Mark Sennen - Tell Tale - A DI Charlotte Savage Novel

‘And then?’

‘Then I’ll get onto that idiot PolSA and get him to widen the search.’

Charlie Kinver was the fisherman who’d found the bag of clothes and yet, apart from his initial statement to the PC, he’d not been questioned. Savage berated Calter and went off to do the job herself.

The man’s place lay about three miles from Fernworthy. A narrow lane ducked into a tunnel of trees and emerged after a quarter of a mile into a tiny valley where a stone cottage sat beside a brook. Ducks muddied the shallows as they probed beds of watercress and as Savage slowed the car, a heron rose from the water and flapped away. The house was from a postcard, honeysuckle climbing over a wooden porch, flowers in bright window boxes, a vegetable garden with rows of produce bursting from the neatly tended beds. To one side a number of chickens scratched bare earth in a pen, while a cat watched from the shade of a nearby fruit tree.

Savage got out of the car and went across to the front door. The door stood open and she knocked and called out a ‘hello’. Someone answered from the gloom inside and a figure stooped forward down the hall and held out a hand.

‘Charlie Kinver,’ the man said. The hand was dinner plate-sized and felt rough and calloused as Savage shook it. Kinver was in his forties but with a weathered face, short hair prematurely greying. ‘You must be the police, right?’

Savage nodded and introduced herself as Kinver led her through to the back of the house. The kitchen had oak units and wooden worktops with a deep sink and an old Rayburn stove. Very rustic, Savage thought, wondering if rustic wasn’t exactly the right word to describe Kinver too.

‘Made them myself, I did,’ Kinver said, noting Savage’s interest. ‘Carpentry. About all I’m good for. At least that’s what the wife says.’

‘They’re beautiful,’ Savage said. Kinver’s eyes had wandered to the window and she followed his gaze. In the back garden a woman lay on a sun lounger positioned beneath the shade of a tree, a book in one hand. ‘Is that your wife?’

‘Yes. She’s had a hard morning baking bread and then singing in the choir. Not like me, off for a spot of fishing, catching our food.’

Savage looked back into the room. On the kitchen table a hunk of bread smeared with butter and layered with cheese lay half-uneaten, while a salad had wilted in the heat. Kinver, for some reason, hadn’t been able to finish his meal.

‘Can you go through it again for me? What happened this morning?’ Since Kinver didn’t offer, Savage pulled a chair out from the table and sat down. ‘It must have been a shock, finding the girl’s clothes.’

‘Sorry.’ Kinver appeared to realise he’d neglected to be a good host and now he moved to pick the kettle up and fill it at the sink. ‘No, not a shock. At least not at first. I didn’t think much of it until I saw the underwear. Then the logic sunk in. She was either in the lake or lying naked and dead somewhere in the woods.’

‘Why did you think that?’

‘Well, there weren’t any other possibilities which came to mind. I could see she wasn’t close by sunbathing. Anyway it was too early for that.’

‘How often do you go fishing, Charlie?’

‘This time of year it’d be a couple of times a week, sometimes three. I don’t catch something every trip, but when I do it’s nice to have a piece of fresh fish for lunch. Only today I didn’t feel hungry. I cut off their heads, gutted them, gave the scraps to the cat and put them in the freezer for another day.’

‘When you were last at Fernworthy did you fish the same spot?’

‘Yes, as a matter of fact I did. Usually I’ll try to vary which swims I fish from, but this was only a short trip and I couldn’t be bothered to walk round the lake.’

‘And that was when?’

‘Day before yesterday. I had no luck but I spotted a couple of nice fish. That’s partly why I returned to the same place. And no, the bag definitely wasn’t there.’

‘And in your recent trips you haven’t noticed anybody acting suspiciously?’

‘I’m usually there too early to notice anyone. The tourists don’t start arriving until mid-morning. There’ll be some walkers, of course, but it’s rare I see anybody before eight. Once the kids start splashing in the shallows you can say goodbye to any chance of a bite so I usually try to do morning or evening sessions. This morning I didn’t see anyone and if I recall t’was the same the day before yesterday.’

‘You said you sometimes do evening sessions?’ Kinver nodded. ‘Do you ever get people at the reservoir then? Couples maybe?’

Kinver smiled. ‘Sometimes. They’ll turn up at dusk usually. They might take a walk but if they were thinking of a spot of alfresco the mossies usually put them off. All that bare flesh? – supper time for the little vampires, isn’t it?’

‘You’ve seen them though?’

‘Sure. Stood and watched a few times.’ Kinver held up his hands. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I’m no perv, but when I’m stalking fish round the edge of the lake I’m invisible, hardly make a sound. Once, late evening, I came across two guys and a woman. She were being spit-roasted, I think that’s what they call it. Me and the wife had a good laugh about it when I came home. Spit-roasted the brace of brownies I caught too.’

Savage shifted in her chair, aware that Kinver was leering. The man was a little free and easy with his descriptions for her liking. She was glad his wife was out in the back garden.

‘And apart from that one time, have you ever seen anything dodgy?’

‘The occasional couple in a car. With the lights on you can see everything. I’ve reported a vehicle that’s been broken into a couple of times. Once I rang the rangers to alert them to a bunch of teens who were camping and had lit a big fire. The camping was fine, but I reckoned the fire was a bad idea considering the dry weather we were having. I’d have had words myself but I didn’t want no trouble.’

‘And that’s the extent of it?’

‘As far as I know. I’ve never seen a guy in an old mac, hands down his trousers, leering after young girls.’ Kinver looked up from his tea-making duties and leered himself. ‘Young, pretty girls, know what I mean?’

‘I’m not sure I do, Mr Kinver,’ Savage said, thinking Kinver was again giving her way too much information. He seemed keen to show her the extent of his lasciviousness. Was it an act? – or maybe he was trying to flirt, even though his wife was but steps away. ‘Anyway, what makes you think this girl was young and pretty?’

‘Hey?’ Kinver cocked his head, nonplussed. Then he returned his attention to the kettle and poured water into two mugs, adding teabags to each afterwards. ‘Her picture, of course. On the driving licence. Cute little thing, I thought.’

Shit, Savage had forgotten about the licence. For a moment she’d thought Kinver had let slip something. Kinver was squeezing the teabags with a spoon while gazing out the window at his wife. He was mumbling about how he was very much in favour of the EU if the migrants were all like Ana.

‘Send ’em over, I say,’ he said as he turned and deposited the mugs on the table. ‘The more the merrier.’

‘But you’ve never seen her before?’

‘No.’ Kinver grimaced. ‘And I don’t reckon I’m likely to get the chance now, am I?’

‘You’re jumping to conclusions. Most missing persons turn up at some point. Fingers crossed this girl does too.’

‘Oh she’ll turn up all right.’ Kinver pulled out a chair and sat down. He raised a finger to his mouth, licked the tip and then lowered his hand and ran his finger along the smooth edge of the tabletop. ‘But she won’t be winning any beauty contests when she does, will she?’