The Drowners (21 page)

Ada was suitably impressed.

‘So what officer is that then?’ she asked.

‘Oh, Alex Hastings,’ said Lily. ‘She as got Kevin out of Bristol. They’s most of ’em good, up there in Highpoint, but seems she really does care.’

Ada smiled to herself, knowing what Alex continued to do for Kevin, stretching the rules as far as she could to enable him to travel with the fair and still report in to offices along the way, to meet the conditions of his order. She turned her attention back to Charlie.

‘Well, you come over every afternoon and I’ll dress that for you and keep an eye on it. Off you go now.’

He scuttled out of the door, setting the dogs off again as he ran down the path and out on to the road.

‘And close my gate behind you!’ Ada called after him. ‘Now Lily, exactly how did he get a burn like that?’

Lily dropped her eyes and shuffled her feet under the table. Ada waited, fixing her with a hard look until finally her friend told her about the meeting in the pub. Charlie hadn’t given her many details but Lily was no fool. She could spot a lie as easily as breathing and had pressed her grandson until he admitted some of his recent activity, a confession that earned him the dressing down of his life.

‘So, let me get this straight,’ said Ada thoughtfully. ‘These two little idiots is buying drugs from some character called Max, out of Bristol. They’s getting that poor crazy boy to carry them out to drop-off points on the Levels and some more idiots is collecting them and selling them on, right?’

Lily nodded, adding, ‘Not no more though. Charlie might be scared of this Max but when I finished with ’un he was a sight more scared of me. There’ll be no more of that on his part, believe me.’ She took a deep breath and finished, ‘Just wish I could get my hands on this Max. I’d teach him to hurt my lad like that.’

With the discovery of a third body on the Levels, all leave was cancelled and the hunt for the killer intensified. Reluctantly
the Inspector bowed to pressure from his Assistant Chief Constable and contacted the Special Action Group based in Taunton. The ‘Saggers’, as they were called by most of the ranking officers, were universally unpopular, partly due to their elevated status and priority funding but mainly due to the arrogance with which they approached the rest of the force. Several days after the discovery of Andrew Cairns’ body they swaggered in to the incident room at Highpoint, talking loudly and seating themselves on the front row, throwing amused glances at the resident team.

‘Don’t you worry boys,’ said one sergeant. ‘We’ll get you out of this mess, just you watch.’

The rest of the Saggers nudged and sniggered amongst themselves until the station Inspector entered the room. Nodding to the newcomers, he called his team to the
remaining
seats and began his briefing. After running through the first two incidents he turned to their most recent victim.

‘There are several interesting developments,’ he said, as he began adding photographs to the already crowded incident board.

‘Firstly we have recovered items at the scene which suggest this may be linked to our two previous victims, specifically a leather case with photographs of Mr Cairns’ family and a badge from his employers. We understand from his widow these reflect important areas of his life. He had been
unemployed
for some time and was extremely pleased when Tor Security offered him a job just before Christmas.’ The Inspector tapped the pictures before continuing. ‘Similar items were discovered at the sites of the other murders and suggests they are some kind of trophy or statement from the killer.’

PC Brown was unable to keep silent any longer. Raising his hand he said, ‘Surely if they were trophies the killer would have taken them with him?’

The Inspector paused and fixed him with a long, hard stare.

‘That is one theory, yes – I was coming to that. To continue, there are some flaws in this idea as PC Brown has so kindly pointed out.’

There was more sniggering from the front row and Dave slid down in his chair, arms folded.

‘One very important discovery is a blood trace, taken from broken glass near the scene of the last killing. It is likely the glass comes from a torch lens, very possibly the same torch used to bludgeon Mr Cairns, and in the absence of any matching marks on the victim it is very possible it comes from the killer. The forensic lab is checking for matches as we speak and hopefully can rule out the victim as a source very shortly.’

Dave tried not to feel aggrieved that the Inspector hadn’t credited him with this discovery. After all, the senior officer had been quick enough to slap him down over the trophy claims. Trying to calm his irritation he took several deep breaths and forced his attention back to the front.

‘Finally, we have some questions over method,’ continued the Inspector. ‘The first victim, Mr Franks, was drowned and there is no evidence of a struggle and no sign of other injuries. Mr Donnoley, on the other hand, suffered a fatal blow to the head delivered at close quarters from behind.’ He drew the audience’s attention to the gory close-up on Robert Donnoley’s skull. ‘He was then submerged in the canal and left, probably some hours after death. Finally, Mr Cairns was hit twice on the head, again at fairly close range. He also suffered some injuries to his ribs and thorax, almost certainly pre-mortem, before being thrown into the river at Brue to drown.’

