Beneath the Ashes Read online

  Their eyes worked from one photo to another. A few strands of hair remained on the victim’s head, but it was difficult to see what the original colour had been. Although the victim’s eyes were closed, Jackman thought he could see a vague resemblance in the contour of his nose and the shape of his jawline.

  Davies picked one up, peered in closer. “Look at that.” She was pointing at one of Nancy’s pictures. A brown speck sat beside Evan’s left eye. It was to the side, at the corner of his temple and out of shot on many of the photos, almost as if he’d grown accustomed to tilting his head a certain way to avoid it showing. They both looked closely at the victim shots.

  “Look.” Davies’ hand shot forward.

  Jackman followed her finger and could just about make out an enlarged mole on the edge of the photograph. He put the two photos side by side and compared them. “Could be our guy. The height matches, but we’ll need a formal ID to be sure.”

  His phone buzzed on the desk beside him. Janus flashed up on the screen.

  Davies glanced at the phone, gathered up the photos and made a hasty retreat.

  Jackman answered on the fifth ring, just before the voicemail kicked in. “Morning, ma’am.”

  Superintendent Alison Janus didn’t waste time on pleasantries. “I hear you’ve got another body?”

  Her impersonal approach to homicide never ceased to amaze Jackman. “A man’s body was found in a burnt-out barn this morning,” he said. He went on to update her on the investigation so far. “Our first priority is to get a formal ID on the body. We’ve already started looking into the background of Evan Baker who is at present missing. We’ll take a close look at his girlfriend too.”

  “Initial thoughts?”

  “Difficult to say. The girlfriend is at Warwick Hospital, suffering from concussion. The house was seemingly broken into, no vehicles apparently taken. The gun cupboard looks like it’s been raided, but with the owners away, we’d need to check with firearms licensing and establish whether there were still guns stored there. It’s possible they disturbed a burglar. I’m waiting on forensics and hoping that delving into their backgrounds will uncover something.”

  “Okay, Will. Go ahead with a media statement appealing for witnesses in and around the pub last night. If they had a row amongst themselves or with someone else, somebody’ll have seen something. DCI Reilly is still sunning himself in the Seychelles, and Peverell is on a review team at the Met. You’re going to have to carry this one for the moment.” She paused. “It’ll be good evidence for your promotion board next week. That’s assuming you wrap it up quickly, of course.”

  “I’ve based myself at Rother Street station for now, just getting everything set up.” Jackman held his breath. The current trend was to use the readily available ‘homicide suites’ at force headquarters in Leamington, something that management like Janus championed. But Jackman hated centralised incident rooms. He preferred to be close to the enquiry, so they could peruse the ground, speak to local people, show a close presence in the vicinity.

  To his surprise, he was greeted with a heavy sigh. “Okay. How’s Alice?” The mention of his wife, out of the blue like that, knocked him sideways. “We haven’t spoken about her in a while. How’s she doing?”

  Jackman inclined his head back. The image of his wife’s head, wedged between the dashboard and the crushed roof of their Ford Focus flashed up in front of him. A little over twelve months had passed and the accident was still as fresh in his mind as if it had happened yesterday. “The same,” he said.

  “Right. Let me know if there’s any more help you need there. I’ll be guided by you.”

  The ‘help’ she was referring to was a series of mandatory counselling sessions he attended as part of the force’s agreement to him returning to work, six months earlier. During the accident his wife had suffered damage to her basilar artery, leaving her in a severe state of locked-in syndrome. Her body had shut down, yet there was every chance her brain remained as active as ever.

  Every now and then his mind would torture him with cruel flashbacks of the real Alice – trudging over the fields with their Labrador, Erik; watching her beloved American soaps, baking in the kitchen. No amount of counselling was ever going to make that more palatable.

  He thanked Janus, was just about to ring off when she spoke again. “There is something else I need to talk to you about, or rather someone,” she said.

  “Who?”

  “Carmela Hanson.”

  “Should I know who that is?”

