Tell Tale (12 page)

By end of play Wednesday, Davies was far from happy. The lads from North Prospect had gone ‘no comment’, each telling Davies and Riley they could ‘get stuffed’ if they thought they were going to split on their mates. A second night in the cells had seemed a step too far for what was a relatively minor offence and they could only get an extension to hold them if they thought fresh evidence would be forthcoming.

Back at Crownhill after a frustrating afternoon Davies slumped down in a chair while Riley stood at the whiteboard. The board had pictures of the slaughtered animals, the pentagram shapes, and several shots of the stone circle and the surroundings.

‘Crying for their mummies, you said.’ Riley tapped the board with a finger, trying to suppress a laugh. ‘Eating out of your hand. Spitting on it more like.’

‘Fucking scrotes.’ Davies leant back, feet up on the desk. ‘Old days and I’d have had something. That Branson’s a little whiner. He was about to crap himself before his lawyer stepped in.’

‘Trouble is, sir, these days the boys are wising up. What was it Howson said? “Human rights”?’

‘Fuck human rights, those scum are animals.’

‘And there’s the rub. They’ve sliced up several animals and, as John Layton says, it’s only one step to doing the same to a human. Thing is, we can’t charge them with much more than animal cruelty. They won’t be looking at a custodial. A slap on the wrist, a fine – which they won’t pay – and some community service for a community that would prefer to see the back of them.’

Davies mumbled something about grabbing a coffee and swung his legs down, pushed himself out of his chair and headed out of the room, leaving Riley staring at the board.

He tapped the board again for his own benefit. The mystery here was why on earth three lads from North Prospect had ventured onto the moor in the first place. Were they really Satanists or were they just larking about? Cans of lager, a spliff and the general lack of seriousness at the scene described by DC Denton suggested the latter. On the other hand the sheer effort involved in stealing a horsebox and then finding and catching a pony and bringing the hapless creature up to the stone circle pointed to something different.

‘Sir?’ One of Layton’s junior CSIs hovered at Riley’s shoulder. He held out a ziploc bag. ‘We’ve finished up at the circle. Not much more to report, but we did find this.’

Riley took the bag. Inside, silver glistened alongside a twist of leather twine.

‘What is it?’ Riley said, touching the piece of jewellery through the plastic. An infinity symbol was joined to a sort of double cross. ‘A New Age sign?’

‘Something like that.’ The CSI held up several photographs and pointed to one. ‘It was found here, right next to the kistvaen.’

‘I’ve seen this on the web,’ Riley said, turning the bag round and examining the object within more closely. ‘It’s a Satanic cross. A sigil.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Never mind.’ Riley shook his head and thanked the CSI.

With the man gone he looked again at the piece of jewellery. He’d learnt about the Satanic cross while researching devil worship and knew it was based on the alchemical symbol for sulphur and supposedly had magical powers. This one was made from silver and appeared to be high quality. On the back there was a tiny inscription. Riley squinted, but couldn’t make out the wording. He carefully removed the item from the bag, placed it on a desk and reached for his phone. A few seconds later and he was zooming in on a picture he’d taken. The inscription came up clear as day: RazCaz Design. A web search brought up the company’s address: New Street down in the Barbican.

‘Figures,’ Riley said to himself. ‘Tourists and all that.’

The Barbican was an old part of Plymouth that had escaped the wartime bombing that had levelled much of the city centre. A maze of tiny streets and alleyways hugged the quayside, and the area had numerous galleries, bookshops, bars and cafes. A little boutique selling handcrafted jewellery wouldn’t be out of place at all.

He placed the piece of jewellery back in the plastic bag. RazCaz had made this – but for whom and why? A sigil was connected to the occult. Could it belong to one of the North Prospect boys? Unlikely.

Riley returned to the whiteboard and looked again at the pictures of the crime scenes. There were three stone circles, the final one with a kistvaen at the centre. A kist was an ancient burial site chamber dating from thousands of years ago. The board was peppered with images of similar historical sites that Riley had printed from the web in order to get a handle on the number of such places on Dartmoor. Denton had guessed correctly which one would be next and, turning to the map at the centre of the board, Riley could see how. The three sites lay in a line. A game of join the dots. His eyes flicked from picture to picture once more. There was something wrong, a difference between one of the images from the web and the crime scene photos. Now he saw it.

