Two Evils: A DI Charlotte Savage Novel (12 page)

‘Anything from the scene?’ Savage said, trying to break the silence.

‘No.’ Collier shook his head, downcast. ‘Layton, for once, is sanguine about the lack of evidence. Says the fact he’s come up empty-handed on the tunnel search must be the exception which proves his rule. There’s also nothing from the army guys at Bickleigh. Their cameras cover the entrance gates apparently, but don’t take in the road. Nothing suspicious reported either.’

Savage nodded. Collier had plainly been hoping for something to kick-start the investigation.

‘Need to think this one through, Charlotte,’ he said. ‘The
Lacuna
meeting’s scheduled for midday but this thing with the wellington boots puts a whole new perspective on the case.’

Savage left Collier with his marker pens and moved across the room to where Hardin was giving several detectives a good bollocking about the lack of leads. Once he’d finished, he turned to Savage.

‘DCI Garrett,’ he said. ‘He’ll be my deputy SIO on
Lacuna
. You’re to help out.’

‘
Garrett?
’ Savage said. ‘But—’

‘But what, DI Savage?’ Hardin said. ‘Mike Garrett is a very experienced detective and on this case I want some clear and unemotional thinking. You boobed with the identification of the body and we can’t afford any more mistakes.’

‘Experienced? He’s that all right. Sir, Garrett’s retiring next month. His last few cases have been, to put it politely, lightweight. This is ridiculous, sir.’

‘Ridiculous or not, that’s the way it’s going to be.’ Hardin flicked his eyes up to the ceiling. ‘This has come from the top, I’m afraid, Charlotte. The Hatchet has instructed me to make sure you keep a lower profile until the fallout from the inquest of Simon Fox has blown over. With one murder and a missing boy, this case is going to attract a lot of media attention. She wants you away from the limelight, understand?’

‘No, sir, I don’t understand. Hunting killers like this one is in my blood. I’ve got a track record on these sorts of cases. I—’

‘Oh, you’ve got a track record all right. Usually your methods lie at the edges of legality. You’re a potential liability, DI Savage, and right now the Chief Constable doesn’t need your kind of officer.’

‘You can’t be—’

‘Shut it! One more word out—’

‘Sir!’ The shout came from the far side of the room. Savage and Hardin turned as one as DC Calter replaced her phone on the desk. ‘Possible on the body. A missing child from Newton Abbot. The misper was reported locally yesterday but the details have only just reached us. A young lad by the name of Liam Clough.’

‘Liam?’ Hardin’s mouth dropped open. He looked at Calter and then cast a glance at Savage. He put out a hand and steadied himself on a nearby desk. ‘Liam? It can’t be a Liam. Get your facts right, girl. This is impossible!’

‘Sir?’ Savage moved closer to the DSupt as his face whitened. ‘Is everything all right?’

‘Liam? I … I …’ Hardin shook his head. ‘I need my medication. In my car. I’ll be fine.’

Hardin pushed himself away from the desk, weaved across the room and barged out through the double doors.

‘This new girl of his will be the death of him,’ Calter said as she came over to Savage. ‘Maria. She’s a problem we need to work out how to solve, right?’

Savage didn’t laugh at Calter’s joke. Something was wrong with Hardin. Very wrong.

Chapter Eleven

Crownhill Police Station, Plymouth. Thursday 22nd October. 11.54 a.m.

Hardin stumbled out of the main entrance and walked across to his car. He pulled the door open and collapsed into the passenger seat. He opened the glovebox and fumbled inside until he found a smoked plastic container. There was a small bottle of water in the glovebox too. Hardin took a couple of gulps and swallowed three of his pills. He leant back in the seat.

Liam? Had he heard the name correctly or was he going crazy? No, there was no mistake. Liam and Jason. The names of the two boys were surely no coincidence. Hardin stared through the windscreen at the station. Being a police officer meant everything to him. Sure, he had his family, a wife and two grown-up children he loved dearly, but they knew it was in this concrete hunk of a building where his heart lay.

Hardin blinked and then shook himself. This was no good. The last Chief Constable, Simon Fox, had killed himself. Depression. The man had let personal issues get to him. That wasn’t the problem here. This wasn’t personal. Quite the opposite.

