Recompense Read online

  ‘Okay, you come too.’ Lissa wasn’t sure she wanted to go there on her own, but she wasn’t sure she wanted her mother to see the place either. She slipped the piece of notepaper on which Amaya Etxandi had jotted down directions to the scene into her jeans pocket, picked up the rucksack her mother had brought from the pensión, hefted it onto her right shoulder, grimaced and tugged it onto her left, then battled her way out of the room.

  Sandra walked after her without a backward glance. She sighed deeply, relieved to have her daughter back. The physical damage was already beginning to heal, the bruises were yellowing and fading, but she had been warned that there could be psychological changes to Lissa which might not be apparent for months.

  In her broken Spanish, Lissa persuaded the taxi driver to take them into the centre of Pamplona, to find somewhere to park, and to stay with the car.

  Lissa eased herself out of the back seat with some difficulty. The sharp, stop-start juddering of city driving had made her queasy, and she held a handkerchief to her mouth as both women stepped into the dry, blistering heat of an August day in the Navarran capital. She took her mother’s hand and they crossed both sets of triple traffic lanes and headed across the grass to the old castle walls. Lissa, dropped her mother’s hand and breathed in the air. A mix of pollutants and fresh grass made her momentarily dizzy and she paused briefly, expecting to sense something. Hoping to feel anything other than this yawning chasm of emptiness. She felt nothing, not even a hint of emotion as they walked around the walls to a shaded area. Despite the countless citizens strolling around the footpaths on top of the walls, it was deserted in this small corner. Even in daylight it felt isolated and cut off from the busy city only a short distance away. Crime scene tape fluttered from where it remained trapped under a rock or a stone fallen from the castle walls. Lissa tramped towards the tape, locating the doorway of the chamber down a short passageway. As she walked, she tried to keep her face taciturn in an attempt to hide her feelings from her mother. This, she had been told, was where it had happened.

  She stood at the threshold for a moment, taking in the breadth of the stonework and then walked in. It was not a large area, but, she supposed it had been big enough. It was dark; the old stone roof was still intact, the only light came from the doorway and no warmth penetrated the thick walls. Lissa shivered. On the rough, dried earth floor, detritus from the paramedics remained. Lissa prodded the dirty cleansing swabs with her toe, moving them from side to side.

  Sandra shivered too as she looked around. She sniffed and wrinkled her nose at the smell of stale urine. ‘I suppose the police didn’t bother with CSI,’ she muttered.

  ‘Amaya told me that they came and took one look, said they’d get nothing and practically walked away,’ said Lissa. ‘There was a couple who found me, then the paramedics and police. Look at the floor. She said that photographs were taken but no usable footprints, no she didn’t say that. What was it? Ah, yes, I remember, “No clear footwear impressions,” were found. Everything was scuffed up by the number of people who came in here.’ Lissa pulled out a small torch from her rucksack, switched it on and started looking around into the darkened corners.

  Her mother used the torch on her mobile and swept the light around the floor and walls. ‘What’s that?’ she said, lighting an object in the far corner.

  ‘Lens cap,’ replied Lissa, picking up the compact flash memory card off the floor and putting it in her rucksack. ‘I don’t suppose I’ll ever see the lens again.’

  ‘Give it to me, dear, and I’ll pop it in the bin on the way out,’ Sandra said.

  ‘No, it’s okay, I can do it’ said Lissa. She took a last look around the chamber where her life had changed forever. Brief images flashed through her head and she wondered if there would be a time when she would remember exactly what had happened there. Perhaps she was better off not knowing, she thought. ‘Let’s go, Mum. It’s not helping,’ she lied briskly. ‘This was a stupid idea, but I had to give it a go.’

  Sandra squeezed her arm. ‘I know, darling,’ she said. ‘I’m trying to understand, but come on, we’re going home. We can put all this behind us as if it never happened.’

  Lissa kept her head down, not daring to let her mother see her face.

  Chapter Seven

  28th April 2018

  Wheelwrights Bar, Gippingford

  ‘Hammo! Hammo, over here!’