‘Oh fuck!’

‘Hey?’ Davies materialised beside him, the steam from two cups of coffee wisping under Riley’s nose. ‘Found something?’

‘Take a gander at that.’ Riley pointed to the web picture of the kist and then at the crime scene photo that showed the spot where the sigil had been found. ‘Tell me what you see.’

‘Whoever took the crime scene pic is no David Bailey,’ Davies said. ‘Other than that, I don’t know what you’re on about.’

‘Notice anything unusual?’

‘What’s this, Darius? Spot the difference?’

‘Yes, exactly. The picture on the left is from the National Park Authority website. It was taken a couple of years ago. The image on the right is one John Layton took when we were out there after the pony had been removed. Can you see it yet?’

Davies stared again. ‘No, son, I can’t. They’re taken from different angles but apart from that—’

‘The centre stone. The one covering the kistvaen.’

‘Hang on, it’s bloody moved!’

‘Yes. In the first image the stone isn’t over the old grave. Many of the kistvaens are like that. The graves were plundered over the centuries.’

‘But …’

‘In the second picture the stone has been returned to what must have been its original place.’

‘What are you saying?’

‘I don’t know what I’m saying, but what I’m
seeing
is a stone that has walked a couple of metres sometime in the last couple of years.’

‘So this is something to do with the killing of the pony?’

‘Got to be, hasn’t it? I’m going to contact the DPA and English Heritage and see if they know anything about the site. If the rock has been moved without their permission then we’ll need to get up there with the appropriate authorities and get to work.’

‘Get to work?’

‘Yes.’ Riley nodded and stared at Davies, feeling a rush of excitement and realising he bloody loved this job. ‘We’re going to move the stone and see what’s underneath.’

Fox had spent the day at a community partnership forum in Newton Abbot. He had smiled, made the right sort of comments, pushed the third sector buttons when needed. Privately he thought the forum a complete waste of time. There were too many do-gooders there, too much talk about deprivation being a route into crime, as if these poor animals had no choice. The little darlings thought they had it tough as they sat drinking lager while watching satellite TV, their fingers gliding over the latest mobile phones. Fox could tell them a thing or two about tough. He’d grown up when poverty meant going hungry, not going without expensive gadgets.

After the handshakes all round, the photographs with the local dignitaries, and the promises to act on the page after page of waffle the forum had produced, Fox headed for his car. Within minutes he’d escaped the late afternoon traffic surrounding Newton Abbot and was gliding east along the dual carriageway towards Exeter.

The medley of light classical music was interrupted by a call. Fox flicked the hands-free button and answered the phone.

‘Simon,’ the disembodied voice said. ‘Thought I’d better catch up. Let you know how I’m dealing with this problem of yours.’

‘Not mine,’ Fox said, flooring the accelerator for the climb up Haldon Hill. ‘Ours.’

‘Yes.’ Silence. Just the sound of the engine as Fox guided the car around the sweeping bends.

‘And?’

‘And I’ve had a word with somebody. Up in London. Understand?’

‘You mean—’

‘Yes. You don’t need to know the details. Suffice to say it’s all in hand.’

‘Good,’ Fox said. ‘I’ll just pray you’re successful.’

The call ended and the radio leapt back into life, a wash of violins filling the interior of the car. For a moment Fox felt elated, a huge weight lifted from his mind.

Whatever the price …

Then he recalled the man’s words from the night before and wondered if he’d made a mistake involving him. He had an edge, a sinister side. And if this played out he’d be back to extract payment.

The man had taken an age to come out of the toilet and Irina had wondered what on earth he was doing in there. When he finally emerged he’d grabbed his bag from Irina and stomped off, mumbling something about ‘having words with the manager’. He’d threaded his way through the tables and disappeared. Irina had breathed a sigh of relief and then she’d taken her phone from her pocket and stared at the picture she’d just taken. An electricity bill, the man’s name and address top right. Mr Adam Creasey, thirty-three Glenmore Avenue.

