The Wilds Read online

  Karl laughed at this suggestion. He wondered where Pearce was getting these ideas, it was as if he was doing everything but looking for Phil.

  ‘How can that be the case?’ Karl said, trying to rein in his anger. ‘He called my mother saying he had run out of petrol. He didn’t mention an accident to her.’

  ‘Perhaps he was in shock,’ Pearce said. ‘I have been doing this job a long time, and I know from personal experience that people in shock often behave in a very odd manner, doing anything to avoid thinking about what has happened.’

  Karl sighed. In his mind he wanted to continue the argument, but could tell that it would be useless. Pearce was the kind of man that could not be argued with, whatever Karl was to say, he would have an answer.

  ‘Alright, Inspector,’ Karl said, accepting defeat.

  ‘Believe me when I say that we are doing all we can.’ Pearce said.

  Karl walked Pearce out to his car, the detective had been of no help and he wanted to see him gone. As they stepped onto the street, Karl noticed a tall, dark haired man taking photographs of his mother’s house across the road. He lowered his camera and called out.

  ‘Inspector Pearce!’ he yelled as he crossed the road to meet them.

  Karl noticed how Peace sighed as the man approached.

  ‘What do you want, Flynn?’ Pearce asked coldly.

  The other man, Flynn, seemed to relish the disdain in Pearce’s voice and actually started smiling more broadly.

  ‘Just wondering what our wonderful local constabulary are doing to locate these missing people?’ Flynn asked in a breezy tone.

  People? Karl wondered what he meant. The confusion on his face must have been apparent as Flynn turned to him.

  ‘Didn’t the Inspector tell you?’ Flynn asked, though he knew Pearce had not said anything, he seemed to enjoy pointing out the policeman’s mistakes. ‘A young woman went missing last night. No more than three miles away from where your brother disappeared, Mr. Morgan.’

  Karl turned to Pearce, the anger returning to him. How could Pearce not have said anything about this?

  ‘You didn’t think to mention this Inspector Pearce?’ Karl said accusingly.

  Pearce scowled at Flynn, who in turn smiled back at the detective.

  ‘We have no reason to believe the two cases are connected,’ Pearce said. ‘In fact we are questioning the girl’s boyfriend as we speak.’

  ‘The one who reported her missing, you mean?’ Flynn asked. From Pearce’s reaction, there was no way that the man should have had this information.

  ‘Yes, it’s not unusual for a killer to try and evade suspicion by reporting the victim missing,’ Pearce said.

  ‘Killer?’ Jason asked with a look of shock. ‘So you are assuming the girl is dead?’

  Pearce looked at him coldly.

  ‘I never assume anything, Flynn,’ he said.

  ‘What about my theory?’ Flynn said.

  Pearce was the one who smiled now, in fact he gave a little snort of derision.

  ‘I and the rest of the police don’t have time to go chasing fairy tales Flynn. We have very real criminals to catch,’ he said mockingly, then turned to Karl. ‘If I have any more information for you I will be in touch, Mr. Morgan. Don’t pay too much attention to our local hack here. He’ll have you believing your brother was abducted by aliens, or eaten by Bigfoot.’

  Pearce shook Karl’s hand and pointedly avoided any further contact with Flynn. The detective got in his car. As he climbed in, his jacket moved aside a little, revealing the holstered gun on his hip. Karl couldn’t believe it. Were the police allowed to carry guns in this country? He didn’t think so, except for in extreme circumstances. He looked to Flynn who nodded that he had seen it too.

  Pearce pulled away. As he did, Flynn gave him a little wave.

  ‘Wanker,’ Flynn muttered, then turned to Karl and held out his hand. ‘Jason Flynn, senior reporter for The Darton Chronicle.’

  Karl took his hand, still in shock from seeing Pearce’s gun.

  ‘Karl Morgan,’ he said. ‘Did he have a gun?’

  Jason Flynn nodded.

  ‘Yeah, and he’s been wearing it for a while now. Something strange is going on.’

  Karl suddenly remembered Pearce’s warning.

  ‘What did he mean by that Bigfoot comment?’ he asked.

