To Catch a Rabbit (18 page)

‘This way. There’s a guard dog through there.’

He steered Sean off the lane to the right and on to a path that snaked steeply up from the base of the quarry and round the side. They ducked under self-seeded sycamores with spindly trunks. The ground was rocky now and the trees hung on with shallow roots. Sean guessed they must be nearly at the top of the quarry but it was hard to see the edge beneath the undergrowth. He was glad that Declan was in front.

‘Careful here,’ he said and gestured to Sean to stay back. The path seemed to crumble away to their left and they were forced to tuck up behind a tree that Sean didn’t dare hold on to for support.

‘Nearly there. Look!’

When Sean looked down, he saw the rock below them falling away in a sheer vertical cliff, punctuated by scrubby plants that had rooted where it didn’t seem possible. At the foot of the cliff was a patch of short trees and bushes surrounding a pool of dark water, from which the back end of a caravan stuck up like an enormous ducktail.

‘I need to get a closer look,’ Sean said. He listened hard, but there was no sound other than the wind in the trees and the dull hum of the ring road behind them. ‘Are you sure about the guard dog?’

‘There’s a sign,’ Declan said. ‘It’s got a picture of a snarly-toothed German shepherd on it.’

Sean thought the guard dog was long gone and the sign probably dated back to when the quarry was last in use.

‘We’ll be okay. Come on, let’s go.’

They made their way down to the edge of the quarry yard. Two grafitti-covered buildings buildings stood silently, their windows boarded up. Beyond the yard, nothing disturbed the surface of the water.

‘You come up here a lot?’ Sean asked.

The boy shrugged.

‘I used to,’ Sean said, ‘when I was about your age. It was busier then.’

Declan peered at him, as if he didn’t believe Sean had ever been a kid. Yet there was only ten years between them.

‘Got freaked out the last time,’ Declan said.

‘By the dog?’

‘No. Up there,’ Declan whispered. ‘There was a ghost.’ He pointed up to the edge of the quarry, in the direction of the viewpoint they’d just left. A couple of metres from where they’d been standing a pattern of destruction scarred the low trees and undergrowth from the lip of the quarry to where the caravan had come to rest in the water.

‘No such thing as ghosts,’ Sean said. They were walking round the edge of the pool now, its water dark and bottomless.

‘There was lights flickering in that caravan. It was parked under the trees up there. Brandon saw it too. He nearly shat himself. I told my brother and he said it were another prozzie in there. But I think it was something else.’

‘When was this?’

The boy shrugged. They’d reached the caravan. Its wheels had caught on the muddy edge of the pool, so only one end was submerged. Sean’s feet slid in the clay at the water’s edge and he wished he was wearing rubber boots, not his uniform black shoes. Through the murky rear window, he could see an orangey coloured fabric.

‘Bingo!’ Mr Mayhew’s caravan. Not that it would be much use to him now.

Declan stood on tiptoes next to him, peering through the plastic window.

‘What’s that?’ He was pointing at a shape, slumped in the corner of the bed.

‘Shit!’ Sean’s voice carried clearly across the still water, the ‘t’ bouncing back for a split-second from the quarry walls. It was the body of a man.

It didn’t seem that anyone was in a hurry to get the body out, but finally Lizzie Morrison arrived with a couple of burly looking guys in SOCO uniforms. She greeted Sean with a nod as they all struggled into their white suits. He noticed that she didn’t offer him a smile.

‘Okay.’ Lizzie turned to her two colleagues. ‘Let’s have a look inside. I’m not getting frostbite waiting for CID.’

She and the SOCOs put on waders and gloves, while Sean stood back. Lizzie was clearly following procedure this time. One of the two SOCOs asked him to keep the scene secure. ‘Twenty metres distance and no bystanders please.’

That meant Declan. He walked with him to the edge of the quarry yard and made him promise not to bring any of his mates back up here to rubber-neck.

Sean kept a low profile at the station. He wouldn’t have minded a bit of praise, but the general consensus was that it was really bad timing on his part, when everyone had been enjoying a bit of family time over the festive season. A team had to be pulled in from across the region to examine the caravan and every spare corner was being given over to temporary office space. The body of an unknown male had gone to the morgue, to wait for Huggins, the senior pathologist to get back from a family Christmas in Aberdeen. The quarry, the field and the track from the by-pass were all subject to fingertip searches. The proximity of two bodies could be a coincidence, but had to be explored, so the lay-by was being scrutinised again too. Anyone who could be found was brought in to lend a hand. Sean found himself shuffling across the potato field next to Carly.