Now Irina sat on a bench in a small park at the end of the road. She could see the front door of number thirty-three through the hedge bordering the park, and as far as she knew, Mr Creasey was inside. She’d been sensible enough to grab a can of Coke and one of Dave’s egg mayonnaise baguettes, along with a cinnamon swirl. For the first thirty minutes she’d sat and fiddled, but now the warm sun relaxed her and she reached for her lunch. The Coke can fizzed open and the baguette tasted wonderful. She simply had to sit, wait, and watch. At some point Creasey would emerge and Irina could take a closer look at his house.

It was several hours later when Creasey pulled open the front door and stepped out. Irina had been dozing, and it was the sound of Creasey dropping some plastic crates onto the pavement beside his van that woke her. She blinked and peered through the hedge. Creasey disappeared back inside the house and came out a minute or so later with a couple of black bin liners. He opened the boot of the van and put the crates and bin liners inside. For a moment he stood behind the van, staring across the road towards the park. Irina turned her head away until she heard a door slam and an engine start. When she turned back, Creasey was driving off.

She left the remains of her lunch on the bench, crossed the park and exited through a little iron gate. Creasey’s house was in a long terrace, the doors opening directly onto the pavement. At the rear of the terrace a cut ran behind the houses. The houses had little backyards and stone walls separated the cut from the yards, wooden gates allowing access. Irina crossed the road and headed up the alley. The cut was cobbled and uneven. A motorbike with its rear wheel missing sat chocked on a couple of blocks nearby, while farther down a silver 4×4 with tinted windows was parked close to an abandoned shopping trolley. Tall green bins stood out the back of each property.

Irina glanced up and down the cut. Nobody. She started walking, counting the houses as she did so. She needn’t have bothered, because Creasey’s house was recognisable by the stack of plastic boxes that tottered above the fence. She stood for a moment at the gate. A crack in the wood revealed a bare yard with a concrete shed in one corner. An old bicycle leant against one wall and a green hose ran across the slabs in spirals, a trickle of water seeping from the end. Irina could see now that the concrete was wet. Creasey had been washing down the yard. She took another glance up and down the cut, then reached for the handle on the gate. The catch lifted and the gate swung open. She stepped into the yard, closed the gate behind her. Beneath the latch she found a bolt which she slid across.

Although the yard was overlooked on both sides, Creasey had erected a sort of pergola structure topped with translucent plastic roofing sheets. The shoddy arrangement hid the back of the yard from the neighbours. Irina scanned around the yard. A plant pot with a sad-looking fern stood to one side of the back door. She went over and tilted the pot. Underneath several woodlice scuttled away from the light, but there was no sign of a key. Too obvious, she thought. She searched round some more. A broken slab revealed more woodlice and the gap near the fence at the rear of the yard was filled with weeds, dirt and not much more. Damn. She examined the pergola and wondered about climbing it to access a first floor window. She had the strength in her arms to lift herself, but the wood felt soft and rotten. It was when she reached up to touch one of the supporting beams that she saw the glint of metal. Pushed under one end of the plastic roofing was a set of keys on a loop of string. She hooked her finger in the loop and pulled them down. There was a Yale lock, two keys for deadlocks, and a number of smaller keys.

Irina turned to the concrete shed. A rusty iron hasp had a large padlock threaded through its eye. The second of the smaller keys Irina tried clicked open the lock. She removed the padlock and placed it on the floor, then pulled back the hasp and opened the door. Inside there was a smell of something metallic and another odour, stronger. Something like drains gone bad. The floor of the shed glistened with moisture.

Irina bent and touched the floor. Wet. Creasey had used the hose in here too. She stood and looked around. Tools hung on the wall. A range of saws, some large knives and a meat cleaver. Over to one side, several lengths of rope dangled from a beam along with a section of chain. There were more white crates as well and Irina moved closer to investigate. The crates too had been washed and when she put her face down she could sniff a faint aroma of bleach.

There was nothing else of interest in the shed so she moved back out into the yard. For a second she hesitated. Maybe it was time to go to the police. The trouble was that there was nothing further to go on. No trace of Ana. Just a sense that something wasn’t right. Irina pulled out the bunch of keys again. She walked across to the back door and tried one of the big flat deadlock keys. The key slotted in and she turned it, hearing the lock click. She pressed down the handle and pushed open the door.