The Death of the Elver Man (8 page)

In Ada’s world this was perfectly logical, even a sensible way of going about things. Alex was more concerned about the consequences should Ada stab someone by mistake and somehow the story of the mysterious creeper failed to
register
beyond the probable imaginings of a woman who saw all strangers as a threat. Ada, however, refused to give up her knife.

‘How’m I supposed to cut the bread then?’ she demanded. ‘’Tis not like I bought it special. Is just my kitchen knife.’

In the end Alex gave up and turned her attention to the
details she needed for her records. She wasn’t supposed to complete the social enquiry report until after Kevin’s trial but she hoped she might get some information she could feed to his solicitor, something to help him. Finally she left with a plastic bag filled with spare clothes and several loving
messages
for Kevin.

‘Well, what do you think of the Mallorys?’ Alex asked, as she buckled herself into Sue’s car. Sue began an attempt to turn the vehicle on the narrow road.

‘How are we supposed to get out of here?’ she demanded after several minutes of futile manoeuvring. Alex pointed down the stony track.

‘The only way is further in and then a loop left on to the A38,’ she said. They bumped along in silence for a few
minutes
before Sue said, ‘I hate rats.’

Alex grinned. ‘Lots of the lads keep them as pets. I had one in last week and he had a rat in his jacket pocket. He wanted to let it out on the desk while we talked.’

‘God, that’s horrible! What did you do?’

Alex shrugged. ‘Told him no. Rats have no sphincter
muscles
so they just wee and stuff as they walk.’

‘Yuck!’ Sue pulled a face then added, ‘There was
something
really vile in the bottom of my tea. Sort of green and lumpy.’

Alex looked at her in horror, ‘Oh what – that sounds like …’

Sue cut her off. ‘I know what it sounds like and I don’t want to even think about it okay?’

Alex’s car arrived back in the car park that Friday, as
promised
. Unfortunately so did the bill, excessive in spite of the fact she’d refused the offer of cosmetic repairs and limited her expenditure to the mechanically necessary. Alex sat at her desk, punching her calculator as she tried to work out whether she should try to claim on the insurance and lose her no-claims bonus or try to squeeze the money out of her dwindling bank account. After five years of studying and
existing on part-time jobs her salary had looked almost
lavish
but now she had a house, a car and bills, seemingly from nowhere, pouring through her letterbox every week. Prices were rising every week and she was barely able to make her money stretch to the end of the month even without insanely high garage bills. But the one item she had to have to do her job was a car. She went through her bank statement for the third time trying to find a mistake, some area where she could economize. She didn’t even have a post office account with a few pounds tucked away for a rainy day, and in financial terms it was pouring outside. With a sigh she picked up her phone and called Sue.

‘It’s not much,’ she said, as they stepped into the front room.

Sue took a deep breath and sniffed appreciatively. ‘No cats! I love it already.’

Alex grinned as she turned on the light and drew the
curtains
at the front window. ‘We’re about six inches from the pavement,’ she said, ‘so I always pull the curtains at night. I can’t believe the number of people sitting in a lit room in full view.’

Sue tilted her head to one side. ‘What’s the problem with that?’ she asked.

‘Where did you do your training?’ asked Alex.

‘Exeter. I’m almost local though they’re very different round here. Much more … different than I expected.’

‘I trained in London,’ said Alex, ‘as Garry is always
pointing
out. But one thing I did learn is that a lot of the nasty weirdoes are opportunistic and they like to watch. They
wander
the street until they see something they like, then they watch. When they go home at night they fantasize about what they’ve seen. And then they come back and they come inside and act it all out. So you should always close your curtains after dark, especially if you’re a woman on your own.’

Derek Johns stared at the window, the frown on his dark face reflected in the ebbing twilight. The curtains were closed
tight – not a glimmer of light seeped out around the heavy material. From outside, the house looked unoccupied. Good. He nodded to himself and walked back along the muddy path, letting himself in through the creaking door. It was dim inside the cottage, the front room lit only by the flames of the fire in the hearth. Some light seeped in round the warped doorframe to the kitchen, but not enough to show outside, from the road. There were few cars out this far anyway, he thought, but he checked the back windows, just in case. All was dark and still as he opened the cupboards and prepared for his next task. He had a busy night ahead and he didn’t want to be disturbed.

Sue stood by Alex in the narrow kitchen, frowning as she watched her new friend. Alex flipped a chicken on to the chopping board and gestured to Sue with the other hand.

‘Now, here we have a chicken,’ she began, picking up a heavy knife with her left hand.

‘I know it’s a chicken,’ said Sue. ‘I’m not a total idiot.’

