Dead of Winter (16 page)

‘I suppose we had better go and see the Saxbys, tell them the news.’ He spoke into the radio. ‘Jim, do you want to come?’

Perkins declined.

‘I’m going to see Norman. He’s bound to want a case conference. See you there.’

‘Why didn’t he show up, sir?’ someone asked.

‘Who knows? Maybe it was a hoax; maybe it wasn’t. Either way, something happened or he lost his nerve. We need to find out.’

‘Did he spot us?’

‘I doubt it, but if he calls again he’ll be sure to let us know if he did.’

Fenwick called the psychologist as he drove back to Saxby Hall and told her the news.

‘It’s not entirely unexpected,’ she said dispassionately. ‘We discussed the possibility this morning, remember, and concluded that if he didn’t have the girl or was an amateur his nerve might fail.’

‘On the call to confirm arrangements he seemed surer of himself.’

‘It was still fantasy then, something he could envisage controlling. When it came to having the guts to walk over to the bin and lift the bag then reality struck.’

‘Will he try again?’

‘There’s a chance, as long as he believes that the police know nothing about the ransom demand and he needs the money. What are you going to tell the parents?’

‘That we’re doing everything we can to find their daughter; that there’s a chance she’s still alive …’

‘Do you really believe that?’

‘I have to … We have news her spare bank card has been used. That at least is concrete.’

‘Good luck.’

They were waiting for him in the sitting room. The fire blazed, incongruously cheerful. He noticed a bare Christmas tree by the front window, which must have been delivered while he was out. Neither of them looked up as he entered. Tony was pouring coffee into mugs. When he had finished he offered a plate of biscuits to Jane Saxby but she stared through them.

Fenwick sat down on the sofa opposite, noting how Bill Saxby was stroking the back of his wife’s hand above nails that had been bitten raw to the quick.

‘He didn’t show up,’ he said simply. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Not your fault,’ Saxby replied, his voice hoarse. ‘Looks like a
bloody hoax after all. You always said it might be. We just wanted to believe so much that it was real, that we’d get Issie back.’ His voice broke.

Jane glanced up at the clock.

‘I thought she might be with us by now,’ she murmured, ‘cold, hungry, frightened, of course, but with us. I’ve got her favourite pyjamas warming in the airing cupboard and we’ve bought all the food she likes.’

The men watched her, waiting for the crying to start but she held onto her self-control, even when her husband pulled her into his chest and kissed the top of her head.

‘What are your plans now, Superintendent?’ he asked, eyes moist, looking away.

‘We maintain the trace on your phones in case he calls. Meanwhile, there are other leads and the search continues.’

He told them about the use of Issie’s second bank card that morning, cautioning that they shouldn’t assume it was their daughter who had used it.

‘We’ll know more when we’ve studied the security tape from the garage. I’m going back to HQ now. We still have to behave as if he’s watching the Hall so all our comings and goings will be discreet. Even so, we need to agree a cover story.

‘In case he rings and asks who I am, I’m Lady Saxby’s physician and Tony is a favourite nephew who’s come to stay. He won’t have seen Jeff,’ he pointed to the technician sipping coffee patiently by the equipment and the Saxbys looked at him in surprise, as if the idea of him having a name hadn’t occurred to them.

Fenwick stood up, relieved that they could leave two highly skilled officers at the Hall.

‘If anything happens, I’ll call you straight away. Don’t despair, there’s still plenty for us to work on.’

They nodded in synchronised pain. Saxby made to stand to see him out but Fenwick waved him back down and shook hands in farewell.

The incident room had been moved to HQ that morning. It was unnaturally quiet when Fenwick entered. So much had happened in the last twenty-four hours but with the failed pickup it felt as if the case had gone cold. Rod Saxby had been released; there was still no sign of Issie and the kidnapper remained a mystery man.

‘Have the fingerprints from the payphone been sent off?’ Fenwick asked the room and a civilian clerk answered.

‘Yes, sir. Inspector Perkins had CST there within fifteen minutes of his call dressed as maintenance so hopefully they’ll have some of his.’