There was a long silence as the room digested this information.

‘Bloody hell,’ muttered one of the Saggers.

Sergeant Willis raised his hand and, on a nod from the Inspector, rose to his feet.

‘I know there’s this stuff left around near the sites,’ he said slowly, ‘but strikes me, is maybe two killers.’

There was a babble of argument, cut short by a gesture from the Inspector.

‘Well, maybe Donnoley and Cairns, they was targeted seeing as they’s both patrolling the Levels. Donnoley, he was
a River Warden and Cairns was watchin’ that new build at Shapwick. Could be they was just in the wrong place and saw something they shouldn’t have.’

‘What about the first one?’ asked a voice from the front row.

‘Oh, poor old Micky, he was half-cut afore breakfast most days. Could be he just fell in and drowned on his way home from the pub.’

‘Well, what about the wallet,’ demanded another Sagger.

Sergeant Willis shook his head. ‘I wondered about that,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘There was a note in it – big note too. Not like Micky to leave off drinking with that amount of money still in his pocket. Anyway, is we that sure it really is his wallet?’

The Inspector glanced around for confirmation but received only shrugs from the assembled company.

‘Has no-one checked?’ he demanded.

There was silence in the room.

‘Well, sergeant,’ he said, ‘I think you’d better get over to Mr Franks place and see if you can find out, don’t you?’

Alex knew she had to speak to Simon but she approached the task with reluctance. Although convinced he was an innocent dupe in the whole sorry business, she still had to face the possibility – however small – that he was more actively involved. Clinging to her new-found sense of optimism, she feared the disillusionment that would bring. Finally, she ran out of excuses and called him over to her office after his workshop session with Eddie.

Simon looked nervous, fidgeting and fiddling, eyes darting around to take in the pictures on the office walls and the growing clutter on her desk. With a flash of empathy Alex realized he was uncomfortable in such a small space and led him out into the teaching room. Sounds of raucous laughter and the stamping and clattering of feet floated in through the thin wall, evidence of the regular post-Friday pool match in the main room. Closing the door to minimize the disruption, Alex gestured to the chairs, inviting Simon to sit. He chose a place as close to the door as possible, facing the windows, and waited, his fingers twitching and feet shuffling, whilst all the time he avoided meeting her eyes.

Speaking softly and calmly, Alex talked about his ‘lorry’ and where he was ‘driving’ at the moment. This drew nothing but a shake of the head as Simon began to hunch over in his seat. Persisting, Alex moved on to talking about the Levels in general – how lovely the skies were in spring and how nice the weather had been for the past month, despite the rain in the last week.

‘Don’t bother I,’ said Simon unexpectedly. ‘I just drive, specially if I got a job on.’

Alex blinked with surprise. Simon rarely offered any comment on anything said to him and here he was, handing her the perfect opening for her questions.

‘Of course,’ she said smoothly. ‘Are there many jobs around at the moment? Just, there seems to be less and less so any job must be good.’

Simon gazed out of the window and the silence stretched out, the sounds of the pool match getting increasingly rowdy. Just as she resigned herself to failure Simon spoke again.

‘Is not much around so you’s got to take what is. Even if is for someone you ’ent too sure of.’ He turned his head and looked at Alex, straight in the eyes for the first time. ‘Mum, she can’t afford to be keeping us all, specially as they’s cut the Social.’

‘Do you remember some of your – deliveries?’ Alex asked.

Simon nodded.

‘Are you – booked – to do any more?’

Simon resumed his staring out of the window, shrugging his shoulders.

‘Simon, I don’t think it’s a good idea, these – deliveries. I didn’t realize you were having problems with the dole office and I promise I’ll look into it and see what I can do to help. Just promise me you’ll stop doing the deliveries, will you?’

‘I’ll need to see ’un, let ’un know,’ said Simon. ‘Can’t be letting them down, can I?’

Them, thought Alex, them – so there were at least two others involved.

‘Perhaps if you tell me their names, I can drive out and speak to them for you,’ she suggested.

Simon shook his head firmly. ‘Oh no, can’t be doin’ that,’ he said. ‘Any road, I’ve got plenty of petrol in the lorry so might as well go myself.’

He stood up to leave and was out of the door before Alex could react. Cursing herself for a clumsy fool, she stood, stretched and looked out into the main room. The noise level was rising all the time and there was a fair bit of jostling and poking with the cues.

‘All right, that’s enough,’ she said, heading for the table. ‘If you can’t play nicely I’m going to lock up and no-one gets to play.’

