Requiem

Book 2: Venerables and McBride

by Iris Collier

Genres: General Fiction

Synopsis

Faced with kidnap, murder and drug-smuggling, Venerables and McBride put their personal differences aside to work on the case. And they're playing for the highest stakes of all - the life of a child.

Release date: May 7, 2015

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 288

Sample

London to Auckland. To the Auckland morgue. He’d been travelling for twenty-five hours incarcerated in a Boeing 747, hurtling along at five hundred miles an hour at thirty-five thousand feet, all for this girl, Bridie Ransome, lying there in her metal box like an effigy in a church. He stared down into the yellow, shrunken face framed by wisps of reddish hair, brittle as straw.

Chief Inspector Douglas McBride had seen more than his fair share of corpses in his thirty years in the police force, but this one was different. To start with, he’d known her when she was alive. He’d chatted to her, shared a pot of tea with her, back home in his native Northumberland. He’d always thought her unconventional, no more: maybe smoked the occasional joint; nothing worse. The girl Clare, her daughter, Bridie had said was a joy. Terrible to have to go home and tell her what had happened to her mother.

He turned towards the young New Zealand morgue attendant. ‘There’s no doubt that she took an overdose?’

‘She topped herself, all right. Her body was full of the stuff. Heroin. Perhaps it was an accident, perhaps not – makes no difference. Seen enough?’

‘Yes. Cover her up.’ Shut her up in her final resting place, he said to himself. Pull the plastic sheet over Bridie Ransome.

Back in the police car, he turned to Detective Inspector Terry Jamieson. ‘Thanks for waiting. Scene of death next, if you don’t mind.’

Stocky Jamieson, red-faced and red-haired, almost a replica of Douglas but younger by twenty years, looked at his senior in surprise.

‘You don’t mean that, surely? It’s a hell of a journey. The Maoris found her up in the rain forest, up the Wanganui. It’s hot up there, bloody hot, and humid.’

‘I admit I hate the heat, but I’ve got to go. I’ll need to talk to the people who found her.’

‘That’ll be difficult. They don’t like policemen. Especially Pommie policemen.’

Douglas started stolidly out of the window. He knew the New Zealand police resented his presence. They’d told him as soon as he landed that they could do without him. But Douglas had his brief. The dead girl, Bridget Ransome – known as Bridie – had been Edith Laker’s chief assistant, and Edith Laker was a JP. You couldn’t trifle with her. And, more importantly, she was a friend of his Superintendent. They would both want answers. Who was responsible for Bridie’s death? And what was she doing in New Zealand in the first place? It would be easy for Douglas to agree with Jamieson and his colleagues that Bridie had killed herself with heroin, pack his bags, get back to the airport and face another hellish twenty-five hours in the Boeing 747. But he wouldn’t be able to face Superintendent Blackburn and Edith Laker at the other end. Or little Clare …

‘Scene of death, Inspector, if you please,’ he said decisively. ‘And straight away. The sooner we go, the sooner I’ll be out of your hair.’

Jamieson knew when he was beaten. He started the engine. ‘Right you are, Chief Inspector. I’ll lay on a jet boat.’

He’ll regret this, thought Jamieson as he put the car into gear. But he’d been told to humour the bastard. Two more days, and they’d be rid of Douglas McBride for good.

The trip wasn’t as bad as Douglas had expected. February in New Zealand’s North Island meant a temperature of 80° Fahrenheit with a soft, moist breeze caressing his face: a paradise when he thought of his forbidding stone house in Berwick surrounded by swirling fog and an icy east wind. He was too hot in his lightweight tweed suit; he envied the Maori driver in his brief shorts. Jamieson, sitting next to him, had taken his jacket off, but Douglas couldn’t bring himself to change the habit of a lifetime and follow his example.

