The Kill Call

‘Oh, one of the joint masters got a bit aggravated and chased the sabs down the road.’

‘When he was on horseback?’

‘That’s “she”. Two of the Eden Valley joint masters are women. Yes, she was mounted at the time. A horse can be a bit terrifying when it’s coming towards you at a canter. That’s one reason we use them ourselves, of course.’

A moment later, two young women ran through the trees and on to the road towards the police. One of them had blood streaming down her face and into her hair from a cut above her eye, and the other was holding a hand to her mouth, wincing in pain.

‘That doesn’t look like tame stuff to me.’

‘I’ll get an ambulance here.’

‘Good luck getting it through, Inspector.’

But the two women were soon telling their story in the back of a police car while they waited for the ambulance.

‘It’s often the female sabs who get hurt,’ said the inspector, when he returned.

‘Funny, that.’

‘To be honest, I think they’re probably the most provocative. Though I suppose I shouldn’t say it.’

Fry made her way back to her Peugeot, carefully stepping over heaps of steaming horse muck on the road, and the muddy ruts left by the wheels of the transporters. She was just in time to see a stray foxhound, its tongue lolling, cocking a leg to urinate on her car.

‘Oh, wonderful,’ said Fry, to no one in particular. ‘Another slice of country life.’

Sean Crabbe was surprised to have made it home safely. He was still trembling and sweating by the time he arrived at the house, and he had to pretend that he’d been running. Then he had to make up some excuse to explain why he wasn’t at college, which he’d forgotten all about.

If only he could afford to get a place of his own, this would never be a problem. He was twenty years old, for Christ’s sake. He ought to be independent, earning his own living, free to come and go when he pleased, without making explanations.

But instead he had to mutter something vague about not feeling well, before disappearing to his room. His mother looked at him suspiciously, but she would probably decide that he must have ’flu coming on or something. What he needed most was to have a shower, and to check whether he had any traces of blood on him.

Sean couldn’t believe he’d done something so stupid. Maybe he could blame Coldplay; ‘A Rush of Blood to the Head’. Damn right. That was exactly what had happened.

In that moment of anger at the intrusion into his territory, the invasion of his sanctuary among the derelict buildings, he’d acted without thinking things through. Just because no one else ever came up to the huts, because he was so confident that he wouldn’t be seen, he’d done something he would never have considered in the ordinary world. He wasn’t a criminal, in fact he hated the junkies and yobs and thieves he saw every night in the streets of Edendale. He never wanted to be part of their world. So why had he done it?

Sean stripped off his clothes, holding his parka and jeans up to the light from his bedroom window. No sign of blood. But what about his trainers? Soil and dust trapped in the pattern of his soles, a few small pieces of stone. If the police got hold of them, they would probably be able to piece together exactly where he’d been, the way they did on CSI.

He scrubbed the soles of his trainers in the sink, then showered and put his clothes into the wash basket. No telling when Mum might collect them, but there was nothing he could do about that, except hope she did it soon. If he mentioned it to her, she’d know something was wrong.

While he dried himself, he went through the sequence of events again. From the first scent of that sweet smell in the hut, the knowledge that someone else was present, to the panicky call he’d made to the emergency services. And then hurling the phone as far as he could into the first suitable place he came to.

Well, that was stupid. He should have thought more carefully about where he disposed of the phone. The call was probably a mistake, too. But they couldn’t trace him from that, could they? It wasn’t his phone, after all. He’d tried to wipe it clean before he got rid of it. Fingerprints were one thing he did know about.

It was just that momentary opportunity, the desire that had overtaken him when he’d seen the phone just lying there, and the bulging wallet with all that money in it. All that money. The temptation had been too much. Anyone else would have done the same.

But he hoped the man wasn’t really dead. After the incident with the vagrant, he’d assumed that he recognized death. Assumed, too, that he could clear out and watch the action, with no one any the wiser. No one to know that he’d been there.

Sean shuddered as he re-lived the moment the corpse had seemed to come back to life. Like a scene from a horror movie. A bloodied zombie with a hole in the head, but sitting back up and reaching out blindly, gripping his arm with fingers that dug deep into his skin.

That had been what made him run. He’d run from the old huts until his breath was ragged and a stitch jabbed unbearable pains into his side. He seemed to have run for a long, long time through the rain before he stopped. For a few minutes, he’d actually tried to think logically, wondered whether he ought to go back, so he could do the right thing and sort everything out. But he’d looked at his watch and realized how long he’d left it. Far too long for him to look innocent.

Then he’d finally made the call. As quick as he could – no name, no location, no return number.

And Sean had discovered that he was on the moor, in the middle of the dark heather and the capped mine shafts. And he’d known where he could dispose of the phone. He’d climbed the fence and watched it tumble out of sight, heard the smash as it hit the rocks on the bottom. No one would be calling that phone again.

It was a pity, though. It had been a nice new Sony Ericsson with video calling and everything. At least he still had the money.

Sean was feeling calmer now. He dressed in clean clothes, wished that he had a smoke available to steady his hand, then lay down on his bed to wait until he was called. He plugged in his iPod again. Not Coldplay this time, but the Kaiser Chiefs: ‘I Predict a Riot’.

And Sean finally allowed himself to dream about what he could do with the money he’d taken. The money that had belonged to the dead man.

6 (#ud3157305-6884-5400-ad2c-ccfd653500d5)

When Fry finally got back to her body on Longstone Moor, she found her DI, Paul Hitchens, waiting for her. He hadn’t even bothered walking all the way to the scene, but was leaning against a car at the rendezvous point.

‘Death verified, Diane?’ he said.

‘The paramedics were here first. The ME has confirmed.’

‘Life pronounced extinct, as the old boys used to say.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Fry knew that police officers weren’t officially trusted to verify death. Not unless death was obvious. Since procedures failed to define ‘obviously dead’, it generally meant decapitation or an advanced stage of decomposition before any officer could exercise judgement.

‘Cause of death?’ asked Hitchens.

Fry shook her head. ‘There’s an obvious head injury. But we’ll have to wait for the preliminary PM report.’

‘It could have been a fall, though? Wet grass, plenty of stones lying around. Or a slippery cow pat – I’ve done it myself. What did he have on his feet? Appropriate footwear?’

‘No, sir,’ admitted Fry.

‘And the emergency call – that could have been some passerby not wanting to get involved. It happens all the time.’

‘In the town, maybe. But out here? It’s difficult to imagine a passer-by up at those old huts, anyway.’

‘The owner of the phone that the call was made on – he’s from out of the area, right?’

‘Yes. We’ll track him down, of course.’

‘So have we really got suspicious circumstances here, Diane?’

She hesitated. The expense of calling in a Home Office pathologist was only justified when there was substantial evidence of suspicious circumstances, the proverbial foul play. The DI wouldn’t want to get caught out trying to justify the expense in the face of an ‘accidental death’ verdict by the High Peak coroner.

‘This body has no ID. That’s a good indication of suspicious circumstances in itself, isn’t it?’

‘Maybe.’