Gone to Ground Read online

  Sharp obviously thought the same thing, because he rose from his seat and bellowed over the noise.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen – kindly take your seats and we’ll begin.’

  The effect was immediate, with the entire press corp silenced. A faint murmur persisted at the back of the room until an older journalist swore and told the offending photographer to keep quiet, and then all eyes turned to Kay and Sharp.

  Kay cleared her throat and peered at her notes, resisting the urge to blink as a phone camera’s flash exploded with light from the front row.

  ‘Earlier today, Kent Police were called to a lay-by on a lane east of Boughton Monchelsea,’ she said. ‘A group of cyclists reported that they had found human remains, and upon further investigation by crime scene officers, this was confirmed to be the case.’

  She paused, sensing an overwhelming urge to interrupt emanating from the journalists before her. She glared at them and noticed a raised hand at the back of the room dropping from sight, its owner chastened.

  ‘At this time, no further details can be shared. We can confirm that, as of an hour ago, the lane has been fully reopened at the conclusion of our search of the area. We wish to thank local residents for their patience during this time. We are in the very early stages of our investigation and will provide more details to you as and when that is possible. In the meantime, we would ask anyone with information to call the Crimestoppers number. I would remind everyone that all calls are treated anonymously.’

  She lowered the page, and glanced across at Sharp, who nodded before adjusting the microphone on the table in front of him.

  ‘Detective Inspector Hunter will be leading the Kent Police investigation with my full support,’ he said. ‘Until such time as more information is to hand, we would ask that you do not speculate upon this discovery. At present, we are treating this as an isolated incident. Kay?’

  ‘Thanks. Any questions?’

  The hand at the back of the room shot up once more before anyone else had the chance.

  ‘Yes?’

  A bespectacled twenty-something rose to his feet, a notebook and pen in his hand.

  Kay saw his mouth move but couldn’t hear him over the murmured conversations nearest to her.

  ‘Excuse me.’ She rapped her knuckles on the microphone until the culprits fell silent. ‘Thank you. This is going to go a lot quicker if you keep quiet while someone else is talking. Unless you want to miss your slot for the six o’clock news?’

  A line of reproached faces glared back at her.

  ‘Thank you. You were saying?’

  ‘The location of the remains is only a few miles from police headquarters. Why did it take until now to discover them?’

  All eyes turned on Kay, and she groaned inwardly. She knew the police would be criticised on this point but had hoped to have more news for the media before the question was raised.

  ‘The remains, unfortunately, are not complete and were not found in a place frequented by the public,’ she said, and turned her attention to a familiar face.

  Jonathan Aspley managed a smile of thanks before speaking.

  ‘The cyclists who found the remains – are they under suspicion?’

  Kay swallowed. She had to choose her words carefully.

  If the assembled media thought Lee Temple and his friends were fair game, the men and their families would suffer the indignity of being hounded until the case was solved.

  ‘They are assisting us with our enquiries,’ she said, ‘and we would request that their privacy be respected at this time.’

  She turned her attention to Susie Chambers and shot her a warning glare.

  The woman had a reputation for sensationalist stories, and Kay resolved to ask one of the uniformed officers on the team to speak with the cyclists and advise them of their rights in case the journalist and her colleagues failed to heed Kay’s admonishment.

  As the press conference progressed, a repetitiveness crept into the questions and Kay held up her hand.

  ‘That’s all for today. Our media team will be in touch when we have more to report.’

  She pushed back her chair, shoved her notes into her bag and hurried to follow Sharp through the door at the back of the room.

  She sighed as it closed behind her, letting her shoulders relax, and shut her eyes as she eased a crick out of the neck muscles.

  ‘Good work in there, Hunter,’ said Sharp.

  She blinked. ‘Thanks, guv.’

  ‘I’m sure they’ll embellish it all a bit, but that can’t be helped. Happens all the time.’ He checked his watch and raised an eyebrow. ‘You’d best get going. Early start tomorrow. Give my regards to Adam, won’t you?’

