Resurrection Bones (A DI Fenella Sallow Crime Thriller Book 6), page 3
"What time, guv?"
"About an hour."
"Sorted."
Fenella put on shoe protectors and gloves and passed through the police tape. The black-headed gull screamed as she entered the flap of the tent.
It was much worse than she expected.
The hot air, sweet with the stench of death, watered her eyes. She snatched a tub of vapour rub from her handbag and slathered a dollop under her nose. It helped. A little.
"Ah, Detective Inspector Sallow, wondered if you'd be on call."
Lisa Levon, the head crime scene tech, strode toward Fenella. She flashed a dazzling smile, the type you'd expect to see on the big screen not in a crime tent with a rotting corpse.
"What have you got for me?" Fenella said.
Lisa shook her head. "This way so you can get a full view, and be careful, that is poison ivy."
They made their way to the body. A photographer worked every angle. Two figures in white suits crawled around the corpse in an expanding circle. Fred Bickham lay in a patch of bindweed and poison ivy. He wore a flat cap, brown short-sleeved shirt and green corduroy trousers. His feet were small for a man, size seven moccasins with socks which might have once been white. His right hand clutched a garden trowel and his head was twisted away from view.
"This will be ugly," Lisa Levon said, kneeling at the side of the body.
She swished her hand. A cloud of flies rose in the air. Fenella was telling herself it might not be too bad when Lisa Levon tilted his head.
Fenella stared for a moment then looked away.
The first look seared the deepest.
His face was a blackened blob of pulp with two dark sockets where the eyes should have been. A blast of wind battered the side of the tent. Bam. Bam. Bam. The cloying reek intensified.
Fenella said, "Why did they smash his face in?"
"I'm not a detective, so I can't speculate why anyone would do such a vile act," Lisa Levon replied. "There are signs the animals have been at him. I reckon the gulls had his eyes."
Fenella dragged another dollop of vapour rub across her upper lip. "How long has he been here like this?"
Lisa shrugged. "In this heat? From the number of flies, I'd say two or three days. We'll have a better idea once we get samples of larvae to the lab."
Fenella gazed at the patch of poison ivy. "Any footprints?"
Lisa slowly shook her head. "The killer was light on their feet, plus the rains not been helpful."
A photographer zoomed in on Fred Bickham's face.
Click. Click. Click.
A cold shiver of dread crept along Fenella's neck. "What caused that much damage?"
"Dr MacKay is best placed to tell you about that," Lisa replied.
Dr MacKay was the pathologist. He loved to speculate about the cause of death, had turned it into high art.
Fenella turned away. She'd not look at Fred Bickham's face again until she had to. "What is your best guess?"
"Off the record."
"Aye."
"Blunt instrument. The shape of the crushed skull suggests a bat; cricket, most probably." Lisa tilted Fred Bickham's head and prodded an eye socket. "Swung multiple times with vicious force."
Chapter 6
Den Ogden needed money and he needed it fast.
After fruitless hours searching for work, he declared the day a lost cause and slumped onto a bench at the bus stop. His age counted against him, that was the crux of the problem. At forty-nine the clocked ticked at double speed. He considered himself a farmer. Till the soil and plant the seed, tender and reap the harvest. But more and more these days they laughed in his face when he showed up, and his dome shaped double chin didn’t help. Soon they would call him grandpa. Anger ran over him like rain. He felt hot with rage. He'd show them. Den Ogden was far from finished. All he needed was a fresh angle.
He took the bus to the Port St Giles animal shelter and spent a good—and heartbreaking—ninety minutes wandering from cage to cage, reading each animal's tragic story. Barks and yaps erupted as he approached. He stopped at a grim cage with a black dog. It had pointed ears and a green headscarf tied around its neck. The dog shuffled to the bars. It gaped at him with a snout so filled with teeth it gave the appearance of smiling.
"He's a right softie looking for someone to adore."
Den turned to face a stocky woman—white hair, bright brown eyes and skin as thick as leather. Seventy-five was his guess. She wore the uniform of a shelter worker. That she crept up on him with the soft paws of a cat, didn't bother Den as much as perhaps it should.
