Two Evils: A DI Charlotte Savage Novel (40 page)

Chapter Thirty-Six

Crownhill Police Station, Plymouth. Thursday 29th October. 4.15 p.m.

Savage was back at Crownhill by late afternoon. Hardin had called a press conference for five p.m. and already the vultures were gathering in the car park at the back of the police station. TV vans, local and national hacks, Dan Phillips amongst them.

‘Charlotte!’ Phillips shouted out as Savage climbed from her car. ‘Bad news, huh?’

‘There’s going to be a statement, Dan,’ Savage said as Phillips came over. ‘Five o’clock.’

‘You’ve found him, haven’t you? And he’s dead. No doubt in my mind, I can read it on your faces.’

‘No comment.’ Savage walked towards the entrance and pushed through the doors into the station.

In the crime suite the sombre mood which Phillips had spotted was evident. No jokes or wisecracks or larking around. Officers either stood in small groups talking in hushed tones or were heads down over their keyboards. Some of them, like Savage, had been to this place before. It was a place of press conferences with grieving families, flashes of light from the cameras illuminating tear-stained faces, words stuttered out by the mother or father or brother or sister. A place of soul-searching, where the silence was punctuated only by the ticking of the watchful clock as the errors were written into the policy book for a review team to pore over at a later date. Careers were broken by events like this, people too. It was, Savage had found, a place of utter darkness and despair where, unless one was very careful, emotions could take over from professionalism.

Gareth Collier was in his default position at one of the whiteboards, a marker pen in one hand. Savage went across.

‘I’ve been over the stuff we’ve got on Brenden Parker,’ Collier said. ‘I’m pretty sure we couldn’t have worked this one out without the help of your informer friend.’

‘Thanks, Gareth. If we can …’ she paused. Three desks away, Calter had just answered a telephone. Her manner had gone from professional and friendly to monosyllabic, her face from flushed with the heat of the room to white. In that instant, Savage knew the darkness and despair were about to get a whole lot worse.

Calter hung up. She placed both her elbows on the desk in front of her and clasped her hands together. Closed her eyes for a moment, head bowed.

‘Jane?’ Savage said. ‘What’s the matter?’

Calter opened her eyes and sighed. ‘Two boys have gone missing, ma’am. Modbury Primary.’

‘No.’ Savage felt her legs turn to jelly. ‘Go on.’

‘Some terrible mix-up. Their absence wasn’t noticed first thing this morning because they were supposed to be on a school trip. It was only when the coach returned this afternoon the teachers realised a mistake had been made. They double-checked with the parents but the boys had set off first thing this morning. A witness saw someone pick them up.’

‘Please tell me it wasn’t—’

‘It was, ma’am. We’ve got a description and it’s pretty much a ringer for Brenden Parker.’

Riley peered through the windscreen at the Dartmoor landscape. A narrow lane twisted between mossy banks. A strip of green in the centre of the tarmac. Potholes. Not many people came this way, Riley thought. Walkers, perhaps, maybe a family with a car full of screaming kids looking for a place for a picnic.

The lane ended abruptly, a set of tall wooden gates blocking the way, a chain wrapped several times around the gates, with a ‘Private Keep Out’ sign added for good measure. Neither walkers nor picnickers would get any further.

‘This is the last one on our list, Patrick,’ Riley said. ‘Probably be the same as all the others.’

‘Probably.’ Enders made no effort to move. ‘We’re somewhere between Cadover Bridge and Sheepstor, but it might as well be the high moor. There’s nobody here.’

Riley couldn’t blame Enders for feeling fed up. They’d received the news about the discovery of Jason Hobb a couple of hours ago and now the search felt almost academic. Plus they’d been at it since early morning and this was the tenth farm they’d been to. The previous nine had all checked out. No sign of Brenden Parker, no sign of Perry Sleet. Every farmer they’d spoken to had confirmed that they’d had deliveries of the specific brand of sheep dip in the past, but they’d also assured them no containers had ever gone walkabout. Empty barrels had been returned to the manufacturer for reuse, or rinsed out and stored, the residue disposed of along with the used dip.

