Resurrection Bones (A DI Fenella Sallow Crime Thriller Book 6), page 18
The shed was a wood shack with a rusted iron roof and a thick metal door. Her dad, Fred Bickham, built it before she was born, plank by plank, with thick walls and a small window with glass fortified by steel wires running through it. Layered with years of grime, it let in a smear of sunlight which shimmered off the boxes and tins scattered about the dirt floor.
"A grand old place," her dad had said. "Private and secure."
It smelled of tobacco and was crammed with implements that might have been found in a mediaeval torture dungeon. A shelf ran the length of one wall packed with crates filled with nails, screws and an odd assortment of hammers. Shirley studied the collection of barbaric looking saws with clawed teeth so sharp they could slice through bone. Outside a blackbird shrieked.
The shack had everything she needed.
She tugged at the loose skin around her neck and took a sip from her hip flask; a quickie to lubricate the mind. A full twenty-four hours had passed since she had seen Den Ogden sneaking from the lighthouse on the pier. Twenty-four hours since he denied who he was. But Den Ogden was back in town. That was him with that grinning dog, she was one hundred and one percent sure of that. And he didn’t recognise her as she followed him and watched where he went. Good. Bloody Good. Twenty-four hours to stew. A lifetime to plan.
The shed was her dad's hidey-hole. The place where he bolted when he wanted to be on his own or when he was working on one of his secret projects for the Hope Haven shelter and their gaggle of teenage girls. Ginger spent hours and hours in here with her grandad. Shirley scowled at the memory. Her dad's face beamed when he and Ginger returned from the shed. Positively glowed.
Shirley dusted off cobwebs, cleared a space on the bench and stopped. A small blue packet lay on the dirt ground under the workbench. It must have fallen between the slats. She bent down to pick it up, staring at it in silent shock. Why did her dad keep an open packet of condoms in here?
All of a sudden, a thud smashed against the window. Something screamed. She dropped the blue packet, gaze darting to the smeared pane. She exhaled. A bird had flown into the glass, probably a blackbird that had lost its way. For a moment, she was cast back into the past. She sat around the hearth with her dad and Ginger. "A blackbird in the house is a bad omen," he had said, his mouth a lipless slit. She remembered him watching her with beady black eyes as his arm snaked around Ginger's shoulders. Her daughter must have been twelve back then, growing rapidly into a woman. But it was her dad's next words that now sent a cold bolt of fear through her body—If a blackbird beats upon your door, a child's death is for sure.
Outside the birds began to shriek. Shirley moved in a feverish rush, she sure as hell didn’t want to find out what that screaming meant. She grabbed the tools she needed. All she wanted was a few minutes peace to finish her project. She picked up a claw hammer, rolled it in her hands, feeling its weight. Her dad bought quality tools that lasted a lifetime and beyond.
What would he say if he knew of her plan? She banished that question from her mind but her dad's lipless smile stayed and his mouth began to move. No. She wouldn’t listen. Her heart pounded with almighty thumps. No way in hell would she abandon the plan now. Not after all her anguish. She took another sip from the hip flask, told herself she didn’t have a problem with drink and continued with her project.
Tap-tap.
It was important to get it right. She worked in spellbinding silence, labouring hard and grimacing as she went. The barrage of tapping went on for some minutes peaking with an inferno of hammer blows.
Tap-tap-tap-tap.
The panic-stricken rage at stumbling into that blockhead, Den Ogden, on the pier had long faded. Was it an accident that they met? Or the hand of fate? She decided the fickle finger of fate had pointed him out and instantly worked the hammer harder.
Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.
She'd felt a deep sense of shame when Den Ogden didn’t recognise her. The man had bravado. The sheer scale of his lies boggled the mind. Lighthouse inspector my arse.
It was laborious work but she went at it with a joyousness fuelled by her alcoholic fug. Did Den know her dad was dead, murdered? No point wondering, she told herself. He would find out soon enough.
She put the hammer down and took a ragged breath. Moisture oozed from her palms and collected on her brow. She thought about her dad and she thought about the baby growing in Ginger's belly and she thought about her dismal life as a single mother. Ginger, her daughter, hadn't returned home. No interest from the police because, in the end, her mam had not reported the girl missing. Why didn’t I do it anyway? I love my daughter.
