Dead Of Winter (Willis/Carter #1)(14)
‘You can’t ignore it, John. You can’t stick your head in the sand . . .’
‘Thank you for your support in the meeting this morning.’ He was petulant.
They listened to the sound of doors banging: people in the corridor outside his office. The Murder Squad in full work frenzy. It was what they lived for. It was what they did. But Davidson had had enough. He was six months from retiring and every part of his body and soul wanted out now, wanted a new life; he deserved it.
‘It’s no shame to admit the procedures let us down at the time. Everything’s in the open these days,’ Harding said as she sat down across from him. Davidson pursed his lips, leant forward, elbows, forearms on the desk, and pressed his fingertips together. He didn’t answer. He looked at her coldly. She glared back. ‘We did our best with what we had at the time.’ Davidson sighed, annoyed, exasperated; Harding stayed cool: ‘Reopen the Carmichael case, John.’
He flashed her a defiant look. ‘No.’
She persevered. ‘These are different times; transparency is the new gospel of the day.’
‘No . . . not transparency, people just want to know every sordid fact, even if they don’t understand it. They won’t care about technical reasons why we didn’t get a conviction in this case. Why should they? The buck will stop with me . . . I have everything to lose now. I made the mistake last time of thinking I would come out of it with a bright future ahead. I thought I would take on the case and reap the glory – after all, Carmichael was a war hero and a well respected officer. Carmichael wasn’t even capable of an alibi. It didn’t take long into the investigation for me to realize I had backed the wrong bloody horse.’
Chapter 7
Carmichael hauled Jumper’s body out into the snow and stood over it. The wind and snow swirled around him, as if he stood inside a Christmas paperweight that someone had shaken. Sophie had had one in her stocking. It was plastic with a reindeer inside. She had been so excited about Christmas. She came into their bed that last Christmas morning and hugged his neck and he had breathed in her sleepy smell and knowing there would never be a more perfect love. Like the first day he’d held her in his arms, wet from the womb, and he’d vowed to protect her forever.
‘Come on then.’ He had picked her up in his arms and carried her to the window and held her tightly as he opened the curtain very gradually. Sophie had held her breath for a few seconds as she pressed her palms to the cold glass and then gasped. Outside the snow was falling.
Now the sky and the ground merged as the blizzard swirled around him and the dead sheep. He knelt beside Jumper and picked up handfuls of snow, his bloody hand leaving red prints on the white ground. He took out the knife from his belt and began skinning her.
Chapter 8
Sandford looked down from the window in the master bedroom at Blackdown Barn and watched the young policeman on duty at the gate. It was starting to snow again. The officer outside had been there since seven. It was mid-morning now. Inside the house it had fallen quiet. His SOCO team of four were spread out throughout the house, conducting grid searches in each room. He tapped on the window and the young officer turned around. Sandford made a T-sign with his fingers and the officer grinned and nodded. Just as Sandford turned back from the window his eye was drawn up to the corner of the room and something sparkling there. He stood on the stepladder to reach into the corner of the ceiling cornice. A staple was punctured into the plaster. He picked out the mini pliers from his tool belt and gently wiggled it free. With the staple came a tiny fragment of plastic sheeting. He looked at it on the edge of the pliers. He held it in his hand and phoned Robbo.
‘What’s the thickness?’ Robbo asked.
‘I would say one mil. PVC.’ Sandford looked along the ceiling. ‘Puncture marks every metre.’
‘Okay,’ answered Robbo. ‘Rolls of plastic sheeting, one mil by a metre. I’ll find the manufacturers and get samples. How’s it looking out there? You dismantled the whole house yet?’
‘Yeah, funny . . . nearly. We’re going to start digging up the basement today. Needed to get some results back from the gym equipment enquiry first.’
‘Yeah, I followed it up. There was a runner, a multi-gym, and an exercise bike down there. What’s the flooring?’
‘It’s felt. I’ll get it bagged up and sent your way before we start digging. Did the gym company say they’d cleaned it yet?’
‘Yes. It’s been sent out again so no chance of DNA from it. Do you think there’s a chance there’s a body under the basement?’
‘Could be. We’re still looking for the kid in the Arsenal shirt. We’ve put cameras down the drains, no extra vermin activity. No lumpy stuff that could be flesh. Pitch pipes too; they’re old – at least fifty years – and they’re blistered so if there were any chunks of flesh larger than a couple of inches square they would have got snagged.’
‘Is it freezing out there?’ Robbo reached over for the cafetière as he smiled to himself. The cafetière was wrapped in a leopard-print body warmer: a present from his wife: tongue in cheek, homage to his feminine side. He found it really useful; it kept his coffee hot for an hour.
‘We’ve got heaters in the mobile unit out the front. We can make tea. But yes . . . it’s bloody freezing. I’m sure I’ll be used to it by the time I finish here – either that or it’ll be spring. It’s a massive house.’