Innocent Blood (3 page)

Unfortunately, things didn’t go according to plan, as Cooper was later to put in his report. Instead of sitting down Chalfont followed the major into his kitchen.

‘Please, I can do this; go and make yourself comfortable.’

‘No problem, I need to see the appliances anyway. Where’s your boiler?’

There was silence. Cooper looked up from his seat on the throne and stared at the appliance in question.

‘Ah…’ The confusion in Maidment’s voice was obvious. ‘I’ve only just moved in. Let me see, it’s—’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll find it. I’m an expert. I bet it’s in the cloakroom.’

The door opened before Cooper could hide. For a moment the two men stared at each other then Cooper gathered his wits and said firmly:

‘Police! You’re under ar—’

The punch knocked the breath from his body and he doubled over. Wheezing, he heard the sounds of a scuffle in the narrow hall and look up to see Lee land painfully on his behind. There was a clatter of footsteps on the stairs as Perkins hurtled down, slamming into Cooper, who was in the process of hobbling along the hall. Perkins tripped and almost fell. Cooper squeezed past him into the kitchen in time to see Chalfont land another punch, this time on Maidment’s nose. Blood spurted out, spattering both men’s jackets. Instead of giving way, Maidment squared up to his attacker and landed a solid right to the side of Chalfont’s jaw.

Cooper struggled to stand straight and rushed at Chalfont but the man picked up a bread knife and started waving it wildly in front of his face. DC Partridge was banging on the bolted front door while Rike hovered white-faced outside the kitchen window. Perkins and Lee were backed up in the hall behind Cooper.

‘Let’s all calm down, shall we?’ Cooper’s voice was laboured and his stomach felt on fire. ‘Take it easy there – Luke, isn’t it? There are five officers here and more on the way. There’s no point making matters worse with threatening behaviour. Put the knife down.’

Both he and Maidment were within striking distance of the blade. Cooper told Perkins to stay out of the room, hoping the lad would have enough sense to obey an order. He heard Lee unlock the front door but there was nothing they could do with the advantage of numbers as the kitchen was too small. In the sudden silence Maidment, Chalfont and Cooper eyed each other warily.

‘I won’t go to prison.’ Chalfont’s voice held a tremor of panic.

‘Who’s said anything about prison? Let’s not jump to conclusions, but wielding that knife won’t help you. Put it down, son.’

‘I’m not your son and who do you think you’re kidding?’ Cooper heard the rising note of hysteria and watched with growing concern as Chalfont’s hand started to tremble. ‘I’m going to leave now and you’re not going to stop me. Open that door.’

Chalfont turned to Maidment and gestured with the knife, then swung back to Cooper, who had risked a step forward.

‘Keep away!’

In the instant the two men confronted each other, Maidment opened the bread bin, pulled out a gun and pointed it at Chalfont’s chest.

‘I don’t think you’re going anywhere, sonny.’

Chalfont’s mouth dropped open. Cooper became aware that his own was agape in shock.

‘Put the gun away, Major. That isn’t going to help.’

He stared at the two armed men and wondered who looked more dangerous. Chalfont was shaking all over as he backed away, while Maidment remained calm except for a small tic at the corner of his eye. Cooper had the horrible impression that he might actually be enjoying himself.

‘Don’t worry, Sergeant, I have the situation under control. I’m not going to let that bastard get away, not after what he did to Miss Pennysmith.’

His words drove Chalfont even further away, unaware of how close he now was to Cooper. The man with the gun was the only thing he was focused on. Cooper lunged for the knife and locked his right hand around the man’s wrist. Chalfont swivelled in his grasp and jerked his left elbow sharply into Cooper’s aching stomach. His hold weakened and Chalfont swung the knife up to Cooper’s neck.

There was a deafening report. An expression of confusion covered Chalfont’s face, then he started to scream. The knife fell as he grabbed his thigh and tried to stop the flow of bright arterial blood that was pumping out over the kitchen units and walls to puddle on the floor.

