SHADOW OVER THE FENS a gripping crime thriller full of suspense Page 7

  Somehow she’d find time for both.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The Hammer and Anvil pub was packed with celebrating police officers and civilians.

  ‘They don’t need much encouragement, do they?’ yelled Dave, above the ear-splitting noise of voices and music.

  Joseph forced a grin. He had not wanted to come, but he was part of the team now and he didn’t want to let Cat or Dave down. ‘What are you having, mate?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m fine, Sarge. I’ve got a pint and that’ll do me.’ He pointed towards the bar. ‘The first drink goes on the DI’s slate. And as that doesn’t happen too often, I’d have a large one if I were you!’

  Joseph eased between the packed tables, and found that the bar was least crowded right at the far end. As he shouldered his way into the queue he decided that this kind of gathering really wasn’t his thing. He’d do the rounds, smile, speak to everyone he knew then quietly disappear.

  ‘As I stand no chance of ever reaching the bar, would you be kind enough to get me a G & T while you’re there, Joseph?’

  He spun around and saw Bryony standing behind him.

  ‘My pleasure! Although I could be some time by the look of this lot!’

  ‘I’ll be over by the door to the restaurant. It’s quieter there. Do you need a ball of string to find your way back to me?’ she asked with a smile.

  ‘Don’t worry. I came first in orienteering.’ He returned the smile, then added, ‘although I was only twelve at the time.’

  She melted into the crowd, and when Joseph had recovered from the surprise at seeing her, he wondered if she were alone, or maybe waiting for someone. Did women go to rowdy pubs alone these days? Maybe they did. He was pretty out of touch with the social scene.

  Finally, with their drinks firmly grasped in both hands, he found her.

  ‘What on earth is going on?’

  ‘The Old Bill are celebrating slinging a few more villains in the slammer.’

  Her brow wrinkled, and he thought it made her look even more attractive. ‘What?’

  ‘Arrests. We’ve made some good arrests today.’

  ‘Ah, so you are a policeman.’

  Joseph smiled sheepishly and hoped that she wouldn’t throw up her hands and run screaming from the pub. ‘’Fraid so.’

  ‘Ah, I wondered what you did for a living.’

  Relief swept over him. So she’d been thinking about him too.

  ‘Actually, we’ve met before. Before the fitness club, I mean, but I don’t think you’d remember me. You were pretty poorly.’

  It was Joseph’s turn to frown. ‘I must have been half dead not to remember you.’

  Bryony laughed. ‘You probably were! It was at the hospital a few months ago. I was visiting my brother. It was Curlew Ward, wasn’t it?’

  He nodded. ‘But I’m really sorry. You see I don’t remember much about the first few days there. I was pretty out of it.’

  ‘It’s all right. Are you fully recovered?’ She laughed again. ‘Silly question! You’d hardly be ‘slinging villains in the slammer’ if you were still incapacitated, now would you?’

  ‘Probably not, although I am very passionate about my job.’

  ‘I like passion.’ Bryony grinned broadly, picked up her drink and raised it in salute. ‘Cheers, Joseph.’

  ‘Indeed.’ He clinked his glass against hers. ‘This is too weird. You know I’d fully intended to accost you at the pool tomorrow, and ask you if you’d like to go for a drink, and voila! Here we are!’

  ‘Funny that. I had the same plan. Although I was going to give you one chance to get in first, for the sake of your male pride.’

  Joseph felt his stomach give a little lurch. ‘So I assume you would have said yes?’

  ‘Assume nothing, Joseph. It doesn’t pay.’ She looked him full in the eyes, ‘Except on this occasion.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear that, Bryony. So, how come you’re here tonight?’

  ‘Don’t ask!’ She gave him a mock frown. ‘Today has been a catalogue of disasters. Although this seems to be making up for it somewhat.’ She sipped her drink. ‘For my sins, my boss has organised myself and a work colleague to arrange a charity event. We are supposed to be scouting out suitable pubs for a scavenger hunt.’

  ‘My boss never gives me jobs like that! Some might say that was a very enjoyable task.’