She regarded him with a pleasant smile, but he thought he saw the devil dancing in her eyes.
She said, "Elfrid. That is his name."
"Strange name for a dog."
"He's knocking on in years."
"An old hound like me," Den said, rubbing his dome shaped double chin. "We old-timers have picked up a lot from life. We know what works. I'll take care of me, if you will please take care of you. I lived my life by it, and now I'd like to share my philosophy with a dog."
She laughed, craning her neck so it stretched, long and thin like a turkey. "Are you new to town?"
It had been over twenty years since Den was last in Port St Giles. A lifetime. His last port of call had been Whitehaven. He changed the subject. "I live in a flat. Does he bark much?"
"He was a prize dog in his youth," the woman replied. "A joy for his owner."
"And where is his owner?"
"Dead. Alas, Elfrid had nowhere else to go and came here."
Den stared through the bars at the dog. "What's wrong with his tail?"
"Nothing."
"It isn't wagging."
"He's an old dog." She looked hard at Den, the devil dancing in her eyes. "Elfrid likes you."
"Does he bite?"
"Looks like he is smiling with all those teeth, doesn't he?"
"What about kids?"
"Elfrid has never met a child who is not a friend."
Den waited a heartbeat then asked the all-important question. "Does he get on with teenage girls?"
"Girls and boys both."
"Amazing," Den said.
"Interested?"
Den gazed at Elfrid. He needed money and he needed it fast and he needed a new angle. But a dog?
He said, "I'm sure he will find a nice home."
"He has been here four months."
Again, Den gazed at the dog. It smiled back. He said, "What will happen if I don't take him?"
"He is down to meet…" Her face twisted in anguish. " … the vet next Friday."
"Is he sick?"
She shook her head and went into a blow-by-blow account of what awaited Elfrid on Friday if he didn't find a home. Bone-chilling detail. She stopped at times to weep into a handkerchief and watch him with sharp eyes.
Den left the animal shelter with Elfrid trotting at his side. When he was sure no one was watching, he did a little cockerel strut, puffing out his chest, his slit of a mouth stretched into a smile over his crooked teeth. He looked at the dog, it stared back, snout looking as though it was smiling.
"Best thing I've done since I woke up," Den said, doing a chicken jig.
Elfrid gazed at him, grinning.
"Look at my landlady like that and she might give you a ham bone and knock a few quid off my rent," Den said, pausing for breath.
They wandered through the broad streets and narrow lanes of Port St Giles with nowhere in mind. It was too early to go back to his bedsit. It was a cheap room in a rotten neighbourhood with bugs which sprang from the bedsheets. The landlady expected him to spend a full day on the hunt for a job. He pictured her on the doorstep yelling, telling him he was a waste of space. It was her swearing that got under his skin. She knew more foul words than a drunken sailor. She called him a loner and seedy and a stain on town life. But he performed a valuable service. It wasn't his fault pickings were slim. Den swore and went to the canal.
Although the sun was up, puddles of water pockmarked the towpath. The dregs of the morning downpour slowly shrinking in the warm sun. Den sat on a bench and watched the ducks. Three ducks waddled from the water, squawking as they went. Elfrid's dark eyes fixed on the birds but he did not bark.
"You and I are going to get along like a house on fire," Den said. "Man's best friend, eh?"
Elfrid turned from the ducks and stared at Den. A glint of sunlight bounced off his sharp teeth. The ducks squawked. A narrowboat chugged into view. The engine fumed coughing up plumes of black smoke. A middle-aged woman, plump running to lard, with a tangle of bleached blonde hair steered from the rear.
The boat slowed.
Den became aware of her watching him. She leaned forward, muttering with a quiet intensity. She cut the engine.
Silence, besides the squeals of the ducks as they dashed back into the canal and paddled away.
It took Den some moments to realise that the woman's mutterings contained a question.
The woman spoke again. "Don't I know you?"
Den twitched, heart skipping three beats. He pulled out his mirrored sunglasses, but it was too late.
The woman said, "Den. Den Ogden?"
"Come on boy," Den said to Elfrid.
