Tell Tale (23 page)

She woke to a phone call from the duty sergeant. Thor Wodan was dead.

Savage pulled herself from her bed, grabbed some clothes and went down to the kitchen. The clock on the cooker glowed a cool green. Three a.m. Another call came in as she was getting dressed and she stumbled across to silence the handset.

‘Charlotte?’ It was DSupt Hardin, not sounding pleased to be awake in the small hours. ‘Nightmare, this, Charlotte.’

‘Sir?’

‘You visited him yesterday. You and DC Calter. I’ve seen the action list, so don’t try to deny it.’

‘I’m not trying to deny it, sir. What’s the problem?’

‘Jesus, woman, he’s dead! That’s the bloody problem. You should have seen this coming.’

‘Sir, how—’

‘Two police officers visit a man and a few hours later he’s murdered. We’re going to have to report ourselves to the IPCC. Duty of care and all that bollocks.’

As Hardin began to explain his thinking on how they’d handle things, Savage wondered if there was any truth in what Hardin said. She felt a pang of guilt. Thor Wodan had been scared and she’d let him down. She shook her head, wrote a message to Pete, and left the house.

The alleyway leading to the bookshop had been cordoned off and two uniformed officers stood on the pavement. Not that they had much to do; Totnes wasn’t exactly buzzing at four in the morning. Savage pulled up and parked in a disabled bay where a set of police cones had been placed. As she got out of the car, one of the officers approached.

‘DI Savage?’ She nodded. ‘John Layton’s in there waiting for you. They didn’t want to move anything until you arrived.’

Savage thanked the officer and pushed under the tape that had been strung across the entrance to the alleyway. The passage was dark and Savage had to grope along one wall until she saw a rectangle of light at the far end. Beyond the passage, the lights from the bookshop’s front window illuminated the area. Two of Layton’s CSIs stood next to a stack of equipment. One of them acknowledged Savage as she went to open the door.

‘PPE, ma’am.’ He reached down into a plastic crate and pulled out a white protective suit, some gloves, bootlets and a mask. ‘John was most specific.’

Savage thanked the technician, clambered into the suit, put on the gloves, bootlets and mask, and entered the shop. As she did so, she looked up at the top of the door. The little bell hadn’t rung and Savage noticed there was a catch that could be moved up and down. The catch was in the ‘up’ position, preventing the bell from ringing.

She negotiated the maze of little rooms until she came to the atrium. A white-coated figure stood at the till area, dusting the cash register. The drawer was open. In the centre of the room a huge bookcase had tumbled over. John Layton knelt beside it. From one side a leg and arm poked out. Layton spotted her and stood.

‘A PC arrived to investigate the alarm,’ Layton said. ‘He assumed Wodan had disturbed a burglar and that some sort of fight had ensued. The officer took a pulse, but it was pretty obvious there was no chance he’d survived.’

Books lay strewn across the floor, not just in the vicinity of the bookcase but everywhere. Half of the displays had been cleared, volumes swept from the shelves in a wild frenzy. Savage stepped across the undulating sea of books until she reached Layton. Along with the leg and arm there was a pool of blood.

‘There’s a lot of blood for a crushing injury.’ Savage looked down at the crimson stain.

‘Yes. We’ll need to wait until we can lift the bookcase to know for sure, but I think we’ll find that’s not the cause of death. The shelves were pushed over to cause confusion, to make it look like some sort of theft.’

Layton gestured to the doorway, where the two CSIs from the front of the shop had appeared along with two other officers. They approached the bookcase and began to lift it, Layton taking pictures as they did so. As the bookcase tilted upwards the remaining books on the shelves slid out and tumbled down onto the body. The CSIs manhandled the bookcase and leaned it back against one wall.

Wodan was lying face-down, blood seeping from underneath his chest. Books were scattered everywhere and he was half-buried in a mass of yellowing paperbacks. Layton and one of the CSIs began to remove the books, throwing them to one side. As the books were removed, Wodan’s body was revealed. He was almost naked from the waist up, his shirt hanging loose in shreds. Bruises covered his upper arms.

‘He was held down,’ Savage said, pointing at the bruises.

‘Where’s Nesbit?’ Layton said. ‘He should be here to see this.’

It was another thirty minutes before Nesbit turned up, by which time Layton was having kittens.

‘Evidence,’ he muttered to Savage as Nesbit got suited up. ‘Every minute counts and the sooner we can turn the body over the better.’

