Shadows and Sins (The Falconer Files Book 13) Page 3

  Falconer made a couple of quick phone calls, and they settled in to wait for a relief officer. ‘If they’re ancient,’ he mused, ‘we’ll be off the hook. In fact, if they’re more than a few decades old, it won’t be for us to solve. If, however, they’ve been buried within the last few years, it’s up to us to identify the victim – if victim it be, although I don’t suppose somebody just curled up and died here – and find the killer.

  ‘I rather hope they’re not too old. There’s nothing harder than trying to identify the remains of someone who died more than twenty years ago. Even ten years is a bit of a struggle. However, if they prove to be our problem, we can start with the MisPer list. You might have put us on to something here.’

  ‘Unless it’s someone who was a bit of a loner and had never been reported missing,’ retorted Carmichael, unable to remember how to look on the bright side at the moment.

  ‘You are a cheerful little soul today, aren’t you?’ Falconer snapped, momentarily demotivated. ‘If that turns out to be the case we’ll have to work even harder, won’t we, if we’re to come up with a victim and the murderer. We could certainly do with something to get our teeth into at the moment, though; something to stop us thinking too hard about Green and the pointlessness of life.’

  Ignoring this pessimistic view similar to his own, Carmichael replied disconnectedly, ‘I should have brought back a trowel when I went home. At least with that we could have dug out a bit more.’

  ‘I think we’d better leave that to the specialists, don’t you?’ Falconer had visions of what had happened a few years ago at a rather ancient cemetery near the river, where the records of grave depths had not been accurately recorded. One grave that had been indicated as a triple, originally dug nine feet deep, had turned out to be only a single when it was opened to inter another body. This made it only four-and-a-half feet before the last interment, and a rather over-enthusiastic gravedigger had removed his fork from the earth with one of its tines through an eye socket, the skull dangling from his fork like a bone charm.

  This inevitability had been made obvious when the proximity to the river was noted, and the level of the water table, but it had been a disturbing incident. When Doc Christmas had told them about it, Falconer had thought it must have been a horrifying experience for the digger – but Carmichael had only commented that he didn’t understand why they hadn’t been using a mechanical digger to get out the bulk of the earth.

  They only had to wait about twenty minutes before the lumbering figure of PC John Proudfoot came crashing through the dead undergrowth: nearing retirement, overweight, and out of condition, Proudfoot was the man whom Falconer had once described as not having two brain cells to rub together.

  Out of breath, he puffed, ‘They’ve put off the doc’s arrival until after they’ve properly unearthed them there remains. You’ll just have to wait for him.’

  Immediately irritated by the constable’s news, Falconer replied, ‘Wait? We may have to, but we don’t have to do it here in this beastly drizzle,’ implying that Proudfoot would just have to put up and shut up. ‘We’ll be off to Carmichael’s cottage and have a bit of a dry and a hot drink. Carry on, Constable.’

  As he stalked off, Carmichael trailing behind in his wake, the sergeant commented quietly, ‘That was a bit sharp, wasn’t it, sir?’

  ‘Just looking at him annoys me. How they think he can cover for Green, I have no idea. And we haven’t got the excellent Starr anymore. What is the force coming to?’

  ‘They can’t just magic new personnel out of thin air, sir.’

  ‘Well, they should be able to.’

  There was no chance of a civilised conversation with the inspector when he was in this mood and Carmichael hoped that the presence of a roaring fire and a mug of tea would lift his spirits, as they were now thoroughly soaked.

  Kerry Carmichael heaved her heavily pregnant body to the door to let them in and, summing up Falconer’s mood in a couple of seconds, declared, ‘I’ll put the kettle on, shall I?’

  Although the inspector expected to be assaulted by dogs, three small ones, what he did not expect was Mulligan the Great Dane to leap up and wash his face with huge enthusiasm, while Dipsy Daxie made short work of his shoelaces.