Then she remembered she was the last to hear about Ginger's new baby. She took a long slug from her hip flask. Why waste time going to the police when Ginger is twenty-one going on twenty-two, and her gran knows where she is? No one looks for an adult runaway even if their belly is full with a growing baby. Anyway, adults can do as they please. The police have more important things on their plate. I've done the right thing. She took another swig. No one will ever find out. No one will ever know.
"Shirley, are you in there?"
Shirley froze at her mam's voice. Why had she been thrown into a hellish soup where doom lurked around every corner? Her mam must never set eyes on the project. Never see what she was doing. Never know what she'd planned. It would kill her.
"Be with you in a minute," Shirley said.
The door handle rattled. Shirley stared in horror as the knob turned. Her mam was on the way in. She was coming inside to see what Shirley was doing; coming inside to see what she had done.
Shirley took off at a sprint. Her feet pounded against the dirt floor, kicking away boxes and tins. She hit the door with her shoulder, shoving it with all her weight.
"It's stuck, Shirl," her mam, Ida, said. "From the inside."
"Out in a few minutes," Shirley replied.
"What are you doing in there?"
"Tidying Dad's tools."
"Leave that until after the funeral."
"Got to keep busy."
The door handle rattled.
"Come out now," Ida said.
"I'll be done soon. I need some space to remember Dad. This was his special place where he built things for Hope Haven shelter. I just want to spend time in his cave."
Silence, apart from the thud in Shirley's chest. She leaned against the cold metal door, sweat running freely down her cheeks. Slowly, at the edge of her hearing came the barely audible rustle of footsteps. Her mam was on the garden path and walking back to the house.
Relief washed over her like rain. She let out a breath and leaned her back against the door. She gasped in stupefied horror at the creation lying on the workbench.
"A wickedness," her mam would have called the Frankenstein created by Shirley's hand.
Shirley pressed her back against the door trying to get as far away as possible from her creation. As though a bolt of lightning might strike and jolt the bloody thing to life.
"Oh God," she cried, suddenly filled with sorrow. "What am I doing?"
She wanted to believe it was the booze. She wanted to believe it was the pills. But it wasn’t. She'd been planning this for years.
A shadow blotted the window and the shack went from dim to dark. The shadow twitched and jerked and turned into a familiar shape. The dim outline of her mam's face pressed against the glass.
"Mam, leave me be," Shirley yelled, gasping back fear.
"Are you drinking in there?"
"No."
The shadow vanished from the window. It's impossible to see inside the shed, Shirley told herself. Too much grime on the window, and those thin wires in the glass added to the blur. She let out a choking breath, hands clenched into tight fists. She had not expected it would be this difficult to find a few minutes’ peace. In her mind it was easy. An hour to build. A moment to use.
She waited until the house door slammed shut then walked slowly to the workbench and put on a pair of gloves. For some time, she stood, staring, worrying the sore on her lip with her tongue. It wasn't until she picked it up with her gloved hands that she began to laugh. Chortling like a mad woman. Like she'd dodged the orderly and escaped from the asylum into the countryside beyond. Like she was running through a meadow with her hair blowing wildly. She rolled it in her hands, satisfied at its weight. For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
The detectives were tight lipped over how her dad died. Not so the uniforms. She'd overheard an officer saying he'd not want to die by being clobbered by a cricket bat lined with nails; said he'd rather jump from a burning building or take his chances in the icy sea as a cruise liner went down.
Shirley gazed once more at the small window to make sure nobody was there. Then she took a long, hard, slug from her hip flask and swung the cricket bat, freshly cleaned and lined with nails.
Chapter 43
At five thirty in the morning, the Port St Giles police station was quiet. It was too early to be at her desk, but Fenella couldn't sleep. She sat in the half-light of the desk lamp, her chin resting on her hands. For some time now, she'd been staring at the still image on her computer screen.