  ‘And it might have been, if we hadn’t picked one that was evacuated because a fire alarm went off, another that was full of hairy bikers, and in the one before this; my friend had a pint of lager tipped all over her and went home in a huff! This was the last one, so I thought I’d check it out and get it over with, and found all this going on!’ She pulled a face. ‘I was just on my way out, when I saw you.’

  ‘Detective Sergeant Joseph Easter to the rescue, madam!’ He held out his hand.

  ‘Bryony Barton, ex-damsel in distress. Thank you!’ She took his hand and bowed her head, then laughed out loud. ‘Can we go somewhere quieter? Or is it obligatory to stay until you’re rat-arsed?’

  ‘Not in the slightest. But tradition demands that I must just congratulate the arresting officers, then I’m all yours.’ He stood up. ‘Excuse me, I’ll be back in five.’

  * * *

  Niall leant on the bar and dug Yvonne sharply in the ribs, ‘Gossip Alert! Gossip Alert!’

  ‘For God’s sake, Niall, mind my drink! You know, for a trendy young geezer, you are the biggest old woman on the force!’

  ‘Shut up and look! The Sarge is chatting up that super-cool bird in the blue dress!’

  ‘Are you sure she’s not chatting him up? He is probably the best-looking bloke in Greenborough.’

  Niall snorted. ‘I’m devastated! I thought you loved me, Vonnie!’

  ‘Of course, I do! In a motherly kind of way.’ Yvonne placed her glass on the bar and tried not to stare across to where Joseph Easter sat talking animatedly to the striking-looking woman. Good luck to you, she thought. After all you’ve been through, you deserve a bit of fun.

  Niall was still talking. ‘Well, I don’t know what the DI will make of that! Dear me! Whatever is he thinking of?’

  Yvonne threw him a puzzled look. ‘What are you rambling on about? Half a shandy and you’re practically incoherent! You can’t be suggesting that Holy Joe and Old Nik are an item, are you? Are you quite mad?’

  ‘Oh Vonnie! Don’t be naïve! There are meant for each other!’

  ‘Huh? The sergeant and the DI! I’ve never heard anything so barmy!’

  ‘Five squid says she’s going to be pissed off as hell when she finds out about this!’

  ‘You’re on, honey-child! Although I’m going to hate to take your pocket money quite so easily.’

  ‘Where is DI Galena anyway?’

  Yvonne took a big gulp of her wine. ‘I saw her going into the super’s office just before we left, but she’ll be along soon.’ She glanced back and raised her eyebrows. ‘Uh-oh, looks like the good sergeant has tired of our company already. And who could blame him! That woman has one heck of a good figure!’

  ‘I’ll second that!’ whispered Niall.

  ‘Put your eyeballs back in, Niall, and try to stop drooling.’

  ‘Sorry, Mother. Fancy another?’

  ‘My turn.’ Yvonne took her purse from her bag, and watched with a smile as the sergeant escorted the woman to the door and they both disappeared into the street.

  * * *

  Joseph took Bryony to a small Italian restaurant, where they shared a carafe of house red, and ate a chef’s special of four cheese ravioli and a salad. At around ten she said she had an early start the next day, so Joseph walked her down to the taxi rank.

  ‘Will you be at the pool tomorrow?’ he asked hopefully.

  ‘Not tomorrow, I have to go to Gainsborough for a meeting, but I’ll be there on Friday.’

  ‘I’ll see you there then.’ For a moment he felt like a tongue-tied kid, scared to say the wrong thing, but desperate to get the girl
to see him again. ‘And when I do, perhaps you would accept an invitation to dinner on Saturday evening?’

  ‘Ask me on Friday, Joseph. And thank you for being my saving grace tonight.’

  ‘Anytime.’

  A taxi moved slowly up the rank towards them. ‘My number.’ He handed her a card, and gave her a brief peck on the cheek. He wanted to kiss her, really kiss her, but . . . then it was too late. Bryony was leaning towards the driver’s window and telling him an address on the far side of town, one that Joseph immediately made a mental note of. He opened the door for her and watched her get in.

  As he closed the door, he glanced across the road to the railway station buildings, and saw a man standing in the shadows, watching them intently. He was hardly visible, but Joseph caught sight of a dull gleam of pale hair in the orange glow of a street lamp

  ‘What’s wrong, Joseph?’ asked Bryony. There was a tinge of concern in her voice. ‘You’re as white as a sheet.’