Alex put the knife down again and looked at her.

‘Okay, how would you cook it then?’

Sue thought for a moment and smiled disarmingly.

‘I’d give it to someone else,’ she said.

Alex sighed and picked up the knife again. ‘Well here’s the first lesson,’ she said, as she bent over the board, ‘… how to get eight meals – or four meals for the two of us – from one chicken.’

‘Does it involve dieting,’ asked Sue suspiciously.

Alex snorted in disgust. ‘I don’t think so. Now, first you take off the legs. Pull them back at the joint, here where they meet the body – see?’ She cut deftly through the skin,
exposing
the hip joints. ‘Now, hold the body and pull back until you hear the joint snap, then cut around here. Let the knife follow the natural line of the meat.’

Derek leaned on the table, using all his strength. There was a sharp cracking sound but the leg refused to separate.

‘Bugger,’ he muttered, hefting his heavy cook’s knife. He
worked it around the joint, wiggling the blade and feeling for the line with the point and tried again but it refused to give any more. Sighing heavily he reached across the table for the meat-saw. A few hearty strokes and the whole leg wobbled and splayed outwards, finally tearing free and falling to the floor. It lay on the spread newspaper, oozing slightly as it began to defrost. Muttering to himself, Derek picked it up, hoisted it over his shoulder and went out to the old scullery. He opened the lid to the large chest freezer that stood
humming
softly in the centre of the floor. Derek threw the leg in, slammed the lid and hurried back to the kitchen. With a bit of luck he’d get Frank’s other leg off before it defrosted too much.

‘Now,’ said Alex, placing the neatly trimmed legs in a baking tin, ‘we roast up the legs tonight. That’s one meal.’

Sue watched as she added herbs, lemon juice and a sprinkle of salt before putting the loosely covered meat in the oven. The chicken stood on the board looking rather forlorn, shorn of its lower limbs. Alex rinsed her hands under the tap and returned to her task.

‘Now, we get the wings and upper joints off,’ she said. ‘They’re very like the legs actually, smaller but there’s a lot of meat here.’ She pointed as she cut around the carcass, cleaning down to the bone with deft strokes. There was a bit of a tussle as the tendons stretched and refused to snap but Alex twisted the knife round to cut them and separate their next meal.

‘Get me a plastic bag from the drawer there will you?’ she asked as she pulled the smaller wings back and sliced through the thin bones making up the joint. Sue rummaged around, emerging with a plastic carrier.

‘No, one of the clear ones, on that roll there.’

Alex slid the pieces into the bag and tied the top, expelling all the air as she did so.

‘We can have these in a bit of a casserole or fry them up with garlic and have them with potatoes,’ she said. ‘So that’s two meals.’

Derek was in a hurry and the second leg wouldn’t come free despite hacking at it with the cook’s knife, so he had to resort to the saw again. It was messy and little gobbets of flesh stuck in the teeth and spattered on to the floor around him. The saw snagged on the bone and he felt his feet slip but the leg came free at last as he hacked at the hip joint. Reluctantly he decided he’s better finish up for tonight and wait for
everything
to freeze again.

Alex turned the legless carcass towards her on the board and took out a thinner knife. ‘This is a filleting knife,’ she said, ‘good for fish and stuff like this. You can use a boning knife but I like the flexibility of the blade to do this bit.’

She slid the point of the knife along the breastbone and carefully cut through the meat, peeling it free and lifting it off in one piece. There was a slight grating as the edge of the knife hit the ribcage and Sue flinched.

‘Sorry,’ said Alex. ‘Still, you can’t be a good cook if you’re too squeamish.’ She flipped the breast over and carefully
separated
the edge of the fillet, making a neat pocket in each. ‘There you go,’ she said proudly. ‘We pack these up and they’ll make Chicken Kiev. Three meals.’

Sue took the bags of meat and followed Alex out into the back porch where an old freezer stood in the corner. Alex opened the door and took the bags, laying them neatly with other similar bundles. Sue peered in at the rows of neatly labelled packets.

‘This is a bit creepy. It looks like some serial killer’s fridge,’ she said. Alex slammed the door shut. ‘Only if he’s a cannibal too,’ she countered.

They went back inside to the warm kitchen, the rich smell of roasting chicken greeting them.

‘How about opening that bottle of wine while I clear up and do the vegetables?’ asked Alex.

Sue rummaged in a drawer and drew out a corkscrew. ‘That’s three meals,’ she said, as she sliced through the lead foil and uncoiled it carefully. ‘That’s impressive but you did say four.’