‘Sorry, Charlotte, John,’ Nesbit said. ‘I went to the theatre and switched my phone off and forgot to switch the pesky thing on again when I got home. Somebody had to come and knock on my front door. Now then, we want to turn the body, yes?’

Nesbit moved towards the corpse. The CSIs had cleared much of the floor of books, but Nesbit still had to move aside a couple to find space for his bag.

‘There’s a joke here somewhere,’ Nesbit said, staring down at a glossy hardback. ‘But I’m buggered if I can think of one at the moment.’

The pathologist knelt and began to examine the body. He touched one arm and moved it slightly. Then he turned his attention to the pool of blood spreading from beneath the chest area.

‘This didn’t come from the fall or from the bookcase crushing him. There is likely a puncture wound under there somewhere.’ Nesbit spent another few minutes examining the corpse before asking Layton and one of the CSIs to roll the body onto its back. Nesbit stepped to one side to let them through.

‘Shit.’ Layton and the CSI moved out of the way, leaving the body face-up, one arm held in rigor and pointing skywards. ‘More than a puncture wound.’

What remained of the front of Thor Wodan’s white shirt was stained red. His chest was a mass of red pulp, three gleaming white ribs exposed, a gaping hole behind them. Savage swallowed and behind her, one of the CSIs retched.

‘Now this is interesting,’ Nesbit said. ‘It appears we have a bit of DIY surgery. Look at that flap of skin, it’s been cut on three sides of a square and then peeled back and folded over. I’d say something like a scalpel or other razor-sharp instrument must have been used to make the incision.’

‘While he was alive?’ Savage said.

‘Oh yes. From the amount of blood, there is no way this was done post-mortem.’ Nesbit moved his hand to the exposed ribs and then poked his fingers through. ‘These ribs have been broken. They are no longer attached to the sternum. In fact, looking at the ends, I can see they’ve been cut much in the same way as would happen in an autopsy.’

‘Any idea why?’ Savage said.

‘Well …’ Nesbit moved his head from side to side and peered into the cavity behind the ribs. ‘I’d say they did it in order to cut out the man’s heart. You see, by the look of things, it’s missing.’

‘My God!’ Savage turned away for a moment and tried to resist the urge to vomit. Being sick over one of John Layton’s crime scenes wouldn’t endear her to the CSI. She swallowed again and looked back at Nesbit. ‘How the hell …?’

‘Not difficult, if you know what you’re doing. He must have been held down securely because the incision on the flap of skin is very neat. Not something which could be made if he was thrashing around. Which explains the bruises on his arms.’

‘Two or more people then. Plus the person doing the cutting. And then …?’

‘Barbarism, Charlotte.’ Nesbit shook his head and looked at her. ‘They must have used something like pruning shears to cut the ribs and then a few slices with a long-handle scalpel to cut the heart free. As you can see, the blood has gone everywhere. The man was alive. At least to start with.’

Savage turned away again. If there was anything more to know Nesbit and Layton would fill her in later. Right now she wanted to get outside and feel a breeze on her face, to see the sky lightening in the east, know that this sort of darkness wasn’t perpetual.

After spending most of the day in Totnes, Savage returned to Crownhill. She stood at one of the whiteboards in the crime suite, pretending to cast her eye over the spider’s web of lines John Layton had drawn. Every now and then she glanced away, taking in the people in the room, wondering whether somebody had leaked the information about Wodan. Just a few hours after she and Calter had visited the bookshop, the owner had been killed. Either his murder was an almighty coincidence or one of the team had passed on the lead she’d discovered in Hedford’s flat.

DC Enders and DC Calter sat sharing a terminal and arguing about something on the screen. Savage couldn’t see either of them being connected to the killings, but maybe she couldn’t afford to be so confident. Enders had a young family, three kids, a mortgage. There’d be financial pressures. Was it beyond the realms of possibility he’d taken a bung? Maybe he hadn’t even known who he was supplying the information to. DC Calter was single, no family. Savage didn’t see her as the type to respond to financial inducement, but perhaps she had a secret lover, somebody she was so besotted with that she would do anything for them.

Gareth Collier sat at a desk on his own sorting through paperwork. The office manager was ex-military, rule-bound, methodical. He was also something of a loner. Savage had never seen him joking with other officers and he was always missing from social functions. Was there a more sinister reason than mere social awkwardness?

