Dead of Winter djm-1 Page 7

  ‘What about the curtains in that room, Ebb? He left them in every other room, why not there?’

  ‘I asked Simpson about those — he said Chichester told him he’d be bringing his own.’

  ‘Sandford’s found what looks like the remnants of a plastic curtain up at that bedroom window. We need to find out what that room was intended for: don’t think it’s a bedroom. Maybe it was a place to store something that needed to be kept germ-free.’

  ‘I’ll talk to Simpson again. He needs leaning on; he made money out of Chichester that he doesn’t want to talk about. He also deleted emails that went between him and Chichester.’

  ‘Did you manage to find out what Harding really thinks about Davidson and the situation? Davidson still doesn’t want to reopen the case.’

  ‘I think she’s keen to get it right this time — she gave me the full autopsy reports — but at the same time she supports Davidson.’

  ‘Covering her arse then. .’

  ‘Looks like it, Sarge. I’ll talk to her again when I get back tomorrow. She wants me to let her know how he is.’

  ‘Pass by me first. There’s only one person Harding cares about. And only one back she’s watching, and that’s her own.’

  ‘But she does care about doing her job, Sarge. She doesn’t like getting things wrong.’

  ‘No, well, good luck with getting to know Harding. It would take a braver man than me.’

  ‘What time are we leaving tomorrow, Sarge?’

  ‘Not me, Ebb. . just you. You are a fresh pair of eyes, no preconceptions. You can see it as it is. Anyway, I’ll be more use here. You alright to go on your own? You were trained as a FLO.’

  ‘Yeah, but it was decided I wasn’t really cut out for it.’ She paused, turned towards the window. She was thinking. She caught her reflection in the glass. She looked like a frightened rabbit: all eyes. She looked away quickly. ‘Okay, no problem.’

  ‘Take an overnight bag. There’ll be plenty of motels to stay in nearby. You’ll be fine. Ring me.’

  Ebony put down the phone and got into bed, pulling her duvet around her as she snuggled down for a few hours work. Tina knocked in the door.

  ‘You free?’

  ‘Sorry, Teen. Give me an hour or two and I’ll take a break then. You okay?’

  ‘Just need a girly goss and a catch-up that’s all. I want to show you some of the other guys I’ve been looking at on the dating sites. Some really gorgeous ones — be great for you.’

  ‘Okay, give me a while. I’ll come and find you when I’m done.’ Three hours later she heard Tina moving around in the bedroom below, getting ready for bed. Ebony felt a pang of guilt. She thought about getting up and going to say goodnight and spending ten minutes trawling through Tina’s choice of men on the internet — men who were always flashy and fancied themselves much more than they did Tina. But Ebony knew it wouldn’t be just ten minutes and she still had a lot of work to do. She’d gone through Carmichael’s file a hundred times and still she hadn’t found the answers she was looking for. Why would someone kill them in that way and why did they leave the little baby alive? She spread out the pictures of Louise and Chrissie and looked at them again. Her eyes went from one to another. Something was bothering her. Blood. Where was the blood? The women should have been lying in pools of it; it should have been everywhere. But it wasn’t. She looked at the list of forensic samples that had been deemed to be cross-contaminated. In death the women had touched one another. Their backs had touched somehow. Ebony began re-writing her findings. What if the samples were not corrupted? It was getting light when she finally slept where she sat on the bed, surrounded by pictures of the dead.

  Chapter 11

  Carter came off the phone to Ebony and walked into the Major Incident Room. Robbo was sitting at his desk with his cafetière. When he saw Carter coming he slid his chair from one end of his desk, picked up a sheet of paper, and slid back.

  ‘Here’s how far I’ve got.’ He read from the sheet in his hand: ‘The vehicle in the driveway at Blackdown Barn: a man. . Mr Arnold Williams. . delivers the bi-monthly parish paper to Blackdown Barn. He remembers seeing a van in the driveway on several occasions. It was a large Transit type, almost like a Tourer, but regular-shaped, not fancy: no windows; it was white.’

  ‘Number plate?’

