Someone Who Isn't Me Page 2

  ‘It’s called an estuary, Constable.’

  The constable was keen to direct Curwen towards the body that lay on a hardstanding by the shoreline. Curwen was in no rush. He knew what he was going to find. A member of his team, DC Andy Yeatson, had gone missing three nights before.

  When there was no sign of the young detective constable, Curwen knew what must have happened, knew it was just a matter of time.

  And it was. The call had come through an hour ago. The body of a man, found by – what else? – a dog walker. The serious crimes team was already here. He could see the SOCOs going over the flat damp ground, men in wetsuits in the deep ditch of the drain, looking for whatever evidence was left after the heavy rain of the past few days.

  Curwen walked along the track to the small group gathered around a tent that had been erected to preserve the scene from the weather. He made himself focus on what he was seeing, on the problems the scene presented. Curwen’s role was simple; he was here to identify a body.

  The path ended on the cracked, uneven surface of a hardstanding. The drain he’d been following emptied into the estuary via a tidal gate: Spragger Drain sluice. A mesh fence protected the edge, with bright yellow signs warning of the dangers of slipping. Curwen looked down into the water.

  One side of the fence was broken and sagging. Water flowed past below him, smooth and dark, the swirls and eddies telling of currents that would quickly overwhelm anyone unfortunate enough to fall in. The drain itself emptied into a deep, stone-walled culvert, crossed by thin beams of wood.

  Two men and a woman were waiting for him. One of the men stepped forward, a tall man he vaguely recognised. ‘DS Curwen? DCI Hammond. East Yorkshire Serious Crimes.’ Ian Hammond. A good officer as far as Curwen knew.

  He nodded. ‘You want to show me?’

  The other man held back the flap of the small tent that was protecting the body. Curwen took a brief look. It was still recognisably Andy, as he’d known it would be. The face had the blankness of death that was often confused with peace. In Curwen’s experience, the horror of a death was rarely reflected there. Across the white throat, a dark red wound gaped. Curwen closed his eyes against a sudden, unexpected surge of emotion and turned away.

  Hammond said, ‘You know him?’

  Curwen nodded. ‘Yeah. Andy Yeatson. He’s a DC with the drugs squad based at Brid.’

  ‘And you’ve been working with him?’

  ‘He was on my team. We’ve been chasing down the street dealers in Bridlington.’ Curwen looked round, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. Why would you bring someone here to kill them? If you killed them somewhere else, why carry a body so close to the estuary and then dump it on dry land? The drain dropped away beside him, barely protected by some planks of wood. If they’d dumped Andy in the water, the powerful currents would have carried the body miles out. It would probably never have been found.

  Hammond responded to Curwen’s unspoken question. ‘He was in there.’ He indicated the deep culvert. ‘He was caught in the gate – they must have been in a hurry.’ Hammond paused, briefly. ‘I’ll need to ask you some questions, DS Curwen. What was DC Yeatson working on? What would he be doing here?’

  A good question, and one Curwen couldn’t answer – or wasn’t prepared to, yet. This wasn’t where Andy was supposed to be. He was supposed to set up a meeting and alert Curwen to provide backup, not go off on his own. What had happened that he ended up here, miles down the coast? They must have brought him here to kill him, but Curwen couldn’t understand why. He pictured the dead face again; the blue lips, the red wound on the livid neck. ‘They cut his throat?’

  ‘That’s not what killed him.’ It was the woman who answered him. She was small with dark hair and a sharp face. He realised she must be the medic come to check the body in situ, pronounce life extinct, before it was taken away.

  The body.

  It.

  ‘There’s a knife wound here.’ She touched the side of her chest. ‘It will have penetrated the heart – more than enough to kill him. They probably cut his throat to be sure before they dumped the body. I’ll be able to tell you more after I’ve had a closer look.’ She turned to Hammond. ‘I’ll get back. I’ll be doing the PM first thing in the morning.’ A murdered police officer was always priority.

