A Wake of Crows

Book 0: DC Donna Morris

by Kate Evans

Genres: Police Procedurals

Synopsis

'Effective and moving' Literary Review

'Tightly plotted, really well written and a very engaging, unusual detective in the form of DC Donna Morris. An original and refreshing take on police procedurals' Harriet Tyce, bestselling author of Blood Orange


The first in a thrilling new police procedural series set in Scarborough and introducing DC Donna Morris - middle-aged, seemingly ordinary - but hiding many secrets...

Donna Morris has chosen to do her probationary year as detective constable in the small seaside town of Scarborough. But on her first day, a body is found in the woods: the corpse of Henrik Grünttor presents itself as that of a homeless man, dead from his own drug use. However, until recently, Grünttor had been working at the local GCHQ centre on the Russian section and the postmortem reveals the cause of his death to be uncertain.

Now in her early fifties, Donna has her own reasons for wanting to be in Scarborough, ones she would prefer to keep from her colleagues. For she's not been drawn there by the landscape or the light, or even the beach, but to be closer to her wayward daughter - a daughter serving time in the nearby prison for GBH. Yet beyond even this, Donna hides another secret: she grew up in East Berlin, escaping across the wall in the early 1980s.

Due to the circumstances of her past Donna is drawn to the dead man whose background is not dissimilar to hers... and her persistence reveals there are several people who wanted Grünttor dead -- and gathered around him in his final days like a wake of crows...

Praise for Kate Evans
'Kate Evans delivers a gripping crime debut with a truly original policewoman as the central character. Highly recommended' Irish Independent

'Well written and without any flashiness, this believable police procedural deals with guilt, vengeance, love, a serial killer with a God complex and redemption. . . effective and moving' Literary Review

'Read this book' 5 Stars, Reader Review

'A rich and rewarding police procedural with a candidly portrayed and memorable central character' 5 Stars, Reader Review

'A brilliant read' 5 Stars, Reader Review

Release date: June 3, 2021

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 336

Sample

Now, 2013

When the call comes through, Donna has been in Scarborough for twenty-four hours and on duty for five. DS Harrie Shilling has been introducing her to the different floors of the police station and some of the staff who work there. Now, the DS cuts the phone connection and looks Donna up and down, her gaze resting on Donna’s shoes, a pair of robust brogues. They obviously pass muster. Harrie gives a curt nod. ‘We’ve a male found dead in Raincliffe. You’re coming with me.’

As they leave the building, Shilling says, ‘You might want to keep some decent boots to hand, the countryside around here can get a little rugged.’ She doesn’t add, ‘not like the soft Southern streets you’re used to’. However, it hangs in the air.

Harrie drives to the back of the town and up a steep hill. Turning off at the top she keeps to a gravelly path. Donna notices how focused her DS has become. She is petite compared to Donna, with blonde hair pulled back tight, emphasising her sharp cheekbones which have reddened under the blusher as Shilling stares ahead of her. Donna imagines she is making a mental list of what needs to happen. It is what Donna would be doing, only with the current vagaries of her memory she would need a pen and paper too. She lets her gaze move past Harrie through the driver’s-side window. There is a fine view of toy-sized housing splaying out from the two bays, with the ruined castle keep sentinel on the cliff in between. The sea is navy this afternoon; there is a firm horizon between it and the paler sky. Many have come to Scarborough for views such as this, for the light, for the waters, for the sea. Donna has not. On the whole, she would prefer to be landlocked.

Switching her gaze to out of her own window, she takes in a field of sheep and what she presumes are television masts held by slender metal wires which glimmer in the low-wattage September sun. Then Harrie explains this is GCHQ, Government Communications Headquarters, the government listening station. Donna is surprised. Who’d have thought it, here? She gives it a second glance. It still looks like a gathering of TV antennae.

The track runs out, they park and begin to walk. Soon they are in among the trees – a mix of pine, birch, beech and oak. The path becomes steep. It is claggy from the recent rain. The leaves occasionally float from the branches around them, a confetti of yellow, burgundy and brown. Donna can sense the heatwave brewing. She pauses. She sucks in air. Her mouth is dry. She unzips her coat and pulls at the scarf around her neck as if it might be throttling her. Then she plunges on. Her DS is waiting for her at the outer cordon looking as if she has merely strolled to the corner shop. Donna can feel the dampness in her armpits and around the collar of her shirt. She hopes her face has not gone too beetroot. She suspects Harrie will be checking whether her new (temporary) DC has really passed her fitness test.