Riley climbed out of the car and approached the gates. A heavy padlock secured the chain. They had a few tools in the boot of the car, but nothing which could get through this. He turned and moved to the bank at one side of the gates. He used one of the gateposts to pull himself up. Standing on the bank, he could see over the hedge. The security was an illusion. A field bordered the farmyard, a drystone wall running between the two. He looked back down the road. Fifty metres away a five-bar gate marked an opening. They could walk back down the lane, climb over the gate and go through the field. The wall wouldn’t be much of a problem.

Enders was standing next to the car when Riley returned. He didn’t fancy it.

‘I’d rather not, sir,’ he said. ‘We’ll get muddy.’

‘Not a problem.’ Riley sprung the hatch. Next to his own pair of boots there was a carrier bag. He’d almost forgotten it was there. ‘Davies’ wellies. Left over from the last op we did together on the Agri Squad. Bit of luck, no?’

They donned their boots and walked to the entrance of the field. They opened the gate and went through into an area of poor pasture dotted with clumps of rushes. They crossed the field and arrived at the wall. Enders took a couple of strides towards the wall and then heaved himself up, his boots scrabbling to gain purchase. He swung one leg up, then the other and slipped down the other side, knocking a large coping stone from the top of the wall. Riley jumped out of the way as the stone thudded into the earth at his feet.

Enders huffed and then muttered something from the other side as Riley took a couple of steps back and then ran at the wall and vaulted up and over in one clean movement. He landed with a squelch, ankle-deep in farmyard muck.

‘Well,’ Enders said. ‘We’re truly in the shit now.’

‘Over there.’ Riley pointed across to a set of low metal hurdles arranged in something of a maze. ‘A sheep race.’

Two years ago, when he’d still been in London, Riley would have thought a sheep race was some weird countryside sport played by perverted farmers. Now he knew a race was a series of hurdles used to confine and shepherd sheep for the purposes of shearing or foot trimming. Or, more pertinent to their investigation, in order to corral them into a sheep dip. The hurdles looked rusty and weeds grew up within the pens.

‘Nobody’s dipped here for a while, sir,’ Enders said. He peered down at his feet. ‘And this is cow shit, not sheep.’

‘Four years, remember?’ Riley said as he walked across to the hurdles. ‘This place isn’t in use any more other than as a watering spot for cattle.’

‘So why are we bothering?’

Riley stopped next to the sheep race. On the far side the weeds had run out of control and dock and nettle a metre or so high lay in a forest up against a stone wall.

‘There.’ Riley pointed along the wall to where the weeds gave way to an area of earth and yellowing plants. Three blue barrels stood against the wall, but it was obvious from the virgin soil that many more had recently been removed. ‘That’s why we’re bothering.’

‘They’re the same ones used on the rafts,’ Enders said. He turned and looked to where an old farmhouse stood in another patch of scrub, the windows boarded over. A little way beyond, a U-shaped configuration of buildings nestled against the hillside. ‘You think …?’

‘It’s worth a look.’

A stone byre sat on the left, open-fronted, several pieces of rusting farm machinery inside. Ahead of them was a long low building, the slate roof in need of repair, a gaping hole at one end. To the right there was a large stone barn with a corrugated cement roof. The structure was in a much better state. The stonework had been freshly pointed, the roof was clean of moss with several new sheets and a nice new health and safety sign advising the use of crawlboards. Stone steps led up to a substantial wooden door.

They plodded across to the buildings and climbed the steps. The door had a large hasp and padlock, but the hasp hadn’t been closed and the padlock hung unlocked.

‘Looks like somebody left in a hurry,’ Riley said. He pulled the handle on the door.

Inside, it was dark. Riley reached in and flicked a light switch to the right of the door. A series of fluorescent tubes sprang into life and illuminated a corridor.

‘Half finished.’ Enders nodded at the white walls and concrete floor. ‘A full-scale barn conversion. Must be worth a bit, I reckon. Maybe as a holiday home.’

Riley stared down the corridor. Enders had it wrong. This wasn’t any prelude to turning the building into a dwelling. The fittings were all too industrial. Bulkhead lights, electric cables in armoured trunking, a concrete floor and, above their heads, a ventilation tube.

‘I don’t think it’s a house.’

‘Post whatsit.
Grand Designs
. Kevin bloody McCloud. I shouldn’t be surprised if at the end of this passage there’s a kitchen with half an acre of stainless steel worktop.’