  ‘Thanks, guv.’

  Six

  Kay pushed through the door to the incident room at half past six the next morning, a cardboard tray with four take-out coffee cups balanced in one hand and her mobile phone in the other.

  It rang as she hurried towards her desk, and in her haste to answer it before it went to voicemail, her handbag slipped down her arm and hot coffee spilled over her hand. She cursed under her breath, dropped her handbag to the floor and reached out to a box of tissues as she hit the answer button and put the phone to her ear.

  ‘Hunter.’

  She dabbed at her hand with a tissue before mopping up the puddle on her desk, then tossed the sodden mess into a wastepaper basket at her feet and sank into her chair.

  ‘It’s Jonathan Aspley. I wondered if you had time for a chat?’

  Kay sighed. ‘I’ve got no more news for you, Jonathan. You heard everything we know at yesterday’s press conference.’

  ‘Oh, come on. You’ve got to give me more than that. My editor is expecting me to provide an update on our website before nine o’clock this morning – we’re trying to get a head start on everyone else.’

  Kay closed her eyes and forced herself to count to ten before answering.

  ‘You’re pushing your luck. Your ratings aren’t my problem – I’ve got an investigation team descending on this office in fifteen minutes for a briefing. When we have more detail, our media liaison officer will be in touch.’

  She ended the call before he could respond and slid the phone across her desk.

  Kay had worked closely with the reporter before, but it was the first time he had tried to take advantage of their tentative friendship. She bit her lip. In future, she vowed to be more careful – she couldn’t afford to be distracted.

  She peered over her shoulder to Sharp’s office, but the DCI was absent.

  Since her promotion, she’d been able to convince him to stay put – she was happy at her desk, in the thick of all the goings-on in the incident room, and a reluctance to shut herself away from the throng of investigations kept her hoping he’d resist the temptation to move upstairs or, worse, to headquarters.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of two of her colleagues, Detective Constables Gavin Piper and Carys Miles.

  Given the smart trouser suit the female officer wore and the determined expression on her face, Kay found it hard to recall that she had last seen Carys singing at the top of her lungs in a karaoke bar in the town centre on Saturday night while celebrating her thirtieth birthday. Kay hadn’t said anything to Sharp, but it was partly why she hadn’t insisted the two detectives attend the incident room twenty-four hours earlier.

  Gavin Piper, the younger of the two detectives, still looked the worse for wear and for someone who had told Kay at the beginning of the celebrations that he didn’t drink much, she remembered him knocking back tequila shots by the time she and Adam had left the bar and wobbled their way to a taxi rank.

  She indicated the take-out coffees on her desk. ‘I figured you’d need this.’

  ‘Guv, you’re a legend,’ said Gavin, tearing open two sugar sachets and dumping them into the hot liquid, his spiky blonde hair even messier than usual.

  ‘I take it you’re both well rested?’

  Carys
’s face paled against her dark hair. ‘I’m never drinking again. I didn’t wake up until midday yesterday, and I felt sick until nine o’clock last night.’

  Gavin winked. ‘It’s because you’re old now. No more late nights for you, missy.’

  Kay laughed as Carys threw a stress ball at him, then turned as Barnes appeared at the door.

  He ambled across to where she sat, and took the coffee she held out to him with a nod of thanks, his mouth twitching at the sight of the other two detectives.

  ‘Ah, to be young and stupid again,’ he drawled.

  ‘Leave it out,’ said Carys, stifling a yawn. ‘Have any of you got some paracetamol?’

  Kay reached into her desk, her hand seeking out the packet she kept in the top drawer, then stopped and glowered at Barnes as he sat opposite her. ‘Have you been nicking stuff out of my desk again?’

  He held up his hands. ‘Don’t look at me. I learned my lesson after those bloody typing lessons you made me do when I borrowed your stapler.’