  Jason laughed a little.

  ‘He thinks that some of my ideas are a little out there.’ Jason explained. ‘If you have time, I could meet you in the Nags Head this afternoon and we could discuss things a little more.’

  ‘What things?’ Karl asked, he had to admit that the reporter had a certain charm and friendliness to him that had been missing in Pearce, but he was still confused.

  ‘Your brother’s disappearance,’ Jason said. ‘The girl who went missing last night. Police cover ups, even the Bigfoot thing if you want.’

  ‘I’m not interested in giving an interview or anything,’ Karl said.

  Jason laughed.

  ‘I’m not looking for an interview,’ he said. ‘Just the truth.’

  ‘What truth?’ Karl asked.

  ‘There are over two hundred deaths on this county’s roads every year,’ Jason said. ‘Let’s just say that not all of them are accidents.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Pearce was in a foul mood as he drove back through Darton to the police station. He had really hoped to avoid seeing Flynn today, but like the proverbial bad penny, the reporter had a habit of always turning up. He could not believe how much he was starting to hate Flynn, especially not considering how he had once felt about him. He remembered the first time he had held him. He had been such a beautiful baby, barely a day old when Pearce had first seen him. He had sworn he would always do whatever he could to protect the little boy in his arms. It didn’t matter how much he hated the child’s father; he vowed he would never take that out on Jason. He hadn’t counted on the boy growing up to be such an insufferable prick, though.

  Now he was the bane of his existence, everywhere Pearce turned, there he was. Looking to trip him up. It had all start with that police brutality crap a few years back. Pearce knew that he had gone a bit far when questioning that pervert Lyle, but who could blame him? The man was scum. Because of what Pearce had done, the girl had been found in time. He had been a hero. His promotion to Chief Constable had seemed inevitable. Then Flynn had found out about how he had gotten the information from Lyle, and he had printed all over his local rag. Pearce had been spared any real disciplinary action. After all, Lyle was a child molester, and Pearce was the hero cop who had saved the little girl. His chances of promotion had pretty much disappeared the moment Flynn’s article went to press, though, and that Pearce could not forget.

  By the time he reached the station, Pearce had wound himself up into a really foul mood. He marched to his office, grunting at anyone who spoke to him. He was not in the mood for conversation, he was in the mood for hitting the bottle of whiskey he kept in his desk for days like this.

  He shut the door behind him and took off his jacket and tie. He slumped into the large leather swivel chair behind his desk and unlocked the draw that contained the whiskey. He didn’t bother with a glass, just took a few long gulps straight from the bottle. His stress started to fade when he felt the comforting burn of whiskey.

  There was a knock at the door, forcing him to quickly screw the top back on the bottle and dump it back in the drawer. He sat up and opened a random file on his desk to make it look like he was hard at work.

  ‘Come in,’ he shouted.

  The door opened and D.I. Booth entered the room. Pearce was glad it was her. Annoying as she was, she was one of the few people whose company he could bear on a day like that.

  ‘Sorry to bother you, sir,’ she said. He respected her professionalism. She would always call him sir, even when it was just the two of them; the other detectives who worked under him always called him Jon. ‘I just wondered if you wanted to question the girl’s
boyfriend yourself?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll be down in a few minutes,’ Pearce replied, still pretending to flick through the folder.

  Booth nodded and turned to leave.

  ‘I had another run in with your friend Flynn today,’ Pearce said before she reached the door. This was the one thing he did not like about Booth, her personal connection to that hack of a reporter.

  ‘Jason?’ she said turning around. There was no denying she was doing her best to hide it, but Pearce was a good enough detective to know there was still some feeling between her and Flynn. She saw the disapproval in his eyes. ‘He’s not my friend, sir. We just went to school together. You’re the one who...’

  ‘He’s a thorn in my side,’ Pearce said, cutting her off. ‘He’s still prattling on about his theory.’

  Booth looked at him. It was as though she was trying to see whether there was any point talking to him, or if he was in one of those moods where he would just dismiss anything she said.

  ‘Sir,’ she said. ‘Perhaps we should make a statement.’

