The Shadows of Justice (9 page)

***

A page turned. The division from what went before was stark, like a curtain coming down and a new act beginning.

The Edwards tried another attack on a bank. And they were nearly caught.

“I was still twitchy about what they might try next, so I had the Eggheads put surveillance on them,” Adam explained. “Martha must have realised she was being watched and pulled out. I might have got her on some paltry charges, but it would have been community service at best. And given what she’s gone through, maybe not even that.”

“What she’s gone through?” Dan queried.

“I’ll tell you more about that later. Anyway, there was something different about this case. It looked like the Edwards were chasing serious sums of money.”

Now came a lull, the first in the chronology of crimes the siblings were thought to have carried out. For four months, nothing was heard.

Until the night of 13 September and the break-in at the headquarters of the South West Peninsula (Subdivision) Regional Health Strategic Oversight Authority; a masterpiece of bureaucratic nomenclature if ever there was one.

As Adam went through the story, Dan understood the reason for his friend’s anger. He turned, held the detective’s look, and received a nod of forgiveness.

***

The convoy slowed for the town of Kingsbridge, all inlets and creeks. It was market day, and a busy one with the sunshine, colourful stalls filling a car park and lining the main street.

They followed the road through the throng, then back out into the countryside and on to the village of Frogmore. It was another in the well-fed register of Devon names that raised more questions than could ever perhaps be answered.

They turned off the main road and onto a single tarmac track, fattened only by the occasional passing place. The earth banks of Devon hedges closed in, their green bulk speckled with the blues, purples and whites of springtime.

One by one, the accompanying sirens fell silent. They were moving slowly now, furtively, unwilling to risk alerting that which they had come to hunt.

“I can just finish the story,” Adam said. “It’s time to show you what the Edwards really are.”

***

He was a security guard in name, but it was a Hall of Mirrors description of the job. A caretaker in uniform would have been more honest.

Albert Fisher was, by unanimous account, a gentle man. He was 63 years old, greying in the hair, expanding in the waist and earning a little extra money to ease the transition into retirement. He and his wife Janet both had reasonable pensions and planned to downsize, selling the house in Plymouth and moving to the kinder climes of the Lizard peninsula in Cornwall. A twee white cottage had been identified. The garden was fruitful without being overly taxing and the conveyancing was underway.

The couple had always been the fabled outdoor types and planned to do their best to defy the ageing process by staying that way. The Lizard was a wonderful place to walk, with its unique heathland and spectacular coast. Even that great headland could be just a base for exploring the rest of Cornwall. A good life’s final adventure beckoned happily.

The motive for the break-in was unclear. A theory that the Edwards might have been looking for confidential documents was aired, or maybe trying to steal official stationery for some purpose unknown. Perhaps they wanted to access the computer systems.

Such were the thoughts, but none were ever proven as facts. All that could be concluded was money wasn’t the objective. There was only petty cash stored in the offices.

Albert had found a storeroom open and walked in to investigate. His reward was a cosh on the back of the head. The medical evidence was clear that he had been hit at least twice more as he lay unconscious.

That the Edwards were responsible was conjecture, a supposition based on evidence so flimsy there would never be a point in putting it before a court. They had no alibis for the night and an informant had whispered that they’d been talking of some kind of attack at an important building. Martha’s knowledge of forensics, the theory went, would have equipped her with the ability to break in without leaving the giveaway fingerprints, hairs or fibres.

Albert had survived, but he hadn’t lived. There was extensive brain damage. It left a man who had been proud, independent and eloquent unable to walk, communicate or care for himself.

In a reflex of emotion, Dan remembered the story. When it became clear the police investigation was making no progress, Janet had spoken out in an attempt to bring witnesses forward.

Dan could recall very few reports on
Wessex Tonight
that were not his own. Most were fillers, of little consequence, forgotten in seconds. But some stood out. And for him, they were always the victims’ stories, the tales of lives ruined in a second’s viciousness or violence, stupidity or negligence. On the darker nights, lying sleepless in bed, those that Dan had himself covered often returned to taunt his restless mind.

Janet put on a little make-up to help her brave the camera and had just about got through the interview. That she kept breaking down only made it more moving. She described the life the couple were planning to lead together. Spoiling grandchildren by day, walks on the beach by night, just like when they first married almost 40 years ago.

“And now…” she’d stammered, “all he’s got… after all those years… all those hopes… is a living death.”

