Shadows and Sins (The Falconer Files Book 13) Read online

  As he sat on the bed to remove his shoes, she stirred and muttered a mild oath as she woke up.

  ‘What’s up?’ he asked, concerned lest he should have disturbed her.

  ‘These two, using my bladder as a trampoline,’ she explained heading for the bathroom, but went straight back to sleep when she returned. As Carmichael was just dropping off he became aware of what sounded like a distant cheering and whistling, and got out of bed to look out of the window to see what on earth was going on in the village.

  There was nobody abroad, and he returned to bed puzzled, until he listened carefully, and became aware that the noise was a sort of whistling snore coming from his wife’s nostrils, something that never happened when she wasn’t expecting. With a big grin over how he had been fooled, he went out like a light, sleeping the sleep of the righteous until the alarm went off.

  Chapter Five

  Just after nine the next morning, Tomlinson answered the phone to what sounded, to the other two occupants of the office, like a furious squawking. He handed the handset to Falconer, saying, ‘Mr Jefferson Grammaticus, who won’t speak to anyone but you. He’s furious about something, but he won’t tell me what.’

  Falconer was surprised. Whatever did the owner of The Manse, a country hotel which was situated about seven miles to the east of Carsfold, want with him? Surely the man’s ex-employee didn’t want Meep back? He thought with a sudden jolt of panic. It was of course typical of him that his first thought should be for one of his cats.

  ‘How can I help you, Mr Grammaticus?’ he asked, taking the handset, the tiniest of wobbles in his voice.

  ‘You can get down here and dig out the body that’s just been discovered on my property!’ the man bellowed. The owner of The Manse looked and sounded just like a country squire, and could be very abrupt in his manner.

  ‘What body?’

  ‘The one buried just beyond the confines of the drive.’

  ‘I think you’d better explain further, Mr Grammaticus. You might know what’s happened, but I don’t.’

  There was a pause, and then, ‘Sorry, Falconer. Didn’t think. I’ve had such success with my themed stays that I felt I needed to expand the guest car parking, but as the ground has been dug away to the sides, a body has appeared and, considering I paid for builders to be all over this site for the entire summer in 2010, I don’t see how they could have done all that work and not found it,’

  ‘I’ll be over,’ barked Falconer sharply, as he put the phone down and indicated to Carmichael to come with him. ‘Tomlinson, you get on with trying to trace Suzie Doidge, and finding the contact numbers for the owners of 2 Drovers Lane and 7 King George III Terrace.’

  They found the hotelier, his huge body quivering with indignation and clothed in very loud tweeds, out in the drive of the building, pacing back and forth like a caged lion. Without giving either of the detectives a chance of greeting him, the portly man burst out with, ‘Will you look at this? Will you just look at this, and tell me what I’m going to do? I’m going to have a crime scene here, keeping out legitimate and potential customers, and it’s going to go on for ages. I simply can’t stand this sort of interruption to business, especially as things are going very well, now.’

  He pointed down to part of a rib cage that had been uncovered when the site for the drive extension was being scraped by a digger. ‘How the hell did that not get found when the work was done? And who the devil is it? I can’t have corpses all over the place. This is a respectable establishment, you know.’

  ‘Calm down, Mr Grammaticus. Perhaps we could go into your office and you could explain to me, slowly and carefully, how and when these remains were discovered, while DS Carmichael calls for officers to secure the site.’ Falconer had a fleeting thought that this could be their missing Suzie Doidge, and thought how tidy and convenient that would be. Yes, they’d still have to find the killer, but if this wasn’t that woman from Stoney Cross, then they had a fourth dead or missing person to deal with. Then this could become the case of a serial killer at work, and that was something he couldn’t even imagine dealing with.

  Grammaticus took a deep breath before starting his explanation. ‘I got the men in to expand the parking area, and I’m enjoying great success by doing themed breaks.’ He had originally aimed at doing something much more classy – ‘I forgot all that nonsense about making it a six-star experience after those murders, and I’ve never looked back. People love play-acting, and we’re making a bomb, hence the parking.’