The boat cleaved its way through the tea-dark water of the Wanganui. There hadn’t been much rain over the last few weeks and the river was low. A continuous series of shallow rapids made navigation difficult, but the driver, Jimmy Hohepa, knew all the deep channels and hardly slackened speed when white water showed ahead. Douglas clung on to the sides of the boat and looked up at the thickly wooded cliffs on either side of the river. Giant, primeval ferns grew side by side with the mighty Nikan trees, the most obviously tropical of all New Zealand’s trees with their slender dark green stems and massive heads of shiny palm leaves. Underneath hung necklaces of long, pink flowers which pierced the gloom of the forest like swarms of tropical birds. A strange country, Douglas thought. Nothing really seemed to have changed since dinosaurs roamed the forest.

Suddenly the boat altered course and made towards the left-hand side of the river, where a landslide of shale had provided a makeshift landing place. Hohepa brought the boat’s nose against the mass of fallen rock and jumped out, offering his hand to Douglas. Hohepa pointed upwards to where the path ascended through the dense undergrowth; Jamieson set off and Douglas followed, struggling a little, his feet sinking into the soft, moss-covered soil. As soon as he had disembarked he was attacked by thousands of insects, attracted to his perspiring face. He swiped at them impotently as he stumbled in Jamieson’s wake. All around him, strange trees dripped moisture; he was dimly aware, as if in a dream, of contorted, moss-covered tree trunks, the distant sound of water cascading over boulders.

Up, up, they climbed. Douglas finally surrendered his principles and took off his jacket. Immediately the insects pounced in jubilation on his sweat-soaked shirt. He stopped for breath and smelt the moist, dank smell of rotting wood, heard the eerie, piercing cry of the bellbird.

Jamieson turned round and looked at him. ‘Not far now. There’s an old settlement up here. A government idea to create a back-to-nature village for hopeless cases. Give them a new start. It didn’t really come to anything. They couldn’t stand the loneliness. Here we go. The last bit. Keep away from those vines. We call them bush lawyers – they’ve got hooks on them, and once they get hold of you they’re the very devil to get rid of.’

Suddenly they came to a clearing in the forest. The dappled light revealed a couple of huts, mere shacks with wooden, moss-covered walls and corrugated tins roofs now half-buried under a thatching of lichen. The doors had long since mouldered away and Douglas, ducking his head, went into the nearest hut. He noted the mud floor, partially covered by a pile of dried palm leaves. He looked at Jamieson who stood framed in the doorway.

‘She was here?’

‘That’s where Larry found her. On that pile of leaves.’

‘Larry?’

‘Jimmy’s son. He was up here hunting for possums. They’re vermin in this neck of the woods and the Maoris sell the pelts.’

‘How long had she been here?’

‘Two to three days. Decomposition wasn’t far advanced’

‘Any sign of a syringe?’

‘Yep. Larry handed it in. And there were track marks all over her arms and legs. They found a stash of stuff over there, in the corner. Enough to keep her going for a couple of weeks if she took it steady.’

Douglas said nothing. He felt a desperate sadness; it was a terrible way to die. A sinful waste of a young life. That girl in the morgue, with her angel’s face and young, slender body – somewhere she had a husband. Where the hell had he been when she needed him?

‘Any sign of the husband?’ he said to Jamieson.

‘Nope. We’re broadcasting appeals. We know he’s in New Zealand – he checked in at the airport several months ago.’

‘He’s a New Zealander, I gather.’

‘That’s right. Half Maori. They married out here ten years ago. He was a stockman. We lost track of them, so they must have travelled a bit.’

‘And she ended up on my patch. Until she made this final journey.’

‘Perhaps she came looking for him. She was out of luck.’

‘Maybe she did find him and he didn’t want to know,’ said Douglas.

Jamieson shrugged his shoulders. ‘Even if they met, had a big row, he didn’t have to bring her all the way up here to bump her off. No, she’ll have come here of her own accord.’

‘I’m still not convinced,’ said Douglas stubbornly. ‘I want to see this Larry. How far away is he?’

