Chapter Two

Luck ran out on Tuesday lunchtime, when one of the Wickley primary school admin team rang through to Adam's office to inform him that the police were on the phone.

"It's a Chief Inspector Robin Bright calling," she said in a worried voice. "Should I put him through?"

"Yes please, Val, and don't panic. This should be personal, not business."

Although the staff who'd been in post when he'd taken up his job in January were aware of his domestic setup, people like Val who'd only joined the school for the start of this new term wouldn't be in the know. Unless the staffroom gossip machine had informed them. Adam made a note to give both Val and the new maternity-cover teacher the lowdown once the call had ended.

"Hiya." It sounded as though Robin was out in the wilds somewhere. "You can guess why I'm ringing you. May be home late. Suspected murder in the Kings Ride Woods."

"A murder? You've managed to get the news to me before I saw it on the local news page." Or heard it in the staffroom.

"I'm not sure the media will have got wind of it yet. The body was found by a woman out for a run, who's had the sense to keep shtum. Somebody will notice our activity here soon, so I've rung Cowdrey to brief him before the enquiries pour in. I'm still at the scene."

Adam winced. Even at the most difficult of times, like when an Ofsted phone call came, he wouldn't swop his job for his husband's. "I appreciate the heads-up. I know the score by now so, when you can, let me know what to have ready dinner-wise and when."

"You're a legend. I don't need to tell you not to say anything until we break the news."

"Keep quiet and carry on?"

"Something like that. He's been dead at least a couple of days, so we think there's no immediate danger to the public, although we'll issue the usual warning about taking care when you're out alone until we're clearer about what went on. The person who found the body was bright enough not to assume it was a natural death, which proved right when we turned the bloke over and saw the back of his head. You don't want the gruesome details."

"I do not. I'm trying to grab my lunch." Luckily it was a hummus wrap and not a ham sandwich.

"We'll be putting out an identity appeal, as well. Nothing on the victim or with his corpse, apart from a small, empty packet of Party Rings and a few old crumbs. Oh joy."

"Good luck with that. I'll wait to hear from you; otherwise, Hamish and I can have a romantic dinner together."

"Don't nick his Bonios or he'll turn nasty on you. Got to go. Don't forget the milk."

"I won't." He'd never forget that special bit of code, either—although surely the rest of Robin's team had twigged by now that the pair couldn't run out of semi-skimmed so often? Had they guessed it substituted for I love you?

He put down the phone, grateful that his role meant he could usually take calls straight away—assuming he wasn't in deep conversation with an irate parent or other person who demanded his entire attention—and not have to wait until lessons were over. A death at Kings Ride wouldn't directly impact the school community at Wickley, given how far away it was, but once the playground chitchat started, people would be unsettled. He'd deal with that when the time came, having had plenty of practice.

Meanwhile, he'd wolf down the last bit of an already delayed lunch, then head to the office, where he could explain to Val exactly who'd been on the phone, if not the why.

By the end of the school day, the news had broken and was the talk of the staffroom. But while Adam was willing to confirm to his staff that his husband was indeed in charge of establishing what had gone on—it was only a suspected murder, after all, and could still turn out to be a freak accident—he made it clear there was no point pumping him for inside information. He wouldn't have had much to share at that point, anyway, even if he'd wanted to. Which he didn't.

The police had put out an appeal in an attempt to identify the victim and said he didn't match any local missing person's reports. That had brought unpleasant echoes of the case Robin had tackled just over a year previously, although that victim had lain undiscovered a lot longer.

"The dead man mustn't have had any ID on him to give them his name," Val said, as she gathered up her things, although she didn't seem ready to leave at present. "Maybe the killer took it."

"A robbery that went too far?" Alice, the deputy head, shrugged. "He might not have been carrying it in the first place. If I go out for a run and I know my husband will be in when I get home, I rarely take anything with me of value. Except my wedding ring, obviously."

"It's pointless speculating." Liam, the year-two teacher, glanced over his shoulder as he wrestled with the tea bag in his mug. "Anyway, the police probably know more than they're letting on."

Not a lot more, Adam guessed, ensuring his face didn't give away his thoughts.

"Whether they do or don't, people can't stop speculating. It's part of how we cope with these awful things," Alice said. "Trying to make some sense of what's senseless. Would that be fair, Adam?"

