To Catch a Rabbit (2 page)

Sean tasted sick rising again as Burger wheezed a laugh through his teeth.

‘Huggins can take a look at him. Pathologist.’ He added, in answer to a question Sean hadn’t voiced.

Huggins approached the body, while Burger held back, casting his eyes over the trailer and taking out a cigarette. The pathologist had a go at lifting her head away from her knees. Sean wanted him to be careful with her, almost called out. But what was the point? She was dead, wasn’t she? Her neck was stiff, but Huggins got it far enough up to move her right arm away. The skin inside her elbow was peppered with puncture wounds.

‘A tenner says it’s a straightforward smack OD. This estate’s awash with it,’ said DCI King.

‘I’m not arguing, Barry. I’ll give you an estimated time of death and certify it. Then I need to be off. Crying shame, a young girl like this.’ Huggins’s fingers reached out and touched her hair.

Another car pulled in, and a young woman got out. She had a roll of incident tape, which she started wrapping over the gap in the fence between the field edge and the lay-by.

‘Not now, Lizzie. How the hell d’you think we’ll get the body through?’ Huggins shook his head and mumbled to no one in particular. ‘Graduate training scheme, fast-track, I ask you.’ He took another look at the body, then at Sean. ‘You’ll have to check in your shoe size and brand with the lovely Lizzie. She’s our new crime scene manager; very keen on tread patterns.’

‘Anyone else been up here?’ Burger stared out across the road towards the Chasebridge Estate.

Sean assumed the question was directed at him. ‘Two young lads and a dog, sir, they found the body.’

‘How old?’ Burger eyed the estate with an impassive stare.

‘About ten, sir.’

‘And the dog?’

‘Sir?’

Sean felt himself blush as he realised he was having the mick taken again. Burger let out a belly laugh and Huggins smirked. Only Lizzie looked suitably serious, as if she disapproved of the whole lot of them. He almost felt sorry for her, having to work with this team. The laughter was definitely a bloke’s joke, and Lizzie didn’t look like she was one of the lads.

‘Have a look for footprints will you, love? See if there’s a couple of kiddy sizes in there.’

‘The ground’s pretty hard, so I don’t think there’ll be anything in the mud. Maybe something in the frost itself.’ Lizzie said. She had the kind of voice that Sean’s nan would have called ‘proper’. ‘Where are the SOCOs? They should be here by now.’

‘I don’t think we’ll need them.’ DCI King headed back to the car with the doctor. ‘This one’s low priority. You and Plastic Percy can manage.’

Bastard, Sean thought. Not proper police, plastic police. Pig. Percy. He couldn’t meet her eye, didn’t want her to see how much it bothered him. Burger walked Huggins back to his car and Sean watched Lizzie pull on a white, cover-all suit and tuck her dark hair neatly under the hood. He was glad someone was taking this poor girl’s death seriously.

‘Make yourself useful and lend us a hand, will you?’ She tossed a packet of latex gloves to Sean. ‘As soon as this is signed off, we can get the morgue van up here.’

He struggled into a second white suit. It was hot over his uniform and his movements felt as subtle as a Teletubby’s. Lizzie issued instructions and Sean did as he was told. He tried to switch off mentally, shut down his feelings, as he held the dead girl’s head in both his hands, while Lizzie looked in the mouth and ears. He turned away to catch his breath. Lizzie gestured to him to steady the body by the shoulders while she lifted the T-shirt away from the girl’s skin and looked for any signs of injury. Even through the cloth and the gloves, he could feel hard cold flesh. Burger lit up another cigarette and chatted to someone on his mobile.

‘Nothing obvious, sir.’ Lizzie didn’t look up as she spoke. ‘Except the needle marks. Discolouration of the skin could be septicaemia, post-mortem. Dirty needle could have done that as she was losing consciousness. Face is bloated, so hard to say, but features look oriental.’

‘Good, well, we’ll get her into the lab and see if you’re right.’ Burger flicked the ash off the end of his cigarette.

A grey Mercedes van pulled up in the lay-by and two men got out. The stretcher they carried had a built-in body bag, like a suit carrier from a smart dry-cleaners. Once the body was on the stretcher and zipped in, Lizzie fetched some evidence bags from the car and gave Sean some paper towels. Where the girl had been was now a sticky mess on the step. He was becoming an expert at not breathing through his nose.