  ‘Borrowed? I never saw it again!’

  ‘I’ve got some,’ said Gavin, and unzipped a pocket on the side of his backpack before tossing a packet to Carys.

  Kay pushed back her chair as the room filled with uniformed officers and administrative staff, and gestured to the whiteboard at the end of the room. ‘Come on, you lot. Let’s get this show on the road.’

  She led the way to the group of officers milling about near the whiteboard, nodded to some familiar faces, and took a task sheet that Debbie had printed out from the HOLMES database.

  Casting her eyes down the list, she noted the major points the computer system had highlighted and raised her voice over the din.

  ‘Settle down, everyone. Grab a seat wherever you can.’

  She spent the first twenty minutes of the briefing bringing the newcomers up to date, the room silent except for the scratching of pens in notebooks or, in Debbie’s case, tapping her fingers across her computer keyboard.

  ‘So, next steps,’ said Kay. ‘Lucas Anderson has emailed me to confirm the post mortem will be conducted tomorrow afternoon, at which point we’ll hopefully have some information we can start to process to ascertain who our victim is. In the meantime, Carys – can you work with Debbie and contact the highways department to find out when that lay-by was last cleared? I’m presuming they must have some sort of roster for doing that, especially during the summer months.’

  ‘Guv.’ Carys bowed her head, her pen flying across the page of her notebook.

  ‘Barnes, Gavin – I’d like you to liaise with uniform to go through the statements taken from local residents to find out which of those have security cameras installed at their properties. It looks like there are a few people in that area who run businesses from home, too, so I’m hopeful they’re security conscious enough to have some sort of external monitoring system that might face the road. If anyone strikes you as being of particular interest, let me know straight away – we’ll see if we can start collecting footage this afternoon.’

  ‘Will do.’ Gavin leaned across to Barnes and muttered under his breath, the older detective nodding before turning his attention back to Kay.

  While Kay reeled off the rest of the day’s tasks to her team, she was struck by how well they had gelled over the past eighteen months.

  It worried her, though, that bringing a new detective sergeant into the fray would affect the dynamics she treasured. For all his bluster, Barnes was the glue within the team and both Gavin and Carys were showing a lot of potential to advance in their careers with Kent Police.

  She sighed inwardly as she listened to Sergeant Hughes read out the roster he’d drawn up to ensure the investigation was well-manned, and realised that juggling personnel was one more of the management duties she’d unwittingly signed up for when accepting her promotion to detective inspector.

  How on earth was she supposed to run an investigation while introducing an unknown element into the group and keep the balance?

  Seven

  Kay leafed through the three-page document in her hands, the evenly spaced text blurring as she struggled to concentrate.

  While the incident room buzzed with the rigour of a team of officers making phone calls, shouting to each other across the room and two photocopying machines rumbling non-stop in the far corner, Kay held her head in her hands and tried to concentrate on the pile of résumés the personnel department had emailed to her.

  Sharp had insisted she be involved in the interview and selection process for their new detective sergeant, and she had a sudden urge to throw the whole lot on the floor in frustration.

  ‘Oh, for goodness sakes, Ian – listen to this one. “Demonstrates a high capability of maintaining office records.” So, basically, he’s good at updating HOLMES. Surely that goes without saying? I mean, if he can’t use the system properly he wouldn’t be applying for the position, right?’

  ‘Bet he can’t type, either,’ said Barnes, grinning.

  ‘Never again,’ said Kay, dumping the résumé onto a growing pile at her elbow. ‘Not now I’ve got you up to speed.’

  A serious expression flitted across Barnes’s face. ‘Is DCI Larch definitely not coming back, then?’

  She shook her head and dropped the pile of documentation into a tray on the corner of her desk. ‘No – he won’t be back. Sharp said that after his wife died, Larch decided that he’d had enough, and opted to take early retirement. I think he’s planning to move back to the Midlands to be closer to his youngest daughter.’

  ‘So, Sharp will be top dog permanently.’

