The Winter Visitor

by James Henry

Genres: Mystery; Crime Fiction

Synopsis

Essex, February, 1991. The weather is biting cold. Everyone would rather be somewhere warmer, which is why it's a big surprise when a wanted drug smuggler, Bruce Hopkins, risks a return to his old haunts in Colchester after a decade long exile on the Costa del Sol. Lured back by a letter from the wife Hopkins left behind, no one is more surprised than him when he finds himself abducted and stripped bare only to be sent to a watery grave in the boot of a stolen Ford Sierra. The police wonder if it could be retaliation from a Spanish gang, sending a warning to their English counterparts?

DS Daniel Kenton is teamed up with the unorthodox DS Brazier to investigate a crime wave which takes in not only the murder of an expat dope smuggler, but a sophisticated arson attack on a Norman church and the unexpected suicide of an ageing florist. Could there possibly be a thread that connects them?

Written with the humour and period detail that have become his trademark, and set in the badlands of his beloved Essex, A Winter Visitor is James Henry at his inimitable best.

Release date: February 1, 2024

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Print pages: 304

Sample

Prologue

December 1990

Chloe had not been to a Christmas party in ages.

The venue was a hotel in Marks Tey, about five miles west of Colchester. Despite an effort with festive lighting, the hotel bar had the mood of an airport lounge as they all arrived. Women filed through the foyer, boldly coatless, in heels and slinky dresses, lads in pressed Farahs and open-neck shirts flicked snow from bouffant quiffs. Chloe walked along the orange patterned carpet with her boss, still in her work clothes. Alan was wearing the same cheap navy suit he wore every day of the year, come rain or shine.

She liked a drink and a dance, but experience had taught her the workplace was the wrong place for both. In the five years she’d been at CBS she hadn’t been to a single party. At her previous job at Whybrows in the centre of town, there’d been some inappropriate behaviour with one of the senior managers during a slow dance and she had never lived it down. Drunkenly enamoured, she had made a play for the man knowing he was married and was thereafter tarred with accusations ranging from being a home-­wrecker to attempting to sleep her way up. He hadn’t fought her off, though – was more than up for it – but, as is the way, being a man he was deemed blameless. The following year, Chloe moved to a distribution company in the boondocks, vowing to keep herself beyond reproach.

Back then at Whybrows she had still been free and single, several years after her disastrous marriage ended. Now, at CBS, three years going steady with Paul, her new colleagues thought her snooty, aloof – and ambitious. The latter at least was true. And so what if they thought her a frump in a boring dress? That was fine. Apart from that one blip at Whybrows, Chloe had been painstakingly careful to establish a quiet life for herself. Having been noticed by head office, she’d been encouraged to study for a company-­sponsored professional qualification. At the age of thirty-­two she was a relatively late starter and had crammed intensely, taking exams each June and December, and had passed her finals that summer. Proper study had precluded frivolity, but now she was a qualified accountant there was no reason to duck out of the Christmas bash; quite the contrary. The exam success had boosted her self-­worth and moved her to let her hair down, live a little. So here she was.

‘What you fancy?’ Alan asked.

‘Vodka and coke,’ she said. Whitney Houston’s ‘How Will I Know’ tempted feet onto the dance floor. Alan, fag in mouth, turned from the bar and handed her the drink. He grimaced at the music. ‘I’m too old for this racket,’ he said, Superking flipping up and down between his lips as he spoke.

Me too, she thought. The tight circle of twenty-­somethings start to bop cautiously under the glitter ball. Chloe’s features glazed for a moment sentimentally as refracted light danced around the room. Her memory flitted back to her fourteen-­year-­old self, having blagged her way into the Colne Lodge with a wrap of speed in her bra. Another twirl of the glitter ball, and she was transported to the first time she met Bruce Hopkins working behind the bar in Valentino’s – his eyes in shimmering light.

To wipe the past from her mind, she turned to her boss and said, ‘I don’t believe you, Al; wait until you’re a bit juiced – bet you’ll be chucking shapes like the best of them.’

Alan’s cragged features remained unchanged; that of a stoic sea captain, watching an approaching storm. Chloe scanned the dark perimeter of the room where the majority of the seventy or so employees still lurked, fuelling up on free booze. There was no one she was comfortable to mix with, let alone dance with. The accounts department was broadly made up of two age groups: either grey-­haired senior bookkeepers in their late fifties, who had been with the company for donkey’s years and had no truck with Chloe’s kind coming in over their heads; or youngsters, the carefree generation currently undulating on the dance floor. Each acknowledged the other, recognising their past or future. Chloe belonged to neither.

