8. The Quarry

DS Vega and DC Khan pursue Reese Stowe.

8

 

‘Get around the front!’ Vega barked, waving Khan around the side of the house. ‘If he comes out, you grab him!’
     ‘What are you doing?’ Khan demanded as Vega began to inspect the backdoor.
     ‘Going in, if I can.’
     ‘Without a warrant?’
     ‘Right to entry, section 17 of the PACE act, do your bloody reading.’
     Khan scampered around the front and Vega shoved his weight against the kitchen door, pointlessly. It was all PVC and double glazing, the place was a fortress.
     As it happened it didn’t matter. He heard the slight suction of a window opening at the side and jogged around in time to see a small, hooded figure clamber out. ‘Police! Get your arse over here, Reese, we want a word.’
     The kid turned towards him. The glimpse was enough to confirm what Vega had suspected. It was the same twelve year old whose photograph he had looked at a few hours ago in Jodie Groves’ living room.
     There were changes, of course. Nearly seven years had passed: the narrow jaw had squared a little, the cheeks had sunken. Reese had stubble darkening his jowls and bags beneath his eyes. His skin was sallow, screen pale. He had the rounded shoulders of someone who spent too long hunched over a console but Jesus, could he run.
     The boy took off like a hare and Vega urged his reluctant body after him, calling hoarsely for Khan. Reese wasn’t heading for the road at the front of the house but tearing through the neglected garden at the back, leaping over untended flower beds and hidden obstacles; a fallen basketball hoop the grass had grown over tripped Khan, Vega heard him curse as he splayed out. ‘F*****g grass stains!’
     Vega kept going. There was a belt of trees at the bottom of the expansive lawn and Reese darted inside their cover. Vega’s heart sounded like a washing machine on spin cycle, blood sloshing in his ears as he struggled to keep pace with his far younger quarry.
      The detective wondered if Reese remembered him from all those years ago, sat opposite each other in interview room 2. His father, Sam Stowe, had been there as his appropriate adult. Reese had kept his chin thrust out like he was a man, but he’d had a Pokémon toy clenched tight in his sweaty little fist. Vega could even remember what shirt the boy had worn. He certainly remembered the punch Sam had slung at him when the questions got intrusive. The shiner had taken a week to fade.
     ‘REESE!’
     Khan was starting to catch him up now, recovered from his stumble. Vega could hear the DC’s feet pounding the frozen ground behind him and his short bursts of breath, more controlled than his own wheezing gasps. Reese was still putting distance between them.
      There was a path through the trees, it wasn’t woodland as Vega had initially feared, just a small copse. On the other side was a field and a lake whose waters looked like polished flint in the gloom of early evening. A mist was beginning to rise from its surface and tangle around the reeds. Reese was running around the lake’s circumference, passing a short jetty and a hut. There were more trees beyond it, growing closer and darker than those they had just sprinted through, and the teenager was heading for them.
     They wouldn’t catch him before he got there. Vega conceded defeat. He slowed to a halt and lowered his bulk to the frigid earth. It felt like a belt was being tightened about his chest. His vision was fogged and the throbbing in his ears was like heavy bass.
     ‘We lost him,’ Khan said, pointlessly, as he stopped beside him with his hands clasped behind his head. He was out of breath but he was in a better state than Vega was. Youthful f**k. ‘You all right, sir?’
     Vega couldn’t answer. He lay stretched out on his back for a moment, raising his thumb to assure Khan that although it felt as if he was having a heart attack, he likely wasn’t.
      ‘You’ve got some speed,’ Khan offered charitably and took his hand, hauling him to his feet. ‘We gave it a good shot.’
      ‘He was running…on fear,’ Vega managed to gasp. ‘That’s…a hell of motivator.’
      ‘And he’s probably not smoking twenty a day.’
      ‘Ten,’ Vega corrected him, standing doubled over still. ‘Can’t afford twenty.’
      ‘Tell me. F*****g tax, right?’ Khan looked towards the woodland that had swallowed Reese, smoothing his palm over his closely shaven scalp. ‘It’s getting dark. We could arrange a search but it would probably be pointless.’
    ‘Yeah. We’ll put a shout out…best we can do.’
     Khan picked up a stone and hurled it at the lake in frustration. He suddenly pressed his forearm over his nose and mouth. ‘This water stinks.’
     Vega straightened up and looked out over the lake. There were great green spreads of algae blooming at the very edges, but no scum. The water slapped gently at the bank. It was dark but not muddied. ‘I don’t think it’s the water…’
      He looked towards the hut, some two hundred yards away. They were down wind of it. He headed towards it, Khan on his heels. The smell increased. It was rank, cloying. A familiar smell, but not one he’d ever got used to.
     There were no windows. He checked the door. There was a latch and a padlock but the padlock was undone. Vega glanced over his shoulder at Khan. ‘How many bodies have you seen, son?’
     ‘A few. Enough,’ Khan said. He swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. ‘I’m fine, sir. Go ahead, open it.’