  ‘Guess so.’

  ‘That’s good. He can be abrupt, but at least you know where you stand with him.’

  Kay held up her hand as her desk phone trilled.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘DI Hunter?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s Helen Box.’

  Kay frowned, and wracked her memory for the name, but none came to her. ‘I’m sorry – do we know each other?’

  ‘I’m the local councillor for Boughton Monchelsea. What are you doing about finding that killer?’

  ‘Ms Box—’

  ‘It’s Mrs. I’ve had phone call after phone call for the past twenty-four hours from my constituents, all worried for their safety. What do I tell them, hmm?’

  ‘Mrs Box, we’re at the beginning of our investigation and as you’ll appreciate, the timing is critical. We’ve put out a statement to the media which you’re welcome to refer your constituents to. If you let me have a note of your email address, I’ll ask our media liaison officer to send you a copy. As and when we have more information to hand that we can share with the public, we’ll do so.’

  ‘That’s not good enough. Have you arrested anyone yet? I can’t have people terrified for their lives.’

  Kay glanced across the desk, and saw Barnes watching her, his eyebrow raised. She spun her forefinger in the air, at which point he cupped his hands around his mouth and called out to her.

  ‘Inspector Hunter, there’s an urgent phone call for you.’

  Kay winked, then turned her attention back to Box. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Box – an emergency has come up that I have to deal with. Rest assured, I’ll call you when I have some news.’

  She replaced the receiver in the cradle with a sigh. ‘I owe you one, Ian.’

  He grinned. ‘There’s always one pain in the—’

  ‘Guv?’

  Kay glanced over her shoulder at Gavin’s voice. ‘What’s up?’

  The younger detective crossed to them, his mobile phone in his hand. ‘I’ve been speaking with a bloke called David Carter, lives about half a mile up the road from the lay-by. Uniform tried to interview him yesterday but he was away for the weekend. Reckons he might have something on his security camera footage that’ll help us.’

  ‘Are you on your way over there?’

  ‘Yes. Do you want to—’

  Kay shoved back her chair and swept her mobile phone into her
bag. ‘Yes, I do. Barnes – hold the fort. I’ll be back in time for the briefing.’

  ‘Okay. What about the candidates?’ He glanced at the pile of applications in her tray.

  She grimaced. ‘The ones in there can go in the bin, but there are seven in that folder that might be worth interviewing. I’ll give Sharp a call on the way over to Boughton Monchelsea so he can organise them with personnel.’

  ‘So, can I ask how you’re finding the new role?’

  Gavin swung the car out into Palace Avenue and accelerated to beat a traffic light that was already amber.

  Kay let the minor infringement pass without comment and sighed. ‘Well, put it this way, Gav. Don’t rush up the career ladder, okay?’

  He laughed. ‘Point taken.’

  ‘How are you getting on?’

  ‘It’s been a slow morning going through all the witness statements, but we’re getting there. Hopefully this bloke might provide us with a nudge in the right direction.’

  ‘What does he do?’

  ‘Semi-retired now. Used to work for one of the large petroleum companies, travelling around the world to do their IT systems. Does a bit of consulting here and there these days.’

  Kay plucked her phone from her bag and thumbed through her emails, before deciding all the messages could wait until her return to the police station and settling in for the short ride.

  The Kentish countryside had exploded with colour during the first week of June, and now that summer was well underway it would only be a matter of weeks before the long school holiday break began and the roads would become even more congested.

  She and Adam had planned to take a last-minute break to the Continent before the prices shot up as the schools emptied – they’d been discussing potential destinations when Sharp had called her on Sunday, and so she resigned herself to the fact it’d be September before they’d get away.

  She set her jaw and turned her attention back to the road as Gavin slowed the car and indicated left as he drew up to a set of metal gates.

  A voice intercom had been fixed to the right-hand rendered pillar, and while Gavin announced their arrival, she peered up at the house beyond.