A Cold Grave: A DCI Danny Flint Book Read online

  The reply came back quickly. ‘Go ahead, PC Ryan.’

  ‘Winstanley’s been detained near to Woodbeck village. We’ve also followed what appears to be the track for Jimmy Wade. That has disappeared in a layby, near a place called Haggnook Farm. My best guess is that Wade has either been picked up in a vehicle, or he’s abducted somebody with a vehicle. How soon after the escape were the roadblocks between Haggnook Farm and Retford established?’

  There was a brief delay as Inspector Fraser studied the maps in front of him.

  ‘Inspector Fraser to PC Ryan. Haggnook Farm is three hundred yards past the established cordon. It looks like Wade has bypassed the roadblocks that were set up by going on foot over the fields. There are no roadblocks established after Haggnook Farm.’

  ‘In that case, Jimmy Wade is well and truly on his toes. At least we’ve collared Winstanley.’

  ‘Received that, PC Ryan. Return to Rampton Hospital for a debrief and to sort out your statement for Winstanley’s arrest. It seems the injuries to his arm and thigh are quite severe. He’s currently on his way, under armed escort, to Retford General to have his wounds stitched up.’

  ‘He shouldn’t have run, boss. It’s a simple choice, really. He chose badly.’

  ‘Indeed, he did. Cracking work today, Carl. Make your way back into Rampton; I’ll talk to you when you get here.’

  PC Carl Ryan, his colleague and police dog Blaze all began to walk slowly back towards Rampton Hospital.

  Ryan was once again immensely proud of his dog. He felt a real sense of achievement that Winstanley had been tracked down and detained. This feeling was tinged with a tangible mood of disappointment that he hadn’t managed to track down and recapture Jimmy Wade as well.

  1

  3 June 1986

  Bleasby, Nottinghamshire

  Voices.

  The boy could definitely hear voices now.

  They were gruff and guttural.

  Men’s voices.

  There were several of them, all laughing and joking at something or someone.

  He still couldn’t move, but slowly he began to regain other senses.

  As well as hearing sounds, he could now smell stale cigarette smoke and beer. There was another stronger, pungent smell that he recognised immediately.

  It was weed.

  The men were smoking cannabis as well as tobacco.

  It was a smell he remembered from his mother’s small, cramped flat in Hyson Green. It was an ever-present odour whenever she was in the flat entertaining his so-called uncles.

  The boy knew he was lying face down on a mattress. It was damp and stank of mould. He had no idea where he was, or how he had got there.

  As he slowly came to his senses, he began to feel both the cold and the pain.

  The cold was seeping through his body, and the pain he felt below his waist came over him in waves. It started as a dull ache, but gradually got worse until it was almost too much to bear.

  It made him want to scream, but for some reason he held back.

  He could feel a pressure bearing down on him. The weight he could feel on his back was forcing him down into the damp, dirty mattress. As the pressure bore down on his body, so the pain increased again.

  Could he scream?

  Should he scream?

  He didn’t know the answer to the questions swirling around inside his head.

  He didn’t move, and he didn’t scream. Some primal instinct told him he needed to remain perfectly still and quiet.

  Finally, the waves of pressure on top of him stopped. He felt the mattress below him rise slightly as the weight that had been bearing down on him was removed.

  Almost immediately, he felt the mattress dip again. Once more there was pressure, more weight. Heavier this time, forcing him down into the mattress further. His face was enveloped by the stinking makeshift bed. He was struggling to breathe. Ever so slowly he turned his head, so his face was looking to one side, and he could at last breathe.

  This time the waves of pain he felt were almost unbearable. Still, he stifled the agonised scream.

  He still hadn’t opened his eyes.

  As the waves of pain continued to wash over his tiny, frail body, finally he plucked up the courage to open his eyes.

  Everywhere was obscured by a blue haze of smoke.