  Hammond nodded. ‘I’ll be there.’ He waited until she was gone, then turned to Curwen. ‘I need all the information you can give me, DS Curwen. This is a murder investigation.’ He hadn’t missed Curwen’s lack of response to his original question.

  ‘Of course. What about his phone?’

  ‘We haven’t found it. I’ll ask you again; what was he doing here last night?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir. He was supposed to be in the station in Bridlington.’

  ‘OK. What was…?’ Hammond stopped as someone called from across the field, one of the SOCOs. The voice was urgent. ‘Hang on.’ He turned away and hurried across the field.

  Curwen had no time to think about his next move; he acted on instinct. Under the guise of looking at something more closely, he slipped his fingers into the inside pocket of Andy’s jacket, where he usually kept his phone. Nothing. He tried the other pockets, but the phone wasn’t there. Shit! No time for anything else.

  He hurried across to where Hammond was waiting for him. They walked together over the field to where the coveralled figure was crouched over something on the ground.

  It was a dead animal, maybe a cat – the fur was a dull, dark brown. It had been dead for a while, and there was evidence of predation, but there was clear evidence of damage to the head. ‘Something hit it,’ Hammond said. ‘A car? A bike?’

  ‘A boot?’ Curwen added.

  ‘Get it preserved.’ Hammond’s gaze met Curwen’s.

  Curwen knew what he was thinking – after all the rain, much of the evidence that should have been here would be gone. But some might remain intact on this creature – assuming its death was anything to do with what had happened just a few metres away.

  Hammond was distracted by the new find, so Curwen took the opportunity to get out of there, telling the senior officer that he’d be available for an interview back at base.

  He had things he needed to do.

  Chapter 3

  Bridlington

  The sky was deep blue, like a summer’s day, but with a chill in the air to say that autumn was almost over and winter was fast approaching. The sun cast sharp shadows on the ground and glinted off the metal of the supermarket trolleys stacked in rows by the door. Becca Armitage leaned back against the wall and lit a cigarette, her first since getting out of bed that morning.

  Six days a week she worked here, eight thirty until five thirty. Evenings, she worked behind the bar in a town-centre pub, which gave her just about enough to pay the rent, buy food, keep herself going, marking time until… what? She didn’t really know.

  But today, she didn’t care. Today – or rather tonight – something good was happening. She turned her face up to the sunshine, and couldn’t stop herself from smiling.

  ‘What are you so happy about?’ Jade, another of the supermarket assistants, had joined her for a smoke before their lunch break ended. ‘Sheryl caught her tits in the till roll?’ Becca gave a snort of laughter. Sheryl was one of the other assistants, an older woman who was always complaining about Jade and Becca’s work to the manager, Bryan, and always told him if either of them was a couple of minutes late back from their break.

  ‘No. I’m just, you know…’ She gestured at the sky. ‘It’s a nice day.’

  ‘It must be something,’ Jade persisted. ‘It can’t be this place. New boyfriend?’

  Becca kept her gaze on the parked cars, trying to look cool, but she could feel her face going pink.

  Jade laughed. ‘You’ll learn.’ But she said it kindly and Becca found herself laughing too.

  A movement caught her eye. Jade looked up and stiffened. A kid was riding a mountain bike across the car park towards the
small space where the delivery trucks unloaded and where the staff went if they wanted to smoke. He was speeding towards them, his head down. Becca just had time to take in the gleaming metal, the bright trim before she braced herself. It looked as if he was going to run right into them. But he glanced up at the last minute and saw them. Alarm crossed his face. He pulled the orange handlebars round in a sharp turn, then did a triumphant wheelie before speeding away.

  ‘You get back here,’ Jade yelled after him. ‘Little shite,’ she said as the kid vanished round the corner.

  Becca looked at her in surprise. ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Our Lewis.’ Jade had two kids, a boy of eleven whose dad had never been around and a girl of two. ‘He’s bunking-off again. I send him off to school every morning, but he never gets there. I’ve got the social services all over me but what do they expect me to do? Walk him through the gate? I’ve got to be in work. Little bugger.’ But she sounded more defeated than angry.

