Death on the Coast Read online

‘Plenty of time to start a really good fire,’ agreed Sam. ‘And have the evidence destroyed by the returning tide the next morning.’

  ‘A Halloween party that got out of hand?’ asked DC Lizzie Singh. ‘Someone had too much to drink and fell into the fire?’

  ‘That’s a possibility. But if it’s one of your mates, and he’s drunk and he falls in the fire, why don’t you pull him out and ring for an ambulance?’

  Lizzie frowned. ‘Maybe because you’re all too drunk to notice?’

  ‘Or,’ added Sally, ‘you did try but weren’t able to get him out, so you ran for it.’ She made a note in her book. ‘Which might make it worth checking out the local hospital for any burns sufferers. So, student party gone wrong, or murder most foul?’

  ‘That is the question, but the answer is definitely going to be murder: he had a cracked skull.’ Dan tapped the back of his head to indicate the area of the wound. ‘He was at least unconscious before he went into the fire.’ He gave them a few minutes to think. He’d been mulling over the event on his drive back from Exmouth.

  ‘Sam, see if there is any CCTV in that vicinity that we could have a look at. As far as I know, Exmouth town centre is crawling with it for the Saturday night party crowd.’ He stared at the incident board for a moment. ‘As soon as we have the post-mortem results, we should be able to get some DNA matching on the victim. There was a bit of skin on the arms and some hair still left on the body. And PC Evans collected a couple of bags of party rubbish from the site that might yield up something useful.’

  ‘The only trouble with DNA evidence, of course, is if the victim doesn’t have a criminal record, he won’t be on the database,’ said Sally.

  ‘True enough, but cheer up, we’re only on day one. Okay, Sergeant Bennett, please organise a trawl of the pubs of Exmouth, there may have been a group of people getting themselves psyched up, ready for an exciting night ahead.’

  Bennett made a note. ‘I guess there’s no point doing house-to-house,’ he said, ‘as no one lives close enough to see what was happening.’

  ‘No, but there may have been other people out, early shift workers or late-night revellers, that you may catch on CCTV. Could be worth a follow-up.’ He tapped his teeth with his pen. ‘Not much to go on, I know, but you’ve all got actions to get on with. I’ll see you later.’

  * * *

  Dan wandered down the corridor to his new office and ducked inside before anybody stopped him. He glanced at the in-tray, shrugged, and leaned on the window ledge to watch people going about their day. It made a change from staring at an old bit of Sellotape on the wall of his previous office. It was an odd case, this one. If it was deliberate, it was unheard of in Devon – as far as he knew. You did have to discount the witch trials in the past, he supposed. Of course, it could still turn out to be an accident that nobody had called in, but that just didn't seem right. The cracked skull. The rubbish in those sacks was from stuff young people ate, not old alkies keeping warm on a cold night. Was the date, Halloween, important, or just a coincidence?

  Pulling his laptop closer, he sent an email asking Superintendent Oliver if she had any input for the first press statement, and prepared a new logbook for the case.

  4

  Dan looked out over a sea of faces in the large public room at HQ. Four o’clock on a cold Monday afternoon but the place was steaming. He recognised many from the local press and TV. But the case was macabre enough to attract the nationals too. Not that he had much to tell them yet. He glanced down at his notebook, cleared his throat and waited until the chatter died down.

  ‘Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. This will be a brief meeting as, you will understand, we have only just begun our investigations into the case.’

  ‘Murder or accident, DCI Hellier?’ came the nasal voice of reporter Lisa Middleton from three rows back. ‘Shall we get to the point?’

  ‘If you’ll allow me to give my report, Miss Middleton, I’ll make time for questions at the end.’ Dan didn’t smile at her. He was beginning to see why Sally didn’t like her: pushy. ‘So, Devon and Cornwall Police was alerted at just after five this morning to a fire on Exmouth beach by a member of the public, and shortly afterwards officers sent to the scene discovered a body in the embers of that fire. Currently we have no idea who the deceased may be. I will know more after the post-mortem tomorrow.’

  He looked directly into the TV camera that was facing him. ‘I would like to ask the person who made the phone call, or anybody else who saw anything to do with the incident, to come into Exeter Road police station, or contact us via the numbers on the bottom of your screens.’