  ‘But when the digger started to take off the top layer they came across those ribs, and there’s obviously the rest of a body down there. Actually, it looks like the digger may have disturbed the decaying flesh, because from what I can see, the rest of it seems to have flesh of some sort over it. God, how gruesome.’

  ‘When did this come to light?’

  ‘First thing this morning and I rang you, straight away, as soon as I knew it wasn’t some sort of practical joke.’

  ‘Why would you think that?’

  ‘There are some weird folk around, and it could have been a delaying tactic from the opposition.’

  ‘Which opposition?’

  ‘Other hotel owners who are jealous of my success.’

  Yeah, right! ‘I don’t think so. So, let’s assume that this body was there before the workmen did the work back in 2010. Why would they not have come across it? It looks to be right on the edge of the drive to me. What if the body was put there later? Is there any possibility of that? I’m sure they’d have found it when they carried out the initial digging if it had already been there.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Grammaticus conceded, ‘but who the hell’s put it there, and was it when the drive was first laid, or later?’

  ‘That’s what we need to find out, along with who it is, and who killed them.’

  ‘Look, Inspector, I simply can’t have a crime scene here. It’s unthinkable.’

  ‘It’s right on the edge of your parking area. Don’t you think it might add to the atmosphere if you have a crime-themed gathering?’ Falconer played to the man’s weak point: namely, his back pocket.

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that. Good thinking, man!’ Jefferson Grammaticus positively beamed at them at this ingenious suggestion. ‘In that case, it’s not so bad. We’ve actually got a murder weekend at the end of this week – I can turn a profit from this!’

  ‘I’ll have to send a crime scene investigation team over to examine the area. When they’ve reported back to me, and we’ve had a chance to see if anyone’s missing, I’ll get in touch with you again with any information we may have gathered. Carmichael, you can put your notebook away now.’

  Carmichael had noted down this last statement before he realised it was directed at him, and looked up in surprise. Was this all? He supposed there was little they could do for the present and the body had not appeared there overnight, so looking at the guests currently staying at the establishment would not really be of any use to them.

  ‘I’ve still got that cat, you know?’ Falconer suddenly blurted out.

  ‘What cat, Inspector? Have you taken leave of your senses?’

  ‘The one that belonged to your former housekeeper, Beatrix Ironmonger,’ he replied with some dignity. ‘She called her Perfect Cadence. A silver-spotted Bengal.’

  ‘Did she? I don’t even remember her having a cat, but I knew she liked them. And you took it in, did you? Very kind of you, I’m sure.’ Falconer fairly bristled at this lapse of memory on the part of Grammaticus.

  ‘And she’s very well cared for,’ put in Carmichael, ‘with lots of brothers and sisters.’ This was a fairly inaccurate statement, but he couldn’t let the occasion pass without making comment in Falconer’s defence.

  ‘Very nice, I’m sure. Now, I must get on. I’ve got a murder to organise, and now I know there has to be a body under the drive.’ The hotelier rose, to indicate that the interview was over, now he had worked out how to manipulate events to his advantage,
and the two detectives made their way back outside. As they left the office the hotelier was running his hands over his facial hair with glee at this unforeseen profit-making opportunity, and grinning triumphantly.

  ‘What a chancer!’ declared Falconer, when they were once more in the open air and out of earshot.

  ‘A right modern-day spiv, if you ask me, sir,’ concurred his sergeant.

  ‘You’re far too young to know about spivs.’

  ‘I’ve seen the St Trinian’s films, haven’t I, sir?’

  ‘Of course you have, Carmichael. Of course you have.’

  ‘He hasn’t mellowed at all, has he?’

  ‘Not a jot, Sergeant.’

  Tomlinson, meanwhile, took a jaunt out to Castle Farthing, this being one of the many villages that he hadn’t visited yet. He knew Market Darley quite well, but the smaller communities he had only been to when a case had dictated he go there. Surprised by its photogenic good looks, he readily located Drovers Lane after taking a short stroll round the green.

