Chase The Devil: (DI Jake Sawyer series Book 5) Page 4

  Bruce, his black-and-white cat, lay in a tight ball on the sofa, and raised an ear as Sawyer closed the door. ‘Busy day, big man?’

  He poured a glass of Diet Coke, scooped something unspeakable into the cat’s bowl and set his laptop on the coffee table. There he logged in to his VPN software and navigated to the remote home screen of the police HOLMES database. His own access had been revoked, but he typed edshepherd into the User ID box and Rideout95 as the password. Shepherd was an Everton FC fan and, since starting to work with him, Sawyer had tried several combinations of Shepherd’s name and various passwords relating to his children and football. He had discovered Shepherd’s obsession with Everton’s last major trophy win—the FA Cup in 1995—and had hit on the correct combination of winning goal scorer and year.

  Sawyer accessed the most recent case file, submitted by the MIT unit at Buxton Station early that morning. The body of a thirty-four-year-old male, Duncan Hardwick, had been discovered partially buried in woodland near the Mermaid’s Pool area, near to Hayfield.

  Frazer Drummond’s pathology findings were preliminary, with toxicology pending. But there was enough detail to make Sawyer raise his head and gaze across at Bruce, his mind drifting, connecting.

  7

  MAY 2010

  ‘Visitor for you, Mr Fenwick.’

  The ward sister retreated back into the corridor, making way for Sawyer to enter the room. He approached the bed and brushed aside his orange tie, taking a warrant card from the inside pocket of his jacket. ‘James Fenwick?’

  Fenwick nodded. He sat up and studied the card with sunken eyes. ‘Sawyer. As in Tom?’

  ‘As in Detective.’

  Fenwick sat up with difficulty. He was obese, with a clean-shaven bald head that glinted in the light from his window. Swirls of wiry ginger hair poked over the top of his hospital gown.

  Sawyer pulled up a chair and sat down at his bedside.

  Fenwick sniffed, winced with pain. ‘No grapes?’

  ‘Official visit. No budget.’

  ‘Where’s your uniform, then?’

  Sawyer smiled. ‘You’ve caught me between ranks. Just qualified for CID.’

  ‘Congratulations. Good to know they think I’m that important.’

  ‘You’re not. I’m the lowest rank available. Well, rank in waiting. DC. My DI hogs the glamour gigs.’

  Fenwick nodded. ‘The criminals.’

  ‘You’re thinking of the saboteurs.’

  ‘One of the cunts that put me in here, yeah. No doubt. I was contracted to do a job, Mr Sawyer. It’s not a pleasant job, but if it’s not done, then the results are even less pleasant. Diseased livestock. The animals we rely on for beef, dairy. In comparison, badgers are expendable.’

  Sawyer nodded. ‘I’m not here to debate the logic.’

  Fenwick laughed. ‘There’s no debate. It’s proven that culling reduces the spread of bovine TB. It’s for the greater good, of all animals.’

  ‘Apart from badgers.’

  ‘I thought we weren’t debating.’

  ‘Tell me what happened on Tuesday night.’

  Fenwick lifted his bedsheet, revealing a bandaged leg. ‘This happened. While I was working.’

  ‘I understand you stepped in a steel-jaw trap.’

  ‘Yes. A leghold. Your lot found another five of the fucking things in the area where we were culling that night.’

  ‘How’s the leg?’

  Fenwick scoffed. ‘I get to keep it. Just. If I hadn’t been wearing thick overalls… Broke my ankle, though.’

  ‘And you think this was deliberate?’

  ‘So someone dropped a few traps around there by accident?’

  ‘I mean as a sabotage. The cull personnel were specifically targeted.’

  Fenwick reached over and took a sip of water from a plastic cup. ‘Course they fucking were. We had it before. They use all kinds of tactics. Harassing farmers and families, pestering the landowners. Boxes of shit posted to politicians and companies.’

  Sawyer glanced at Fenwick’s bandaged leg. ‘Has it ever got violent?’

  ‘The odd scuffle here and there. Protests. Nothing like this, though.’

  ‘Talk me through what happened.’

