The Judas Sheep (21 page)

When I’d finished he gave me some advice. I’d been in the middle of two days’ washing up when he arrived. ‘Why don’t you buy a dishwasher?’ he suggested.

‘For one person?’ I replied. ‘It’d be a waste of money.’

He shook his head. ‘You don’t understand. The main advantage of a dishwasher isn’t that it does your washing up.’

‘You could’ve fooled me.’

‘No. What it does is keep your kitchen tidy. You just stuff your crockery into it until it’s full, and every three or four days switch it on. No more dirty dishes in the sink. Ever.’

I nodded my approval. ‘Mmm. I’d never thought of it like that. Which powder do you recommend?’

He’d have told me, but his mobile phone was warbling. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, pulling on the aerial.

I watched the expression on his face change from interested to anxious. ‘Where did you say it was? … I’m at Mr Priest’s … OK, I’ll ask him. Be there in ten minutes.’

‘Someone’s found a body,’ he told me, putting the phone back in his pocket. ‘Can you direct me to Withins House, somewhere on High Moor Lane?’

‘I know it,’ I said, and drew him a sketch.

He studied it for a moment, before suggesting: ‘Alternatively, you could come with me.’

‘I thought you’d never ask,’ I said, and grabbed my jacket.

We went in separate cars, me leading, via the back lanes that led to Withins House. A Panda car was outside and all the house windows were illuminated. A uniformed PC, aged about twenty, was standing at the gate. His face glowed luminous in the darkness.

‘She’s in the dustbin, sir,’ he gulped. I directed his attention to Nigel.

‘Who found her?’ Nigel asked.

‘The householders, Mr and Mrs Myers. They’ve just come back from a three-week holiday. Mrs Myers went to throw some sandwiches they hadn’t eaten into the bin. She’s in a bad way.’

‘Where is the bin?’

‘At the back.’ He didn’t volunteer to show us.

It was a large black wheelie bin. Nigel lifted the lid with his fingertips and the light from a window fell inside it. She was naked, and had been dropped in head-first. Her legs were pushed down, so the lid would close, and she was now in a grotesque parody of the foetal position. We looked down on her with no sense of her humiliation, then moved our heads
back in unison as the smell invaded our nostrils.

‘You do the necessary,’ I told Nigel. ‘I’ll keep the Myerses company.’ The Necessary was to inform Divisional HQ and the duty DS. That’s how you launch a full-scale murder enquiry.

Mr Myers had made some tea, so I accepted a cup. Words of comfort were no use, so I bombarded them with the details about how the enquiry would proceed. Their home would be crawling with various experts for the next couple of days. ‘In fact,’ I said, ‘it might be better if you went into an hotel, at least for tonight. We could pay, if you’d like that.’

‘We could always stay at my sister’s in Halifax,’ Mr Myers suggested.

‘I think you should. Why don’t you give her a ring?’

It was agreed, and they re-packed a few things. Their holiday was already a distant memory, a waste of money and time.

The queue of vehicles in the lane outside was growing. I introduced the Myerses to ADI Newley and told him where I was taking them. While he was asking for a few details I had a word with Dr Evans. The photographer was assembling his equipment.

Sam observed him with distaste. ‘Does he have to take her photo, like that?’ he asked.

I ignored the question. ‘Book me off, Sam,’ I said. ‘I want to start work again.’

‘You must be crazy.’

‘What, moi?’

Mr Myers’s sister lived in a leafy suburb of Halifax, in one of a row of grand stone houses that had once belonged to prosperous tradesmen and minor civic dignitaries, in an age when such people had status in the community. They couldn’t thank me enough for spiriting them away from the apparent chaos unfolding at Withins House.

After that I drove home. I had a small glass of port, because I fancied one and felt I deserved it, and went to bed. Gilbert and Nigel, with assistance from Division, could handle the case. It would be a struggle not to interfere, but I’d sit in the wings and watch.

I lost the struggle. Seven-thirty next morning found me in Heckley General Hospital, negotiating my way through the basement, to the place where I knew the post-mortem would be taking place.

In a room of white, she still looked pale, stretched out on the table like a fish after the filleter has finished. The pathologist raised his head and gave me a wink of recognition. Nigel was standing nearby, absorbing every gruesome detail.

‘Morning Professor, Mr Newley,’ I said.

Thankfully all the major cutting had been done. The assistant was sewing the skin back, making the body as presentable as possible, before relatives, if found, were asked to identify her. ‘About to take vitreous humour sample for time-of-death indication,’ the Professor droned into the microphone, hovering over her with a syringe at the ready.