Alex picked up the carcass and dropped it into a large pot,
covered it in water and set it to simmer. ‘And this will make a thick, hearty Italian soup with some pasta and a few veg,’ she said.

‘I’m rather glad you didn’t get the head too,’ said Sue as she poured the wine. ‘I dread to think what you could have made from that!’

Derek turned the severed leg over and stripped some of the meat from the calf before returning everything to the freezer. It was starting to bleed and he worked quickly, his filleting knife grating on the bone as he cut. The leg was an awkward shape and the freezer lid wouldn’t close so, cursing as he worked, he hacked through the knee, flinging the two pieces in before slamming it shut. He decided to clean up the worst of the mess before making the fillets and poured a bucket full of hot water from the kettles set ready on the stove. The newspapers went on the fire and he scrubbed around the table and across the floor several times before he was satisfied. He knew he couldn’t disguise all the blood from a professional but he wasn’t expecting visitors and he planned to destroy the cottage in a well-planned accident when he was finished.

He cleaned his knives carefully and put them back in the pockets of his butcher’s roll. The saw he hung up in the
scullery
out of sight. Then he took the filleting knife and began to slice the meat from the leg into short, narrow lengths. Too long and they’d be rejected, he thought, just wide enough and thick enough and they’d be gobbled up. It was full dark when he laid his knife to one side. He was tempted to try out his idea at once but it was beginning to rain and he was tired, cold and surprisingly hungry. Wrapping the strips carefully in newspaper, he placed them in the fridge before
rummaging
through his meagre supplies for some supper. After a few moments’ thought he took down an iron frying pan, black with age and use, and rinsed his hands off in the sink before putting a couple of eggs on to fry. He propped some bread up in front of the fire to toast and stood in the glow of the fire, humming contentedly as he considered a good evening’s work.

The prison gate at Bristol was as unwelcoming as ever and Alex felt her spirits sag beneath the shadows of the high walls. She glanced back down the street leading to the car park gates and wondered what it might be like to live always in sight of such an intrusive and uncompromising building. Did you get used to it, she wondered. Did you leave for work in the morning and nod absently at the trickle of pale
figures
drifting past in their unfashionable clothes or did you watch through barely opened curtains until they had turned the corner and moved on to become someone else’s
problem
? Reaching in to collect her briefcase and warrant card she slammed the car door and locked it carefully. The car was running very well, even better than before her unfortunate encounter with the office bins, but the locks were a bit tricky on the passenger side.

One of the officers at the reception desk was the same as her last visit and he nudged his companion as Alex entered, case open ready for the search.

‘Oh ho – here comes trouble,’ he said grinning at her. His
partner took the proffered briefcase and poked through it rather gingerly.

‘Just you today then?’ 

Alex nodded, relieved they’d taken last time’s events so well. Warrant card notwithstanding, she’d half expected to be led into a small windowless room for the dreaded full body search.

‘Yes, this is a professional visit,’ she said. ‘I was doing a favour for his mother last time.’

‘She’s the talk of the canteen,’ said the first officer. ‘In fact, we’ve had new guidelines come down about searching
following
your last visit so I guess you done us a favour really.’

Alex gathered up her belongings and headed for the side door into the visitors area. As an official visitor she could bypass the main visitors’ entrance with its queues and groups of relatives haggling over what they could and could not take in with them. Today she was glad of the short cut that let her into the visiting room ahead of everyone else. She chose a seat off to the left, in the corner nearest the door to the prison. She figured they were less likely to be disturbed, at least for a short while, and it gave a modicum of privacy.

When Kevin shuffled in to the empty visiting room Alex was shocked at the decline in his appearance. It had only been two weeks since her last visit but he seemed to have aged years in that time. He slumped into the seat opposite her and stared at the table, his hands clasped together as if to disguise the faint trembling that ran through his whole body. She glanced at his head, half expecting to see the first grey hairs but he was as resolutely mousy as ever. Without
thinking
she reached out and laid her hand over his. His fingers were icy cold.

‘Kevin. Kevin? Are you okay?’

He snatched his arms back and tucked his hands out of sight under the table.

‘Kevin! Look at me. I’ve come to see if there’s anything you need. Can I help?’

His head jerked up and she saw his eyes were red-rimmed,
as if he’d been crying. He opened his mouth, about to speak, then shook his head and stared at the table again. Alex was at a loss how to get through to him.

‘I’ve brought you some clean clothes from home,’ she said, ‘and I’ve been to see you mother. She sends her love ….’

Kevin raised his head and glared at her. ‘Girt load of good
that
is,’ he snapped. ‘What’s she doin’ ‘bout me, eh? Nothing, that’s what.’

