She grabbed her bag and stood at the roadside. ‘I need to go to the squat. I need to be a part of this.’
Briggs hurried over. ‘You are not going anywhere. You are heading back to the station. You know the procedure. For heaven’s sake, you’ve just come into contact with the coffin killer. We’ll need your clothes, swabs, nail clippings, the lot. Your hands are bleeding.’
‘Were bleeding. It was just a couple of little splinters, that’s all. I need to be there, I know this person better than anyone.’
‘No arguments or I’ll have to take you off the case. Go back and get checked out and cleaned up. If we find anything, you’ll be the first to know. Don’t leave until I get back. You can’t go back home alone tonight.’
‘Says who?’
‘I can’t force you into anything, but I’m scared for you. Take this seriously, you were buried alive tonight!’ He gave her a pleading look. ‘Please don’t go home. I can feed your cat and I can drop you at a hotel, at someone’s house or lo and behold, you can stay at mine. I have a spare room.’ He wiped the tear from her eye.
He was right. It was too risky to go home. ‘I’ll see you at the station later. I’ll need a lift back.’ She knew that neither of them would be going home that night, with all that was going on. She’d grab an hour in the family room on the couch.
‘Get in my car.’ He gave her the keys.
She took them and hurried, grateful of the warmth as she got in. She closed her eyes and imagined the drawing of the triangle one more time. It was a perfect little triangle and that couldn’t be a coincidence. The third point had been marked up with a question mark. Was there another victim?
Chapter Fifty-Six
Now
Tuesday, 3 November
‘Lola… Lola.’ Tracy popped the purchase orders into a tray and pushed open the door to the Portakabin, scanning the makeshift car park for her missing young dachshund. She glanced back; the two older ones were curled up in their baskets, far too sensible to be out on such a chilly damp day but she had let Lola out for a pee. Being a pup, Tracy didn’t want to risk her messing on the floor, especially as she hadn’t stocked up on cleaning supplies. That was another job on her ever-expanding list. She glanced at her answerphone: twelve messages. She’d get around to that after she’d finished all the other urgent jobs like ordering the next batch of materials.
In the distance, she spotted her husband coordinating the builders on site. This development was going to be the making of them after investing everything they had to build it. Thirty detached homes on an exclusive gated community with security at the entrance, just what the wealthier people of Cleevesford craved. Safety, luxury and comfort. They were offering it all and at least twenty had been reserved after they’d completed the show home.
She glanced back at the board as she contemplated making some toast for breakfast. Every contractor had turned up today except for the one she wished they hadn’t included in the project. Isaac Slater. For two weeks he’d messed them around by turning up late and leaving early, and he’d even dropped a brick from height, narrowly missing a labourer. That had been his final warning. The last thing they needed was bad press when it came to health and safety. She walked over to the board and drew a ring around his name. He’d blown every chance. From now, he was officially off the job. Grabbing the phone, she tried to call him once again but like the other times, the call went straight to voicemail. Maybe he’d left one of the many messages. She shook her head. That would be a first.
‘Be good for Mummy.’ She removed her coat and a dog lead from the back of her chair and left, shutting the other two dogs in. As she trod the sodden earth below, she felt a bit of damp oozing through the tear in the side of her old work boot. Her tangled blond ponytail had begun to come loose and her straggly hair blew into her mouth and stuck to her face. She zipped up the body warmer underneath her coat and shivered.
Glancing back and forth, trees at the one end, fast-moving building works at the other, she called out again. This time louder. ‘Lola, come to Mummy. Lola.’ In the distance she could hear the clattering of tools being carried in the wind.
She dredged through the turned-over earth that would at some point resemble a lush flower bed and she spotted her little mischievous dog in the distance barking and wagging its tail. ‘Lola you little shit, come here now.’ That dog was going to get obedience lessons sooner rather than later. ‘Come on, Lola. Don’t make Mummy tread in all this.’ Tracy frowned as she took another step. It was no use hoping that the dog would come to her. ‘Come on, girl.’
The dog began to yap and run around in a circle. It’s long body catching up with its front legs, little tail wagging away.
‘Bloody hell.’ Tracy persevered through the sludge until she reached the most exclusive row of three detached houses on the estate. She glanced up at the roofs on two of the houses that still needed some work. Plastic sheeting rattled as the breeze picked up and a gust of dried leaves whipped into the air. ‘Lola. Come here now.’ Tracy removed her hair band and retied the stray strands away from her face.
The little dog looked like it was laughing as it refused to obey her command. Stepping past a pile of roof tiles, she hurried to the dog as it yapped at the fence.
‘Get here now.’ She reached down and clipped the lead to the dog’s collar. ‘You naughty girl.’ She leaned forward and the dog licked her nose. Tracy couldn’t be angry for too long. She stroked the dog’s head and began to pull it back towards the Portakabin, but the dog refused to budge as it continued to bark at the fence.
Something wasn’t right. She knew her newest member of the pack was a handful, but she and Fred hadn’t seen her acting like this before. ‘What is it, girl.’ One squelching step after another led her to the low fence. She peered over. There was nothing but brambles. As she went to turn, something shiny caught her eye: a bell hanging from a branch. She edged in closer and saw there was string coming from the top of the bell that led to what looked like a clearing. She looped the dog lead over the low fence and cocked one leg over, followed by another. As she went to push past the brambles, her coat caught and held her back. ‘Sodding hell.’ She released the coat and continued, taking what looked like a bit of a trodden path into the thicket.
She gave the bell a little knock but it didn’t sound. Her gaze followed the string until it settled on a mound of earth. Heart pumping, she kneeled and began scooping away the soil. She’d been reading the news this past few days. It had been dominated by the coffin killer. She only hoped the killer hadn’t struck again but the signs were there. It was no good, there was too much earth and her hands kept getting caught in pieces of bramble and pine needles. Little cuts started to ooze blood. She reached into her pocket, but her phone wasn’t there. She’d left it on her desk after trying to ring Isaac. ‘Damn.’
A rattle came from beyond the shrubs that backed onto a lane. She paused and held her breath. ‘Hello?’
The dog began to whimper from the other side of the fence. She caught a glimpse of the long black coat and that led her eye to the bottom half of the figure. ‘Hello?’ Her last word sounded like a croak. A loud rustling sound came at her as she turned. She screamed as loud as she could, but she knew that no one would hear. The houses that were being built at present were right at the entrance to the road.
As she stood to run, her foot caught in an entanglement of branches in the spiny undergrowth. She was going down and fast and there was nothing she could do. She closed her eyes and hoped that she would be spared as her bare hands landed in a clump of stingers.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
‘You didn’t find Penny at the squat. Damn. Where is she?’ Gina stood at the front of the incident room in the standard issue grey tracksuit that had been given to her by the medical officer after her clothing and samples had been taken. She picked at the dressing that covered the thicker scratch on her arm. It hadn’t quite needed stitches; that was something she’d been grateful to hear.
PC Smith popped his hat on the table and rubbed his eyes where the dark bags had taken over as the most prominent feature on his face. Kapoor sat next to him and yawned as he spoke. ‘We searched the grounds at the back and all up and down the road. Unfortunately we only found four shopping trolleys and a load of fly-tipped household waste. Oh, and several dead rats. Not what we’d hoped for. The dogs didn’t sniff anything out either. We didn’t stop there: we went through every bin store and tree filled patch on and beyond the street. Not a thing.’