  Through the pall of cigarette smoke, the first thing he saw were the three black legs of a tripod, on the floor, about a yard from his face. Moving only his eyes, he looked up the legs of the tripod. Sitting on top of the metal legs was a black-and-grey metal box. On the box he could see a small red light that blinked on and off constantly.

  The black box was pointing down at the mattress, pointing at him.

  He didn’t dare move his head. Instead, he moved his eyes to take in what else he could see.

  Just above his head on the mattress, he could see a man’s forearm. It was covered in tattoos and moved in time with the waves of pain he was feeling. He could see the muscles in the forearm, bulging and contracting.

  Standing next to the tripod, he could see the naked legs and feet of a man. Once again, he allowed his eyes to move upwards, trying to see the rest of the man.

  He was a fat, old man with a pot belly. He had no clothes on and held a can of beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

  The boy continued to stare at the old man’s face.

  Suddenly, he saw the man’s eyes widen.

  The boy could now see that the man was pointing at him with his cigarette.

  He saw the man’s lips moving and heard his gruff voice as he shouted, ‘He’s awake! The fucking kid’s awake!’

  Instantly, the boy felt the weight on top of him lift off. The mattress beneath him rose slightly, and the waves of pain stopped.

  He began to try to turn over on the bed, so he could see the whole room, but his limbs still didn’t want to obey his brain’s commands. Every movement he tried racked his body with pain. His head throbbed, and his eyes, now that they were finally wide open, were stinging.

  As he blinked his sore eyes, he felt strong, rough hands grabbing him, and he heard angry, panicked voices.

  ‘Don’t let him see our faces!’ said one frantic voice from behind him.

  The strong hands turned his head quickly. He felt a massive hand grab his hair and push his head further down into the mattress.

  Finally, he found his voice and screamed.

  The scream came out as a muffled shriek, as his face was pushed deeper into the fetid mattress.

  The boy stopped screaming. Then he heard another voice saying, ‘Get some more gear, and get it into him. NOW!’

  This voice wasn’t panicked. It carried an air of command, leadership almost. With that sense of authority came real menace.

  As his face was pushed deeper into the stinking mattress, the boy suddenly felt a stinging, sharp pain in his right thigh.

  The needle of the syringe found a vein, and almost instantly the boy began to feel light-headed. The voices he could hear became distant once again, and the pain he was experiencing slowly disappeared to nothing.

  He could barely breathe now. His eyes began to feel heavy, and slowly they closed, plunging him back into a soundproof darkness, where he felt nothing.

  2

  4 June 1986

  Tall Trees Children’s Home, Bilsthorpe, Nottinghamshire

  PC Dave Bracewell drove the police car through the rusting, wrought-iron gates and along the tree-lined driveway towards the large Georgian house. The house was illuminated by white floodlights set in the ground.

  The lights cast eerie shadows.

  Looming out of the darkness, the old building resembled a haunted house from a 1960s black-and-white horror movie.

  It had just turned two o’clock in the morning when he’d received the radio message to go to the children’s home in Bilsthorpe and obtain the details for yet another missing-person report.

  He cursed under his breath as he parked the police car outsi
de the front of the building.

  It was the fourth time this week that he’d been called to attend the local authority-run Tall Trees Children’s Home.

  He got out of the car and walked briskly towards the large wooden double doors. The hall light was already on, and before he could knock, the right-hand door opened.

  Standing in the doorway, backlit from the hallway, was a middle-aged woman. She was wearing a dark brown towelling dressing gown and black fluffy slippers.

  His mood lightened a little as he recognised the woman standing there. He was always pleased to see the home’s matron, Caroline Short.

  He said, ‘Hello again, Caroline. Which one of your little darlings is it this time?’

  ‘Come in, Dave. It’s Evan Jenkins again. I’ll put the kettle on. It’s coffee, white no sugar, isn’t it?’

  With just a hint of boredom in his voice, Dave Bracewell replied, ‘You know me too well, Caroline. White no sugar, it is.’