  Fenwick sighed. ‘There were six of us, up near Padley. We had a couple of drinks in the Fox House pub nearby and went up to the area where we were contracted to do the job. I heard a clunk and felt this excruciating pain in my leg. I thought I’d twisted my ankle between a couple of rocks. Then I looked down and saw the trap. Blood pissing out into my overall turn-ups. It took two of the others to get the jaws open. Screamed the fucking place down.’

  ‘And you know the others in the group well? They were the only people around?’

  Fenwick covered his leg, widened his eyes in mock shock. ‘You think someone might have infiltrated us? An undercover animal rights agent?’ Sawyer indulged him with a smile. ‘Yes. I know all the others. I’ve worked with them all before.’

  ‘Have you encountered anyone recently who expressed an opposition to the cull? Anything that stands out?’

  Fenwick frowned. ‘No. Despite what the propaganda says, cullers do it because they love animals. And because they care about public health. The activists don’t see the big picture. They only have eyes for the cute creatures. It’s a childish, Disney view of the world. If it was worms or wasps, they wouldn’t care.’

  Sawyer held Fenwick’s gaze. ‘It’s interesting, though, that somebody has taken this approach, rather than the non-violent methods of disruption you mentioned.’

  ‘Interesting?’

  ‘Yeah. I’m sorry this happened to you, but I’m trying to focus on the elements that stand out, that don’t quite connect. I’m intrigued that someone has gone to a lot of trouble to potentially inflict pain and suffering when they could have taken a less direct route and still stopped the cull. Was there anyone in the pub who looked suspicious?’

  Fenwick dropped his head. ‘Place was busy. There were a few people being rowdy on the lane, as we headed up to the woods. Students, probably, out on the piss. By the time we got up there it was dark. My missus called as we were getting our gear on, so I was last to get kitted out. I had to catch up with them.’ He looked up, glanced at Sawyer, dropped his gaze again. ‘We passed alongside this field. I thought I saw a few cows on the edge under some trees, but it was too late for them to be out. Trick of the light.’

  ‘A few cows?’

  ‘Well, actually only one or two. You sometimes get them out late but most are taken in by farmers. It almost looked like… It was hard to tell. I was catching up to the others, rushing. So it was just a glimpse, really.’

  Sawyer nodded, shifted forward in his seat. ‘See, now this is what I mean by interesting. What do you think you saw? A few cows? One? Two?’

  Fenwick scowled. ‘Actually, it was more like… They sometimes wander around the edges of the fields later in the day, I think. They’re a bit bolder.’

  ‘Go on.’

  Fenwick took another drink of water. ‘Look, what has this got to do with whoever’s been putting traps down?’

  ‘Just tell me what you think you saw, Mr Fenwick.’

  ‘Probably a bull. Like I said, I was catching up with the others and I only saw it in passing. Corner of my eye sort of thing. But it looked like it had horns.’

  8

  PRESENT DAY

  A woozy guitar melody. Morning sunlight leaking in through a gap in the blinds, stirring Sawyer awake. He rolled away from a lukewarm patch of perspiration and lay on his back, eyes open, steadying his breathing, listening to the opening minute of his phone’s wake-up song: ‘Tender’ by Blur.

  It had been another endless night, jostled by the usual terrors: snapshots of his mother brushing her thick black hair in the hall mirror at the old family home. Long, slow strokes. The brush catching on a knot. Blood seeping over her bare shoulder as she wrestled to untangle the strands. Her eyes searched for Sawyer in the mirror, but he knew if he
looked, her face would be replaced by something unbearable: bloodied and bulging, shattered nose and brow, the jaw collapsed and twisted.

  At some point in the night he had groped his way to the toilet and back, and sunk into a dream memory of a caravan holiday somewhere in Wales, with a young Sawyer and his older brother Michael peeling strips of dead skin from each other’s sunburned backs. They had competed over the lengths of uninterrupted single layers, and in the dream version, Sawyer dug his way down to his brother’s flesh, prodding and prising it off the bone.

  He hauled himself out of bed, showered, and stood before the shaving mirror. The shower screen behind caught the reflection of his tattoo, traced across both shoulders: Κατά τον δαίμονα εαυτού (‘True to his own spirit’). He worked through a session on his ‘wooden man’ Wing Chun training dummy, rolling his palms into the thick struts, driving his forearms across their length, simulating the mechanics of close-quarter grappling.

