Beneath the Ashes Read online

  Becca grabbed the plastic chair in the corner. It scraped across the floor as she dragged it over and sat down. “Has Cheryl been in? I rang her as soon as I heard.”

  “She was here earlier.”

  Becca raised a thick, drawn eyebrow. “Well, what happened?”

  The birds were back on the roof, fluttering about on the felt in the corner of her vision as Nancy relayed the events, as far as she could remember them.

  “What a nightmare. How long do you think you’ll be in here?”

  “I don’t know. It’s driving me crazy.”

  “Well, listen, don’t worry about work. Take as much time as you need. We can cover things until you’re ready to come back.”

  “Thanks. Did you manage to get me a phone? I can’t believe the police still want my phone. What on earth could be on it that they’d be interested in?”

  Becca reached into her bag. “Working next door to a mobile phone shop does have some benefits.” She pulled out a white Samsung. “I put it on the business. Be useful to have a spare. I’ve put in mine and Mum’s numbers, and Cheryl’s. You can do the rest. It’s only pay as you go, but it’ll sort you out until you get yours back.”

  “Thanks. You’re a star. How was the shop today?”

  “Pretty quiet really, thank goodness. But listen, Mum says don’t worry about a thing. It’s more important you get well.”

  “Have you heard anything, on the news I mean?”

  Becca frowned, lowered her voice. “It was on the radio in the shop. Mum turned it up. They said there’d been a fire, a body had been found.”

  “And?”

  “The fire inspectors are still investigating. They suspect arson.”

  Chapter Seven

  Jackman meandered up the winding driveway to Broom Hills Nursing Home and parked up. The sun had passed over, leaving the red-brick Georgian frontage cast in shade. He passed through the entrance, paused briefly to make small talk with the receptionist and sign the visitor’s book, and continued on into the day room.

  “Here he is now, Alice.” A warm smile accompanied Christine’s soft Irish accent as he approached. She patted the forearm of the patient beside her and hauled herself up.

  Jackman returned Christine’s smile and bent down to envelope the woman beside her in a hug. He planted a kiss on her forehead before he stood back. “How was your day?” he asked.

  His wife’s glassy eyes stared into space.

  “It’s been just fine, hasn’t it,” Christine said. “Watched Gone Girl this afternoon, didn’t you?”

  Alice’s cardigan hung off her shoulders, a testament to the amount of weight she’d lost in recent months. He stood back while Christine busied herself with checking the straps that harnessed her to the chair, tucked a light blanket around her legs. “Lovely evening for your walk too,” she said as she finished up. “You must check out the rose garden. It’s beautiful at the moment.”

  Jackman thanked her, took the handles of the wheelchair and pushed his wife through the doorway, across the foyer and down the ramp into the gardens where he pulled the blanket to the side, exposing his wife’s bare calves, and let her hair loose, allowing the fragile breeze to lift strands of it as they crossed the car park.

  Erik, their four-year-old chocolate Lab, was jumping around on the back seat causing the car to rock slightly as they drew nearer. Jackman paused to make sure no one was around and let the dog loose. He leapt out of the car and circled the wheelchair twice, each time licking Alice’s fingers.

  “Calm down, mate,” Jackman said and patted his back. Erik raced ahead as he pushed the wheelchair around the back of the main house and across the lawn. The rear of the property offered breathtaking views across the surrounding rolling Warwickshire countryside. He pushed Alice into the gardens. They were divided into a herb and vegetable garden, a rose garden and a long lawned area, each separated by low, manicured privet hedging.

  Erik trotted on ahead while Jackman wheeled Alice around each of the gardens in turn, pointing out the new flowers in bloom. Jackman was no gardener himself, but this area had been carefully planted to offer something different throughout the summer months and he’d learnt to appreciate the changes as they took place. It was important to him that Alice saw these changes too, that she was aware of what was going on around her. They paused next to the honeysuckle for a while, taking in the fresh aroma, before entering the rose garden.