  Aaron Hammond looked around the bar for a moment and picked out the waving hands in a corner booth in the darkest part of the bar. He sauntered over, hands in his pockets, and flicking the black fringe off his face. He caught the gaze of a group of girls as he walked past their table and he winked.

  ‘Bloody hell, mate, you took your time, didn’t yah?’ Adam Waite’s grin split his face as Aaron approached. He held out his fist for a bump.

  Aaron returned the bump, thinking that Adam always tried too hard to be cool. He looked at the table, covered with empty glasses and spilt lager and shivered inwardly. Joe Davis shoved a pint into his hand and Aaron swore softly as the liquid sloshed over the rim and soaked his shirt. He heard a giggle and looked over his shoulder at the group of girls, he’d acknowledged only moments before. The giggling stopped, their faces taking on a corpse-like rictus and, knowing he’d regained control, he looked back at his friends. Adam and Joe he’d known from primary school. Adam had hardly changed, his red curls belying his age. Joe, or JD as he preferred to be known, had become more of a prat the older he became. The nickname was based partially on his liking for bourbon but, behind his back, it was used because of his liking for cocaine. Yet, only one person had ever called him JD and coke to his face. Aaron couldn’t remember the guy’s real name. He was still seen around town occasionally, but not very often. Everyone referred to the guy as Al these days, for Al Capone or Scarface as the nineteen-thirties American gangster had been called. That had been a wild night. In fact there had been a lot of wild nights with these guys.

  Nick, Steve and Matt made up the rest of the group. JD had wanted them to have a name like a proper gang, but nothing ever stuck. The closest they’d ever coming to finding a name was the Misfits, but then Joe had seen the old black and white film and decided it didn’t work after all. Aaron supped half the pint in one gulp, before he realised how warm it was. He slapped the glass down on the table and the remaining liquid sloshed over the rim.

  ‘Warm,’ he shouted over the noise in the bar. ‘Fresh round. Same again?’ Four heads nodded and he went to the bar. Adam followed to help carry back the pints.

  ‘Six pints of Stella,’ he yelled across the bar.

  ‘Five pints,’ said Adam.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Five pints. We only need five. Steve’s not turned up.’

  ‘Okay, no worries, we’ll get one in for him anyways. He’ll be here soon.’ Aaron turned to the barman and confirmed his order.

  ‘Nah, Hammo, you don’t get it. It’s not just tonight, he didn’t turn up for the quiz night on Monday. He was supposed to come and have a roast with me and Mum on Easter Sunday and he never showed. He’s not answering his phone. Nor texts. Nothing on WhatsApp. It’s like he disappeared off the face of… Well, you know.’ Adam’s pale face was wrought with confusion and concern.

  ‘Okay, okay. You and your bloody quiz nights. You’d not get me going to one of those,’ Aaron replied rubbing a hand over his chin while he gave the matter some consideration. He waved at the barman and held up his hand to show five digits. The barman nodded and brought over only five pints. ‘Thanks, mate,’ Aaron said. ‘Can I get a cloth? Our table’s a bit of a shithole. Ta.’

  Aaron tapped his debit card on the machine which the barman had placed on the bar and picked up two of the glasses. As expected, Adam picked up the remaining three pints and the cloth. Like clockwork, thought Aaron. ‘Come on, let’s get back to the table,’ he said to Adam, ‘and you can tell me all about our missing Stevie boy.’

  Whilst Adam wiped the table down, stacked the glasses in a
corner and popped the cloth in the top one, Joe sighed, rubbing his hand across his neatly trimmed beard as Adam kept up a non-stop monologue about Steve’s absence.

  ‘I’m worried it’s him in the paper,’ he said finally.

  ‘Who?’ said Aaron as he plonked himself at the end of the table.

  ‘Steve. I think he might be the dead bloke they found.’ Adam wasn’t drinking and sat twisting his pint glass around on the spot.

  ‘Why would it be Stevie? And for fucks’ sake drink that and stop playing with it.’ Aaron snapped at him.

  Adam looked like a wounded puppy, and Aaron was annoyed at himself for snapping. ‘Look, Adam,’ he said speaking more softly, ‘He could have just hooked up with someone and dossed down with her for a while. It doesn’t mean there’s anything sinister. He’s just getting his end away, that’s all.’

