To Catch a Rabbit
Authors: Helen Cadbury
Tags: #Police Procedural, #northern, #moth publishing, #Crime, #to catch a rabbit, #york, #doncaster, #Fiction
Table of Contents
To Catch A Rabbit
Helen writes fiction, poetry and plays. She worked as an actor before becoming a teacher. She now divides her time between writing, teaching in a women’s prison and delivering training in youth arts. She has an MA in Writing from Sheffield Hallam University.
Helen grew up in Birmingham and Oldham. After living in London for many years, she came north and settled in York, where she lives with her family.
For Josh, Isaac and Reuben
First Published 2013 by Moth Publishing an imprint of Business Education Publishers Limited.
Paperback ISBN 978 1 901888 87 4
Ebook ISBN 978 1 901888 91 1
Copyright © Helen Cadbury 2013
The moral right of Helen Cadbury to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. Except in the case of historical fact, the names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination and not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental. The locations are a combination of real and fictional. You won’t find the Chasebridge Estate if you look for it in Doncaster, but you might find an estate like it in any number of other British towns and cities.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover design by
courage
.
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Martins the Printers Ltd.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Moth Publishing
Chase House
Rainton Bridge
Tyne and Wear
DH4 5RA
www.mothpublishing.com
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to the PCSOs and forensic professionals who have advised me during my research. I assure you that any flexibility in procedural accuracy is down to my own artistic licence.
Thank you to everyone who has given me encouragement along the way, especially Carole Bromley, and the staff on the Sheffield Hallam MA in Writing, without whose teaching this book would not have happened. Many thanks to my editor, Will Mackie, whose collaboration and kind advice was invaluable; and to Claire Malcolm and Olivia Chapman at New Writing North and Andrea Murphy at Moth Publishing, for seeing the potential in new northern crime fiction. Thank you to David Nicholson, Allison Loftfield and Kate Vernon-Rees for being my first readers and gently pointing out my spelling mistakes. A huge thank you to my family for all your support and particularly to my mother, Jill Cadbury, for encouraging my love of reading from a very early age.
Particular thanks to residents and colleagues at HMP Askham Grange, who have been travelling this journey with me.
November 2007
Chapter One
There were two of them. As they came closer, Sean could see that the larger boy had been crying. He was wiping something from his mouth with the back of his hand. The smaller boy was pale, with a hard face. Behind him, a Staffordshire bull terrier pulled on a rope. It wanted to get back up the hill, but the boys were heading straight for Sean.
There had been a frost and Sean’s breath hung ahead of him in the still air. He rolled his shoulders back and let his arms fall by his sides. He’d been on a course on dealing with young people. It was important to get the body language right. An open gesture, the trainer said. You had to get the facial expression right too. He adjusted his smile to
inquisitive but friendly
.
‘You a copper?’
‘Police Community Support Officer Denton. Call me Sean.’
‘That a copper?’
‘More or less.’
They edged closer, the skinny one shifting his weight from side to side like a toddler needing to pee. Sean thought about crouching down. Height can be an intimidating factor, the trainer said, but he didn’t like the look of the dog.
‘She found summat.’
‘Who?’
‘Ruby did.’ The dog squatted on the cracked pavement and a trickle of piss snaked towards Sean’s foot. ‘Over the ring road. Brandon said you have to go on the fields if you want to catch a rabbit.’
The sickly one gave a numb nod and rubbed his face on his sleeve.
‘What did she find?’
‘I’ll have to show you.’
He turned and let the dog pull him back up the slope towards the bypass. ‘Come on,’ he called back over his shoulder. ‘You better have a look.’
There was a whimper but it wasn’t from the dog. Brandon wasn’t moving.
‘You stay here then, you big pussy. Me and the copper’ll sort this.’
Sean wasn’t sure whether he should go on his own. He was meant to be on patrol with his partner, Carly Jayson, but when she phoned in poorly, there was no one free to cover. It couldn’t do any harm to see what the boy had found. He decided to follow, the dog setting the pace. It was an ugly animal, with back legs too thin for its barrel body, a bit of whippet thrown in with the bull terrier.
They passed the recreation ground, where a stack of old pallets, broken chairs and cardboard boxes waited for Bonfire Night. After scrambling up the embankment, Sean looked back. Brandon was sitting on the wall of the rec, bent over. It looked like he was throwing up. The dog sniffed at the dual carriageway and Sean looked at his watch. 08.12 hours. The boy was talking again, as fast as he walked. A gap opened up between the cars and they crossed over.