‘Just down the river. But Jimmy won’t take to the idea. The Maoris like their privacy.’

‘I respect that, but I still have to be sure of the truth. Let’s get out of this God-forsaken place.

Jamieson looked at Douglas sharply. ‘I warned you not to come.’

‘I had no choice. Now, let’s get on.’

They left the desolate place and went back to the jet boat. Jimmy took some persuading to take them further down the river, but finally capitulated. Douglas was aware of a slight subservience in Jimmy’s attitude towards Jamieson; he thought it possible that the Hohepa family could be in the pay of the Auckland police. After all, Jimmy owned a fleet of power boats and was up and down the river all the time, with or without a boatload of tourists. He’d see plenty of what was going on. Douglas wondered what the Auckland police would have felt, knowing someone like Bridie was on their manor. Would they have cared enough to protect her? Or did they decide to let Nature take its course?

They arrived at the Maori settlement half an hour later. There wasn’t much sign of any activity. An old woman going about her domestic chores paid them no attention as they got out of the boat and made their way to the collection of wooden huts. Jimmy spoke to her and she – obviously reluctantly – dumped the pile of washing she was carrying. She filled the kettle, slammed it down onto the wood-burning stove and got out three mugs. Douglas sat at one of the long wooden tables, grateful for the rest after his exertions, and Jamieson sat next to him. When the kettle boiled, Jimmy brought them their tea. Outside, it began to rain.

A young boy emerged from one of the huts and hurried towards them. About sixteen, he was dressed smartly in jeans and a blue shirt, with an orange baseball cap set at a rakish angle on his dark hair.

‘He’s turned up,’ he said to Jamieson, whom he appeared to know well. ‘It’s just come on the radio.’

‘Ransome?’

‘Who else? They’re not holding him for questioning because he says he knows nothing about the girl’s death. And he’s got an alibi. He was away down on South Island, sheep-shearing. Been there for several months. Wants to know about his daughter. He’s waiting for you, sir,’ he said, glancing at Douglas, ‘hoping you can tell him how she is. No need to hurry.’ he added as Douglas stood up ready to depart. ‘He’s not going anywhere, not until he sees you.’

‘So that’s it,’ said Jamieson with a note of quiet satisfaction. ‘Seems we were right all along. She did do herself in.’

‘Serves her right,’ said the boy morosely, ‘she shouldn’t have …’

‘Shouldn’t have what, lad?’ said Douglas, his policeman’s instinct alert.

‘Nothing.’ Douglas waited. ‘Well, all I meant was that she shouldn’t have come here. We don’t like strangers on our patch.’

So that was it! Douglas felt a surge of triumph. Maoris don’t like strangers, Jamieson had admitted …

‘Did she try to sell you anything? Grass? Coke? Smack? You know what I mean, laddie. Come on, out with it. Did you kill her because she was undercutting your pushers? Or was it that you just didn’t want someone like her around? That’s it, isn’t it?’

The boy’s face clammed up. Douglas realised his mistake; he’d gone too far, too quickly.

‘We never did it! What right has he got?’ the boy said angrily to Jamieson. ‘He can’t come here accusing us of bumping off tourist druggies, can he, Terry?’

Douglas tried to save the situation. ‘Don’t get het up. It was just an idea.‘

‘Well, it’s a bloody daft idea. Why should we kill her? She was up to her eyeballs with the stuff. It was only a question of waiting.’

There was no more to be gained. Douglas would never be able to find any evidence that someone from the Maori settlement had deliberately set about killing Bridie. He’d arrived too late. The Maoris had closed ranks and probably the police had agreed to turn a blind eye. After all, there were bigger, more dangerous fish in the sea than Bridie Ransome round these parts and the Maoris were the ones who’d catch them. It wouldn’t do for the Auckland police to antagonise the Hohepa family. Douglas couldn’t say he altogether blamed them.

Douglas turned to Terry Jamieson. ‘Come on – let’s get back. I’d like to meet this chap Ransome.’

