High-Wired Page 5

  ‘What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing, smoking skunk in this house? What are you doing smoking it, full stop?’ she yelled, her temper rising.

  ‘Take a chill pill, Ma. If anyone catches me, they’ll let me off with a caution. It’s not a problem if it’s just for personal use,’ he drawled with a lop-sided smile.

  ‘Someone has caught you – me, and I won’t stand for it. You know the rules, and you’ve flagrantly broken them. Now, pack a bag and get out. I don’t care where you stay but you’re not sitting in my house smoking drugs. The next thing I know you’ll be injecting them.’

  ‘Cool it. I’d never be that stupid, but what’s wrong with a bit of weed?’

  ‘There are new brain cancers being discovered all the time in those old hippies from the sixties who used it. There is evidence that it causes brain damage and changes personalities. It can also cause mental illness and paranoia. And it’s much stronger than it used to be. Shall I go on?’

  ‘Like you are now?’

  ‘Get out of here and don’t come back …’

  ‘You evil old bitch!’ Ben had stood up, and yelled into her face. ‘You treat me as if I was three years old. I’m old enough to drink, vote, and get married without your permission. If I want to smoke a little dope, there’s nothing you can do to stop me.’

  ‘Someone about your age fell from a roof today and smashed himself to bits on the pavement below because he was high on skunk, or whatever. Do you want to end up like that? Act your age and not your shoe size.’

  ‘You shut your mouth. You’re like some sort of Third-World dictator. Where do you get off telling me what I can and can’t do? Just who the hell do you think you are? You’re just a plod, and you don’t even have the brains to think for yourself.’

  ‘How dare you talk to me like that, you little shit. I’m your mother, God help me …’

  ‘Hey, what’s happenin’?’ Hal’s deep bass growl sounded up the stairs, and soon his head appeared over the bannister. ‘Nobody’s leaving this house until I find out what’s going on.’

  There were a lot of angry, hurtful things said that could never be erased, while Hal mediated between mother and son, but they finally reached a truce. Ben promised never to bring the stuff into the house again, to never even dabble in it again, and Olivia promised to try to treat him more like an adult than a rebellious child. Olivia knew she had always felt the need to supervise Ben more closely than Hibbie following some very minor delinquent episodes in his younger teenage years. She had seen enough young lads go off the rails in the course of her career to know how easily they were influenced by peer pressure from who she perceived as budding criminals, and drug use was usually the first step.

  In Home Farm Barn that evening, Lauren was dismayed to receive a phone call from her husband telling her that he was in receipt of some unexpected leave, and would be home the next day. As Lauren ended the call, her eyes filled with tears – but not tears of joy. If she was lonely when Kenneth was away, she felt equally as lonely when he came back, if not more so. All he really wanted her for was to be a bit of arm candy if he wanted to go out, and to play the outside of a sausage roll every night. Every night! What other woman would stand for that? Well, she had, and for years now. She wasn’t going to stand for it anymore.

  He had said he’d ring again from the airport when his flight was called, and if she happened to be out when he arrived home, then it was a case of hard luck. He’d have to make do with pot luck and Gerda. She worked, too, and he didn’t show her any respect for what she did.

  Back at the cottage, Olivia was sitting at her laptop with the copy of the photofit beside her, looking through pictures of local villains, to see if she recognised anyone having any resemblance to that poor young lad.

  Hal came over and looked over her shoulder. ‘Still working?’ he asked.

  ‘Just looking for a face,’ she explained.

  Her husband picked up the sheet of paper, and she could hear him draw in his breath with surprise. ‘What’s up?’ she asked.

  ‘I know this kid,’ he replied. ‘Is this the one you found in that field off the ring road?’

  ‘It is. Who is he?’

  ‘Remember I told you the other night that our regular barman was missing, and there was someone else running the drinks and, if I’m not wrong, running something else as well?’

  ‘Was it him?’

  ‘No, this guy in the picture was the regular one. I thought he’d probably just phoned in sick.’

