Tell Tale (4 page)

‘I’m not sure I do, Mr Kinver,’ Savage said, thinking Kinver was again giving her way too much information. He seemed keen to show her the extent of his lasciviousness. Was it an act? – or maybe he was trying to flirt, even though his wife was but steps away. ‘Anyway, what makes you think this girl was young and pretty?’

‘Hey?’ Kinver cocked his head, nonplussed. Then he returned his attention to the kettle and poured water into two mugs, adding teabags to each afterwards. ‘Her picture, of course. On the driving licence. Cute little thing, I thought.’

Shit, Savage had forgotten about the licence. For a moment she’d thought Kinver had let slip something. Kinver was squeezing the teabags with a spoon while gazing out the window at his wife. He was mumbling about how he was very much in favour of the EU if the migrants were all like Ana.

‘Send ’em over, I say,’ he said as he turned and deposited the mugs on the table. ‘The more the merrier.’

‘But you’ve never seen her before?’

‘No.’ Kinver grimaced. ‘And I don’t reckon I’m likely to get the chance now, am I?’

‘You’re jumping to conclusions. Most missing persons turn up at some point. Fingers crossed this girl does too.’

‘Oh she’ll turn up all right.’ Kinver pulled out a chair and sat down. He raised a finger to his mouth, licked the tip and then lowered his hand and ran his finger along the smooth edge of the tabletop. ‘But she won’t be winning any beauty contests when she does, will she?’

Irina Kryukov sat on a bench on the Hoe and cried. The sun shone down from a clear blue sky and out to sea the water sparkled. Yachts crawled back and forth, wallowing in the light airs. A rib loaded with divers carved a foamy white trail in the water as it sped towards the breakwater. Close at hand, on the huge grassy expanse of the Hoe, people lounged around with ice creams or a beer or two. A family had just unpacked a substantial picnic and a young kid of three or four was grasping for the bottle of Coke. Nobody seemed to be taking any notice of Irina, everybody seemed to be enjoying themselves. But they hadn’t had to find out what she just had.

The knock on the door had come first thing in the morning. A uniformed female police officer stood on the step outside, reluctance written all over her face.

‘It’s about your housemate, love,’ the officer said. ‘Anasztáz Róka? We’ve found some of her things on Dartmoor. Somebody will be round to take a statement later, OK?’

Job done, the woman had turned and walked away.

Irina sniffed and used a paper tissue to wipe away some of her tears. The little boy with the picnicking family looked up and pointed at Irina, but his mother grabbed his arm and wheeled him round. Irina felt completely alone, as if nobody cared.

It was a feeling she’d had when she’d first come to the UK from Russia a couple of years ago. She’d arrived in London pretty much penniless, planning to spend a few days there before heading off to start her course at Plymouth University. After seeing the sights of London, which – truth be told – were pretty poor fare compared to Moscow, she’d hitch-hiked west. A lorry driver had offered her a lift and then halfway down the M4 he’d pulled off at Membury services and asked for payment. ‘I’m going as far as Bristol. A blow job’ll get you there. Or you could let me fuck you and I’ll bung you twenty quid so you can get a train the rest of the way.’

Irina had wrenched the door of the cab open and tumbled out into the drizzle. The man had cursed and asked her what the problem was? After all, weren’t all Russian girls whores? Then he’d chucked her rucksack down, started the truck and roared off. Irina had lain on the wet tarmac, nursing a bruise and a bunch of shattered illusions. Maybe, after all, England wasn’t the Promised Land. Maybe people were pretty much the same wherever you went.

She remembered her father’s reaction on hearing the news she intended to leave Russia. ‘Different seas,’ he’d said. ‘Different salt in the water. You either like the taste or you don’t.’ Certainly her first taste had been sour, but after a nightmare few weeks things had improved, and over time some of her faith had been restored. She had a nice room in a shared house and a part-time job in a cafe. The winters were warmer, if wetter, than Moscow, and this year the British summer had been a scorcher. She’d had a brief fling with a lifeguard who’d taught her how to surf and although the relationship had ended she’d enjoyed herself while it lasted. The UK, all in all, wasn’t so bad.

Until now.

Although Ana Róka had only come to Devon half a year or so ago, the Hungarian girl had quickly become Irina’s best friend. She guessed it was because they shared a common experience in making the physical and psychological journey from East to West. When Ana had gone missing, Irina had been distraught. But the police had seemed uninterested. They had carried out a few checks and then told her they could do nothing more. People went missing all the time, they had said. Especially foreign immigrants. She’ll likely as not turn up. That story seemed to have changed now.