‘Sir, am I looking for anything in particular inside?’ Lizzie asked.

‘Whatever takes your fancy, love,’ Burger shrugged. ‘I’m going to sit in the car and keep warm, the lad’ll give you a hand.’

‘Right.’ She stood in the open doorway and paused for a moment to survey the interior of the trailer. ‘There’s not much room, so you stay there. Open me up one of the larger bags.’

Sean fiddled to separate the plastic, fumbling in the latex gloves. Lizzie reappeared in the doorway with a bundled-up sheet, which she slid into the bag. ‘Take this back to the car and get the sharps box, I think I’ve found the murder weapon.’

‘But I thought it was a drug overdose.’

‘Duh! I’m talking about the needle. If this was a murder, they’d have sent me an actual team instead of having to make do with a... Sorry, I didn’t catch your name?’

‘Sean Denton, I’m the…’

‘PCSO, yes I know. Well, it must be nice to do a bit of proper policing for a change.’

She smiled a tight smile and he was reminded of the girls in the top set at his secondary school, who dated older boys and played in the orchestra, unattainable middle-class girls who ignored boys like Sean or, worse still, pitied them.

Burger was sitting in the passenger seat of the unmarked police car with one hand, holding a cigarette, hanging out of the open door. Lizzie’s car was parked further along the lay-by. Sean looked for a way to get round Burger without disturbing him, but the detective had parked right in front of the gap to the field. Sean found another section of hedge low enough to climb over. A bramble caught his trousers and nearly had him down for a second time, but not before he heard a snatch of Burger’s conversation.

‘Looks a lot like her. That’s all I’m saying. No. I’ll keep you out of it. Just thought you might want to know.’

On the loose tarmac of the lay-by, Sean’s footsteps gave him away.

‘Hang on.’ Burger said to his caller.

Sean kept walking towards Lizzie’s car and if there was any more to the conversation, he didn’t hear it. He stowed the evidence bag in the boot and took out the yellow plastic sharps box. When he turned back, Burger was out of the car, watching him.

‘If you pick up fag ends, you’ll burn your fingers,’ the detective growled.

‘Sir?’ Sean eyed the gap in the fence and the ragged section of hedge he’d just crossed. He opted for the gap, even though it meant squeezing past Burger, who showed no sign of moving.

‘You weren’t earwigging, were you?’ the DCI said.

‘No, sir.’ He was close now, breathing in the cigarette smoke that hung around them both.

‘Good.’ Burger suddenly grabbed Sean’s ear and twisted it tightly. ‘Because you’ve got to learn to mind your own fucking business in this job.’

Then he let go, lowered himself back into the car and slammed the door. Sean heard the civilian radio come on, a talent-show singer belting out a ballad. His ear was burning.

When Lizzie Morrison had retrieved everything she thought relevant, she told Sean to tape off the snack-bar trailer with blue and white incident tape. He stood back and looked at it. It was like a huge gift-wrapped present. Christ. He tried to shake the thought away. He wasn’t a sicko. He silently promised himself that he would never be that disrespectful or cynical, however many bodies he saw, and he made another promise, that he would never forget this dark-haired dead girl; his first.

Bonfire Night: 6
am

‘Now then, Phil, mate.’ On the other end of the phone, Johnny Mackenzie sounded like he’d been wide awake for hours. ‘I knew you’d be up.’

‘I wasn’t.’

‘I’ve got a job on today,’ Mackenzie said. ‘Need a driver.’

Philip Holroyd took his phone out to the landing and sat at the top of the stairs. Stacey was working late last night and he wanted to let her sleep. The glass above the front door framed a perfect, shiny rectangle of night sky and the cold air made the hairs on his legs stand up like a tiny forest.

‘Be up at the farm in fifteen minutes,’ Johnny was saying. ‘I’ll see you right on this one. Stacey said you could do with a bob or two.’

‘I’ll be there.’ He shivered and flipped the phone shut.

Stacey’s eyes flickered under a crust of yesterday’s mascara as Phil crossed the bedroom and scooped his clothes up from the floor. She half-smiled in her sleep and the little worry-line between her eyebrows almost disappeared. He went to get dressed in the bathroom. He was buttoning up his shirt, when Holly appeared in the doorway, rubbing her eyes.

‘What you doing?’

‘Getting ready for work sweetheart. Daddy’s got a job today.’

‘Can I come?’