  Bruce strutted into the bedroom, squealing for his breakfast. Sawyer scooped the fishy mush into a dish and flopped back onto the bed, still in his underwear, unsure of the time. He liked to think of himself as loose and untethered, but since his suspension, he had found the lack of structure surprisingly unsettling. As he basked in the gathering heat, listening to the cat feeding, he hunted his mind for connections.

  His phone showed two messages. One from Stephanie Burns’s husband, Jordan.

  Jake. This is Jordan Burns. Can we meet? It’s about Steph.

  The informality was odd. He had only met Burns once before, briefly, a few days after the conclusion of the case. He had told him that he would be willing to help if ever Sawyer needed anything.

  The second message contained an image of a bright blue ocean stretching out to infinity from an unspoilt beach of white sand. The photographer had taken great care to include the calf-down section of her tanned legs. Long feet slotted into red-and-black Gucci sliders. Toenails painted cherry red.

  Hard work here! Luka is enjoying himself, but I could use some adult company. ;) xx

  He typed a reply.

  Wish I was there. We’ll get together when I’m all clear. X

  Sawyer sent the message and lay still for a few more seconds, zoning out. He sprang to his feet, dressed, and walked through into the low-beamed, L-shaped living space where his laptop sat open on the coffee table. He dropped onto the sofa and navigated to the Derbyshire Times website.

  INVESTIGATION AFTER MAN’S BODY FOUND

  The details were sparse, but confirmed most of what Sawyer had seen on HOLMES: Duncan Hardwick, thirty-four, discovered partially buried near to the Mermaid’s Pool area just outside Hayfield. According to the story, Hardwick had been the manager of a chain of local butcher’s shops, and was a keen walker in the area.

  Sawyer logged back in to HOLMES. No updates apart from role assignments. Drummond’s initial assessment was unchanged. Hands and feet secured… Lateral incisions around the knee and elbow joints… Top stratum of skin (thigh, calf, upper arm, forearm) scored and pulled back.

  His phone rang. Reeves.

  Sawyer logged out and did a Google search for ‘urbex’. He set down his phone, tapped the answer icon, and set it to speaker.

  ‘Max.’

  ‘Jake. As requested, I’ve been digging. It’s dirty work.’

  ‘Someone’s got to do it.’ Sawyer browsed the search results, and navigated to a website: Left Behind. ‘Anything interesting?’

  The clunk-click of a Zippo lighter. ‘Fuck, yes.’ Reeves puffed out smoke. ‘You’ve picked a colourful character to piss off here, Sawyer. A few highlights. Mr Fletcher had a daughter with a woman, Marla Jacob, originally from Middlesbrough. They moved back up there for a while. Didn’t last, and he went off to the SAS jungle training.’

  ‘This would be early 2000s, yes?’

  Another puff of smoke. ‘Yep. So, Marla gets herself a new partner, Seth Wagner. Social worker. Worked with ex-offenders. Turns out he’s pretty fucking offensive himself. When the daughter was six, Wagner was arrested for sexually abusing her.’

  The site loaded. Black background. Large white title text in a surprisingly classy font. Subline: UK Urban Exploration. Decay, Abandonment, Dereliction.

  ‘Fletcher’s daughter,’ said Sawyer.

  ‘Yeah. I’ll spare you the detail. He took pictures. We’re talking four on the SAP scale.’

  ‘That’s not sparing me the detail.’

  On-screen, an image carousel cycled through a series of photographs: a deserted factory interior; a hospital ward with wilted separator curtains and floor littered with documents; a child’s bedroom with flaked cartoon wallpaper, crib and a wheelchair angled towards a vast, multi-pane window.

  Reeves continued. ‘Now, Fletcher had a few sanctions for insubordination. Anger issues. But his commanding officer was accused of raping a young girl in a village in Brunei, where they were stationed.’

  Sawyer sat back. ‘You’ve told me this before. You said that Fletcher was the one accused.’

