Mark Pearson - The Killing Season

Bill was feeling pretty pleased with himself. He’d had a couple of pints of Kronenbourg in The Ship and a smoke of the good stuff in the pub’s car park. He’d booked an Eastern European escort from Cromer, with big blonde hair, artificially augmented breasts and a willingness to take part in certain sexual practices that some of the local girls in Norwich baulked at. She was due to arrive at his house in about an hour and a half and he moved his crotch in time to the country carol in eager anticipation. The speed he had taken and the little blue pill he had dropped in expectation of a good long session probably helped his mood as well.

He drove his car into his driveway as Dolly finished her song, maintaining that she would be fine although she clearly felt she wouldn’t be, or at least the character personified in the song wouldn’t be. But old Bill, he was going to be fine. Pretty fine and dandy. And that was a fact.

Except it wasn’t.

He clicked the locking button on his car key and was walking to the front door of his house when the men in balaclavas stepped out from the darkness.

Late October, early morning and I was running up a hill wearing thermal underwear, joggers, a couple of shirts, a hoodie and a black watch cap on my head.

It was bitterly cold out, the wind still scalpelling in from the north, but I had worked up a sweat and certainly wasn’t feeling the chill. It was a routine I had got into. I got up early with Kate and the girls. We had breakfast. Kate dropped Siobhan off at the local school, and took the baby with her into work. They didn’t have a crèche as such, but there was an informal arrangement and if needed we had a nanny we could call upon. I’d come to the office, change into my running outfit and jog over the Beeston Bump, over the railway and up Beacon Hill, the long stretch that climbs to the highest point in Norfolk at a place called Roman Camp.

There has never been any evidence of a Roman presence there, mind: the name was made up by drivers of horse-drawn cabs around the turn of the nineteenth century to make the place sound more exciting to tourists. It certainly seemed to work. Mainly because of the views. It was called Beacon Hill because the area below and to the north of it, The Runtons on the coast, was at one time one of the most dangerous areas on the Norfolk coast for piratical activity and Viking invaders. A beacon lit on the top of that hill, warning of incoming people with hostile intentions, could be seen for miles around. And it is true to say that when the weather permits the views there are spectacular.

It was still a bastard to run up, though. Especially getting towards winter when the narrow paths that thread though the tangled trees growing up the long hill get wet and muddy. The wind had scattered torn branches and dead vegetation everywhere, making the path an obstacle course.

But I had made myself a promise. Four runs a week at least. Maybe when winter bit really deep I would join a gym. But not yet: the spandex and weight machine brigade had never appealed to me.

So despite the cold I was sweating and breathing heavily when I got back to my trailer-van office.

The mobile phone on my desk was trilling and dancing a little as I unlocked the door and entered. I picked it up.

‘Delaney,’ I said.

‘Jesus, Jack! You having a wank or something?’

I recognised the sweet feminine tones of my old boss back in the Met.

‘Hi, Diane,’ I replied, getting my breath back. I heard an intake of breath — Diane Campbell had scant regard for the law about smoking in public places. I could picture her in my mind’s eye standing by her window, puffing smoke and watching the uniforms come and go in the car park below her office.

‘So how’s the boondocks treating you, Cowboy?’

‘Very peaceful. You know, seashores and pine woodlands. Air you can breathe.’

‘Sounds like a fucking nightmare to me.’

‘Kate likes it.’

‘Is the mad woman still going to marry you?’

‘Seems like it. We do have a child or two, you know.’

‘Quite the nuclear family.’

‘Are you going to make it for the big day?’

‘Damn right! Promised Kate I’d make sure you wouldn’t do a runner.’

‘More than my life’s worth.’

‘She is a determined kind of lady.’

‘It’s Siobhan I’m scared of.’

I could hear Diane laughing on the other end of the phone. I missed that laugh. I missed Sally Cartwright and the others back in the Met. I even missed that miserable old bastard Bob Wilkinson.

‘So when are you coming back to the real world, Jack?’ she asked as if reading my thoughts. ‘There’s more important work for you to do down here in the big city than up there at the back of beyond finding sheep rustlers and pig pokers.’

‘For a lesbian you’re not particularly politically correct, are you, Diane?’

‘If it squeals like a pig and wallows in mud. Isn’t that what they say? Just telling it like it is.’

‘Working on a murder case, actually.’

‘Who’s the client?’

‘No client as such.’

‘Assisting the police with their enquiries?’

‘Not in an official capacity. The lady sheriff round here doesn’t exactly warm to me.’

‘Is she a dyke too?’

I laughed this time. ‘I have absolutely no idea. She’s a ball-buster, sure enough.’

‘You’ve always had big balls, Jack. Tell me about the murder.’

‘Body buried near a cliff. Part of the cliff collapses. The body is exposed.’

‘How long had she or he been there?’

‘A he, and a good few years.’

‘So it’s a cold case.’

‘Pretty cold.’

‘We have plenty of live ones down here.’

‘As ever was. So why are you calling, Diane?’

‘Like I said, we could you use back down here. Christmas is coming, Cowboy. The goose is getting fat and your gap-year vacation is coming to an end.’

‘It’s a sabbatical.’

‘We both know what it is.’

‘Sorry, Diane, I’m not cut out for the politics of Paddington Green.’

‘Purpose of the call.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning the plans to merge us into Paddington Green have been shelved. They are focusing on what our American chums call homeland security. White City is going back to being its own centre of excellence in the big fight against crime in our own special part of the naked city.’

‘Good for you.’

‘And for you, Jack. Like I said, I want you back. Resources are stretched — I need good people. People who I can work with. People who can get the job done. You, in short.’

‘I made a commitment to Kate.’

‘You made a commitment to take a year out. You’re renting a house and it was always on the cards that you would come back — isn’t that right?’

‘I don’t know, Diane. I kinda like it up here.’

‘I’ll leave you to chew on it, big feller. I know you, is all I’m saying. Give me a call.’

She hung up. I looked at the phone thoughtfully. Damn the woman. She was right.

She did know me.

The shower in the caravan was small but it was hot at least.

I had been standing under it for five minutes, letting the water wash over me and chewing over what my old boss — still technically my boss, in fact — had put to me. The New Year was a long way off yet. Plenty of time to make a decision when push came to shove. I was rinsing shampoo out of my hair when I heard two sirens, both of them police. They were coming in my direction. Then, by the sound of it, two squad cars screeched to a halt right outside and the sirens cut off in mid-shriek. So I figured they had come for me.

I figured right. There was a hammering on the door.