‘Good; cross-check them immediately against the ones we lifted from the security pad by the gate that Issie used on Monday night. What about the service station videotape?’

‘Already being processed, sir,’ Bazza walked in unwinding a thick scarf from his neck. ‘Jake’s taken it to Tech and will come back with stills ASAP. We’ll be able to compare them with photos of St Anne’s employees from their records and with the pictures of the volunteers in the search team, plus all the coverage of the swimming pool.’

‘Any news from Deidre?’

‘She’s taken over the search at the YMCA.’

It wasn’t a job she should have been doing but Fenwick understood why she had exiled herself to the chilly youth hostel. He knew how she felt. He wasn’t sure whether he would be asked to stay on or dismissed after the morning’s debacle. Any hope of him being a miracle worker must surely have disappeared.

‘Right, well I’d better go and see the CC,’ he said without enthusiasm.

Norman was waiting for him with Jim Perkins already in his office. He asked them relevant questions, offered few observations and spent most of the meeting debating theories. Like Perkins, he favoured the hypothesis that the ransom demand had been a hoax. Their discussion did nothing to make Fenwick feel better. It was illogical, and he wouldn’t allow himself to dwell on the thought, but he couldn’t help feeling responsible for the morning’s fiasco.
Norman confirmed that he was going to retain personal command of the investigation. Fenwick was welcome to spend the rest of the day and weekend on the case but he had already called the Home Office who had agreed that Fenwick could be reassigned back to MCS from Monday.

Fenwick had expected as much and nodded acceptance. Stepping out of Norman’s office he decided he needed a coffee and headed down to the cafeteria. The air outside the stair windows looked as if two giants were having a pillow fight. The sky was full of swirling snow, large soft flakes caught in eddies between the buildings, moving in all directions before settling in drifts on the frozen ground below. Fenwick’s heart went out to the police team searching for Issie. There wouldn’t be many volunteers today.

He took his mug to a small table at the end of the almost empty room. He was slurping the boiling hot liquid, too impatient to wait for it to cool, when his mobile phone rang. He glanced at the caller id and closed his eyes.

‘Hello, sweetheart,’ he said in a half whisper, ‘I’m so sorry I didn’t call you this morning but it’s been a very busy day.’

‘Daddy, where are you? It’s Friday and you promised to take me shopping as soon as school was finished! I need a dress for the school disco and you said we’d get it today, that it would be my special Christmas dress, like every year, and the tree needs decorating and Alice won’t let us do it without you here because she says the lights have to go on first and you need to check they’re all right and if we don’t there might be an electrical fault and then the house will burn down and we’ll all die in our beds and how would you like that, and I want to gather ivy from the garden like we did last year to put on the banisters and the fireplace and Chris wants a snowman and he’s in one of his moods and won’t come out of his bedroom and Alice says she’s had enough of us and …’

Fenwick lowered his forehead into his hand as her words lanced through him, bringing stinging cuts of guilt. He had forgotten the promise and that it was meant to be his day off. There was no way he could go home. The alternative was for her to go shopping
with Alice but his housekeeper complained about the loud music in the stores and disapproved of Bess’s increasingly adolescent dress sense.

‘I’m going to be working for the rest of the day, love,’ he explained as he stood up and started to walk out his tension.

‘What about tomorrow instead?’

It was one of his last days on the case.

‘I can’t make any promises.’

‘What’s so important that you can’t be bothered to spend time with your family this close to Christmas?’

Fenwick missed the little girl who understood why her daddy worked late and was proud of what he did for other people. Twelve-year-old Bess was becoming a handful and too often he was left without the words to manage her. He lowered his voice.

‘A girl has gone missing …’

‘And she’s more important than I am, is that it?’

‘Bess, how can you say that?’ He struggled to keep disappointment from his tone.

‘Well it’s true, isn’t it? Everybody’s more important to you than we are. You take us for granted, assuming we’ll just be here when you’re ready for us. It’s not fair!’

‘I know it’s difficult for you, love—’

‘No you don’t, you have no idea what it’s like for us stuck here with Alice, with you out being self-important, worrying more about your job than your family.’

