Undermined Read online

“I’ll live,” he said, “did you see who it was?”

  “White Ford Focus, strip of tape over the licence plate. Couldn’t see the driver because of the lights. Now let’s get you out of here and that leg seen to.” Kent held Daniel with one hand and opened the car door with the other, then almost lifted him into the passenger seat.

  “I’ll be fine. Sorry sir, but I’m going to bleed all over your car. Don’t you want to see if there were any witnesses?”

  “Just shut up Owen.” Kent called in a description of the car and said he was taking Daniel to A & E.

  “It’s a bruise sir, really, I’ve had worse playing rugby. Couple of paracetamol and a shower, honestly I’ll be fine.”

  “A & E will make a nice record so when we catch the bastard we’ll have the evidence.”

  Daniel groaned inwardly at the thought of hours of waiting on plastic hospital chairs, surrounded by drunks, fractious children and worried parents. Kent must have sensed the internal groan. He patted Daniel on the leg and promised “in and out. I’ve got friends.”

  “In and out” didn’t happen, but the wait was short. Daniel’s leg had stiffened during the drive, and Kent had to help him out of the car and into the hospital, and then back out again once the wound had been cleaned, photographed and dressed. Daniel endured a talking-to about resting and elevating the leg.

  “No 10k race for me this weekend then?” Daniel asked.

  The nurse doing the dressing didn’t even smile.

  Kent stopped on the way back to the hotel for paracetamol, beer and chocolate and then helped Daniel up to his room.

  “I’ll order a takeaway - Indian?” he said once Daniel and he were inside.

  “Sir, you don’t have to stay, I’ll be fine.”

  “I’m sure you would be. Now, Indian?”

  Kent opened a bottle of beer and handed it to Daniel with the paracetamol.

  “Resistance is futile then?”

  Kent smiled, and Daniel felt something begin to flutter inside. He told himself to stop being pathetic.

  You’re such a sucker for someone being nice to you. Grow up. He’s a dickhead remember.

  Chapter 4

  Daniel was going to need a new suit. He looked at the shredded trousers and the holes in the jacket where he’d landed on the pavement and decided the bin was the only place for it. As a skinny 6’3”bloke, suits weren’t easy to buy, but this one was beyond repair.

  He had woken up late, stiff and sore all over, and had to try to shower without wetting the bandages on his leg. He dressed (slowly) in jeans, shirt and a sweater. Driving the Land Rover was painful but just possible if he concentrated hard.

  The evening before had turned out to be surprisingly pleasant. He and Kent had talked about the case, and then Spain, eaten their takeaway, and drunk a few beers. Kent told Daniel to stop calling him sir. “My name is Maldwyn.”

  Daniel couldn’t help remembering the way Kent had held him up so easily, and how safe he’d felt as those strong arms scooped him off the pavement and into the car. Daniel told himself to keep his fantasies under control, and to remember that they were colleagues with a murder to investigate. That resolution lasted until he picked up the appraising look Kent gave him as he limped into the office. Daniel’s jeans were pretty tight, but he wasn’t going to bring his old gardening clothes to the big city was he? Before he could speak, one of the DCs knocked and put his head into Kent’s office.

  “Just so you know, Roy Edwards was a no show - supposed to report at 9, and he’s not answering his phone.”

  “Thanks Evan, keep trying.”

  The DC did not reply.

  Kent pulled a chair out for Daniel.

  “No need to ask how you are this morning.”

  “I’m fine sir.”

  “Sure you are. Anyway, by a miracle, we’ve found the car that hit you last night, in the hospital multi storey. No surprise that it was stolen. No fingerprints, but possible blood spots on the carpet in the boot. They’re going to try for DNA.”

  Daniel asked whether the car had any connection to Cwmcoed or anyone in the case, but Kent shook his head. “Stolen from the same car park where we found it.”

  Daniel had a sudden mental image of Roy Edwards’s body lying at the bottom of the sinkhole. He heard Gavin Price saying that Roy was undermining his relationship with Suzanne, and he thought of Barbara’s contempt for her legal husband. He could even imagine the uptight Marian lashing out at Roy for embarrassing her in front of the town. Roy had made enemies.