      Vega nodded and pulled open the door. There was a buzzing like an old electric light being switched on; black flies bombarded them. Vega stuck his head around, long enough to ascertain what he had suspected.
     ‘Is there?’ Khan asked uncertainly from behind him. ‘A body?’
     ‘Yeah, afraid so.’ Vega opened the door fully and stood back, letting the worst of the stench escape. ‘He’s been here a while, I think.’
     ‘I gathered that much from the pong.’ Khan peered around his shoulder, sleeve still firmly pressed across his mouth. ‘Is this him, do you reckon? The dad?’
     ‘I don’t know.’ Vega knew he wasn’t supposed to step over the threshold. The scene needed to be secured. Curiosity kept him looking in though, and eventually it tugged him one step inside.
      The hut was only a little larger than the average garden shed. It was neatly organised: rods and fishing tackle were hung by hooks on the walls, there was a filing cabinet in one corner and a small trestle table on which sat a portable stove, a camping kettle and a couple of chipped mugs. Both mugs were half-full of tea or coffee which had stagnated.
    Spread out on the table was a sheaf of papers. Identification, Vega realised on inspection. No goodbye note though. He peered a little closer, still trying to keep his feet rooted one step inside. Yes, he knew the man in the passport picture. Samuel James Stowe.
     A handsome chap in life, Vega recalled, with eyes like his dead son; always squinting as if on the cusp of laughter, as if enjoying a private joke. He’d been a little short but he was a fireball, with enough energy about him that you didn’t notice his lack of height. A charismatic sort; even after he’d punched him, Vega couldn’t bring himself to dislike the bloke.
      Vega hadn’t recognised Sam when he’d seen him on the local news, a month or so ago. He’d been on to defend himself against claims that he’d defrauded his clients. Sam had mumbled his excuses, eyes aversive and hands restless. That infectious energy was sapped, that sparkle extinguished.
      It fit then, Vega supposed, with the scene in front of him now. The man sat across from him, slumped in the armchair with a shotgun between his knees. Much of the top of his head was missing, spattered across the slatted wood behind him. It was black now, old and dry. The contents of his skull had slopped onto the floor.
      ‘Looks like suicide,’ Vega said, softly. ‘It’s not, but it looks like it. Who did this to you, Sam? You are Sam, aren’t you?’
     No answer. Obviously. He could hear Khan on the phone behind him, calling it in. Rooker and the SOCOs would be here soon enough, men and women more intelligent than him. Vega wanted to form his own idea of what had happened before they brought their science in. He took another step closer.
     The plaid flannel shirt, jeans and expensive Timberland boots the body wore were steeped in the fluids the body had excreted, discolouring the cloth and denim. It looked like the sort of outfit Sam would wear, though.
     The lower half of his face was intact still, his jaw hanging slack, which was the first indication something was awry. Most suicides by firearm, especially a firearm as large and difficult to handle as a shotgun, had an upward trajectory. The shot entered through the mouth, or under the chin. The shot would exit the back of the skull or top of the head.
     The shot that had killed this man had capped him; blown away the scalp and the upper most part of the skull, taking with it the left eye and much of the nose. Someone shooting at him from close range?
     Vega lifted an imaginary shotgun, went through the motions. Someone significantly shorter than him had fired the death shot. Someone almost exactly the victim’s height.
     He edged close enough to see the hands, which were open, the fingers slightly clawed. No defensive wounds. No sulphurous smell of unburned carbon, either, but it was hard to smell anything other than the decomposition.
     Vega’s stomach lurched. He took a stick of gum from his pocket and began to chew it furiously, the peppermint working to distract his gag reflex. He stepped out and joined Khan. ‘That’s either Sam Stowe or someone’s gone to a lot of trouble to make it look like it is.’
      Khan shuddered suddenly and turned back to face the waters. ‘Stowe had a license for firearms. Rosen had me run him through the PNC earlier.’
     ‘He’s also been texting his ex-wife over the past week. Which means he either gets incredible signal or someone’s nicked his phone.’
      ‘You think someone’s been impersonating him?’
      Vega shrugged. ‘If they killed Sam, then killed Deano, it would delay both him and his boy being reported as missing. It would make the scenes more likely to become contaminated, I suppose.’
    ‘Deano’s been dead since Wednesday, probably, right?’ Khan said. ‘Well that man, whoever he the f**k is, he’s been dead a lot longer than that.’
     ‘He has.’
     Vega looked towards the line of trees. The sun had sunk behind them, leaving them in darkness. The chill blown off of the lake cut through their layers of clothing and bit into the bone. Both men were shivering, arms wrapped tight about themselves. The spectral mists still rising off the water didn’t help alleviate the haunted mood.
     ‘He led us here,’ Vega said quietly. ‘Reese. When he ran from the house he wanted us to follow him this way. He knew what was in that shed.’

