Four Below (3 page)

‘Because, it’s great in summer, lots of people come here. It’s quite big, runs all the way back to the gorge. Streams, ponds …’

The afternoon seemed set to become even gloomier. ‘
Ponds
, Jane?’ DS James Austin was broad, darkly hairy, with an Edinburgh accent, so naturally everyone called him Jane. If
the DS minded, he never let on. ‘Not bleedin’
ponds
in November, Jane.’

‘Yes, okay, it’ll be a bloody nightmare place to search.’ For someone. It wasn’t as if they were personally required to dive into ponds and lakes. Ahead, two vehicles,
one a patrol car, came into view, parked across and beside the track. ‘This should be it.’

McLusky pulled on to the soft verge beside the patrol car. The woman who had made the call stood by her silver hatchback. She was in her fifties and sensibly dressed in thick boots, padded
jacket, hat and gloves. Very sensibly, thought McLusky, whose leather jacket wasn’t putting up much of a fight against the cold. Further along, among the stark and practically leafless trees,
two police constables in high-vis jackets used sticks to poke half-heartedly at the wet leaf litter. Winter mist hung in the woods, cutting visibility to less than a hundred yards. All around them
the place dripped with icy moisture. McLusky acknowledged the civilian with a nod, turned up his collar and waited for one of the constables, who was making his way towards him.

DS Austin approached the woman. ‘Are you the lady who called us?’

‘I am. You must be Inspector McLusky, I was told to expect you.’

‘Erm, no. I’m Detective Sergeant Austin; that’s DI McLusky over there.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry, I heard the Scottish accent and just assumed …’

‘The inspector will be with you shortly. I think he first wants a word with the constable.’

McLusky did. It was PC Pym. He was a slim six foot four and had a habit of folding himself at the hip so as not to tower over superior officers. ‘What have we got, Pym?’

‘Well, erm …’ The PC looked across to the woman. McLusky walked them away from the cars to get completely out of earshot. ‘The lady reported seeing a fox carrying what
she believed to be human remains, sir.’

‘Part of a
face
, is that right?’

‘Imagination may play a part here, no disrespect to the lady. Yes, what she is quite sure about, she says, is flesh, hair and what
looked
to her like a human ear.’

‘Bits of rabbit?’

‘That may account for the hair, but what about the ear? Rabbit ears don’t look much like ours.’

McLusky shrugged heavily. Cold air crept under his jacket as he did so. ‘I don’t know. Rabbit and
mushroom
, then.’

‘Rabbit marengo,’ Pym said helpfully.

‘What?’

‘Sorry, sir. A rabbit dish. My mother used to cook it. It’s got mushrooms in it.’

‘Please don’t mention food, Pym. Whatever it was they put in my lunch refuses to go quietly. Right, let’s have a quick chat with that woman. I don’t suppose you saw any
foxes’ lairs, if that’s what they have?’

‘Holes, I think, is what they have. Not a one. Aren’t they nocturnal, though?’

McLusky waved his hand as he walked away. ‘Carry on here for a bit, anyway.’

Back at the cars, he introduced himself to the woman. On the other side, Austin was walking between the trees, eyes down.

‘I did tell your colleague the fox went
that
way.’ She pointed irritably in the opposite direction.

‘How long ago did you see the fox?’

‘This morning, as I said. About nine thirty. I was walking my dog when I saw it running. Ziggy must have startled him. He ran after him but lost him, predictably. It took me half an hour
to get Ziggy to come back to me, he was so excited.’

‘And the fox was carrying human remains?’

An impatient intake of breath. ‘How often do I have to repeat it?
Yes
. I clearly saw a human ear. There were bits of hair and flesh. It was quite … well, I shouldn’t
say disgusting; quite shocking, I suppose.’

‘And naturally you reported it straight away?’

‘Well, no, I didn’t. I went home. I reported it later.’

McLusky nodded. ‘You waited till the afternoon.’

‘I only saw it for the briefest of moments. And it was such a strange thing to have seen. I wanted to be clear in my mind that I really had seen it. And then I decided. Not many things
look like human ears. Do they, Inspector?’

McLusky squinted into the mist. Not many things a fox would show an interest in. ‘We’ll look into it. We have your details, in case we need to speak to you again.’

‘I can go, then?’

‘Mm? Yes. Yes, thanks, you did the right thing.’

‘I know, Inspector.’

McLusky was already walking away. ‘We’ll let you know if we find anything.’

