Reprobates

  Caffeine Nights Publishing

  REPROBATES

  RC Bridgestock

  Fiction aimed at the heart

  and the head..

  Published by Caffeine Nights Publishing 2014

  Copyright © RC Bridgestock 2014

  RC Bridgestock has asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998 to be identified as the author of this work

  CONDITIONS OF SALE

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, scanning, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher

  This book has been sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental

  Published in Great Britain by Caffeine Nights Publishing

  www. caffeine-nights com

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 978-1-907565-73-1

  Cover design by

  Mark (Wills) Williams

  Everything else by

  Default, Luck and Accident

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  We would like to say thank you to our publisher Darren Laws at Caffeine Nights Publishing and Literary Agent Brie Burkeman at Brie Burkeman & Serefina Clarke Literary Agency, for their continued hard work, support, dedication and tireless enthusiasm. Mark (Wills) Williams, once again for the excellent art work for the ‘Reprobates’ cover and Gemma Beckwith for her up-to-date police knowledge.

  We couldn’t do it without you!

  DEDICATION

  To all our family for their continued love and support, and to the The Forget Me Not Hospice Charity, Huddersfield that supports children with life threatening/limiting conditions and their families in West Yorkshire.

  REPROBATES

  Chapter One

  ‘Spring forward, Fall back,’ the rhyme floated through Dylan’s mind. He was glad when this time of year came. The longer daylight hours meant criminals didn’t have the comfort of that extra cloak of darkness. However, today it meant an hour less in bed.

  On the horizon he watched the light of the impending dawn peep over the distant hills. The rays of the morning sun waved and flickered, bending and shooting upwards and outwards. He saw the light spread in between the earthy mounds into a kind of pearly haze, stretching its arms and scattering the darkness as it reached out towards him. He travelled the main road into Harrowfield as the sun slowly rose to its feet, up and over the dull green backdrop of the Sibden Valley and beyond the hill into Southowram. Nearing St Peters Park the first rays of sunlight penetrated the forest and he began to see the grey green trunks of oak trees and the brown remains of last year’s bracken. Jack yawned and wound down his window slightly, stopping for a moment at a red traffic light. He heard the birds whistle and call. A draught upon his neck caused a shiver down his spine.

  The warmth of the bed he had just left, with Jen in it, beckoned his return. Maisy had been in a peaceful slumber, ‘bottom up’ in her cot when he’d looked in on their daughter.

  ‘Cutting teeth’s no fun, is it sweetie?’ he’d said softly as he winced at her flaming red cheek. Maisy had flicked her ear irritably and her eyes twitched which Dylan took as his cue to leave quickly before she sensed his presence and woke – Jen would never have forgiven him.

  Max hadn’t stirred, other than to roll the whites of his eyes, when Dylan stepped over him at the foot of the stairs. It wasn’t his usual greeting of excited hairy limbs and drool. ‘Maisy kept you awake too mate?’ There was no other response than one weak flap of a tail.

  Being a police officer wasn’t easy – least of all for the Sunday early turn. Dylan’s work was as much a choice of lifestyle as a job, that was challenging and unpredictable at the least for both him and his family. It was a vocation that never stopped asking questions of his ability. The long, changeable shifts and the crisis-driven nature of the work often turned life on the home front into an emotional roller coaster. But then nothing worth doing was easy and that saying applied to his wife too, for loving a cop.

  Dylan drove his car slowly through the opened hefty, metal gates into the secure backyard at Harrowfield Police Station. Its emptiness spoke volumes about the lack of staff working at that particular hour. Jack Dylan was today what the police term the ‘on call shift’ senior detective for the area. He would spend his working hours on site and be readily available to immediately respond to any reports of serious crime. The generally quiet, Sunday early turn duty was as a rule a good opportunity to get stuck into the copious amount of paperwork, that seemed to grow like a fungus, in his in tray. Quicker than the plant on my office windowsill, he thought. Chuckling to himself he recalled the uniformed officer playing a prank on a lady in the admin department where Jen worked. The fragrant green leafed gift she had lovingly tended from a sapling turned out to be a cannabis plant he’d retrieved from a crime scene. Once their bumptious Chief Superintendent Hugo-Watkins got wind of it, it backfired dramatically on the PC who ended up doing a six week stint of nights. Common sense didn’t always accompany the title of a police officer.