Nevertheless, she knew she’d made the right move. Anonymity was what she craved and where better than working as an accountant in a warehouse in rural Essex. By now she was sure no one would really care if the identity of her infamous husband ever came to light: shortly after starting at CBS, the White House Farm murders happened in Tolleshunt D’Arcy, just down the road from Tiptree. It was all anyone would – and still did – talk about. Jeremy Bamber.

By standing next to the boss, Chloe hoped to find an ally, but Alan was more at home with the older ladies in party hats and glittery frocks for whom he qualified as ‘a youngster’. Chloe sensed his discomfort – recently promoted by head office, Chloe had a future, while her immediate line manager, who had never ventured outside Tiptree, sniffed danger. She turned back to the bar, allowing him the chance to engage with somebody else, and ordered another drink. Vodka didn’t really taste of anything and nerves had allowed her to drink the first without noticing. The bar, she realised, was populated with unfamiliar faces, some the same age as her. These people stood alone and regarded the room with a mixture of amusement and annoyance. They must be hotel guests. One bloke stood out as good-­looking; tall, fair, with a moustache. He was joking with the bar staff. Chloe caught a Manchester accent.

The man had twigged her stare and gave her a playful wink. She looked down at her drink embarrassed, then sideways searching for Alan, but he’d gone. The next thing she knew the man with the moustache had snaked round to her side.

Confused, she made an excuse to go to the loo, promising to be back shortly and asked for another drink – even though she’d barely touched the last. In the ladies she retouched her make-­up, something she had not thought to do before leaving the office. When she returned, another younger woman was at her place at the bar. She turned to go, but the man smiled, passed her a fresh vodka, and began to recap the story he was telling.

At some point the other woman melted into the background and Chloe, encouraged, found that she might just have one dance after all.

Chapter 1

February 1991

‘They’ve gone,’ Kenton muttered to himself.

Alone he stood at the water’s edge. Mersea Stone, sculpted of crushed shells and sand, gave abruptly into the sea as it washed through a bank of pebbles, leaving them polished in the white spray. The rhythmic rattle of this rinsing was now, by degrees, drowned out by the increasing wind. Kenton looked to the cool grey sky, sensing the change in the weather. Beneath the cloud a bitter north-­easterly whisked across the dark river mouth, pushing up white caps colder than ice. He moved up from the shoreline, his boots sinking in the shingle with each step.

It was quite likely that the birds he sought had moved on. He’d been here fifteen minutes or more, and he knew that if they were on the spit, he’d have seen them, scuttling about. Snow buntings could be seen at close quarters, without binoculars. The difficulty was finding them in the first place. With rusty yellow-­brown plumage, they blended in perfectly with the beach surface, camouflaged, invisible in their surroundings, hiding in plain sight. With patience, however, they would appear, like shingle clusters rising from the beach and tumbling along the shoreline. And once in vision it was hard to lose them.

But not today, it seemed, and now the chill air had made its presence felt to the detective’s hands and feet. He stood motionless on the beach, watching the sea surging up into the Colne. The wind was against the tide, churning the water; its resistance flaying aggressively up off the surface, a salty tang stinging Kenton’s chapped lips. The weather was due to turn nasty in this part of Essex. If he didn’t see the birds now, that was it. These bunting were migratory, here only for the winter, and their seasonal clock ended early before the bad weather set in; he’d only ever seen them late November until January.

They’d gone, he knew it.

He turned round and began the slog back inland, seeing the unmistakable orange red shape of a fox meandering through the long grasses raked back across the sea wall. Further off, a cluster of crows threw themselves crazily into the wind, followed by various waders and waterfowl scattering wildly in all directions. Kenton raised his binoculars and searched the sky above the horizon; the fox, being this side of the sea wall, would not be the source of the disturbance – a raptor must be overhead. And there it was, high up; the purposeful thrust of a peregrine. A tingle of excitement shot through him. It wasn’t a wasted day after all. Abruptly it stooped and he lost it in the melee below. Whether it was successful he did not know. Aimlessly, he panned across the estuary for the falcon – he caught something darting off but the image suddenly began to blur as the quality of the light diminished. ‘Snow,’ he muttered to himself, bringing the binoculars down to rest on his chest. The falcon had disappeared into the murk, where it was now impossible to separate the sea from the opposing shore. Thick snowfall, tumbling in from the North Sea. He breathed in the cold briny air and shivered. The snow was certain to reach his side of the estuary. The forecast was for several inches across the region.