  He walked into the spacious hallway and immediately heard scampering from above. He glanced up and saw several young boys on the darkened landing. They were staring down at him through the bannister rails, their faces lit up by the hall light.

  The matron also looked up and shouted, ‘I won’t tell you boys again – get back to bed!’

  There was a chorus of farmyard pig noises as the boys disappeared back to their dormitories.

  Caroline Short turned to the officer and said, ‘Bloody kids. They’ve been waiting there for you to arrive just so they could make them stupid pig noises.’

  Dave shrugged his broad shoulders and, with a resigned air, said quietly, ‘Now, why doesn’t that surprise me?’

  The matron grinned and said, ‘Take a seat in my office, Dave; I’ll get your coffee. Do you want a slice of toast or anything?’

  ‘Thanks, that would be great. I could murder a slice of toast.’

  The policeman had come to know Caroline Short very well in the fourteen months she’d been the matron in charge of the home. The kids at the home were always absconding. Picking up the missing-person reports and returning the boys to the home once they were found was part and parcel of the officer’s work.

  The fact that when the boys absconded they were out committing petty thefts and burglaries in the area meant that PC Bracewell had come to quietly loathe the juvenile delinquents placed in care at the Tall Trees Children’s Home.

  Tonight was no different.

  No doubt this kid would be out there somewhere, committing a crime or causing a bloody nuisance. As usual, it would be down to him to try to placate the homeowner whose house had been burgled, or the owner of the car nicked for a joyride and left damaged in a ditch. The actual crime being committed was serious enough. Even more annoying was having to attend the home almost every shift.

  As it happened, Dave Bracewell didn’t mind getting called out to the home too much when he was on a night shift. Caroline Short was extremely easy on the eye and was always very welcoming with a hot coffee.

  Dave was approaching middle age, was slightly overweight, wore glasses and had no confidence whatsoever around the opposite sex. Which probably accounted for the fact that he was still single and had never been married. Caroline always somehow managed to put him at his ease. He felt comfortable in her presence.

  Some of the other staff at the home were miserable buggers, but not Caroline. The matron always had a ready smile and made him feel welcome. More than that, she made him feel special.

  Caroline’s husband, Bill, was also employed at the home. He was the groundsman and handyman, who generally looked after the place.

  The pair of them had moved to Tall Trees after transferring up from another local authority children’s home just outside Looe in Cornwall.

  That was another reason Dave liked chatting to Caroline. He was fascinated by her strong Cornish accent.

  Caroline came back into the small, cluttered office carrying a tray with two mugs of coffee and a plate filled with rounds of hot buttered toast.

  She laughed and said, ‘Look at the state of me, Dave. Why can’t these bloody kids run off when I’ve had a chance to do my hair and put my slap on?’

  Dave took a sip of his hot coffee and looked at her closely over the rim of his mug.

  She was slightly older than him, approaching forty years of age. She had short, jet-black hair and bright blue eyes with faint laughter lines at the corners. She was petite, just over five feet two, but still curvaceous. Even under the old, dark brown dressing gown, he could still make out the sexy curve of her hips and her full breasts.

  Dave was a single man, and if it weren’t for the fact Caroline was a married woman, he would have asked her out months ago.

  He took another sip of his coffee and said, ‘I don’t know, Caroline; you always look good to me.’

  ‘Flattery will get you everywhere, Constable.’ She giggled before continuing, ‘Now eat your toast before it gets cold.’

  Dave swallowed a mouthful of the warm buttery toast and said, ‘When did you realise Evan Jenkins had absconded?’

  ‘The boys were playing up around one o’clock. When I went up there to tell them off and get them all back into their beds, I noticed he was missing. Evan shares a room with two other boys. I like to keep all the younger ones together. It stops some of the problems you can get with the older boys. Bullying and the sex stuff, you know what I mean. I looked in his room and noticed he wasn’t there. I’ve had a quick look around inside, and Bill has checked the grounds. He’s definitely gone.’