Hardin put the pills and the water back in the glove compartment and flipped the hatch closed. His eyes moved up to the windscreen again. An envelope lay flattened against the glass beneath one of the wipers. He jumped out of the car and lifted the wiper blade. Another letter. He recognised the block capitals which spelt the address. He grabbed the envelope, ripped up the flap and pulled out the piece of paper within. He unfolded the sheet to reveal a series of pencil lines forming some kind of picture. Neat and precise and with numerals next to the lines, some cross-hatching and a shaded area. Hardin turned the piece of paper ninety degrees and then saw what the lines represented. A scale drawing in two parts. Something like an architectural plan on the left side and a cross-section on the right.

‘No.’ Hardin shook his head and bit his lip. ‘Please, no.’

He placed the piece of paper on the car bonnet, both hands flat on top. He glanced towards the station again. Thirty years’ service and the whole lot came down to this. He wouldn’t count his time in the police as distinguished, he wasn’t a brightly burning star, but there were other ways of serving. He was solid and dependable, reliable and honourable. And yet …

How about your sense of duty, PC Hardin?

He recalled the words from the previous letter. Was he honourable? Bearing in mind what he knew, could he really say that? Yes, Hardin thought, sometimes honour came from serving, and in one particular instance he’d obeyed orders rather than done what he thought was right. In the end the police force relied on the chain of command. Break the chain and chaos would follow. Besides, all he’d done was ignore a photograph. Two men seated at a table, a bottle of whisky, a couple of tumblers, a clock on the wall. Nothing to get excited about, nothing incriminating. Except for two things. One, there was something in the photograph which had made Hardin, just a lowly PC at the time, feel distinctly uneasy. Something about the clock. Two, there was a word written on the back of the photograph, a word which only added to his disquiet. He’d reported both worries to his superior who’d handed the photograph over to a man from Special Branch.

‘There’s a simple explanation, lad,’ the officer who’d made the journey down from London had said, pointing to one of the figures in the photograph. ‘He’s a good man, him. An honourable man.’

That word again. Honourable.

‘But—’ the young Hardin had protested, seeking a more meaningful answer.

‘This isn’t anything for you to be concerned about. Still, you say nothing about it, right?’

And that’s exactly what Hardin had done. Obeyed orders. Said nothing.

Hardin stared down at the drawings once more. They were quite meticulous, and it was obvious what they represented. A box. According to the plan and cross-section, the box measured two metres long by a metre and a half wide and was ninety centimetres high. The cross-section showed a hole in the ground, gravel at the base for drainage. The box lay at the bottom of the hole, a tube ascending to the surface for air, the hole backfilled with earth. And in the box was a stick-figure drawing of Jason Hobb.

A sound brought Jason blinking into consciousness. Scrabbling. Something like a rat. Then from above came a small shaft of light. He opened his mouth to scream, but then stopped himself. Somebody was out there.

He moved across to the light source, an opening set into the roof of the box. A smooth plastic tube ran upwards from the opening and at the far end he could see daylight.

‘Boy!’ The light was abruptly snuffed out. ‘Are you awake down there?’

A gust of bad breath wafted down and Jason jerked back. He cowered into one corner.

‘I said, Jason, are you down there?’ The voice came again, this time with a mocking, sing-song tone to it. ‘I know you are. Don’t be frightened. I do so want us to be friends.’

The man had used his name, Jason thought. Was this somebody he knew? He bit his lip. Best keep quiet, best not say anything.

‘Stand clear of the opening, Jason, I’ve got some presents for you.’

A second later something slid down the tube and fell from above, thudding onto the wooden floor. Then something else. Again and again.

‘If you’re a good boy then you’ll get some more. Oh, and this will bring a little brightness into your life.’

Another object clattered down, a beam of light spinning round and then hitting the floor and shining towards one wall of the box. A small torch!

Jason reached forward and grabbed the penlight. He gasped now he could see the true extent of his prison. He was in something resembling a packing case just a couple of metres square. Plywood walls, floor and ceiling on a wood frame. The opening which the torch had come through was an orange waste pipe which jutted from the roof a couple of centimetres. On the floor directly beneath the pipe lay three Mars bars and a can of Coke.

‘You’ll need this and these too. And don’t keep the torch on too long, will you?’

An empty plastic bottle came clattering through the opening and then a toilet roll and a bundle of plastic bags.