  Pearce shook his head firmly.

  ‘Not until we have some evidence,’ he said.

  ‘But someone is going to notice these sooner or later,’ she said, pulling back her jacket to reveal that she, too, wore a gun holstered on her belt.

  Pearce smiled at her and shook his head. Ah the innocence of youth, he thought to himself. Booth was still new enough on the force to believe that the general public were actually aware of anything.

  ‘You’d be surprised how little people actually notice, Booth,’ he said. ‘Our job would be a lot easier if people actually paid more attention to little details. However, they don’t. That’s why half our E-fit pictures end up looking the same. People just don’t pay attention.’

  Booth looked at him. It was clear that she was dismayed at cynicism, but he knew that she would get to that stage sooner or later.

  ‘Now go and get the boy ready for interview,’ Pearce said.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Booth said. This time he let her leave the room.

  He closed the folder, it wasn’t even an active case, not that Booth had noticed, because people don’t pay attention to the little details. He opened the drawer and pulled the bottle of whiskey out once more. He needed another drink before he interviewed the boy.

  Jason walked into the office of The Darton Chronicle to find Linda sat at her desk. She looked at him and tapped her watch.

  ‘What time do you call this?’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, sorry,’ Jason said. ‘I was out doing some field work.’

  He looked around the office. Linda was the only one there. This wasn’t right. Mark Rodgers, one of their part time reporters, was supposed to be in today.

  ‘Where’s Mark?’ he asked.

  ‘He called in sick,’ she said, frowning. ‘I’ve been on my own all morning.’

  ‘Come on, Linda,’ Jason said, smiling. ‘You know you’re the only one who could run this place on your own.’

  She laughed, that beautiful, hearty laugh of hers.

  ‘That’s true,’ she said. ‘So what was so important it stopped you coming in this morning?

  ‘Missing persons,’ Jason said.

  Linda’s smile faded and was replaced with a look of concern.

  ‘Oh God,’ she said. ‘Another one?’

  ‘Two actually,’ Jason replied. ‘Both went missing within the last two nights. A guy in his early thirties and a seventeen-year-old girl. I kind of know the missing guy, not well, but still it’s a shock. I went to see his brother and had a run in with Pearce.’

  Linda shook her head at him.

  ‘Not again, Jason,’ she said. ‘I told you last night to be careful of him.’

  ‘He’s hiding something,’ Jason said. ‘He’s kept the missing girl’s boyfriend in for questioning all night, when he was the one who reported her missing. Apparently he heard her screaming out on the marsh, but couldn’t find her. Pearce is acting like she did a runner on him, according to my source.’

  Linda shrugged.

  ‘Maybe she did?’ she said, playing devil’s advocate.

  ‘It doesn’t make any sense,’ he said. ‘Something about this whole thing just seems off.’

  ‘You’re always looking for a conspiracy,’ she said. ‘You’re never happy until you find one.’

  ‘And I usually do, don’t I?’ Jason said. ‘Besides, my source in the police station...’

  ‘You mean Ben Lindley?’ Linda said, interrupting him.

  Jason looked at her; it never ceased to amaze him the way that nothing ever seemed to escape her. He could not remember ever telling her about how Ben was giving him information from within the local police force and had been for years. Yet she knew.

  ‘Yes, Ben,’ he said, still confused. ‘He says that they found the guy who went missing’s car yesterday out on Maltham Lane. He said it was smashed to shit.’

  ‘A car accident?’ Linda said.

  ‘No. He said it looked like someone had taken a lump hammer to it, and the paint work was covered in scratches.’

  Linda looked at him and frowned.

  ‘Please tell me you don’t think it was Altman’s tiger?’ she said.

  Jason sighed. It seemed it was impossible to mention Charles Altman without people thinking you were talking nonsense. Altman just had that reputation as a kook, the mad man looking for monsters. Jason had to admit that he had felt the same way the first time he had met him, but the more he had spoken to him the more he found out how knowledgeable and intelligent he was. Yes he was odd and a little pompous, but his theories were solid.

