‘Did you get a look at his friend?’
She nodded her head emphatically. ‘Yeah, was the winda cleaner from the week before.’
‘Are you sure? What did the window cleaner look like?’
‘Tanned, blond hair; untidy – could do with a trim.’
The car, a blue ’76 Cortina with a vinyl roof just visible under an inch of snow, had seen better days, and looked quite at home next to a rusting cement mixer. The vehicle was unlocked.
Lowry slipped into the passenger side. The seat was pushed halfway back. The inside of the vehicle, though grubby, seemed free of any trace of its occupants. He opened the glove box, and found a post-office cloth bag holding a bundle of used notes. He thumbed through the cash: one hundred quid . . . and the boot popped open behind him. He stretched his arm across to the driver’s seat; it was slid back further than the passenger seat, suggesting that a taller man than Stone, who was of average height, had been at the wheel.
‘Guv! Guv!’ The WPC was at the door. Lowry turned, the low sun causing him to blink. ‘Come and have a look at this.’
On the rim of the boot was what was unmistakably a blood smear, dried to dark brown around the latch.
‘Nothing else in there apart from a few strands of straw or hay.’
Lowry leaned into the boot. It smelt damp. He removed a glove and dabbed the dark carpet. Wet. He smelt his fingers.
‘Blood?’
‘Seawater. And that’s not hay, it’s salt marsh.’
2 p.m., Balkerne Gardens
Chief Sparks walked briskly past Jumbo, a lofty Victorian water tower and one of the landmarks of Colchester, towards the Balkerne Gate. He had heard Lowry out but, having already put two and two together, he was keen to talk to Brigadier Lane, so had put the call in to Flagstaff House. He was determined to be more proactive and not rely so much on those below him in the pecking order. Not that he didn’t trust Lowry – he did – but Lowry could be ponderously slow at times and there were some things only he could deal with: the Brigadier, for one.
Lane had suggested they meet in a pub called the Hole in the Wall: a dank, dingy affair next to the Balkerne Gate. It was allegedly the oldest pub in Colchester and, as the name suggested, was built into the ancient city wall. Sparks entered and saw Lane already at the bar, scrutinizing the brandy selection. The view of his profile afforded his companion the full splendour of his huge beard. Sparks thought it repellent for a man to have such a quantity of facial hair; it couldn’t be hygienic.
The two men exchanged greetings.
‘I’m surprised you suggested this venue. Aren’t you worried about being seen fraternizing with the police by the rank and file?’
‘You won’t catch the men in here.’
‘Oh?’ Sparks looked around the bar. The clientele included a kid wearing a studded dog collar, a girl with pink hair chatting to an old bloke in a homburg, and two men sitting in the corner, holding hands. Shakin’ Stevens crackled on the jukebox. ‘Why not?’
‘It’s a gay bar.’
The police chief raised his eyebrows. He caught the eye of the barman, a plump fellow in a bow tie, and grinned in embarrassment.
‘You’re kidding!’ he hissed in the soldier’s ear as soon as the barman turned away. If there was one thing that unsettled him more than women, it was poofs.
‘Yes, I’m kidding,’ Lane said wryly. ‘This is an officers’ pub. The easiest way to deter the men from coming in here is to tell them it’s frequented by homosexuals. Then one can drink in peace.’
‘I see,’ Sparks acknowledged. ‘But this doesn’t seem classy enough for your officers.’ Though one of the town’s oldest pubs, it had always attracted the sort of crowd Lowry would call ‘alternative’; to Sparks’s mind, they were freaks.
‘I know what you mean, but the clientele are harmless – too obsessed with hair dye and music to care about anything else. But it serves jolly good ale, and this isn’t the only one – there’s also a bar on Queen Street, but I thought it best not to meet you there – a little too close to home, no?’ Lane took in a nostril of brandy and frowned before chugging it back. ‘With the one hand, we actively dissuade the men from certain pubs, and with the other, we pin a list of the same pubs in the officers’ mess. Keep the two classes apart and everyone’s happy.’
‘Segregation – good idea,’ Sparks said. ‘After all, it works in South Africa.’
‘Exactly,’ Lane confirmed.