  It sounded like Lewis was trouble, but there was something about the way he’d sailed past them on his board that reminded Becca of crazy motorbike rides up the coast with Jared, her boyfriend from almost a year ago, and the sense of speed and freedom she had felt. Lewis had been playing, having fun, and she could get that. She knew where she’d rather be. ‘Do you want to go after him?’

  ‘And get the push? I can’t afford to lose this job. I’ll get sanctioned.’

  Becca didn’t know what to say. She didn’t have kids – she didn’t want them, either. Who would?

  ‘We’ve got people selling drugs all over the estate,’ Jade said, scowling as she nipped her cigarette out. ‘Our Lewis is out there with them all the time. And the police? They don’t give a shit. Maybe it’d be best if the social does take him. He won’t listen to me.’ Her phone chimed and she checked it. ‘Text from the fucking school. Again. What do they expect me to do?’ She sighed. ‘We’d better go back.’

  Becca put out her own cigarette and followed Jade back into the shop for an afternoon of shelf-stacking and working the tills.

  Her shift finished, she stepped out of the hard, fluorescent lighting into the tail-end of a late-autumn afternoon. The light was starting to fade, but the sky was still clear, and the air felt mild, even though the breeze off the sea carried a cold bite. She used to think Bridlington was a dump, but she was starting to find things about it she actually liked.

  Last winter, things had gone badly wrong. She hadn’t meant for any of it to happen; she’d just been trying a help a mate. Not even a mate, really, just someone in trouble. But it meant she’d got on the wrong side of people she should have kept right away from, and she’d nearly ended up in jail, or worse. Some of the people she’d upset might still be around, though she didn’t know who they were or where they were. She thought about Jade, angry and upset about her kid, Lewis. The people she’d crossed were just the kind of people who’d sell drugs to kids, no question.

  Were they back?

  She didn’t want to think about it.

  Her phone chimed, distracting her. A message on WhatsApp. She looked at it and smiled. Jared. Her first real boyfriend. He’d sent a photo – somewhere with blue skies and high, pointy mountains all around, and he was grinning at the camera. Cool or what? The message said. She smiled and texted back Cool. Jared had been part of what had happened last year. He was off somewhere doing what he did, leading a kind of random life. Becca could have gone with him when he left, but she had no money. Jared wouldn’t have minded supporting her – but she did.

  She took care of herself. She didn’t take money from anyone, not even her foster-mother, Kay.

  What happened last year was over, and what was happening to kids like Jade’s Lewis was none of her business.

  The summer was long gone and most of the visitors had left, but even now, as winter was approaching, she could see people on the beach; dog walkers, kids digging in the sand, families wandering along the seafront in bright colours. Music from the funfairs and the smells of chips and candy floss floated through the air – the smells of a seaside town.

  Last winter, Brid had been a dark place where bad things happened, but maybe this winter, things would be better.

  Then she remembered, and found she was smiling again.

  Tonight, Andy was back.

  Chapter 4

  Scarborough

  Kay McKinnon pulled on her warm trousers, a wool jersey and a fleece. Despite getting up at five thirty, she was running late. She hated the commute from Scarborough to Hull. At least today would be the last time. Since a fire had more or less destroyed her cottage near Whitby, she’d been camping out in this bland box of a flat. It had been a roof over her head, but she had never felt at home here. Most of her possessions were in storage, and what little she’d brought with her was packed. Tonight, she was moving.

  She grabbed her backpack and took thirty seconds to glance at her reflection. She sighed.

  Her husband, Matt, used to say she always managed to look stylish. Not these days. What was the point? The deep well of grief inside her stirred and started to rise up. She rode it, let it wash over her and subside. In the early days, in the weeks and months after Matt’s death, the sheer magnitude of a pain she had no choice but to endure had the power to drive her to her knees. It was a beast she had learned to control, but not one that was ever diminished.

  Matt. He was gone and this was her life now. She had no choice but to get on with it. ‘It doesn’t mean I’ve got to like it,’ she muttered under her breath, wrapping a scarf round her neck.