Kenton reluctantly continued to re-­tread his path to the car park. The wind at his back was now carrying large snowflakes and urged him on. The snow would settle quickly, and within a short space of time, the narrow lane leading off the island could be impassable. This was his first time out since . . . he could not, in fact, recall. Still, it was nice to be out in the open air; fresh though it was, birdwatching always gave a sense of purpose to a stroll. Even if he saw nothing, it was a distraction. Emptied the mind, if only for a moment.

As Kenton approached the sea wall, he saw he was not alone. Up on the path, he recognised the nature reserve’s warden, Mr Young, and another man, sedge grass whipping around their legs. They had their binoculars directed across the estuary, where minutes earlier his had been focused beyond the point, upriver, towards Brightlingsea. Kenton turned into the weather.

‘Nice to see you, Mr Kenton.’ Mr Young, ever formal, called above the wind. ‘Been a while, eh? Picked a day for it.’

‘You know how it is, have to strike when I can.’

Kenton forced a smile and nodded at Young’s companion, a die-­hard twitcher of advanced years with patchy white stubble. Eyes pursed against the weather, he made no motion of acknowledgement.

‘Watching the peregrine?’ Kenton shouted across. ‘I lost him in the snow.’

‘No . . . fire, across the water,’ said the old man. ‘Brightlingsea.’

Kenton turned around and raised his binoculars. Sure enough, there was a lick of bright orange reaching up through the frozen landscape. ‘Must be fierce to withstand a blizzard like this . . . what on earth is there that could possibly catch fire, and tower up like that?’

‘Only things over two storeys high that side of the water are churches.’

Chapter 2

‘Ladies and gentleman, we shall shortly begin our descent into Heathrow. Expect a few bumps as we go through a very wintry weather front moving in from Scandinavia.’

Bruce Hopkins heard the captain’s announcement on the fringe of his consciousness and was untroubled by any turbulence; it wasn’t until the plane touched down with a proper jolt that he was disturbed from his slumber. Not a fan of flying, he’d dosed up on duty-­free gin before take-­off, and again soon after. The flight was only two hours, but he’d been zonked out for a good hour and a half, and now on arrival in the UK was decidedly groggy. Through the cabin window was a typical murky English February afternoon, much the same as he’d left behind ten years ago. He chuckled to himself as he reached overhead for the holdall and carrier bag. God, he’d not missed this country one bit.

As he descended the steps onto the tarmac the cold bit in sharply, and his smirk disappeared. This drop in temperature was something he’d overlooked. Dressed in only a linen jacket, he realised he was ill prepared.

Being over six foot, Bruce had passport control in view in spite of the sombrero-­headed passengers in front of him in the queue. There were no police lurking that he could see. When his time came to step forward, he slid the black booklet under the glass, and glanced the other way so as not to engage the eye of the border officer. The photo was good. He’d used women’s foundation to cover up the deep decade-­long tan, to give the appearance of a pasty Brit.

‘Retired, sir?’ said the man behind the glass.

‘Sorry?’ Bruce’s heart galloped. ‘Err, yes, I took early retirement. From BT.’ He was forty-­eight, but the passport gave fifty-­five. Bruce was ‘worn in’, the forger had said, and with patchy cropped grey hair, he’d easily pull off the extra years – another layer of cover.

‘Early to come home, then,’ the official continued. ‘Don’t usually catch a pensioner returning in the middle of winter. Like birds, come back in the spring.’

‘Only a short break, I’m afraid. Wish I could stay longer.’ Bruce was well-­spoken and replied in a clear authoritative voice, which may have led the officer to assume it was not lack of money that curtailed his visit.

‘Welcome home, sir.’ Passport stamped and returned through the window, with a smile. ‘Wrap up warm.’