  ‘Big cat,’ Jason said. ‘Altman never specified which species. It’s not that ridiculous either, there are plenty of sightings every year. Just look at the beast of Dartmoor. The government believed in that enough to send the Royal Marines in to search for it in 1982.’

  ‘Did they find it?’ she said with a wry smile.

  ‘Well, no, but that’s not the point. Anyway, apparently Pearce turned up while Ben and his partner were checking out the car. Ben said he was acting really weird. He wanted them to get the car out of there as quickly as possible and refused to let them search the nearby fields. Surely that would be standard procedure wouldn’t it?’

  Linda shook her head.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘but it’s not evidence that there’s some wild animal stalking the countryside killing people.’

  ‘No, but it shows that at best Pearce is incompetent, and at worst he’s deliberately perverting investigations.’

  Linda walked away, shaking her head. He could tell that she didn’t want to hear anymore. He sat down at his desk, trying to think of what to do. There had to be some way of proving that Pearce was doing these things on purpose. If he could prove it, he could confront the detective. He would offer Pearce the choice; either he tells him what he is covering up, or he prints the story of his cover up.

  Perhaps if he put a little pressure on him, this week he would print a story about Phil Morgan’s disappearance and how his car was found, put in a few little hints that he knew more than he should, and let Pearce sweat a while. He needed some photographs of the place the car was found.

  He got up and walked over to Linda’s desk.

  ‘Could you send Rob Murray out to Maltham Lane to take some pictures of the site where they found the car? It should be easy enough to find, apparently there’s still a lot of debris on the verge.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Rob’s on holiday for the next three weeks. Australia, I think.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Jason said. ‘We’re paying these freelance photographers far too much. What about Bill Taylor?’

  ‘He’s retired.’

  ‘So we have no photographers?’ Jason asked.

  ‘Only Harry Mills, but he’s over in Lincoln covering that little girl who’s getting the bravery award.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you could nip out there and take some snaps for me this afternoon could you?’ />
  ‘I’m on my bike,’ she complained.

  ‘Perfect,’ Jason said with a smile. ‘It’s near enough on your way home. Take the afternoon off, go by there on your way home and bring me the pictures in tomorrow.’

  ‘If it gets me the afternoon off I suppose I can do it. You’ll have to hold the fort here yourself then.’

  Jason shook his head.

  ‘No, set the answer phone,’ he said. ‘I’m going to do more field work this afternoon.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Jerry Sampson had a lot to do that day. He had already plowed his far field, and now he had gone back home to pick up his lunch, and then he had to go and make sure everything was going well with the harvest of the cabbages in his south field. Jerry had been a farmer all his working life, he came from a family of farmers, it was the only life he knew, but one that he was very happy with. Other farmers seemed to do nothing but moan. They were never satisfied; one year they would be saying there had been too much rain, the next that it was too dry. The way that Jerry saw it was that you had to make the best of what nature threw at you. There was nothing anyone could do to change the weather.

  Jerry himself had no real livestock, just a few chickens for his family’s own egg supply, but he knew that some of the neighbouring farms had sheep and or pigs. Lately these farmers had found even more reason to complain. There had been a spate of killings, a few sheep or pigs here and there. Jerry suspected it was the work of foxes - one had tried to get at his chickens a few weeks back - but the rumour mill was running wild with speculation. His friend, Walter Murray, was convinced that his prize ram had been eviscerated by outer space aliens. Jerry found the notion that these supremely intelligent beings, with technology capable of transporting them across the unimaginable distances of space, came all of this way with the sole purpose of, rather messily, dissecting Walter’s prize ram.

  The more popular, but no less ridiculous, theory was that there was some kind of wild animal living out on the fens and marshes. The general consensus of opinion was that it was some kind of big cat. Jerry’s neighbour, Alf Tipps, swore he saw it running through the long grass on Maltham lane. He said it was massive and moved really quickly. Jerry, however, knew that Alf was a raging alcoholic and a compulsive liar. It was that idiot Charles Altman who had started all of this. Before he came to Darton, Jerry had never heard anyone mention big cats, but since that so called scientist had set up camp in town, suddenly they were everywhere. The local paper wasn’t helping, they kept mentioning it.