Tell Tale (5 page)

In the rear of the car a vacuum cleaner hose tumbled over the back seat. Fox had attached the hose to the exhaust pipe using gaffer tape and then led the tube up through the hatchback. He’d pulled the hatch shut as best he could and secured it with a bungee cord. Then he’d stuffed a couple of blankets in the gap. Not airtight, perhaps a bit of a bodge job, but good enough.

Tinkering.

The word summed up his career, his life. Fox wondered whether fiddling around was all anyone could hope to do. You tried to make a difference, to change people’s lives for the better. In the end though, whatever you did, you ended as dust. Atoms spinning in the infinite void, never again to experience anything. Fox wallowed in a growing feeling of despair. Many years ago he’d been faced with depression, but he hadn’t let it get the better of him; he’d beaten it and come out stronger. This time, he knew it was different. This sort of depression couldn’t be beaten. This time he couldn’t win.

Fox took a final swig from the bottle and then screwed the cap back on. He placed the bottle carefully on the passenger seat and then his hand strayed to the keys in the ignition. He turned them a notch. The lights on the dash lit up, the aircon began to hum and the navigation system came on. A blinking icon indicated that the sat-nav couldn’t lock onto any satellites to fix its position. Lost, Fox thought. Completely and utterly lost.

The wrong turn had come miles back, an error of judgement undoubtedly, but one made with what at the time had seemed the best of intentions. Covering up his son Owen’s involvement in a hit-and-run accident in which a young girl had died had been a remarkably easy decision to make. Owen had been high on drink and drugs, and the effect on Fox’s career had the truth come out would have been cataclysmic. At the time Fox had told himself he’d done it for Owen and his young fiancée – Lauren, pregnant with the couple’s first child – and not for his own selfish reasons, but deep down he now wondered at the veracity of that. Sure, Owen had reformed. Fox had forced him into a boring job, forced him to begin to accept the responsibilities that came with fatherhood. The lad had abandoned his old friends and was now a model citizen. Still, there’d been a heavy price to pay. Fox had had to call in favours and make promises to keep the truth from coming out. The problem was corruption had a stink about it and however hard you tried to keep things airtight, sooner or later there was always a leak.

There was the human cost as well, not just to his own sense of psychological wellbeing but to the parents of the victim. And that the mother should be one of his own workforce compounded the situation. Every time he met her he worried that she could read the guilt on his face. He, in turn, could see the pain on hers. She’d never got justice, never found peace. The latter, Fox reckoned, would never come, but justice? Well, some sort of resolution to the whole stinking mess lay just around the corner, the next turn on his journey.

Fox lay back in the seat and closed his eyes. Imagined the classic XK150 with his grandfather at the wheel. Soon, perhaps, he’d be sitting beside him, rolling through countryside bathed in the sunlight of an endless childhood summer. They’d park up somewhere on a village green where they could watch a game of cricket. His grandfather would reach into the glove compartment and pull out two tins and his pipe. The first tin contained boiled sweets, and Fox was allowed one every time a four or a six was scored or a wicket went down. His grandfather would take the other tin and tap his pipe on the lid three times, open it and fill the pipe with tobacco. Then he’d light up and they’d talk about the game in front of them or football or rugger. Whether Simon would like to come fishing with him. The same life but another time, a simpler time. A better time.

F
ox felt tears welling in his eyes. Disgusted with himself for his lack of courage he blinked the moisture away. Then he turned the keys another notch. The engine started and exhaust fumes began to pump into the car.

When Savage pulled the car into her driveway, the sun hovered low above the Cornish coast; Plymouth Sound bathed in light. Sunday was all but gone. Back at Fernworthy the search teams had given up for the day, the latest report from Frey stating there was a high probability Anasztáz Róka wasn’t in the reservoir. The bankside and woodland area designated by the PolSA had been scoured inch by inch and nothing had been found. Results from the search and rescue groups engaged in a wider sweep of the moor were equally disappointing.