Maidment kicked the knife away and pulled a tea towel from the drawer to apply pressure expertly on the wound. Chalfont screamed louder.

‘Hold this, Sergeant Cooper, while I call an ambulance.’

‘If you’ll just give me the gun first, sir.’

Cooper stretched out his hand and took the pistol delicately between thumb and index finger before folding a towel around it and passing it back to Perkins.

‘Ambulance is already on its way, sir,’ the constable said, ‘and back-up.’ Perkins was staring anxiously at the growing pool of blood.

‘That compress is already soaked through,’ Maidment observed, still unnaturally calm.

He found another freshly laundered tea towel and applied it to the thigh himself. Chalfont shrieked and passed out.

‘Best way. Blighter would have been in agony. At least now he won’t know a thing until he’s comfortable in hospital.’

He spoke without a trace of emotion, causing Cooper and Perkins to exchange a bewildered look. Cooper cleared his throat.

‘Major, do you have a licence for that gun?’

‘Licence? Hmm.’ Maidment scratched his chin with his free hand. ‘Do I need one? It’s my service revolver. Had it years. Never even thought about it. No, I don’t suppose I do.’

‘You should have cautioned him first, sir!’ Perkins hissed.

The reality of the situation slowly settled on Cooper. His shoulders sagged and he noticed the splashes of crimson about his trouser legs for the first time. Dot would be livid, he thought, and wished for a moment that he was at home with her now having a nice cup of tea. Instead, he forced himself to stand up and address the major.

‘Jeremy Maidment, I am arresting you on suspicion of attempted murder. You are not obliged…’

‘Attempted murder? Good heavens, Sergeant, he was less than eight feet away. I was aiming to disable him, which I did successfully. Had I wanted to kill him, I can assure you—’

‘…to say anything but…’

‘Sergeant! Didn’t you hear me? I disabled a man who was about to slit your throat. I can understand you being a little concerned about my overlooking the need for a gun licence, but to suggest I tried to murder someone is utter nonsense.’

Cooper finished the caution, feeling the blood rise in his face to match the purple in Maidment’s. He was sorely tempted to explain the situation, even to apologise, but he knew that would be very unwise. Instead, they awaited the arrival of reinforcements in silence.

Ten minutes later, Constable Lee helped a still speechless Maidment into the back of a waiting police car while Cooper watched as paramedics strapped Chalfont to a stretcher, before speeding him away beneath the clamour of a siren. The sense of shock that had enveloped him since Chalfont had picked up the knife slowly gave way to foreboding that solidified as an ache in his injured stomach. He had cocked it up. A routine arrest had turned into a life-threatening incident as a result of which a man was bleeding to death and he had been forced to arrest a pillar of the community. There would be hell to pay but meanwhile he had more important concerns.

DS Rike was leaning against the kitchen wall sucking on a cigarette. There was a smell of fresh vomit beneath the smoke.

‘All OK?’

Rike nodded and took a long drag. Cooper noticed that his hand was shaking.

‘Back door was locked; I couldn’t get in.’

‘Right. The kitchen was crowded enough and he could have broken out. You needed to cover the exit.’

Rike nodded but was unable to meet Cooper’s eye.

‘Let’s go.’ Cooper rubbed his face, looking older than his fifty years.

‘What do you want me to say?’ Rike hadn’t moved.

‘Pardon?’

‘What shall we say? Who are we going for – Chalfont or Maidment? I reckon we could put it all on Chalfont; say he jumped the major, forcing him to defend himself. He’ll still have to cough to no licence but that will be a minor charge.’

Cooper realised where Rike was heading and held up his hand.

‘Don’t say any more, Richard. We’re going with the truth. There’ll be an inquiry; it’ll be bloody, but all you need to do is make a statement explaining exactly what you saw.’

Rike stared at him as if he were mad but shut up as instructed and followed him to the car.

Maidment spent a night in the cells and was released the following day after a call by an enraged Assistant Chief Constable Harper-Brown, who tore into Cooper for holding him in custody in the first place. No sooner had the call from the ACC finished than he was summoned upstairs to see the head of Harlden Station, Superintendent Quinlan.