‘Have you been forgiven?’ Sean asked.

‘For shoving a little scrote who deserved it?’ she said. ‘We’ll see. I don’t reckon anyone’s going to give me a disciplinary while there’s a panic on. They’ll probably just send me on a course.’

Blue and white tape marked off the place where the caravan had been, before someone had seen fit to shove it over the edge of the quarry. Sean watched a detective constable following the stony track around the low trees which marked the lip of the quarry, eyes to the ground, until he stopped and stood up straight. He was looking at a black Nissen hut. It wasn’t visible from the lane, or Sean would have noticed it when he walked up with Declan, but he recognised it. When he was a kid they used to hide in there. It was full of hay bales back then, when this field was covered with grazing sheep. Someone had repaired it with a section of new corrugated metal along one side and its steel doors were wide open. The detective constable got out his notebook and started to write.

When he got back to the station after a two-hour stint, Sean went straight to the Gents. The cold air and two much coffee was playing hell with his system. As he came out, the door of the Ladies opened and he was face to face with Lizzie. She was shaking water off her hands and her face was damp too.

‘That’s better!’ Her tone was brisk. ‘I don’t feel like the smell’s attached to me any more.’

‘Right.’

None of the words struggling to form an order in his head seemed like the sort of thing she’d want to hear. He waited for her to fill the silence but she was walking away down the corridor. He didn’t
want it to look like he was deliberately following her, but he needed to go in the same direction, so he took out his phone and walked slowly, composing a text to Maureen to say what time he’d be due home. His nan wasn’t likely to pick it up any time soon. She only turned her phone on when it suited her, generally believing it was for emergencies, not day-to-day communication, but it gave him something to do.

‘Oh, Sean,’ Lizzie turned and he looked up, his heart lifting in the same moment. ‘Did you know, the file on Su-Mai is definitely going to be re-opened.’

‘Really?’

‘Apparently the Chief Superintendent’s spitting feathers about the original investigation. He’s on a skiing holiday in Austria with his family, trying to get a flight back as we speak. I wouldn’t like to be in Burger’s shoes.’

‘They wouldn’t fit.’

‘Yawn, the old ones are not the best ones.’ But the corner of her mouth definitely twitched. Maybe he’d be forgiven for manhandling her on to the dance floor.

In the Ops Room, Sandy Schofield was typing up the scene-of-crime notes.

‘Something here for you, Sean, love, something on your body, or should I say, your second body.’ Recognition at last, even if it was only from Sandy. ‘They found a phone, did you know that? In the caravan. Says here that
the mobile phone has a splintered fascia, as if it had received a heavy blow.
Now why would someone want to hit a phone?’

‘What if the phone was used to hit the vic?’

‘There’d be splinters of the phone fascia on the body and it doesn’t say that here. Not visible anyhow. We’ll have to see what comes out in the post mortem.’

Sean looked over her shoulder at the report. There was an estimate of how long the body had been there. Two to three months.

‘That all they’ve got?’

‘So far, until the post-mortem’s done and all the lab reports come back. No wallet, no driving licence. He was quite well preserved, it says here. The way he was lying kept him in the dry end of the van, out of the water. And there’s this bit in the notes, just about to type it in; they’ve been on to the phone company, last call made to the phone at 10 am, November 5th, from a landline with a North Lincolnshire STD code.’

Sean had a hunch that the fifth of November was the last known sighting of Mrs Friedman’s brother, who came from North Lincolnshire. It was also the day Donald was supposed to visit the catering trailer, to dust for prints, but he was a day late and found it vanished. Was it a coincidence? Maybe if Burger hadn’t been so quick to write off Su-Mai, this second death wouldn’t have happened. He only had Declan’s brother’s word for it so far, but he had a feeling that this new caravan was operating the same trade as Su-Mai’s refreshment bar. When he got upstairs to the CID office, he didn’t bother knocking. Barry King looked like he was about to tell him to push off, but Sean didn’t give him the chance.

‘I think I can ID this morning’s caravan victim. I’ll bet you he’s called Philip Holroyd and he’s from Moorsby-on-Humber.’

The detective looked at Sean and shifted his chewing gum from one cheek to the other.

