To Catch a Rabbit Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  To Catch A Rabbit

  Helen writes fiction, poetry and plays. She worked as an actor before becoming a teacher. She now divides her time between writing, teaching in a women’s prison and delivering training in youth arts. She has an MA in Writing from Sheffield Hallam University.

  Helen grew up in Birmingham and Oldham. After living in London for many years, she came north and settled in York, where she lives with her family.

  For Josh, Isaac and Reuben

  First Published 2013 by Moth Publishing an imprint of Business Education Publishers Limited.

  Paperback ISBN 978 1 901888 87 4

  Ebook ISBN 978 1 901888 91 1

  Copyright © Helen Cadbury 2013

  The moral right of Helen Cadbury to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  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, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. Except in the case of historical fact, the names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination and not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental. The locations are a combination of real and fictional. You won’t find the Chasebridge Estate if you look for it in Doncaster, but you might find an estate like it in any number of other British towns and cities.

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

  Cover design by courage.

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by Martins the Printers Ltd.

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

  Moth Publishing

  Chase House

  Rainton Bridge

  Tyne and Wear

  DH4 5RA

  www.mothpublishing.com

  Acknowledgements

  Many thanks to the PCSOs and forensic professionals who have advised me during my research. I assure you that any flexibility in procedural accuracy is down to my own artistic licence.

  Thank you to everyone who has given me encouragement along the way, especially Carole Bromley, and the staff on the Sheffield Hallam MA in Writing, without whose teaching this book would not have happened. Many thanks to my editor, Will Mackie, whose collaboration and kind advice was invaluable; and to Claire Malcolm and Olivia Chapman at New Writing North and Andrea Murphy at Moth Publishing, for seeing the potential in new northern crime fiction. Thank you to David Nicholson, Allison Loftfield and Kate Vernon-Rees for being my first readers and gently pointing out my spelling mistakes. A huge thank you to my family for all your support and particularly to my mother, Jill Cadbury, for encouraging my love of reading from a very early age.

  Particular thanks to residents and colleagues at HMP Askham Grange, who have been travelling this journey with me.

  November 2007

  Chapter One

  There were two of them. As they came closer, Sean could see that the larger boy had been crying. He was wiping something from his mouth with the back of his hand. The smaller boy was pale, with a hard face. Behind him, a Staffordshire bull terrier pulled on a rope. It wanted to get back up the hill, but the boys were heading straight for Sean.

  There had been a frost and Sean’s breath hung ahead of him in the still air. He rolled his shoulders back and let his arms fall by his sides. He’d been on a course on dealing with young people. It was important to get the body language right. An open gesture, the trainer said. You had to get the facial expression right too. He adjusted his smile to inquisitive but friendly.

  ‘You a copper?’

  ‘Police Community Support Officer Denton. Call me Sean.’

  ‘That a copper?’

  ‘More or less.’

  They edged closer, the skinny one shifting his weight from side to side like a toddler needing to pee. Sean thought about crouching down. Height can be an intimidating factor, the trainer said, but he didn’t like the look of the dog.

  ‘She found summat.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Ruby did.’ The dog squatted on the cracked pavement and a trickle of piss snaked towards Sean’s foot. ‘Over the ring road. Brandon said you have to go on the fields if you want to catch a rabbit.’

  The sickly one gave a numb nod and rubbed his face on his sleeve.

  ‘What did she find?’

  ‘I’ll have to show you.’

  He turned and let the dog pull him back up the slope towards the bypass. ‘Come on,’ he called back over his shoulder. ‘You better have a look.’

  There was a whimper but it wasn’t from the dog. Brandon wasn’t moving.

  ‘You stay here then, you big pussy. Me and the copper’ll sort this.’

  Sean wasn’t sure whether he should go on his own. He was meant to be on patrol with his partner, Carly Jayson, but when she phoned in poorly, there was no one free to cover. It couldn’t do any harm to see what the boy had found. He decided to follow, the dog setting the pace. It was an ugly animal, with back legs too thin for its barrel body, a bit of whippet thrown in with the bull terrier.

  They passed the recreation ground, where a stack of old pallets, broken chairs and cardboard boxes waited for Bonfire Night. After scrambling up the embankment, Sean looked back. Brandon was sitting on the wall of the rec, bent over. It looked like he was throwing up. The dog sniffed at the dual carriageway and Sean looked at his watch. 08.12 hours. The boy was talking again, as fast as he walked. A gap opened up between the cars and they crossed over.

  ‘We was throwing sticks and she’s no good at that, so she went off to sniff around that old snack bar van up there and she wouldn’t come back when we shouted for her.’