Martha and Brian Edwards were interviewed at length. He would say nothing at all, retained an unbreachable silence.

A note on the file read,
Suspect Martha drilled it into him. Usual story. Say nothing and we’re safe. Psychologist believes he’s totally in her thrall. He was probably the one who did the actual beating, but on her orders. Evidence for this – as ever – none. Just another theory
.

Martha said almost nothing. Only when she was told both siblings were being released had there been a brief exchange.

Martha Edwards –
You bastards have been going on at me as if I’m a criminal. Where were you to investigate what happened to me?

Detective Sergeant Franks
– That’s not what we’re talking about
.

Martha –
And that’s the fucking problem, isn’t it? No one’s ever talked about it. No one’s ever cared
.

Franks –
For the last time, do you have anything to say about Albert Fisher?

Martha –
I’m sorry for what happened to him. But…

Franks –
But what?

Martha –
Who’s sorry for what happened to me?

Franks –
About Albert Fisher?

Martha –
He worked for the government. You work for the government. You make your choices and you take your chances. Fuck you all
.

Franks –
He was a 63-year-old man. Beaten as he lay helpless on the floor
.

Martha –
And I was a 5-year-old girl!

Franks –
Is there anything you want to say about the attack on Albert Fisher?

Martha –
Just let me out of here
.

***

Adam finished reading. They drove on in silence. The rumbling of the car was the only companion to their wandering thoughts.

Finally, Adam said quietly, “No Robin Hoods. No lovable rogues with hearts of gold. Just criminals.”

The road turned down a hill. Ahead was an expanse of sea. They were approaching East Prawle, angles of roofs reaching above a line of trees.

Katrina drew up in a pub car park. The rest of the convoy followed. Police officers began clambering out of the vans and cars.

“Just one thing,” Dan said, as Adam opened the door. “What changed? To turn them from mockery to effectively murder?”

Adam hesitated, then said, “Later. It’s not what you need to hear when we may be about to face them.”

It began like a phoney war.

The procession of vans, cars and motorbikes moved slowly along the narrow road. There were no racing engines, no squealing tyres, no sirens. Only the silent intensity of pure concentration.

Every officer was watching. For a surreptitious or panicked movement. The guilty twitch of a curtain or hasty shutting of a door.

They would move into the centre of the village as furtively as possible. And from there they would storm outwards, a radius of motion, through houses, cottages, caravans, shops, sheds and barns.

A tattered old wooden sign welcomed them to East Prawle. A homely and embracing sight for generations of locals and holidaymakers, but surely never to have witnessed visitors like this.

The Devon hedges tapered to the ground, as if curtains falling on their arrival. Around was the expanse of open countryside and the great dome of the sapphire sky. Fields filled with the hues of crops.

Ahead a promontory jutted a dark finger into the sea. Prawle Point, southernmost tip of Devon; an impertinent jab of land into the waters’ realm. The line of the cliffs embraced the bay, the sun at its zenith, its only challenge a couple of brushstrokes of cloud. In the far distance the tiny dots of a disciplined line of shipping ploughed a path along the English Channel.

The road opened out once more. Houses were beginning to rise from the earth. A man guided a young child on a bike, newspapers, bread and milk piled in its basket.

The air was full of the sound of gulls. One picked at the discarded packaging beneath a litter bin. A jackdaw watched from atop a Georgian post box.

It was quintessential England, exemplary Devon, an archetypal village. But hidden somewhere, amidst the rustic veneer, was a secret.

Silence had filled the car, Katrina, Dan, Adam and Claire too focused on their surroundings to speak.

But now Adam muttered, “Are you sure about this? You and your bloody weird inspirations. Cirl buntings indeed.”

Dan didn’t bother to reply. It was an echo that hadn’t the decency to fade. They must have been through the conversation half a dozen times. After the moment of revelation in the news library, Adam sent a couple of detectives to check on the key claim of the report, the tiny scope of the birds’ sole remaining habitat.

Dan tried not to grow irritated at the challenge to his journalistic honour, and then smug as the call came back. It was entirely true. The story of the cirl buntings was renowned within the birdwatchers’ world.

If it was cirl buntings the police needed to find, they could confine the search to East Prawle and its immediate surroundings. And given that faint noise of a lawnmower in the background of the ransom call, it had to be the village itself.

Ahead were a couple of shops and a pub with a large earthen car park beside them. One by one the vans, cars and bikes pulled up. And across the grass and tarmac and paths and tracks spread the flood of the operation to save Annette Newman.