  He nodded back at Lisa Middleton. ‘To answer your question, we cannot tell whether this is a suspicious death or a terrible accident until after the post-mortem. Please don’t go away and speculate. You will know more tomorrow, and I’d rather you printed the facts.

  ‘Any more questions?’

  ‘So, was it a teenagers’ Halloween party gone wrong?’

  ‘I can only repeat myself, Miss Middleton, I will know more tomorrow. Thank you. You will be informed via the usual channels of any further information as soon as possible. Otherwise, please wait until the next press conference is called.’ He got up, removed his tie-clip microphone, and stood next to Chief Superintendent Oliver as the press filed out.

  ‘Well, you handled that a bit better than your first one,’ she said with a faint smile.

  ‘Not so scared now,’ he said. ‘But if Middleton runs with a “teenagers’ party goes wrong” story in tonight’s edition, I won’t be happy.’

  ‘It’s our best guess, though, isn’t it?’

  ‘Mmm.’ He stuffed his hands in his pockets and took himself back to the station and up to the MI room. His stomach growled, it had been a long time since breakfast.

  Once inside, Dan made himself a fresh coffee and searched in vain for something to eat. ‘Where are the doughnuts?’ he complained.

  Sally marched across to the drinks corner. ‘There’s a new regime,’ she said. ‘Cakes only on birthdays.’ She opened a cupboard, rummaged about in a carrier bag, and said, ‘Here, have a pack of these if you’re hungry.’ She threw him a tiny pack of nuts and raisins.

  Dan caught them and stared at her. ‘What's brought this on, Sal?’

  She tutted and went back to her computer station, muttering, ‘As if you didn’t know. As if it’s not blindingly obvious. As if you’re not all gabbing on about me behind my back as it is. This,’ she said, slapping herself on the bottom, ‘and this,’ poking herself in the stomach, ‘have got to go. And if I’m on a diet, so are you lot. Sir,’ she added.

  ‘Right, that’s me told,’ said Dan, running his tongue around the inside of his mouth. ‘Glad I asked. It’s good we’ve got that all cleared up then.’ He opened the little bag with his teeth and emptied the contents in one mouthful. He chewed for a minute or two, and tried not to smile at the expectant faces peering up at him from their computer screens. ‘Trainee DC Foster?’

  Foster leapt to his feet and grabbed his coat. ‘Yes, sir. What can I get you?’

  Dan looked at Foster, aged twenty-eight and thin as a whippet, and then at Sally, aged considerably more and resembling a purple duvet in her tight suit, and decided he didn’t want the fight. He took a fiver from his wallet. ‘Just get me a prawn sandwich, please, and some more milk for coffee corner.’

  Foster couldn't hide his disappointment as he slunk through the door.

  ‘DS Ellis is right, you lot,’ he said. ‘We need to be fit to do our jobs, so healthy food only from now on in the MI room.’ He picked up his coffee and headed for the door. ‘Of course, what I eat in my office, is entirely up to me …’

  * * *

  Sally interrupted Dan as he was engrossed in checking the evidence folder for the Team One robbery case. He felt sick to his stomach every time he found an error in the paperwork or a lack of proper supporting evidence. Jim Waite led the team well but was not good with detail. He frowned up
at her. There was no way the first court case with him in charge was going to collapse from poor evidence presentation. No way.

  ‘Sorry, boss, know you’re busy. PM’s at eight tomorrow morning. Fox is cramming it in before that hit and run victim. He thinks it will be straightforward.’

  ‘Right, I’ll be there, thanks.’ Dan made a note of the time. ‘We might have something to go on once that’s done and the flowerpot men have examined the evidence properly.’

  ‘Bill is back at the station. They’ve closed down the crime scene at the beach – as you suggested. He’s left a PCSO there to talk to any passers-by. He and Ben have got both sacks spread out on the tables in the evidence room. Why don’t you pop down and have a look?’