  Taking the only option of salvation in the face of salivation open to him, he spun round and threw himself face down on the sofa, calling for a clean, wet flannel and a hand towel. He stipulated ‘clean’ because the idea of rubbing his face with one that had already been used by one of the inhabitants of the cottage made his skin crawl. He could be fastidious at times, and the present situation was absolutely disgusting. He had a complete dread of dog saliva, and now had it in his hair, on his face, and in his mouth and nostrils. It didn’t help things when Carmichael called out, ‘No tongues, there’s a good boy, Mulligan.’

  ‘Down, Mulligan!’ Kerry shouted. ‘Kitchen. In your bed,’ she ordered as she brought the necessary equipment for Falconer to clean himself up, then dragged Dipsy Daxie after the huge hound and into the food preparation area.

  ‘What the dickens is that hellhound doing here?’ the inspector mumbled through the flannel as he scrubbed at his face. ‘Is he on holiday with you – again?’

  ‘Actually, he lives with us now, sir,’ replied Carmichael in as apologetic a tone as he could manage. He absolutely adored the Great Dane, and couldn’t understand why his superior was so negative about the animal, but had not mentioned to him yet the details of the canine swap.

  ‘It’s like this, sir; his owners are getting on a bit, and Mulligan hasn’t stopped growing yet and needs an awful lot of exercise. I consulted with Kerry and the boys and then suggested that if we swapped Mistress Fang and Mr Knuckles for Mulligan, we could take on the bigger dog. The neighbours would get the canine company they need, with less exercise to provide, and the boys could go and take out the little dogs whenever they felt like it, with Mulligan’s old mummy and daddy able to visit him if and when they wanted.’

  ‘Carmichael, you’re a soft-headed chump. And I suppose I have to run the gamut of this licky giant every time I visit, now?’ Although Falconer was horrified by this information, he was glad the little dogs had been passed on. He had always considered that a man of Carmichael’s bulk with such tiny creatures as those were on leads resembled a man with a couple of wasps on strings: visually ridiculous, as well as being impractical and downright dangerous from the dogs’ point of view.

  ‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir,’ Carmichael said, although he wasn’t in the least repentant. He was delighted with how things had turned out. He had been getting a little irritated about how often he had tripped over the Yorkshire Terrier and the Chihuahua, and he’d always lusted after owning a magnificent animal like Mulligan. It was just unfortunate that the inspector didn’t share his enthusiasm for such a stupendous specimen. ‘And he’s not fully grown yet,’ he added, as if this were a bonus.

  ‘If he grows any bigger you’ll be able to enter him for the St Leger,’ said Falconer.

  Kerry saved the situation by calling, ‘Tea up!’ from the kitchen. The two men went to stand by the fire, gently steaming, as its heat dried out their trouser legs. The inspector decided that he was in a state that he could tolerate until lunchtime, when he could go home for a shower and a change of clothes.

  A little later, but still in the cottage, Falconer received a call from what they were already thinking of as the crime scene, saying that a few pieces of jewellery had been found with the remains, and this gave an indication that the death had not been associated with robbery.

  ‘Apparently there’s an ankle chain, a cross on a neck chain, and a signet ring, all in gold,’ he informed Carmichael. ‘I suggest we go and collect the evidence bag and contact Wanda Warwick to see if she can identify them: they could turn out to be from that young woman from Shepford St Bernard that she reported missing to us. I’ll call in at home on the way for a shower, before I come back to the office to pick you up.’ He could still feel the ghost of
the saliva with which he had been dripping, and wouldn’t relax until he’d thoroughly expunged it from his person.

  ‘Shall I call her, sir?’

  ‘No. You just get a file opened on the case and make sure Doc Christmas is alerted. I’ll go and collect the evidence; you head back to the office.’

  When Falconer returned to the scene, there was a team carefully excavating the remains, using small trowels and brushes to clear away the dirt encrusting them, and the jewellery was encased in a plastic evidence bag ready for identification.

  By the time Falconer felt clean again and returned to the station, Carmichael informed him that Doc Christmas had paid a visit to the site. Christmas had declared the remains to be fairly recent, and that they were now being carefully lifted so that the doctor could make a closer inspection of them and the incident reported to the Coroner. With that information, Falconer could now telephone Wanda Warwick with a view to calling round to her house, Ace of Cups, in Shepford St Bernard, to see if she could confirm whether the jewellery that had been found with the remains had belonged to the missing Bonnie Fletcher.