Sitting in the driver’s seat, the woman wiped condensation from the windscreen with the back of her glove. She wouldn’t be holding her breath on hearing from them again. And she
wouldn’t be surprised if they got themselves lost in there; they all looked like they’d never actually seen a tree before, the way they were behaving. You reported a murder and they
sent four bobbies up to search Leigh Woods. And they didn’t even have the sense to bring a dog.

McLusky hurried to join PC Pym before he disappeared completely into the mist. His colleague was already barely visible between the slick boles of ash trees to the north.

‘What was your impression of the witness, sir?’

‘Not easily flustered. If she says she saw an ear, then perhaps that’s what she did see.’ He kicked at the leaf litter. It had to be centuries deep. Things had lived and died
in this place since the last ice age. It felt like the next one was on its way. Not a bad place to die, probably. If it was your time, of course. Not if some other bastard decided it was. And as
long as it wasn’t November.

Austin crossed the track and came over to join them. ‘I thought there were two of you,’ he said to Pym.

Pym looked around. The mist was turning to fog; there was no sign of his colleague. He cupped his gloved hands round his mouth and called, ‘Becky? You fallen down a hole yet?’ Almost
immediately, the form of PC Becks appeared from the mist, making his way back towards them. ‘Now you see him, now you don’t,’ Pym said. ‘So much for high-vis jackets.
We’ll have to tie ourselves together with string. The fog’s getting worse and it’ll be dark soon.’

‘Are we searching the area, then?’ Austin asked.

McLusky nodded heavily. ‘Yes, we’ll do a bloody search. But first: do you have a cigarette on you, DS Austin?’

‘I gave up, don’t you remember?’

‘So?’

‘You mean it would help my promotional prospects if I carried cigarettes of a certain brand at all times?’

‘Definitely.’

McLusky turned to Pym, who shook his head. ‘Don’t smoke. But sir, if we are to do a real search, we’ll need a lot more bodies up here.’

McLusky wrinkled his nose in distaste. ‘Would you care to rephrase that, PC Pym?’

Sisyphus, that was it, she remembered the name now. It wasn’t a Bible story at all, silly, it was a naughty Greek man who was condemned to push a boulder up a hill and
then it rolled off again and he’d push it up again and so on for ever. The Greek myth of Sisyphus this was like, only was Polish myth of Anastazja. You push the trolley first along one floor,
then next floor, then other floor again. Every day, a job without happy ending, there was always more where that came from. Only, if you push cleaning trolley through shopping centre you become
invisible also. The landlady says: with name like Anastazja you should be on stage. What can invisible woman do on a stage? Play the ghost perhaps.
Excuse me
. Excuse me was what she said
mostly all day because of course, when you are invisible woman, people don’t know to get out of your ways.
Excuse me
. English people do not notice other people, only notice shopping.
Excuse me while I clean up vomit from teenager drunk in middle of day. Of course at night the whole shopping centre was made clean with machine. A
man
with machine. But you cannot clean
toilets with machine. For toilets we use Polish woman. Excuse me while I mop up orange soft drink your child spills on floor because he wants attention but you are too busy making eyes at things in
shops windows. The English have a saying: where there is muck, there is brass. Well, is completely wrong. Where there is muck there is Polish woman with mop. Cleaning it up.

‘And another thing …’ Superintendent Denkhaus signalled McLusky to sit down while speaking forcefully down the phone to a civilian IT technician who
hadn’t got a word in for the last five minutes. Denkhaus even managed the ghost of a smile to go with his nod, without letting up on the tirade he was pouring down the receiver. That was part
of management skills, McLusky thought, pretending anger you didn’t feel, beaming with enthusiasm at boring stuff, smiling encouragingly at people while thinking of other matters.
‘… for the past two weeks under the heading “Offenders Brought to Justice” there was not a single example posted.’ Denkhaus began lifting his coffee cup but set it
back down on its saucer with dangerous emphasis. ‘
I know
, but what’s that got to do with it? It makes us look like we never get any bloody convictions
at all
! The public
don’t fart about on our website for information; they’re just looking for reassurance.’

McLusky looked stealthily at the superintendent’s coffee tray for evidence of anything skinny. He’d been warned more than once that Denkhaus, who carried at least four stone of spare
weight, turned ogre as soon as he tried to give up sugar. A reassuring sugar bowl sat next to the little jug of cream on the tray, together with a small saucer displaying telltale signs of recent
biscuit consumption. That was as far as indulgence went in this room, he noted. Not only was the desk devoid of any clutter; the rest of the office was as functional as could be contrived. Not a
picture, plant pot or ornament softened the starkness of the room, one wall of which was taken up entirely with a large-scale map of the city.