Iri
na screwed up the paper tissue and lobbed it into a nearby bin. She stood and weaved her way across the Hoe, dodging the picnickers. Perhaps in the UK people did go missing all the time, she thought. But in Russia, when somebody went missing you knew something very, very bad had happened to them.

Colours whirl on the huge outdoor screen, most people on the plaza paying little attention as the soundless pictures flash by. Chubber’s paying attention though. Chubber’s
interested
. The newsy news is always interesting, but today’s is especially so.

The screen shows a presenter talking to the camera. Behind him cars and vans. People in uniform. The blue of water. Trees and granite tors. Moorland.

Moorland, Chubber? We don’t like the moor, do we?

That’s not right, Chubber thinks. The moor is fine – as long as it’s not dark and you avoid stone circles and the man with the antlers on his head. That’s when things get scary. When the man starts talking and Chubber starts listening and the man tells Chubber things he doesn’t want to hear about demons and ghosts and the devil and people who get hurt if they open their mouths to tell stories to anyone who might listen only they won’t listen because the stories are just stories so it’s better to keep quiet and do what they say than be caught and suffer for ever in the fires of h … h … h …

Don’t think about it, Chubber, don’t!

Chubber opens and closes his mouth like a fish out of water. A rush of panic fills his chest. He checks the sky for the sun. The big ball of fire is up there, hot and yellow and high and a long, long way from the horizon. Chubber breathes deep. No need to worry. He’s done exactly as Antler Man asked. Everything is OK. He focuses once again on the huge screen and the subtitles that scroll along the bottom.

Breaking news: police searching Dartmoor reservoir after clothing of missing waitress found …

Chubber stares. Reads the words. Feels excitement tingle across the back of his hands. Feels a swelling
down there
.

Chubber! That’s naughty!
Down there
is very bad.

‘Hot chocolate?’

Black and white blocks Chubber’s view for a moment. The black of a dress, the white of an apron, more black flows like liquid down legs cosseted in sheer hosiery. He looks up, smiles, and meets the eyes of the girl as she places the drink in front of him.

‘Thank you,’ he says. Nice girl. Lovely girl. Beautiful girl. ‘Thank you very much.’

The girl half smiles back but there’s a sadness behind her expression. Chubber wonders if the girl has been crying. Wonders if she needs comforting. Maybe the smile is an invitation. Does she want him to reach out and touch her thigh? Her leg is so close, clad in shimmering nylon, the inner part not thin, but fleshy, soft, succulent.

Succulent, Chubber?

Yes. The word reminds him of ripe fruit, a plum or a nectarine perhaps. Sink your teeth into a plum and the goodness flows out. Forget touching, maybe he should bend his head and bite her down there. Where she’s juicy.

No Chubber! This place is much too public for that! Too many people.

Chubber stares around. Tables lie scattered outside the cafe. People are walking back and forth across the plaza. Yes, much too public; far too many people. Instead of bending and biting he lets his eyes follow the waitress as she moves away, glides and slides between the tables and heads back inside the cafe. The uniform suits her, he thinks. The way the material flares out from the waist, accentuating her shapeliness. Making the most of her curves, her hourglass figure.

Hourglass. Like an egg-timer, Chubber. Sand. Trickling downward. Marking time while the eggs boil dry.

Chubber shakes his head. He doesn’t like time. The way the seconds slip past. Clocks tick. Hours go by and Chubber finds things haven’t changed much. He needs to do something about that. He needs to act.

‘Oh well,’ Chubber says aloud. ‘Faint heart never won fair maiden.’

‘Pardon?’ An elderly woman sitting at the next table looks across. ‘Did you say something?’

‘Huh?’ Chubber says and then crunches his nose in a sneer. ‘My business. Not your business. You mind yours and I’ll mind mine, OK?’

He scrapes his chair around so he won’t have to look at the crone. Concentrates instead on the waitress. He can see her in the cafe, talking to a customer. Then she slips behind the counter. Uses a pair of tongs to retrieve a cream éclair from the cake cabinet. The tongs squeeze the cake, the cake lets out a long sigh and the cream oozes out.

‘Ah!’ Chubber says. ‘Lovely. What a lovely, lovely girly girl.’

A snuffle comes from behind him. Chubber hopes the old dear is choking on her dentures. He pauses. He really shouldn’t be doing this, shouldn’t even be here. If Antler Man knew, he’d be angry. Very angry. Still, he can’t know, can he? Chubber reaches into his pocket and pulls out his pencil. Licks the tip. Takes a napkin and flattens it. Bends to the table and writes a note to the waitress. She’ll read the note and maybe next time he comes into the coffee shop she’ll ask him out.