Quinlan didn’t ask him to sit down.

‘This is a bloody farce!’ Quinlan hardly ever swore and use of the mild expletive had a disproportionate effect on Cooper. He felt very sick indeed and looked down at his shoes. ‘What the hell were you thinking of, taking so few men?’

‘I honestly don’t think having more officers there would’ve made any difference, sir, and Maidment gave no clue that he would turn the vigilante on us.’

Quinlan stared at him and shook his head.

‘The arrest of Maidment was poorly handled. We’re lucky that he’s not the sort of man to issue a complaint against us.’

‘He hasn’t?’

‘No, but the ACC has been on the phone and he’s very upset. Have you seen the papers?’ It was a rhetorical question. ‘Even without a complaint we’re going to have some very negative PR. Harper-Brown has insisted on an inquiry.’

‘Oh, no.’ Cooper felt his knees sag. The look on his face must have been pathetic because Quinlan took pity on him.

‘It will be by another force and low key; quite a smart move. Should he come under pressure he can say that an investigation is already underway, and by staffing it from outside he can demonstrate independence.’

‘What should I do in the meantime, sir?’

‘Type up your reports and make sure that your team cooperate fully. And I don’t want you involved in the Maidment case in any way. Nightingale can take it forward. Pity you didn’t get her involved in the arrest.’

‘Yes, sir.’

The thought had already occurred to Cooper but the arrest had seemed routine, or so he told himself. At the back of his mind lurked the hint of suspicion that he’d wanted the credit for himself, not shared with the newly appointed inspector, even though he was one of her few fans.

After possibly the worst morning of his police career, Cooper retired to the canteen and sought comfort in food that was as bad for him as possible.

‘Fish ’n’ chips followed by treacle sponge and custard. What’s happened to your diet, Bob?’

Nightingale was standing by his table with a tray of food he just knew would make him feel worse.

‘Mind if I join you?’

He did mind but gestured to the empty seat opposite with his knife, then remembered his manners. He glanced at her plate. As he’d suspected, lots of green stuff. Look at her, glowing with health. He wondered who she was seeing these days. There were rumours that it was Andrew Fenwick but he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe it.

As they ate he waited for her to mention the Maidment debacle. He had his defence ready but she just chatted about a film she’d been to see the night before. Eventually, he said, ‘You could make a bloody film out of my life right now.’

‘I heard. Do you want to talk about it?’

He opened his mouth to say no but found himself reliving the previous thirty-six hours instead. She listened without interruption. Skin formed on his custard.

‘I don’t think you did anything wrong, Bob. Perhaps you could’ve had an officer in the kitchen but what good would that have done? Chalfont would only have threatened him instead. What sort of inquiry is it going to be?’

‘Internal.’

‘That’s about as good as it gets. Your guardian angel must be working hard.’

She smiled at him encouragingly as he finished his last chip, chewing on it determinedly, despite the fact that it was stone cold. He refused to be comforted.

‘I’m deep in the doo-doo, trust me. Harper-Brown’s baying for blood…’

‘Unfortunate turn of phrase. Quinlan’s furious now but he’s a fair man. He won’t allow you to be a scapegoat.’

Cooper just shook his head, took a spoonful of congealed custard and then dropped it in disgust.

‘It’s not going to be up to Quinlan, is it? I’m already being tried in the press. There’ll be so much pressure on the ACC to “do something” that I’m dead meat. You wait, I’ll be lucky if I escape unretired.’

‘So you thought you’d eat yourself to death first.’ She laughed to take the sting out of her words and Cooper tried to join in. Despite his determination to be gloomy, Nightingale had made him believe in the possibility of a positive outcome and the flicker of hope brightened his day.

Andrew Fenwick stared down at the pungent mixture of earth and leaf mould beneath his feet and brought his emotions back under control. The fragments of bone that had been recovered so painstakingly were finally being transferred into rigid containers that would have looked more at home on an archaeological dig. The remains were too small to require a body bag. Despite his years of practised detachment, the grave site moved him deeply.