On the far side of the room DCI Mike Garrett was talking to two indexers. Garrett was working on a case involving people-trafficking. He’d been interested in
Piquet
from the start, ostensibly to share information about missing persons who could possibly be victims. Maybe his interest was for a different reason?

Savage tutted to herself and moved away from the whiteboard and pushed through the double doors into the corridor. There were twenty-five people working on the case. Junior detectives, indexers, statement readers, ancillary staff. And that was just people at the station. What about Dr Andrew Nesbit and his team, or the CSIs and uniformed officers helping out at crime scenes? Once you thought ‘conspiracy’, you opened a Pandora’s Box of paranoia. Anyone could, and maybe should, be a suspect, their intentions questioned, their actions scrutinised.

‘Ma’am?’ DS Riley came round the corner. ‘Anything new?’

Riley surely couldn’t be a suspect. He’d only been with the force for a couple of years. Before that he’d been up in London. And yet hadn’t he been all-too-willing to step over the line to help her?

‘Darius,’ Savage said. ‘I’m going mad in there. I don’t want to believe one of us is involved in all of this. But when I look round the room I can see horns everywhere.’

‘Horns?’

‘The devil.’ Savage put a finger up either side of her head and waggled them. ‘Or rather, the devil’s accomplices. Fallen angels, demons, ghouls and zombies. I’ll be having nightmares about DC Calter turning into a Medusa or something.’

‘Pete’s around at home, yes?’

‘Of course. You don’t think …?’

‘That we’re targets? I don’t want to be melodramatic, but yes, ma’am, it’s possible. But I’m not necessarily talking about this case, know what I mean?’ Riley whispered the last words.

‘Simon Fox?’ Savage too lowered her voice.

‘Yes. You and Fallon had a little meeting the other morning. Over breakfast. A BLT and an omelette.’

‘Jesus! How the hell did you know that?’

‘One of Davies’ little dicky-birds told him, and he in turn informed me.’ Riley held up his hands. ‘You don’t need to tell me if you’ve made a move already or if you’re planning something, but I’d think about the consequences.’

‘Shit. Samantha and Jamie.’ Savage shook her head. ‘He wouldn’t?’

‘I don’t know.’ Riley paused and glanced up and down the corridor. ‘But if I was you I’d give Fallon a call. Get him to provide you with a heavy or two who could watch over your kids, see them to and from their friends’ houses, keep an eye on them. Discreetly, of course. I’m sure he’d be happy to oblige.’

Savage was sure too. Then she’d be further in his debt. And yet, knowing one of Fallon’s muscle men was a few steps away from her children would reassure her. She nodded and then moved off up the corridor, heading for her office.

‘A whole new meaning to the phrase “Police protection”, Charlotte,’ Fallon said when she explained the situation. ‘But you’re on. Be somebody outside your place from when you leave in the morning until you return at night. Just leave it to Uncle Kenny.’

She hung up to the sound of Fallon chuckling down the phone at the irony of the situation. She leaned back in her chair and cursed. She hadn’t considered her children in all this. She’d focused on her own feelings, on retribution at all costs. Stupid. Samantha and Jamie and Pete were the most important things in her life. Not Owen Fox, nor his dad. Not police work, not catching criminals, not even bringing Ana Róka’s killer to justice.

Savage pushed back from the desk and stood. She’d had enough for the day and, all of a sudden, the place she most wanted to be now was home.

All day, Fox had brooded. It had finally happened, just not in the way he had imagined.

He’d had a call from his son. Savage had visited Owen. She’d gone out of her mind, Owen said. Completely bonkers. She’d pulled a gun on him and then pistol-whipped him.

Savage had to be stopped. And Riley. The DS knew everything Savage did. But knowing was one thing; pulling a stunt like Savage had was quite another.

And now all hell had broken out over in Totnes. A brutal murder in a bookshop. The press were linking the killing with the pony mutilations and the body found on Dartmoor. Chasing information, Fox found out it was far more serious than that. The murdered Hungarian girl was somehow mixed up in it all too. Jesus, Fox thought. What the hell had his friend been up to?

Fox sat in his study staring at the phone. He’d felt certain that Savage would play it by the book. Now it appeared as if she’d gone straight to Owen. The little lamp on his desk flickered and for a moment Fox felt a sudden panic. If the light went out the room would fill with darkness. The nothingness would come sweeping up and around him until black enveloped everything. He took a slow breath and reached out for the lamp’s switch. He turned it off and then back on again. Off. On. Off. On. Off. On. Certainty.