JT01 - In The Blood Page 20

  “Sure, anything,” Tayte said, distracted.

  “We’re at a place called -”

  Tayte cut in. “Nare Point.” he said.

  “Nare Point, Sir?”

  “Isn’t that where you found him?”

  “No, Mr Tayte. The body was found in Treath, down by the Helford River at a house called Ferryman Cottage.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Detective Chief Inspector Leonard Bastion was in his late forties. He wore navy suit trousers whenever he was on duty, but never the jacket, a pressed white shirt and black cleated shoes that always looked like he’d just taken them out of the box they came in. He was a stocky man: barely five feet, eight inches tall, clean-shaven with a thick crop of short silver-grey hair that to his constant irritation would never sit down, spoiling an otherwise pristine appearance.

  He was standing outside Ferryman Cottage lit up by several crime scene floodlights. An ambulance was on standby alongside two police cars that continued to bathe the house in a lively blue and red glow. Beyond the lights, the lane and the woodland were in blackout, camouflaged by the night and the dark Helford River. Opposite Inspector Bastion stood the man who had discovered Peter Schofield’s body.

  “Sorry you’ve had to wait around so long, sir,” Bastion said. He flipped the cover of a small reporter style notepad. “So you say Amy Fallon joined you every Friday?”

  Martin Cole lit a roll-up cigarette and drew heavily on it, making the tip glow as it burned down the filter paper. “That’s right,” he said. “Why are we going over this again? I’ve already explained why I was here.”

  “Indulge me, sir,” Bastion said. “If you don’t mind.”

  Martin snapped his lighter shut and slipped it into the side pocket of his jeans. “When Amy didn’t show,” he said. “I walked up to the house to drag her down there.”

  “To the Shipwrights Arms?”

  Martin nodded. “It’s been a bad week for her. I thought maybe she needed some encouragement to come and have a drink with us.”

  Bastion’s pencil stopped twitching. “Us being?”

  “Simon,” Martin said. “Simon Phillips. He’s the boat hand who works with me. Amy always joined us at the Shipwrights on Fridays for a … well, a sort of social team brief, I suppose you’d call it. Just a couple of drinks and a chat.”

  “And presumably Simon can vouch for that, can he, sir? And the staff at the Shipwrights?”

  “Of course.”

  “So you called Amy Fallon and getting no answer you left Simon at the pub at twenty past eight and arrived at the house here approximately twenty minutes later? Seems a fair walk, sir. Just on the off-chance?”

  “I do a lot of walking. Most people around here do. It was nothing.”

  “You said Amy was having a bad week, Mr Cole?”

  Martin nodded, taking another drag on his cigarette. “Her husband went missing two years ago this week. She’s having a rough time of it.”

  “I see. Well who wouldn’t?” Bastion put a hand on his head and flattened his hair across his forehead. It sprang straight up again. “So you came to Ferryman Cottage,” he continued. “And instead of finding Amy Fallon, you found the victim’s body?”

  Martin flicked the glowing stump of his cigarette away and watched it corkscrew into the night. As it hit the ground he took another from a brass case in the chest pocket of his green check over-shirt and fixed it loosely into the corner of his mouth. “I knocked. There was no answer. No lights on. So I waited.”

  “How long for?”

  “Not sure… About five minutes, I guess. I sat and watched the river.”

  “Not much to see, I shouldn’t think?”

  “No. Not much.” Martin reached for his lighter. “Peaceful, though.”

  “And then?”

  “Then I went round the back of the house,” Martin said. Thought I’d take a look around before I left. I knocked on the back door and it swung open. I called out, got no reply, so I knocked harder and went inside.” He lit his cigarette and forced the smoke high above Bastion’s head. “The place was a mess,” he added. “I know she’d had decorators in all week, but this wasn’t home improvement mess.”

  “That was about a quarter to nine, was it, sir?”

  “Give or take.”

  “And did you touch the body? Move anything?”