Savage paused at the front door, taking a moment to switch off and leave the day’s events behind. Her kids didn’t need to know that a girl was probably lying naked and dead in a shallow grave somewhere on Dartmoor. Her husband wouldn’t want to be filled in on the minutiae of misper procedures. Her role as a police officer ended at the threshold to the house. And yet she couldn’t leave behind everything that had happened today. Seeing Owen Fox, holding the pistol in her hand as she’d watched him go about his business, unfettered by guilt, had made her realise she couldn’t let things go on as they had. She owed it to herself, to her family and most of all to Clarissa, to find a way to make Owen pay for what he’d done. She just needed to think of a way to do it without endangering everything she loved. Savage took a deep breath and then went inside.

In the house she found Pete in the kitchen tossing a salad, an apron tied round his waist. Pete was the epitome of a good-looking, clean-cut naval officer, but he still looked ridiculous wearing the apron.

‘From absent husband to househusband in just a few months,’ Savage teased. ‘I might just be the only person in Plymouth grateful for the defence cuts.’

‘Careful,’ Pete said, waving a wooden salad spoon at her. ‘I still hold a high rank in the Navy and as such am in charge of an array of formidable weapons.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes.’ Savage ducked as Pete used the spoon to launch a cherry tomato across the room. ‘Mind you, I might be in need of some gunnery practice.’

Savage laughed and then picked the tomato up and lobbed it back at Pete, running from the kitchen before he had a chance to retaliate. In the living room, Jamie and Samantha were arguing over which movie the family were going to watch for their regular Sunday film night. Jamie wanted something with cartoon animals while Samantha was keen on anything with vampires and pale, unhealthy-looking males. By dinner time they’d plumped for some Disney movie and they sat with bowls of pasta on their laps, pigging out.

An hour and a half later, with the end titles streaming up the screen, Savage’s mobile rang. She pushed herself up from the sofa, reached for the phone and stumbled out of the darkened room and into the hallway.

‘Ma’am, it’s me.’ It was DC Enders, his Irish accent providing all the introduction needed.

‘Yes, Patrick?’ Savage said, closing the door to the living room to shut out the kids’ conversation as they played out the funnier bits of the movie.

‘The Hungarian girl.’ Enders paused, but Savage knew what was coming next. ‘We’ve found her.’

Savage sighed, the laughter coming from the children suddenly grating. She walked into the kitchen, opened the back door and went out into the garden. Pete had set a sprinkler to water the lawn and as she walked across the grass a fine mist caressed her face.

‘Tell me.’

‘At the reservoir. Not far from where the fisherman found her clothes. In fact, he was the one who found the body. Dodgy, if you ask me, ma’am.’

‘Right. Are you up there now?’

‘No, I’m at the station. John Layton and Inspector Frey are there though. The pathologist has been called.’

‘Thanks, Patrick. I’m leaving now, tell them I’ll be there in an hour.’

Savage hung up and stared across Plymouth Sound towards the lights of the city where, despite it being a Sunday, the night would be getting into full swing. A wash of tiredness swept over her. A fitful night had been followed by a long day. The stress of seeing Owen Fox had worn her out and the news about the Hungarian girl was the last straw. She felt as if she barely had the energy to climb the stairs to bed. For a moment she considered phoning Enders back and telling him she couldn’t make it, that a family crisis had intervened. Then she remembered the passport photograph of Anasztáz Róka. A blonde girl far from home. Lost and now dead. She was somebody’s daughter too.

‘You selfish cow,’ Savage said to herself.

Then she wiped the moisture from her face and went back inside.

Darkness had enveloped the moor when Savage arrived at Fernworthy. A patrol car guarded the lane to the reservoir, its blue strobing light casting pale fingers into the trees. An officer waved Savage through and she drove to the car park. Then she was directed to where the body lay, some two hundred metres west of the reservoir in dense woodland, in an area that had supposedly been searched at least once.

‘It’s not good enough, Nigel,’ Savage said, trying to contain her anger as she walked up to Frey in the near blackness beneath the canopy of trees. ‘The girl should have been found at the first attempt. Your search pattern was mucked up or somebody boobed.’