  ‘No. . he says the back doors of the van were always covered.’

  ‘We know its length. Find me a make and model. Use the moulds from the tyre tracks to see what tyres it took.’

  Robbo pointed to the screen. Carter came round to have a look.

  ‘I fed in the information from the tyre prints and it came up with a basic model of van; most of the major manufactures made a Transit-type vehicle like this. It’s a working van rather than a run-around. The tyres indicate that it’s less than three years old. Meant to carry a lot of weight.’

  ‘Ebony says that when she went back to Rose Cottage she met a gardener there who says he repaired the gatepost after that night. It took out the whole upper section in a clean chunk. Could it be this van type?’

  ‘There was no mention of that in the case file. I never saw a statement from him.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. We need to get the exhibits from the Carmichael case back over here from the warehouse and see for ourselves.’

  ‘So how’s it going working with Ebony Willis?’

  ‘Yeah. . I’m sending her up on her own to interview Carmichael tomorrow; she’s swatting up on the case tonight.’

  Robbo gave him that look that said: interesting but risky.

  ‘She’ll be alright.’ Carter sucked his finger where the cuticle was bleeding.

  ‘Hopefully. . She’s a bright kid.’

  ‘Funny how you see her as a kid.’

  ‘Everyone’s a kid to me. I’m not long after Davidson when it comes to retirement. Of course I don’t have any choice, being a DC. He could stay on. You help solve this one, Dan, they should seriously consider you for promotion.’

  ‘Maybe. I won’t hold my breath. Just passing my exams doesn’t seem to be enough. Ebony will probably get there before me.’

  ‘Ebony’s going to have to battle against prejudice. She’s going to have to prove herself every step of the way if she hopes people will forget what happened to her. If she hadn’t already joined the Force when it happened she would never have been allowed in.’

  ‘That would have been a tragedy,’ said Carter. ‘I can see how much she loves it. She wants this career so badly. She’ll make it, despite what she’s been through — or maybe because of it.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Robbo. ‘She’s a sponge when it comes to info, techno stuff. She’s been asking me about the latest in this and that. Even though it’s not her department.’

  ‘You should have seen her around the bodies. .’ Carter smiled. ‘She practically climbed in beside them to interview them.’

  Robbo sat back in his chair, shook his head. ‘You’d think seeing your mum stab someone forty-seven times would put you off bodies for life.’

  Chapter 12

  The sky was steely grey and the further north Ebony drove the thicker the snow fell. She wasn’t a confident driver. She’d only taken her test when she wanted to join the Force and she didn’t own a car. The hire car was new: a poppy red Renault Clio. It smelt much too clean and chemical-y and the unfamiliarity did little to reassure her that she was capable of driving in conditions that no amount of driving lessons could have prepared her for. It was already nearly dark at only two in the afternoon. Ebony looked at the sat nav for encouragement. It hadn’t talked to her for ages, not since it sent her on several turnoffs and then abandoned her on what looked like a road that no one had used for a hundred years. The hedges rose to block her view of anything but the winding lane in front.

  She needed a pee. She slowed right down at the entrance to a field then she got out and waded through the snow, knee deep in places. Crouching behind the hedge, she dropped her trousers and peed into the snow.
The icy wind started her teeth chattering. She wasn’t happy. She was a London girl, not meant to go more country than Kew Gardens. This was proper countryside. She cursed Carter. He had known it would be like this, miles from anywhere and anyone. She pulled up her pants and walked back to the car.

  Just as she put the car into gear and began pulling away, a woman appeared at her window. She had eyebrow and nose piercings. She wore layers on layers, and wellington boots. Her henna-red hair fell in snow-flecked plaits from beneath a bobble hat.

  ‘Hi. .’ Ebony wound down her window. ‘I’m looking for a farm owned by a man called Callum Carmichael?’

  The woman stared at Ebony for a few seconds, checking her out, before walking around the front of the car and opening the passenger door. She got in as if she had been waiting for a taxi, and Ebony was it.

  ‘Go straight. .’ She took out a packet of tobacco and started rolling a cigarette. ‘You a friend?’