Back in Auckland, Douglas met the quiet, soft-spoken New Zealander with more than a dash of Maori blood in him. He was handsome and vital, with his long wavy hair, lean tanned body, and the expressive eyes of his Polynesian ancestors. No, he said, he hadn’t seen his wife for over a year. They’d separated because of her refusal to seek counselling for her drug habit. He hadn’t got in touch because he didn’t know where she was; as far as he was concerned, she’d signed her own death warrant years ago. But he wanted to see his daughter again. He wanted her to have a different sort of life from her mother’s. He listened with interest as Douglas told her where Clare was now living, and promised to go and see her as soon as he could. They parted, Billy Ransome saying he would be over to England as soon as the shearing season finished.

‘Did Bridie sell stuff to other people?’ said Douglas as he walked with Ransome to the entrance hall of the police station.

Ransome looked at him keenly, his dark eyes giving nothing away. ‘I never saw her. But how else would she have got the money to come out here?’

‘She was in full-time employment.’

‘She was never the type to save. I expect she sold a bit on the side. She wasn’t clever enough to be part of an organised gang, but she could be enterprising when she got desperate. Like most druggies.’

The end of the trail, thought Douglas, as he made his way back to his hotel. No evidence that the Maoris had bumped off Bridie Ransome; they’d made certain of that. The case was well and truly closed. Death through an overdose of heroin – probably accidental, suicide at the worst. Now there was nothing for it. It was back to England and he had twenty-five hours to think about what he was going to say to Edith Laker and Superintendent Blackburn.



Clinker turned up the collar of his donkey jacket and glanced up at the steely sky. The wind, straight from Eastern Europe, tore at his hair with icy fingers and his eyes watered as he thrust his hands further down into his pockets. What a climate, he thought gloomily; what a hellish time of the year. Even Mac, his comfortable mongrel, seemed dispirited. February: a dead month. Frozen sky, frozen sea, frozen marshes.

It was all Hilda’s fault, of course. She’d prised him out of his snug cottage on Holy Island and brought him to this place. And all because she’d taken one look at Sirius, a neat, gaff-rigged wooden sailing boat which she’d spotted for sale in Higgins’ Boat Yard, and gone and bought it. Then she’d installed him in a cottage down on the quay and told him to get the boat ready for the spring. By April, she’d said, they’d be off cruising south. This year, round the British Isles; next year, the Med. Silly old fool, he muttered to Mac, who, used to Clinker’s confidences, twitched an ear sympathetically. A pity her husband died when he did, he thought for the umpteenth time. He might have been Ambassador in Brussels, might have picked up a gong or two at Buckingham Palace, but that hadn’t stopped him from having a heart attack as soon as he retired.

And now he had Hilda on his hands. Hilda, Lady Nevill: as fit as a flea, and determined to go sailing. At least she paid him well. That ‘annuity’, as she called it, set him up handsomely. Not that he didn’t deserve it. She was always on at him, demanding progress reports on Sirius. Even in this weather, when his fingers ached with cold and the inside of the cabin dripped with condensation. She was a demanding old soul, all right.

There was no joy in walking today. He’d go on just a bit further, up to the old barge lying on the shore, its woodwork rotting into the mud, its ribs showing like the skeletal remains of some primeval animal. Like the pictures he’d seen on television of animals in Africa killed by drought and picked over by vultures.

Suddenly, Mac growled. That wasn’t like him, Mac knew the ropes: no racing ahead; no stopping to sniff at interesting holes in the bank; and definitely no growling or barking. Clinker stopped. Mac began to whine; obeying some savage instinct, he began to slither forward on his belly. Clinker called to him, but Mac appeared not to hear.

Perplexed, Clinker stared at the dog. All around them the mud creaked and bubbled like a live thing; the tide was out. He saw the shells of millions of crustaceans heaped along the edge of the channel, thought of the billions of organisms eating, procreating, dying. Mac’s growl turned into a whine.