‘Public confidence is the watchword here, as ever,’ Denkhaus continued. ‘From now on I want at least four mugs on that page for our force area at all times … Well I
don’t care if you put your
own
picture up as long as it makes us look good to civilians browsing the site. If we told them what really went on, they’d soon start throwing rocks
at us.’ Denkhaus hung up without bothering with formalities.

‘They’re doing that already, sir,’ McLusky offered.

‘They’re doing what?’

‘Throwing rocks at us. When we closed down the crack house in Knowle West last Monday, a rock and a bottle were thrown at officers, just for doing their job.’

‘By some local yobs. Not by your average citizen, not yet, and that’s why public relations is half the battle. A reduction in the public’s perception of crime is as important
as reduction in crime itself. No point in eradicating crime if people are still frightened in their beds.’

‘A bobby on every street corner.’

‘Quite. It would only take an extra million officers. As it is, cuts are now inevitable. Enough.’ Denkhaus waved away the distraction. There was no point in discussing issues like
these with junior officers. ‘How reliable is your witness?’

‘Hard to say, but she was no airhead and was quite sure of herself. She did take her time reporting it, though. She waited several hours before making up her mind that she had in fact seen
human remains being carried around by a fox. Now she’s adamant.’

‘And you turned up nothing at all?’

McLusky pointed out of the window. ‘It was already getting dark and it’s very misty up there, too. ‘

‘Tomorrow, then, at first light.’

‘How many officers can we deploy?’

‘I can let you have four. With you and DS Austin, that’s half a dozen.’

‘Half a dozen? Sir, have you seen the size of the place? Leigh Woods is two hundred hectares, give or take. In old money that’s probably—’

‘Five hundred acres, thanks, McLusky, I’m fully decimalized. There’s a big football match on tomorrow; we can’t possibly spare dozens of officers to poke around in the
woods on the strength of some vague sighting. Find some evidence of foul play and you can have all the officers you want. Until then you’ll have to make do.’

Football. Why couldn’t they play football in summer, when it was nice and warm? ‘There’s at least one pond in there as well.’

‘Forget the damn pond. It was a fox she saw, not a beaver. Leave the pond alone. Underwater search costs an absolute fortune. Now if there’s nothing else, DI McLusky
…’

DI Kat Fairfield turned the heater up. Then she turned the music up. She loved her little Renault. It was quick, it was fun. Come to think of it, it was more comfortable than
her flat. Quicker to warm up than her flat, too. And it was paid for. She could play music as loud as she liked without the neighbours complaining, and the view from the windows was ever-changing. There was no one to tell her that heavy metal was rubbish. If
Led Zeppelin was rubbish, then fine, she liked rubbish. Mind you, there was no one at home to tell her it was rubbish either. Not since ‘the break-up’, and that was years ago now.
Before the flat and before the Renault. Why aren’t we all living in cars? she wondered. She’d probably still be with Paul if they were. Just meet from time to time, park up next to each
other for a while, then drive through your own life until you felt like parking up again. She’d hung on to the name, another thing her mother couldn’t forgive her; the first had been
marrying Paul in the first place. Somehow DI Kat Fairfield seemed an easier name to work with on the force than Katarina Vasiliou.
What’s wrong with Vasiliou, Rina? It’s a fine Greek
name!
And all her own fault for not marrying a nice Greek boy with prospects in the first place. Unfortunately she’d never been completely
one hundred per cent
sure about the boy
thing either. But opportunities for the girl thing seemed even rarer than the other.

She liked driving, especially on these back roads, but it was getting quite misty and would be dark soon. And the trip out to Yatton had been a complete waste of time. She’d gone to
re-interview the victim herself, hoping to get a handle on a violent reoffender, aka the victim’s ex-boyfriend, but the woman had begun by contradicting her first statement, then completely
withdrawn the charge. It would have been good to take the man out of circulation for a while. Otherwise not a CID matter. He’d punched the victim to the ground then stomped on her a few times
for good measure, breaking her collarbone and several bones in her hand. What counted as
losing your rag
in some circles. Well don’t come running to us next time. The next time, of
course, it might not just be a couple of teeth and your collarbone.