  ‘When I got here, you said, “Evan Jenkins again!” I don’t think I’ve heard that name before.’

  ‘Haven’t you? Well, I’m surprised at that. The little darling’s only been here for two months, and he’s constantly running off back home to Nottingham.’

  ‘Nope, Evan Jenkins is a new one on me. What’s he like?’

  The matron then provided all the details and physical description the officer needed to complete the missing-person report.

  Dave finished the form, leaned back in the chair and said, ‘Evan’s only eleven years of age, that makes him very vulnerable. What’s your opinion, Caroline: Is he likely to come to serious harm?’

  ‘That one? I doubt it very much! He’s eleven going on twenty-five. Evan’s as streetwise as they come. His mum’s a drug-addicted prostitute who lives in the Hyson Green flats complex in the city. Before he was sent here by the courts, he was virtually fending for himself anyway. You’ll find him hanging around Hyson Green somewhere. Probably on a street corner in the red-light area around Forest Road. The courts were concerned that Evan was following in his mother’s footsteps and prostituting himself.’

  ‘He’s a rent boy?’

  ‘Exactly. Do you want another coffee before you get back on patrol?’

  ‘It would be rude not to, thanks.’

  She smiled and said, ‘Coming right up.’

  Dave shamelessly stared at her as she walked out of the office.

  She was aware the policeman was watching and swayed her hips in an exaggerated, provocative manner. By the time she’d gone out of sight, PC Bracewell had already forgotten about eleven-year-old Evan Jenkins.

  Twenty minutes later, he’d finished his second coffee and was leaving the home. He’d said goodnight to Caroline and was walking out of the building alone.

  As he approached the front door, he heard a movement above him. In the gloom, he could see a face looking down at him, wedged between the bannister rails. This was a face he instantly recognised.

  It was another of the frequent absconders, Tommy Quinn.

  Dave had lost count of the number of times he had returned the child to Tall Trees after absconding.

  The boy was staring down at him from the balcony.

  ‘Hello, Tommy. Did you want something?’

  ‘He won’t be coming back.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Evan Jenkins. He won’t be coming back.’

&nbs
p; At that moment, Caroline Short appeared in the hallway and shouted, ‘Tommy Quinn! I won’t tell you again! Get back to your room!’

  Instantly, the boy’s face disappeared from between the bannisters, and Dave heard him scuttle off back to his bedroom.

  Caroline smiled at the policeman and moved in close, touching his arm.

  She squeezed it gently and said huskily, ‘Have you got everything you need, Dave?’

  Missing the obvious come-on, the flustered policeman replied, ‘Yes, thanks, Caroline. I’ll see you soon.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  3

  15 June 1986

  Funchal Airport, Madeira

  Danny and Sue Flint snuggled next to each other on two hard metal seats in the departure lounge at Funchal Airport. It was a small airport with a very basic level of facilities. They had just over half an hour to wait before their flight back to East Midlands Airport.

  Sue had earlier managed to find a little coffee shop in the departure hall, which sold hot beverages as well as a few books, magazines and souvenirs from the beautiful island of Madeira. She had resisted the temptation to buy a bottle of the famous Blandy Madeira wine, or the heavy, honey-flavoured Madeira cake, and instead had returned from her impromptu shopping trip with just two cups of milky coffee.

  The empty paper cups were now on the floor below the seats, the lukewarm coffee quickly consumed.

  It had been two weeks of uninterrupted bliss for the newlyweds after the delayed start to their honeymoon.

  Danny, with Sue’s blessing, had postponed the honeymoon for three weeks after the wedding. Every hour of that three weeks had been taken up trying to locate and recapture the serial killer Jimmy Wade after his audacious escape from Rampton Hospital at the end of March.

  One of the guards attacked by Wade had been left seriously ill and in a coma as a result of his injuries. It had come as no surprise that the chief constable had tasked the Major Crime Investigation Unit to investigate the attempted murder and to recapture the serial killer as soon as possible.