  ‘A man. Over there.’ He pointed.

  ‘Where?’ She cast her eyes this way and that.

  ‘He’s gone. You didn’t see him?’ Joseph tried to get the panic out of his voice.

  ‘Sorry, no. Who is he?’

  ‘No one.’ He covered his anxiety with a smile. ‘No one at all. See you Friday. Take care, and thank you for tonight.’

  Bryony looked at him for a long while, then smiled back. ‘Goodnight, Joseph.’

  As the car pulled away, she called from the open window, ‘Got a good memory? Remember this!’ Then she called out her telephone number, and the window closed and she was gone.

  Joseph grabbed a pen from his pocket, wrote the number on his hand, and watched the car until it turned on the High Street. Then he sprinted across the road. He paced up and down the railway approach, looked in every hiding place, and tried doors to see if any were open, but the station was deserted.

  This time he really wasn’t sure about what he’d seen. The shadows had concealed the figure. All he knew was that someone had been there, and he had slipped out of sight quickly enough for Bryony not to see him.

  After one last look around, Joseph gave up and walked back towards the taxi rank. As he got close, he decided that he could not face being shut inside a cab. It was a fair distance, but he’d walk. He had so much on his mind, he could do with the time alone to try to make sense of things.

  He pushed his hands deep into his pockets and strode off in the direction of his lodgings. As he walked into the night, all he wanted to think about was Bryony. But try as he might, every time he remembered the outline of her face, it was overpowered by the ugly, uneven features of Billy Sweet.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘Good morning, Sergeant.’ Nikki’s voice echoed across the CID room. ‘My office, please.’ Joseph felt distinctly as if he’d been summoned for a caning by the head mistress.

  He closed the door and looked at her speculatively. ‘Ma’am?’

  ‘A friendly word to the wise, my friend. Next time you plan an assignation, try to arrange it in a different pub to one that contains half the Fenland Constabulary! I’ve heard nothing else since I got in!’

  ‘But . . . !’ Joseph spluttered, ‘But I never . . . it wasn’t an assignation, ma’am! She was there by chance, and I know her from the fitness club. Like me, she swims most mornings. That’s all.’

  ‘Oh really? But you’d left before I even made it as far as the pub front door, and together, I hear. Or has the grapevine got it wrong?’

  ‘Well, yes, I mean, no.’ Joseph felt like a total idiot. For some reason, he hadn’t thought about what his colleagues would say the next day, and clearly, they were saying a lot. He looked up miserably, and saw his boss grinning at him.

  ‘Well done! At least that may quell some of the other things they say about you! Those mess room gossips won’t have a leg to stand on now, when they call you Holy Joe or Mr Goody Two-Shoes.’

  ‘Thanks for reminding me, ma’am. But I thought they’d already given up on that.’

  ‘They probably have. I wouldn’t know. I don’t pay the slightest attention to them anyway.’ She smiled up at him. ‘Why should I? While they are sniping at you, they are leaving me alone. I just couldn’t resist having a little dig myself. Frankly, I’m pig sick that I missed seeing her. Quite a looker, I hear.’

  Joseph groaned and sank down into a chair. ‘I’m beginning to wish I’d given last night a miss.’

  ‘No, you’re not, and you know it,’ she leant forward. ‘What’s she like, Joseph?’

  A small smile spread across his face. ‘She’s gorgeous.’

  ‘More. I need details.’

  ‘Well, her name is Bryony Barton, she’s thirty, and she works for the Public Analyst, here in Greenborough. Funnily enough, she saw me first when I was in the hospital. Her brother was in the same ward.’

  ‘And she has a good sense of humour, likes the theatre, dogs, and walking barefoot in the sand at sunset?’

  Joseph tried to look aggrieved, but it was so rare that DI Galena openly enjoyed something so much, he didn’t have the heart to stop her.

  ‘Well, we did talk, and we seem to have quite a lot in common, but . . .’ Joseph stopped as Cat Cullen appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Ma’am. Sorry to interrupt, but . . .’

  Joseph had expected Cat to take the mickey out of him more than anyone, but to his surprise, her expression was serious and her tone unusually grave.

  ‘. . . some kids have found a body.’