He walked with fast steps in the opposite direction, breaking out into a trot.
"Come back here you filthy sod," yelled the woman.
But Den didn’t go back. He darted along a dirt track that snaked past a derelict warehouse. When he was sure the woman wasn't following, he slowed to a walk and for the first time noticed the limp. He watched Elfrid for several paces. The dog's left hind leg was noticeably shorter.
He stopped. The dog looked at him and he looked at the dog. Elfrid's doleful gaze stirred something deep inside.
"To hell with this," he said, rubbing his domed shaped double chin. "We are going home so you can get a bite to eat, curl up in a dog basket and have a long sleep."
It was four o'clock when they arrived at the bedsit. Elfrid climbed the steps to the front door at a crawl. He sat on his hind legs panting. Den patted the dog's head. "We'll have you inside in a jiffy. Nice bowl of water and a plate of dog chow, eh? The landlady will have some fine scraps."
He turned to look both ways along the street. He had already checked no one was following him. But as he slouched by the door, he checked once more. Satisfied, he took out his door key then bent to scan the list of names beside the bell buttons. They were scrawled on a strip of white paper in blue ink. The names were always changing, and it was important he knew who else lived in the place.
Den leaned closer, staring in stupefied horror at the blank where his name had appeared when he left to look for work. Leaning in close, he examined the spot, and yes, there were faint traces of paper where someone had ripped it off. Running a finger over the blank space, he felt the stickiness of glue.
"Vandals," he muttered, looking up and down the glum street. Why did the hooligans always pick on him?
He jabbed the lowest button, stepped back and looked up to where the landlady's hidden camera watched. She'd be at the kitchen table, fag in hand, sipping from a chipped mug of milky tea, watching him with the app on her mobile phone.
He heard a click from the speaker and glared at the camera. "Mrs Fassnidge, vandals have ripped my name tag from the plate. Can you kindly see to it?"
The landlady's gruff voice crackled through the speaker. "Mr Ogden, I have changed the front door lock. Your junk is in the alley by the bins. I have evicted you for non-payment of rent. Now, sod off else I'll have the police after you."
Chapter 7
Detective Constable Ria Leigh raced around her house looking for the scrap of paper. She had searched the two bedrooms, bathroom and linen closet. Twenty minutes of her lunch break wasted. In ten minutes she had to head back to the station.
Ria shoved open the kitchen door. On the pine table were a coffee mug with lipstick on the rim, a plate with crumbs and her burner phone. She picked up the mug and looked beneath; same with the plate. No scrap of paper.
Where was it?
She snatched a glance at her watch, fumed as the second hand ticked. This was agony. What a fool she had been to lose it. She recalled writing each letter with a slow hand. She had folded the paper so it formed a neat white square. Then she had put it … where?
The slip of paper had the password to her bank account. The bank account which paid for the house. The bank account from her side hustle. Her secret bank account.
A sharp pain jabbed her gut and for an instant she thought she might be ill. Stress. At work and now at home. Hands on hips, she scanned the room, taking it all in, seeing nothing.
"Why did I buy such a bloody big house?"
She recalled scrawling a crazy line of digits and letters with a blue pen. Sixteen at least. Random. To deter anyone from cracking the code. And now it had her stumped. She bent over her knees, fighting to keep the howl of frustration from blurring her mind.
The alarm call of a blackbird screeched from the garden. A raspy, venom-laced croak. Ria went to the sink, gazed through the window and let out a groan. Yes, she was on the patio with her laptop when she wrote the note. Upset at only now recalling, she slammed through the door into the garden.
A blackbird stormed from a birch tree on the tail of a fleeing jackdaw. Ria turned to watch the bird fight. The jackdaw spiralled high, silhouetted against the white clouds. She lost track of it, but, a minute later, caught sight of the blackbird on the garden wall whistling a sulky tune.
Ria went to the patio table and peered under the chairs. Nothing. She walked along the path, head down, scanning left to right. She stopped at the garden wall and turned to look back at the house. The blackbird's whistle turned gruff. Ria cursed. The note with her password wasn't in the garden.