  ‘What was his name?’ Olivia was desperate for this information.

  ‘Everyone knew him as Ricky. If you want a full name and address, you should contact the owner and get him to check staff records.

  ‘Ricky what?’

  ‘I don’t know. You’ll have to get in touch with the boss.’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Julian Church. I’ve got his mobile number somewhere if you’ll give me a minute. I need to phone him if I’m not turning up to a gig for any reason.’

  Julian Church answered his mobile after two rings and confirmed that he had a barman by the name of Ricky Dunbar. He also disclosed that Ricky lived with his parents in one of the houses on the big new estate, and that he knew the parents were away at the moment on holiday for some winter sun. ‘Ricky hasn’t graced us with his presence for a couple of days. Probably holed up at his parents’ house with some bird or other, having the time of his life.’

  Olivia couldn’t recall any female bodies in the mortuary, and kept quiet, asking instead, ‘Do you have the actual address?’

  ‘Hang on a moment while I check. Why? What’s our Ricky been up to? Nothing naughty, I hope.’

  ‘Just routine enquiries, sir,’ lied Olivia, not wanting to spread any more information about than she needed to. ‘Do you know when his parents will be back from holiday, by any chance?’

  ‘Tomorrow, I believe, but why don’t you just ask Ricky?’

  ‘The address, please, sir, if you have it.’

  He had it.

  INTERLUDE

  The last thing the man remembered had been drinking a pint of lager with one of his dodgy contacts, with whom he had been trying to worm his way into what he considered to be easy money for very little expenditure of effort. He had thought the man was coming round to his persuasions when he had bought the last round of drinks.

  Putting down a pint of lager and one of Guinness, the latter before his contact, he went to the gents to relieve his protesting bladder. Nerves had made the first pint go straight through him, then he thought he’d move in for the kill when he returned to the table. He’d already found out enough, here and there, to make it sound as if he knew all about what was going on, and he thought this would be his gateway into a cushy little number.

  Not long after he sat down at the table, he drained his glass in an act of masculine bravado, to demonstrate that here was a man not to be messed with, and the other man started to stare at him as if he were an exhibit in a museum. The man smacked his lips, and began to list all that he knew, in the hope that he would be invited to be part of the action, but as he spoke, his tongue felt heavy in his mouth, and he began to slur his words.

  He tried to get up to go outside for some air, but his limbs would not co-operate. The other man was watching him more closely than ever, and he managed to slur out, ‘Wha’re you starin’ a’?’ as his brain turned to cotton wool. He was aware of his companion signalling to the barman and calling over.

  ‘I wonder if you can give me a hand with my mate. He seems to have had one over the eight, and I need to get him back to my car so I can return him home to the bosom of his family.’

  Except there was no family as such. And he’d only had two pints. Had he been taken suddenly ill?

  He was aware of his arms being hoisted over the shoulders of the barman and his contact, and being dragged from the pub, his feet scuffing along the ground behind him. He was vaguely aware that he was being manhandled into the back of a car,
but after that, he blacked out.

  When consciousness returned, his first reaction was confusion. What had happened after he had left the pub? Where was he? He seemed to be lying on a concrete floor. And why couldn’t he move? His arms and legs seemed to be bound, his arms behind his back, his legs at the ankles. He was covered in what he thought might be a dirty tarpaulin stinking of fish. How had he got here? Where was the man he had been having a drink with? What was going to happen to him, and why?

  The sound of muffled voices reached him from around first floor height and, turning his head painfully, he saw a glassed-in area that must have once served as an office. He felt like death, as if he were suffering from the worst hangover ever: his head hurt, his mouth was dry, his stomach was churning, but whether this was from fear, or a reaction to whatever had caused this sorry state of affairs, he had no idea. And some of his muscles ached from where he had been dragged around.

  The voices got louder, as four figures wearing ski masks left the office at mezzanine height and descended the stairs, three of them making straight for his prone figure, the other collecting something heavy from the underside of the wooden stairway.