"It's a valid point. I don't mind you discussing the Kings Ride death in here, so long as it's away from the pupils and doesn't intrude on work." The case would likely be a seven-days wonder, especially if the police made an early arrest, although Adam wasn't getting his hopes up on that front. "What I would suggest is that none of you go running on your own in any local woods for a while. And no, I don't have any inside knowledge about whether there's a particular danger out there, although you don't need inside information to know that people can't always go for a walk or a jog in safety, because that's the kind of world we live in. I'm not only thinking of ‘stranger danger,' but the standard of driving we have round here. Robin had a case a few years back that hinged on a hit and run."

A sobering reminder that appeared to have the desired effect, given the facial expressions around the room.

Adam gave them all what was hopefully a reassuring smile. "Right, finish off anything you need to do here, then get home at a decent time. Hug your family."

"You too." Alice nodded sympathetically. "Although I suppose your bloke won't be home as early as you will."

Wasn't that the truth?

At Abbotston police station, there was no sign of anyone getting away any time soon. The public response to the media appeal had already resulted in some information which Robin's team was following up, although they'd drawn a blank on identification so far. The Saracens wolfpack T-shirt the victim had been wearing should have helped, it being distinctive and not for a local rugby team, although Sergeant Pru Davis's experience was proving the opposite.

"Another dead end," she announced to those in the incident room, after practically slamming her phone down. "I've just spoken to a Mrs. Gambling, who was sure the dead bloke was her husband, except that when I drilled deeper, he couldn't be. Mr. Gambling's been gone for a month and never supported Saracens in his life, both of which could be explained away but the mouthful of dentures can't be."

"You were very polite with her," Danielle said, with an air of real respect.

"Probably too polite. I wonder if he's upped sticks and she wanted someone to talk to about it." Pru sighed.

Robin, who'd emerged from his office to give his team an update, suspected she was right. "I know it's frustrating and I hate this ‘not knowing' phase as much as any of you, but keep your peckers up. Early stages." Albeit it was an early stage without many of the usual things they'd be doing, like conducting door-to-door interviews or speaking to friends and family. None of that could happen without a name or a place of residence. It also meant that precious time would slip by before they could deal with the obvious suspects in many a case of violence: those who had been closest to the victim. "Unless he was jobless, he must have an employer somewhere trying to get hold of him. It's only a matter of time before they join up the dots."

"Given the fact he'd got nothing in his pocket—not even keys—what are the chances this was a mugging that got out of hand?" Danielle asked.

"A pretty good chance. Which is the worst kind of case, as far as I'm concerned, because—as those of the team who've worked with me before will tell you—I initially focus on people the victim knew." Robin glanced over at an incident board which was horribly short of content. "We've not got the full forensics or postmortem results yet, but you don't need to be a CSI or a doctor to have spotted the blow to the head or the pool of vomit." Analysing the crime scene and searching the wider area was one thing they'd been able to do.

Pru took up the discussion. "We mustn't rule out that the sick belonged to the dead man. Blows to the head with our old friend the blunt instrument can cause nausea. Only he'd have had to have moved after he'd spewed because that vomit was a good two metres away. I know I'm now going to state the obvious, but it could also be the killer's or have come from somebody else who found the corpse and didn't bother reporting it, for whatever reason. Our runner said it isn't hers."

Ben nodded. He'd been with Robin for a while now and had experience of exactly how his teams worked. Robin made sure his officers could air ideas, be open, never be afraid that they'd get the mickey taken out of them for suggesting something a bit off piste. "She must have a strong constitution, then. Not a pretty sight."

Pru let out a snort. "She's a midwife, so it would take a lot to faze her. Talking of constitutions, who wants to attend the PM in half an hour? Danielle, have you been at one before?"

"No. But I'd like to," the constable added, clearly trying hard to hide the fact she didn't. "Got to be done sometime, hasn't it?"

"We can go together," Pru said. "If that's okay, boss?"

"Fine by me. You can always call me down there if anything surprising turns up." Robin smiled his approval. Pru was developing all the skills necessary for the next stage in her career, and part of that was bringing on junior officers. That could be seen in her willingness to support Danielle through what was likely to be an unpleasant experience. "What did this midwife have to say?"

"She—Kathy Hartley—had the sense to make a careful note of what was at the scene, in case it got disturbed while she went off to call us. She doesn't think anything did get moved."

"We're sure of that?" Ben asked.

"So Kathy says," Pru replied. "She hung around so she could take us to exactly the right spot and then apologised because she'd not had the sense to take the what3words location, bless her. She said she could have taken pictures of the crime scene but that wouldn't have felt right."