  * * *

  The evidence room was long and narrow: the whole of one long wall taken up with scrubbable Formica-topped tables. Bagged and sorted evidence was kept in a separate locked section, the key guarded by the duty sergeant. Sergeants Bill Larcombe and Ben Bennett had emptied each bag onto a different table and were sifting through the contents, separating types of waste into piles.

  ‘Afternoon, gents,’ said Dan, pulling on protective gloves as he surveyed the piles. ‘Anything look interesting?’

  ‘Boss,’ acknowledged Bennett. ‘It’s a pain when we can’t bag it all individually on site, but we’ve got several cigarette and joint butts, which may yield DNA.’ He tweezered another butt from the inside of a reeking beer can. ‘If any of the partygoers have form, we’ve got ’em.’

  ‘Good. Bill?’

  ‘Nothing’s jumped out at me so far, except this,’ he said, and handed Dan a sealed evidence bag with a scrap of paper inside.

  Dan turned it over. It was a sheet of music paper, with scruffy handwritten notes and staves drawn in pencil. ‘Hmm, could be guitar chords,’ he said. ‘Maybe one of them had a guitar with them, and maybe we could pick that up on CCTV. Good find.’ He placed the bag back on the sealed pile. ‘Anything else?’

  Bill passed him another bag. ‘Rolling tobacco, almost empty. I'll send it to the lab for testing as I could detect a whiff of cannabis. Other than that, cans, bottles, food wrappers, fag ends; it’s not looking too promising, boss.’

  ‘No footprints, of course,’ added Bennett. ‘And there didn’t seem much point in dragging in the stones they sat on.’ He grinned and reached across the table. ‘We do, however, have one surviving boot from the victim, and,’ he held the boot up, ‘judging by the state of it, I’d suggest our victim might have been a member of the homeless fraternity.’

  Dan grinned back as he surveyed the boot. ‘Okay, I think you might be right. That is one knackered piece of footwear. That’s not bad, you know. We have two leads I can get the team working on, and the PM is early tomorrow. We should be getting results back from that within a few days.’

  ‘Any progress on our new DI, Boss?’ asked Larcombe.

  ‘Advert’s out, applications are coming in, so I guess it will happen.’

  ‘You don’t want it to though, do you?’

  Dan shrugged. ‘I know it’s too much work for me, managing the whole department and a team, but I like what we have. Someone new could really mess with the dynamics.’

  ‘Not if you get to choose,’ said Larcombe. ‘There are some good sergeants out there waiting for their chance. We could help you to house-train one.’ He glanced at Bennett. ‘We won’t be around forever, you know.’

  ‘I’ll get on to it, but not just now,’ said Dan, and he escaped into the corridor. Was he struggling with his workload? He thought he was coping fine. Although he probably wasn’t the best person to judge. Ideally, he wanted to hang on to Team Two as his murder and serious crime team, and let Team One do all the domestics, burglaries, et cetera. Another DI could work across both teams, he supposed.

  5

  Professor Navinder Patel dipped into a paper bag of barfi and chewed the pistachio treat, wiping sugar from his chin and off the paper he was grading. It was almost eleven and he was finding it hard to concentrate. He’d caught the morning news before leaving home and now his heart was beating erratically and he couldn’t stop looking at the clock.

  He jumped when the tap came at his door. Tana entered, threw her bag on the floor and dropped into the single chair opposite his desk. Her grin told him all he needed to know. Wiping his mouth more carefully with a tissue, he took a calming breath. ‘So … did you do it? Did you murder that poor man?’

  ‘Not murder, Nav. A necessary sacrifice,’ she said. ‘It was amazing, though. I never thought it could be like this.’ She spread her hands out in front of her and raised them slowly, wiggling her fingers. ‘I took them with me all the way. The fire, the booze, just enough to get them going, not to send them to sleep. Kegan was magnificent at the crucial moment, and they all helped to chuck the old tramp onto the fire. And then … and then the sacrifice burned, Nav. It burned and they were in awe. We actually did it!’ She clasped both hands into a tight grip to contain herself. ‘You have no idea what I’ve got recorded on my phone.’ She dug the phone out of her bag. ‘D’you want to have a look?’