The inner cordon is being managed by a tall broad officer, made more bulky by the usual plethora of implements and devices hanging off his regulation fluorescent jacket. Donna remembers how wearing one made her feel corseted as well as safe, though she never expected to feel this pang of nostalgia for it. Shilling introduces her to PC Trevor Trench as: ‘DC Donna Morris, she’s with us for a while, from Kenilworth, during her probationary period.’

For a while. It seems no one is very clear how long she will be here, least of all Donna.

‘Trev,’ says the PC, grasping Donna’s hand in his warm bear-paw, ‘pleased to meet you.’ He is probably around the same age as her, a smidge the wrong side of fifty. He is the first officer Donna has met who hasn’t made her feel ancient. Even Shilling can’t be more than her mid-thirties.

‘Trevor’s a Scarborian through and through,’ says the DS. ‘A fount of local knowledge.’

Trev grins, presumably at the label. When Shilling asks him to bring them up to speed, he does so with slow deliberation. The body had been found by a lassie who had been riding through the woods on her horse, a usual route for her. The lassie turns out to be a woman in her forties. She had noticed a tent just off the path for a couple of weeks, but hadn’t reported anything, believing the woods a better place for the homeless than the town’s streets. ‘As long as they don’t make a mess,’ she had added, and Trev now faithfully conveys. Donna notices Shilling balling her hands into her knee-length puffer-coat pockets and letting her weight move from foot to foot. However, she doesn’t hurry Trev and Trev carries on unhurried. The body is male, Caucasian, aged anywhere from his thirties to his sixties. The CSI are on the way. The area has been secured. He closes his notebook.

‘We’ll take a swift gander any road,’ says Shilling, her tone also betraying the local accent, though lighter than Trench’s. She leads the way along the designated route to the body.

It looks like Elizabeth. For a moment. It is something in the mismatch of ill-fitting clothes and the outstretched emaciated arm. Though she has been informed the victim is male. And she knows where Elizabeth is. Even so, Donna hesitates.

‘You have seen a dead body before, haven’t you?’ asks Harrie.

Donna nods. ‘Of course. But you don’t ever really get used to it, do you?’

Shilling gives an encouraging smile. ‘The boss says when you do is when you should think of doing summit else.’

The boss, the one Donna is waiting to meet, he’s beginning to sound all right.

They approach the body. Donna is aware of sounds beyond her own internal workings. They ease her fluster. She can’t hear any traffic noise. There is the croaky caw of a crow. Donna glances up. Jet mourning beads decorate the tree branches. Then one ruffles its feathers. They are in a clearing. To one side is a huge spreading beech, its smooth bark folded and twisted from ancient pollarding. Beechnuts plop through foliage to the ground. Those already on the ground crunch under her feet. It’s as if the dead man’s fingers are reaching to pick one up. Fern, bracken and brambles form a tangled barrier to where the ground falls away down a steep incline. They also create a green and brown shroud for their victim.

‘What do you think?’ asks Harrie.

Donna takes her time; she wants to show she knows what she is talking about, because she knows she does. ‘Looks like he’s been sleeping rough for some time. There’s signs of drug misuse.’ She indicates the familiar tracks on his arm. She leans slightly forward, swats at a fly which has risen to greet her; the smell is rank. ‘Decomposition, or maybe a fox has made a meal of him. Could mean he’s been here a few days.’ She glances at the collapsed heap of tarpaulin and metal poles at the other side of the clearing. ‘That would have hardly kept him dry and warm. He’s very wasted. Could be he starved, died of hypothermia or an overdose.’

Shilling nods. ‘In which case our only job will be to find out who he is and the next of kin.’

‘Sad,’ says Donna, then wishes she hasn’t. Is it revealing too much emotion? She’s still testing out her new colleagues. She is gratified to have her DS agree with her and add that unfortunately this kind of death is becoming all too usual.

Behind them a pheasant suddenly hurtles itself into the sky with a great flapping of wings and screeching. It has been disturbed by the arrival of the crime scene manager and his team.