‘Don’t be such a spoil-sport,’ said Eddie, as he lined up a tricky shot to take the last of the stripes. Leaning over behind him, Paul Malcolm gave him a nudge and the shot went wide. ‘You bugger!’

Paul grinned and picked up his cue.

‘Reckon you’re on Family Court next week,’ he said. ‘Best of three, you said and I’m about to send this – down!’ He slapped the final spot so hard it flew off the cushion, bounced on the floor and rolled out of sight under the cupboards in the far corner.

‘Forfeit!’ Eddie crowed. ‘My turn,’ and he sank his last shot with a flourish.

Alex shook her head in mock despair. ‘Sometimes you are worse than the lads,’ she said.

The door into reception opened and Sue floated in, cigarette in hand and a gleam in her eyes.

‘Challenge,’ she said, seizing a spare cue. ‘I’m sick of you men monopolizing the table every Friday.’

Eddie and Paul exchanged looks, reluctant to humiliate a colleague.

‘Come on, don’t tell me you’re scared?’ said Sue, dropping the balls deftly into the triangle and sliding the set towards the centre mark. ‘Where’s seven spot?’

Eddie sighed and lifted his cue.

‘You dropped it, you get it,’ he said to Paul. ‘All right Sue, you’re on. You can break first if you like.’

‘Where the hell did you learn to play like that?’ asked Alex as Eddie and Paul left the day centre, utterly humiliated and, in Eddie’s case, five pounds the poorer. Sue smiled – the picture of innocence as she held the fiver aloft before stuffing it into her pocket.

‘Just how long do you think I would have lasted running Intermediate Treatment groups unless I could play pool? I used to be reasonable but I got one of the real whizzes to teach me the last few weeks before I left to come here. Now, I think we should take this lovely bonus down to the supermarket and get something nice for dinner, don’t you?’

When Sergeant Willis returned to the Highpoint police station with Micky Franks’ wallet in an evidence bag, the fall-out reached every member of the team. The Saggers could scarcely conceal their delight at this show of ineptitude and their leading Inspector began to push for control over the entire operation. PC Brown escaped the immediate aftermath as he was on his way over to the forensic lab, the wallet sealed and tagged ready for testing. There was little doubt over its ownership however. Willis had spotted it as soon as he opened the door. Lying open on the kitchen table, surrounded by the mouldy remains of Micky’s last meal, it mocked the sergeant and the constable accompanying him. There was no money in it, of course. Micky lived very much on the edge and he had died only a couple of days before his giro arrived. The policemen collected the meagre post from the door mat – bill, giro, note from the benefits office probably suspending his payments for non-attendance – the remains of a life turned sad by poverty and unemployment.

‘Well, this puts rather a different perspective on events,’ said Dr Higgins as he lifted the bag and peered at the
contents
. He glanced over at Dave and raised one eyebrow. ‘Any theories?’

The constable had been puzzling over the problem the whole way over to Taunton.

‘I don’t know,’ he said slowly. ‘If it wasn’t for the wallet we’d be marking this one down as an accident. And the candlestick of course.’

Dr Higgins’s head shot up and he leaned over the desk. ‘Candlestick? What candlestick?’ he demanded.

Dave was surprised by his reaction.

‘Surely you got that at the same time as the wallet,’ he said.

Muttering angrily to himself, Dr Higgins hunted through the piles of paperwork on his desk. Files and folders were lifted and cast aside as he hunted for the evidence list from the Franks case.

‘Let me see,’ he said when he finally located the correct file. ‘Clothing, wallet, twenty pound note … candlestick, candlestick, nope.’ He stopped at the bottom of the page, shaking his head. ‘No candlestick listed here.’

Dave stepped forwards and took the page, turning it round to show the back where a single item was listed.

‘Well I’ll be damned!’

He blinked at the page and shouted over his shoulder to the technician in the next room.

‘Fetch me box 15F will you? The Franks case, any time now please.’

The young man slid off his stool and disappeared into the evidence room on the far side of his workspace, reappearing a few minutes later with a small cardboard box which he placed none too gently on the desk in front of his boss. He had headphones round his neck, Dave noticed, and an irritating tinkling sound accompanied him as he walked back to his bench.

‘You just can’t get the staff,’ said Higgins, only half in jest. ‘I can’t get a word out of that one. He just sits there listening to that awful noise they call music.’ Dave watched as the assistant settled himself back on his chair, replaced his headphones and began nodding in time to the sound filling
his head. He’d tried a walkman on several occasions himself but just couldn’t concentrate whilst listening to music as well.

Dr Higgins meanwhile had pulled on a pair of thin latex gloves and was lifting items out of the evidence box.