  “DCI Hanson. Former head of training and development.”

  “Never met her.”

  A tut filled the phone line. “Well, you need to get to know her. She’s coming across to Stratford for a course starting today and I’ve given her your mobile number. Thought she might be able to help you with preparation for your interview board next week. She’s worked for Thames Valley, knows the area, will be able to help with all the key words and phrases you need to mention.”

  Jackman massaged his eyes with his free hand. Right now, this was the last thing he needed. “I’m not sure I’ll have time—”

  “Make time. You’ll find it useful.”

  The line went dead. Jackman glanced up into the incident room. Phones were already starting to ring, indicating that word was getting out about the fire. He reached for his policy log and started outlining his initial strategy for the investigation.

  When he finally pulled himself from his notes and checked the time it was 9.30am. He opened the drawer, retrieved a navy tie, stood and wound it around, twisting it into a knot, then combed his fingers through his hair. Within a few minutes the tie started to clutch at his neck and he was tugging it down, loosening his collar as Davies stuck her head around the doorframe. “Oh, very smart, sir. How did you get on with the Super?”

  Jackman pulled a face. “We’ve got a week to clear the case before the DCI gets back.”

  “That’ll give everyone the incentive to pull out all the stops.”

  Jackman smiled. Paul Reilly had joined them last year as a newly promoted DCI. A self-confessed career policeman, he was more focused on impressing his superiors and giving flash press statements, than actually getting his hands dirty. A fact that had done nothing to endear himself to the team. “At least you’re not the one who married him.”

  “Christ,” Davies said, “I’d have to murder him first.” She chuckled. “Do you have time to do the briefing before you give the press statement?”

  “Sure. Give me a couple of minutes.” Jackman waited for her to retreat, then began gathering together the notes on his desk. It wasn’t Reilly that bothered him right now. He hadn’t told Davies about the upcoming interview board and it was starting to feel like a stone in his shoe. If he was successful it would mean an imminent move to the neighbouring force of Thames Valley. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t mentioned it. At first it seemed like a good idea, he hadn’t expected to get this far through the process, especially after all the time he had taken off after Alice’s accident. No point in building it up. The morning he received the letter, two weeks earlier, he’d pocketed it, fully intending to share the good news. But she was off that day, her baby was sick. He’d meant to tell her when she returned, almost had several times, but the moment had never felt quite right.

  Jackman smiled inwardly. Davies and her husband, John, had been great friends to him and Alice. They’d shared BBQs together, evenings out. She was probably the best and most reliable Detective Sergeant he’d ever worked with, her ability to inject humour into the darkest of situations was refreshing. He watched her now through the glass window that separated his office from the incident room. She was laughing, nudging a colleague. She caught his eye, winked. Jackman had been holding out for a board in the Warwickshire force at Christmas, although with no announcements forthcoming it was looking more and more unlikely. This opportunity meant he would manage his own homicide team, without the likes of Reilly poking his nose in, playing the politi
cal game. It was too good to pass over but as the interview date drew nearer, he was starting to realise just how much he’d miss everyone if he got through.

  ***

  Jackman stared at the board littered with photos of the burnt barn taken at various angles. His eyes rested on the victim. He leant forward and planted photos of Nancy and Evan beside them, drawing a line to join them together, then turned to face the handful of detectives and support staff scattered in a rough semi-circle around him. “So far we know that the barn is owned by Upton Grange Farm, and the owners, Ronnie and Janine Lawton, are away in Australia. From photos we have obtained, we suspect the victim may be Evan Baker, one of the farm workers who has been house-sitting in their absence and is currently missing. His girlfriend, Nancy Faraday, was at the farmhouse when we arrived this morning and we found signs of a possible break-in: the glass in the back door was broken and she had a visible injury to her head. She is now at Warwick General with a suspected head injury and concussion. DC Russell is with her, so hopefully we’ll get something more from her soon.