‘That’s not true, but there are times when other people’s lives are as important. It’s my job to—’

‘Your job! How many times do we have to hear that? I’m fed up with your job! I want a daddy who loves us, who comes home when he says he will and who wants to spend time with us because we’re the most important people in the world! That’s the sort of daddy I want.’ She burst into tears.

‘Bess, please. I love you and Chris more than anything in the world,’ he whispered.

Continued sobbing greeted his words.

‘Bess …’

‘I don’t want to talk to you.’

The connection went dead.

‘Damn,’ he whispered to himself, looking around instinctively to see if anyone had overheard but all he saw were hunched backs of indifference.

He drained the rest of his coffee and went to buy another. He was still drinking it when Bazza came running into the room pink-faced and breathless.

‘There you are! Some bloke called Bob’s on the phone for you. Said he tried your mobile but it was busy and he needs to talk to you urgently.’

Fenwick outpaced him as they returned to the incident room and snatched up the receiver.

‘It’s Bob. Anything new since the bust this morning?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Bugger.’

‘My thoughts exactly.’

‘Well I’m glad I decided to call. Look, I may have something. I’ve been digging around at the school, where they’re being very cooperative soon as I say who I’m working for.

‘Anyway, I showed them the pics of the volunteers and they identified one of them as a maintenance man-cum-gardener at the school, one Steven Mariner. Not much in that but the man hasn’t shown up for work since Wednesday. I called his missus and she was spitting feathers. She’s just come back from her mother’s to find that someone has cleared out her store cupboard and stolen most of their camping gear. And there’s no sign of her husband either. He’s not answering her calls. I’m driving over there now but thought maybe you’d want to make this official.’

‘I do! What’s the address?’

‘Twenty-six Goosegreen Avenue, it’s on the outskirts of Guildford, to the north.’

‘Hang on; map!’ Fenwick demanded and Bazza called up Guildford A to Z on his computer. Fenwick gave him the address.
Seconds later he said, ‘It’s within the triangulated location from the mobile service provider.’

‘Bob, we’re sending a team over. Hold off until they arrive.’

‘No problem.’

‘That was Saxby’s private detective,’ he explained to Bazza, ‘he’s got a lead.’

‘And knew enough to call us rather than bumble in? That’s a first.’ Bazza watched Fenwick pick up his jacket and followed his example. ‘What is it?

‘Steven Mariner …’

‘He’s the odd-job bloke I’m still trying to find for a second interview. What about him?’

‘I’ll tell you on the way. Cobb, can you alert Operations that we might need a crime scene team and then join us at 26 Goosegreen Avenue as soon as you can?’

Cobb’s face flushed. Fenwick recognised guilt and glared at the man.

‘Out with it.’

‘There was a call from Mrs Mariner to the station this morning. She was reporting a possible break-in. When the duty officer there heard her husband worked at St Anne’s he sent a copy of the report over. I was going to put it on your desk but it didn’t seem that important …’

‘You tosspot.’ Bazza couldn’t contain himself.

‘Enough.’ Fenwick didn’t have time to waste on recriminations. ‘Cobb, call Operations as I told you. Bazza, get in touch with Superintendent Bernstein and tell her where to meet us.’

His phone rang as he was leaving the building.

‘Fenwick.’

‘Andrew, it’s Deidre Bernstein.’

‘Am I glad you’ve called. We’ve just—’

‘Andrew, whatever you have to say can wait.’ Bernstein’s tone put him on instant alert.

‘What is it?’

‘We’ve found a body.’

Fenwick agreed with Bernstein that DS Holland should proceed to Goosegreen Avenue and told him to allow Bob Cooper to enter. He ignored Bazza’s raised eyebrows and took a separate car with driver to meet Bernstein. The deteriorating road conditions made the journey difficult so he was out of patience already before he walked into the miasma of her foul mood.