Bruce nodded and passed on through, shivering with cold. With no luggage in the hold he set off in the direction of the taxi rank. It wasn’t until he was safely inside a black cab and had, admittedly, breathed a great sigh of relief, that he reached inside his jacket pocket to retrieve a letter inviting him back into the country, and realised he’d left it on the plane. He could see it now; the pale blue envelope poking out between the sick bag and in-­flight magazine. Damn. There’s no way he’d get it back now. Would anyone read it? He doubted it, straight in the rubbish bin. And if they did it’d have no significance to whoever it was that cleaned out airplanes.

‘Where to, squire?’

‘Colchester.’

‘What, in Essex? That’s going to cost you.’

‘I’ll see you right, fear not,’ he said and proceeded to remove the wedge of banknotes in the seat of his trousers, ‘should I not freeze en route, that is. Perhaps you’d be good enough to flick the heater on back here, old chap, thanks awfully.’

Chapter 3

Detective Sergeant Daniel Kenton drove the twenty-­odd miles to the other side of the estuary within forty minutes. He’d learnt via police radio that Brightlingsea fire department had been called to the neighbouring hamlet of Kempe Marsh, where the church was reported ablaze. The old birder had been right. By the time Kenton reached the main road into Brightlingsea, snow had settled and banked high on the hedgerow. He’d need to be careful or he’d be marooned. Kempe Marsh was out on the crutch of the creek, the road without tarmac.

The snow eddied through the empty streets of Brightlingsea. The old fishing port was deserted. He passed by the town centre and the war memorial, its wreaths gradually disappearing. Beyond the lido and the snow-­capped beach huts was the sea. Inland upriver, lay the marshes. On a clear day, Kempe Marsh church tower was evident in the near distance. Today, nothing.

The Vauxhall’s tyres crunched slowly over the unmade road. The blizzard, unhindered by man-­made structures, blasted across the frozen heath unchecked. The view through the windscreen blurred and so too did Kenton’s spatial awareness, leaving him almost queasy behind the wheel.

Abruptly, a huge oak loomed into view, signalling the Jolly Sailor pub and a bend with a slight dip down into the hamlet. Kempe Marsh was little more than a track with a pub at one end and a church at the other. St Nicholas’s was soon in view, its stone tower charred black and the roof entirely gone. The fire was out, and smoke fought against the snow tumbling heavily into the building unhindered. Kenton’s first impression was that this was a purposeful attack, not just a couple of kids and a box of matches.

He spotted the vicar by his dog collar (and lack of a coat). He was a thirty-something chap, and was in heated discussion with a uniformed policeman under cover of the lychgate. Kenton was late to the scene; the fire brigade were reeling in hoses and newsmen were already disassembling their equipment. A huddle of onlookers remained at a respectful distance this side of the church wall. He drove past the damaged building before stopping beyond two police cars. The churchyard reached the creek, which flooded at high tide, and on the other side of the inlet some distance away were the villages of Alresford and Wivenhoe. The marsh was impassable on foot.

He strode back towards the church through the snow, now several inches thick, and pushed the waist-­high wrought-­iron gate open. He gazed up at the stained glass windows, seemingly untouched by the flames, overhearing the vicar berate the police officer. The church was Norman, the nave walls of flint rubble also remaining unmarked by the fire. The tower was stained with smoke, bereft of a roof but intact beneath, as if it had been bombed.

‘Who are you?’ the clergyman demanded, his ears pink with cold, snow catching his eyelashes.

‘DS Kenton.’ He stepped forward.

The uniformed officer nodded in recognition.

‘Forgive me,’ the vicar apologised. ‘I mistook you for a curious rambler.’

‘No problem,’ he said. ‘Caught sight of the blaze from East Mersea.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ the vicar’s voice misted in the snow, ‘it went up like a veritable beacon.’

‘Kenton!’ A broad Essex accent called to him from the porch entrance into the church. ‘Thought you were off today?’

Kenton’s heart sank on impulse. Nevertheless, he raised a gloved hand at the stocky figure of DS Brazier under the archway. The two had been assigned to work together at the beginning of the month, but as yet nothing significant had brought them into contact.

Kenton and the vicar made their way over to the porch to meet Brazier.

Snow swirled busily down to greet them through the void where the roof once was.

‘I’m not sure I can bear to look,’ the vicar said glumly.

‘I’m sure the roof has been replaced numerous times over the centuries,’ Brazier spoke through a scarf he wore high, covering his chin and ears. Snowflakes rested on his upright spiky hair.