  Milo watched her resignedly from his bed. He didn’t like these early morning starts, when she dropped him off with the dog-sitter on her way into work. She cast a quick eye over the flat, then clipped on Milo’s lead. He made a great show of reluctance as he climbed out of his basket, sighing and stretching. ‘Come on, Milo,’ she said, and grabbed her keys. It was time to go.

  As she drove, she mulled over her move. She’d been looking for somewhere closer to Hull, but countrified, somewhere she could go for long walks with Milo, somewhere with birds and the sea…

  Somewhere Matt would have liked.

  A car cut across in front of her and she braked sharply. Pay attention, Kay!

  It took almost an hour to drive to the outskirts of Hull where she dropped Milo off. Ten minutes later, she pulled up outside the offices of Tania’s House, the small charity she worked for that gave support to young drug users in Hull and the small towns up and down the East Yorkshire coast.

  The road – as usual – was parked-up, so she stopped on the double yellows – she’d be out again in a few minutes – and went in to collect her files. She was on home visits all day today, which was the kind of work she liked best.

  Her boss, Dev Johar, was already at his desk as she arrived. ‘Morning Kay. I wanted to discuss those budget changes you asked about, at the meeting this afternoon. Dave and Cath are coming in at—’

  ‘I have home visits all day today,’ Kay said, trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice. This was the arrangement – she only worked three days a week, on a varying timetable that was agreed with Dev at the start of the month. She always scheduled her out-of-office appointments on Fridays, and he knew that. Or should know, as it was the system he’d suggested.

  ‘I posted the details of the meeting on Monday, Kay,’ he said. ‘You should have had plenty of time to rearrange things.’

  ‘I wasn’t working on Monday, Dev.’ She nodded towards the large sheet on the wall where they all logged their work hours. ‘I can’t switch appointments around at the last minute.’ They drilled into their clients the importance of consistency, of discipline, of keeping up with commitments. The last thing recovering addicts needed was a support worker who didn’t follow those rules rigorously herself.

  Dev sighed. ‘Xanthe always managed to attend meetings. Who are you seeing today?’

  ‘Kyle Clarkson, Ian Taylor and Jassy Greene this morning, Poppy Brooke this afternoo
n. Jassy’s a new client, so I’ll need to spend more time with her, and I need to chase Kyle up – he missed his last appointment and he hasn’t been keeping up with his probation officer.’ Which probably meant Kyle – seventeen, troubled, given to solving the huge problems in his life by self-medication – was back on the drugs again.

  ‘Poppy. You could cancel Poppy and come in for the meeting. She’s doing well. She doesn’t need this close supervision any more.’

  ‘Actually, I need to talk to you about Poppy.’ Nineteen-year-old Poppy had been doing well. Kay’s predecessor, a young woman called Xanthe Adamos, had found her a part-time job, and Kay had picked up her case with high hopes of getting Poppy back into college to complete the course in beauty therapy she’d dropped out of when drugs took hold of her life.

  But in some way that Kay found hard to pin down, Poppy was struggling. She was keeping up with the job, but not much else. Kay had heard just yesterday that Poppy had missed two appointments with her probation officer – something the man had only just got round to telling them.

  Dev listened, then shook his head. ‘But she’s reasonably stable, she’s holding down her job. I want you to start the process of moving her on – group support, I think. It’s such a shame Xanthe had to leave before Poppy was fully back on track.’

  Xanthe had apparently been very cool and down with the kids, and Dev Johar never missed an opportunity to tell Kay how much she was missed. Kay was well on her way to disliking her unknown predecessor, who, for all her skills, had effectively walked out of the job. She’d gone to America to continue her academic studies and left Tania’s House in the lurch. It had taken over three months to replace her, and then only with a part-time post. Budget reasons, Johar had told her, which surprised Kay. Tania’s House had a turnover of more than £300,000 a year, thanks to some generous donors. But that wasn’t the issue now.

  ‘I can’t cancel my appointment with Poppy,’ she said briskly. ‘Let me have a copy of the minutes and I’ll respond. I’ll talk to you about group therapy for her after I’ve seen her today.’