‘At least he’ll get a decent tent now,’ says Harrie flatly.

It had been what Donna had been thinking. Her DS turns away and into duty-mode before Donna can be certain this moment of connection has clocked with her.

Now

Her new house is bland. She is glad of it. Of course, it is not entirely hers. She is renting it. It is all she can afford. Jim won’t finance this ‘mad escapade’ of hers. They have a house, he says, a four-bedroom detached 1930s house with a wraparound garden, which they have both lavished time and money on. It is a revelation to Donna that, on the whole, at this moment, she prefers this bland brick box attached to a line of bland brick boxes in a cul-de-sac, each with their own narrow drive and patch of lawn front and back. It is on the outskirts of town, away from the sea. This too Donna finds comforting.

She boils the kettle for her fruit tea. She had always been a two-cups-of-coffee-in-the-morning-to-get-her-going type of person, but she finds she now treasures rest over everything and fruit tea means better sleep. She is showered. Her cropped brown hair is already dry. She is dressed. Layers – she has found layers work best. A light sleeveless T-shirt under the cotton shirt and cardi. The offices appear to be hermetically sealed, she has to be prepared for heat. Especially as Harrie has said the CID turned incident room can get a little snug. She’s also wearing a skirt. Trousers are more problematic these days. But she has bought some sturdy boots, much like the ones she wore as a PC, and the skirt could manage the roughest terrain. She’s relatively confident she’s kitted for whatever happens.

She sips her brew and eats her porridge topped with raspberries. She realises she is looking forward to the day, relishing the challenges which are to come. She’d always been a relish-er, ever since she – to the consternation of Jim – had become a special constable, when Elizabeth and Christopher had settled into school. More recently she’s noticed having more off days, when fatigue drags her down. But not today, she is determined. She runs through what she expects will happen. They have to get an ID for the man and the pathologist’s report should tell them whether a crime has been committed. It’s a crime whatever, she thinks. A crime a human being ends up like that. Jim wouldn’t agree with her. Some people bring it on themselves, he would argue. He had argued, even when speaking about Elizabeth. She is glad not to have to spend another breakfast countering him – or not, and feeling impotent for not doing so.

She considers leaving her crockery in the sink for washing later. There is no one but herself to please. She cannot do it. She might be back late – she wouldn’t want to have it there waiting for her. Then she goes to the bathroom for one more check. Satisfied she has everything she heads out the door.

As she does, she encounters her neighbour, Rose Short. She’d already been round with home-baked biscuits and a beaming welcome. She lives up, or maybe down, to her surname, is stout and has a long grey plait snaking against her back. She is dressed for the allotment in baggy dungarees and wellies. There is something of the hippy about Rose. In their first and only conversation she’d told Donna she is a member of the Green Party and had been at Greenham. She had tried not to look disappointed when Donna had said she wasn’t political. ‘Not possible,’ Rose had said. ‘Everything we do is political.’ Donna hadn’t felt strong enough to defy Rose and had quickly nodded. However, for good measure, she had added it was because of her job with the police force. ‘We’re not allowed to show political allegiance.’ Interestingly, Rose had seemed mildly intrigued that Donna was a police officer, a detective constable, no less. She probably had her down as a bank clerk. Most people do. Rose had also been curious about the faint accent she detected in Donna’s diction. ‘German?’ Rose had responded when told. ‘I would never have guessed.’ ‘I’ve lived here longer than I ever did there,’ Donna had offered as an explanation, pleased how her German inflection mainly goes under the radar when she is speaking English.

Rose now says, ‘There’ll be more raspberries and some apples and potatoes. I’ll leave them in a bag on your back fence.’ The raspberries this morning had been delicious. Donna begins to be effusive in her thanks. Rose waves them away. ‘Maybe, if you’ve time, you can help me turn the soil.’ Donna nods, not entirely sure what she is agreeing to.