Bernstein was tapping her foot outside a dilapidated caravan. Scene of crime technicians hadn’t finished their work so none of the detectives had been allowed to enter. Fenwick was given extra-large sterile blue coveralls and he put them on over his winter coat, the hood loose on his back. As the short afternoon darkened, the dingy clearing transformed into an arena of combat between murder and modern science. Outside the perimeter Bernstein’s team were conducting a fingertip search despite the snow and poor light.

While he waited Fenwick listened to the officer who had found the body of a male, thirty-something, about six feet tall; throat cut, probably at the scene given the amount of blood. The officer had followed procedure. Apart from searching the scene for anyone else he hadn’t touched anything. Bernstein could add little. She had contacted the Land Registry for the owner of the site only to be told
that it would be shut until Monday. The chief constable had been dragged in to find the mayor and have the office opened urgently.

Fenwick called Bazza and asked him to send to his mobile a photograph of Steven Mariner. He received two: one from his wedding too small to be helpful and a better one of Mariner drinking with another man. He showed them to the officer who was first on the scene.

‘Could the body belong to this man?’

The officer squinted at the pictures and angled the phone into the spotlight. As soon as the beam hit the photo of the two men he nodded.

‘The fat one on the right, it’s him, I’m sure.’

‘On the right, you’re sure? Not the other one?’

‘Positive.’

Fenwick called Bazza to find out who was in the shot with Mariner.

‘It’s Dan Mariner, his brother. Apparently they’re very close.’

Fenwick motioned for Bernstein to follow him and found a quiet space to talk. He told her about the reported theft from Goosegreen Avenue, Steven Mariner’s disappearance, how he worked at St Anne’s and had volunteered for the search on day one but had subsequently disappeared.

‘So this may be connected. Who killed him; his brother? Issie? Did the brothers have her?’ Bernstein chewed gum with aggression.

‘Good questions. We need to find out urgently when Dan Mariner died. Are those technician’s ever going to finish?’

They continued to wait. Bernstein paced up and down beyond the perimeter, packing the snow into dirty brown ice beneath the spotlights. The mobile scene of crime unit was stuck in snow at the far end of the track leading to the clearing. They were just thinking of going back there to warm up when there was a call from the caravan steps.

‘All yours! We’ll continue once the body’s been removed.’

‘At last.’ Fenwick put on protective shoe covers and almost fell over.

He slipped his way up the breeze blocks that served the van as
steps. Behind him a black Range Rover crawled down the track that led to the site, the driver carefully avoiding the fishtailing that had befallen all other vehicles. Fenwick watched, his brow creasing in concern in case it was a journalist. His expression changed when a large woman, dressed in a puffer jacket that made her look like the Michelin man, climbed out, doctor’s bag in hand. She was wearing stout crêpe-soled shoes that carried her firmly across the ice. One of the CSTs took one look at her and put away the blue coverall they had been holding out and passed over instead a man’s size, extra-extra-large.

‘Doctor Patricia Jamieson,’ she said in a falsetto that was out of keeping with her bulk, ‘Patty to my friends. It’s taken me forever to get here – sorry. There are cars abandoned everywhere and I had to double-back and find another way.’

She held out a hand and Fenwick shook it.

‘Superintendent Andrew Fenwick; this is Superintendent Bernstein. You’re the new pathologist, Pendlebury’s replacement?’

‘The same. Now where’s the stiff? At least I imagine he will be whatever time he died in this miserable weather.’ Her giggle was a little girl’s.

Fenwick blinked but didn’t laugh.

‘He’s in there.’

She put on the overall and squeezed through the door with some difficulty, puffing with the effort of climbing the steps. Fenwick and Bernstein exchanged a glance and followed. Dr Jamieson paused a few feet from a man’s body sprawled on a decrepit sofa sodden with his blood. Arterial spray coated the ceiling and walls in a crimson umbrella. The corpse’s bleached left hand clutched at a gaping hole in the side of his neck. His face was turned away from the door so all Fenwick could see was the side of his head.

Jamieson stepped forward, whistling tunelessly. She crouched down by the body and extended a finger to touch the man’s arm in a surprisingly gentle gesture.

‘They’ve taken all the photographs you need?’ Her breath misted in the air.

