we’ll be getting further and further from where Roper went off. I’m not sure that Park would have gone so far that way in the dark.’

Grimes took the map from Romney. ‘It’s not just war emplacements up here, gov. This here,’ he said, jabbing at a symbol on the map with a digit as cold and as orange, from years of smoking, as a frozen fish finger, ‘is an ancient stone holy site. It’s just a pile of rocks now, but it’s somewhere you could easily conceal a pistol and it would be simple to find the place again.’