Mark Sennen - BAD BLOOD - A DI Charlotte Savage Novel

Crownhill Police Station, Plymouth. Monday 14th January. 2.10 p.m.

Early afternoon, and Savage headed back to Crownhill. Inside the Major Crimes suite Operation Brougham was in full swing, the information discovered earlier in the day entered into the system by the indexers, actions already mounting up as each incoming lead generated numerous tasks for the inquiry teams. Three pairs of DCs had begun working the area around Lester Close. So far they had nothing but gossip. The story coming out of the neighbourhood was that Franklin Owers was a loner, frequented local playgrounds and by common consent, deserved castration. People were glad he’d moved away. The tale was similar over Stonehouse way, in the maze of streets surrounding his flat. Owers had only moved in a couple of months back, but already someone had noticed him hanging around outside the local primary school. Nobody questioned in either area had any idea where he might be and his MAPPA team were equally clueless. So much for monitoring sex offenders, Savage thought.

‘Naughty, Charlotte, naughty,’ Garrett said, entering the Crime Suite a few minutes later. ‘I should slap your wrist. More, according to John Layton.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Owers’ flat. Scene of crime. Layton has gone ballistic.’

‘Shit.’

‘Kept on talking about first dibs for him and his team. Muttered something about cross-contamination too. I told him to calm down but he stormed off.’

‘So John’s gone over there now?’

‘Going to “rip the fucker apart” were his exact words. I hope Owers is our man or else we are going to face one hell of a repair bill.’

‘And Lester Close?’

‘Clean. Nothing else there, he reckons. At least nothing we can find without bringing in the bulldozers, and I’m not ready to do that. Not until we’ve got something more on Mr Owers.’

‘It’s beyond reasonable doubt though, sir. The fact he’s offended before, the stuff we found at the flat, local people saying he acted suspiciously.’

‘Depends whose reasonable doubt we’re talking about.’ Garrett raised a finger and tapped his nose. ‘Everything so far is circumstantial.’

Savage disagreed, thinking a body beneath a patio was way more than circumstantial. She said nothing, guessing the real reason for Layton’s anger was the lack of anything incriminating from Lester Close. Now he’d be hoping to find something in Owers’ current residence, hoping Savage hadn’t mucked things up. She was sorry she had pissed him off. They were on the same side, after all.

Garrett was still talking, moving around the room and raising his voice to include everyone in the conversation. There were three main questions, he said. Who was the little girl in the box, who was the man that Peter Serling, the builder, had met at Lester Close, and where was Mr Franklin Owers? Answer any one of those and they’d be well on their way to cracking the case.

Early days, but so far the inquiry teams had nothing on Owers. Where he was remained a mystery.

Peter Serling would be coming in to give a more detailed statement and to work with the team’s e-Fit specialist to compile a likeness of the man who had impersonated Mr Evershed. The mobile number the man had given him was being traced, but likely as not would turn out to be a pay as you go and worthless.

That left the girl.

Garrett was off to the post-mortem, saying he hoped to return with information which would aid the identification. They already knew she was aged around six, had brown curly hair and a gap in her front teeth where two milk teeth had fallen out. There were so few missing persons of that age that establishing the girl’s identity should have been easy. However, the missing persons’ list didn’t contain any young children.

It wasn’t until Garrett had been gone for half an hour that Savage remembered a news story from last summer.

‘Missing, presumed dead,’ she said to herself. ‘Not on the misper list.’

‘Huh?’ DC Enders looked up from his screen and ruffled his brown hair with one hand. ‘Not following you, ma’am.’

‘Last summer. Pete was away but I’d persuaded Stefan to accompany me for a week-long cruise with the kids. We went down in convoy with another family boat and ended up getting stuck down in Newlyn. A big depression had cleared through, but the sea state kept us in harbour for a couple of days.’

‘Sorry, ma’am. I don’t get it.’

‘I remember the local newspaper headlines. A young girl had gone missing a few miles to the east at the Lizard. The lifeboat, coastguard and an army of volunteers searched the sea, cliffs and coast path, but she was never found. The conclusion was that she must have slipped over the cliff edge while her parents were having a picnic. There was something else too which I can’t quite—’

‘It’s here, ma’am,’ Enders said, pointing to his screen where he had brought up the local police file on the incident. ‘Simza Ellis was her name. Her parents were travellers, down in Cornwall for seasonal work. Ditto everything you said, but apparently the parents claimed there was somebody taking photographs of children, a “weirdo” in their words. There was also the fact that her sun hat was found in a car park set back from the coast. It says here investigating officers concluded the hat had been dropped by a dog or a gull or maybe had been carried there by an updraught from the cliffs, the hat coming off as the girl fell. The facts were considered at the inquest, but the overwhelming evidence pointed to Simza falling into the sea … shit!’

‘Patrick?’

‘… including the discovery of a pink trainer-type shoe by the lifeboat crew.’ Enders shook his head, an expression of distaste spreading across his face. ‘Because they were travellers nobody fucking believed them, did they? If they had then maybe she would be alive today.’

‘It’s easy to be wise after the fact,’ Savage said, moving over to Enders and patting him on the back.

‘Sorry, ma’am, but look at her.’ Enders pointed to a picture of the girl on the screen and clicked to make it bigger. ‘Didn’t she deserve a bit more?’

Brown curls cascaded to the edges of the image and a red tongue poked out from a pretty, playful face intent on mischief or fun, or both.

‘She’ll get the attention now, of course,’ Enders said, clicking the image shut.

Savage turned away, thinking that the young DC was right. Traveller or not, cute or not – and she was very cute – the girl had deserved more. But now was too late. Way too late.

Later, Savage climbed the stairs to Detective Superintendent Conrad Hardin’s office to give him the news on the situation at Lester Close. Hardin resembled a beached whale as he tipped his office chair backwards, interlocking his hands around his stomach and groaning.

‘Went to an afternoon buffet at the Guildhall. Bloody councillors, wasting public money on pointless functions.’ Hardin’s eyes roved to the jar of liquorice sticks he kept on his desk as part of his diet regime. He shook his head and huffed out a gallon of air. ‘Good food though.’

Being in Hardin’s office alone with the DSupt always made Savage feel uncomfortable. The sheer physical bulk of the man led to the illusion of him filling the room entirely, and in any prolonged silence the stark walls offered few distractions. At least the out-of-date calendar of Greek islands Hardin had had on the wall for the past two years had been replaced. The new one was of Dartmoor landscapes and January’s picture showed a suitably wintery scene with two children and a pony in the snow, the dark rocks of Haytor brooding in the background.

‘The girl in the box,’ Hardin said, following her gaze. ‘Where are we at?’