As if to prove the point, the two men began an animated discussion about Sunday night’s fight. But although they were jovial, there were undercurrents; they discussed tactics but they both knew full well the army had taken a beating because one of their best fighters was dead. And while Sparks had been evasive with Lowry, he knew the writing was on the wall – there was a drugs scandal developing and the military were in the frame, as much as he’d prefer to think otherwise.
‘I’ll come straight to the point, John.’ Sparks drew heavily on one of the brigadier’s panatellas. ‘There’s a possibility those two boys were mixed up in a drugs deal.’
Brigadier Lane looked dead ahead at the optics, his right eye twitching ever so slightly. ‘Preposterous,’ he blustered, causing spittle to catch on his beard. Sparks waited for him to continue, but the veteran soldier failed to elaborate.
Stubborn bastard, the chief thought. ‘I’m afraid things are pointing that way,’ he continued. ‘Don’t take it personally – they’re just kids. You’ve got to remember that, regardless of his uniform, the dead lad was – what? Nineteen?’
‘Eighteen,’ Lane said quietly. ‘Listen here, Sparks: there are no drugs in Colchester barracks.’ The small patch of hairless flesh visible on the brigadier’s cheeks had turned puce. For a moment, Sparks thought Lane was going to punch him. Let him try: the military man was overweight and out of condition.
‘Instead of huffing and puffing, Lane, you might try and help us with our inquiries. Produce the other lad, eh?’
‘Where’s your flaming evidence?’ the brigadier boomed, ignoring the request.
‘Your lads were seen in conversation with a shady individual well known to us. They were asking after two men who were selling drugs. An hour later, one of your men falls to his death in Castle Park. Two days later, one of the men they’re looking for has his throat slit. I think that’s good cause for you to be concerned, don’t you?’
‘I know nothing!’ Lane’s anger, Sparks thought, was not directed at him but at his own ignorance at what may have been going on. He touched the soldier lightly on the elbow.
‘I’m not suggesting you do, but the sooner we get to the bottom of this, the better for both of us, eh?’ Sparks unfolded a piece of paper and placed it next to the tin ashtray. ‘Is this a phone number? We think it may be a military line.’
Lane blinked and picked it up. ‘It could be an old field line,’ he said.
‘A what?’
‘An army number, but not a barracks or garrison line – in the field, a portable number; a mobile phone, if you will. It’s not a number from around here.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Chief Sparks, you may take me for an idiot, but I assure you I would recognize a military number.’
-48-
2.30 p.m., Wednesday, Fingringhoe Ranges, between Colchester and Mersea
Lowry had left the blue Cortina off Artillery Street with Forensics after having made a call to Robinson at the lab. Traces of seawater in the car boot had piqued Lowry’s interest – he wanted to know everything that had been in that car, down to the last fibre. In the meantime, he’d picked up Kenton, and they found themselves out on the marshes on some far-fetched premise which the younger man couldn’t quite grasp. The cold pinched as they climbed out of the car and stepped on to the frozen mud of the lay-by.
‘Are you sure about this?’ Kenton asked uncertainly.
The woods had a deathly stillness to them. Lowry laid the OS map out on the Saab’s bonnet. ‘Look here. Do you see this?’ He outlined the broken red line marked Danger Area.
‘I see it.’ Kenton stood close behind him.
‘The military use this for practice – manoeuvres, whatever soldiers do – shooting at things, hence it’s marked off to prevent access by members of the public.’
‘It’s all marshland beyond these trees. What makes you think there’s anything there?’
‘There’s an observation hut around there –’ Lowry jabbed at the map, on the middle of the marshes – ‘that has a phone. There’s just a chance . . .’
Lowry led the way, already regretting not having appropriate footwear. In all his time in CID, he’d never spent so much time in the cold; his toes had been permanently numb since before Christmas. He trudged through the still woodlands, feet sinking into fresh snow, and on to the marsh.
‘That girl . . .’ Kenton said behind him.
‘Which girl?’ Lowry’s mind flitted to his wife. He should’ve checked the calendar on the fridge this morning to see what shift Jacqui was on.
‘Gabriel.’
‘Hardly a “girl”.’