  Having brought with him printed notes asking the occupants to contact him, with his office and mobile numbers on it, he pushed them through the letterboxes of numbers three, six, seven, and eight. He then sat down on one of the benches on the green to phone his partner, Imogen. She had promised to be there tonight when he got home from work, and he was eager to confirm this promise. He could never be sure of his hours, working in the police service, and Imi worked in hospitality, on a shift system at one of the local hotels, where she dealt with bookings and events and made sure the phones were manned at all times.

  Tomlinson punched a fist into the air in triumph, as he sat in the weak sunshine, when Imi confirmed that they would be able to spend the evening together, and he just hoped that Falconer wouldn’t find him something to do after his hours ended. If the occupants of Drovers Lane did contact him he could arrange to meet them the next day, but he didn’t fancy losing his cosy evening in front of the television curled up with his beloved. In his innocence, he had no idea how complicated his work life was about to become. This transfer had seemed like a good plan, to a small town with surrounding sleepy villages. How naïve.

  Meanwhile, a CSI team had been dispatched to The Manse, and Doc Christmas invited along to confirm that death had, indeed, occurred – a ridiculous procedure, but a necessary one to work by the book.

  The medical man looked at the remains that had been uncovered on the very edge of the gravelled drive and sighed. That digger had certainly made a mess of the front of the body, but then it was a heavy machine with a lot of power behind the bucket. How long had this one been there? He wondered idly, before kneeling down to examine it more closely. It certainly wasn’t as fresh as a daisy, that was for sure. It was still quite early in the day, though, and if he could get it lifted, he could get it on to his post-mortem table before knocking off time.

  The team worked around him, photographing, filming, taking soil samples, and looking for any clues that the surrounding earth could yield. Christmas’s mind went back to the body of the first woman that had been discovered. He had identified nick marks on three of her ribs, indicating that she had been stabbed in the chest. This one seemed to have had her throat cut.

  It may have been a different method of murder, but it still involved a knife, and he wondered if the two young women – for such was this as well – could have been killed by the same person, and how much time there had been between the two deaths.

  A gut feeling told him there was over a year between these two killings, but he’d see what he could uncover later in the pathology suite. He would conclude that the victim had been in her late twenties to early thirties, and that she had been placed in the ad hoc grave somewhere in the summer of 2010…

  When Falconer and Carmichael got back to the office Doc Christmas had left messages with the details about methods of dispatch concerning both murders, and Tomlinson arrived back just after them. Falconer sat behind his desk with his head in his hands. ‘This looks like it’s going to be a nasty one, gentlemen. We’ve got two bodies now, and neither of them buried themselves. Is this one going to prove to be our Suzie Doidge? Tomlinson, can you do your trick with the dentists again? There’s no jewellery to help with the identity this time. I don’t want to disturb Ms Warwick again saying we might have found her friend, and then have to tell her that we haven’t.

  ‘Right, the sergeant and I will go to speak to the neighbours in King George III Terrace, see what we can find out about Suzie Doidge. Tomlinson, have you traced the owners of number seven, and two Drovers Lane, so that we can find out what they know about their previous tenants?’

  At that point Falconer’s phone rang, obliterating Tomlinson’s comment that he hadn’t had any luck yet, and he found Bob Bryant, the desk sergeant, on the other end. ‘We’ve got a woman in here who says that her daughter’s gone missing. I wondered if you could have a chat with her.’ With a sigh at the thought of another disappearance, the inspector rose and plodded downstairs with an air of concern about how many more young women might disappear if they had a serial kidnapper and killer on their hands.

  In interview room one he confronted a very distressed woman weeping into a sodden tissue. She looked at him with drowned eyes, and wailed, ‘You’ve got to find my Natalie! She didn’t come back the night before last; she didn’t come home or contact us yesterday and her phone’s just going to her answering service. I think it’s turned off. She was only going out for a drink, and she just never came home, and I’m so worried about her.’