‘No, ’fraid not. I’ll bring you something back.’

‘A rabbit,’ Holly said decisively and turned and went back to her bedroom.

Phil cleaned his teeth and hoped he’d be back home in time to take Holly to the fireworks at the pub. His daughter was five and fearless. She’d been talking about it for days. As he dragged Stacey’s hairbrush back through his thick hair, he fancied he was receding a bit at the temples and around his widow’s peak, but at thirty-two there was still no sign of any grey. Picking up a purple hair elastic, he pulled his ponytail up and through. He sat on the edge of the bath, rolled a cigarette, licked it, sealed it and tucked it behind his ear. Tiptoeing down the stairs so he didn’t wake the dog, he stepped into his trainers and let himself out of the front door.

Up at the farm, puddles filled the cracked concrete of the farmyard, lit only by the neon light from the office window. He dropped the butt of his cigarette and heard it hiss in the silence. He leaned his bike up against the pre-fab wall, opened the office door and stepped into Mackenzie’s world.

Rudo and Florence Moyo, Zimbabwe, Claim refused  18/10/07

She’d tried to show him how to do the labels on the computer, but her boss was a Luddite at heart. Karen pulled the papers out of their cover and spread them out in front of her. There was a letter from a St. Jude’s Church, with a cheerful rainbow-coloured logo, offering to sponsor Mr and Mrs Moyo and their daughter, Elizabeth. The Reverend Wheatley was big on warmth, but short on details. She opened a photocopy of the Moyos’ asylum application form, meticulously filled out in black ink.

...and then I was hit many times across my back until I was bleeding...

...all this time I didn’t know where I was...

...that was when they took my daughter to be questioned. She was fourteen years old...

The bubbling roar of the kettle reached its peak. Karen got up and crossed the uneven floor to where a box of peppermint tea and three mugs were lined up on the windowsill. She wondered if she would ever get used to the details of ‘man’s inhumanity to man’. Nearly a year into the job, her caseload still gave her nightmares. Her face frowned back at her in the window. It was already dark outside. She’d give it another half hour and then she’d have to go home.

The night sky over York was peppered with coloured fireworks. Karen got off the bus and hurried up the path that cut through to the school playing field. As she emerged opposite an embankment full of spectators, a rocket whistled up and burst into a shower of stars, bathing the faces of the crowd in green fluorescence. She spotted her own children, Sophie and Ben, open-mouthed, staring upwards. Behind them, one hand on Ben’s shoulder was Max. Her husband’s bald head reflected the light from the sky, turning from green to pink. Even in the chill of a November evening he didn’t wear a hat and if he felt the cold, he certainly didn’t admit it.

The first time she saw him, he was on the dance floor at a wedding, wearing a tight 1950s suit that was somehow beyond fashion. She’d liked his smile and the way he flung his legs out when he danced. Sometimes she wondered how long they would have stayed together if she hadn’t found herself pregnant within just a few months, but it had worked out all right, for the most part. He’d done well, bought them a Victorian house on a good road, got the children into a good school. His word: good. She had to believe it was; it was costing them enough. Looking at him now, stiff, upright, under an immaculate black overcoat, she understood why people often misjudged his age. Still in his early thirties, and four years her junior, he looked ten years older. She couldn’t pinpoint exactly when it had begun, but along the way he’d morphed from an idealistic young architect into a middle-aged company man. Karen wasn’t stupid, she’d changed too, aged certainly, but after twelve years of marriage and three pregnancies, going back to work had made her feel younger.

A huge explosion was followed by a burst of silver. The crowd let out ‘oohs’ and ‘ahs’, as stars fell like a waterfall. Karen looked up too and when she looked back towards the embankment, she could no longer see Ben. Max and their daughter Sophie were still watching the sky, but beside them was a gap. A taller boy pushed forward to get a better view. Karen scanned the crowd, but she still couldn’t see her son. She hurried round the side of the field, avoiding the launching
area of used tubes and a taper-wielding teacher. She stumbled on unseen tussocks of long grass, glancing towards the embankment. There were parents and children she recognised: her next-door neighbour and his new wife, a group of mothers whom Karen knew by sight. There was still no sign of Ben. She had almost reached the crowd when everyone began clapping. The display was over. People began to move, the stillness of the watchers undone as they broke ranks. People surrounded her, saying goodnight to one another, catching up on gossip. Dry-mouthed, she pushed on.