  The soft rattling of the wheels and the pants of Erik’s breath were the only sounds to be heard. He talked Alice through the case, the body at the barn, the frustrations with early enquiries and felt the tension of the day filtering out. He’d grown accustomed to Alice’s silence over the past year, filling the gaps in the conversation himself, although it still left him hollow. He missed her chirpy voice, singing as she moved around the house; the quiet spells when she’d lay on the floor in her study and listen to Bach. If he closed his eyes he could still see her before the accident, chatting to his daughter in the kitchen, filling every corner, every crevice of their home with her presence.

  Part of him clung on to the tiny thread of hope that one day there would be an eye movement, the edge of a smile, some little spark of recovery. But the more time that passed, the less likely a recovery was. And the idea that his effervescent wife might end her days in this sorry state made her tragic demise all the more difficult to bear.

  Jackman’s mobile buzzed. He pulled it out of his pocket, swiped the screen and brought up the text message.

  Hi Will, this is Carmela Hanson. Alison Janus gave me your number regarding your interview board. I’m in Stratford all week. Give me a call when you are free.

  Jackman groaned inwardly and pocketed his phone before moving on.

  He parked up beside a bench in the rose garden and sat down next to his wife. Erik appeared from behind a bush and laid down next to them, his tongue hanging to the side. The air was cooler here. Jackman pulled the blanket back over Alice’s legs, tucking in the sides. They were seated next to an old English rose, the edges of the huge flower head were brown and tinged, just over their best. Jackman leant forward and breathed in, allowing the sweet smell to linger in his nose. It was fresh, all encompassing. Absently he picked the flower and held it up to his wife’s nose a moment.

  The smell in the barn filtered into his mind. It was pungent, familiar. Even through the smoke it felt distinct. As they sat in silence he thought about the generator out back, probably used to keep the cars warm in winter as Eamonn had suggested. His mind wandered around the barn and the charred remains of the cars when a thought struck him. He hadn’t seen any radiators. The generator couldn’t warm the cars over the winter without a heating system.

  He sat forward and worked it through in his mind. It didn’t make sense.

  Chapter Eight

  Jackman grabbed the coffee and climbed out of the car. The sun was rising, slowly uncovering the fields. Apart from a couple of birds flapping in a nearby tree, rising early from their roost, and the low hoot of an owl in the distance, all was quiet.

  The uniformed officer standing beside the barn entrance looked surprised as she watched him climb over the blue-and-white police tape. Jackman recognised her as one of the youngsters from the response team at Stratford station and smiled as he approached. “Hi, Shelley. I brought you a coffee,” he said, handing over the cardboard cup.

  Her eyes shone as she took it and peeled off the lid. “Thanks, sir. What brings you here at this early hour?”

  Jackman stared out over the fields of rapeseed stretching out in front of him. He thought fleetingly of Sheila Buckton and her allergies. The crime scene had niggled away at him all night, forcing sleep aside. He’d churned it over again and again in his mind, but there was one question that picked away at the side of his brain: Why go to the expense of installing a generator to a barn stuck in the middle of nowhere? “Thought I’d take another look around,” he said. “What time did the CSIs finish?”

  The officer’s
fringe fluttered as she blew across the top of the coffee. “They left about 8.30pm. It was getting dark by then and they’d photographed and filmed everything.”

  “How long are you here for?”

  She glanced at her watch. “Relief comes at seven. Can’t wait.”

  Jackman gave her a knowing smile. Memories of guarding a manufacturing plant in East London during the coldest December in years filled his mind. He’d joined the Metropolitan Police less than six months earlier and, even for an ex-Marine who’d been stationed in the Arctic during his training, he was freezing and by the end of the shift could barely feel his own feet.