  “No … well, not much. I went into the sitting room first. I turned on the light and saw him sitting there on the sofa, staring straight at me. I asked him who he was, got no response, so I went closer. That’s when I saw the blood. It wasn’t clear against his dark shirt, but I saw his trousers were spattered with it. I nudged his shoulder then his head flopped back and his neck opened right up.” Martin pulled a sour face. “I’ll never forget it.”

  “No, I’m sure,” Bastion said. “What happened after that?”

  “I called for Amy again, had a quick look around. She wasn’t there.”

  “So at precisely three minutes to nine you called the emergency services?”

  “If you say so.”

  “Thank you, Mr Cole. That’s all I need for now.” Bastion licked his palm and tried to flatten the right side of his hair with a single smooth stroke. “I’ll send Sergeant Hayne over to take your details. You’ll be in the area for a while, will you? We’ll need to take a formal statement at some point.”

  “What about Amy? You’re looking for her, right?”

  “I’ll have the immediate area checked, of course. Though technically she’s not missing yet and, as you say, she’s had a bad week. Maybe she took herself off somewhere to cheer herself up.”

  Martin shook his head. “It’s not like her.”

  “It is suspicious, sir, of course, and believe me, we’re as anxious to talk to her as you are. But let’s not jump to conclusions, eh?”

  Bastion looked around for Sergeant Hayne. He saw him leaving the house with the coroner and raised a hand to get his attention. “I’ll let you know as soon as we make any progress, Mr Cole. Can I offer you a lift anywhere?”

  “No, thanks. I’ll take a walk back down to the Shipwrights. I could use another drink.”

  Chapter Forty

  Detective Sergeant Bill Hayne wore a light-grey suit over the standard-issue white shirt. In his neck, a plain navy tie was pushed too far up to be comfortable. At just twenty-seven he was young for the rank, but what he lost to youth and relative inexperience in the role, he made up for with a sharp intellect and his eagerness to get results.

  Tayte had arrived at Ferryman Cottage out of breath and anxious. Sergeant Hayne had led him straight into the shell of Amy Fallon’s dining room.

  “He won’t be a minute, sir,” Hayne said. “Just finishing up in the sitting room.”

  Tayte sat down on a lone Windsor chair by the window and pulled Amy’s rucksack onto his lap. His briefcase was back in his hire car, hurriedly parked beyond the police barrier on the only lane that led in and out of Treath. He could hear a conversation in the hallway as two men were leaving.

  “No cuts to his hands or arms,” one man said. “Why is that unusual?”

  “There was no struggle, sir,” the other man said. “He couldn’t have seen it coming.”

  “Correct. Any other reason?”

  “He was already unconscious? Drugged maybe?”

  “Well done lad, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Wait and see what the lab comes back with.”

  Tayte stared up at a bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling. It radiated a dim but harsh light against naked walls and floorboards, making the place feel like an interrogation room. He clutched subconsciously at the rucksack and watched the blue and red beams from the police lights outside sketch colourful horizons across the far wall, wondering where Amy was. He found himself considering that she might have been right: maybe her husband had found the box. Maybe now she was missing too. She knew I was bringing it back this evening, he thought. She would have tried to contact me by now. Why hasn’t she an
swered her calls all day? Where is she?

  “Mr Tayte?”

  The voice in the doorway startled him. Tayte rose as DCI Bastion entered the room with Sergeant Hayne in his shadow.

  “Where’s Amy?” Tayte asked. “Is she all right?”

  “We don’t know at this time, sir,” Bastion said. “There was no one else here when we arrived. Just Mr Schofield and the man who found him.

  Tayte nodded. Distracted.

  “It was good of you to come so quickly,” Bastion said. “The only address for any next of kin we could find on the victim is thousands of miles away in America.”

  “Mother?” Tayte enquired.

  “His wife, sir.” Bastion winced. “Two small children as well according to the photos we found on him.”

  “Children?”

  “That’s right, sir. Always hits me hardest when I think of the little ones.”

  “He didn’t seem the type,” Tayte said, wondering if he’d completely misjudged the man; if there had been more to Peter Schofield behind that arrogant façade.