‘No,’ Frey said. ‘I won’t have that. You can see the paperwork if you like. The quadrants the PolSA laid out were dealt with methodically. I’ll stake my job on it.’

‘Well, you may have to.’

John Layton had insisted on a fifty-metre perimeter around the scene, and from where she stood Savage could see a patch of bright light in which several suited figures worked. The CSIs were moving away from the body, trying to establish a safe route back and forth. It was another thirty minutes before Layton came across to Savage and Frey. The senior CSI had abandoned the Tilley hat he was usually seen in because it wouldn’t fit beneath the hood of his white suit. As he approached, he pulled the hood down. Layton was mid-thirties, maybe a little older. He had dark hair and a slim face, beady eyes that missed nothing. The eyes flicked back and forth between Savage and Frey. Then he scratched his pointed nose and nodded at Frey.

‘You’re off the hook,’ he said. ‘She’s not been there long. An hour or two at the most. She’s lying on several fronds of bracken that have only been crushed recently. There’s no way she was here this morning.’

‘That doesn’t make sense,’ Savage said. ‘Are you saying she was dumped
after
the initial search?’

‘Yes. Right under our noses. Sense and science can sometimes contradict each other, however difficult that makes things for us.’

‘Nigel,’ Savage said, turning to Frey. ‘I guess I owe you an apology.’

‘Accepted, Charlotte,’ Frey said.

‘How long has she been dead?’ Savage turned back to Layton.

‘You’ll have to wait for Nesbit for an estimate, but nothing like a week for sure. The body’s in a bit of a state though. Little cuts and scratches all over her. Something like she was running through the woods naked and the branches and brambles scoured her skin.’

‘Cause of death?’

‘Haven’t got a whiskers. There don’t seem to be any major external injuries. I guess she could have been strangled. Do you want to take a look?’

Savage nodded and went to find a suit and all the other paraphernalia. Suitably attired, she followed Layton down the little trail he had prepared. Festoon lights had been hung between the trees, creating a corridor of luminance which wound through the woodland, almost as if the path was leading to a fairy grotto. At the end of the path the burning glare of several halogen bulbs turned night into day. Beyond the circle of light the surrounding forest disappeared into utter blackness. As they approached the CSIs, Layton put out a hand.

‘Close enough, Charlotte,’ Layton said. ‘We haven’t completed our detailed search of the immediate area yet.’

Savage nodded and stared through the undergrowth to where white skin contrasted with black peat. The body lay half in a drainage ditch, the face partially submerged in the dirty water. The right eye was open and gazed out across a film of scum and forest detritus, while the left was below the surface. The girl’s peroxide-blonde hair floated in a fan-like pattern, individual strands moving as a slight current washed past. A blob of dark mud had splattered one cheek and several pine needles had drifted into a nostril. Savage looked closer. The girl’s body was tumbled in an odd way. The right leg came out at a weird angle to the body while the right arm was twisted underneath her head. A contortionist would have struggled to adopt such a pose.

‘It’s a strange position,’ Savage said. ‘Whatever the killer meant by posing her like that is beyond me. If she was posed.’

‘I can’t see how she fell with the arm behind her head,’ Layton said. He gestured at the trees and the undergrowth. ‘It would take some effort to force it into that position. I don’t think it could have happened by accident.’

Savage noticed the scratches Layton had mentioned. They were shallow enough to have been caused by brambles or cat’s claws or fingernails. They certainly weren’t terminal. Her eyes followed the outstretched leg from the toe up to the thigh to the dark triangle of pubic hair.

‘Any sign of sexual assault?’

‘No.’ Layton shook his head. ‘Nothing I can see from an external examination. Small blessing that it is.’