Alex took a deep breath before replying, ‘It’s not that easy Kevin. There’s hearing dates to wait for and disclosure from the police—’

Kevin cut her off. ‘Don’t make no difference do it? I’m in here and if I don’t get out soon I’m not never going to. So you go and tell her to get me a decent solicitor and get him to talk to bloody Brian and get me
out
.’

His voice had risen to a shout and the officer next to the door stepped forwards hurriedly, ready to intervene. Alex waved to show she was fine and he retreated somewhat reluctantly.

‘Brian?’ she asked gently, ‘Is that Brian Morris?’

Kevin was slumped forwards on the table but he moved his head in what looked like a nod.

‘Why Brian Morris?’ Alex asked. Bloody little Brian, Brian the curse of her professional life – don’t let him be mixed up in this too, she thought.

Kevin kept his head down on the table but gave a shrug, muttering something incomprehensible. Alex leaned over him and poked him hard.

‘Cut this out Kevin! Sit up and talk to me or you can go back to your cell and fester.’

Kevin sat up abruptly and blinked at her in surprise.

‘That’s not nice. You’m supposed to be on my side.’

Alex felt a brief flash of guilt at her harsh words but she refused to back down.

‘I’m supposed to advise you and assist you,’ she told him, ‘but that doesn’t mean I have to put up with all this silly game playing. And I don’t think it’s helping to hold your hand and
tell you everything’s going to be just fine when it probably isn’t.’

There was a pause as they eyed one another warily. Alex continued. ‘So tell me about Brian. What’s he got to do with all this?’

Kevin pulled a face, still sulking, but he did answer her question.

‘He seen me, that night. On the other bank just as I was heading off to see the Elver Man. He was getting ready to pack up on account of it bein’ so wet and there not being much running on his side. That’s not much of a spot, over there. Only a divvy would bother, so Brian gets to use it ’cos no-one else wants it, see? Reckon his nets was pretty much empty, so he waved at I and next time I looked over he were gone.’

Alex felt her heart beat faster but tried to keep her voice steady. She didn’t want to give Kevin any false hope, not when he was so fragile. She made a note to talk to the guards before she left, for she was seriously worried about him.

‘Are you sure it was Brian Morris?’ she said. Kevin nodded. He was looking better now someone was listening to him. He sat up straight in the chair and there was a tiny glimmer of his old cockiness. ‘And you’re certain of the time – just as you were heading down to the bridge?’

‘Yep,’ said Kevin, ‘Only time I see anyone, that night. I’m walking maybe just past the sluice gate, near where the old canal joins, see?’

Alex did a quick mental calculation. If Brian had seen him that night he’d been about half a mile from the bridge where the Elver Man was parked. Even on such a foul night,
pushing
his pram full of elvers, Kevin was no more than 20
minutes
away. The police had said the Elver Man had been dead for at least four hours so Kevin couldn’t be the killer! She nodded, trying to keep her face calm, making cryptic little scribbles in the folder of notes on the table. She was in
dangerous
territory here she knew, discussing a crime for which Kevin had not been committed. If he gave her any
information
that could be used as evidence she would have to report it to the police and that would make her a witness for the prosecution. Not exactly the role she wanted and not likely to endear her to her colleagues or her probationers, but she was sure Kevin was innocent and no-one else in authority seemed willing to look at the case twice. If she didn’t stand up for him then who would?

A door opened, this time on the left of the visiting room, and a line of prisoners shuffled in, spreading themselves around the room to receive their visitors. Kevin stiffened and his face paled as he caught sight of one man at the back of the group. Alex glanced over casually but caught the eye of the cause of Kevin’s concern. A tall, well-built man with dark eyes stared at her for an instant and bared his teeth in a smile that was almost feral. He has a mouth full of gold teeth and he flicked his tongue at her before she could look away. The guard behind Kevin moved swiftly to stand between the man and Alex, manhandling him roughly into a seat away from Kevin’s table and muttering something in his ear. He gave Alex a nod as he resumed his post and she responded with a quick smile, trying to disguise how much the incident had shaken her. Kevin looked ghastly, she realized. He’d turned a horrible grey colour and seemed to be struggling for breath. Glancing down she saw his hands were clenched tightly together on the table in an effort to stop them shaking. She reached out to touch him, hoping to offer some comfort, but he jerked away and twisted round in his seat to signal to the guard.

‘I’m done here,’ Kevin said, rising to his feet. The officer looked at Alex and shrugged before taking Kevin by the shoulder and leading him out into the Remand area.