‘Boy or girl?’

‘I can’t tell you that with certainty until I’ve completed my analysis but I think it’s a boy given the pelvis.’ The forensic anthropologist spoke without rancour despite the premature questioning.

Fenwick didn’t know him other than by reputation; a supposedly exceptional professor who went by the unexceptional name of Grey, who had travelled from London to stand in while Sussex’s only expert was away on holiday.

‘Age?’

‘From the state of the teeth I’d say about twelve or thirteen, but I’m sure you know better than to quote me at this stage.’

Chris, Fenwick’s son, was almost nine.

‘But it’s not Sam Bowyer.’ It was a statement. Fenwick didn’t need a post-graduate medical qualification to work that out. He said it only to relieve some of the sadness that had rooted itself in his eyes and throat since he’d stared down at the top of the child’s skull earlier that morning.

‘Who?’

Fenwick looked at Grey in surprise. Sam Bowyer’s disappearance had been on the news for days but perhaps it had only been a local sensation. Eleven years old, from a good home but a terror at school, Sam had disappeared on Monday, last seen boarding a train to Brighton when he should have been in assembly. That was four days ago and he hadn’t been seen since, despite intensive work by Brighton Division.

‘Never mind. Can you tell how long the body’s been in the ground?’

‘At least two years but frankly it could be a lot more. Look, your best way forward will be to check through missing persons’ records as soon as I send you dental impressions. There’s very little for me to work with; the body’s completely skeletised and there are no obvious signs of trauma on the remains.’

‘Did you recover them all?’

‘Most, not all. Some of the small bones of the feet are missing.’ Grey stood up and removed his gloves with a snap. ‘You’ll have my preliminary report in twenty-four hours; detail will take a lot longer. If I do find anything interesting, I’ll make sure you’re informed.’

A brief shake of hands and the man was gone, threading through trees towards his black BMW parked on the narrow road above, already thumbing his phone and apparently unmoved by the contents in the sterile plastic boxes. Fenwick watched him go, hesitating at the scene though there was no need for him to linger, reluctant to return to the noise and distraction of his base in Burgess Hill.

Around him, the white-clad shoulders of crime scene technicians rose and fell as they subjected the immediate area to fingertip scrutiny. Perhaps they were speculating about why he was committing so much time and money to a search when the crime scene would have been degraded by the passage of time and the impact of the seasons. He didn’t care what they thought, or what his boss would say when he saw the bill for the work.

The thought of HQ made his mouth twist in distaste. The chatter and infantile humour in the team room were driving him mad with irritation, despite his best intentions. The banter seemed to go on nonstop, seasoned with crass jokes that failed to raise a ripple of amusement on his mirror-calm surface. He told himself to relax as he walked downhill to the bed of a stream that split the undergrowth. The casual working atmosphere was his own doing, the result of his experiment with a more ‘personal’ leadership style he had been advised to develop. But the attempt wasn’t working. How could he pretend to be someone he wasn’t, even for the benefit of his career?

He wasn’t considered one of the boys, never had been, never wanted to be and never would be. Having reached the rank of chief inspector without that nicety, it annoyed him that he was now supposed to affect some sort of chumminess so that his team would ‘relate to him more as a human being’. He could remember the words on his year-end performance review even after all this time and was unaware that he sneered whenever he recalled them.
Relate
. Well, he knew who’s stupid idea that had been.

His new boss, Assistant Chief Constable Harper-Brown, was unfortunately punctilious about assessing performance thoroughly. After years of benign neglect while working for Superintendent Quinlan, Fenwick hadn’t been prepared for the hour and a half interview he’d had with Harper-Brown, nor for the coruscating dissection of his personality that had passed for his assessment. Thinking about the meeting made his face burn with indignation.

He had half listened to H-B’s opening monologue with his customary knowing smile, the one that said, ‘OK you’ve got to go through this, so have I, let’s make it quick’. Unfortunately the ACC had other ideas. After ten minutes, when he was showing every sign of continuing strong, Fenwick tried to make an excuse and leave.

