took a long drag on her cigarette and was surprised to hear the sound of an engine entering the far end of the road. That was quick, she thought as she took another hit, anticipating the need to stub it out at any moment. It had to be Darren — the narrow side street was little more than an alleyway and she couldn’t remember ever seeing anyone else using it in the past year. The local businesses put their recycle bins out for the council to collect on a Monday morning, but as far as she knew the bin lorries didn’t even come up there; the refuse collectors just dragged them around the corner to the main road.
At that moment her phone beeped; a short note from her best friend, confirming that she was coming around at eight with a bottle of rosé and a DVD.
Despite the distraction, her subconscious had spotted something was not quite right; the engine sounded wrong. Rather than the throaty growl of Darren’s twin exhausts, it was the grumbly rattle of a diesel engine that made her look up. She blinked in surprise at the unexpected sight, then mentally shrugged. It was a common enough sight in other parts of town; she wouldn’t have even noticed it if she hadn’t been expecting Darren. She turned her attention back to her mobile, already ignoring the vehicle as it pulled up to the kerb a few metres past her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the driver get out and start to walk towards her.
The driver was only a few paces away from her when she finally paid attention. What alerted her she would never know. Was it the purposeful stride in her direction? The fact that the vehicle shouldn’t be here at this time of the evening, let alone stationary with its driver out? Or was it the smell, sweet yet slightly acrid, even at this distance? A scarf covered his mouth against the cold, a woollen cap pulled low hid most of the rest of his features. With a jolt of surprise she realised he was wearing one of those rubber masks that you could buy in a joke shop.
She opened her mouth to scream, but it was too late. The driver covered the last three paces impossibly fast, his right hand blurring upward towards her face. Suddenly her nose was filled with a solvent smell that reminded her of her mother cleaning paintbrushes in turpentine. She struggled to breathe, her eyes filling with tears, but the driver’s hand was clamped tightly across her face. The world was already starting to spin; a sudden feeling of lightness swept through her body and a rushing noise filled her ears. Her legs weakened and before she knew it she was slumping downwards as if trying to sit on the kerb.
The world was now turning a fuzzy light grey, like an old-fashioned TV set when you pulled the aerial lead out, followed by a dark grey, then finally black. Her last memory was the clatter of plastic on concrete as her mobile phone hit the pavement.
Three Days Later
Monday 5th December
The strident ring of a mobile phone sang out in the silenced hall. Three hundred pairs of eyes swivelled immediately towards the back row and Susan Jones cringed in embarrassment, trying to disappear from view. Beside her, her husband, Detective Chief Inspector Warren Jones, fumbled frantically for the offending gadget, trying in vain to silence it. On stage, the earnest fourteen-year-old girl started to sing the opening notes of ‘Silent Night’, before stumbling and losing her place as the phone rang for a second time. The teacher accompanying her on the piano stopped playing and turned around, glaring at the audience.
A chorus of tuts and hisses sounded from around the auditorium as Jones got to his feet and tried to leave the darkened room as unobtrusively as a six-foot man holding a ringing, glowing mobile phone, seated in the middle of a row of interlocked school chairs, could manage.
Mumbling his apologies, Warren stumbled into the centre aisle, knocking over at least two handbags and a pair of precariously balanced crutches. Resisting the urge to break into a run, he strode with as much dignity as he could muster to the rear exit. As he slipped through the double doors into the hallway outside he heard the piano start up again and the opening notes of the young soloist. The phone continued to ring. Giving up on trying to silence the damned thing using its touchscreen, Warren simply answered it.
“One moment, Tony, I can’t talk now.” Although he had whispered into the handset, his voice seemed to echo down the hallway. The two white-haired ladies setting up the coffee urn and interval biscuits scowled at him. As he hurried towards the front of the school he prayed that nobody had recognised him. The last thing he wanted was for the school’s new Head of Biology to become known to the Parent Teacher Association and other gossips as ‘that science teacher with the really rude husband’.
Finally finding himself alone in the school’s reception area, he was able to answer the call. “OK, Tony, what have you got?”
The booming Essex voice on the end of the phone sounded amused. “Caught you at a bad time, guv?”
“You could say that. Let’s just say that ‘Silent Night’ was suddenly no longer silent. What’s happened?”
All traces of humour immediately left the other man’s voice. “You’d better get over here, boss. We’ve got a body.”
* * *
Less than thirty minutes later, Warren carefully manoeuvred his dark blue Ford Mondeo up a sodden dirt track. The cold December night was pitch black, the dark and threatening rain clouds blotting out the nearly full moon and stars. The only lights visible were the flashing blue strobe from the police patrol car blocking the road and the interior lights of the empty ambulance parked next to it.
To his left, Warren saw several parked vehicles. He made out the familiar white outline of Detective Inspector Tony Sutton’s sports car, a Scenes of Crime incident van and a few others that he didn’t recognise.
A middle-aged uniformed sergeant with a clipboard stepped out to greet him.
“DCI Jones?”
He scribbled Warren’s name and time of arrival on the scene log and directed Warren to park up next to Sutton’s Audi.
“DI Sutton is at the scene, sir, along with the paramedics and the members of the public that found the body. A Scenes of Crime manager is on site and others are on their way; should be here within the hour.”
“Thank you, Sergeant. Where is the body?”
The officer pointed ahead, up the dirt track.
“A couple of hundred yards up there. Apparently it was found by a group of dog-walkers. They were pretty on the ball, by the sounds of it. They stood still and phoned for us; didn’t trample all over the scene. They swear that they only walked on the footpath, so we’ve made that the main access route.”
Warren nodded his approval; the sergeant seemed pretty on the ball himself. It never ceased to amaze him the way that despite all of the pleas and warnings from the crime scene specialists, many police officers — detectives included — insisted on poking around the site of a suspicious death, potentially destroying any evidence before it could be collected. By designating the already forensically compromised footpath as the only access route to the crime scene, the sergeant had ensured that any evidence in the surrounding area would be left undisturbed.
Pulling out his mobile again, Warren called Tony Sutton. The detective inspector answered immediately.
“I’m down at the main gate,” Warren informed him. “I have a paper suit in the boot of the car. I’ll come and join you.”
With
