Tell Tale: A DI Charlotte Savage Novel - Mark Sennen

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was all anyone could hope to do. You tried to make a difference, to change people’s lives for the better. In the end though, whatever you did, you ended as dust. Atoms spinning in the infinite void, never again to experience anything. Fox wallowed in a growing feeling of despair. Many years ago he’d been faced with depression, but he hadn’t let it get the better of him; he’d beaten it and come out stronger. This time, he knew it was different. This sort of depression couldn’t be beaten. This time he couldn’t win.

      Fox took a final swig from the bottle and then screwed the cap back on. He placed the bottle carefully on the passenger seat and then his hand strayed to the keys in the ignition. He turned them a notch. The lights on the dash lit up, the aircon began to hum and the navigation system came on. A blinking icon indicated that the sat-nav couldn’t lock onto any satellites to fix its position. Lost, Fox thought. Completely and utterly lost.

      The wrong turn had come miles back, an error of judgement undoubtedly, but one made with what at the time had seemed the best of intentions. Covering up his son Owen’s involvement in a hit-and-run accident in which a young girl had died had been a remarkably easy decision to make. Owen had been high on drink and drugs, and the effect on Fox’s career had the truth come out would have been cataclysmic. At the time Fox had told himself he’d done it for Owen and his young fiancée – Lauren, pregnant with the couple’s first child – and not for his own selfish reasons, but deep down he now wondered at the veracity of that. Sure, Owen had reformed. Fox had forced him into a boring job, forced him to begin to accept the responsibilities that came with fatherhood. The lad had abandoned his old friends and was now a model citizen. Still, there’d been a heavy price to pay. Fox had had to call in favours and make promises to keep the truth from coming out. The problem was corruption had a stink about it and however hard you tried to keep things airtight, sooner or later there was always a leak.

      There was the human cost as well, not just to his own sense of psychological wellbeing but to the parents of the victim. And that the mother should be one of his own workforce compounded the situation. Every time he met her he worried that she could read the guilt on his face. He, in turn, could see the pain on hers. She’d never got justice, never found peace. The latter, Fox reckoned, would never come, but justice? Well, some sort of resolution to the whole stinking mess lay just around the corner, the next turn on his journey.

      Fox lay back in the seat and closed his eyes. Imagined the classic XK150 with his grandfather at the wheel. Soon, perhaps, he’d be sitting beside him, rolling through countryside bathed in the sunlight of an endless childhood summer. They’d park up somewhere on a village green where they could watch a game of cricket. His grandfather would reach into the glove compartment and pull out two tins and his pipe. The first tin contained boiled sweets, and Fox was allowed one every time a four or a six was scored or a wicket went down. His grandfather would take the other tin and tap his pipe on the lid three times, open it and fill the pipe with tobacco. Then he’d light up and they’d talk about the game in front of them or football or rugger. Whether Simon would like to come fishing with him. The same life but another time, a simpler time. A better time.

      Fox felt tears welling in his eyes. Disgusted with himself for his lack of courage he blinked the moisture away. Then he turned the keys another notch. The engine started and exhaust fumes began to pump into the car.

       Chapter Five

      When Savage pulled the car into her driveway, the sun hovered low above the Cornish coast; Plymouth Sound bathed in light. Sunday was all but gone. Back at Fernworthy the search teams had given up for the day, the latest report from Frey stating there was a high probability Anasztáz Róka wasn’t in the reservoir. The bankside and woodland area designated by the PolSA had been scoured inch by inch and nothing had been found. Results from the search and rescue groups engaged in a wider sweep of the moor were equally disappointing.

      Savage paused at the front door, taking a moment to switch off and leave the day’s events behind. Her kids didn’t need to know that a girl was probably lying naked and dead in a shallow grave somewhere on Dartmoor. Her husband wouldn’t want to be filled in on the minutiae of misper procedures. Her role as a police officer ended at the threshold to the house. And yet she couldn’t leave behind everything that had happened today. Seeing Owen Fox, holding the pistol in her hand as she’d watched him go about his business, unfettered by guilt, had made her realise she couldn’t let things go on as they had. She owed it to herself, to her family and most of all to Clarissa, to find a way to make Owen pay for what he’d done. She just needed to think of a way to do it without endangering everything she loved. Savage took a deep breath and then went inside.

      In the house she found Pete in the kitchen tossing a salad, an apron tied round his waist. Pete was the epitome of a good-looking, clean-cut naval officer, but he still looked ridiculous wearing the apron.

      ‘From absent husband to househusband in just a few months,’ Savage teased. ‘I might just be the only person in Plymouth grateful for the defence cuts.’

      ‘Careful,’ Pete said, waving a wooden salad spoon at her. ‘I still hold a high rank in the Navy and as such am in charge of an array of formidable weapons.’

      ‘Really?’

      ‘Yes.’ Savage ducked as Pete used the spoon to launch a cherry tomato across the room. ‘Mind you, I might be in need of some gunnery practice.’

      Savage laughed and then picked the tomato up and lobbed it back at Pete, running from the kitchen before he had a chance to retaliate. In the living room, Jamie and Samantha were arguing over which movie the family were going to watch for their regular Sunday film night. Jamie wanted something with cartoon animals while Samantha was keen on anything with vampires and pale, unhealthy-looking males. By dinner time they’d plumped for some Disney movie and they sat with bowls of pasta on their laps, pigging out.

      An hour and a half later, with the end titles streaming up the screen, Savage’s mobile rang. She pushed herself up from the sofa, reached for the phone and stumbled out of the darkened room and into the hallway.

      ‘Ma’am, it’s me.’ It was DC Enders, his Irish accent providing all the introduction needed.

      ‘Yes, Patrick?’ Savage said, closing the door to the living room to shut out the kids’ conversation as they played out the funnier bits of the movie.

      ‘The Hungarian girl.’ Enders paused, but Savage knew what was coming next. ‘We’ve found her.’

      Savage sighed, the laughter coming from the children suddenly grating. She walked into the kitchen, opened the back door and went out into the garden. Pete had set a sprinkler to water the lawn and as she walked across the grass a fine mist caressed her face.

      ‘Tell me.’

      ‘At the reservoir. Not far from where the fisherman found her clothes. In fact, he was the one who found the body. Dodgy, if you ask me, ma’am.’

      ‘Right. Are you up there now?’

      ‘No, I’m at the station. John Layton and Inspector Frey are there though. The pathologist has been called.’

      ‘Thanks, Patrick. I’m leaving now, tell them I’ll be there in an hour.’

      Savage hung up and stared across Plymouth Sound towards the lights of the city where, despite it being a Sunday, the night would be getting into full swing. A wash of tiredness swept over her. A fitful night had been followed by a long day. The stress of seeing Owen Fox had worn her out and the news about the Hungarian girl was the last straw. She felt as if she barely had the energy to climb the stairs to bed. For a moment she considered phoning Enders back and telling him she couldn’t make it, that a family crisis had intervened. Then she remembered the passport photograph of Anasztáz Róka. A blonde girl far from home. Lost and now dead. She was somebody’s daughter too.

      ‘You selfish cow,’ Savage said to herself.

      Then she wiped the moisture from her face and

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