‘I …’ Jason forgot his thoughts about not talking. ‘Please, let me out.’

‘Oh no, I couldn’t possibly do that. Later, maybe. When I’m sure you won’t try to desert me. Until then I need you to be a good boy and stay down there. It’s all part of my plan, you see?’

‘Noooooo! Heeelllppp!’

Something scraped up above and the light shining down the tube diminished to at first a faint glimmer and then faded completely. Jason clutched the torch in his hands and shivered.

As Savage came out from the front entrance of the station, she spotted Hardin leaning on the bonnet of his Freelander. The DSupt was staring downward and shaking his head, muttering something under his breath. She wondered what was up with him. He’d had a health scare a while ago but she’d thought he was over it. Unlikely this was a family matter though, since Hardin’s marriage was rock solid. Which left work. The case with the two boys was harrowing, but she’d known worse. Much worse.

She jogged across the tarmac until she reached Hardin. ‘Sir? Is everything all right?’

‘No.’ Hardin didn’t look up. He seemed to be considering a piece of paper he was holding against the bonnet. ‘Thirty years, Charlotte. That’s how long I’ve been in the force. I’ve never put a foot wrong, always done things by the book. You know me. Tick boxes, risk assessments, everything written up in the policy book, nothing dodgy, rules obeyed to the letter. I don’t think many other officers in this station could say the same, do you?’

‘No, sir, I don’t think they could.’

Now the DSupt did look up. He smiled at Savage. ‘I didn’t mean that as a criticism of you, Charlotte. We do things differently, you and I. You’ve crossed the line on more than one occasion. If you want to go any higher in the force then you’ll need to change your ways.’

‘Sir, I’m sorry about the stuff up in the crime suite. It’s just I’d sort of assumed I’d be the deputy SIO. It’s what I do. Catching these pervs, right? Obviously I’ll take whatever role on the team you want me to.’

‘Enough.’ Hardin stood upright, folding the piece of paper he had in his hand. ‘Give me ten minutes and then come to my office, OK?’

A quarter of an hour later Savage was sitting at Hardin’s desk. Hardin stood over to one side of the room, where he was fiddling with his new coffee machine. Something resembling the waste water from a dishwasher dribbled into a cup. Hardin stared down at the drink for a moment before passing the cup across to Savage.

‘You’re not going to like what I have to tell you any more than this muck,’ Hardin said as he took his own cup and sat behind his desk. ‘My words will be as bitter and hard to swallow.’

‘Really, sir?’ Savage picked up the cup and took a sip. Made a face and smiled. ‘I doubt it.’

‘You haven’t heard what I’ve got to say yet.’ Hardin glanced at his cup and then sighed. ‘But promise me you’ll listen before you jump down my throat, OK?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Right. There’s no easy way to say this. You’re off the Jason Hobb investigation.’

‘Bloody hell, sir, you can’t!’ The words came out before she remembered her promise of but a moment ago. ‘I mean … I …’

‘There’s a cold case.’ Hardin nodded across to a cardboard box on the floor. ‘I’d like you to look into it for me.’

‘No way. I’m not going to be shunted aside because Maria Heldon’s got it in for me. First I’m not your deputy on the Hobb case and now I’m off the whole thing. The fucking cow won’t stop until I quit the force. Bitch.’

‘Charlotte!’ Hardin raised his voice. ‘I should reprimand you for that remark. It’s insubordination. However, you’ve misread what’s happening here. This has nothing to do with the Chief Constable and the case is important.’

‘It’s
cold
, sir. Frozen, I expect. You just said so yourself. Boxes full of files, files full of paper, paper full of witness statements which have been gone over time and time again. I know what this is. It’s some sort of review. Just to say an ancient investigation is still active, when really we all know there’s not a hope in hell’s chance of an arrest, let alone a conviction.’

‘I’m surprised at you. I thought you’d welcome the chance to get out on your own.’

‘I want to be working on proper stuff, sir. You know, catching criminals. I want to find Jason Hobb and catch the killer of Liam Clough.’

‘This
is
proper stuff.’

‘But why me? Somebody else could do this work, surely?’

‘I wish that was true.’ Hardin looked at the box. ‘If you need some help you can call on one of the junior DCs if they’re not too pushed. DC Calter, perhaps.’