Blood Axe (9 page)

18

The high brick
wall of a post office faced him across the street. No one would see him leaving the jewellery shop. Turning right he hurried along the pavement, past a baker's and a burger bar. Worried he had been spotted, he crossed the road and slipped into an alley that ran between a grill bar and a restaurant. Pressing himself against the wall, he peered round the edge of the building. No one seemed to be taking any notice of him. Reassured, he returned to the street and continued on his way. At the corner of the road he turned left, opposite the museum. As soon as there was a gap in the traffic he darted across the road. The traffic lights were too far to his right to cross there. Striding quickly past Lendal Tower, he went over the bridge, manoeuvring his way through a throng of Japanese tourists. At the far end of the bridge he took a sharp turn to the right and made his way down a winding stone staircase that led to the river. The sight of the fast flowing water calmed him. The river would carry him out of danger.

He jogged quickly along the path past a rowing club, a small park, and the railings of a car park. Passing through a dark tunnel that ran beneath the railway bridge, the scene became wilder. He stopped and looked around. In front of him were narrow steps that cut through a steep grassy slope to the river. Behind him, concealed behind a whitewashed wall, a deep ditch ran along the bottom of another high slope. He pushed his way through a gap in the wall, to the ditch where his narrow boat lay concealed. Hearing footsteps approaching, he dropped to the ground and squatted, breathing silently, leaning against the wall. It felt clammy against his cheek.

He winced as a bramble caught at his hair. Carefully he shifted position and another thorn pricked the side of his head. He pressed his lips firmly together. The slightest gasp might betray his whereabouts. Gingerly he shifted sideways, but the thorn remained lodged in his skin. Leaves rustled with his cautious movement. He closed his eyes tightly and listened, alert to every tiny sound carried on the night breeze. In the distance he could hear shrill ululations, and roaring, and wondered if his raid had been discovered yet. Shrouded in a long hooded cloak, he had slipped away unseen from the site of his triumph, but he still had to get home. He would wait until the moon hid behind a cloud before pushing his way back on to the path, and dragging his boat down the steps to the water.

He opened his eyes and peered through the gap in the wall. Two people were walking along the path. They stopped when their feet were just inches away from his face. Squinting upwards he saw they were hand in hand so he guessed they were a man and a woman. As he waited impatiently, they both laughed at something the woman said. He held his breath, but they were too engrossed in each other to notice him. They sauntered away, towards the settlement he had just left. They weren't looking for him. He breathed more freely as they moved off.

At last it was safe for him to move around unseen. He ripped the bramble from the side of his head and raised himself up gradually on to all fours. Wolf-like, he sniffed the air, listening, his head tilting slowly from side to side, feeling the sounds of the night. After the excitement of the raid he was so pumped up it had been hard to keep still. He had thought he would burst, hiding in the ditch, terrified to move a muscle. He should be running, and shouting, brandishing his spoils to an admiring throng. Instead, he was painfully stiff from crouching in an awkward position. Gently he arched his back and stretched his feet, rotating his head slowly.

The sudden barking of a dog shocked him into frenzied action. The local people might already be on his trail. Forcing his way back through the gap, he pulled strongly on the rope to drag his boat over the top of the wall. One edge hit his shoulder as he lowered it, but there was no time to stop and examine his injury. Swiftly he carried the vessel down the steps to the rippling water. Tossing his bags ahead of him, he sprang on to the boat before it slid away from the bank. One of his bags fell open to reveal a glittering hoard. A few of his new treasures spilled out on to the damp wooden floor: chains and bracelets, and gold rings decorated with precious gems. Without pausing to pick them up, he continued rowing with a will. After his successful raid, he was determined to make his escape. He would never surrender so valuable a hoard.

The boat glided across the black water, its progress slowed by the current. He glanced back over his shoulder. There were lights, and he thought he could hear voices. Fighting to control his panic, he lunged forward. Seizing one of the heavy bags he tore open a black plastic bin liner inside it and allowed the contents to slip out and hit the surface of the water with a loud splash before disappearing beneath the murky ripples. He didn't look back. His treasure was far more important than the spoils of victory he had abandoned. Resuming his rowing, he looked down at the pieces of jewellery that had fallen out of the bag and were rolling around on the wooden floor of the boat. He would soon be back in the shelter of the abandoned boathouse where he kept his boat in between raids. Then there would be time to gloat over his success. For now, he had to concentrate on making his escape.

19

It wasn't the
first time Dana had been late for work. At least this time she had a reason for having overslept. Admittedly having a hangover wasn't exactly a good excuse. Her head pounded as she rummaged through her wardrobe. Predictably, her mother started on her as soon as she reached the bottom of the stairs.

