The Dunk stood on his tiptoes and peered down the alley. ‘This could be it, though, Boss.’
One final muffled BOOM marked the door through to the long, low, subterranean room.
‘Let’s hope so, for all our sakes.’ Tudor raised an eyebrow as he stared at Lucy. ‘What’s with the black leather gloves? Planning on assassinating someone later?’
She shrugged. ‘Just feeling the cold, Boss. You know, after I fell down the stairs. And everything.’ It certainly didn’t have anything to do with the scabs puckering the skin across her swollen knuckles.
Tudor checked his watch. ‘What’s taking them so long?’
Two minutes later, all six members of the Operational Support Unit lumbered out into the rain again.
‘Please God, let this be it...’ Tudor marched over there, Lucy and the Dunk hurrying in his wake. ‘Anything?’
‘Not any more.’ Sergeant Niven’s voice was solid Kingsmeath, half the vowels flattened and nasal as he parked the big red door key on his shoulder as if it barely weighed a thing. ‘But someone’s gone to a lot of trouble covering their tracks.’ He clicked on an oversized torch, turned, and led the way back inside, motioning for them to follow. ‘You smell that?’
The harsh acidic tang of bleach hung in the corridor, mingling with a fug of scorched plastic and tarry soot. It got thicker as they turned the corner and thumped downstairs. By the time they stepped into the long, low room, it was choking.
Lucy cupped her hand over her face, eyes watering. ‘Dear God...’
The whole room was blackened and charred. A small pile of carbonized rubbish smouldered in the middle of the place. None of it recognizable as a manky couch and coffee table.
‘Whoever it was, they didn’t want us finding anything. You can get the FSSER down here, but I’d put cash on this place being cleaner than a priest’s conscience.’
Lucy stiffened. ‘Those are dirtier than you’d think.’
While DI Tudor dug out his phone again, and organized a forensic team, she did a circuit of the room, stopping to nudge the length of chain where Dr Christianson used to live, setting it rattling. ‘Dead end.’
‘Sod.’ The Dunk drooped. ‘Really thought I’d got him, there.’
She patted him on the shoulder. ‘Never mind, it was a good bit of detective work. We were just a wee bit too late.’
Thank God.
The call came in at twenty past five, as the Operation Maypole office was emptying out for the day. Everyone heading off to the Bart for a post-not-achieving-anything drink.
‘DS McVeigh? Yes, hi, it’s Abid Hammoud. You wanted to know about a missing red-and-white Mini with a dented roof and cracked rear windscreen?’
Lucy sat up at her desk. ‘Hold on.’ Pulling out her notebook, then snap-snap-snapping her fingers at the Dunk. ‘OK.’ Pen poised.
‘You will not believe how much of a struggle we had, especially without even a partial number plate to go on, pretty much impossible really, but I had a brainwave and expanded the search parameters—’
‘You found it? You found the Mini?’
‘Erm... Yes. Red-and-white Mini, dented roof, cracked rear windscreen, spotted by a traffic camera on the A9402, about three miles south of Shortstaine. It was turning onto a single-track road, which is a dead end, so there’s no way out but back the way it came. And there’s no sign of it leaving. I’ll email you the map coordinates.’
‘Thanks, Abid, you’re a genius. Can you throw in a screengrab, too?’
‘Will do.’
She scribbled down the details, hanging up as the Dunk scuttled over from the coffee machine.
‘Got you a latte.’
She ignored the proffered mug. ‘No time. Get a car, we’ve got a sighting.’
Even with the siren going, it took a good thirty-five minutes to fight their way through rush-hour traffic and onto the single-track road — the Dunk driving hunched over the wheel, teeth gritted, elbows out, but not quite brave enough to put his foot flat to the floor.
He slowed, killing the lights-and-music as the road twisted through a small patch of woods. ‘Aren’t we going to need backup, here?’
‘Probably. But I want to check it out first. Don’t want a repeat of this afternoon.’
He wilted a little at that. ‘Yeah, probably best.’
The road curled around to the left — the grey bones of a standing circle reaching out through the earth on the hill above them — then right — past the tumbledown skeleton of an ancient croft — over a crumbling bridge and into a big chunk of Forestry Commission pines, where the tarmac ran out, leaving the car’s tyres growling over muddy yellow gravel. Rain pounded down on the road, but a pale-grey mist clung to the tree trunks on either side, haunting the forest floor, beneath that dense green canopy of needles.
Lucy pulled out her phone and checked the screengrab Abid Hammoud had sent through: a red-and-white Mini, its rear windscreen covered with what looked like bin bags and duct tape, a long narrow dent creasing the back end of its roof.
Definitely the car she’d bashed with Dad’s metal walking stick.
Which... wasn’t really possible.
Had to hand it to them: St Nicholas College’s cover-up squad were good at their job.
She zoomed in on the Mini’s number plate, copied it down into her notebook, then forwarded the email on to Monster Munch. Gave it a minute, then called her.
‘Operation Maypole, DC Stockham speaking?’
‘Monster Munch? Just sent you a screengrab from a traffic camera. I need you to run a PNC check on the Mini’s number plate.’
‘Urgh... Bad enough I get lumbered with the crappy back shift, without people piling on extra work.’ A rough sigh, followed by the noise of a keyboard click-clattering away. Monster Munch’s voice dropped to a gossipy whisper. ‘Tudor’s still here and he’s got a face like a walloped backside. Superintendent Spence was in with him for half an hour, and just between you and me, he’s torn Tudor a new one. God, you should’ve heard the shouting — it was like Christmas at my mum and dad’s house. Right, here we go... Number plate belongs to a Volkswagen Touran, registered to one Julie Wilkinson, seventy-two, who’s been dead for three months. So she’s probably not the driver.’
The St Nicholas team were very, very good indeed.
‘Thanks.’
‘You hear about Tudor’s wife? Vow of chastity is what I heard, which is a polite way of saying—’
‘That’s great, got to go.’ Lucy hung up.
The Dunk glanced across the car at her. ‘Anything?’
‘Christianson nicked the number plates off some dead old lady’s people carrier.’
‘So we couldn’t trace him through the car. He’s a sneaky bastard, I’ll give him that.’
The further they went on the forestry road, the worse the potholes got. Water surged out in dirty arcs as the pool car wallowed through them. Rain thrumming on the roof, windscreen wipers grunting and groaning, blowers howling — filling the interior with the twin scents of pine and dust.
‘There!’ The Dunk bounced up and down in his seat. ‘You see that?’
As if it was hard to miss.
The track widened out into what was probably a turning circle — access to the rest of the woods blocked by a padlocked metal gate. Sitting in front of it was the burned-out carcase of a small car. It sat on four grubby alloys, the tyres turned to ash, paintwork scorched to a pebble-dashed brown. All the plastic trim had gone, and so had the headlights, windows, and windscreens, the interior reduced to its metal framework...