‘You have another meeting, Andrew? Then cancel it. You should have known better than to book something back to back with your review. We’ll need at least another hour.’

Fenwick had been too shocked to respond and started to listen properly for the first time. Naturally, he took the compliments for granted. He knew that his detection rate was excellent, that he inspired people to do their best, had integrity and drove his team to work hard and achieve results. Of course he did, that was his job. It was irrelevant, in his view, that he didn’t ‘nurture’ them even though he could have been ‘an exceptional role model’. So what? Those who had the gumption to learn from him did, and the others didn’t deserve to. What’s more, the good ones wanted to continue working for him and he had no interest in the others. So he’d shrugged H-B’s words aside, crossed his legs and kept his mouth shut. The less he said, he figured, the sooner the wretched meeting would be over.

Perhaps if he had managed to keep to his rule they wouldn’t have argued, but how was he supposed to sit there and listen to the garbage that the ACC moved on to next?

‘Try to celebrate success more, Andrew.’ It sounded like a phrase he’d picked up from one of the management textbooks that filled his bookcase.

‘What do you mean? I take them to the pub when we make a good arrest and I don’t charge the round to expenses like some I could mention.’

‘Yes, but you don’t linger there, do you?’

‘Trust me, the last thing my team wants is some stuffed shirt breathing down their necks trying to be pally after they’ve had a few. I always stay for a couple of hours but after that they’d rather be left well alone; I know I would.’

‘A quick visit to the pub is hardly an appropriate celebration, is it? This constant need for alcohol to play a part in team building is detrimental to the moral fibre of the force and bad for our image with the public.’

Fenwick couldn’t believe what he was hearing and had started to explain to his boss why he was so wrong. Big mistake.

‘Sir!’

One of the technicians was standing, waving something at him. Fenwick ran back up the hill, ignoring the twinge in his knee and pleased that he wasn’t breathless at the top. His jogging routine must be paying off; perhaps it was worth the tedium.

‘What have you got?’

‘A key. It was in the spoil from the grave and there’s some sort of identity tag with it.’

Fenwick peered but of course the scrap of metal meant nothing. It would take days of work to try and identify what the key was made of and from that to produce a list of manufacturers. But the discovery pleased him; it vindicated his insistence on a fingertip search of the ground in and around the grave.

‘Excellent,’ he said, and his spirits lifted.

He had respectful confidence in the Sussex Forensic Laboratory and real hope that the key would turn out to be significant. The advances in the science of crime fascinated him; they complemented his fundamental approach to detection: the belief that detailed, rigorous investigation would yield success in time. But he had to admit that most other aspects of modern policing bored him. The obsession with the latest management theories; the politics local and national; the need to be a statistician just to cope with the never-ending hunger for analysis: did they result in one more conviction? Answers on the back of a postcard, he thought. No, make that a postage stamp.

His problem was that for the past thirteen years he’d ignored the need to identify what it now took to work the way up the ladder, relying on his compulsion to solve crimes to see him through. Beyond that, he’d barely given his career a thought. His marriage, the arrival of two children in quick succession, his wife’s illness and then her slow decline had meant that there’d been no place left for ambition. When Monique had eventually died the year before, it was a blessed release for her and essential for the children, allowing them to grieve properly and move on. But turning off the life support machine had been the hardest thing he had ever had to force himself to do and the personal impact had been more devastating than he would have believed possible.

At first he’d simply been exhausted. Then the hunt for a serial killer – a particularly complicated and deadly case – had consumed him. But once he had the murderer in custody, the grief he had unknowingly been holding at bay engulfed him, though no one, not even those closest to him, would have known. Despair and fury had almost overwhelmed him, would have done probably had it not been for the children, who needed him more than ever. He couldn’t let them down. For more than three months, as the previous autumn declined into winter, he had withdrawn into himself, maintaining a pretence of engagement by swinging violently between the extremes of immersing himself in the children and working too hard.