‘Yes. Is cause of death as obvious as it looks?’

‘If it was, you wouldn’t need me except to pronounce, would you?’ The whistling resumed, punctuated by small grunts of effort as she moved. She pushed against muscles in the man’s jaw, frowned and took a long thermometer from her bag. As she inserted it Fenwick looked away.

‘Has that door been open ever since you lot discovered the body?’

Despite the girlish tone she sounded accusing. Fenwick bit back a retort and scanned the preliminary report the CSTs had just given them.

‘The door was kept shut while we worked the scene,’ Bernstein replied calmly, unprovoked for once. ‘The CSTs took the room temperature as soon as they arrived. It was twenty-seven degrees Fahrenheit and the outside temperature twenty-five. There’s a Calor heater over there. It was out and cold to the touch when the technicians got here, empty of paraffin. We don’t know when it was last filled but they’re going to test how long a full tank lasts and take temperature readings of the van while they do it.’

‘Good, that will help me to assess ToD. Rigor has already passed.’ She tested the man’s thigh, then his feet. ‘He’s wearing two pairs of socks, one … two shirts and a sweatshirt, and there’s a blanket on the floor. So it was probably cool in here even with the heater going. That,’ she gestured to the Calor gas, ‘wouldn’t be enough to heat a badly insulated room like this very well.’

‘Can you give me a time of death?’

‘Very hard to say, at least twenty-four hours; rigor is notoriously inexact as a basis for estimation, so don’t quote me until your technicians have simulated the temperature curve.’ She rolled the body onto its side, his dead weight nothing to her, and pulled down his clothing to reveal bare skin. ‘Skin is cold to the touch; liver temp … twenty-eight degrees. That would suggest he died much more than twenty-four hours ago.’

Jamieson prodded at purplish patches on pale buttocks.

‘Lividity is consistent with the position in which the body was
found and is fixed. Forget twenty-four hours; he could have been dead as much as thirty-six, possibly longer.’ She scratched her head. ‘Decomp isn’t nearly as advanced as I would expect because of the probable ambient temperature at time of death followed by the rapid cooling of the environment once the heat ran out. You can move him now.’ She struggled to her feet, pulling her weight up against the force of gravity. The whistling started again.

‘As for cause, I’d say the obvious is probably right in this case.’ She glanced at Fenwick. ‘Looks like he went into cardiac arrest as a result of rapid exsanguination; would have been dead almost instantly. Arterial spray is consistent with him being alive when he received the injury that killed him and as far as I can tell it was just one blow that did it.

‘Your technicians will be the experts, of course, but there appear to be two major spray areas, suggesting he was moving at the time of the injury – maybe in a fight. The pooling here shows he collapsed onto the sofa and died where you found him. There are no obvious defensive wounds but I’ll look for bruising and any signs of a struggle in the PM. Was the weapon a bottle?’

‘CST found one, shattered and covered in his blood.’

‘An unlucky break,’ she gave another giggle. ‘I can do the autopsy tonight if it helps.’

‘It would, thank you, Doctor.’

‘It’s Patty, remember.’ She smiled at him, a massive, overweight, tone-deaf cherub.

As she walked past him out of the caravan he recognised the tune she was murdering. It was ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’. He couldn’t tell whether the choice was motivated by irony, lack of taste or indifference; maybe all three.

After she had gone Fenwick went over to the body and stared at the man’s face, grotesque with the shock of death.

‘Definitely Dan Mariner and it looks as if his brother has left home. Given his wife’s report he could have taken not just his regular belongings but food and camping gear as well.’

‘Camping gear … in this weather?’

Bernstein popped a fresh square of nicotine gum into the side of her mouth, chewed quickly and then slipped it between teeth and cheek while Fenwick pulled out the report Cobb had failed to give him earlier.

‘Assuming it’s him, he took blankets, camp bed, sleeping bags and cooking equipment as well as food.’

‘So he’s hiding out somewhere. With or without Issie, that’s the question?’