  “Sir, Roy Edwards is missing. We should start looking for his body.”

  “That’s a bit of a leap don’t you think?” Kent said, “absconded more like. Or just having a lie-in with the phone switched off.”

  But Daniel was sure. He was convinced that the car that had driven at him last night was on its way back from dumping Roy Edwards’ body in another one of those horrible sinkholes. If there were blood spots in the boot of the car, he was sure they would turn out to belong to Roy. No one had seen Roy in the run up to Suzanne’s murder, and nothing Roy had said to them indicated guilt. Stupidity, yes, contempt for the women in his life, yes, but not guilt. Roy had visited Suzanne faithfully almost every weekend, putting up with her criticism of him. He tried to explain his thoughts to Kent.

  “But Owen, you’re the one who says Suzanne had a nasty streak. All she had to do was threaten to tell his wife, and game over.”

  “But who’s to say she wasn’t perfectly happy the way things were? Free to do what she liked in the week, company every weekend and he probably even took his washing home to his wife. More to the point, he wasn’t there. Somebody would have seen him. Where was he staying? I bet there’s no sign of him.”

  Kent moved from behind his desk, brushing past Daniel as he leaned out of the office door.

  “Evan. Check Roy Edwards’ digs. See if he’s there,” he looked at Daniel. “Satisfied?”

  More information was coming in about the people in the case, and the rest of the morning was spent reading it. Daniel read that Roy Edwards’s building firm was doing well, had plenty of work and even filed its accounts regularly. Roy appeared to be a law abiding citizen without so much as a parking ticket. Daniel wrote “but bigamist!” on the bottom of the report, before turning to the report on his first wife.

  Barbara Edwards had taken Spanish citizenship ten years ago, and Vanessa had dual nationality. Emails to their counterparts in Spain produced the information that the family was well thought of, and that Vanessa’s husband, Juan-Carlos Rios was the son of the local Mayor. Barbara herself had been born and brought up in Cwmcoed.

  Daniel knew Marian Edwards as a vocal spokeswoman against equal marriage, but that was all. Bethan’s report said that Marian hadn’t worked outside the home, although she was active in the Conservative Party and for various charities. She and Roy had two adult children, Russell and Cheryl, respectively a car dealer and boutique owner.

  Daniel sighed.

  “What?” asked Kent, looking up from his computer.

  “They’re just all so respectable. Small business owners, into local politics” he sighed again.

  “Keep reading, there’ll be something, there always is.”

  Daniel moved on to Suzanne. She’d been married three times, divorced twice and her last husband had died. Gavin was the son of her first husband and worked as a mechanic.

  His phone rang.

  “Owen.”

  “It’s Sasha Davies it is. Me and Rhiannon - you remember my sister Rhiannon? Well we’ve been asking around. We went to the hairdresser, we did, Caitlin’s Curl Up and Dye, you might have seen it? Well she’s been asking too. She does, sorry did, Suzanne’s hair. Every couple of weeks, spent a fortune she did, lucky cow. Anyway she says that no one saw that Roy except at the weekend. And everyone says you got knocked down by a car last night and Rhi wants to know if she can kiss it better. Are you OK? And is it true Mal Kent was there because no one’s seen him for years. That Gavin
seems to be moving in next door, not that he’s speaking to us, and he always has a different car so we can’t tell...”

  Daniel managed to slow the torrent after a few minutes, assuring Sasha that his injuries were minor, diverting her from enquiries about Kent and thanking her for her information. He ended the call with a big grin.

  “The gossip in Cwmcoed is that Roy Edwards hasn’t been seen there since the weekend” he told Kent.

  “Which doesn’t mean he wasn’t there.”

  “I think they’re pretty observant. They saw you sir.” It was the wrong thing to say. Kent’s face went hard and he turned back to his computer.

  Dammit. It’s like walking on eggshells.

  Daniel went back to the reports. There was something about Suzanne’s that was ringing a bell. One of the neighbours had seen Suzanne welcome a woman visitor on the day of the murder (or possibly the day before, the vagueness was infuriating). The woman was tall and looked familiar. Could it have been Marian? Or, given that Cwmcoed was gossip central, nothing at all? He read the report again.