  He left Shelley and walked around the outside of the barn, pausing at intervals to eye the surrounding fields, looking out for alternative routes the killer might have used. The aerial photographs hadn’t shown up any bridle ways, designated pathways or breaks in fencing or hedging nearby. From where he was standing, he couldn’t even see a badger route. He halted beside the generator. It was silent. He could see Cherwell Hamlet from here, the only place it seemed, where any kind of view of the barn could be found.

  The light was brightening as he returned to the main entrance, opened the doors wide and wandered inside. The interior looked larger this morning. He walked around the edge of the cars. An earthy dampness mingled with the scent of burnt metal. Jackman tried to pick through the smells. He was just starting to wonder if he’d imagined it earlier when he caught it again – a musky sweet smell.

  He made his way over to the remains of the shed in the corner. There was barely anything left there apart from some metal racking which had melted and bowed in places, but was miraculously still fixed to the wall. Something puzzled him as he stood and looked at it. Earlier he’d assumed that this area had been enclosed before the fire and used as some kind of office, but it lacked any electrical equipment or the remains of a desk.

  Jackman walked around the perimeter. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for. He knew it had been checked and rechecked by his team earlier, but something didn’t feel quite right. The pathologist was pretty sure that the victim was placed here after he’d died. But Jackman couldn’t understand why his body would have been left in the barn he was looking after.

  He stood beside the entrance awhile, looking out towards the track. The officer was sitting on an upturned crate, coffee cup cradled in her hands, staring out into the murky countryside. Even though the barn had doors that opened both ends, this was the only entrance route by car. The track was long and winding, almost a quarter of a mile back from the road and situated several hundred yards from the farmhouse. The road at the bottom was rarely used, other than as a through route to the village nearby. It must have taken the killer a while to find this isolated spot. But why go to so much trouble? It’s not like they sought to hide his body. The presence of the fire drew immediate attention to it.

  Jackman tried to put himself in the killer’s shoes. Nancy said the last thing she remembered was them leaving the pub. Perhaps they disturbed somebody when they got back. Or somebody crept up on them and broke the glass in the back door to gain entry. Surely it would be difficult for one person to break in and incapacitate them both? Unless of course there was more than one offender.

  Evan Baker’s bank statements had come in last thing yesterday evening. Coupled with his phone records, they could find no sign of activity since Sunday evening, strengthening the notion that the victim was Evan. Jackman ran a hand down the side of the entrance door. Blisters of rust tugged and pulled at his rubber glove. The doors opened almost the width and height of the barn at both ends. The killer could have opened them, reversed a vehicle up and placed the body down before starting the fire. Evan wasn’t of muscular build, but it would have been an effort to haul him into the boot of a vehicle, even with help. Maybe that was why his body was laid out on its front, so close to the entrance.

  He viewed the floor where the body had laid and looked back up at the entrance. The more he thought about it the more he thought it the most likely explanation. Evan’s body was around fifteen metres from the cars. Jackman walked over to them and around the edge of the first car. He continued along. He was just heading down past the last one, back towards the entrance when something caught the toe of his shoe. He stepped back, looked down. A tiny lip of concrete sat proud. He wiped his foot across the floor, clearing away some of the soot. It wasn’t a lip. It was a line of concrete, the edge of something.

  Jackman pulled his torch from his pocket and lit up the area, scraping his foot across the floor, moving away the debris, his actions quickening. He called out to the uniformed officer.

  Shelley came rushing in. “What is it?” She immediately looked down, following his eyeline. “What’s that?”

  “It looks like some kind of door,” Jackman said. He bent down, pushed some more of the soot and debris away from the join. The door was recessed slightly. A flat handle sat at one end. He hooked his fingers around the handle and tried to prise the metal back. It was distorted and melted in places. Sweat coursed down his back, but as much as he tried to heave and pull, it refused to budge even an inch.

  “What do you think is down there?” Shelley asked.

  “No idea. But we need to get inside. Now.”