  Sean realised that he should be writing this down. Sounded like evidence, but he wasn’t sure of what. They climbed over the battered metal barrier i
n the centre of the dual carriageway and reached the lay-by on the other side, crunching over loose stones and broken glass. A hedge had swallowed up the broken remains of a wooden fence. The boy stepped through a gap in it and on to a well-trodden path along the field edge. There, hidden from the road, was a grubby, box-like trailer with faded, red lettering. Sean spelled it out in his head: Refreshments. The boy stopped and yanked hard on the rope.

  ‘Ruby! Stay!’

  Sean looked over at whatever it was the dog was straining towards. A pair of feet, naked, an odd colour. Wrong colour. Blue-black like ulcers. He got closer. The girl was sitting on a step at the back of the trailer, leaning on the edge of an open door. She seemed to have folded forwards, as if she was resting her head on her knees. He went closer, the boy’s nervous chatter behind him.

  ‘Brandon thought it were some lass, fallen asleep, said she’s going to be cold. He poked a stick at her. She’s dead isn’t she?’

  The girl was wearing a T-shirt and knickers. Her straight black hair was spread over her face and her cheek rested against her knee. As Sean got closer, he noticed her blue lips were parted, and he could see her teeth. It was the smell that made the vomit rise in his throat. He turned away fast, drawing quick breaths to keep his breakfast down.

  He called it in, as calmly as he could. Gave directions as the boy watched.

  ‘What happens now?’ the boy said.

  ‘Some police officers will come.’

  ‘And take her away?’

  ‘Yes. They might want to speak to you.’

  ‘What for?’ He pulled the dog closer, coiling the rope in his bony hands.

  ‘Just to ask you some questions.’

  ‘I’ve told you. Dog found her. There’s nowt else…’

  ‘I know, but…’

  The boy yanked the dog, ‘Hup, Ruby! Hup!’ and they ran along the path, her tail wagging with this new game.

  ‘I don’t even know your name!’ Sean called.

  ‘It’s Declan,’ he called back. ‘But I ain’t talking to no other coppers.’

  He and Ruby scrambled through the broken fence. Sean looked back at the dead girl. She could wait. He went after Declan, but as he reached the end of the path, his foot slipped on an ice-coated puddle and his leg twisted under him. His knee went down on the jutting edge of a stone. He checked his radio was still in the pocket of his vest and pulled himself up, rubbed his knee and limped towards the lay-by, just in time to see Declan dodging the traffic to the other side. He didn’t even know where he lived.

  He’d been in the job less than two months. He hoped they’d take that into account back at the station. He got out his notebook, made a wild guess at how to spell the boys’ names. What else should he write down? No idea. He tried not to look at the body again, but he needed to see if there was a registration plate. She was there, still and dead, just the wind lifting two strands of hair and blowing it back over her shoulder.

  The plate was missing. The only detail he could record was the brand name of the vehicle itself. Motorhead. No. He looked again and the word re-formed. Motorchef. That made more sense. He could feel a hysterical laugh bubbling up inside him. It was just shock. He forced himself to look past the body and saw that the van’s interior fittings had been stripped out, the catering equipment replaced by a mattress.

  By the time he heard vehicles pulling into the lay-by, he was shaking. He hadn’t noticed the cold at first, but the longer he stood, the less feeling he had in his feet. Two men got out of their unmarked cars and seemed to be sharing a joke as they shook hands. He recognised Detective Chief Inspector Barry ‘Burger’ King, limping from a barely recovered stress fracture in his right leg. There was a rumour at Doncaster Central that he’d broken it standing still, his own weight cracking the bone. The other man was thin. He was wearing a green, waxed jacket and a tweed flat cap, a black medical bag in his hand. A little rhyme danced across Sean’s memory. Miss Polly had a dolly who was sick sick sick, she called to the doctor to come quick quick quick, the doctor came with his hat and his bag…

  ‘You’ve checked for vital signs, I take it?’ Burger asked when he reached him. Sean hesitated. It hadn’t seemed necessary to check the pulse of someone who was already in a state of rigor mortis. ‘And given her mouth-to-mouth? You know you’re supposed to do everything possible to preserve life?’

  Sean tasted sick rising again as Burger wheezed a laugh through his teeth.

  ‘Huggins can take a look at him. Pathologist.’ He added, in answer to a question Sean hadn’t voiced.

  Huggins approached the body, while Burger held back, casting his eyes over the trailer and taking out a cigarette. The pathologist had a go at lifting her head away from her knees. Sean wanted him to be careful with her, almost called out. But what was the point? She was dead, wasn’t she? Her neck was stiff, but Huggins got it far enough up to move her right arm away. The skin inside her elbow was peppered with puncture wounds.

