Cold Justice (Willis/Carter #4)(105)

‘See, the thing is, son, I’ve realized you are everything I despise. You’re weak-willed, easily led and you’re a sneaky bully under all of it.’

‘I am what you made me.’

‘Now we get to the truth behind it all. Let’s blame someone else for the way I am, huh? You’re a sad excuse for a human being and I won’t carry you any further down this road. You’re on your own and I’m washing my hands of you. I’ve changed my mind about those bags of drugs. I’m taking them to the police station now and I’m telling them the truth. That’s all the evidence they’ve been waiting for. They’ll lock you away with all the other losers and throw away the key. I won’t even let your mother come and see you. It would kill her anyway. But, you don’t care about anyone but yourself.’

‘That’s not true. I’ve always tried to please you, to be like you.’

‘Don’t you fucking insult me, boy. You’re nothing like me. You hear me?’ Raymonds pushed Marky ahead of him. ‘Get over there with the pigs where you belong. Go on.’

‘Don’t, Dad, I’m not taking this from you any more.’

‘Not taking what? You’ll do as you’re told, you always have.’

Marky raised his fist and stood, sweating and shaking, in the middle of the field.

‘Come on, then, if you think you’re hard enough,’ Raymonds laughed.

At seven that morning, the search teams were parked in the driveway of Kellis House. The sun hadn’t long been up and there was a cold sharpness to the frosted landscape.

Willis was in the bathroom when Carter came to find her. She was wearing her forensic suit.

‘How was your night at the cottage?’ asked Carter.

‘Cosy. Russell liked it.’

‘How’s Lauren?’

‘She talked about Toby coming down today; she seems relieved by the idea.’

She turned to look at Carter from her kneeling position by the bathroom entrance. ‘I see you were busy – I would have come and helped.’

‘I know, but you have a big enough job as our stand-in FLO. We uncovered more complications than we needed here. I don’t know why, but I was hoping to uncover something historical. I thought Ella Simmons?’

‘I know, but this might explain the suicide, if he had something like this to cover up?’

‘Yeah, Bowie’s not going to like it, though – another tangent.’

‘We don’t know whether there’s another layer to this yet, guv. What’s under the heated floor?’

‘Sandford’s already done the tests, there’s nothing.’

‘We should have Sandford look upstairs in the master bedroom. If JFW killed someone here, they probably started off there, there might be blood or semen traces.’

‘You go and see him, he’s up there now.’

Willis climbed the stairs and stood waiting for Sandford to turn round. He was dusting the window for prints.

‘There’s not a lot of blood down there,’ Willis said.

‘Morning, Ebony. They laid the victim out on a plastic sheet; there’s the faint shred of black plastic caught on the heating mat.’ Sandford looked at her with a wry smile. ‘Do “banging”, “head” and “brick wall” come to mind? You have everything but the boy?’

‘Absolutely. Any semen?’

‘What, me?’

‘No.’ She smiled, embarrassed. She knew Sandford loved winding her up. There weren’t many people he liked enough to bother, so she felt honoured. ‘The bed, the floor, the en-suite?’

‘Haven’t got there yet.’ He looked down at the common. ‘That wouldn’t be my ideal choice for a place to bury a body, but at least it’s never going to get sold for development. It’s probably protected by the council.’

‘Difficult soil to dig?’ asked Willis as she came nearer and they stood together looking down at the common below. The sea was frothing and grey in the distance. Overhead, the bulky blankets of grey cloud sat wedged on one another. Each looked so full of rain and thunder it was almost biblical.

‘Sandy soil; you’d want to go deep but it’s not impossible,’ said Sandford.

‘Yes, and plenty of water to start the decomposition process off,’ added Willis.

‘The dogs have been let loose now, are you going outside?’ asked Sandford.

‘I’ll wait. There’s just as much of interest in here,’ replied Willis.

‘Thanks, but you know I’m married.’

Willis rolled her eyes and turned to leave. ‘If I can help, please just tell me.’

‘Ebony, you should retrain as a forensics expert. You love it and you’re good at it: you have a degree in it, for Christ’s sake. You’ve been a DC for how long now?’

‘Ten years.’

‘Do you think there is some reason why you’re not getting promoted?’

‘I want to stay in the MIT team.’

‘But what about your plans for the future: a house, a family some day? You’re thirty?’

‘Twenty-nine.’

‘Yeah, well, you’d better think about it, Eb. You should think about doing Robbo’s job or mine. Not literally, of course, you’d have to work for another MIT team.’