  ‘Yeah. But it looks like they fudged it, after Fletcher found out and chinned the officer. Charges dropped against his commander, but he was forced out. He moved to Amsterdam. Dutch father, spent a lot of time there as a kid.’

  Sawyer clicked around the site. Disused cinema in Port Talbot. Abandoned grain warehouse in Leith. ‘So, what happened to Wagner?’

  ‘He served three years, and they found him dead shortly after his release. Still unsolved. Are you sitting comfortably?’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Castrated. PM stomach contents showed that the killer had force-fed him his own cock.’ Another puff of smoke. ‘I’ve said it before, Sawyer. Whatever you’ve got going on with this geezer, you really should kiss and make up.’

  9

  ‘That’s time.’

  Maggie Spark smiled at the man perched on the edge of the chocolate-brown Heal’s futon. He got up, walked to the window and looked out over the moor towards the rocks of the Staffordshire Roaches.

  He sighed. ‘It goes so quickly.’

  Maggie patted down the back of her rust red hair, recently cut short for summer. ‘You know what they say about time flying, Joel.’

  The man’s shoulders tremored with laughter. ‘I’m not sure I’d call this fun. We’re making progress, though, right?’

  ‘I think so. Don’t you?’

  ‘Kathryn does.’

  Maggie nodded. ‘Your wife.’

  ‘Yeah. We moved here for a bit of peace, after everything that happened. If anything, it’s been even more turbulent.’

  ‘I can’t speak for your wife, or for your relationship, but I do think the work is helping you personally. And you’re the common factor.’

  ‘That’s good to hear.’ Joel angled his head. ‘I should go. You have someone waiting.’

  Maggie stood. Joel strode past her, squeezed out a smile without eye contact, and left the room, closing the door behind him.

  Maggie walked over to the window. A tea-coloured Fiesta was the only vehicle in the small car park, with a blond man in the driver’s seat, sitting perfectly still. He caught Maggie’s eye and turned his head slightly, revealing a short ponytail dangled over the back of his thick neck.

  She followed Joel out into the hall, where he stood at the base of a vast Kandinsky reprint, making a phone call.

  Maggie opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch. As she walked round to the car park, an engine revved up, and she rounded the corner in time to see the Fiesta drive away.

  10

  Sawyer drove south through the centre of the National Park. The day was muggy but overcast, and a light rain speckled the windscreen as he pulled out of Bakewell. The road which passed the Tudor pile of Haddon Hall was flat and straight—a Roman runway—and he squeezed the accelerator, pushing eighty, before he was throttled to a crawl by temporary roadworks outside Matlock. He listened to Episode Three of the Virginia Mendez podcast again, focusing on the voice of
the individual she had trailed as ‘The Explorer’.

  ‘But you’re not supposed to say anything, reveal the location.’

  His breathing quickened, and as he approached the spot outside Samantha Coleman’s house, he touched a hand to his tightening chest.

  Inhale slowly, five seconds.

  Exhale slowly, five seconds.

  Wait another five seconds, repeat three times.

  The voices on the podcast swam behind a sheen of distortion. An insistent baritone rose out of the murk. ‘Take care of your brother, Jake.’ His father’s final words before ending his own life.

  Inhale.

  Exhale.

  Sawyer lifted his eyes to the rear-view mirror.

  A young woman with long black hair sat in the back seat, forehead against the window pane, watching the raindrops.

  Sawyer knew there was nothing supernatural about this. His mother could not have visited him in apparition form. But the urge to talk, to connect, was strong.

  Inhale.

  He opened his mouth to speak but then closed his eyes, forcing himself to disengage. The breathing had blunted his panic, and he knew from experience that he could rationalise his way through the worst. This would be distressing but brief, and at least he was alone.

  Exhale.

  Sawyer switched off the engine and sat in silence for a while, taking solace from the stifling confinement. He unhitched the phone from its windscreen dock and navigated to the Contact page of the Left Behind website. He wrote a short message to the site owner, requesting a meeting, then pushed his way out of the car, keeping his eyes forward, away from the mirror.

  ‘Who’s Greg?’

  Sawyer took the same seat on the back terrace and looked down to the end of the garden, where a patch of indigo delphiniums teetered in the breeze.