Alex looked around, careful to avoid the gaze of the
dark-haired
man. At that moment the door to the visitors’ area opened and the day’s procession of visitors flooded in, a
ragtag
mix of old and very young, happy and fearful. She slipped past and out of the door amidst the confusion of greetings and raised voices stepping thankfully into the relative calm of the waiting room. On the other side of the room beside the
exit to the gate was the female guard from her visit with Ada Mallory who flashed a quick grin of recognition.

‘Just you today then?’ she asked, as she unlocked the door through to the main reception area. Alex shook her head at her as she rummaged in her briefcase for the all-important warrant card.

‘Yeah, I’ve not brought the pantomime this time. Say, do you ever work on the Remand wing?’

The woman pulled a face. ‘Sometimes, though I’m mainly here for the female visitors. They don’t like us mixing with the cons – seem to think we can’t handle it. I do a couple of shifts a week at the moment because we’re so overcrowded, they need every officer they can get some days.’

Alex smiled at her. ‘I wonder where they get their ideas from sometimes. I used to work in a probation hostel at night before I qualified and there was always trouble if I had to work the shift with a man. Two women – no trouble at all.’

‘Right. I tell you, there’s some here I hate working with. They just have to walk through the door and all the inmates start to square up to them. Maybe it’s the testosterone or something. Anyway, you were asking about the Remand wing?’

Alex outlined her concerns about Kevin as quickly as she could. The waiting room was empty and a lull in the comings and goings of visitors was rare. The woman pursed her lips as Alex described the dark-haired man.

‘Sounds like he’s run foul of the didicoys,’ she said.

Alex tried to hide her shock at this statement. She’d heard the term around the office, a disparaging reference to the
travellers
and groups of gypsies who followed the horse markets and fun fairs that rotated through the West Country from April to early November. It was not considered polite, the local equivalent of ‘pikey’ from her native Essex.

‘Don’t look at me like that,’ said the officer. ‘Them’s not proper gypsies most of them. They’s just lazy bastards that don’t want to do a decent day’s work. Just fly-by-night
con-men
looking for something to steal.’ Her tone was bitter as if
the ‘didicoys’ represented a personal insult. She turned back to the door, unlocking it with a great rattle of keys.

‘They conned my Nan out of most of her savings,’ she added as she pulled at the heavy iron door. ‘Told her they’d fix her roof after the storms last year. Course, they just grabbed the money, splashed a bit of cement on and took all the lead flashing off with them.’

Alex opened her mouth to speak but found herself lost for words.

‘Well, anyway, don’t you worry. I’ll keep an eye out for your lad. There’s a couple of decent blokes on the Remand an’ all, so I’ll let them know.’

‘Thanks,’ said Alex as she stepped through to the reception hall.

‘I’m Margie, by the way,’ added the woman as she closed the door behind her.

’I’m Alex—’ the door closed with a clang, but she saw Margie nod and smile in acknowledgement through the tiny barred window.

There was no getting round it, Alex thought as she bowled merrily through the lanes towards the office, she needed to talk to Brian. She was not surprised he’d said nothing about seeing Kevin that night. Elvering was almost a way of life for the local men, but it was poaching and the river wardens were coming down very hard on everyone they caught. There was a lot of talk about the dwindling stocks of eels and the need to protect the baby elvers as they made their long and arduous journey up the rivers and over the fields to the eel equivalent of their ancestral home. Elvers were a delicacy in some parts of the world and they represented a short-lived but rich stream of income for those willing to brave the
elements
and the wardens. Getting Brian to talk to her, let alone make a statement to the police, would not be easy.

Derek stood on the footbridge over the canal, just up from the sluice gate that closed the huge drainage system off from
the river, and peered around him. It was early morning and the mist was rising from the surrounding land as the spring sunlight began to suck the winter moisture from the sodden earth. The air was still and around him came the sounds of wildlife waking to greet the warmer weather. Birds called from the bushes, seeking mates or claiming their territory, croaks and clucks from small groups of waterfowl echoed eerily up the canal and there was a nervous rustling from the reeds along the bank as the smaller mammals peered out into the daylight. The barges that had once made this a busy port had long departed and nature had returned to claim the river and the shallower canals. Derek coughed, hawked and spat into the water below the bridge and there was an instant’s stillness at this, the only human sound on the Levels. After a moment one bird called, then another and gradually the morning song of the wild resumed around him. Derek was oblivious to it all. Once he was sure he was alone he focussed his attention on the river below, peering down at the murky waters seeking signs of life.

‘He’s a lazy bastard is Mr Pike,’ his father had told him. ‘Look, down there, see?’

The young Derek had stared into the muddy stream,
desperate
to see something, but all he had been able to make out was the sunlight reflecting off the water.