  ‘So, this is the nosy little bastard, is it?’ growled one, casually aiming a terrific kick at his ribs.

  ‘Aye, that’s the miserable little worm trying to muscle in on our act,’ replied another, this time aiming a kick that caught him on the forehead.

  ‘Well, fuck you, mister. I think you’ve just met your nemesis,’ hissed the third, this time aiming for the left shoulder with his steel-capped boot. The fourth man joined them and their victim raised his head as far as he could to identify that this figure was dragging a huge sack which seemed to contain something very heavy.

  He closed his eyes in disbelief, praying for the first time since he had been a young child. ‘Please, God, don’t let this be happening. Let me live. I’ll do anything if you just get me out of this. Anything.’

  ‘Kick for luck, lads?’ said the first man, and the man who had dragged over the sack landed one just above his right kidney, sending a surprising ecstasy of pain shooting through his body. ‘Into the sack he goes,’ said the first figure again, evidently the highest-ranking in this small group of thugs. The bound man felt his body being lifted up until he was horizontal, then he was slipped into the mouth of the open sack. When his feet hit the bottom he became aware that it was full of what felt like large, heavy stones. What the fuck were they doing to him?

  ‘Round his neck, lads, as tight as you can so he can’t get it off. I want him in that bag and helpless.’ The sack had obviously been prepared for whatever purpose they had in mind for him, and the two ends of a rope that protruded from holes in the hemming were tied a little too tightly for comfort just above his Adam’s apple.

  ‘Check the rope’s secure so that he doesn’t float away. We want him found and the lesson to be learnt.’ The bagged man suddenly became aware that a rope was tied through the one that surrounded his neck. This was getting worse by the minute. Were they going to dangle him from somewhere really high?

  ‘Get him out now and dispose of him. I won’t stand for upstarts like that thinking they can move in on our territory.’ His helpless body was lifted and taken through the door to the outside world, where he became aware that they were on the bank of the local river.

  ‘Oh, no, not that!’ he screamed in his terror. They were going to throw him into the water. The last breath he took was as he sailed through the air and landed, breaking the surface of the river into myriad ripples and splashes. The stones immediately took him down to the river bed, where the current played carelessly with his body, as he struggled in what he knew would be his last effort in this life. His last conscious thought before he drowned was, ‘So where’s the whole of my life that’s supposed to pass before my mind’s eye?’

  The man who had fetched the sack secured the end of the rope to a metal mooring ring, and the four of them strolled nonchalantly away, job done.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Lauren woke the next morning with a thumping head and a dry mouth. After Kenneth’s surprise news, she had taken a bottle of wine to bed, and swallowed the second of the two sleeping tablets that Hal had given her the other night. She had cried herself to sleep after finishing the whole bottle of wine, and was now paying the price for it.

  She staggered into the shower, trying to wash off the guilt and disgust she felt at returning to her role as wife, one she had not cherished for a number of years now. She had only enjoyed the children, and now that Jade had gone off to prep school this last September, she felt like she didn’t exist anymore, at least not in any real sense, in the home.

  After a brisk rub dry, she sat in front of her dressing table mirror carefully applying such make-up as would minimise her red and swollen eyes, then opened her work wardrobe to select a suitably sombre suit for dealing with two young and unnecessary deaths, although at the moment, she felt she ought to add her marriage to the list of the fallen.

  Lauren took her time driving to the station. She was not looking forward to leaving the office that night, as Kenneth would be home. She would spend as much time as she could at the end of the working day catching up with any necessary, and maybe even some unnecessary, paperwork.

  DI Hardy was already behind her desk going through what had occurred overnight when she entered. She must put on a brave face, and she did her best to greet her boss with a smile. ‘Everything OK?’ asked Hardy, instinctively aware that all was not well in Lauren’s world.

  ‘Just a bit of a run-in with the au pair, that’s all,’ she lied, and got away with it.

