Grave Portent

By Jack Chapman

The officers of a small, country Police station investigate a murder that might be two murders, face a riot, pursue a sex offender and suppress evidence of drug smuggling involving old friends. By turns cynical and idealistic they go about their business in an all-too-human way.
At Gapley nuclear power station the quiet of the night shift is disrupted by emergency alarm sirens. Next day a beach fisherman brings ashore a floating corpse. Sergeant Miller is more concerned with his unrequited passion for newly arrived Constable Muriel Larkspur than with Inspector Gibbon's insistence the body from the sea is suspicious, Meanwhile in the CID office Detective Sergeant Dutton is preoccupied by the imminent arrival of management consultants from Force Headquarters. The last thing anyone wants to disturb their routine is grave robbers and journalists.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jack Chapman
• Release date: Mar 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311759375

Jack Chapman

Hi, I'm Jack Chapman - the writer, classic film connoisseur, and acclaimed cocktail mixologist.Look me up on Facebook or find me on Twitter under the username TheJackChapmanLook forward to hearing from you.

Book preview

Grave Portent

by Jack Chapman

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2016 by Jack Chapman

Some died in the summer of love

Some in the winter of discontent

And lied in hope of resurrection

With faith and grave portent

(Anon)

Chapter One

The dark was fractured. A string of paraffin lamps glinted across the wet shingle. Northwards the sharp beam of Easton lighthouse flashed nervously, first white then red. The southern horizon was framed by the enigmatic glow from the mercury arcs around Gapley.

A dozen anglers were spread out along the shore huddled under canvas shelters rigged against the weather. If local opinion was believed the wind on this coast came straight from Siberia, no matter if it blew east or west around the globe before assaulting the low Suffolk coast. Tonight it battled against the flow of the tide and the ghostly white spray hurled above the black waves encouraged the club veterans to pass disparaging remarks about the North Sea's calmness. Apart from the wind, the crashing surf, and a couple of transistor radios, everything was very quiet.

Roger Wesley, no veteran but never one to admit it, threw away the cold dregs of coffee and screwed the plastic cup back onto his Thermos. The rug around his shoulders slipped off onto his aluminium-framed camping chair but he ignored it as he savoured the blanketing mystery of nature. Wesley was a practical man in most ways but he sensed in these surroundings an eternal silence that was drowned but could never be smothered by the waves. He drank up the darkness splintered by eldrich lights. He appreciated everything around him. Everything except the Gapley construction site burning a hole in the night like an eruption of nuclear acne. Billions of pounds of taxpayers' money spent, thousands of megawatts of energy promised, all so his kids could slouch at home watching rented horror videos.

He scanned the big glo-paint float bobbing fifty yards from the shore, only just visible, but saw nothing in its rhythm other than the slow swell beyond the breakers. His rod was propped up beside his folding seat and he reached out to test the tension of the line. On the other end of the filament he felt something heavy and reluctant to move. Somewhere out there under the sea were the drowned ruins of the city of Dunwich. Carefully, apprehensive of snapping the line if it was caught on some sunken obstruction, he began to reel in.

A few yards out his catch grounded. As the water receded between waves he recognised what it was but waded out through the surf to make certain. He hardly noticed the shock as the cold water came over the top of his boots. Along the shore the other anglers turned in their folding seats and peered around canvas shelters to see what the commotion was about. When Wesley kept on shouting beyond normal limits they began to stand up and go to look for themselves.

Miller had learnt a lot from Body Language Appreciation, the half-day seminar at Force HQ designed to improve police interaction with the public in stressful situations. He didn't like what he was seeing now. WPC Lark's upper torso was leaning decidedly forwards, her arms were ostentatiously uncrossed, and her brown, cow eyes gazed directly into Inspector Gibbon's weasel features.

Sergeant Miller was fairly confident that WPC Lark was wearing false eyelashes. They were too sensuously long and even darker than the roots that lurked below the peroxide blonde curls.

He was equally, almost, confident from dim memories of his youth that eyelashes and hair like that had last been popular in the not-so-swinging Seventies.

Whatever her appreciation of the history of fashion, and whatever reason she had for copying her mother's hairstyle, WPC Lark had obviously been on one of the BLA courses herself. No one in their right mind would project such a positive message at Inspector Gibbon except as a cynical exercise in buttering up the boss.

From the other side of the big, open-plan office on the first floor of Holford police station Miller couldn't hear what the conversation was about, but he could see that Lark was expounding with every appearance of enthusiasm about something that was making Gibbon nod his head like a toy dog on a car's back shelf. The woman constable's eyelashes danced up and down, her wide mouth worked through a quick sequence of alluring smiles and enigmatic pursing. There was a subliminal interplay of tongue extrusion and lip licking that stayed barely on the legal side of erotic provocation. Gibbon kept on nodding mechanically.