He slips a ten-pound note on top of the napkin and moves back his chair. The girl looks over from another table, mouths a ‘thank you’ and starts to move towards him.

‘Oh Chubber-Chub-Chubs,’ Chubber says as he hurries away. ‘Chubber’s been a bad boy. Naughty Chubber. Bad Chubber.’

He doesn’t look back as he pushes across the plaza. He kicks the side of a pushchair as a young mum comes by. Barges past an elderly man who is as slow as a snail on coarse-grit sandpaper.

Sand again, Chubber? It’s slip, slip, slipping away. Marking time. Hours rushing past.

‘Busy, busy, busy,’ Chubber says as he skitters away and turns off the plaza, heading down Royal Parade. ‘Got things to do today. At home. Best get back. Kettle on the boil. Things on the go. Deary, deary, deary me my Chubber-Chub-Chubs.’

Major Crimes operated out of Crownhill Police Station, located on the north side of the city, away from the centre. The building was a modernist brute of a structure in brown concrete, the colour choice not lost on the officers within or on a number of the more quick-witted of their clients. Savage arrived back from the moor mid-afternoon and went straight to the crime suite, where a DC informed her that DSupt Hardin wanted to see her.

‘Pronto, ma’am,’ the DC added. ‘As in, now.’

Savage about-turned, headed to Hardin’s office and rapped on the door. Hardin’s ‘enter’ came with a splutter and when Savage pushed the door open she found him attempting to pat himself on the back with one hand while wiping up a pool of coffee on the desk with a bunch of tissues held in the other. The DSupt’s bulk filled his chair and most of the space behind the desk. He was a big man, often mistaken for an ex-rugby player. However, Savage reckoned Hardin would never have had the dexterity for ball games; tug-of-war would have been much more his thing.

‘Just had a phone call, Charlotte,’ Hardin said, screwing up the tissue paper and chucking the soggy mess in the bin. ‘Dan-bloody-Phillips, the crime reporter on the
Herald
. He tells me they’re going to town with this one. “Moorland Killer on the Rampage” is to be the headline. Nightmare.’

‘“Killer”? Where did he get that from? I’m still hoping the girl is alive and there’s some rational explanation for her disappearance.’

‘Hey?’ Hardin raised one eyebrow. ‘Come on. You and I both know it’s only a matter of time.’

Savage sighed. ‘Yes, sir. You’re right. But how does Phillips know that?’

‘That photographer of his. He’s been up at the reservoir. Got some shots of Frey retrieving the webbing strap. Phillips reckons lorry driver. Only he’s made the leap from there to killer. He tells me the Yorkshire Ripper was a truck driver. That right, Charlotte?’

‘Yes, but it’s a stretch isn’t it?’

‘Not really.’ Hardin leant over the desk, careful to avoid the damp patch. ‘You see, Phillips reckons the presence of a certain female officer lends credence to his argument. DI Charlotte Savage is, apparently, Devon’s hotshot detective. When she turns up, you know the bodies can’t be far behind.’

‘Fiction, sir. Headlines to sell newspapers.’

‘Of course,’ Hardin clucked. ‘Anyway, he wants an interview with you. A feature with pictures and everything. He told me he’s already come up with some taglines. “Killer Thriller”. “Red Handed”. “Juliet Bravo”. I’m thinking of passing this one to the PR guys. They love this sort of stuff. If you’re up for it?’

Savage cocked her head on one side and tried to read the grin that had appeared on Hardin’s face. ‘Respectfully, sir, I’d rather resign from the Force than do that sort of publicity shit.’

‘Ha!’ Hardin laughed. ‘That’s what I told him you’d say. Now, about this lorry driver business. Phillips may have something there. I’ve got the preliminary report on the webbing from John Layton. It’s a heavy-duty tie-down most often used by hauliers to secure loads. The hair is still being analysed, but the stain is most likely a commercial oil of some type. That does say lorry driver to me.’

‘Possibly. But he didn’t drive up to Fernworthy Reservoir in his vehicle, did he? The roads on that part of the moor are way too narrow. If you did somehow get up there you’d struggle to turn around. And whoever dumped Ana’s clothing up at Fernworthy Reservoir knows the area well. I think they’re local.’

‘What about these boys on North Hill? Reckon it could be something to do with them?’