‘Whatever. She’s the ACC’s niece.’
‘I see.’ They’d reached a clearing, and there was no discernible footpath going forward. ‘That would make sense.’
‘Why?’
‘I met with Merrydown yesterday. I wondered what her motive was; I thought at first she might fancy Sparks.’
‘How so?’
‘All her questions were about him. She’s recently divorced, so Barnes tells me.’
‘I can’t see them as an item. Jesus.’
Lowry laughed involuntarily. ‘She’s way out of his league. Perhaps it’s his inner depths she’s trying to tap.’
‘Yeah, well, he gave me a dressing-down for hassling Gabriel.’
‘Ah, I thought something was up.’ So Merrydown had been circling him to elicit what, if anything, was going on with her niece.
‘I haven’t . . . slept with her. I thought . . . Oh, it doesn’t matter.’
Lowry’s feet squelched in the snowy marsh underfoot. Christ, this was hard going. ‘Good. Avoid screwing people you work with; it’s hard to draw the line, and you can never escape them.’ And then, after a pause: ‘I told Gabriel to work at my desk; maybe I’ll be the next one in trouble.’
‘Is that why you married a nurse?’ Kenton said, ignoring the last remark.
‘Well, I never see her, that much is true – hold on, what’s that?’
‘Looks like a garden shed.’ They approached it and Kenton flicked the latch on the hut door. A smell of musty wood greeted them.
‘Have you got a torch?’ Lowry asked.
‘No – I . . .’
Lowry tutted. The hut was pitch black. ‘Wait a sec,’ he said, walking over to the far side. A horizontal oblong of light appeared. ‘Wouldn’t be much of an observation post if you couldn’t see anything, would it?’ Lowry had lifted a wooden flap, and secured it to the wall above. Kenton made to open another. The cold air rushed in.
‘There’s not a lot in here to get excited about, is there?’ he remarked. There were two benches, a table and several charts pinned to the wall. A first-aid box hung next to a large OS map of the area. The floor gave slightly as the two men paced the hut.
‘Who tipped you off to this place, anyhow?’
‘Let’s just say I went to see a man about a bird . . .’ Lowry halted mid-sentence. There was a small green box mounted next to the window slit. Lowry released the tin catch. Kenton moved closer. A field telephone. He could imagine Lowry’s thoughts: was this the number? But the DI stepped back from the phone and clambered over one of the benches so he was facing the open hatch.
‘This spot commands a view of the firing ranges and beyond, I bet.’ He riffled around in his donkey jacket, pulling out a small pair of binoculars. ‘You can see the channel and the Strood from here.’ He angled forward, elbows resting on the wooden sill. Kenton slid in next to him. ‘Here.’ Lowry passed him the binoculars.
After adjusting them, Kenton scanned the dip towards the river, noticing another shed-like structure hidden in the trees at the bottom of the valley. Beyond that, he could see silvery hints of a draining tide snaking through the white. To his right, a treeless view of mudflats, still brown, having been submerged in water during the recent snow, slipped away towards heathland. And skimming across the river bed as if on air was a car crossing the Strood, the road on which it travelled invisible in the soft winter haze.
The wooden floor squeaked behind him. In a flash, Kenton was on his hands and knees.
‘This floor comes up.’
A small amount of prising of floorboards revealed him to be right. Underneath was an earth cavity.
‘Let me have a look.’ Lowry bent down and ran his hand around the inside. There was a powdery residue. Could it be? He dabbed his finger. Yes . . .
‘Guv, look.’
Lowry looked up; Kenton was pointing to a small chalkboard on the wall.
‘What?’
‘A list of range commanders and dates. Here’s a familiar name. Wonder what he’d be doing here?’
Oldham.
-49-
3 p.m., Wednesday, Queen Street HQ
Gabriel dexterously typed up her report on hauling Cowley out of the sea on Tuesday, having overcome her initial discomfort at sitting at Lowry’s desk. The DI had insisted on it, so that she wouldn’t be distracted by the humdrum of Uniform (his words). She didn’t mind the idea at all; it was the untidy state of the desk that troubled her. For such a suave dresser, Lowry took surprisingly little care of his environment: the desk was a mess of magazines, books – most about birds, rather oddly – scraps of paper, various notebooks, three ashtrays, several seven-inch records, and photos of his wife and son.