  “Nancy wasn’t able to tell us much this morning,” Jackman continued. “Apparently they went out to The Fish pub at Wixford for a meal last night. She vaguely remembers leaving the pub with Evan in his Land Rover, then waking up on the kitchen floor of the farmhouse this morning, alone. Nothing in between.”

  “Could they have had an argument? Thrown something and broken the glass by accident?”

  Jackman followed the words to DC Andrew Keane who was leant up against the sidewall of their makeshift incident room. His mustard shirt stretched across his paunch.

  “It’s possible.” Jackman considered the kitchen entrance. “Although most of the glass in the back door spilled into the kitchen, indicating it was broken from the outside. And Nancy claims she woke up on the kitchen floor. There are bloodstains there. We’ll get that checked to make sure it matches hers.”

  “A break-in, then. Somebody knocked her out, abducted him?”

  “I think that’s probably more likely. The gun cabinet was empty. Looks like someone had prised it open with a crowbar or something similar. We’re trying to reach the owners, but in the meantime could you check with firearms licensing to see if they have any guns licensed to them?”

  “Anything else missing?” Davies asked.

  “There’s plenty of farm machinery still parked up in the yard,” Jackman said. “Land Rover hasn’t been touched, in spite of all the keys hanging in the kitchen. The rest of the house looks relatively undisturbed.”

  “Maybe they interrupted a burglar when they arrived home? Whoever it was stole the guns, took the barn keys,” Keane said. “Unless the girlfriend staged the break-in?”

  “She’d have a job to give herself a blow to the head like that,” Jackman replied. “Unless she had help, of course. We can’t rule anything out at the moment, but we need to establish motive and means. CSI are still examining the barn and the surrounding area; another team are at the farmhouse. Let’s see what they dig up.” He looked across at Davies. “Anything from intel?”

  “Nothing on Evan. He’s not known to us. There’s a little intelligence on Nancy. Her mother, Cheryl Faraday, has been convicted of shoplifting and some minor thefts over the years. Nothing major and she’s never done a stretch. She’s a known alcoholic, so I guess it was to fund her dependency. Nancy was raised by her maternal grandmother. Cheryl moved in with her daughter after her grandmother died.”

  “I remember Cheryl,” Keane said scratching the corner of his temple. “We had to scrape her off the kerb a few times when I did overtime on uniformed response the other year.”

  “Probably the sight of that shirt,” Davies said.

  Keane pulled a face in mock surprise as everyone laughed. “Nancy was listed as her contact,” Keane continued. “Nice kid. Always felt a bit sorry for her actually.”

  Jackman nodded his thanks. “Okay, we’ve established the barn is owned by the Lawton family so Evan and possibly Nancy too would have had ready access. Let’s do some background checks on Nancy Faraday and Evan Baker. Work history, friends, family. Pull both their phone records and check the police cameras for any sightings of their vehicles over the past couple of weeks. We’ll also need to get the helicopter up to take some aerial photographs to highlight any access points across the fields to the barn.”

  A phone rang in the distance. Jackman cast it an annoyed glance and turned to Davies, “We need to interview the other residents of Cherwell Hamlet to see if they saw or heard anything, and everyone who was at the pub last night to establish who their friends and close associates were, and see if anyone remembers them there.”

  His watch read 10am. “I’m off to do a media appeal for witnesses. Be prepared for the deluge of phone calls in about an hour.”

  The eyes of the room turned to Keane who was having an animated conversation with someone on the telephone. He replaced the receiver and looked up. “CSI have found a passport and a bunch of wage slips belonging to Evan Baker at the farmhouse, along with his phone.”

  “Excellent,” Jackman said. “Check his phone records for any sign of life since yesterday, and get onto the Department of Work and Pensions. See if they can trace any family through his national insurance records. We’ll need someone to give us a formal identification of the body, especially if Nancy is still in hospital. And speak to the morgue too, make sure they only do prelims. We don’t want them cutting him up until we have him identified.