Hardin was referring to an as-yet unidentified group of men who were targeting female students walking home from the centre of town. The police suspected that the men were using mobile phones to communicate information about women who looked so drunk they could barely walk. They’d identify those women as easy targets and one of the gang would home in and persuade – or force – the victim to have sex with them.

‘There have been a number of rapes, but nothing like this.’

‘Maybe something went wrong. The girl banged her head or choked on her own vomit. Somebody decided to hide the body.’

‘Possible, but there’s no evidence to suggest she was out on that night. True, if she was she would have walked home along North Hill, but Fernworthy is a heck of a long way to go to dispose of a body. If, of course, a body is what we are looking for. But then the clothes by the lake are pretty conclusive. She had no transport of her own so I can’t see how she could have got there without someone else’s involvement. This doesn’t look like suicide to me, nor do I think she’s gone back home to Hungary.’

‘So where the hell do you think she is?’

‘Well, Inspector Frey is almost positive she’s not in the reservoir. Which just leaves the woods, the rest of the moor and anywhere else that might have taken the killer’s fancy. I understand the search and rescue teams are out today and the helicopter is going to be taking a second look too, but to be honest, sir, Frey is right when he says searching for her without a better idea of where to focus is a complete waste of time.’

‘Bloody gun-touting idiot. I’ll decide whether it’s a waste of time or not. The man’s not happy unless he’s steaming in somewhere with a machine gun nestled under one arm and an Andy McNab paperback under the other.’

Savage tried not to smile. Hardin’s view of the tactical support group was that they were a bunch of trigger-happy nutters.

‘The police search adviser pretty much concurs, sir,’ she said. ‘Until we get some more information, we are better off not spreading our resources.’

‘The PolSA? Right.’ Hardin drummed his fingers on the desk. ‘Well if we’re not going to look for the girl just what the heck
should
we be doing? Appealing to the killer’s better nature and asking him to turn himself in?’

‘An appeal is a good idea. Finding the clothes means we might be able to put together some form of reconstruction. Fernworthy is a busy place this time of year, so if anybody saw Ana there an appeal will jog their memories.’

‘Relying on the public. You know I don’t like that, Charlotte.’ Hardin nodded over at his phone. ‘All we ever get are hoax calls, dreamers and people with nothing better to do than waste our time. Sure, we’ll go with an appeal, but have you got any better ideas?’

Savage almost snapped back, ‘have you?’ But instead she said: ‘We need the usual pulling-in of known sex offenders and then I think we should conduct a full-scale search of Ana’s house, forensics and everything. When the initial misper report came in there was a cursory examination of her room but that was the extent of it. Now we can ratchet up the investigation a level or two.’

‘Three or four I think,’ Hardin said. ‘We just so happen to have the honour of the Crime Commissioner visiting us for a tour tomorrow. And he’s bringing some other dignitaries with him. Charles Milner for one.’

‘The MP?’

‘Yes. Milner’s local, of course, but he’s also on the bloody Home Office Select Committee. He can pull strings and raise budgets. Conversely, he can cut them. So for the moment, this case is a priority, right? I want officers redeployed from the stabbing on Union Street and see if you can draft people from some other lesser investigations too. We need to sort this fast – and establish Anasztáz Róka’s disappearance has nothing to do with any kind of serial killing. That should wipe the smile from Dan Phillips’ face and hopefully put this station in the Crime Commissioner’s good books.’

Simon Fox, the Chief Constable of Devon and Cornwall Police, sat inside his car in his garage. He wore his full uniform, the silver buttons reflecting the sterile light from a fluorescent tube mounted on the wall above a workbench. On the bench an array of tools lay in neat rows, the light glittering off them too. He’d spent many happy hours in here, the bonnet up on whichever car he happened to own at the time, tools clinking on metal, an oily rag to wipe his hands on. In the end though, he couldn’t kid himself he was doing much more than tinkering. These days modern cars were so complicated that tinkering was all you could really do.

Fox reached over to the passenger seat for the bottle of whiskey. He’d drunk half the contents but he needed more. Dutch courage. Hell, any sort of courage. He unscrewed the cap and took a deep draught. He’d long ago passed the drunk stage and now every extra gulp added clarity to the situation. And the clearer things became, the clearer the solution to his problems.

He peered over his shoulder into the rear of the Jaguar. The car was an estate, an XF Sportbrake. Perhaps it was a bit of a cliché for a senior officer to have such a vehicle, but Fox didn’t care. His grandfather had owned an XK150 from new. Fox wondered what might have happened to the car, where it was now, how much it would be worth. There was of course nothing to say the car was still around. It could have rusted away, crashed, or been crushed.