  “Sir, Suzanne was living on a pension from her third husband. A pretty generous pension. If she re-married, she’d lose it. She would have been mad to want to marry Roy. And no one in the gossip factory says she ever mentioned marriage.”

  “Believe it or not Owen...” Kent was interrupted by a knock on the door.

  “No sign of Roy Edwards at his B&B. Landlady hasn’t seen him since yesterday. Still not answering his phone.”

  Evan got a curt nod and withdrew, closing the door on Kent’s scowl.

  “He’s dead sir.”

  “He’s gone home. Make yourself useful and send someone to look.”

  “Yes sir. But he won’t be there.”

  “Just do it. I’ll believe he’s dead when I see his body.”

  OK. If that’s how you want it.

  Daniel struggled to his feet and limped to the door. “He’s in those woods sir. I know it.” He closed his ears to Kent’s shout of “Owen!” and headed to the car park.

  It didn’t matter how often Daniel told himself that the injury to his leg was only a bruise, it still hurt, and so did the rest of him. Note to self, colliding at high speed with the pavement should be avoided if at all possible. He managed to get into the Land Rover by putting all his weight on the left leg and shuffling his bum onto the seat. If he pressed the pedals gently with his right foot it wasn’t too bad, but any sudden movement sent pain shooting through his body.

  So we’re going to drive carefully. Very, very carefully.

  The main road out of Cardiff was fine, but as he navigated the stop-start traffic up to Cwmcoed, the ache in his leg turned into a slow burn and then into a wildfire. He parked where the crime scene tape still marked the path to the sinkhole and put the handbrake on with relief. Pain made it difficult to think, so he just waited, hoping it would pass.

  Roy Edwards is here. I know it. I just need a few minutes to clear my head.

  He prayed to any deity who might be listening and they answered with a half full bottle of water and some chocolate left over from yesterday’s lunch. He pushed the door open and the sounds and smells of the woods rushed in. His phone had been buzzing since he left Cardiff. He looked and put it back in his pocket, messages unread. The chocolate, water and rest helped. His leg still hurt, but the clammy skin and dizziness had receded, and the thought of getting out of the car and searching the woods seemed like something he might be able to do. In a minute. First the sinkhole where they’d found Suzanne, and if Roy wasn’t there, he’d look for other places.

  Two days ago, in the rain, with the sky overcast and dark, the forest had seemed dense and claustrophobic. Today, Daniel could see that there were plenty of gaps in the trees letting the light through. It made sense that the densest areas of forestry would be the least explored, because who would go scrambling over tree roots and through the bracken when you could stick to the track and enjoy a view? Suzanne had brought Roy here for exercise. Roy was an overweight drinker. He didn’t go walking in the woods on his own. They would have stayed on the track, and stayed together. Roy was a victim, Daniel was sure of it.

  He eased himself out of the Land Rover, gritting his teeth as his right leg made contact with the ground. He checked that he had keys and phone, and followed the crime scene tape towards the sinkhole. The trees were close enough together that he could use them as handholds, until he found the perfect fallen branch to use as a crutch. That, and an unexpected patch of yellow sunlight made him smile. The sun lit up lichen on rocks and fallen trees making it glow. Spiders’ webs glinted, hung with water droplets from the last of the rain. He heard a buzzard shrieking overhead and the rustle of smaller birds in the undergrowth. His leg still hurt, but he could ignore it.

  The clearing with the sinkhole was cheerful in bright sunshine, though the hole itself still gave him the creeps. Ferns and saplings were vivid and green where the ground dropped away into darkness. Somehow he had to get close enough to look over the edge which is what the dog walker did when he found Suzanne’s body. Why would it collapse now? Daniel could see where the police had put the legs of their tripod winch so that should be stable, right? He crept towards the edge of the hole, gripping his stick with one hand and tree branches with the other until he was standing by the small pile of rocks where the scaffolding pole had been, about six feet from the edge. No amount of telling himself that the hole was no more than twenty feet deep could persuade his feet to take another step. He sat on the rocks and counted his breaths in and out. The longer he sat there the more haunted he was by the thought of the ground slipping away into darkness. He imagined endless vertical shafts, pools of black water, crumbling stonework and rotting ladders. And then he told himself to stop being pathetic, wriggled on to his stomach and looked into the hole.