She is one of the first to arrive, so she helps set up the room. The desks are positioned around the side. She assists in bringing every available chair to the space in the centre, pointing them towards an interactive board at one end. Then she boils the kettle and sets the coffee machine going. The other officers exchange bits of news about their days off or nights out or sometimes about wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, husbands. Few of them look old enough to have a driving licence to Donna. Then she chides herself, I’m not that old. She gets included in the chat and asked a few questions. She keeps her answers light and guards the real reason for her move north. ‘Your husband must be very tolerant to let you come,’ says one female PC. Let me come? Do young women still ask for permission from their partners?

‘Oh yes he is,’ replies Donna. ‘He recognises how important this is for me.’

Jim is possibly the least tolerant person Donna knows. He had actually forbidden her move to Scarborough. Very rarely does Donna defy her husband. Since joining the police she has got better at it, and this time she really had to hold her ground. She found silence and just getting on with it are the best defences. She has discovered there are imperatives more vital than pleasing Jim.

She sits at the back as the meeting gets underway. DS Shilling is leading it and the DI is standing with her. Theo Akande. The only black officer in Scarborough and one of very few on the North Yorkshire force. His skin is dark mahogany, his hair twisted into cornrows, his eyes conker-brown. He’s wearing a dark suit, his shirt is maroon, as are the frames on his glasses. He listens attentively to Harrie and there appears to be a warm rapport between them, she glancing over for his encouraging nod. If the gossip hadn’t already told her about his sexuality as well, Donna might have suspected something going on between them.

Harrie is summarising what they know so far. It is not a lot. Professor Hari Jayasundera, the pathologist, has not reported; apparently a rough sleeper found dead in a wood is not a priority. Similarly, the forensics are not being fast-tracked. Shilling lets her disapproval seep into her voice. It would have been different when forensics were in-house and not parcelled off to hastily created private companies, Donna thinks her DS might have added. It’s not the staff’s fault, there’s just more money or more prestige in working other cases.

‘The CSI took away several bags from the tent, but so far no ID,’ says Harrie, ‘which means it’s where we start. We’ve got a pretty decent mugshot. Trev, get a team together to go and talk to other rough sleepers around town. There’s a group currently congregating down by the old South Bay Pool huts. Go easy, we want information, not to frighten them off. Plus get up to St Jude’s Community Kitchen and see if our man is known there.

‘Donna, can you begin a Miss Pers search online, please? Also we need to try and pin down a ToD. We all know what our Prof Jayasundera will say, “summit between the last time he was seen alive and when the body was found”.’ She emphasises the Yorkshire accent and there’s a ripple of amusement. ‘So Donna, can you get a formal statement from our horse rider, Lynne Ritchie, concentrating on what she saw and when? Thank you. We still need to do a fingertip of the whole area. I’ll work with Brian on that.’

DC Brian Chesters is sitting to the side of Donna. He is tall and sprightly with large ears. His dark hair is gelled into spikes – when Harrie mentions his name these appear to lift a little, like a peacock’s tail. The youngsters get to go out into the field. Donna doesn’t know whether she should feel slighted. She’s been given tasks of her own; this shows trust.

‘Anything else?’ Shilling looks first at her DI and then out into the room. The officers are already shifting around ready to move.

Donna finds her voice. She begins tentatively, ‘Um, I was just thinking, is it significant that he was found so close to the GCHQ complex?’

‘It’s a fair point,’ says Theo.

Donna glows, perhaps a little too much.

Shilling nods. ‘He didn’t look like a GCHQ employee, but looks can be deceiving. As part of your search, see if you can speak to someone up there, get the photo over to them. Someone might have seen him, even if he wasn’t one of theirs. OK people, let’s go.’

The small room erupts into noise and movement. Donna feels like a small boat in a harbour of rough water. Then she realises DI Akande is in front of her and addressing her. He’s apologising for not being around to greet her yesterday, asking would she care to come and see him now.

The DI’s office is up some stairs and down a corridor. It has a square window framing the roofs of houses in the street at the back of the station. There are the usual functional chairs and a desk with a computer on it. There is a filing cabinet in the corner. It is all very ordered. The walls are painted a minty colour and there is a bold abstract on the one the occupant of the desk would mostly see. DI Akande indicates Donna should sit in the chair he has placed by the desk, then he busies himself with the kettle to produce a camomile tea for both of them. Once he has these he sits. He leans forwards, elbows on the desk and smiles. ‘How are you settling in? Must have been a bit disquieting to have a case like this on your first day?’