***

That the briefing had been quick was a mark of its urgency, with Adam managing to confine his oration to only a few seconds. He stood on the step of a Land Rover, the breeze toying with the dark strands of his hair, with the officers all gathered around.

There were a hundred or so, as many as could be mustered in a short time. The convoy had grown as it travelled. Cars lingered in lay-bys to join, others screamed up behind. The police helicopter had also been scrambled. It was waiting in a field, ready to join the hunt.

At the heart of the gathering was the knot of armed officers. Even they were showing hints of the anticipation of what was to come. One man dabbed at a trickle of sweat as it twisted its way down his forehead. Another clenched and unclenched a fist.

As befits a village hiding in the cambers of the Devon countryside, and at the extreme of its long miles of beauty, there was but one road into and out of East Prawle. A couple of officers were pulling barriers from the back of a van and blocking it. Another laid out bollards and
Road Closed
signs. Two more stood sentry duty.

The trap was laid.

At the back of the group Nigel filmed, camera steady on his shoulder. He too had joined the convoy, pulling out just as it left Kingsbridge.

“What’s the plan?” he whispered to Dan.

“I don’t have a plan. We’ve no idea what’s going to happen. Just follow and film everything we can.”

Adam was gazing into the ring of the crowd, a leader’s look to each of his officers. The sun had angled behind him, casting a darkness across the detective’s rugged features. Shadows filled his eyes.

“I won’t say much, because there’s not much to say,” Adam rallied, the authority of his voice carrying easily across the car park. “We get one chance at this. When we pull up, storm the area. Be restless and relentless. Use your eyes and your instincts. Spot the sign that leads us to the kidnappers. That gate closing, the feet running or the person who can’t look you in the eye. Get out there – and save Annette!”

***

In each direction officers ran, filled with the energy of their purpose, like sparks flung from a Catherine wheel.

One made for the shop, the kind of all-encompassing affair of many a village monopoly. A blackboard advertised the sale of newspapers, cigarettes, milk, lottery tickets, greeting cards, beer and wine, vegetables, light bulbs, logs and kindling. Even a variety of creams for every purpose; ice, sun, insect and Devon clotted.

Through the reflections of the glass, the officer pushed his way past the queue of three, quite a rush in the terms of the Devon countryside. He began talking to the woman behind the counter.

An Alsatian trotted past, his handler striding hard to keep up. The dog could have been Rutherford’s cousin. A spaniel sniffed along the path beside the pub, stopping occasionally to check a scent, its busy head a smudge of golden motion.

Outside the pub, a detective spoke to a squat man wearing a grubby T-shirt and shorts. His arms were folded, resting on the support of his ample girth and his voice loud.

No, nothing. Nothing unusual at all
.

The village filled with the barrage of the police helicopter. It rose from beneath the cliff line and hovered overhead, rotors threshing the air.

At the axis of the momentum Nigel filmed, whipping the camera around time and again, panning back and forth, trying to capture the human blizzard that was the hunt.

“It’s chaos,” he gasped. “Where do we go?”

Dan didn’t reply, just kept his look set on Adam. The leader had become the observer, the analyst, the interpreter. Amongst all the officers going about their frenetic work, he alone stood still, a cool pillar of composure. All the experience of his generation of policing was in that look; scrutinising, feeling for the trail they sought.

A young cop was half way up a ladder, calling questions to a man digging out a gutter. He was waving a picture of Annette. A woman was checking the cars parked around the back of the pub. A stream of officers knocked on doors, hard and demanding, firing questions at the householders who emerged.

“Adam?” Dan prompted. “Adam?”

No answer. Slowly, the detective was turning around, his narrowed eyes taking in each detail of the storm he had unleashed. He was with every one of the officers, sensing what they sensed, seeing what they saw.

“We’d better follow the cops and get more action,” Nigel said.

“Yeah, but which ones? How the hell do we know where Annette is?”

“If she’s here at all.”

“She’s here.”

Dan was surprised at the certainty in his voice. He had no time to wonder if it was true faith or an attempt to convince himself.

“When they find her, that’s the shot,” he continued. “The picture that’ll be splashed around the world. If we’re here and we don’t get it, it’ll be humiliating. We’ll be the nearly men. So near and yet so far.”

“Very lyrical, very you,” replied the practical cameraman, anchor to the earth. “So – what do we do?”

“Adam?” Dan prompted again.