  Dylan opened the Incident Room door and stood for a moment, rarely had he seen it looking so desolate. The telephones were silent. There was no constant hum of conversation or the tak tak tak sound of the typists at work. A sound to him that was like a thousand crickets, on a warm evening, chirping on the keyboards.

  Dylan walked past the rows of haphazardly abandoned office chairs. A clear-desk policy in force meant the computer terminals were the only thing thereon, other than the odd telephone dotted about here and there. He walked directly to his office at the head of the Criminal Investigation Department, turned at his door and scanned the CID office. The place looked frozen in time. He shivered, unlocked his office door and turned on the lights. The fluorescent bulbs flickered and then juddered into action. He heard a door slam loudly in the outer office and he knew only too well that the silence would be short lived, as he slid into his cold but comfy big old leather chair and switched on his computer terminal. His finger hovered over the keys. At the command, he input his password. His telephone rang. He reached out and took a deep breath of air into his lungs in anticipation.

  ‘Dylan,’ he said brusquely. He proceeded to clear his throat.

  ‘Good morning, sir,’ said an overly jovial voice. ‘Force Control.’

  ‘The room that never sleeps...’

  ‘Absolutely!’ Richard Pauley said. ‘We’ve just received a call from the Mortuary. Someone’s broken in and stolen a body.’

  ‘Or maybe someone’s broke out?’ Dylan interjected, his lips pursed, his eyebrows raised. His pen lingered over his notepad.

  ‘Well you never know sir, stranger things have happened. After thirty years in this job nothing surprises me any more,’ said the civilian employee nonchalantly. ‘Uniform are at the scene and are requesting CID supervision.’

  ‘Any more info?’

  ‘The mortuary attendant arrived at work to find the fridge alarm activated, a fridge open and one of the bodies, that of a female is missing.’

  ‘Do we have a name?’

  ‘Of the corpse?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No, sir. Can I show you attending? Uniform are already there.�
�

  ‘Guess so,’ Dylan said, fingering the papers in his over-spilling in tray. He wrinkled his nose, hung up the phone, grabbed his coat and was on his way out of the door when he caught sight of Detective Constable Vicky Hardacre getting out of her car.

  ‘Put a spring in it, we’re off to the mortuary,’ he called.

  Vicky moaned. ‘Oh no,’ she said, her lips hardly moved.

  ‘A missing body,’ Dylan said, as she approached.

  ‘I wish my head was bloody missing,’ she said. ‘That’s all I chuffin’ need.’

  ‘It’s the last thing anybody needs,’ he said patting her heartily on the back. ‘But look on the positive, we’ll be walking out,’ he said, smiling at her as he opened his passenger car door for her to get in.

  ‘I guess... Well at least it’s not a post-mortem,’ she said, as he sat down in the driver’s seat, next to her. Her head tilted to one side as if she was weighing up the odds. She belched loudly.

  Dylan frowned and pursed his lips as he looked in his rear view mirror and proceeded to negotiate his way out of the car park.

  ‘Too many lagers and a bad curry,’ Vicky said shaking herself. ‘Gotta mint?’

  Dylan reached in his pocket and without looking at her he threw a packet into her lap.

  ‘Bodies don’t just get up and walk out of a mortuary,’ she said, pulling a face. ‘Unless... Hey, suppose we have a vampire at large in Harrowfield?’ For the briefest of moments her voice took on one of an excited child then her eyes became large round animated balls. She held her stomach and groaned.

  ‘It’s frightening to think how your bloody mind works,’ Dylan said glancing across at her disbelievingly.