  “You think you know people, eh, sir?”

  “I know why he’s dead,” Tayte said. He couldn’t stop himself from saying it, however much it might implicate him.

  “I was hoping as much, Mr Tayte, but we’ll come to that. Let’s make sure we have the right man first.”

  Bastion put a firm hand on Tayte’s shoulder and led him into the sitting room. It was nothing like Tayte remembered from last night; everything had been moved. The red settee drew his eye first. It was askew, pushed across the room away from the fireplace, facing the door. Then he saw the body outline and his eyes dropped to the body itself - to the white body-bag laid out on a stretcher, ready for removal. Bastion knelt beside the bag and reached for the zip.

  “If you’re ready, sir.”

  Tayte nodded and Bastion eased the zip down, being careful not to expose too much, sparing Tayte the images of the victim’s fatal neck wound. Tayte could hear every click as the heavy-duty zip ticked down the bag like a clock running double time. Then Bastion pulled the zipper apart and the image that met Tayte as he leaned in made him draw away again. The skin looked waxy and translucent and he could no longer picture that toothpaste commercial grin on a face now drained of colour and emotion.

  “That’s him,” Tayte said. “That’s Peter Schofield.”

  The zipper closed with a buzz and DCI Bastion stood up again. Tayte continued to stare down at the top of the bag where Schofield’s face had just been, like he could still see the ghostly image of it.

  “We’ll go outside, shall we?” Bastion said. Then he guided Tayte towards the door in baby steps, like he was helping an over-prescribed psychiatric patient.

  The air blowing in off the Helford River felt cool in Tayte’s throat. He followed it, lit by the floodlights and the spinning glow of the police lights. He came right to the edge of the water before he stopped and his eyes wandered to Amy’s teak motor launch, wondering again where she was. Bastion and Hayne were close behind him. Bastion took the lead.

  “Do you know the owner of the house well, sir?”

  Hayne checked his note pad. “Amy Fallon,” he added.

  Tayte shook his head. “I met her just yesterday,” he said. “I came to see her last night about something we had a common interest in.”

  “And what was that, sir?”

  Tayte sketched a brief outline of what he did for a living, the assignment he was working on and why he’d come to England. He said nothing about the box or about the assault outside Mawnan Glebe two days ago. He knew these were the good guys, but a warning voice in his head told him not to complicate things. He couldn’t risk losing the box.

  “Amy was interested in who used to live at the house before her,” Tayte said. “My assignment led me to the same people so I came over to talk about it. I got here around six-thirty last night. We talked. Drank a glass of wine -”

  Glass of wine…

  The words triggered images of Amy’s sitting room where he’d been standing just moments ago. Not everything in the room had been moved. He saw it again in his mind now as if for the first time. The wine glasses were still there on the low stool by the fireplace. The wine bottle was beside one of the table legs. He didn’t need to ask if Bastion or Hayne knew where Amy was now. He’d confirmed his own thoughts.

  “She would have cleared the glasses away by now,” he said.

  Bastion scrunched his eyes. “Excuse me?”

  “The wine glasses are still there. Just as they were when I left last night.”

  Bastion looked at Tayte like he was waiting for him to elaborate further.

  Hayne seemed to understand. “You think something happened to Amy last night? Before she had chance to clear the glasses away.”

  Tayte nodded. “She hasn’t answered my calls today either.”

  “You as well, eh?” Bastion said.

  “As well as who?”

  “The man who found the body, sir. Martin Cole. He was concerned for her too. She was supposed to meet him and his colleague for a drink this evening.”

  Hayne’s pen was poised. “What time did you leave here last night, sir?”

  Tayte thought about it. “Must have been around 8pm.”

  “So it looks like Amy’s been missing more than twenty-four hours?” Hayne said, scribbling into his pad.

  “You said you knew why the victim was dead,” Bastion said.

  “I had a call this afternoon, not long after my train left London. Someone had information for me about the assignment I’m working on. I was supposed to meet him tonight, only I couldn’t make it. I sent Peter Schofield instead.”