Riley shook his head. This wasn’t a house, more like a factory.

They walked a few metres down the corridor to where there was another door. Riley opened it. There was a small square hallway beyond. Two doors close together on one wall, and a door in each of the other walls.

‘Here.’ Riley went across to the pair of doors. The left door stood open and inside he could see a small room just a couple of square metres in size. Straw covered the floor and when Riley examined the door he saw two large bolts on the outside. ‘Some sort of cell. I reckon Benedict or Sleet was in here. We’ve found him, Patrick, found the guy with the raft.’

For the second time that day, Savage sat in a car haring west along the A38, this time with Calter at the wheel. Confusion still reigned, but what facts they had spoke for themselves. The boys had definitely been taken.

They’d left home at eight twenty for the short walk to the school. The teacher organising the trip had heard the boys were both ill, while staff remaining at the school thought the boys had gone on the trip. A witness had seen the pair get into a vehicle with Brenden Parker. Recognising Parker as one of her teenage children’s teachers, albeit from a different school, she hadn’t thought anything of it.

Savage shook her head, her own feelings as a mother overwhelming her need to concentrate. This was every parent’s nightmare. An ordinary day turned into a day to remember for the rest of your life. She’d had just such a day herself of course, and the memories had never left her. Even now, with the mystery surrounding Clarissa’s death cleared up and the man ultimately to blame gone, she struggled to accept the fact that she was not responsible. Deep down there was a part of her that thought she was a bad mother, that she and Pete had failed as parents. By any definition, losing a child proved that.

A squeal of brakes as Calter came into a corner a little too fast brought her back to the job in hand. They were on the final straight. Everything speeding up. She thought on the timings. Parker had been Tasered on the Wednesday, but whoever had attempted to kidnap him had plainly failed because today he’d gone to the house in Modbury, dug his mother from her grave and killed Jason. Afterwards he’d kidnapped the two schoolkids. Or perhaps the events had happened the other way around. Whatever, he was losing focus, beginning to act irrationally. They could only hope the frenzy of activity would lead to Parker making a mistake.

Modbury was chaotic. A queue of cars sat in a jam, a police roadblock stopping further progress. Calter overtook and was flagged through. The primary school was on the outskirts, an old Victorian building. Half a dozen squad cars sat alongside the stone boundary wall and the mobile incident room van had been parked in the playground. As Savage got out of the car, she heard a buzzing overhead and looked up to see the black and yellow police helicopter circling above.

The police search advisor stepped down from the incident room van as Savage approached.

He shrugged. ‘I’m doing my best, but to be honest I don’t hold out much hope.’

Up in the van, Hardin sat staring at a screen showing the countryside from the air, the whole lot spinning and sliding this way and that. For a moment Savage couldn’t understand what the DSupt was looking at. Then she had it. A live feed from the helicopter. A map spread on the desk in front of him had been scribed with red lines: the PolSA’s search grids.

‘We’re fucked,’ Hardin said without turning to acknowledge her. ‘The PolSA has just told me the boys are dead. He reckons they’ll be under a hedge somewhere within a couple of miles of here.’

‘He’s wrong, sir.’

‘Bloodlust, Charlotte. He’s killed once today already, so it stands to reason those boys are next. You saw what the weirdo did with Jason and the dead woman at the house. He’s a grade-one nutter and he intends to go out in a blaze of glory.’

‘They’re still alive, I know it. We need to find out who the man with the Taser is, now more than ever. He knows something we don’t and I believe it’s important.’

‘What the bloody hell are you talking about? He’s no better than Parker. Look what he did to Tim Benedict.’

Savage had no argument with that. She stared at the footage from the aerial camera. The helicopter had moved away from Modbury and followed the main road before turning towards the old house. The aircraft banked sharply and the land slid sideways, the horizon slipping in from the top of the screen. Light blue sky, a dark azure sea beneath. Then the helicopter righted itself, the view once again coming from directly beneath.

Hardin was making some comment about widening the search parameters, bringing in outside help in the form of the army.

‘A lot of ground to cover,’ he said. ‘The PolSA reckons anywhere between the sea and the A38. Bloody nightmare.’