  ‘Has she ever done anything like this before?’ asked Falconer, drawing out a small notebook from his jacket pocket.

  ‘Never. She always lets me know where she is, who she’s with, and what she’s doing.’

  Although Falconer didn’t believe this was necessarily true, he carried on with his questions. ‘How old is Natalie? Have you got a photograph of her?’

  ‘Right here in my handbag,’ replied the woman, fumbling around inside the bag. ‘She’s twenty-two, and she doesn’t go out a lot. I can’t imagine where she is and why she hasn’t contacted me.’

  Falconer took the proffered snapshot and saw a picture of a young woman with bright blue eyes and long, wavy blonde hair. ‘Does she have a boyfriend?’ This often solved a lot of missing person reports concerning young females.

  ‘No. She’s a bit shy and doesn’t mix much.’

  ‘And yet she went out for a drink. With whom?’

  ‘I don’t really know. She just said she was meeting someone, but I’m so worried about her.’

  ‘Has she, to your knowledge, been associating with anyone lately that you don’t approve of?’

  ‘She has very few friends, mainly on that book-face computer thingy, and this is just so unlike her.’

  ‘Where does she work, if she does, and may I have her mobile number and details of your address and home contact numbers?’

  After checking exactly when she had last seen her daughter, he asked her if she had noticed if she’d taken anything from her bedroom: underwear, toiletries, make-up, but the answer was in the negative. He was given a pretty clear picture of a fairly solitary twenty-two year old who mixed little and worked quietly, without having a wild social life with her colleagues. She sounded a very lonely young woman, apart from ‘that book-face thingy’.

  The interview ground to its inevitable end, the inspector promising that he’d get Natalie’s photograph circulated and get all available officers to look out for her. He’d also check the hospitals, but she must promise to telephone if Natalie got in touch at all.

  When he returned to his office he instructed Tomlinson to phone the hospitals in the greater Carsfold area, and get the photo copied to all officers, before grabbing Carmichael for their second visit in two days to Stoney Cross. ‘Come on, Carmichael,’ he exhorted, without another thought. ‘It’s time to get back to Stoney Cross, see what we can discover about Ms Doidge. Tomlinson, you carry on checking the hospitals, and see wha
t you can dig up using your very useful dentists again.’

  With a sigh of resignation, the DC picked up the phone and began to punch in numbers.

  It would turn out that he hadn’t taken the supposed disappearance of Natalie Jones seriously enough.

  Chapter Six

  King George III Terrace was a long row of houses built with basements, so there were steps up to each main door. Number seven had two occupants, but the ground floor flat was empty. It had not been re-let, which was rather odd.

  The occupant of the first-floor flat turned out to have a key, which she had almost forgotten about, finally fishing it out of a drawer of odds and ends in her kitchenette, and she let them into the place. This was fortunate as Falconer had the dreadful sinking feeling that he was going to have to use his extremely poor lock-picking talents to gain entry. After a quick look inside, the woman from the flat above bowed out and left them to it.

  The flat didn’t seem to have been cleared out after the tenant went missing, and this was surprising. Although she had not been reported missing they thought the landlord would have picked up on the fact that she was no longer there, and would have moved the woman’s possessions out, so that he could re-let it. Falconer made a mental note to check with the two women’s banks to make sure that the rent hadn’t just gone on being paid. Although 2 Drovers Lane had new tenants, he wondered how long it had been since Suzie Doidge disappeared that the owner found out about it, and whether he had stopped the regular monthly income into his account.

  The flat itself was in an appalling state, not only extremely untidy and dusty, but also in desperate need of some work being done on it. The kitchen and bathroom fittings were ancient, the carpet almost threadbare, and the whole place desperately needed a coat of paint. No wonder Ms Doidge didn’t do anything in it: it must have been a very disheartening place to live.

  ‘What is that ghastly smell?’ asked Falconer, wrinkling his nose.

  ‘I think it’s coming from the drains,’ replied Carmichael. ‘The water hasn’t been run for a very long time, and if the access points dry out you can get a very foul stench coming up.’