  Patel raised his hands to ward her off, his top lip curled in revulsion. ‘Please, show me nothing. I saw enough on the television this morning. How could you, Tana? I want nothing more to do with this. And …’ he pulled himself up out of his chair and breathed pistachio fumes over her as his voice became a screech, ‘you must not mention my name in connection to this monstrous crime ever again. I cannot have my name associated with this … this murder. I cannot believe that you went ahead with this madness and I will have nothing more to do with you. Now, get out.’ He pointed towards the door, fear making his voice shake harder. ‘I am revoking your thesis and throwing you off the course; collect your belongings and leave the university.’ Face a livid purple, he crossed to the window and stood, shoulders heaving, expecting her to do as she was told.

  Tana sat very still. ‘Are you, now? Throwing me off the course, are you? So, have you called the police, Nav?’

  He shook his head. ‘I am a gullible fool, but not an idiot. If I call the police, they will know I am involved. No, get out and I will keep quiet. You have my word.’

  ‘Too right you’re a fool, thinking you can throw me out and pretend I never existed. Thinking I might go away like some child you have told off. This is my life’s work, Nav. It’s what I’ve been planning for, and I’m not giving up now, oh no.’ She chewed the end of a fingernail and watched his sweating figure. ‘No, if the police find out, and they won’t, I’ve been way too clever for them, but if they do, I’m going to tell everyone it was your idea. It was, anyway.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t! Don’t you try to blackmail me, you little bitch.’ He made a lunge for the phone on his desk. ‘I’ll take you with me, I swear I will,’ he said, grasping the handset and waving it at her. ‘Not the burning of bodies, the murdering of people; that was all your idea. And look at the other students you have pulled into your web. What will happen to them when you are caught? What will happen to me? The lives you have ruined, Tana. Think of that. What have you done?’ He rested his burning face against the window, hands tight around the handset. ‘I think you have gone completely mad.’

  She chuckled. ‘Mad? Me? I’m saner than you are, you old creep.’

  He turned back to face her. ‘No, you’re not. I merely wanted you to test out your hypothesis regarding the growth of a cult. A belief system based on the Manson trials. With no risk to the students. And it was not my idea. You wanted to do it. I thought I was supervising a PhD, not this monstrousness. This murder of an innocent man.’

  She gave a slow smile. ‘One for the cleansing, one for the power, one for the purification. That’s what we said.’ Tana crossed the room and poked him three times in the chest to emphasise her words. ‘That’s what we agreed.’

  Patel’s voice grew shrill. ‘We made that up, Tana. Together in this room. Two years ago. We made all of it up, invented this cult. It’s not real. You can’t h
ave begun to believe all this …’ His eyes bulged. ‘Please, no more killing. You should go to the police yourself. End this, now.’ He held out the phone.

  Tana backed towards the door and shouldered her bag. ‘You’re scared. I should have known …’ She ran her hands through her hair and spat out a short laugh. ‘I never thought you would be the weak link, Nav. Ha. Well,’ she said, and placed her hand against the door. ‘You're in it with me right up to your pudgy little neck, Patel, so you’d better do exactly what I tell you, when I tell you, or your life really will be over.’ She stared at him, hard. ‘After all, I’m a weak and vulnerable student who you have totally manipulated, aren’t I? Not to mention the cash sitting in your account.’ She yanked the door open and left.

  Patel watched Tana swing away down the corridor. Such arrogance. Such confidence. He shuddered. He called in his secretary and told her to remove the girl from all university records. He wiped her out of existence, but waited for the reckoning that would surely come.

  6

  Tana’s followers met in the Reed Cafe in between lectures. Jay, gaunt, with jet black hair lying over his face, arrived first and ordered coffee, a croissant, and water, counting out the change with shaking fingers. He checked that Tana was nowhere to be seen and took his breakfast to a corner table where he could keep an eye on the door.

  Next in was Scarlett. She waved at him and gave her order at the counter, shifting her bag to her other shoulder. It was, as usual, full of stuff. He had no idea what she could carry around all the time that weighed so much. He watched the door. Finally, Amber came through, eyes to the floor. She didn’t acknowledge him, but he knew she’d seen him.

  At the counter, Scarlett put her hand on the other girl’s shoulder. Together they brought their drinks and food to the table.