‘Oi, answer that, will ya, luv!’ someone bellowed across the room. The phones of both Lowry and Kenton had been ringing since she’d arrived, but she’d felt it wasn’t her place to take the call. ‘Go on, it won’t bite!’ At last, she reached over for the telephone.
‘Hello?’
‘About time,’ a soft but irritable female voice replied. ‘Is Detective Inspector Lowry there?’
‘Err, no, he’s not.’
‘Do you know when he’ll be back?’ The irritability had an edge to it. Panic?
‘No, sorry. Can I help?’
‘Who’s that?’
‘WPC Gabriel.’
Gabriel waited.
‘It’s Jacqui Lowry. It’s about one of my friends – Trish – she’s not turned up for work. I’m worried . . .’ The woman hesitated. ‘Can you ask Inspector Lowry to call me?’
She glanced at the framed photograph of the attractive brunette on the desk. Lowry’s wife was a nurse, that much she knew, not that he’d ever mentioned her to Gabriel. Lowry was currently out on the Fingringhoe marshes. She had no idea when he’d be back.
‘Are you calling from the hospital?’ she asked lamely.
‘Yeah,’ said Jacqui absently. ‘The ward sister marked her down as sick again this morning, even though she’d not phoned in, but . . . but . . .’ Her voice trailed off. ‘ . . . I wondered if she’d got her shifts in a muddle with all that’s gone on, and thought she was on a late yesterday. But we’ve just done handover and she’s not shown up again today. She would normally call, so . . .’
‘Of course. What’s the best number to get you on?’ Gabriel picked up a chewed Bic ballpoint. All that’s gone on – what could that mean?
3.15 p.m., Colchester Road
The light was fading with the onset of more snow as Sparks crossed over on to Mersea Island. He had two things on his mind. The first was the pressure from his boss: Merrydown had given him y
et another ear-bashing on the telephone about the North Essex clean-up rates. This time it was the Mersea sub-division, which had not filed a stats report in months. It was bad enough to have poor results but supplying nothing whatsoever was tantamount to treason. Ordinarily, County wouldn’t give a toss what the locals got up to in a rural community like Mersea, but once Merrydown knew drugs had got on to the island, she’d made a beeline for East Road’s latest submission, only to find an empty manila folder. So, no crime stats and the wrongful arrest of the Taylor brothers for the post-office robbery – Dodger Bradley had well and truly cocked up, and the chief had taken it upon himself to get to the bottom of it.
The other thing on his mind was more sensitive. Having telephoned Lowry from the pub about the possibility of a field line, Sparks had returned to finish his drink with Lane and the conversation had moved to more convivial matters, such as where to get a decent meal outside of Colchester. Sparks had been impressed to hear that the army had a list of ‘recommends’, several of which were unfamiliar to him. One was on the island: a new oyster restaurant added to the list by Captain Oldham, who apparently owned a houseboat moored just outside the harbour. The fact that the captain was a Mersea resident, albeit only when off duty, had struck the chief as odd. Sparks had not even registered the houseboat community on West Mersea until Kenton was punched after snooping around there, but it now emerged that Oldham was one of these virtual gypsies. Sparks tried not to be swayed by his dislike for Oldham but, personal feelings aside, he couldn’t ignore his instincts as a policeman. There was – dare he say it? – something odd about the captain.
3.25 p.m., Abbey Fields
Gabriel, having placed her report on Felix Cowley in Lowry’s in-tray, was now on the south side of Colchester. The military side.
Lowry had left her one additional, simple task: to check whether the big Irish soldier, Corporal Quinn, had spent New Year’s Eve in the Glasshouse, as he’d claimed. Having allowed herself to be fobbed off by Captain Oldham’s office once before, this time she was determined to come up trumps. She had checked that the military policeman himself would be at his Abbey Fields office. She had booked an appointment, claiming she’d been tasked with setting up a liaison committee between the police and the army following the recent disturbances. (Lowry had mumbled something to that effect, hence the idea.)