Donna smiles. It is difficult not to. ‘I’m fine, sir. DS Shilling has been very welcoming and supportive. They all have. It’ll be good to be doing work which could lead us to knowing who that poor man is and hopefully finding his loved ones.’

‘Call me Theo, unless we’re interviewing or the formality of the situation demands otherwise. I think Kenilworth is about half the size of Scarborough, and Scarborough has higher indices for all the issues associated with deprivation.’

‘I did get rotations to Leamington Spa.’ Donna does not want him thinking she has not got the required grit.

‘Scarborough was a spa town too, you know, over a hundred years ago. It has one of those chequered histories. Its booming years were up to the 1970s when package holidays came into their own. But they say there might be something of a renaissance now with creatives moving in. I grew up in Birmingham and worked in Manchester, so coming here took some getting used to. Partly it’s the small-town mentality. But it’s also the sea. When half your patch is the sea, it changes your outlook.’

He sounds enthused. It’s only then Donna notices his slight Brummy accent. Or at least she assumes that’s what it is – she’s never been good with accents. She doesn’t think she can match his eagerness. ‘Yes.’

He sips his drink. ‘I love the walking and the cycling around here. There’s some who swim in the sea, all the year round.’

‘Are there?’ She shivers inside.

It must have shown as he laughs briefly. ‘Yes, I imagine it’s cold. Prefer warmer water myself. The Balearics or the Canaries.’

Donna nods. Jim had never taken to foreign travel. She had enjoyed their one trip to Florence and Rome, despite the hours on the coach.

There’s a slight pause before the DI goes on, as if he is choosing his words carefully. ‘Obviously, I am aware why you chose Scarborough for part of your probationary time as a DC. Your daughter.’

She moves her head forwards and backwards a bit too manically, says quietly, ‘Elizabeth.’

‘Elizabeth,’ he repeats gently. ‘As far as we can see there is no conflict of interest currently, but we would expect you to be hypervigilant in case one should arise. As I said, this is a small town.’

‘She’s not in the town.’ Donna struggles to get her voice above a whisper. ‘But, yes, I see there could be a problem if people she associates with … Well, if there is, I will come straight to you.’

Another pause. ‘It must be very tough for you. It must have been very tough for you for a long time.’

Donna feels tearful and then stupid for feeling tearful. She tries to force her tone to be more assured. ‘It’s not what you expect, what I expected would happen. But there, it did. And I want, I want …’ What does she want? For it all to be different. For things which have occurred not to have occurred. To have a happy, functioning family again. Again? Was it ever? ‘I want to be here to support her.’

‘Yes, I understand.’

Do you? She feels the roar entering her throat never to escape: Do you really understand? You handsome, successful, sorted man. You can’t possibly understand. Donna feels shabby. She remembers the man in the wood. Suddenly she feels more akin to him.

Theo drains his cup. ‘Well, if there is anything you want to discuss, my door is always open.’ He stands.

Donna can’t finish her cooling tea, she would choke. She wonders whether she should take the mug with her to wash. She stands with it still in her hand.

‘Just leave the mug there,’ says Theo, kindly. ‘I’ll deal with it.’

She nods. It rattles as she puts it down.

‘Perhaps take a walk to the sea,’ says Theo. ‘Ask someone to go with you. I always find it very reviving.’

‘Thanks,’ she says softly as she leaves.

Then, thirty-six years ago

It is Erika Neuhausen’s fifteenth birthday. It is early in the spring, but they have come to the summerhouse on Grosser Müggelsee to celebrate. The house belongs to the Party. It is far older than the Party. It was built in the late nineteenth century, with generous bay windows and wood panelling on the ground floor. On the upper two floors capacious bedrooms have been converted into dorms with bunkbeds. Even so, there is something of its former elegance which remains – elegance and decadence. Decadence the Party has always raged against. A contradiction Erika has only just begun to consider.

Former occupants would no doubt be horrified at the decline of the place. The wood around windows and in the porch is in dire need of repair and paint. The sticks of furniture are mismatched and sagging. The kitchen and bathroom have had anything which isn’t nailed down pinched. The water pipes knock and rumble every time the toilet is flushed or a tap is turned on. The cooker and oven is still the old 1930s ver. . .