I tapped Nigel with the back of my hand. ‘Don’t look,’ I said, turning away from the grim scene.

Nigel ignored me. After a few seconds he hissed: ‘Jeeesus Christ!’

One of the most valuable pieces of information that the pathologist can tell us is time of death. It’s an imprecise science, but the latest development is the analysis of the fluid that fills the eyeball – the vitreous humour. Someone has discovered that chemical changes take place in it at a steady rate after death. The fluid is drawn off through a needle directly into the eye. This causes the eyeball to collapse, like a deflating balloon. Injecting distilled water soon brings it back to normal shape, but it is grotesque to watch, as Nigel could now verify.

The preliminary report said that she was about fourteen, had been dead a couple of weeks and took drugs. Her arms bore nearly healed injection scars, but analysis of her organs would tell us what she’d used lately and her hair would give us the longer picture. She’d been strangled with such violence that her larynx was ruptured, and then raped. The rapist had left a full sample inside her.

None of the missing girls on our books fitted her description. We widened the net, but kids usually ran away from Heckley, not towards the town. A description of her and her clothing was published in the local paper, and on Friday morning George Leach stumbled into the nick and claimed that the body could be that of his
stepdaughter Nicola McGann. An hour later he made a positive identification. She had gone missing nearly three weeks earlier, but he hadn’t reported it. She was almost sixteen, and he assumed that she had gone to live with her older sister, as she had threatened to do many times.

I had unfinished business with Darren and his gang. The Area Detective Superintendent took overall charge of the murder investigation, with Nigel doing the donkeywork, ably assisted by most of the Heckley complement and about twenty bodies imported from neighbouring divisions. They investigated Nicky’s background, looked at known suspects, listened to information and made house-to-house enquiries. No one leapt into the frame.

Drug running was becoming boring, and I would have preferred to have stayed on the murder enquiry. This was to be the last run, hopefully resulting in the arrest of the people who employed Darren. Fearnside had set the whole thing up; all I had to do was go along for the sail. Gilbert would be pleased to have me back. Nigel was competent enough, but didn’t carry any clout with Division. If we didn’t get a quick result for Nicola they might move in and take over. I’d be glad to be back on the case, too – I hadn’t liked the smell of Nicola’s stepdad, and didn’t rate a person who could let his daughter vanish and show such little concern.

This time it was Amsterdam. Kevin showed me a grubby scrap of paper with the address on it. We were
to collect the goodies from a patisserie on Jordaanstraat, ten minutes’ walk from the town centre. I grabbed the paper from him and passed my hand across my mouth, pretending to chew and swallow the address. Then I ripped it into sixteenths and dropped the bits into a litter bin.

‘You don’t learn, do you?’ I reprimanded.

‘I can’t remember stuff like that,’ he protested.

We were on the ferry, outwardbound. We’d travelled together to the docks, in Kevin’s car, and were booked into a cabin.

I took the top bunk and slept like a three-toed sloth. It was important that I didn’t spend any time alone with the bags, so when he went to the toilet, I decided to go, too. He didn’t wash or clean his teeth, but I managed a refreshing few minutes in the bathroom as we docked at Europoort.

Everything went smoothly. A lady who’d stepped straight out of van Gogh’s Potato Eaters fed us coffee and a pastry in the back room of the bakery while the bags were switched, and we were out of the place in fifteen minutes. Whoever did the checking for the English side didn’t show himself.

‘What happened to Darren?’ I asked Kevin as we strolled back to the station.

‘Dunno. ’Spect it was Shawn who did it this time. Usually is. Darren just collects it off me and brings the money.’ He turned to me. ‘Don’t meddle with Shawn,’ he warned. ‘He’s a nasty piece of work.’

‘So you keep saying. I can be fairly disagreeable myself.’ I smiled at him, trying to look manic, like Jack Nicholson does.

Because of the hour’s train ride in each direction, plus a compulsory warm apple-ball, there was not too much hanging around. My taste for art galleries was suppressed, and I disappointed Kevin by suggesting that a stroll through the redlight district with a couple of kilograms of heroin in our possession might be unwise. At six o’clock we sauntered up the gangplank, kitbags at a jaunty angle hiding our tension, like a slightly dishevelled Noel Coward and Michael Wilding in In Which We Serve.