  Chapter Three

  It was with a heavy heart that he knocked on the door of Ace of Cups. He was dreading showing the gold items to its occupant. Bonnie Fletcher had been Wanda Warwick’s best friend, and she would take it hard to see the items of jewellery in such tragic circumstances, for he had convinced himself that their victim was the young woman who had disappeared from her cottage in the village almost a year ago exactly.

  Wanda looked, initially, pleased to see him, and it was only when he was settled in an armchair with a cup of coffee that a cloud of anxiety appeared on her face.

  ‘Is it something about Bonnie?’ she asked. ‘Have you found her?’

  Without a word of explanation, Falconer reached into his pocket and removed the plastic evidence bag. ‘Do you recognise any of these pieces of jewellery?’ he asked, handing it to the concerned woman.

  Wanda examined the gold objects, her worried expression turning to one of puzzlement. ‘Not at all,’ she replied. ‘Why? Did you think they were Bonnie’s?’

  His mind partly taken up with the words ‘damn’, ‘bum’, and other such mild expletives, Falconer gently explained that he thought they had found her friend’s remains, but was very happy to tell her that he hadn’t. And now, he thought, he had a body to identify. He’d have to pursue the identity of the remains through dental records and check up on missing persons within the last few years. They certainly hadn’t been buried there yesterday.

  With his face indicating relief and his mind swirling with possibilities about exactly whose remains Carmichael’s gigantic dog had unearthed, he decided to chase up his sergeant about getting on to Missing Persons, and get Tomlinson on to the local dentists from Market Darley to Carsfold. With any luck he wouldn’t have to go further afield, but he had a small corner of his mind toying with the idea that her teeth might have to go nationwide – he presumed it was a ‘she’, with the type of jewellery that the remains had been wearing.

  After refusing, as politely as possible, another cup of coffee, he returned to his office to find that Doc Christmas had confirmed the remains to be female, belonging to a woman in her late twenties to early thirties who had never given birth. X-rays had been taken of her teeth and were already being circulated to local dentists, this latter task being the work of Tomlinson, who was proving to be on the ball when it came to working off his own bat.

  Carmichael had also had a surge of independent thought, and was already looking at reports of missing persons over the last few years, Doc Christmas having said that the remains were only a few years old. The body was not particularly decomposed, although the top of the head had been nibbled at by wildlife, and one of the hands was missing, probably unearthed and chewed off by a fox or something similar. If there was no result, he would look back further, before the hunt was extended to other police areas.

  Falconer, feeling slightly redundant, nipped out to have his hair trimmed before his dinner date with Honey. He was determined to look his best and had decided that his hair, being long enough to comb now, was rather on the long side and could do with a tidy-up. The army had left him with a horror of having long, luxuriant locks.

  He also called into the Market Darley branch of a gentlemen’s outfitters and purchased a new shirt and tie, determined that he should not fall short sartorially. That he was considering wearing such garments at all on a date was an indication of his innate formality of occasion: he would no sooner go for dinner in a polo shirt than he would put on a tutu and attempt to dance Swan Lake.

  When he returned to his desk, it was to find that Carmichael had discovered no females in the projected age group from those who had been reported missing in their area during the time period, who had not either returned home or contacted friends or relatives, so that proved to be a dead end. Information from the dental practitioners would have to wait a bit longer, and he fiddled about with file notes until the end of the day.

  Before he left the office, he made one request of his sergeant. ‘When I visit your home in future, will you make sure that that four-footed canine fiend is locked out of the main room? It’s not as if you’ve got a hallway that I can shelter in while he’s restrained.’

  ‘Will do, sir,’ replied Carmichael with a smile and not a trace of guilt at the assault upon his superior officer earlier that day. He loved Mulligan unconditionally, and could not understand why everyone else didn’t do so too.