‘Nice one, Columbo, that would explain why the mobile phone we found by the body, was registered to a Philip Holroyd of Moorsby on bloody Humber.’

‘Oh. You know.’

‘Yup.’ Burger looked at his screen. ‘We’ll need to get the grieving loved ones to have a look at him, get a definite ID. I’ve got the landline number linked to the mobile contract. I’ll enjoy telling them what their dirty fucking relative was up to when he met his maker.’

‘So it’s true?’

‘What is?’ Burger looked up.

‘The boy at the quarry said there was a prostitute…’

‘In the van? Mmm…’ Burged stabbed a fat finger towards his computer screen. ‘Just seen it in the forensic report.’

Sean looked at him for a moment, his belly rolling over his belt where it pushed against the buttons of his shirt. Something didn’t hang together, and not just Burger’s outfit, but Sean couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was. He decided that he wanted to be the one to break it to the man’s sister. It wasn’t protocol, but he felt he owed it to her. He also wanted to tell her he’d been there himself, put two and two together and pretty much confirmed the ID. He didn’t want to overstep the mark, as his nan would say, but this was still his case, no doubt about it. His case and his body.

‘Where is he?’

‘The mortuary at Doncaster Royal Infirmary.’

Pinpricks of light danced round her eyes. She took a sharp breath and held on to the side of the kitchen counter and let her legs lower her on to a stool.

‘I…’

‘Mrs Friedman? I know this must come as a shock to you.’

‘It’s okay… I’m still here… Just trying to take it in.’ Her voice was like lead in her ears. ‘I’ll come. I’ll identify him.’

She blinked hard, tried to think in some normal way, practical thoughts about the house, the cat, husband, children. The order was wrong. Max first. Max was at work, dealing with the next stage of the shopping centre project. He was essential to the shopping centre project, but no use to her. No use at all. Children. She’d have to make arrangements for the children.

‘I can come tomorrow? Or it could be today?’

‘Well, it would be helpful to have an identification as soon as possible,’ he said.

‘Of course.’

‘And, Mrs Friedman, if there is anything I can do to help, please let me know.’

In the clock-ticking quiet of the kitchen, a draught caught a silver streamer, it waved sadly from where Sophie had draped it over the window frame. Karen needed to call her father, but not yet. Let him have a few more minutes or hours of believing Phil was out there somewhere, living a new life. She should ring Stacey. They hadn’t spoken to each other since November. Why had she given her own name as next of kin, not Stacey’s? She couldn’t remember. It didn’t matter now; by the time she got through, Stacey already knew.

‘Thanks for ringing, Karen, but the police have telephoned.’ Stacey’s voice was controlled. ‘I didn’t realise you’d reported him missing, but I suppose I’m glad you did…No, you don’t need to come, I’ll go over this afternoon.’

‘Will you be okay?’

‘I don’t know.’ Stacey hesitated. ‘I’ll take a friend. The policeman said it might be a bit unpleasant.’

‘I’m sure…’

‘No, I mean because he’s been there some time, where they found him.’

Sean Denton hadn’t mentioned that. A second wave of knowledge hit her. Phil wasn’t just dead. He’d been dead all along.

‘Do they know what happened?’

‘Not yet. They’ll do a post mortem. And an inquest, I suppose.’

‘Have you told Holly?’ Silence. Then Stacey spoke in a different tone, like she was explaining something to a very small child.

‘Holly thinks he’s gone away. I think that’s for the best, don’t you?’

Karen looked at the clock, it wasn’t yet ten. ‘If you can wait for me, I’d like to come with you. I could be in Doncaster by lunchtime, no problem.’

‘There’s no need…’

‘Stacey, look, he’s my brother…’

‘Well…’

‘You could pick me up at the station,’ Karen said. ‘I’ll phone from the train, let you know what time it’s getting in.’

Then she was rushing, grabbing her handbag, finding her purse, knocking over Christmas cards in her clumsiness. The snowdrops on a green background caught her eye. She picked up Charlie’s card and shoved it in her bag. She let herself out of the back door and tapped on next-door’s kitchen window. Trisha was all smiles and understanding, happy to help. She hugged Karen and said, ‘you poor thing,’ over and over until Karen thought she would scream. Trisha suggested that Ben and Sophie could sleep over, but Karen insisted she’d be back for them tonight.