  She shrugged her shoulders and grimaced. ‘Whatever.’

  ‘Whatever what?’

  ‘Whatever, sir,’ she said.

  Chapter Two

  It was a short drive to Harrowfield Mortuary and the roads were void of the usual rush hour traffic, which made the journey appear all the more eerie. Vicky was unusually quiet on the approach to the town.

  ‘Better keep your eyes peeled for anyone who looks like a zombie then,’ whispered Dylan not taking his eyes off the road.

  Vicky slowly brought her hand up to her mouth and burped. Dylan could hear her stomach churning.

  ‘Funny ha ha!’ she said turning towards him and slowly rolling her hooded eyes. ‘Although, come to think of it there were a lot of people coming out of that night club this morning looking very much like... Got a drink?’ she said as she involuntary heaved. Dylan saw a flicker of panic in her eyes.

  ‘Don’t you dare...’

  She hunched her shoulders and shook her head in short jerky movements, clenched her teeth and swallowed hard.

  He glanced across at her grey, waxy complexion as she gasped and leaned her head heavily on the headrest. Her eyes opened slightly. She looked sideways at him and moaned. Dylan stopped the car. Vicky opened the door. ‘I’m going to be sick ...’ she said, before promptly throwing up in the gutter. Dylan sat in silence staring ahead. He could hear Vicky taking deep quick breaths, fighting the nausea. It was Dylan’s turn to roll his eyes. He tapped her on her hand. She opened her eyes and he offered her his handkerchief. Gratefully she took it. ‘I knew I shouldn’t ’ave...’

  ‘Whatever,’ he said. ‘The water is in the glove compartment.’

  She nodded her head.

  ‘You take more looking after than our Maisy,’ he said, starting the car engine. Vicky closed her door. Dylan steered the car out of the kerb to continue their journey.

  She gave him an eyes half-closed sideways glance, threw him a smile that was more of a thank-you and unscrewed the top off the bottle. ‘And you’d know that because you’re always at home to look after her,’ she said putting the bottle to her lips.

  ‘You’re treading on thin ice,’ Dylan growled.

  ‘True though, isn’t it?’ she said, brusquely taking another sip of water. She turned to him, drew a hand across her mouth and smacked her pale, thin lips together.

  ***

  Dylan stopped the car outside the mortuary alongside a marked police car. He slowly turned to his Detective Constable with a raised eyebrow and steely glare that she knew meant she’d overstepped the mark. He remained silent. She was right and he knew it.

  The old, grey stone structure of the mortuary was hardly a welcoming sight, with rotten wooden window frames that still held single pane glass. A rusty, metal fire escape clung haphazardly to one wall but it looked so frail and inadequate and Dylan doubted it would hold the weight of a squirrel, never mind a human being. In its day the edifice had probably been formidable, but it had been sadly neglected, like the cobbled street access with its crater sized potholes. Drab and dreary was an apt description.

  The rusty hinges of the heavy oak door creaked as Vicky pushed it open. She held her stomach. The smell of formaldehyde was overpowering. Instantly, with lips clamped together Vicky put her hand over her mouth, turned and hurriedly retraced her steps. A uniformed officer approached Dylan.

  ‘She okay?’ she said, indicating over her shoulder the fleeing Vicky.

  ‘She will be,’ he said gruffly.

  Police Constable Fearne Robinson read to Dylan from her pocketbook, the details she had obtained. ‘The missing body is that of a Kirsty Gallagher, thirty years of age,’ she said, pushing a rogue ringlet of copper hair back under her black velvet hat. ‘She was brought into the mortuary on Friday morning, according to Mr Harper, the mortuary attendant over there, who will explain the circumstances to you himself in a minute, no doubt.’ PC Robinson cocked her eyebrow in an unsmiling expression.