  “And what time was that, sir?”

  “Seven-thirty.”

  Hayne gave Bastion a nod. “Fits the estimated time of death, sir.”

  “Did you arrange to meet this man here?” Bastion asked.

  “No,” Tayte said. “Someplace called Nare Point.”

  “Ah, yes,” Bastion said. “Nare Point. You mentioned that earlier on the telephone.”

  Hayne cut in. “I’ve got a car on its way there now, sir.”

  Bastion looked impressed. “We know the murder didn’t happen here,” he said to Tayte. “Sorry to be so graphic, but there’s not enough blood.” He brushed a palm down the back of his head. “Though there’s clearly been a struggle.”

  “Looks more like someone was looking for something,” Hayne added. “Any idea what that might be?”

  Tayte stared at the lights across the river and shook his head, unable to lie so blatantly to their faces.

  “Question is,” Bastion continued. “Why would anyone go to the bother of moving a body all the way here from Nare Point?”

  Tayte turned away from the river and saw the expectant look on Bastion’s face, like he hoped Tayte was about to furnish him with the answer. Tayte didn’t have one.

  “The killer’s obviously making a statement,” Hayne said.

  Tayte shrugged. “I don’t know. Whoever called me just said they had a document for me. A probate record. Something I needed that I hadn’t been able to find.”

  DS Hayne checked the knot in his tie. “And you didn’t think that odd, sir? Getting a call to meet a stranger at a place like Nare Point after dark?

  “I’d never heard of Nare Point until today. I was so focused on that document I just figured someone out there was trying to help.”

  “Only their real motive was to kill you,” Bastion said.

  Tayte nodded. “So it seems.”

  “Do you have any idea why that might be?” Bastion asked.

  Tayte knew. Just like he knew he’d been played; the warning outside Mawnan wood then the note under his wiper blade at Bodmin. Now he was supposed to be dead and that could only mean one thing: Schofield’s killer knew that Tayte had the box, and tonight at Nare Point he’d hoped to collect it off his corpse. And if he knew Tayte had the box, he also knew that Amy did not. Dumping Schofield’s body at Amy
’s house was a clear signal to Tayte that the killer had Amy. The box was even more important now. It was currency.

  “Can I see your train ticket, sir,” Bastion asked. “Or a receipt. Usual formality. I just need to confirm your whereabouts this evening.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  By the time Tayte got back to his hire car it was gone midnight. He climbed in and set the rucksack down onto the passenger seat and seconds later he was following the glow of his headlights away from Treath. His mind raced with questions that all asked just one thing. What the hell was he going to do now? He arrived slowly at the top of the lane where it joined the main road, indicating left, away from Helford, back towards his accommodation where he hoped he might be able to clear his head and come up with some answers. He paused at the junction, listening to the indicator tick-ticking as he watched the flashing green light in the dash. Waiting… Thinking…

  His eyes wandered down to the passenger seat footwell. His briefcase was open, his assignment papers ruffled. He was confused momentarily. He knew he hadn’t left it like that. Then as he reached across to retrieve it the left side of his neck began to sting like a paper cut.

  His hand never made it past the gear shift.

  Jefferson Tayte felt his hair jerk violently back, pulling his head into the headrest, exposing his fleshy neck to the blade that was almost too sharp to feel at first. Then an unnaturally deep voice close to his ear sent a chill through him.

  “Mr Tayte. At last. Now slowly reach across and pass me that rucksack.”

  It was obvious to Tayte that the speaker was manipulating his voice so as to disguise it. It sounded throaty and strained. His heart was racing. He could feel the blade pressing at his throat now, threatening to break the skin. The sting on the left side of his neck where the knife had first slid into place began to burn. He thought of Schofield and the body bag - reminding himself what this man was capable of. Then he thought about Amy.

  “You’ve got some balls!” he said, finding some of his own. “The place is crawling with cops.”

  Tayte felt the blade bite into his neck.

  “Just do as you’re told and you’ll get through this.”