  The boss sighed. ‘Great. As if I hadn’t got enough on my plate with Martin’s death. What do we know, Cat?’

  ‘A male, guv. Found in some wasteland off Beale Street. Throat cut.’ She threw a sideways glance to Joseph, and he didn’t like the look on her face. ‘Thing is, and obviously I haven’t seen him yet, but he fits the description of the man that Sergeant Easter is looking for.’

  Joseph felt a spasm grip his gut. Sweet? Dead?

  He closed his eyes. When he’d left the army, he’d spent a lot of time trying to make his life right again. Trying to understand things on a deeper level. And he’d succeeded. Not through religion, although a lot of his fellow officers thought that was the case, but with a more spiritual approach to life.

  He opened his eyes again. So why did he feel such delight in hoping that another human being was dead? It went against everything he believed in.

  ‘Joseph?’ The DI was staring at him. ‘I said, I think you need to see this.’

  ‘Yes, of course, ma’am.’ He stood up. The answer to his own question was clear. Billy Sweet wasn’t a human being. To be classed as that, you needed belong or relate to the nature of mankind, and there was nothing kind about Sweet. He took a deep breath. ‘Let’s go.’

  * * *

  The body was still in situ, although an awning had been hastily erected around it to protect the scene and block it from view.

  Joseph, the DI, and Cat carefully picked their way over stones and rubbish to the covered area.

  ‘Ah, the good detective inspector! And my old Fenchester friend, Joseph! How are you, dear boy?’ Without waiting for an answer, the tall, beanpole of a man pushed his wire-rimmed glasses further up onto the bridge of his hawk nose, and beamed benignly at Cat. ‘And we must not forget you, lovely lady, although we haven’t yet been introduced.’ He peered at the DI.

  ‘Cat Cullen meet Professor Rory Wilkinson. Home Office pathologist. Forensic science wizard, and the possessor of the darkest sense of humour imaginable. And another ex-pat from Fenchester.’ She gave him a grim smile.

  ‘You forgot your usual slanderous comment about allegedly being a raging queen,’ he added, sounding slightly put out at the omission.

  ‘Sorry, and that. So what have you got for us?’

  ‘An interesting one to be sure. But not pleasant.’

  ‘Murder can be pleasant?’

  ‘Murder can be many things, Inspector,’ said the pathologist enigmatically. ‘But this is not some crime of passion,
or a fight that got out of hand. This is an execution. Now, if you’d all like to follow me?’

  Joseph didn’t want to follow him anywhere. Joseph wanted to turn his back and walk away. The word execution had sent a ripple of horror down his spine. He had seen too many executions, and he still saw them, when sleep would not come or when a nightmare took possession of his slumbers.

  Rory Wilkinson moved beneath the cordon, lifted the canvas flap to the awning, and invited them inside as cordially as if it were a garden party. ‘Mind yourselves, the ground is somewhat uneven, and the copious quantity of blood doesn’t help either.’

  Joseph breathed in, held his breath, and moved reluctantly into the temporary shelter.

  No one spoke immediately. Even the garrulous pathologist seemed somewhat in awe of his newest acquisition.

  The man lay on his side, his knees bent, ankles tightly tied with some kind of thin rope, and his hands tied in the same manner behind his back. He had been made to kneel for his last moments on this earth. His throat had been sliced from ear to ear, and he had fallen sideways, allowing his lifeblood to ooze into the weeds and the detritus of the waste ground.

  Bile rose in Joseph’s throat. This was something that belonged in his past. Something he had prayed that he would never see again.

  He swallowed, and steeled himself to look at the body.

  A black nylon bomber jacket, old jeans, a T-shirt, though the blood had made its original colour impossible to see, and scuffed and worn trainers.

  Unsteadily, he took a few steps backwards, then ducked out under the canvas to drag in some gulps of fresh air.

  The dead man was ugly, had a rough cut thatch of corn-coloured hair, uneven features and pale blue eyes, but he wasn’t Billy Sweet.

  * * *

  Nikki sat in the car and stared across at him. ‘You are sure?’

  ‘Absolutely. I’ve never seen that man before.’ Joseph looked pale and gaunt. ‘Although there is a resemblance.’

  ‘Could it have been the man that you think has been following you?’