  ‘A tenner says it’s a straightforward smack OD. This estate’s awash with it,’ said DCI King.

  ‘I’m not arguing, Barry. I’ll give you an estimated time of death and certify it. Then I need to be off. Crying shame, a young girl like this.’ Huggins’s fingers reached out and touched her hair.

  Another car pulled in, and a young woman got out. She had a roll of incident tape, which she started wrapping over the gap in the fence between the field edge and the lay-by.

  ‘Not now, Lizzie. How the hell d’you think we’ll get the body through?’ Huggins shook his head and mumbled to no one in particular. ‘Graduate training scheme, fast-track, I ask you.’ He took another look at the body, then at Sean. ‘You’ll have to check in your shoe size and brand with the lovely Lizzie. She’s our new crime scene manager; very keen on tread patterns.’

  ‘Anyone else been up here?’ Burger stared out across the road towards the Chasebridge Estate.

  Sean assumed the question was directed at him. ‘Two young lads and a dog, sir, they found the body.’

  ‘How old?’ Burger eyed the estate with an impassive stare.

  ‘About ten, sir.’

  ‘And the dog?’

  ‘Sir?’

  Sean felt himself blush as he realised he was having the mick taken again. Burger let out a belly laugh and Huggins smirked. Only Lizzie looked suitably serious, as if she disapproved of the whole lot of them. He almost felt sorry for her, having to work with this team. The laughter was definitely a bloke’s joke, and Lizzie didn’t look like she was one of the lads.

  ‘Have a look for footprints will you, love? See if there’s a couple of kiddy sizes in there.’

  ‘The ground’s pretty hard, so I don’t think there’ll be anything in the mud. Maybe something in the frost itself.’ Lizzie said. She had the kind of voice that Sean’s nan would have called ‘proper’. ‘Where are the SOCOs? They should be here by now.’

  ‘I don’t think we’ll need them.’ DCI King headed back to the car with the doctor. ‘This one’s low priority. You and Plastic Percy can manage.’

  Bastard, Sean thought. Not proper police, plastic police. Pig. Percy. He couldn’t meet her eye, didn’t want her to see how much it bothered him. Burger walked Huggins back to his car and Sean watched Lizzie pull on a white, cover-all suit and tuck her dark hair neatly under the hood. He was glad someone was taking this poor girl’s death seriously.

  ‘Make yourself useful and lend us a hand, will you?’ She tossed a packet of latex gloves to Sean. ‘As soon as this is signed off, we can get the morgue van up here.’

  He struggled into a second white suit. It was hot over his uniform and his movements felt as subtle as a Teletubby’s. Lizzie issued instructions and Sean did as he was told. He tried to switch off mentally, shut down his feelings, as he held the dead girl’s head in both his hands, while Lizzie lo
oked in the mouth and ears. He turned away to catch his breath. Lizzie gestured to him to steady the body by the shoulders while she lifted the T-shirt away from the girl’s skin and looked for any signs of injury. Even through the cloth and the gloves, he could feel hard cold flesh. Burger lit up another cigarette and chatted to someone on his mobile.

  ‘Nothing obvious, sir.’ Lizzie didn’t look up as she spoke. ‘Except the needle marks. Discolouration of the skin could be septicaemia, post-mortem. Dirty needle could have done that as she was losing consciousness. Face is bloated, so hard to say, but features look oriental.’

  ‘Good, well, we’ll get her into the lab and see if you’re right.’ Burger flicked the ash off the end of his cigarette.

  A grey Mercedes van pulled up in the lay-by and two men got out. The stretcher they carried had a built-in body bag, like a suit carrier from a smart dry-cleaners. Once the body was on the stretcher and zipped in, Lizzie fetched some evidence bags from the car and gave Sean some paper towels. Where the girl had been was now a sticky mess on the step. He was becoming an expert at not breathing through his nose.

  ‘Sir, am I looking for anything in particular inside?’ Lizzie asked.

  ‘Whatever takes your fancy, love,’ Burger shrugged. ‘I’m going to sit in the car and keep warm, the lad’ll give you a hand.’

  ‘Right.’ She stood in the open doorway and paused for a moment to survey the interior of the trailer. ‘There’s not much room, so you stay there. Open me up one of the larger bags.’

  Sean fiddled to separate the plastic, fumbling in the latex gloves. Lizzie reappeared in the doorway with a bundled-up sheet, which she slid into the bag. ‘Take this back to the car and get the sharps box, I think I’ve found the murder weapon.’

  ‘But I thought it was a drug overdose.’

  ‘Duh! I’m talking about the needle. If this was a murder, they’d have sent me an actual team instead of having to make do with a... Sorry, I didn’t catch your name?’