  Chapter Five

  Nancy sat up in bed and stared blankly out of the window. A pair of blackbirds fluttered about on the rooftops, against the backdrop of an inky-blue sky. Stray leaves danced about betraying a breeze that was picking up, gathering momentum, although she felt none of it. The small hospital room, with just enough space for a bed and a plastic chair at either side, was airless.

  She stretched out her back. The seams of the hospital issue gown scratched at her sides. The morning’s events had felt surreal, almost as if she’d been watching herself from afar. The ambulance’s arrival at Upton Grange had been closely followed by a petite detective with ginger hair who’d introduced herself as DC ‘Call me Kathryn’ Russell and accompanied her to the hospital. When they arrived, she’d pulled off a long piece of hospital roll, laid it on the floor and requested that Nancy stand on it and remove her clothes, even before she was examined by a doctor. Nancy watched her wrap the clothes in the hospital roll, place them in brown paper bags and label them. ‘Just a precaution,’ the detective had said.

  The chair leg squeaked on the polished floor as her mother fidgeted in her seat beside the bed. The thick stench of nicotine that surrounded her like a bubble was oppressive in the tiny space.

  After a day of being pulled and poked, lights shone in her eyes, her brain was still embroiled in a misty fog. Nothing made sense. The mention of the body found in the barn that morning swung in and out of her mind like a pendulum. It wasn’t Evan. It couldn’t be. But as much as she tried to erase the idea, it pushed itself back in. Where was he?

  Her mind rewound to their first meeting. She’d been in the shop on her own that Monday afternoon when he’d walked in and asked for directions to the library. She could see straight away that he was older than her, more mature. He’d flashed her a smile and immediately her breath had caught. They got talking about books and before she knew it they were relating lines from Catch-22, sharing their favourite authors – he liked Michael Connelly, she Jeffery Deaver. His manner was engaging, he carried himself with ease. By the time she went out back to find him a map, she felt like she’d known him for months rather than hours. It wasn’t until after he’d left the shop that she’d found the telephone number he’d scribbled onto the pad beside the till.

  She’d waited until the evening before she’d called him, half expecting it to be a dud number, and was surprised when he picked up on the second ring. It had been the first time she’d felt a sense of excitement since breaking up with her boyfriend earlier in
the year and it felt good. Although when Evan suggested they meet at The Fish at Wixford for their first date she’d been disappointed. Living close to the centre of Stratford, she’d only been to a few of the rural pubs. Her main haunts were usually the bars and clubs of Stratford town, with cheap drinks and easy music to dance to. Wixford was almost a twenty-mile round trip and cost more in petrol than it was worth. Right up to the last minute she’d almost changed her mind. But he sent a string of texts that were charming and sweet and she wasn’t doing anything else that Wednesday evening.

  As soon as she walked into the bar she recognised him, seated on a stool near the end in a white open-necked shirt that showed off his golden skin.

  He’d given her a slightly lopsided smile that lit up his face and immediately her stomach bounced. She hadn’t expected him to be so tender, so interested in her life, so caring. It was chilly when they left. She’d shivered, goosebumps appearing on her bare arms. He’d removed his fleece, wrapped it around her shoulders and kissed her gently on the cheek, said she would have to see him again to return it. And she’d driven home immersed in his freshly showered smell, a warm feeling swirling her insides.

  During the weeks and months that followed, they’d texted and talked most days and met up a few times a week. It was intense. She’d have liked to have got together more, but he had a lot of work to do on the farm that seemed to keep him out all hours and she respected that. He wasn’t a big talker, but he was thoughtful, bought her presents, made her feel special.

  A pang shot through her chest.

  The fire. The detectives kept asking her about the barn, what it was used for. She’d been out on the farm with Evan in the Land Rover many times, done the rounds and fed the cattle during the first few weeks of their relationship. In the beginning it was exciting to bump down the country lanes in the sunshine. But the novelty soon wore off, especially when rain smeared the windows and the ground was muddy. She’d never visited the barn though.