  ‘Who’s getting their end away?’ asked Nick, turning away from his conversation with Matt at the far end of the table. ‘It sure as hell ain’t me.’

  ‘Adam thinks Stevie is the dead bloke that’s been in the paper,’ said Aaron.

  ‘Yeah, I know. He was whining about it before you got here. Look, Adam,’ said Nick leaning across the table at him, ‘if it was Stevie, he’d not have been at work and his boss would have missed him.’

  ‘Steve got fired. He hasn’t got a job or a boss to miss him,’ Adam replied, jutting his jaw out and glowering like a mutinous toddler.

  ‘Since when?’ asked Joe, suddenly interested. He glanced around, making sure that their discussion wasn’t being overheard. The music blasted out, loud enough to cover most quiet conversations, but sometimes that meant they needed to raise their voices to be heard over the speakers.

  ‘Steve told me he was laid off in March. Decline in the markets, he told me. So there’s no one to worry about him. No one except us. And the description in the paper is the same height, build and age as Steve, so it could easily be him. I’ve even been to his flat to make sure he’s okay but he wasn’t there and the mat was covered in junk mail. I think we should go to the police.’

  ‘Oh, you’ve turned into a right little stalker, haven’t you?’ Joe said. ‘Now, come on, let’s not get hasty We don’t get the police involved. Remember last time?’ Everyone nodded.

  ‘So,’ said Joe. ‘We get a paper and look at the photo of this dead guy and then Adam can see it’s not Stevie.’

  ‘There aren’t any photos,’ said Adam mournfully. ‘The paper said the guy was badly disfigured and it would take a few days to get a thingy made of his face.’

  ‘A photofit, numbskull, you mean a photofit,’ said Joe.

  ‘I think they’re called e-fits, these days,’ said Aaron mildly.

  Joe glared at him. ‘Well, okay,’ he said, his eyes narrowed, daring anyone else to interrupt him. ‘We’ll wait until we see that and then if it is Stevie-boy, and it won’t be, but if it is then we’ll let the police know anonymously. We don’t get involved. Right?’

  He looked around at the group once more. They all nodded and agreed to keep quiet. Adam hung his head. He was sure it would turn out to be Steve Marchant.

  1st May 2018

  Gippingford

  Adam Waite was correct in his assumptions. A few days after their conversation in the Wheelwrights Bar, he sat in his mother’s cosy kitchen with its chintz curtains and tablecloth, looking at the e-fit picture printed in the local paper. The eyes were brown whereas Stevie’s had been more hazel, the hair seemed the wrong colour too and the expression was neutral, looking kindlier than Steve’s usual sneer but, all that aside, it was definitely him.

  Adam dropped the newspaper on the table, making his teacup rattle. He silenced it before his mother could shout from the sitting room, making sure that he’d not spilt anything or chipped her china.

  He ran his fingers over the number for Crimestoppers, wondering how anonymous it really was. Would the police try and trace the call like they did in films? Unsure of the answer, Adam decided to call later from work. That way the call would go through a switchboard, it would be lost in all the other outgoing calls, he hoped, and even if they traced the call back to the switchboard number they’d never trace it back to his extension. Adam rocked in the chair, scared and unsure, but he knew he couldn’t let Stevie lie in the morgue without a name any longer.

  2nd May 2018

  Gippingford Police HQ

  Jane Lacey put the phone down and looked over at her colleague, Tim Jessop. Tim was stuffing a doughnut in his mouth and Jane looked him up and down; he did seem to be doing a lot of comfort eating at the moment and it was beginning to show.

  ‘We have a winner,’ she said.

  ‘Huh?’ Tim muttered, spraying specks of doughnut and sugar over his keyboard.

  ‘Name for our victim,’ she replied, pushing her chair back. ‘Just gonna tell the guv.’

  She was so excited with her news that she virtually skipped over to the corner of the room where DCI Carlson had been upgraded to an office with glass surrounds and venetian blinds. She tapped on the half open door. ‘Guv?’

  He looked up at her and she saw how tired he was looking. Not getting anywhere really put pressure on their investigation and on the senior officer above all.