  ***

  Jackman stood outside and glanced at his watch. It was almost 6.30am. Thankfully the weather had been warm since the weekend. Thunder had threatened a few times, but the rain hadn’t broken through and the mud track was packed hard. But, after a bright start, the sky was now blanketed with patches of grey cloud, bringing with them the fresh threat of rain.

  He caught the low drone of a motor, louder as it approached and turned in time to see a fire engine rumble up the track. Shelley, who had been doing her rounds, walking the edge of the barn, came back to join him. Jackman waited for them to park up and exchanged pleasantries with the firefighters that jumped out, who introduced themselves as Rob and Carl, relieved to find that they’d already been briefed on his phone call.

  “Do you want us to wait for your CSI team before we start?” Rob asked.

  Jackman cast a fleeting glance down the track. He’d asked Shelley to record the area with her body worn video camera. And he couldn’t afford to waste any time right now. “No, we need to be quick in case somebody is trapped down there. Do you have your cutters?”

  Rob nodded his head, waited while his colleague retrieved the disk cutter from the truck and followed Jackman into the barn. “It’s a metal door, warped by the fire,” he said. “I’ve covered the handle area with some exhibit bags I had in the car, in case of fingerprints.”

  Rob nodded. “We’ll cut around the door, see if we can pull it out. That will limit the damage to whatever there is below.”

  “Thanks.”

  The roar of the disk cutter filled the barn. Within moments it penetrated the metal. It took less than twenty seconds to cut around the door and pull it back.

  That familiar smell immediately filled the air around them, more pungent now. The fire fighters grimaced, stood back. Jackman covered his nose, bent down and shone his torch inside the space below.

  Chapter Nine

  A sea of faces turned as Davies rushed into the room later that morning. Janus paused mid-speech, raised her eyes for long enough to frown, and turned back to the room as she continued speaking. “We’ve made a discovery that takes the investigation in a new direction.” Her eyes slid to Jackman. “Perhaps you could fill us in.”

  Jackman shared the events of earlier that morning. “There’s a hidden room beneath the barn, around twelve metres long by five metres wide. It looks like it’s being used to grow cannabis. We need to let the forensics team examine it quickly before the search team can go in with cutting equipment and open it up properly. That’ll give us a good idea what state the cultivation is in.”

  “That would explain the disgruntled CSIs in the canteen this morning,” Keane said, sniggering. “They don’t like anyone messing up their scene.”

&
nbsp; Jackman rolled his eyes. “We had no choice, there could just as easily have been another person down there. Get the DNA test fast-tracked, will you?” he said to Davies. “We need to know who the victim was. Some of those plants are just about to crop. It’s likely they aren’t the first crop, but he must have known something about them. Any news from the other residents of Cherwell Hamlet?”

  “Nobody has noticed anything unusual, either on Sunday or recently. They don’t seem an observant lot,” Keane said.

  Jackman pictured the informant’s inquisitive face. “Send someone out to have another word with Sheila Buckton, will you? She seemed interested in the general comings and goings, might remember something of significance in the weeks running up to the fire.”

  He turned back to the room. “Any news from the press appeal?”

  “Nothing yet,” Russell said. “Usual time wasters. Early feedback from interviews at The Fish suggest that they were a happy couple, quite lovey-dovey on Sunday night. No one has mentioned an argument.”

  “What about the victim’s habits?” Jackman asked.

  “We’ve gone through his bank records,” Keane said. “There’s a few regular payments into his bank each month, one of which looks like his salary; a direct debit for his phone, and he withdraws at intervals, seems to work mainly in cash. Nothing of interest. We’re going through the numbers listed on his phone, the entries on his billing. CSIs also found a couple of grand in used bank notes stuffed in a box at the bottom of his wardrobe.”

  Davies gave a low whistle. “Sounds like drugs money.”

  “Any luck on tracing the farm owners?”

  She shook her head. “They’re still driving around the perimeter of Australia in a camper van. We’ve spoken to the daughter. The last contact she had was a phone call from Adelaide on Sunday.”