How long he would have stayed in his semi-vegetative state was anybody’s guess but he had been jolted back to reality by the offer of a transfer to head up West Sussex Major Crimes’ Squad, reporting directly to ACC Harper-Brown. It wasn’t exactly a promotion – his rank remained unchanged – but the previous incumbent had been a superintendent and it was clear from the way the opportunity was presented that promotion might follow if he did well.

At first Fenwick had declined the opportunity, claiming that he couldn’t risk the impact on his family, but his old boss Superintendent Quinlan had refused to accept the decision. He’d dragged him away from the station to a pub in the backwoods of Sussex where they wouldn’t be recognised and proceeded to get the pair of them drunk. In his cups, Fenwick found it impossible to maintain his façade. Once he started talking it all came out. Quinlan had listened without interruption, suddenly sober and wise, an unsentimental man moved by what he heard.

‘You have to take this chance, Andrew. You’re in a rut and going deeper. And you’re too good to give in to this. I remember you when you first arrived in Harlden. You were so ambitious you didn’t care that it showed. You were also bloody good, the best detective I’ve ever worked with. But there comes a point in a career when being good at solving cases isn’t enough; even I know that though I despise half the management gobbledy-gook we have thrust on us.’

‘But the ambition’s gone; I told you, I’m no bloody good anymore. I’m just a faç…faça…a show.’

‘You still want to win; I see it in you every day. You care about justice and you’re the most tenacious person I’ve ever known. Look at what you did with the Smith case.’

Quinlan was referring to his arrest of a serial killer the previous year. It had earned him a commendation. ‘Your instinct is uncanny. I know you resent the word intuition but that’s what it amounts to, like it or not.’

Fenwick had been too drunk to argue. Deep down he knew that he possessed a rare skill that was as elusive as it was valuable. His mind had a way of sucking in apparently useless pieces of information and then allowing them to fester and combine randomly in his subconscious until, seemingly from nowhere, an idea came to him that would push an investigation on with a lurch in an apparently random direction. The thoughts that came to him were fragile. If he concentrated on them too hard or too soon, they vanished. So, over the years he had become superstitious about sharing his thinking with others, preferring instead to cogitate in private. When finally the ideas solidified, they weren’t always coherent, sometimes just a feeling or else the lingering cobweb of a dream on awakening, but he’d learnt to persist in coaxing them out no matter how elusive.

Recalling the conversation as he delayed his return to his new responsibilities at MCS he hoped that Quinlan had been right and that he did have the personal resources to do this job. He would need every skill he possessed to find the killer of the boy in the grave on the hill. With a case this cold it would take more than luck and good police work to produce a result.

A male pheasant rose up in front of him, squawking and clacking in alarm as if it had been beaten out of cover into a line of guns, but there was over a month yet before it would have to run that gauntlet. After the bird flapped heavily through the trees, the woods settled quieter. Still pines, silver birch, their bark glowing eerily in the shadows, and enormous beeches surrounded him. On the other side of the stream, the pale root ball tombstones of conifers, blown down in previous season’s gales, punctuated the gloom, with foxgloves and nettles garlanding the impromptu clearings they had created.

His preoccupation with his career brought a moment’s guilt. Then the macabre sense of excitement he’d felt on his way to the scene that morning returned. Maybe the discovery would be the breakthrough he needed on an investigation that was proving resistant to every line of inquiry he tried, one that had defied resolution for months before it was handed to Fenwick, with a mixture of relief and reluctance, by the out-going head of MCS.

‘This one’s a sod, Andrew,’ he’d said. ‘We’ve got nowhere but it wasn’t for want of trying. We had a strong tip from the Yanks that a sophisticated paedophile ring is operating somewhere on our patch. A Brit they’ve arrested in Florida is talking as part of a plea bargain. Before moving to the States he claims he was part of a ring in Sussex that was extensive and had been running for a long time. The only name he could give them was Joseph Watkins, and sure enough they were able to track him using one of the child porn sites they’d infiltrated.