  Falconer dressed with special care that evening, determined to ascertain exactly how he felt about the way things were going, but had no idea how he would decide: he just knew he needed to look his best so that he could take a proper look at things. Dressing well made him feel at ease and able to judge matters more clearly. Disarray in his appearance was a distraction he didn’t need.

  Dr Honey Dubois lived in an apartment in a modern block not far from the town centre, on the first floor and, much to his approval, every part of her home was immaculate. Her furniture was modern and stylish, her carpets and blinds spotless; not a thing was out of place. There were no magazines or newspapers left around, and even her handbag was neatly placed by the side of the sofa so as not to cause obstruction or be an eyesore.

  The conversation flowed relatively easily. Her cooking was Caribbean in style, but not too hot, and he was fed well. The woman, too, was as blemish-free as her home, and her hair was in recently woven corn-rows, her make-up immaculate. She smelt of freesias. What was not to like? She was very attractive and would probably make a remarkable wife and mother. But, still, he had doubts about how he really felt.

  That evening he enjoyed a particularly well-cooked meal and good company, but when she asked him if he would stay the night, he was overcome with shyness, and only said he would think about it for the future. He was surprised that he had not spent the whole evening in a state of nervous tension, wondering if she would invite him to share her bed, and when it happened, he was almost relieved as he turned her down as politely as possible.

  That was just something he didn’t do, and wouldn’t, until he was sure that he had found the right person. And, at the moment, he wasn’t certain. Heather, his previous sort-of-girlfriend and a nurse, had not been ‘the one’ either. Never mind about today’s lax attitude of not even knowing the name of the person with whom one was communing sexually: he had been brought up in a much more old-fashioned way and thought anything else would be un-gentlemanly and completely amoral.

  She accepted his decision gracefully, knowing well what he had been like when their relationship first started, then stalled, then started again. She didn’t want to rush him into anything with which he wasn’t comfortable but, in her opinion, he was too moral for his own good and for hers, too.

  He left her home still slightly uneasy, with a feeling that he had a lot of deep thinking to do about his attitude to women in general and Honey in particular. He resolved to try to be more relaxed in future,
and attempt to see things from her point of view, being less intransigent in his outlook, but when he reached home he was in a foul mood about his stubborn attitude to relationships. Hence, he sat for over an hour on the sofa stroking his cats and playing with them before relaxing enough to go to bed. This was mainly due to his Abyssinian, Monkey, who persistently reached her face up to his and rubbed her cheeks against his jaw, while making a strange little chirruping noise.

  Finally, at peace and relaxed in the knowledge that at least one creature loved him unconditionally, he retired to bed.

  Early the next morning there was news from a dental practice in Market Darley that they had matched the teeth to a client named Annie Symons, a thirty-three-year-old woman who had lived at number two Drovers Lane in Castle Farthing. She had not been in for a check-up since December 2008, and the dentist had put her records into a group that was to be given warning of being struck off his list. Having been given the time-frame involved, however, he had decided to have a look, as she could not reasonably have been expected to see him if she had disappeared a few years ago.

  Tomlinson was immediately dispatched to talk to the dentist to see if he could remember anything about her; and Falconer and his sergeant set off for Castle Farthing to question the residents of Drovers Lane about their former neighbour.

  Drovers Lane was the first turning on the right off the western branch of the High Street as they came in from the direction of Market Darley. Number one was the general store, ‘Allsorts’, number two being situated on the same side, just across an alleyway and opposite the garden of the public house, The Fisherman’s Flies.

  Castle Farthing had been the situation for Falconer’s first case with Carmichael as his sergeant, nearly three years earlier, and he thought back to the events of that summer. Allsorts was still run by Rosemary Wilson, but the garage opposite which had been run by Michael Lowry was still closed for business and awaiting either a new proprietor – unlikely – or redevelopment, currently blocked by the planning committee. It had been re-opened briefly just over a year ago, but had been closed again after only a few months by the chain that had acquired it due to the economic downturn and unprofitability. The garage remained unmentioned by Falconer, out of tact, as Lowry had been Kerry Carmichael’s first husband and father of her two boys.