  ‘Of Carmichael’s? Not really, just need to see him about something. You? Sorry. . you can’t smoke in here. .’

  ‘I’m not going to. I help him sometimes.’ Ebony looked sideways at the woman. She was a ‘once wild’ teenager. She was pretty but neglected. She smelt of patchouli oil and bonfires. She was beginning to defrost, her plaits were now steaming. ‘I help him with the lambing.’

  ‘Is it lambing time now? It’s the winter.’

  ‘Carmichael produces lambs early. Saves buying foreign. People like to eat lamb for Easter. Got to be fattened in time. Not me. I never eat ’em. I know ’em all by name. Be like eating one of my own family.’

  ‘What about him, Carmichael? Does he know them all by name?’

  ‘He does but he pretends not to; it’s easier to kill them that way.’

  Carmichael stopped chopping wood to listen. Rusty, his Jack Russell terrier, had begun the low growl that signalled the approach of visitors. Carmichael put down his axe and came out of the log store. He wiped his brow on his shirtsleeve as he watched the car lights coming up the lane from half a mile away. He held his hand up for Rusty to be quiet. He glanced across at his rifle resting on the inside of the woodshed door.

  Ebony turned the car into the yard, narrowly missing the wheelbarrow full of steaming horse manure, and came to a stop outside the stables. Rusty ran over, barking excitedly. Carmichael watched Bridget, his farm hand, and a young woman get out of the car; he made no attempt to call Rusty away. Ebony wasn’t fazed. She lived in an area where pitbulls came out at night. She reached down to pet him. His barking turned into excited whines, his tail wagged. Bridget walked across the yard, head down, and merely glanced Carmichael’s way as she said:

  ‘Police. . found her taking a piss in the lower field.’

  ‘Inspector Callum Carmichael?’ Ebony pretended she hadn’t heard.

  Carmichael didn’t answer. He picked up the handles of the wheelbarrow and wheeled it across to the far end of the courtyard so that he could tip out its contents on to the dung heap.

  ‘I need a few words please, sir.’

  He put down the wheelbarrow and looked at her. ‘ID?’

  Ebony pulled out her warrant card and held it up for him to see. He appeared to look at her face rather than the card yet her name still seemed to register.

  ‘DC Ebony Willis?’

  ‘Yes. .’ Ebony replied.

  He finished filling hay nets and tied them inside the horse’s stall then he picked up his rifle from the woodshed and walked past her.

  ‘Follow me.’

  Ebony had her eye on the gun. It was very like the rifles they used in the Police Force, with a shorter barrel and only a metre in length. But it was definitely made for hunting: it had a powerful looking scope attached. Judging by his eyesight and the way he’d read her warrant card, Ebony thought that he could probably hit her running at a mile away with or without a scope.

  She followed him into the house. The farmhouse was Spartan, austere. It was certainly never going to make it onto the top of a biscuit tin.

  ‘I won’t take up much of your time, Mr Carmichael, and then I’ll be on my way.’ They walked through the tack room, up a step and into a stone-floored scullery. Carmichael propped the rifle next to him as he sat on a stool and pulled off his boots. He said nothing as he washed his hands in the sink.

  He looked at her as he dried them on a towel above the sink.

  ‘Relax. . If I wanted to kill you I’d have done it by now.’ She watched him with the same intense look she always had, but he didn’t know her. He took it to be anxiety. ‘Besides. .’ He hung the towel on a hook to the right of the sink. ‘There’s no way you’ll be going anywhere tonight. The lane is almost impassable already; surprised you made it. In half an hour it will be sheet ice. In that car — you’ll be lucky to get ten metres.’ He wiped the mud and debris from the gun barrel with an oiled cloth. ‘It will be more trouble to drag you out of a ditch than it will be to put you up for a night.’

  He unclipped his hunting knife and placed it on the shelf. Walking up the few steps and into the kitchen he indicated that she should follow.

  ‘You hungry?’ He went across to the Aga and pulled the pot of stew from the hotplate. ‘Sit down. Make yourself useful. .’ He set the loaf of bread and a knife in front of her on the scrubbed table top.