‘If he wasn't your uncle you wouldn't last five minutes in that job. He's too soft, always has been. No one in their right mind would put up with you.'

She never tired of scolding her brother for spoiling his niece. ‘You're not doing her any favours, letting her get away with murder. How's she ever going to cope in a real job?'

Dana's Uncle Tim was so sweet, it was hard to believe that he and her mother were brother and sister. They didn't even look alike. While Dana's mother was tall with straight, dark hair and piercing eyes, her uncle was short and slight, with fairish hair that was almost ginger, and an infectious grin that made him look like a cheeky school boy. Dana sulked whenever her mother put her down like that. If Tim had been there he would have just laughed, throwing his head back until his Adam's apple was visible, bobbing up and down beneath his beard.

‘I've only got one niece. If I can't spoil her, who will? Not you, that's for sure. You're too hard on the girl, Jilly. Cut her some slack for God's sake. She's only nineteen. Have you forgotten what you used to get up to when you were her age?'

Whenever her Uncle Tim spoke up in Dana's defence, her mother would give in with an indignant grunt. He always won their arguments as soon as he threatened to reveal his sister's secrets. Dana wondered what youthful indiscretions her mother had committed.

‘You'll have to ask your mother about that,' was all Tim would say when she pestered him to tell her what he knew.

With no time for breakfast, Dana ran out of the house. She pelted past the traffic stuck in a queue along Bootham, and along St Leonards Place towards the river. Turning left off Museum Street into Lendal she slowed down, because she could see the shop was still shut. More than ten minutes past opening time, the metal grilles were closed and the interior of the shop looked dark. Surprised and relieved, she reached the shop, still panting from her exertion. It wasn't like Tim to be late. Although he never reprimanded her for turning up to work after opening time, she could tell by the way he pursed his lips at her that he wasn't pleased. She always expected him to morph into her mother and start lecturing her about punctuality, not without reason, but he would just shrug whenever she apologised, and turn away. In some ways that was worse.

Guilty about taking advantage of his good nature, she kept resolving to be more punctual, but it was hard. Of course her mother was right, in theory, but then again, so was Tim. She was only nineteen. Many of her friends were still at college, and they all liked to go out in the evenings. There was nothing wrong with that. Dana's mother went ballistic if she stayed out late, and she never gave Dana any credit for working.

‘Do you want to end up like that poor girl who had her head cracked open on the street on Sunday night, right here in York? They haven't caught her killer yet, you know. He could still be out there, roaming the streets. Do you want to be the next victim? A headline in the papers?'

Dana had done her best to explain that she often came home late precisely because she was sensible. Not wanting to be out on her own at night, she usually waited to share a taxi with her friends. Her mother never listened to her explanations.

Dana was still feeling angry about it as she reached the shop. The sign said ‘Open', although the lights weren't on. Tim must have forgotten to turn the sign round when he had left the previous evening. With a grin, she rummaged in her bag for her key. When he arrived
she
would ask
him
where
he
had been when she had arrived at nine o'clock. She might even purse her lips at him for being late. Classic! Turning the key, she glanced at her watch, another present from her uncle. She was surprised to find that the door was already unlocked. It was almost quarter past nine. Her uncle must have arrived before her after all.

Before she had even flicked the light switch by the door, she sensed something was wrong. The silence was disconcerting, the darkness unnerving. For the first time she noticed the display trays in the window, some completely empty, others a tangle of pearls and sparkling gems thrown around higgledy-piggledy. Tim would never have left them in such a mess. He was anal about the displays.

Dana had long ago come to terms with her own intellectual limitations. Although she would never admit as much to anyone, it wasn't for lack of trying that she had left school without any GCSEs. But she wasn't completely stupid. She realised at once that there had been a break in. Presumably the burglars had escaped out the back. But it didn't make sense, because if there had been a break in, the alarm would have gone off. As she felt in her pocket for her phone, it struck her that the burglars might still be there, prowling around the premises. She had to get out of there, fast. She turned, her finger already on the light switch. Inadvertently she flicked it and blinked, dazzled by the sudden brightness.

Barely conscious of the phone dropping from her hand, she screamed once, a really loud, shrill scream. She tried to back away, but her legs wouldn't move.

20

The scene had
already been secured by the time Ian and Ted arrived, with barrier tape across the front of the shop entrance, and a guarded cordon outside. Several passersby had gathered on the pavement, waiting for information. A reporter was there with a photographer, but all they could see was the outside of the jewellers' shop. There was a sense of desolation as people hung around, waiting. Ian turned his attention to the shop front. The window displays were in disarray but there was no sign of a break in. The uniformed officers standing in the street merely nodded at him, strangely quiet. The usual bustle around a crime scene was absent. Something was wrong.