‘We was throwing sticks and she’s no good at that, so she went off to sniff around that old snack bar van up there and she wouldn’t come back when we shouted for her.’
Sean realised that he should be writing this down. Sounded like evidence, but he wasn’t sure of what. They climbed over the battered metal barrier in the centre of the dual carriageway and reached the lay-by on the other side, crunching over loose stones and broken glass. A hedge had swallowed up the broken remains of a wooden fence. The boy stepped through a gap in it and on to a well-trodden path along the field edge. There, hidden from the road, was a grubby, box-like trailer with faded, red lettering. Sean spelled it out in his head:
Refreshments
. The boy stopped and yanked hard on the rope.
‘Ruby! Stay!’
Sean looked over at whatever it was the dog was straining towards. A pair of feet, naked, an odd colour. Wrong colour. Blue-black like ulcers. He got closer. The girl was sitting on a step at the back of the trailer, leaning on the edge of an open door. She seemed to have folded forwards, as if she was resting her head on her knees. He went closer, the boy’s nervous chatter behind him.
‘Brandon thought it were some lass, fallen asleep, said she’s going to be cold. He poked a stick at her. She’s dead isn’t she?’
The girl was wearing a T-shirt and knickers. Her straight black hair was spread over her face and her cheek rested against her knee. As Sean got closer, he noticed her blue lips were parted, and he could see her teeth. It was the smell that made the vomit rise in his throat. He turned away fast, drawing quick breaths to keep his breakfast down.
He called it in, as calmly as he could. Gave directions as the boy watched.
‘What happens now?’ the boy said.
‘Some police officers will come.’
‘And take her away?’
‘Yes. They might want to speak to you.’
‘What for?’ He pulled the dog closer, coiling the rope in his bony hands.
‘Just to ask you some questions.’
‘I’ve told you. Dog found her. There’s nowt else…’
‘I know, but…’
The boy yanked the dog, ‘Hup, Ruby! Hup!’ and they ran along the path, her tail wagging with this new game.
‘I don’t even know your name!’ Sean called.
‘It’s Declan,’ he called back. ‘But I ain’t talking to no other coppers.’
He and Ruby scrambled through the broken fence. Sean looked back at the dead girl. She could wait. He went after Declan, but as he reached the end of the path, his foot slipped on an ice-coated puddle and his leg twisted under him. His knee went down on the jutting edge of a stone. He checked his radio was still in the pocket of his vest and pulled himself up, rubbed his knee and limped towards the lay-by, just in time to see Declan dodging the traffic to the other side. He didn’t even know where he lived.
He’d been in the job less than two months. He hoped they’d take that into account back at the station. He got out his notebook, made a wild guess at how to spell the boys’ names. What else should he write down? No idea. He tried not to look at the body again, but he needed to see if there was a registration plate. She was there, still and dead, just the wind lifting two strands of hair and blowing it back over her shoulder.
The plate was missing. The only detail he could record was the brand name of the vehicle itself.
Motorhead
. No. He looked again and the word re-formed.
Motorchef
. That made more sense. He could feel a hysterical laugh bubbling up inside him. It was just shock. He forced himself to look past the body and saw that the van’s interior fittings had been stripped out, the catering equipment replaced by a mattress.
By the time he heard vehicles pulling into the lay-by, he was shaking. He hadn’t noticed the cold at first, but the longer he stood, the less feeling he had in his feet. Two men got out of their unmarked cars and seemed to be sharing a joke as they shook hands. He recognised Detective Chief Inspector Barry ‘Burger’ King, limping from a barely recovered stress fracture in his right leg. There was a rumour at Doncaster Central that he’d broken it standing still, his own weight cracking the bone. The other man was thin. He was wearing a green, waxed jacket and a tweed flat cap, a black medical bag in his hand. A little rhyme danced across Sean’s memory.
Miss Polly had a dolly who was sick sick sick, she called to the doctor to come quick quick quick, the doctor came with his hat and his bag…
‘You’ve checked for vital signs, I take it?’ Burger asked when he reached him. Sean hesitated. It hadn’t seemed necessary to check the pulse of someone who was already in a state of rigor mortis. ‘And given her mouth-to-mouth? You know you’re supposed to do everything possible to preserve life?’