‘Clothes – rather rank I’m afraid, even without immersion in the canal, a few coins and a door key from his pocket, watch – stopped but probably no clue there. The spring is gone so it was not working when he went into the water. Let me see – ah, here’s the original wallet.’ He held up the bagged item and placed it next to the one Dave had provided.

‘Yes, yours is much older. Thinking about it, this one is a bit smart for an old lush like Michael Franks. Now, where is that – candlestick you say?’

Dave nodded.

‘How extraordinary.’ He fished around in the box and pulled out the object in question, a rather battered brass saucer with a stub of white candle still wedged in the holder. They both looked at it for a moment.

‘It’s like something out of a children’s story,’ said Dave finally.

‘That’s because it
is
something out of a child’s story,’ replied Dr Higgins. ‘Tell me, have you ever heard of the Drowners?’

All the way back to Highpoint police station Dave Brown wondered how he was going to explain Higgins’ theory to the Inspector – even worse, to the Saggers. An old, old folk tale designed to frighten children, come to life in the 1980s. It was ridiculous, yet it did make some kind of sense. Dave knew a bit of psychology and he understood that although people might reject the tale as literal truth they were still likely to avoid the area as their subconscious warned them away from danger. If you wanted to keep people off the Levels, it was a very clever way of going about it.

Apart from the fairytale elements, however, there were a couple of problems with the idea. All three victims had personal possessions left at the scene, but Micky’s wallet had been planted – and it was the only one with any money in it.
He pulled into the car park, turned off the engine and thought for a moment. He was fairly sure there had been no money on the other victims at all. Now, everyone had a bit of change in their pockets, even a spent-up loser like Micky – so the others had been robbed as well as killed. Dave opened the car door and made his way to the Inspector’s office, trying to order his thoughts. There was no doubt in his mind any more. They were looking for two killers.

The day she finally got her cast off, Alex spent the first
half-hour
in the Ladies at the hospital, scratching and peeling the debris from her shockingly thin arm. She barely recognized the twig-like appendage, a horrible maggoty white thing due to the layers of skin and debris that had lodged under the plaster. The nurse passed her over to the care of the physiotherapy department, a group of people for whom Alex had enormous respect whilst still viewing them as a bunch of licensed sadists. After a lecture on not over-using her hand for the first few weeks (weeks, she thought – weeks?), she left the hospital with a series of follow-up appointments and a stiff rubber ball to squeeze in the affected hand. This was, apparently, the best way to build up the muscles in the lower arm and regain the flexibility in her fingers.

Alex flung the ball into the back of her car in disgust, not caring that it sank beneath the growing pile of debris on the back seat. She had taken to carrying a lot of her reference books and non-confidential items around with her, partly as she had so little space in her new office, partly as she no longer had confidence in the security of the probation office following the recent incidents with the files. There was an added bonus in that no probationer ever asked her for a lift – the car was too scruffy and cluttered for all but the most intoxicated clients to consider. Alex had watched Gordon struggle to keep his car usable for the past year and decided she was just not the cleaning type.

Deprived of the support, her whole arm was aching abominably by the time she got back to Highpoint and she
could barely manoeuvre into the remaining space in the car park. Narrowly avoiding a close encounter with the bins, she locked her vehicle and headed for the workshop, where loud voices and the clattering of tools warned her all was not as it should be.

‘What the bloody hell is going on here?’ she demanded, throwing the door back on its hinges so it banged against the wall. There was a shocked silence and six pairs of eyes swivelled round towards her before six young men bent over their workbenches, the picture of industry. Alex nodded as she walked around the space, looking at each one in turn.

‘Better,’ she said finally. ‘Much better. Would anyone care to tell me where your instructor has gone?’

There was a silence, broken finally as one lad accidentally nudged a spanner that tumbled to the floor, bouncing and clanging in the stillness.

‘Pick it up,’ Alex said without looking. ‘Anyone – where is he?’

Amidst a shuffling of feet and exchange of glances one hand rose tentatively at the back of the group.

‘Charlie – well, come on,’ said Alex, noting the bandage on his hand with some surprise.

‘He’s gone for a fag,’ muttered Charlie. ‘Said to just carry on, so we did.’

Alex digested this news for a moment. Not happy, she thought. Not happy at all.

‘Any problems with the bikes while I was away?’ she asked finally. There was a universal shaking of heads. ‘Right, well it’s almost lunch time so clear up, all of you. I want every tool wiped clean and put back in the right place.’ She raised her voice above the noise, as the group suddenly developed an astonishing amount of energy, working with speed and
enthusiasm
to earn their release. ‘No-one goes until I’ve checked everything is tidy and put away! That means you, Brian.’