  Ebony sat down and took the opportunity to look around the kitchen while Carmichael was busy. It looked like no one had decorated for a hundred years. It was clean and functional. It hadn’t made it to the rustic chic pages of a magazine: no hanging copper pans or bunches of dried herbs. No unread recipe books. Carmichael walked past her carrying the logs he’d been chopping. She heard him stacking them beyond the kitchen. When he returned he took two bowls from an oak dresser and spooned in some stew. He opened two bottles of beer and placed one in front of her. Then he sat down opposite.

  He didn’t hide his scrutiny. Ebony wished she had a napkin, kitchen roll, anything; she’d splashed her chin and had wiped it lots of times but her hand still felt wet.

  ‘You’re very young.’ He paused while breaking his bread open. ‘How long have you been a detective?’

  ‘Four years. I’ve been in the Force six altogether.’ She looked at Carmichael’s face just a few feet away across the table from her. She was re-reading his file in her head: the keenest marksman in the Metropolitan Police Force. His photo taken with the rest of the firearms team. His smile proud, his gaze steadfast. Thirteen years looked like twenty. He was weatherworn, bearded, sunburnt from the wind and the rain. Special Forces before the police: SBS. He had once taken out four members of the top Iraqi military. He had sat in one spot for a week and waited to kill one man.

  ‘You’ve done well to get into the Murder Squad so quickly.’

  ‘I have a degree in Criminal Justice and Law. I think that helped.’ Ebony was feeling like the inexperienced copper she was. Carter must have known it would be like this. Why had he sent her on her own?

  ‘There are lots of people with degrees but not everyone knows how to make them count in police work — or in everyday life.’ He finished eating his stew before her and he sat back in his chair and watched her eat. She never left food. Carmichael continued to scrutinize her. ‘So you could have chosen to go into a career in Crime Analysis instead or in Profiling? You could have gone into the law side of things?’

  ‘I could have.’

  ‘But you chose to go for less pay and longer hours and join the force?’ For a minute he thought she wasn’t going to answer; he could see her mind mulling things over. You could never accuse her of being loose-tongued. That was an admirable quality in Carmichael’s books. He hated pointless chatter. He lived most of his life in silence out of choice. It seemed to him that he was the one asking the questions. She looked at him, her expression unchanged:

  ‘I wanted a challenge.’

  Carmichael smiled. ‘Fair enough. What about your family? You’re mixed race, aren’t you?’ She nodded as she dipped her bread into the stew. ‘I know
the name. . Willis. . you’re the officer whose mother was convicted of murder? I read about it.’

  She looked up and saw his eyes drilling into her.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Finished?’ He stood and took her plate from her and stacked the dishes in the sink. She stared at his back. She wondered what he would ask her about it and what she would say when he did. But, when he turned back she could see he’d finished with the subject.

  ‘Great stew,’ she thanked him.

  ‘One of my lambs.’ Ebony wondered if it had had a name. ‘This way. .’ He picked up a basket of logs and led the way into the sitting room. Apart from a sofa and an armchair, the only other piece of furniture was a desk in the corner. The fireplace dominated the room, ancient, imposing. A massive oak beam framed it. Carmichael stacked the logs either side of it. To the left of the fireplace was the doorway to the upstairs, to the right was a dresser. On it were several books about farming, lambing, looking after sheep. There was one about the Yorkshire Dales. There was another about medical procedures in the field. The History of War. The Times Atlas had a shelf all to itself. There were travel books about South America, Argentina. Above all the books she saw a photo of his wife and child. She recognized it from the case file.

  He knew that she was looking at it. ‘What do you want to ask me?’ He began cracking small twigs for kindling.

  ‘In the last twenty-four hours there’s been a murder on the outskirts of London. We found a print that matches one at the cottage where your wife and child were killed.’

  There was a pause of several seconds. Carmichael began constructing the fire: stacking the kindling against paper rolls.

  ‘Do you have a name?’ He reached to his right and pulled a long spill from a holder.

  ‘No. . We just have a match.’