The low hum of a vacuum cleaner carried through her closed office door. A cleaner was already working the hallway. Soon the station would spring to life and with it the clatter and jumble of another day. She'd be at Carlisle Crown Court most of the day; then meetings with senior management until six in the evening. With a bit of luck, she'd be home and tucked in bed by nine.
She picked up her mug, slurped lukewarm tea and put it down without taking her eyes from the screen. It was a blurry image taken from a CCTV camera inside Fresco. It showed Mrs Fisk a few moments before she left the store. She pushed a dark blue pushchair with the hood folded down and blue material draped down the sides. A three-wheeler with oversized tyres and an easy grip handle designed for runners. But Mrs Fisk wasn't moving at jogger pace, more at a leisurely amble. A handful of seconds from inside the store to outside and then she was gone. Except, there was no way of confirming the bairn was in the pushchair. The CCTV footage wasn't that good.
A tuneful whistle carried from the hallway. In rang out in time with the swish of a broom. As Fenella tried to recall the name of the tune, she realised something was bothering her. It concerned the bloke who'd ask Mrs Fisk the time as she left Fresco. Mrs Fisk claimed he was the last person she spoke with. Her description was vague—short, Russian, doll-like eyes. But the man was going into Fresco and the baby vanished at the bus stop.
Fenella clicked her mouse and replayed the CCTV footage. Over and over she played the grainy images, eyes unblinking and fixed on the screen. At last, she was certain, clicked pause and drummed her fingers on the desk. There was no footage of a short man going into the store in the minutes after Mrs Fisk left. Women in headscarves. Yes. Men in flat caps. Yes. Toddlers and teens and boys and girls. Yes. But no one fitting Mrs Fisk's description.
Fenella considered. Who asks the time at the entrance to a store and doesn't enter? Two possibilities. First the man didn't exist. Fenella had seen some strange things over the years. Could it be the pushchair was empty? Did Mrs Fisk go through the motions to create an alibi?
Second possibility. The man turned around and followed Mrs Fisk to the bus stop. But that meant he knew where she was going. Knew the store had CCTV. Knew the streets well. Had someone been watching the Fisk family?
She sent a text message to Dexter:
Baby Eva Fisk: Need review of CCTV footage from streets around Fresco in Barrow-in-Furness. Person of interest a short man who stopped Mrs Fisk to ask the time. Possibly Russian or Eastern European. Looks like a child. No mention of him in the files.
She wondered if he'd think her batty for sending such a request so early in the morning.
A second later her phone pinged.
On it, guv.
The office door swung open. A woman in a brown apron danced into the room. She wore headphones and pushed a vacuum cleaner, singing at the top of her voice. She plugged it into the wall socket, straightened and gasped. "Oh so sorry, I didn't think anyone was in this early. I can come back."
The woman was in her early twenties with thin arms and plump legs and that worried look which told you she was new.
"Nah, keep going," Fenella said. "Haven't seen you before, have I?"
"Started this morning, agency worker."
"Is that right?"
"Yeah, pays better than regular cleaning. Might get a full week here as three of your cleaners are off sick. I go all over town and see all sorts."
She flipped on the vacuum cleaner and went to work.
Fenella leaned back in her chair, mind darting between Fred Bickham and Mrs Ruth Fassnidge. Why did she feel, whenever she thought about their deaths, that she was on the never-ending road to nowhere? Her eyes closed and, once again, she conjured up the image of the figure in black dashing through the back yard of the boarding house. Man or woman? She squeezed her eyes tight and blocked out the hum of the vacuum. She must have focused for a full five minutes. The figure wasn't tall. That is all she got. She sighed and opened her eyes. At least she could rule out a serial killing giant.
"Ta-ra," the cleaner said, wheeling the vacuum from the room.
Fenella waved but her mind bounced to Fred Bickham. The attacker had more time in the remote allotments. No one would have heard Fred's screams. Except the blackbirds. Her phone rang. She gazed at the screen—Gail Stubbs, a long-time friend.
They'd met years back when Fenella was a rookie and Gail was at the start of her career in nursing. Recently, Gail's husband had left her for a younger woman, and she moved to Port St Giles to work in the hospital and rebuild her life. Not an easy task at any age, difficult when you've turned fifty.
