He jumped down from the cab, walked to the back of the truck and unhitched the rear panel, letting it down into a ramp. Inside, the cattle compartment was full of shifting shadows and eager whispers.
‘Come on then,’ he said. ‘Let’s do this.’
3
NIGHT SHIFT
SERGEANT PRAVEEN KAUR SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN back at work.
The problem was that the Briar Hill incident was throwing out so many offshoots in terms of just getting statements from everyone, never mind any of the forensics, and with staffing having been hacked back year after year because of budget cuts, it was all hands to the pumps, as the Chief said. He’d made the right noises, of course – told her that if she wanted to she could take whatever time she needed to cope with the aftermath of what she’d seen in that shed – and she had no doubt that he meant it, because Chief Inspector Connors was a decent man, but all the same she could see him wondering how he was going to cover her absence even as he said it.
So no, according to any right-thinking person she shouldn’t have been in the office collating witness statements in the early hours. She should have been snuggled up in bed after a Thai takeout, a bit of a cry, and a long conversation with her Auntie Raisa (although ‘conversation’ might have been stretching it a bit) about why policing was far too dangerous a job and what was wrong with starting a family, anyway. But then she’d have had nothing to distract her from remembering the thing that had come out of the shed.
The problem was that Prav was not a right-thinking person, at least as her Auntie might consider such things. Prav liked this. Collating and filing and organising helped to defuse the chaos, whereas sitting around at home in her slippers watching daytime television just let the chaos spread unchecked. She could have hung around at the allotments with the scene-of-crime crew but she’d only have been making a nuisance of herself and not actually contributing anything. Coming in after the front desk had closed meant that she could work uninterrupted by members of the public coming in to complain about their parking tickets or with things needing to be signed. And it wasn’t as if she was on her own. Spencer, the duty sergeant, was downstairs, and Ryland and Lennox were on patrol, which meant that they were in and out of the station all night.
The wheels were turning, and as long as she was helping to turn them, she could see this ride through to the end and sleep happily when it was all dotted and crossed.
After that disastrous interview, Hughes had been transferred to the station at Watling Street in Stoke, since the custody suite at Burton had been closed over a year ago because there wasn’t enough money to refurb it. Everett Clifton had been shot dead in a field. Dennie Keeling and David Pimblett were all in hospital, she recovering from some kind of seizure, while he was recovering from his mauling at the hands (and teeth) of that huge unnamed assailant that everyone in the station was calling ‘Chewie’, though never to the media and definitely not in earshot of the Chief. There was no question of Viggo being destroyed, since he had obviously been defending his mistress against a violent attacker.
No, these two, physical injuries aside, weren’t the ones making all the work. It was the list of names that Pimblett had supplied – the ones who he accused of having been accomplices to Hughes and Clifton – that needed checking out. It seemed like he’d named half the tenants of the Briar Hill allotments. What the hell had been happening there over the summer?
That had not been a fun interview either – though not for anything he’d said or done during it, so much as the exchange that had happened after she had put her notebook away.
‘When you and I went to that farm,’ she’d said, ‘you already suspected that the girl might be there, didn’t you?’
David’s eyes were guarded as he replied, ‘What makes you say that?’
‘Because if you didn’t know then and only found out later, you wouldn’t have made the call anonymously. You’d have given your name. You didn’t give your name because you didn’t want to have to explain why you failed to report that you thought she was at the farm very first thing. So. Why didn’t you say anything?’
‘Because they threatened my family, okay?’ he said, probably thinking that he sounded defiant. ‘I had to make sure that my wife and daughter were safe first. I told the police as soon as I could.’
‘Which gave Hughes and Clifton enough warning to move her somewhere else, obviously.’
He fiddled with his hospital bracelet, avoiding her eyes. Most of his torso and left arm were strapped up and according to the doctors he was lucky that they were still attached to each other. He must have been in considerable pain, but he’d told her that he wasn’t taking any morphine at that moment because he wanted to give her as clear an account as possible. She had to credit him with that, she supposed, but all the same she couldn’t not pursue it. ‘You knew that Lauren was probably being raped and tortured as we stood there on the doorstep getting fobbed off by that bloody woman – and you let us get fobbed off.’
‘Yes!’ he said, and when he looked at her again she saw how haunted he was by that decision. ‘And all I could see was it happening to my little girl instead. What was I supposed to do? What would you have done?’
‘I’d have trusted the person sitting next to me in the car,’ she retorted. ‘You should have trusted me, David.’
‘Ardwyn chose the