  It was empty.

  Empty of dead bodies. There was enough light to see where the police had been working - scrapes on the moss covered rock, a dark stain which was probably blood, branches and stones moved aside. But no Roy Edwards.

  Daniel wriggled away from the edge, told himself to stop shaking, and clambered back on to the pile of rocks. He looked again at the sinkhole. Something about it was wrong, changed from the last time he was here. Not just the absence of the forensic team or the winch. He let his eyes follow the rim all the way around until he saw it. The sinkhole was bigger. On one side, more of the ground had collapsed into the hole.

  He stood up and made his way back to the trees encircling the sinkhole. The ache in his injured leg was getting worse, and a quick glance at his jeans showed that it had started bleeding again. He held on to the trees and moved toward the new collapse. Roots were exposed along with rocks and plants ripped from the thin covering of soil.

  Then Daniel saw the tissue. A tiny patch of white caught in broken grass and soil, as if it had fallen from a pocket and been stood on. Someone else had been here, after the police had left, after the latest collapse. It could have been anyone. But he knew it wasn’t. He should have rung Kent then. Instead he got onto his hands and knees and started crawling, counting his breaths in and out, in and out, in and out, getting to where he could see into the hole.

  To where he could see the body of an overweight man, with his hands taped behind him and another strip of tape over his mouth, lying on a pile of rubble about fifteen feet below him. Daniel thought that the collapse had probably been caused by whoever had dumped the body moving around next to the edge. The whole place should have been fenced off, because any movement could cause more earth to crumble. As he started to wriggle backwards, he felt the ground sinking underneath him.

  Daniel cried out in horror and shock as he slid into the sinkhole, in a shower of stones and soil.

  He didn’t fall far, but that was the only good news.

  The ground underneath him was damp and uneven. Sharp stones and bits of wood stuck into his body. His hand tingled where he’d leaned on some kind of prickly thing. His leg was on
fire again and every movement threatened to set of another land slip. The smell of rotting vegetation competed with the scent of the pine trees. Just below him was Roy Edwards’ body, and above him blue sky and stable ground, that he couldn’t get to. He couldn’t help the sob escaping from his chest.

  He put his hand on the prickly thing again and swore. But he managed to pull his phone out of his pocket to call for help. No signal. Then he heard the voice.

  “Fuck it, Daniel, I can’t stand much more of this.”

  Daniel?

  He looked up. Kent was outlined against the sky.

  “It’s here, sir, Roy Edwards’ body.”

  “And so are you. Keep still, I’m going for a rope.”

  Twenty minutes later Daniel was out of the hole and Kent was pulling him away from the edge and into the safety of the trees.

  “Are you OK? Why am I even asking, of course you aren’t. Can you walk?”

  “But sir, the body.”

  “I’ve seen the body. You were right. Now will you shut up about it?”

  “There’s a tissue. It might be the murderer’s.”

  “I saw it. Now for the last time, can you walk?”

  Daniel didn’t know, but he was prepared to try. Kent didn’t give him the chance, just gathered him up and all but carried him back to the track.

  “Rescuing you is getting to be a habit, Daniel.”

  “Sorry sir.”

  “You’re going to sit in my car. I’m going call the circus, and when they arrive I’m taking you back to A&E where I’m going to insist you have an X-ray of that leg, and if you say anything other than yes Maldwyn, I’m going to thump you. OK?”

  Chapter 5

  After the X-ray showed “only” tissue damage, and his leg was re-bandaged, and Daniel had sat through another talking-to about resting the leg, Kent took him back to his own flat. It was dark, but Daniel thought that there was probably a view of Cardiff Bay through the uncurtained floor to ceiling windows. It was the flat to match Kent’s car: clean, warm and expensive. It smelled of new carpet, Kent’s spicy fragrance, coffee, and ever so slightly of the sea.