"Thought I'd go straight to voicemail," Gail said in a happy tone.
"Wide awake and ready to go," Fenella replied, pleased at the interruption.
"You at work already?"
"Aye, a heavy day ahead."
"Well, lucky me, I've finished and my weekend starts after I've had a shower and a long sleep."
"But it is only Wednesday," Fenella said. "How come you get the rest of the week off?"
"I've worked double shifts because we are so short-staffed. Oh, don't forget tonight."
"Tonight?"
"My place at seven for a girls' night in. I've found this fish dish I want to try out. You haven't forgotten, have you?"
She had, but said, "I'll be on time."
"Good because I've got some big news."
Chapter 44
Den Ogden knew he'd have to bow, knew he'd have to grovel, but he had no idea how low he'd have to go.
Arranging to meet the Russian with the rag doll eyes for a second time wasn't easy. It was like trying to speak with the Pope from a coin-operated payphone. Good luck on finding one of those these days. Good luck on having the right coins. So, Den went through the long process of contacting the Russian, and waiting and waiting and waiting. Until on this Wednesday at the end of May, he got the nod to show up at a disused industrial warehouse at six in the morning.
He waited on a metal landing in a cavernous hall, so high up it made him giddy. There were wide gaps between the metal grid flooring. You could trap your foot and no one would hear your cries for help. Daylight seeped through gaps in the roof. It cut through the gloom and splattered the red brick walls. Overhead pipes snaked off into the distance. Iron hooks hung from chains strapped to giant girders. The air smelled of damp and rot and something sweet.
Den inspected the nearest hook. It was oiled and primed and clearly still used. Wasn't this place supposed to be abandoned? He eyed the hooks again, brow growing damp with sweat. No. He didn’t want to know their purpose.
He turned away and considered what he'd say. He'd borrowed cash from the Russian before. At loan shark rates. He needed a few thousand quid to see him through to his next big pay day. With any luck, he'd triple it with a few wise bets on the dogs. Optimistic. That was Den. He'd heard someone say shoot for the moon, if you miss, you'll end up amongst the stars. Screw two grand, he'd ask for ten. A nice round number in crisp fifty pound notes.
A door opened in the metal wall. A shadow beckoned Den inside. He entered an inner chamber with no windows. It smelled of rum and cigars mixed with a sweet odour he couldn’t quite identify. He blinked. Why was it dark? He blinked again. Still no light. He shifted from foot to foot as his eyes adjusted to the gloom. Then it hit him, and it hit him hard.
Thick metal walls.
Soundproof.
One door.
No lights.
Giant hooks.
And that smell? He'd caught a whiff of it at the morgue.
He turned to run.
Two Neanderthals appeared behind him, blocking the door. They had razor blade short hair, cauliflower ears, flattened noses and colourless eyes. The Russian's henchmen. They might have been identical twins. And they looked at him as an underfed cat looks at a shivering mouse.
Den held his hands up, palms out. These men had iron fists and knew their way around a fight. Both men stepped in his direction. Both men grinned.
They enjoyed dishing it out, Den thought with a growing sense of panic. Where the hell was Rag Doll Eyes? They did whatever the Russian commanded. He had his men trained like Pavlov's dogs. One click of his fingers and they'd be slavering. Another click and they'd pounce like wolves. He had to speak with the Russian before these men got it into their heads that he was their latest toy.
Den turned around and faced the darkness of the room. At the far end, an orange glow swayed in the dark. It moved from one side to the other as something unseen creaked. Goosebumps pricked his neck when a hand from behind shoved him forward.
It was only then that Den made out the huge executive chair. The oversized desk came next. A dim light flickered on. Very dim. No brighter than a candle flame. And then he saw the diminutive figure. The Russian was dressed in black like a Japanese ninja. Except he wore a fat silk tie printed with frolicking dogs. The little man held a thick cigar in his right hand and rocked from side to side in his chair. The tip of the cigar glowed hot but the Russian's breath was loud and raspy. Like he was breathing hard and wasn’t happy.