Savage moved her attention to where the woodland encroached on the circle of light. There were no paths and the scrub was dense. Layton was right, Ana couldn’t have run fast enough to cause her limbs to twist round in the way they lay. Yet the scratches suggested she had been running. Savage tried to imagine her last moments. How long had Ana been stumbling around the woodland naked? Had she managed to avoid the killer for hours and then somehow come across him again? She’d fallen and the killer had pounced on her. As his hands had closed around her delicate neck she’d screamed and thrashed. The killer had hit her and then pinned her leg with his body. In the struggle her arm had been twisted behind her neck. Maybe the killer had used his forearm to crush the girl’s windpipe while the other hand held her arm. And yet, Savage reminded herself, none of that had happened here. If Layton was correct the body had been dumped recently. It was even possible Ana had been alive as the teams had searched for her that very morning.

‘Any sign of which way the killer came?’

‘No,’ Layton said. The CSI sighed. ‘In fact I can’t find any meaningful footprints. That could be because he – or she – came up the drainage ditch. I’m thinking of damming the ditch and draining the water to see if I can find any footprints. The only other conclusion would be that she’d flown here by magic, right?’

Savage nodded. ‘Where’s Nesbit got to? The sooner we can get the time of death the better.’

‘On his way,’ Layton said. He turned and padded back towards the body to join the other CSIs. Savage stood for a moment and then made her way down the avenue of lights back to the perimeter and from there to the car park. She stood next to her car and gazed across the ink-black water, where pinpricks of starlight speckled the surface. After dark, there was no reason for anybody to come here, but in the day Fernworthy Reservoir was a popular place. There would be families picnicking, fishermen fishing, walkers and mountain bikers exploring the woodland. It was inconceivable Ana had been attacked anywhere near here in the daytime – or even been moved here – without somebody noticing. Unless, as Layton had suggested, magic was involved.

Savage stood next to the mobile incident room van and watched Dr Andrew Nesbit, the pathologist, climb out of his car in the gloom. He put his black bag on top of the car and began to put on a protective suit, pulling the outfit up over a tweed jacket and tie. She guessed he’d be unimpressed with John Layton’s hypothesis concerning magic. The methodical way he put on the suit, gloves, hat and mask said it all. When it came to performing his job, scientific method was everything. There was no room for spirituality. His gangly form had been compared by many to a spider, but Savage wondered if a robot might be a more apposite choice. His matchstick-like limbs moved efficiently to ensure the gear went on with the minimum of fuss, although Savage was surprised when he performed a small flourish as he snapped the latex gloves in place. Perhaps the pathologist didn’t realise anybody was watching.

‘Charlotte,’ Nesbit said, as he walked over to the van. He looked up at the clear sky above, and as he did so, starlight glinted on his half-moon glasses. ‘Beautiful evening. I must admit I don’t get up on the moor as much as I’d like. Then again, I don’t get anywhere as much as I’d like these days. And to be honest, you guys don’t help. Catching them, Charlotte, that’s the thing, hey?’

‘We do try, you know?’ Savage gestured towards the woodland. ‘Sometimes we need help though.’

‘She’s in there, then?’ Nesbit followed Savage’s gaze. ‘Not in the lake?’

‘No, but it was an easy mistake to make. Her clothes were found by the water’s edge.’

‘And nobody thought to search the woodland just to make sure?’

Savage sighed. ‘Moot point. The entire area was searched but somehow they either missed the body or it wasn’t there.’

‘So the clothes were dumped first and then the killer returned with the body?’

‘I’m hoping you might be able to explain that.’ Savage pointed at the wood once more. ‘Shall we?’

As they reached the scene, Savage paused, and let Nesbit continue on his own to where Layton was bent over a nearby bush, torch in hand.

‘Fingertipped ten metres all around and found nothing,’ the CSI said, straightening. ‘Not even a footprint. Got a pump coming to drain the ditch.’

Nesbit nodded and peered at the corpse of Anasztáz Róka, the girl’s flesh white as porcelain in the light from the floods. ‘I can see why you wanted me out here. She’s in a strange position, isn’t she? Let’s see …’

Nesbit dropped his bag down onto a nearby tree stump and then stepped over to the body. He moved his head in small movements, taking in every aspect. Then he reached down and took the girl’s lower leg in both hands. He flexed the leg back and forth and then mumbled to himself. Next, he reached for the arm and did the same.