In the few weeks since the last purge a wilderness of mislaid files, unread documents, forgotten memoranda and vital directives had grown on top of the shared group of desks where Miller sat. The paper jungle was infested by telephones that burrowed deep into the undergrowth like a species of vulnerable prey. Now one started squealing in terror. He pushed paper aside and picked up handsets until he found the culprit. He listened unwillingly then demanded Where's the area car then? Can't they attend?

It seemed they couldn't, being engaged for the time being in breathalising the survivors of a car crash on the A12. Getting up Miller stared across the office again. There were a lot of things he could find wrong with WPC Lark - eyelashes, hair, enthusiasm - but the worst thing of all was the hollow ache she caused in his stomach every time she talked to another man.

Fifteen minutes later Miller turned his vehicle into the Dunwich car park and navigated around the potholes to the seaward end.

In the Middle Ages Dunwich had been a city the equal of Ipswich or Norwich in its merchant power. In its prime it had rivalled London in its monastic establishments. Now it was a hamlet of one pub, one church open by appointment, and a handful of cottages where well-off Londoners retired. Everything else - the Guildhalls, Abbeys, dockside slums and sheep-pens - had fallen into the advancing sea.

At the end of the single narrow street an even narrower lane led to the field that provided parking for day trippers to what the Tourist Board called the Heritage Coast. A big enough field, an acre or more of stony ground pounded into solid grey ruts by decades of car tyres. Puddled deeply in places where wheels had spun and eroded, rimmed by grass hummocks and weeds too tough to attract the cattle that grazed the salt marshes extending northwards from the fence. It was a popular place on hot Summer days, crowded at weekends in the season, it had its attraction on dark nights whatever the weather.

Miller had been young himself once, a probationer on late shift and given the job of shining torches through steamed-up car windows. Necessary for law enforcement to check the occupants weren't doing anything offensive to public decency. How anyone could imagine they might be there for any more legitimate reason had never been explained.

Out of the car Miller pulled his waxed coat over his uniform and avoided shining his torch across the windscreens of any of the dozen, widely spaced, parked cars. He trudged up the shingle bank that protected the low-lying ground against flooding then slid down the opposite slope onto the beach. He found the anglers easily. Several of them had brought their paraffin lamps to light the area where they stood in a tight group.

Somebody telephoned the police station. Said you'd found something, he shouted over the wind.

One of the men stepped forward. The flickering shadows made it difficult to make out his face but the voice carried. That was me, Sergeant. I rang from the box up in the village, next to the Ship and Anchor.

Right. Miller took out his notebook. Could I have your name please, sir?

Yes. I'm Roger Wesley. Do you want to see it? Wesley had a trace of a local accent but only one that might come and go according to the company he was in. Not a Londoner or a tourist. A self-confident man though, ready for any situation judging by the enthusiasm he was showing in this one.

And the address, sir?

5 Laurel Way, Bulcamp. I told your control room all that. Look it's just here. Wesley indicated the blanket-covered mound lying on the shingle.

And your friends, sir?

We're the Easton Bay Sea Angling Club. I expect you've heard of it. We're well-established. Some of us are down here every night the fish are running, weather and wives permitting. Would you like individual introductions or would you like to see the corpse?

Miller put his notebook away unhastily and bent to pull the tartan rug back. The usual smell of the foreshore seemed more pungent tonight. The body was a leprous white in the light of his torch, the wet hair plastered across the face very black in comparison. Christ. You've caught a big one there, he said.

I just pulled him in, Wesley explained modestly. You must see a lot of this in your job.

Miller nodded. Not every day. Sufficient. He straightened up and moved his torch away from the corpse's face. It's a consolation when life starts to get you down. Something like this comes along and makes you realise the alternative's no improvement. Incidentally, did I ask what your occupation was, sir?

I'm a landscape gardener.

That must be a rewarding job too, Mr Wesley. Have you noticed he's naked, sir?

Yes. Of course I bloody noticed. He was like that when I found him. Wesley sounded offended at this criticism of his discovery. No one's looted his bloody clothes if that's what you're thinking.

I expect the sergeant's wondering if you've got a licence for this sort of catch, one of the Easton Bay anglers put in helpfully.

Pity if it ain't allowed. Biggest haul Roger's had this season, another commented.

Miller ignored the remarks. He wasn't wearing the blanket then?

It's a travel rug. It's mine. You need something like that to keep warm at night. Exposed down here. You can tell it hasn't been in the water if you look at it. You can see it isn't wet. It seemed more decent to cover him.

Just to get matters straight, sir, you're telling me you threw your fishing line out and just reeled this body in?

I'm glad I'm getting the picture across to you, Sergeant. Yes. That's the situation. More or less. Well, I mean I had to wait a while before I noticed there was something there, Wesley conceded. Fishing's a game of patience and perseverance. Then of course I had to be careful with only a twelve pound breaking-strain monofil. Obviously I wasn't anticipating having to deal with anything this weight.

Yes. Miller considered the matter carefully. So we've established he's not wearing any clothing. What did the hook catch on?

Wesley bent down and pointed It's inside his cheek. In there. Just like a bloody fish.