She stomped along the side of the house and in through the front door. The hallway was short and dark. Grubby green wallpaper peeled from the walls. The air smelled of boiled cabbage. Ria had played hard on the price. When the seller agreed, she lowered her offer by five percent. Again, they agreed. Ria knew then the owner was desperate to sell. Beat 'em down and beat 'em down again. She dropped her bid by twenty-five percent, told them to take it or leave it.
They took it.
It was such a sweet deal she bought the house without an inspection. Her dream home. Cash from her secret bank account paid for the deposit on the house and the mortgage. It would pay for the painter, due to start next week. A Polish bloke willing to work for ten percent of the going rate. Cash only. Beat 'em down and beat 'em down again.
Back in the kitchen she snatched up her burner phone and re-read the message that had started the hunt:
Low funds in your account. Please top up to avoid an overdraft fee.
Ria had to know how much money was in the account, but didn't want to log in from work. Now she couldn't log in from home because of that idiot slip of paper. Where had she put it? She slumped at the pine table, head in her hands, thoughts slamming her mind for the answer.
The kitchen clock ticked off the seconds. Time stretched to eternity. Above the constant tick-tock, a melodic jingle forced itself into Ria's brain. She tried to focus on the note with her password and where she had put it. The jingle played again. Her doorbell.
She fumbled out her work mobile phone, swiping until she found the app linked to the camera at the front door. She gasped at the face staring back.
"Oh crap. What the hell does that cow want?"
When Ria opened the door, PC Beth Finn said, "Good afternoon. Detective Inspector Sallow is looking for you. Someone told her you left the station to go home. She sent me here to pick you up."
Ria was certain PC Beth Finn had it in for her. The woman had been anything but friendly since Ria joined the Port St Giles police station. "What's the rush?"
"Briefing about an elderly man found dead in Seaview Allotments. Detective Sallow wants the entire team at the first briefing." She paused as if trying to decide how to put the next few words together. "I don't suppose Detective Constable Jones is here?"
Neither woman spoke for ten strained seconds. The blackbird whistled from the garden. An angry squeal. Ready for a fight.
Ria said, "Why would he be here?"
"Mind if I come in?"
"Give me five minutes," Ria replied slamming the door shut and dashing to the kitchen.
That damn tart gets right up my nose. No way is she coming into my house. Ria stopped and clapped her hands to her head. She remembered now. She had scribbled the password on the back of a Fresco till receipt. For a second, she basked in a pleasant glow, luck was on her side at last, then she scrambled to the cupboard under the sink and snatched out her shopping bag. There it was, folded in a square at the bottom. Her woes were over. A quick log in on her side business laptop and she would know where she stood.
A fist pounded on the kitchen window.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Ria jumped.
PC Beth Finn peered through the glass, eyes scanning the room as if searching for someone. "We have to go now."
"Righto," Ria said, slipping the receipt into her purse. "I'm ready now."
Chapter 8
Den Ogden shambled down the steps of Mrs Fassnidge's guest house. The alley where she dumped his things was on the left. He turned right.
"Mrs Fassnidge is a terror on two legs," he said to the dog. "But I've got her number."
He was no fool. This was not his first time around the track. If he scoured the alley for his things, Mrs Fassnidge would call the police on him. Out of spite. He imagined her at the window, phone in hand, bony fingers twitching to make the call. If the police found him rummaging between the black bin bags in the back alley, they would nick him.
"Better to flee than to fight on her doorstep," Den said to Elfrid. "Never let the buggers in blue cross your path."
With haste, he shuffled along the street for fifty yards. Elfrid panted at his side. Den stopped, stared back at the bedsit, pulled out a bag of tobacco and rolled a cigarette. He lit it with a match and inhaled nicotine deep into his lungs. He puffed out a plume of smoke, dropped the burning match, smothered it with his shoe, and felt a sharp sense of relief. He travelled light and kept nothing of value in his room. His things could rot in the alley. He was lucky to escape the toxic swill of Mrs Fassnidge's pigsty. The woman had eyed him like he was her toy boy. When he refused her advances, she turned nasty. Started kicking up a fuss about his late rent. Greedy cow.