  Derek Harper dressed in a dark green, button through overall was making his way towards the pair, but before he reached them the door opened and slammed a few seconds later as Vicky marched in. Dylan acknowledged her with a stern nod and Fearne introduced them both to Mr Harper. The CID officers flashed their warrant cards in his direction. Dylan hadn’t come across Derek Harper before. He was like a muffled presence in the room. A gaunt looking chap, about six feet and one inch tall and around sixty years of age Dylan guessed. The man was exceptionally thin, almost skeletal. He had no colour to his complexion and his shirt collar appeared to be too large for his scrawny neck. His face looked hot and polished like his balding head. Derek spoke quietly but quickly, ‘I’m covering the early turn shift and the last thing I expected was this. Is nothing safe any more?’ As he spoke he gently stroked the head of a naked corpse on a nearby trolley. He held out his hands. ‘I’m still shaking. It’s really upsetting. How could anyone…? That window’s been forced,’ he said, turning to point to the window near the entrance. ‘At least the alarm worked. It’s still ringing in my ears.’

  ‘Someone set off the security alarm?’ asked Dylan.

  ‘No, the fridge alarm,’ said Harper. ‘They all work independently. When the temperature goes below two or above four degrees centigrade that signal alerts us to a fault. I thought that’s all it was at first but no, the door to number twelve was wide open and a body was there on the floor.’ All heads turned to look in the direction he pointed. ‘I put him back inside obviously,’ he said.

  ‘But, I thought you said a body was missing?’ asked Vicky with a furrowed brow.

  Harper looked at the Detective.

  ‘It is,’ he said, looking confused.

  ‘But if the body was on the floor?’ asked Vicky.

  PC Robinson shook her head in Vicky’s direction and put her pen to her lips.

  ‘How long have you worked at the mortuary, Mr Harper?’ asked Dylan.

  ‘A few months.’

  ‘And before?’

  ‘I used to prepare the ground for their internment.’

  ‘That’s no doubt a very lonely occupation?’ asked Dylan.

  ‘It’s a necessary job that someone has to do. I don’t mind my own company and the peace and quiet,’ Harper stared defiantly at Dylan.

  PC Robinson’s eyes moved
in DC Vicky Hardacre’s direction, but her head remained still.

  ‘The rheumatoid arthritis means grave digging’s too physical,’ he said quietly and proceeded to mouth the last two words when barely a sound came from his lips.

  Vicky looked bemused. Her malady somewhat forgotten.

  Dylan scanned his surroundings. Vicky sat with Mr Harper. Dylan invited PC Robinson to give him a tour of the crime scene, a few yards away.

  ‘The mortuary has the capacity for twenty-four bodies in the refrigerated units, sir,’ she said. ‘There are six rows of four. Which means that fridge number twelve is at the bottom of the third, at the far end,’ she said.

  ‘Remind me, when was the lady brought into the mortuary?’

  ‘Ms Gallagher? Friday morning, sir.’

  ‘I finished Friday lunchtime,’ said Derek Harper. ‘It was my turn to work today. She was due for the knife tomorrow,’ he said tossing his head in the direction of the fridges. ‘Tomorrow was supposed to be her post-mortem to ascertain the cause of death. There’ll be hell to pay over this,’ he said. ‘I’ve telephoned Mr Fisher.’

  ‘Mr Fisher?’ asked Vicky.

  ‘His boss,’ said Fearne Robinson.

  ‘Shocked he was,’ said Derek Harper. ‘He should have been in my shoes.’

  ‘So let me get this right. This other person, he was in the same fridge as Ms Gallagher?’ asked Dylan.

  Harper nodded.

  ‘Is that normal?’ asked Vicky.

  ‘God no! But it was Old Alfie, died of heart failure on Thursday.’ Mr Harper’s mouth seemed to boggle the words. ‘Fridge number thirteen broke down... Number thirteen might be unlucky for some, but not for him,’ he said. ‘I had to put him on top of her.’ Derek Harper bowed his head and lifted his eyes to the ceiling smiling uneasily at Dylan. ‘Be assured, I knew Old Alfie. He wouldn’t have minded.’