Cold Revenge (Willis/Carter #6)
Lee Weeks
For Michael James Evans
Esgyn ar adenydd can
(Rise on the wings of song)
Prologue
Jess the springer spaniel’s whole body wagged in excitement as she dived in and out of the debris washed up with the floodwater on the bank of the River Lea. Philip Greenaway was glad he’d worn his Wellingtons for his walk in the Lee Valley Park. The mud was thicker than he’d thought it would be; the river had burst its banks and black silt spewed up over the grassy verge.
‘That’s it,’ he muttered to himself, as the first signs of a new deluge of rain landed in heavy drops on his mac and bounced off the fast-flowing river. ‘We’re done, Jess,’ he called out in the dog’s direction, shouting above the noise of the roaring water. She popped out to look at him and then turned back and stepped further onto the platform of debris, burying her head into the water so that three quarters of her body was no longer visible.
Philip was anxious now; he knew the dog was resting her weight on the carpet of broken twigs and floating debris at the edge of the river bank.
‘Jess!’ he called, more insistent this time, approaching the water’s edge. His feet sank through the skin of vegetation and lodged in the mud beneath. Steadying himself, he lifted one foot free, found firmer ground, then moved the other, and gingerly edged sideways towards the dog. She was just feet away when the river surged and filled his boots with icy water, tipping him backwards and seating him in the freezing water up to his waist, and he felt his body start sliding with the current. He grabbed at the branches of a fallen tree, whilst making a desperate attempt to get hold of Jess’s collar. Just managing to hook his finger beneath it, he pulled her back towards him as he lifted his feet and tried to propel himself backwards to the bank. And it was then that he saw the arm, waving as it dipped and rose in the racing water, and, as the weeds parted in the dog’s wake, a woman’s head surfaced from the debris, her white eyes looking skyward, her neck cut open, head thrown back, and the weeds catching around her face.
Chapter 1
Monday 9 October 2017
Detective Chief Inspector Dan Carter stood on the bank of the churned-up River Lea as the water sped past below him.
‘Thanks, Mr Greenaway, sorry to keep you.’ Philip Greenaway was wrapped in a foil blanket, standing forlornly and staring out at the river, watching the team of search officers scouring the opposite bank. The day had never really got light; more rain was on its way in the October storms that were bringing the first snow of the winter to the UK.
‘Are you a regular walker here?’
‘Yes, most days, but I wouldn’t have seen her if Jess hadn’t disturbed all the floating stuff at the edge of the river. The woman was tucked in beneath a fallen tree.’
His dog was on a lead now; she sat impatiently waiting for her master to stop talking and resume walking.
Carter was looking upstream. ‘I’m just working out where she could have gone in? This place is just a maze of lakes and waterways, isn’t it? Do you know it well?’ Carter already knew a fair bit about Greenaway from the police check. He knew he was a retired civil servant whose wife had died five years before and he had never had so much as a speeding ticket.
‘Yes, I’m a volunteer here in the summer. She has to have gone in in the hundred feet of river above here, as beyond that there is the navigation channel, and she can’t have got through that.’
‘And is this place open twenty-four/seven?’
‘Not now in the winter months, the car park closes at seven-thirty.’
‘Thank you, that’s really helpful. Are you okay? You will get a call from Victim Support, so don’t hesitate to ask for counselling – we all need a bit of that now and again.’ Carter smiled.
‘Thank you, I’m okay, just cold and wet. But at least I’m not dead and dumped in the river, hey?’
Carter waited whilst his partner, Detective Sergeant Ebony Willis, walked back down the bank towards him.
‘Mr Greenaway,’ she said, as she drew close, ‘can I just ask, is that car park, up there on the right, the closest one? It’s called Meadowsweet.’
‘Yes, it is, I usually park there.’ Greenaway was staring into the river, in shock. ‘We’ve had a few drownings over the years. The water is very cold and people come up here on a hot day and think it’s a good idea to take a dip. But she didn’t look like one of those to me; she was . . .’ He paused as his recollections took him back to the face in the water. ‘She was injured, her neck . . . and her arm . . . it was almost as if she was waving at me, it was really odd.’ He looked from one detective to the other. Willis stared back but her eyes were watching the officers on the bank opposite as they edged closer to the water and prodded the debris with sticks. One of them looked up at her and shook his head.
Carter nodded his agreement with a concerned smile. ‘Thank you again for your help. We have your details and you have our number in case you need to get in touch. I’m sure you’ll be relieved to hear you can get off home now.’
‘Not with this one.’ He looked down at his dog and smiled. ‘She still needs a walk.’ He handed back the foil blanket and went off up the pathway, away from the scene, being dragged along by the dog.