‘Stop that, you old bugger,’ said Clinker angrily. ‘You’ll frighten the birds.’

Mac took no notice. The whine turned into a terrible howling as Mac raced urgently along the path towards the rotting hulk. Clinker ran after him. He stumbled over a clump of coarse grass, cursed, and looked out across the mud. Mac was down at the edge of the creek. And there, on a shelf of mud which would soon be covered by the tide, he saw a man, lying face down. Mac, his face turned towards the sky, began a terrible ululation which seemed to epitomise all the sufferings of his species. Clinker rushed up to him.

The man was lying spread-eagled some six feet out in the channel. He had been tied at both hands and feet to stakes driven into the mud. A rope, stretched tight across his back and fastened to two more stakes, held him down. With horror, Clinker realised he’d been left there as the tide gradually crept towards him, licked round his head, caressed his neck, back and legs, until it covered him like a blanket. Then the water had filled his nostrils, his mouth and lungs and slowly, inexorably, choked him to death.

Dear Christ, thought Clinker. The smugglers’ hanging. He’d read about it somewhere. It was what smugglers used to do to anyone who grassed to the Excise men. It was a terrible warning to other would-be informants.

But this man belonged very much to the present. He was a big man, six feet at least, Clinker reckoned. He wore baggy trousers, now water-logged and clinging to his long legs, and a black T-shirt. There were tattoos on his outstretched arms. On his feet were trainers, filthy, pressed down into the mud. Only the limp pony-tail which hung over one shoulder like a piece of seaweed could have belonged to an earlier time. Poor devil, thought Clinker. Whatever he’d done he didn’t deserve to die like that, alone, listening to the mud creaking as the tide approached, knowing there was no escape.

Clinker called to Mac, who was trembling and cowed. The tide was no more than ten feet away, ready for a repeat performance.

‘Don’t fret, old chap,’ said Clinker, bending down to pat the dog reassuringly. ‘There’s nothing we can do for him now. We’ll soon get him out of there and on his way to a decent burial.’

Depressed and sickened by the find, Clinker ran back to where he’d left his bike hidden in a clump of grass. He hauled it upright, got on it, whistled to Mac and peddled back to Hernmouth and the police station.

‘Hope this isn’t too early for you, ma’am,’ said Douglas apologetically, feeling his confidence drain away, as it always did when he was with Edith Lake. ‘I thought I ought to come straight away.’

‘Thank you, Chief Inspector. I appreciate it. When did you get back?’

‘Last night. I’m still a bit fazed.’

‘Poor man. I expect you are. I know how exhausting those long flights can be. Let me get you some coffee.’

She walked across to the open door, called some instructions to an invisible person, and rejoined Douglas, who was standing awkwardly in the middle of the room.

‘Do take a seat. I’m sorry, I should have asked you before. Una won’t be long with the coffee.’

Douglas perched uneasily on the edge of the settee. He was not only jet-lagged, but nervous. The gentry didn’t usually have this effect on him; his good friend Willy Graham, who lived near Coldstream, always made him feel at home when he went to dinner at his place, or took part in his shoots. But there was something about Edith Laker that made him edgy. She made him conscious of his blunt, Edinburgh-manse upbringing, where folk always spoke their minds. She also made him feel clumsy; he’d have to take care not to send his cup of coffee flying like he had the last time he was here. Looking out at her beautiful garden, part of the Northumbrian landscape which had been tamed and manicured to suit the genteel elegance of St Oswald’s Hall, once again he felt out of place. Edith was, as always, intimidating; even though it was only half past eight in the morning, she was perfectly groomed. Oh, she had style, he had to admit. Her iron-grey hair was immaculate and she had carefully applied lipstick and eye-shadow. He reckoned that he and Edith must be about the same age. Both had said goodbye to their forties; but looking at her now, he thought ruefully how much better she was wearing than he was.

He shifted uneasily on the settee, but was saved from the need to make small talk . . .