‘On the contrary, Detective, that roof was a hammerbeam, one of the finest examples of medieval carpentry in the country. The exterior tile cladding was updated perhaps, over the years, but only with the express purpose of protecting what was beneath. The carved angel bosses depicting the disciples on the braces were unique . . .’

‘Oh.’

‘Oh, indeed.’ The vicar sniffed.

Inside the church, out of the wind, the combined odour of charred wood and wet stonework generated an unpleasant clammy chill. The fire had been out only half an hour and snow was already banked up in the most exposed corner. Elsewhere it settled steadily. Kenton hung back behind a stone octagonal font as the vicar, Brazier and a uniformed officer ventured further into the carcass.

‘How the heck did this happen, eh?’ Brazier’s loud voice carried as he clambered over splintered timbers and broken terracotta roof tiles. His pale green bomber jacker caught a sharp blackened edge of what was part of the once exemplary roof, ‘Oops. I mean, how did—’

‘Be careful, sir,’ the uniform called. ‘The remains of the roof isn’t safe. I don’t think we should proceed any further,’ he said, following Brazier even as he warned against doing so. ‘More may come down as snow builds up on what’s left. The fire brigade warned—’

‘Yes, where are they?’ Brazier stood in the centre of the nave, under a circle of weak light, blinking up at winter sky. ‘I wonder how the flames reached from down here up to the roof. That’s a good fifty foot. There’s not much in the way of flammable material between the lectern and the roof – eh, vicar? Apart from the hymn board. And look at the walls – no scorch marks.’

Plaques honouring past nobility and war heroes were clean of fire damage.

‘Petrol,’ the vicar replied, as he too stepped forward into the nave and looked up into gaping absence above. ‘The fire brigade say petrol. How do you propose to catch these vandals?’ he said. ‘The fire raged untroubled for a good hour because of the weather, and because the fire engine at Brightlingsea failed to start – that’s what they told me anyway. A flat battery if you can believe it.’ He backed away from the nave towards Kenton. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘Nothing,’ Kenton said, calmly. ‘In here at least. Until the snow abates there’s nothing we can do.’

‘What do you mean, nothing?’

‘We don’t want to mess up what might be underneath,’ Brazier said.

‘Wait for the snow to thaw?’ The vicar was aghast.

‘Don’t blame us, Reverend. The weather is God’s work, eh?’

The Lord’s servant ignored this remark.

‘In the meantime, we’ll look into the surrounding area,’ Kenton said. ‘Anything out of the ordinary happen in the run-up to the fire?’

‘Nothing, nothing whatsoever. There was a funeral, and that’s nothing special given the age of the population here. What with the weather, I made swift work of it; most of the mourners were of a similar age to the deceased. It was imperative to get them back into the warm soonest, if you follow me.’

‘Understood. Name?’ Brazier pulled out his pocketbook and a stubby pencil. He wore navy woollen Steptoe gloves.

The vicar’s features relaxed at the sign of note-­taking. ‘War veteran, Colonel Bulmer-­Jones. Lived in the fisherman’s cottage on Foundry Lane. Ninety-­three. We were done and in the Jolly Sailor for the wake shortly after midday, myself included.’

‘And that was when the fire started?’

‘So your colleagues believe, while the whole village was in the pub.’

‘If it was an outsider, and let’s say for argument’s sake it was,’ Kenton said, ‘he or she would have come through Brightlingsea? There’s only one way in and out.’

‘Yes. The marsh would be sheer madness . . . or there’s the possibility of a boat?’ the vicar added doubtfully.

‘A boat?’

‘There’s a jetty attached to the old rectory.’

‘Old rectory . . .?’

‘Yes, as opposed to the vicarage, where I live. The original rectory was deemed no longer safe. Are you familiar with coastal erosion?’

Chapter 4

As the taxi emerged from the Dartford Tunnel into Essex it started to snow. Steadily, thick and fast without warning, and the traffic slowed accordingly. The driver changed his tune, a jolly chirpy banter was abruptly replaced with sombre mutterings about road closures and problems getting himself and his black cab back to the East End. Bruce made the appropriate noises of concern, then sidetracked him, ‘Good lord, will you take a look at that!’ he exclaimed, turning round. He’d missed it on entry in the murk; huge pillars of concrete, and cranes disappearing up into the grey. He rubbed at the window to get a better look. Men i. . .