‘Exactly; but whichever, his brother’s murder is a major complication. It looks like Dan died in a fight: was it over Issie? Was she kept here?’

Fenwick breathed in the icy air of the caravan and shuddered. Despite the cold he could smell mildew, old rubbish … and something else.

‘It’s possible according to SOCO,’ Bernstein replied, ‘through here.’

They walked in single file into a tiny cupboard of a bedroom. Fenwick wrinkled his nose.

‘It stinks.’

‘Urine, sweat, sex. The mattress and sheet were covered in traces according to CST; they’re on their way to the lab together with short auburn hairs, visually similar to Issie’s.’

‘So this could be where she was held. Did she see Dan die? Was she killed too and her body taken away?’ His voice was heavy.

‘What do you think?’ Bernstein squinted at him, chewing incessantly while dragging the chill air between her teeth as if inhaling on an imaginary cigarette.

‘You tell me.’

The jaws stopped briefly.

‘Issie’s abducted, right? Maybe it started for the sex. Then they realised …’

‘They, not he?’

‘If it was one man, he’s dead and Issie would be here or would have contacted her parents. No, there was more than one.’ He nodded. ‘Right, well they realise what they’ve got – sorry, who they’ve got – and one of them decides to turn kidnapper.’

‘Steven Mariner; Dan was dead when the second call came through, if not the first.’

‘So, say Steven has her. Before the calls, they keep Issie here, maybe for sex,’ she sniffed, ‘certainly smells like it. Except something goes wrong – an argument, fight, accident; doesn’t matter for now – somehow it concludes with a broken whisky bottle and murder. Fattie ends up dead and the other one – Steven – clears off with Issie.’

‘Why so sure?’

‘Footprints by the door.’ Bernstein looked smug as Fenwick peered over and saw two sets in the dried blood, one much smaller than the other.

‘Is there anything to tell us where he might have taken her?’

Fenwick looked at Bernstein hopefully but knew it was a futile question. If there was they would already be heading there. He opened a drawer at random but all it contained was a bottle opener and a desiccated bluebottle.

‘We have nothing to go on. The ground outside is too frozen to hold tyre prints. Our best bet is to continue the search and put a marker on Steven Mariner’s car. If he’s smart, Bazza should already have done so. I’ll check.’

‘Good; what would you like me to do? Stay here or continue to Steven Mariner’s house?’ Fenwick asked. ‘And someone has to tell the Saxbys there might be a lead.’

Bernstein’s expression darkened.

‘Norman will call them personally, I expect. You go to Mariner’s. I’d rather stay here in case anything breaks.’

His car was parked beyond the perimeter CST had established, almost at the edge of the wood. As he walked towards it he noticed some of the searchers in the trees nearby, apparently oblivious to the cold, fuelled by a new determination to find the missing girl. They were armed with sticks and powerful torches to penetrate the undergrowth and every other one carried a brush or spade to clear the snow. The search conditions were atrocious but they couldn’t, wouldn’t stop.

He thought of the latest health and safety guideline to soil his in tray and snorted in disgust. He would like nothing more than to have a few of those Whitehall paper-pushers out here right now. There should be a law against people making regulations who didn’t know what they were doing. Make operational experience compulsory for all civil servants, he thought; it might do the force the world of good.

The idea was a distraction; maybe a deliberate attempt by his subconscious to keep him from imagining Issie’s body out there somewhere, already frozen as night fell. He pushed the idea away and entered the welcome relative warmth of the car.

Fenwick’s driver eased the car forward, feeling the tyres slip then catch their grip. They were almost at the junction when the driver spotted someone trying to catch up. It was Bernstein. The car braked carefully and Fenwick wound down his window.

‘What is it?’

‘This. We just found it next to the track.’

She held out a sealed plastic evidence bag and he took it from her through the open window. Inside was a small silver stud and loop that he had seen before. In the picture of Issie hanging upside down by her knees from a tree this had been pierced through her navel. She was a clever girl; maybe she had dropped it deliberately as a clue for them to find. If so, it meant she was alive and conscious when she left the caravan. His heart pounded with excitement as he thanked Bernstein.