Ian followed Ted into the shop. Instead of moving forward to allow Ian inside, the sergeant came to an unexpected halt and stood perfectly still, obscuring Ian's view of the interior. Looking over his sergeant's shoulder Ian could see more blood than he would have thought possible. There was blood everywhere: on the carpet, on the counter, on the cabinets displaying rings, chains and watches, on the wall. Normally Ian struggled to control his reaction at crime scenes, embarrassed by his own squeamishness. This scene was so bloody, he felt only a strange sense of unreality. It looked as though someone had chucked a trough of dark red paint around the room. In front of him, Ted exclaimed out loud and half turned to stare back at Ian, wide-eyed. He looked unusually pale. Until this, Ian had never seen his colleague shocked at the sight of a body, and they had seen a few on their previous case together. Impatiently, Ian stepped forward. He manoeuvred his way past Ted who moved aside wordlessly.

The body lay on its back, feet pointing towards the door. Automatically, Ian registered the fact that the underneath of the victim's shoes were clean. Those shoes hadn't trodden in any blood on the carpet, although there was a mess of blood nearby. It took a few seconds for Ian to register that, where the victim's head should have been, there was only a pool of blood that had soaked into the carpet above the victim's neck and shoulders. Temporarily shocked into silence, Ian stared. He struggled to regain his composure. It was difficult to know what to say.

Ted broke the silence. ‘Bloody hell! I don't believe it. He's been decapitated.'

Ian turned to the nearest scene of crime officer. ‘Where is it?'

The officer shrugged one white-clad shoulder. ‘What? You mean the head?'

‘Yes. Where is it?'

‘We'd all like to know that.'

‘Bloody hell,' Ian echoed Ted. ‘Are you telling me the head's missing?' He looked around the room feeling disorientated. ‘What do we know about the victim?'

‘Quite a lot, actually, if he's who we think he is. The name's Timothy Granger – assuming it
is
him. He was the manager of the shop. His niece found him.'

‘His niece?'

‘Yes. She works for him. You can speak to her yourself, but good luck getting any sense out of her. She's completely freaked out. Hardly surprising, considering what she found here. She's sitting out the back.'

He jerked his head in the direction of a door at the back of the shop, before returning to his task of collecting and recording evidence. Alerted to the fact that the body had been discovered by a young girl, Ian had already sent for Naomi. He was beginning to think he ought to request to be permanently accompanied by a female officer specifically trained to question teenage girls. Every other witness on this case seemed to be a girl aged somewhere between fifteen and nineteen. As Naomi wasn't on duty that day, Ian went to tackle the girl himself in the company of a middle-aged female constable in uniform. He felt unaccountably nervous. Even though he had been in a relationship with his wife for years before they eventually married, exchanging a few words with a young female witness had become a worrying prospect.

Ian was in favour of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, established to strike the right balance between the powers of the police and the rights and freedom of the public. It was common knowledge that in the past all sorts of undue pressure had been exerted on vulnerable people to force confessions, sometimes leading to miscarriages of justice. But while Ian would never want to see a return to such unregulated practices, there was a distinction between coercion and accepting the testimony of witnesses without any evidence to substantiate their claims. He was reluctant to rely on the statement of a distressed teenage girl. In the absence of any other witnesses, the truth became a chimera.

Ian returned to the street, relieved that he didn't have to cross the shop floor to reach the office behind the shop, which could be accessed from a back exit. Ted was outside. His normally slightly swarthy complexion had a greyish tinge. Ian wondered if he had been sick.

‘You all right?'

Ted nodded. ‘Never seen anything like it,' he mumbled.

‘Me neither. Not something you want to see either.'

Ian could see Ted was shaken, and wished he could think of words to lessen the horror of what they had witnessed.

‘The head's gone,' Ted added unnecessarily, with a hint of panic in his voice. ‘They don't know where it is.'

‘At least that should make the killer easier to track.'

‘Let's hope so!'

The female constable Ian had been waiting for approached.

‘Are you sure you're OK?' he asked Ted before turning away.

‘Did you see the body?' he asked the female constable as they walked together round to the back of the premises.

Her relaxed demeanour suggested she hadn't been inside the shop, and he wasn't surprised when she shook her head.

‘I heard about it,' she told him. ‘What a terrible thing for a young girl.'

Ian nodded. At least he had been expecting to see a corpse, if not a decapitated one. He couldn't imagine what the dead man's niece must be feeling. He struggled to prevent his own horror from swallowing up his sympathy for the witness he was about to question.