And now the detective spoke. “We wait.”

Claire and Katrina headed off to join the search. They went separate ways, Claire heading down the hill, towards the coast and a group of bungalows. Katrina made for the pub and cottages behind.

As they ran, both women looked back. Dan quickly busied himself wiping a grain of dust from his eye.

The helicopter banked and headed west, to the edge of the village and the open countryside, rising higher into the sky.

A cop was leading a woman towards an old-fashioned garage, white stone and black wooden gates. She unlocked them and he disappeared into the darkness.

Nigel took a step forward, the camera trained. “This is it. I can feel it.”

They could hear the sound of metal moving, grinding and groaning. A line of officers jogged past, heading for the northern end of the village. All were sweating hard in the day’s heat.

Another noise from the garage. This time a dull thud. Nigel edged closer.

A car chugged past, heading out of Prawle, an older woman driving. A detective stepped into the road, stopped her, checked the boot and waved her on. In this net, with these stakes, no one was beyond suspicion.

From the garage the cop emerged, brushing dust from his shoulders. He was shaking his head.

“So much for your hunches,” Dan muttered.

His mobile rang. “Yes, there is an operation going on in East Prawle,” Dan replied. “I know because I’m in the middle of it. Yes, Lizzie, we are filming it. Thanks for the tip, I would never have thought of that.”

Beside him, Adam shifted position and peered into the brightness of the sky. To the north and east, no more than a quarter of a mile away, a thin trail of dark smoke was rising above a line of trees.

***

Adam was away, running, moving fast. Dan didn’t hesitate. He followed.

They crossed the road, dodged a couple on bicycles and found a gap between a line of houses. A dry mud track, just wide enough for a car, led over the brow of a small hill. It was lined with trees.

From above, Dan thought he heard the song of a cirl bunting. He tried to pick out a shape in the foliage, but there was no sign of any birdlife.

Nigel was panting hard from the slope. Dan reached out and took the camera.

To either side were the back gardens of houses. A child careered down a slide. A woman watched while talking into a mobile phone.

They were nearing the crest of the hill. The smoke was thickening, a fattened smear on the blueness of the sky.

“What’re we doing?” Dan gasped to Adam.

“A hunch.”

“But – should we be leaving the main search? Most of the houses are back there.”

Adam just kept running. Dan stumbled on a clump of thick grass, the dense weight of the camera nearly dragging him over.

“Surely it’s just a farmer, burning rubbish?”

“A fire’s the best way to destroy evidence. As someone who’d studied forensics would know.”

They rounded a corner. Now the green lane was filled with smoke. Its acrid tang prickled the tongue and stung the nose. Through a barrier of bushes loomed the hazy outline of a cottage.

The thatch of its roof was aflame, orange spears rising into the air, circling the stone of the chimney. The fire was spreading fast, roaring out its hunger. More flames danced from an upstairs window.

Nigel took the camera, hoisted it to his shoulder and began filming. Overhead the helicopter swooped, sending flames leaping and smoke swirling. Adam waved frantically and the great beast banked away.

“Help’s coming,” Dan yelled.

“We can’t wait. She could be dying in there.”

Next to the cottage was a garage. Adam lurched towards the double doors and pulled them open. Black smoke bellowed out, enveloping him. The detective began choking and coughing as he squatted down to escape the fumes.

Inside, swathed in smoke and with flames leaping around it, was a white van.
Paint was starting to blister and peel from its bonnet and the windscreen was blackening. As they watched, it cracked with a whipping snap. The stench of burning rubber and petrol was like an attack. Dan felt his body shake with a burst of wracking coughs.

Adam span and headed for the door. All of the thatch was alight now, greedily sucking in the air. The heat assailed them, beating at every inch of exposed flesh, singeing eyes, throats and lungs.

The door was ajar. Adam kicked out. It smashed into the wall, a pane of glass breaking with the impact. They tumbled inside.

The cottage was fast filling with murderous smoke. The momentum of the fire was growing relentlessly. Embers of burning straw floated past.

Ahead was a staircase, a threadbare carpet with pictures lining the walls. The way was blocked by a bank of flames. It was impassable.

“Shit,” Adam moaned. “If she’s up there…”

He pivoted left, along a stone-flagged corridor. A barometer crashed to the floor, tiny spheres of mercury speeding from it.

They were in a small lounge. A sofa, an easy chair, a television and a rug covering the floor. A leaning standard lamp. But no sign of Annette.