Ewart Hutton - Good People

‘None of them are there … None of them got home last night …’

‘Have you any idea what conditions are like up here?’ I asked the duty officer at headquarters in Carmarthen over the radio.

‘I can’t authorize a helicopter search.’

‘Yes, you can.’

‘I need senior officer clearance.’

‘Call DCS Galbraith.’

‘It’s a Sunday,’ a note of panic rising in his voice at that prospect.

‘And this is an emergency. I have seven people missing up here in conditions of extreme exposure. One of them is a young woman. You take the fall if any of them die or suffer serious injury.’ I let that doom note resonate for a moment before pressing down on the exaggeration pedal. ‘You don’t know what it’s like. I’m talking mountain conditions here, an enormous wind-chill factor, snow, a warren of forestry trails to be covered.’ The last bit, at least, was true.

‘Is a helicopter any use if it’s snowing?’ he asked.

‘It’s passing over,’ I said quickly, ‘but the wind’s getting colder.’

‘Okay,’ he came to a decision, ‘I’ll set it up, but it’s your responsibility. I am only acting on information received.’

It’s only accounting, I told myself, the budget must have an allocation for such emergencies. I raised a thumb of acknowledgement to Emrys, who was down at his own car, on the radio to his boss, trying to get more people in for the search.

But where to start? I traced the course of the minor road with my eyes until it disappeared into the forest that rolled outwards and onwards for hectare after hectare. New growth, old growth, clearances, logging trails, abandoned trails, and the bastard, shape-shifting magic trails that I always ended up getting lost on. The imminent prospect of moving into that forest held no appeal.

The imminent prospect of a call from Detective Chief Superintendent Galbraith was even less appealing.

I had a lot to blame Jack Galbraith for.

For a start, he had rescued me. After my career in Cardiff had effectively gone down the tubes, he had stepped in and offered to have me in the Carmarthen Division. The Wild and Woolly West, as we used to say in Cardiff. I had thought about it when I had gone in to clean out my desk in that strangely empty squad room. After they had told me that it was safe to surface from my “emotional” leave. Why was he taking in a burned-out and redundant “hero”? Jack Galbraith did not have a reputation as a philanthropist. Had someone in high places called in a big favour? Or was he setting up an even bigger one, to be redeemed at some future date?

‘I’ve been informed that you used to be a good cop, Capaldi,’ he had told me on that first day of my official reincarnation in Carmarthen. When I had been born again as one of his men. ‘That’s why you’re here with me instead of wearing a rinky-dink security uniform and patrolling the booze aisle in some shanty-town supermarket. I’m giving you another chance. See if you can get back some of that good judgement that you occasionally used to demonstrate.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ I had replied humbly.

‘Look at this.’ He walked across his office to the map of Wales that hung on the wall.

I looked. He tapped the map, a drummer’s rhythm. I didn’t have a clue what I was supposed to be looking at. He was tapping the bit in the middle, the empty bit, the bit God gave to the sheep.

‘Do you know how much it’s costing … to send men out from here …’ he rapped the pen on each of the divisional headquarters, then came back into the middle again ‘. . . to here? Every time a case comes up?’

‘I can imagine.’ I nodded sympathetically.

‘Overtime, petrol, hotel bills if they have to stay over.’

‘And you’re paying out for unproductive time with all that driving,’ I added helpfully. I would have kept my mouth shut if I had known what was coming.

‘Exactly. You’ve hit it right on the head there, son. Unproductive bloody time.’ He sat down on the edge of the desk. A power move. Looking down at me, nodding at the question before he had even framed it. ‘So what are we going to do about it?’

I didn’t even pretend to think that I was being invited to advise on strategy here. ‘I don’t know the answer to that, sir.’

‘I’m going to try an experiment, Capaldi.’

I gave him my best fresh, interested look.

‘I’m going to put a man in there. A resident detective, someone who can cover the routine crap, so back-up only gets called in when it’s absolutely necessary.’

Something plummeted. I felt like a specimen butterfly watching the mounting pin descend. ‘You’re surely not thinking of me for this, sir, are you?’

He grinned. It wasn’t meant to be friendly. ‘I’d have thought you would be grateful for any chance.’

‘I’m straight out of the city, sir.’

‘And you fucked up good there, didn’t you?’ He didn’t embellish. Didn’t remind me that I was responsible for the messy death of a man. He didn’t have to; the memory still kept me on familiar terms with the Hour of the Wolf most nights.

‘But I wouldn’t know how to operate out there,’ I protested, not faking my bewilderment.

‘Don’t fret your head about that, Capaldi, No one fucking does.’

We cordoned off the minibus with incident tape, and set up the command post there. With all that country to cover it was as good a place as any.

We had a mountain-rescue team on its way down from Snowdonia, volunteers from Forestry Services, and police teams with dogs already working their way into the forest. Inspector Morgan, Emrys’s boss, had turned up and was now running the uniform end of things. Apart from some filthy stares, he kept away from me, and left me in charge of the communications with the helicopter. Which was ominous. Had me wondering whether perhaps there wasn’t an emergency budgetary allocation after all.

My mobile rang. A number I knew only too well.

‘Capaldi …’ the voice boomed.

My stomach clenched. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘We’re on our way.’

The wind had dropped, the rain had thinned to a fine suspension. It wasn’t quite the Ice Queen blizzard that I had invoked. ‘I don’t think there’s any need, sir. There’s nothing to do but wait, you’ll just get cold and wet up here.’

Jack Galbraith chuckled darkly. ‘Don’t think you can call up a fucking circus, Capaldi, and not invite the chief paymasters. I’m bringing DCI Jones up with me. If my Sunday’s fucked I may as well spread the misery.’

‘Yes, sir,’ I replied snappily. Bryn Jones was one of the few cops in Carmarthen who hadn’t treated me like an AIDS carrier when I had limped in damaged from Cardiff.

‘Give me the background,’ Galbraith instructed.

I laid it out for him. Emrys Hughes couldn’t expect low profile now, so I nudged up the spin of the hijacking to six booze-fuelled guys and an unknown but vulnerable woman. Seven people missing in the hills. I played down the discovery of the neatly presented minibus. That didn’t fit in so well with the dark-tale storyboard.

He was silent for a moment, and then I could just make out indistinct conversation at the other end of the line.

‘You’re wrong.’ He came back on the line.

‘Sir?’

‘We think you’re wrong. This group isn’t the sort to be involved in anything truly sinister. You’ve been watching too much redneck massacre shit.’

‘It’s the woman that I’m concerned about, sir.’

‘The men don’t fit the gang-rape mould.’

‘What do you think I should have done, sir?’

‘Waited.’

‘I’m sorry, sir, you’re breaking-up …’ I cut the connection.

That was an unofficial rebuke. Was it going to end up turning official? Had I overreacted? I thought hard about it. No. Even Emrys Hughes had been spooked when he realized that none of those good people of his had made it home. But where had they made it to?