We dossed on our bunks until the dining room opened. I managed a wash but Kevin didn’t bother. We left the bags on the beds and joined the queue at the restaurant, where he had two helpings of trifle for pudding and declared that the food was smashing. It was OK. A middle-aged woman briefly made eye contact with me. She was accompanied by someone much younger, could have been her daughter, but it wasn’t.

We were in the bar, sipping halves of lager, when they joined us. ‘These anybody’s seats?’ the young one asked.

‘Saving them just for you,’ I told her.

‘Where are you from, then?’

‘I’m from Chipping Sodbury, Kevin’s from Highgrove.’

‘Chipping Sodbury? Where’s Chipping bloody Sodbury?’ she laughed.

‘It’s a nice place. I’m Charlie, by the way. What are you called?’

We talked nonsense for half an hour, Kevin’s blank gaze switching from one to the other of us as we spoke. ‘I’ll get some drinks,’ I said, standing up. ‘What would you like?’

When I returned they’d dragged Kevin into the conversation, and were chatting like old friends. He was enjoying himself.

‘Cheers, Charlie,’ said the older one, raising her glass.

‘Cheers, love.’

Kevin was telling the ‘daughter’ seated next to him about the car he wanted to buy. I tapped my companion on the knee, under the table. Her hand came down to mine and I passed the key for our cabin to her.

‘I’ll have to go to the loo,’ she announced, rising. ‘You coming, Josie?’

‘Yeah, suppose so. Save our drinks, we’ll be back.’

While they were gone Kevin and I discussed our prospects. He thought I was in with a chance, but didn’t rate his own. I assured him that the opposite was true. The thought intrigued me – I’d never had sex with a Sergeant from the Drugs Squad.

We had another drink with them, then they announced that they had tickets for the cinema, and left us. Kevin didn’t look too disappointed. When we finally hit the hammock the bags were exactly where we’d left them, but with one slight, invisible difference. If Kevin had possessed a radio receiver, tuned to the right frequency,
he would have discovered that they were now emitting regular electronic beeps, like Sputnik I, courtesy of the East Yorkshire Constabulary Technical Support Unit.

Darren arrived at the cottages in the afternoon, but didn’t stay. I was just about to go next door to join them when I heard the engine of the Sierra start and he was away.

‘He was in a hurry,’ I said to Kevin when he answered my knock. He looked uncomfortable.

‘Yeah. He, er … he couldn’t wait.’

I walked in without being invited. ‘But he left the money, I presume.’

‘Yeah, well, some of it.’

‘Whaddya mean, “some of it”?’ I growled.

He produced a slim roll of notes with a rubber band round them. ‘Two-fifty quid, same as before.’

‘Two hundred and fifty! We agreed seven-fifty. Give me his number. Tell me where I can find him.’

Kevin raised his hands in appeasement, carefully keeping his settee between us. ‘L-look, Charlie,’ he stuttered, ‘D-Darren says they’re a bit sh-short. They’ve a big job coming up, need all the readies they can get their hands on. He says they’ll pay us, but it might not be in cash.’

‘Not in cash! What the fuck are they playing at, Kevin? Where can I get hold of them?’

‘If I knew I couldn’t tell you, Charlie. I’d be a dead man.’

‘OK. Well, next time you hear from Darren tell him that I want my money. There’ll be no more trips until I’m paid in full. Meanwhile, if I see him first, I’ll beat the marrow out of him. Understood?’

‘I’m sorry, Charlie. I’ll tell him.’ The poor bloke looked heartbroken.

I went back to my half of the building and rang Commander Fearnside. My career as a drug smuggler was now terminated. He said: ‘Well done, old boy,’ and hinted that he might have more work for me. I told him to watch out for my expenses landing on his desk. After that I flopped on the bed, pulling the pillow over my face in case Kevin peeked through the window and caught me laughing. When I was ready I left for home, spinning the van’s wheels as I shot out of the garden. I tuned the radio to a music station and drove sedately back to Merlin Couriers for what I hoped was the last time.

The Monday morning case conference for Nicola McGann was held in the big lecture room. Nigel chaired it, after Gilbert made a few opening remarks. Nicola’s movements were well-documented until late Friday evening, eighteen days before her body was found in the dustbin at Withins House – right up to when she’d left a friend and gone off with a man in a car. After that, zilch. The friend wasn’t too bright, not the most observant person to have witness your last movements. The man was stockily built and indescribably ugly. She
hadn’t fancied him. She couldn’t remember anything about the car, except that it was not a little one. To be fair, the sodium lights in the town centre make it difficult to recognise colours. We don’t like them.