It was another half-hour before Forensics were on the scene. A black Audi saloon followed the vans to the house and Vega went to greet it, recognising the vehicle and surprised to see it there. Bishop climbed out, looking as ever as if he were about to enter the next ring.
     ‘Sir,’ Vega greeted him, sticking out his hand. Bishop shook with him but ignored Khan completely.
     ‘Well this is a right f*****g mess, isn’t it?’ he growled. ‘It’s him, is it? The father?’
     ‘All indications suggest it is, but until �" ’
     ‘I’m asking for your opinion, inspector. Assuming you’ve got one.’
     ‘I’d say so, sir.’
     Bishop blew out his cheeks and shoved his spectacles further up his broken nose. ‘What a f*****g mess,’ he said again. ‘All right. I’ll cancel holiday and try get some extra bodies from the SCD. I wanted it to just be us running this but we’ve not got the numbers for two Cat. As in as many days.’
      ‘We’re down a suspect too,’ Vega said. Bishop shot him a look that said he didn’t need to be reminded of the fact.
      ‘How did he do?’ Bishop demanded, jerking his thumb at Khan.
      Vega looked the detective constable up and down, drawing out the moment. ‘He did well.’
      ‘Right. The two of you piss off, then. Write this up and get some sleep. You look like you need it.’
     Vega yawned. Being reminded of his fatigue brought it crashing home. Sleep would be nice. Unlikely, but nice. Bishop stalked up towards the hut and Vega turned back to Khan whose dark eyes were lowered. He clapped the younger man on the shoulder and gave him a firm squeeze. ‘You all right?’
     ‘Not really. I’m never going to get these grass stains out.’
    Vega threw back his head and laughed. An exhausted, near hysterical laugh that carried towards the Forensics team. He quickly hung his head and shoved Khan back towards the house. ‘Come on. Let’s clock off while we still can.’

 

Author's Note

All constructive criticism gratefully received.

Reviews

[NoelHC]

Another compelling chapter, and this confirms some of the impressions I have formed of Vega that I had sent you by PM. I can find nothing to fault in this episode at all.

[W.k.kortas]

I'm thinking you may be spending too much time with funeral directors and coroners, as the description of traumatic injury and the nature of a fairly-long dead corpse are detailed and accurate. When you're writing a crime/thriller story, research is always your friend. Well done, indeed.

[SLD Bailey]

Thanks, WK! I was gifted a wonderfully gory book on forensic pathology by my mother-in-law for my last birthday, which has aided me somewhat :) Research is definitely key to this morbid game! Thanks, as always, for your patronage.