  ‘If she’s not suitable, just give her the old heave-ho. There are plenty of young women, and older ones come to that, who would love the security of a live-in job with not too arduous a schedule.’

  ‘I’ll give it some thought,’ replied Lauren, aware of a little shake in her voice, and immediately sitting down and starting to go through the paperwork that was in her in tray.

  ‘We’ve got a name for the kid in the field,’ said Hardy, ‘Hal recognised his photofit. It’s a chap called Ricky Dunbar who worked at the club where Hal plays. We’ll go see his parents later.’

  At 10.30, Hardy chivvied her sergeant to her feet, saying, ‘Come on. I checked with the neighbours to see when Mr and Mrs Dunbar will arrive home from their holiday, and they were due to get to the house just after nine. I doubt they’ll be considering going into work today after their overnight journey, so let’s get this over with.’

  Reluctantly, Lauren rose to her feet, her stomach doing somersaults, her throat dry. She really hated this part of the job, made even worse today given her own unhappy domestic circumstances. Her eyes on her feet, she slipped back into her jacket and followed the DI down to the car park.

  At the neat modern Georgian-style terraced house that proved to be the family home of the Dunbars, Mrs Dunbar answered their ring with a neutral face, and gave them the smallest of smiles when she saw that two women stood on the doorstep. ‘How can I help you?’ she asked, wondering if they were lost and in need of some directions.

  ‘Mrs Dunbar?’ Hardy checked, holding out her warrant card. Groves followed suit, and the smile fell away from the woman’s face as if it had slid off an icy surface.

  ‘What’s happened?’ she asked anxiously. ‘Is it our Ricky? His bed’s not been slept in, and he’s such an untidy boy, usually.’

  ‘May we come in please, Mrs Dunbar?’ Bad news of the magnitude they were bringing couldn’t be blurted out on a doorstep like a cheap piece of gossip.

  ‘What is it? Tell me,’ she begged them, standing aside so that they could enter. In silence the two detectives entered the living room, and Hardy nodded at Groves to go into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. She had the feeling that they would all need one by the time they had finished.

  ‘Where’s Mr Dunbar?’ the inspector enquired.

  ‘He’s upstairs finishing the unpacking,’ the woman said in a voi
ce that was devoid of all emotion, as if it were she who were dead.

  ‘Can you call him in here, please? I have something to tell you that you both should hear.’

  ‘Oh, my God! Chris! You need to come down here now,’ Mrs Dunbar called through the door, a note of panic now infecting her voice.

  There was the thump of somebody descending the stairs, a slight break as the man put his head into the kitchen, enquiring who the hell Groves was, and what she was doing in his kitchen. After the higher notes of Groves’ voice, he finally entered the living room, his face ashen with dread as he realised that there was a policewoman in the kitchen and, no doubt, this was another one in his living room. It could only bode ill.

  ‘Have you come about Ricky?’ he asked, without waiting for the other woman to introduce herself.

  ‘DI Hardy, Mr Dunbar, Mrs Dunbar, and that’s DS Groves in the kitchen, making us all a nice cup of tea.’

  ‘Is this about Ricky? Is he in some sort of trouble?’ the man persisted, while his wife put a hand up to her mouth in dread anticipation.

  At that point she joined the conversation. ‘We noticed that his bed didn’t seem to have been slept in and a lot of the food I left for him in the freezer is still there. He should have used more of it.’

  ‘I’m afraid it is about Ricky, Mr and Mrs Dunbar. I suggest that you sit down, sir.’

  ‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’ Mrs Dunbar blurted out, and put her hands over her eyes as they filled with anticipatory tears.

  ‘I’m afraid we have reason to believe that the body we have found is that of your son,’ replied Hardy as the sobs started to seep out through the bereaved mother’s fingers.

  ‘How did it happen?’ asked the man. ‘Was it an accident on the road? Was he knocked down and killed?’ His face was as grey as putty as he asked these almost impossible questions. It seemed unbelievable that they could have returned from a lovely, relaxing holiday to a nightmare like this.