Mark Sennen - CUT DEAD - A DI Charlotte Savage Novel

‘Hey?’ Jody raised an eyebrow and turned his head to take in a nearby family with preschool children. They’d heard the profanity, if nothing else. He nodded over to an empty table tucked away in a far corner. ‘Over there, Ms Black. Be better. Anonymous.’

Anonymous was not something she’d ever be again, Joanne thought. Infamous more like. Once the news filtered out. Tongues wagging, curtains twitching, rumours spreading like foot rot in a flock of sheep.

‘So?’ Joanne whispered once they’d relocated. ‘What do you know?’

‘Nothing, Joanne.’

‘You’ve been at the farm, what? – twenty years?’

‘Longer.’ Jody smiled. Shook his head, as if not quite believing the passage of time. ‘Twenty-five this August. Left school at sixteen and my dad said I had four weeks to find a job or else he’d find one for me. I was sweet on a girl up Calstock way so I spent the time chasing her instead of looking for work. First week in August Dad told me to come and see your uncle. Been here ever since.’

‘Well, Jody, I couldn’t have made the farm the success it is without your help.’

‘It was nothing.’ Jody smiled, winked and then took a sup of his beer. When he lowered the glass the jovial expression had gone. ‘But if you’re implying I know something about them people down in the hole then you’re wrong.’

‘Of course not.’

‘Well then, what are you on about?’

Joanne stared at Jody for a moment. Held his eyes. Then she looked around. Dark wood, brass trinkets on the red walls, black and white photographs from pre-war Devon. Parts of the pub, she knew, even went back as far as Drake.

‘History. My uncle. Things which happened at the farm long before I took over.’ Joanne picked up her glass and drained the remaining beer in one. ‘That’s what I’m on about.’

Savage didn’t catch up with the farmer until mid-afternoon. As they walked down to the crime scene together, she made a visual assessment of Joanne Black. In her early fifties, she had hair matching her name. Dark in thick strands, streaks of grey in there, but glamorous with it. The Hunter boots and stretch jeans helped, as did a figure kept in shape by manual work. The woman’s face wore the signs of days spent outside and under the sun but Savage thought the lines around her eyes showed far more character and beauty than the smooth glacial skin of a Photoshopped cover model ever would. She strode down the track, chatting to Savage about the farm. Casual and confident, but a hint of nervousness. Perhaps that was no more than to be expected.

A couple of paces behind them DC Patrick Enders puffed along, unwrapping and eating a Mars Bar as he walked. How the young detective managed to retain his boyish good looks on the diet he ate, Savage had no idea. Maybe his wife ensured he ate healthily at home. Then again, the lad had three young kids. Savage knew from her own experiences that burgers and chips would appear more frequently on the menu than three-bean salads.

As the three of them carried on down the track Joanne explained to Savage that the field had been used for silage, swedes and wheat over the past few years. However, the odd little corner formed by the river edge and the railway line as the embankment approached the bridge had always been left to scrub. The patch was not only tight to get the tractor in but there was also a spring which made the ground cut up something awful.

The spring explained the need for the pump, and as they approached the tent the noise of the generator drifted across. They left the metal track, their feet sucking in the mud with every step until they reached the pallets. Joanne paused some way from the tent and turned to Savage.

‘They’re gone, right?’ she said. ‘I really don’t want to see anything like that ever again.’

‘Yes,’ Savage said. ‘The bodies were removed an hour or so ago.’

Two CSIs were poking around in the nearby hedge, but there was nobody in the tent as Savage pushed the flap to one side.

‘We don’t need to go in. I just wanted you to see how big a hole had to be dug. It will give you some idea of the disturbance that must have made when the bodies were buried.’

‘Urgh, to think they’ve been there all the time.’ Joanne shook her head as she glanced into the tent, then turned away and looked back up the field to where they had come from. A number of police vehicles clustered in the farmyard, alongside a big green John Deere tractor. ‘But the distance. We’d never have heard anything at night and the scrub here would have shielded any digging from the eyes of whoever was working the field.’

‘Even high up in the tractor?’

‘With the mess you lot have made it’s hard to imagine what the ground was like.’ Joanne pointed over to the hedge. ‘See there. The nettles and brambles are almost head height.’

‘I guess it would also depend on the time of year, right?’ Savage said. ‘I mean, how often would you be driving past the corner?’

‘This has been down to winter wheat the last two years. We drill in the autumn. Then we spray several times and spread fertiliser too. That would be up until May or June. We harvest in August. But you’re too focused on the job in hand to be looking around you.’

Savage did just that. Looked around. The hedge Joanne had pointed to was thorn, thick on the field side with brambles and nettles. Down at the bottom of the field the estuary mud came right up to the edge. At any other time than spring high tide access from the water would be near impossible. The fortnightly spring high tides in Plymouth occurred in the morning and evening. Meaning, Savage reckoned, that apart from in the depths of winter, it would be daylight at high tide. If the killer hadn’t come through the farmyard then the only other way in was to carry the bodies along the railway line. It would have been hard work, but flat.

Savage nodded over at the track. Explained her thinking about the railway line to Enders.

‘What, risk getting electrocuted, ma’am?’ Enders said, the wrapper from his Mars Bar slipping from his hand. He bent to pick it up. ‘Or run over by a train?’

‘There are only a few a day,’ Joanne said. ‘None at night. And they’re diesels.’

‘So,’ Savage said, ‘someone could walk across the bridge or down from the village with no worries. They could have parked somewhere adjacent to the line and then climbed over the fence. After dark it would be unlikely they’d be spotted.’

‘But why me? Why my farm?’

‘There could be a reason, but maybe this just seemed like a good place.’

‘Fantastic.’ Joanne moved away from the tent and gazed across the field. ‘How long are you going to be here? I’ve got people in the holiday cottages from the middle of the week.’

‘You’ll have to put them off, I’m afraid. Sorry.’

‘Bugger.’ Joanne shook her head. ‘You must think me heartless, thinking about my own financial worries after what’s happened to those people.’

‘Not at all. After all, none of this is your fault and it must be hard—’

‘Being a woman? Would you say that if I was a man?’

‘No,’ Savage smiled, ‘but then your life wouldn’t be so hard, would it?’

‘It’s the attitude which gets me. I am not sure why a woman shouldn’t be able to drive a tractor or worm a cow. I’ll admit I leave banging in fence posts to Jody, but other than that I’m as good as the next.’ Joanne turned to Enders. ‘Dear Lord, listen to me, I sound like some ball-breaker from the last century.’

‘Don’t mind me.’ Enders raised his hands. ‘I’m only against feminists when they come armed with scissors.’

‘I’m not that type. Although I might make an exception for blokes who drop litter …’