Miller pointed his torch at the corpse's head again and saw the filament dangling out of its mouth like a thin stream of dribble.

Find out what bait he's got there. I ain't going to use it, the angler wearing the baseball cap commented from the shadows.

I did cut the line. But I left the end in place. As evidence, Wesley said.

Very wise, sir, Miller replied. His personal radio was picking up nothing but static on the beach. He climbed back up the shingle bank to where reception was better, turned his back to the wind, and called in to the station. Until the police surgeon and the van for the body arrived he spent the time routinely taking the names and addresses of all the other Easton Bay anglers.

Chapter Two

Miller was frozen and terminally bored by Wesley's extensive and, as far as he was qualified to judge, highly dubious advice on the best techniques for catching dabs and whiting. By the early hours of the morning the surgeon had certified the dead body was dead, the police photographer had photographed the dead body from every angle and taken a few snaps of Roger Wesley and the fourteen foot carbon fibre rod that had been instrumental in the catch. The ambulance men had replaced Wesley's rug with a zipped, opaque plastic bag and had stretchered the dead body up the bank and off to the mortuary.

The photographer's flash had revealed Wesley as a man somewhere in his thirties. He was sharp-featured with a neatly trimmed beard and a sturdy build beneath layers of waterproof clothing. He seemed disappointed when all the necessary procedures had been completed. In the course of the evening Wesley had lectured the coroner's officer about the deceptive quickness with which the temperature of corpses fell when immersed in the North Sea, advised the photographer on the best aperture to use with flash at night, and been politely refused when he offered to help the ambulance men move the body bag.

Shall I call in at the station to make a statement tomorrow then?

Miller blew on his numb fingers. He considered making an appointment for a time when he'd be off-duty but couldn't think of a way of ensuring it would be Inspector Gibbon who'd have to handle the interview.

We'll be in touch, sir, he said. He trudged back up the shingle to the car park. If the passage of time dulled the passions then the presence of police cars made time pass like a bucket of cold water. The courting couples had long since wiped the condensation off their windscreens and driven off.

He regarded his own dayglo-orange striped Panda with a familiar loathing. Traffic division drove Granadas and Range Rovers. Inspector Gibbon had a 2 litre Sierra. What he'd been given was a Ford Fiesta, a car with many virtues but in terms of status more a lukewarm teacup than a bucket of any temperature. He suspected that if his patch hadn't been twenty miles wide the bastards would have put him on a bicycle. He got into the easy-to-park car, switched on the economical engine, and turned the heater up to its highest setting.

Driving back to the station on the long, straight road through the Forestry Commission plantation he began helping himself to handfuls of fruit gums from the bag he had on the passenger seat. After a few minutes chewing he remembered his expanding waistline. To take his mind off it he pulled out his cigarettes and began to worry about cancer, heart disease, breath like an ashtray and the appalling cost of it all. The car's heater wasn't taking the chill of the beach's Siberian wind from his bones. Finally he switched on the flashing blue light and floored the accelerator. It didn't cheer him up. On the other hand it was better than nothing.

Miller pulled in his stomach, straightened his back and widened his eyes when he saw WPC Lark approaching him in the corridor. He tried to make out if it was just the material of the white shirt or the pert breasts inside that were bouncing up and down.

He deepened his voice an octave below its normal tone and said for want of anything better Hello, Muriel.

In Miller's experience women in real life never batted their eyelids, it was something only done by vamps, whatever a vamp was. When he considered the matter he couldn't really point to it, unless it was from a grainy black-and-white film with actresses in satin evening dresses wisecracking with men in homburg hats. The sort of film shown in the middle of the night on television on a minority channel for insomniac policemen working unsocial shifts. Whatever it was, whenever or wherever, eyelid-batting vamps must have come from somewhere, but not from real life. Not since the social upheaval of Technicolor cinema had stopped people from going to Manhattan nightclubs and made them throw away the extra-long cigarette holders. No, they were one of those clichés from the mists of time you never thought about and didn't know what they meant when you did think about them. He had no idea what eyelid batting was supposed to look like. Or for that matter what a vamp was.

WPC Lark batted her shiny, eye-shadowed eyelids at him. Miller was more convinced than ever that those eyelashes were false, and that his voice had sounded like a squeaky hinge.

She added a wide, inviting smile to complete the disintegration of his composure that the eyelids had started. Are you coming?

Yes. From the front the roots didn't show at all. Maybe she didn't know about them. Where to?

WPC Lark tossed her dyed blonde curls, The case conference, she vamped back over her shoulder

Gibbon had said something about it that morning, along with the reminder that last week's time sheets were overdue and more details of the imminent visit from another of HQ's management consultants. Miller, with more immediate work to attend to, had forgotten about it. There had been another incident near the Bulcamp primary school that could have turned out badly but this time hadn't. Luck or accident, something or nothing, it had several of the mothers in near-hysterics and had prompted the chairman of the Governors to phone Roland Dukes who did school liaison.

He turned and followed Muriel Lark back down the corridor,