  ‘Come in, Jane,’ he said. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘Call in from the Crimestoppers line,’ she said. ‘Our victim has a name at last. He’s called Steve Marchant. Has a flat in one of the towers on the Riverside estate. Lives alone and unemployed.’

  ‘All that from Crimestoppers?’ Carlson asked. ‘That’s a lot of information. Did they get the impression that the caller knew the victim?’

  ‘I did ask that, boss,’ she replied. ‘The volunteer I spoke to said they’d tried to get the caller to give his name. Even tried to persuade him to come into the station and make a statement, but he refused. Apparently he sounded really scared.’

  ‘Scared of what, I wonder,’ said Carlson.

  ‘Dunno, guv, I’ve got the address off the crime reporting database,’ said Jane leaning against the door frame. ‘He’s known to us, but only because he got caught up in a street fight a couple of years ago. Not the aggressor, trying to stop it from what I can make out from the case notes. Nothing went to trial which is why we haven’t got his prints on file.’

  ‘Thanks, Jane. Well, let’s go and see where and how Mr Marchant lived. I’m still surprised that no one has missed him before now, but if he was out of work I don’t suppose the Job Centre would be worried that he wasn’t coming to sign on.’

  ‘No, boss,’ said Jane. ‘Boss?’ she hesitated before asking the next question, watching his face for a reaction. ‘When is DS Poole coming back?’

  ‘Soon, Jane, I’m expecting him back very soon.’ Carlson wasn’t surprised at the question. DS Poole had asked for a leave of extended absence after their last major case. He’d been shocked at how close he’d got to knowing the serial killer without realising who he was. Poole was not a man to suffer a crisis of confidence, but the revelation of the killer’s identity had rocked him to his core. Poole was convinced that he should have worked it out earlier and, in truth, perhaps he should have done. There was nothing that could have been changed. It was no one’s fault, but Poole had blamed himself. It made sense to distance himself from police work for a while, although Carlson hoped he would come back. In the short time they had worked together, Carlson had begun to rely on Poole’s sharp mind and analytical skills, exactly the same skills which Poole felt he’d not applied to their first case together.

  ‘I’m hoping he’ll be back with us in a week or two. Possibly sooner,’ he said to Jane. ‘I’m sure he’ll love offering profiling opinions on this one.’ Carlson smiled at Jane and she grinned back, knowing this was exactly the sort of case which would appeal to the taciturn Poole.

  ‘Good, it’ll be nice to have him back. Shall I get PolSA to meet us there?’ she asked, referring to the police search adviser who was trained in search techniques.

&n
bsp; ‘Please,’ Carlson said, grabbing his jacket from the hook. He followed Jane to the car but they didn’t speak any more until they were at Steve Marchant’s flat. They waited while the PolSA tried the Yale key which had been part of Marchant’s effects from the murder scene and the door swung open over the small pile of letters on the mat. The smell of unwashed dishes and clothes wafted out into the corridor and the officers stood back for a moment before entering; allowing some fresh air to filter into the secondary crime scene – Steve Marchant’s abandoned home.

  Mika Kowalski, the searcher, stepped over the threshold, picking up the post and papers and passed them to Jane; everything was addressed to Marchant, no other names, so he seemed to live alone. Whilst Mika looked around the property, Jane stood on the walkway outside the flat, resting her elbows on the balcony and gazing into the distance. Someone had known enough about this man to provide his name, but why hadn’t they come forward earlier? Surely they had missed him, so why hadn’t they reported his absence? She knew now that he had no family living in the area and, since he was out of work, no colleagues to miss him, but he must have had friends. Why had no one come forward before now? There was, as her father used to say, a rabbit off but, exactly where the bunny was running to and why, was beyond her understanding at the moment.

  Chapter Eight

  11th August 2015

  Bristol, Somerset

  Despite the short flight, Lissa closed her eyes when they took their seats and woke as the wheels touched down in Bristol. She reached for the scrunched-up water bottle in the netting attached to the seat in front, and drank deeply.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ Sandra asked.

  ‘Okay, just a bit of a headache,’ she replied, rubbing the back of her neck, easing out the aches of sleeping hunched up against the window.