"Can I scroll back a bit, please?" Ashok asked, in a sheepish voice. "I may be being thick, but why did she need to go elsewhere to make a call, sir? Doesn't that seem suspicious?"

"Not to us locals. There's no signal in that part of the woods. One of the many regional blackspots where no provider reaches." Robin jerked his thumb towards the window. "Go out into the wilds and try it sometime. Although you've made a good point." He took another shufti at the board. "We can't ignore the chance that Kathy could have been involved and her discovery of the body was staged. Can we get her name up there, please?"

"Good to have something to fill the gaps," Pru said, as she jotted the midwife's name on the incident board.

Ashok continued. "Would the killer have known there was no signal, sir? That may have been why they chose that spot to biff his victim one, if he couldn't ring for help."

"It could be. That would imply they might be local because, like you, lots of folk who visit the area get a shock when they realise it's like being up a Scottish mountain, rather than sixty odd miles from London." Robin smiled in remembrance of the black spot around Lindenshaw school and its indirect connection to meeting the love of his life. The lack of mobile signal had formed part of the murder investigation in which Adam had been a witness. "Still, let's rule nothing out and nothing in until we have more in the way of facts. Ben, you and Pru stayed at the scene longest—anything to offer us?"

"Not a sausage." Ben moved to the incident board, where Ashok had put up a map pinpointing where the body had been found. "As you can see, the victim ... Can we give him a name, please, sir? It feels so impersonal to keep calling him the dead man."

"Gary," Pru suggested. "He looks like a Gary."

"Okay. Carry on—" Robin was about to say Constable in an inadvertent nod to one of his aunt Clare's favourite films, but that felt like an inappropriate note of levity.

"Gary was found here"—Ben indicated the spot—"so the closest houses are right over to the west, a mile off and not near an official access point to the woods. There are several footpath entrances and a couple of car parks, but there were no vehicles left unaccounted for when Pru and I did a sweep of the area on the way back."

Pru joined her colleague at the board. "So, Gary could have lived within jogging distance, maybe at Kings Ride itself, or been dropped off by a mate. Unlikely to have used public transport, especially at a weekend, because the bus to Kinechester comes twice daily on Saturdays and not at all on Sundays."

"He could have brought his own car and whoever killed him nicked his keys and then took it," Robin pointed out. "That wouldn't necessarily have been planned, either. We all know how opportunistic thieves can be. Hopefully, our appeal for runners, or anyone else who uses the woods, to come forward might yield results."

"I keep thinking of that Ellen, sir," Ashok said, in an unusually sombre voice. "She lay undiscovered for weeks, but that was in her own home. Why wasn't this bloke—Gary—found if he was near a running route?"

"He wasn't, not really," Pru said. "According to Kathy Hartley, most runners stick to the main paths because there are adders at Kings Ride. A jogger got bitten during lockdown and ended up in hospital with a severe reaction. Folk tend to be wary of going on the smaller paths, but Kathy said she knew you're unlikely to meet a snake at this time of year."

Robin nodded. He'd seen a warning sign about venomous snakes when he'd parked his car.

"There was a flasher up there, as well," Danielle said. "He started during lockdown. They only caught him last September, so it put some women off running in those woods."

"I'd forgotten that." Pru gave the constable an approving nod and then checked her watch. "We'd better get organised and head down for the gruesome bit, Danielle. It'll be marginally better than dealing with people who think Gary's theirs, only to find out that he can't be. All frustration at our end aside, it must be heart breaking for them."

On that sombre note, the team went back to their tasks, still none the wiser as to Gary's actual name.

By the end of the day, Robin and his team had the results of the postmortem, if bugger all else. The autopsy hadn't thrown up anything unusual and a still green-about-the-gills Danielle confessed that she'd struggled to hold it together and not puke. She'd managed to take notes, which she relayed to the rest of the team.

"He died as a result of a blow to the head with a blunt instrument. Something like a smaller version of a baseball bat," the constable said. "If it had been anyone else, they might have survived, but he had quite a thin skull, so probably death followed soon afterwards, although he might have been able to stumble a yard or two."

"Eggshell-skull rule," Ben said. "The killer won't be able to rely on that fact to mitigate their crime."

Danielle nodded. "Another couple of things. The vomit contents at the scene don't seem to match what was in Gary's stomach, and in terms of time of death, he was likely to have been killed somewhere around seventy-two hours previously, so maybe Saturday lunchtime."

Robin noted, with a touch of guilt at the thought, that Gary would have already been dead by the time he was discussing Hamish crossing his paws. If that was the case, had he tempted fate after the event?