Dead Level (The DI Nick Dixon Crime Series Book 5)

  ALSO BY DAMIEN BOYD

  As the Crow Flies

  Head in the Sand

  Kickback

  Swansong

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2016 Damien Boyd

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503933095

  ISBN-10: 1503933091

  Cover design by bürosüdo München, www.buerosued.de

  For Monica

  Contents

  Prologue

  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

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Prologue

  It was a form of OCD. He’d been told that enough times by enough people.

  It was mild and it didn’t come with all the paranoia that he’d seen on the telly, but it was definitely obsessive compulsive disorder. Jars and tins with their labels facing front; shampoo and shower gel too. Curtains; right over left. And shoes? He grimaced. If she left them the wrong way round again . . .

  He was the same about his car, he knew that. It was spotless, inside and out. Not a speck of dust on the dashboard; not a CD in sight. He shuddered at the thought of scratches. He went through a bottle of T-Cut a week and the bloke with the ChipsAway franchise did very well out of him.

  His motorcycle, on the other hand, was untouchable. Immaculate. It had the garage to itself and was polished daily. Sometimes twice. That was his routine.

  His ritual.

  His first job when he got home tonight would be to polish it. Again. He’d only done it that morning but country lanes were terrible for mud and he’d been waiting in this sodding field gateway for hours now. A muddy field gateway. He couldn’t imagine anything worse.

  And it was cold. Bloody cold.

  He wiped the condensation from his visor and peered into the night. The bright moonlight was reflected by the wet road surface; a light grey strip, framed by the hedges shrouded in darkness on either side.

  What the bloody hell are you doing in there?

  It was supposed to be a quick job. In and out. He looked at his watch. There was still time. Plenty of time. These long dark winter nights have their uses.

  Was that an engine?

  He stepped back behind the hedge, took off his helmet and listened. Yes, it was an engine. Idling. He waited for the lights but saw none.

  Seconds later a small white van crept past the gateway. A flame lit up the passenger compartment and he watched the driver lighting up, not easy when both lighter and cigarette are shaking like that. Otherwise, there was still no light.

  He opened the gate, stepped out into the lane behind the van and listened to the sound of the engine fading away into the distance. He waited, staring into the darkness. Suddenly, tail lights came on and the van accelerated away.

  Now to work.

  He left his helmet and gauntlets on his motorcycle and walked along the lane towards the cottage. An upstairs light was on and the front door was standing ajar, a narrow beam of light illuminating the garden path.

  He stopped at the front gate and put on a pair of disposable latex gloves, then a pair of elasticated latex overshoes over his boots. He had come prepared and knew exactly what had to be done.

  He pushed the front door open with his elbow and listened.

  Nothing.

  He checked the ground floor rooms; broken glass on the kitchen floor just inside the back door. Amateur.

  Then he crept up the stairs.

  She was lying face down on the landing in a pool of blood that was getting larger by the second. There were several stab wounds to her neck and back. And she was naked.

  He reached into his jacket pocket and took out a small plastic bag. He held it up to the light. Then he opened it and emptied a cigarette butt onto the landing next to her body. Two more bags left. In and out in under sixty seconds. It was going like clockwork.

  He was halfway down the stairs when she gasped and her body heaved.

  You useless . . .

  You’re gonna pay for this . . .

  He watched her fighting for shallow breaths.

  She may bleed out. She may not. He couldn’t take that chance. And after all, he wasn’t going to take the fall for it.

  He fetched a knife from the kitchen and stood over her, careful to avoid treading in the blood that was now trickling down the wood panelling and soaking into the hall carpet below.

  He picked a stab wound in the left side of her upper back and inserted the knife slowly. Then he pressed down, sending it deeper into her chest cavity. He held it there until her breathing stopped before he pulled it out and put it in the empty plastic bag.

  Time to go.

  He paused in the garden to empty a small bag of vomit onto the lawn and then two more cigarette butts in the lane opposite the cottage.

  Then it was home to clean his motorbike.

  He was a creature of habit.

  Chapter One

  To the untrained eye, the water looked deep. Very deep. The drainage ditches on either side were submerged under murky water that met in the middle of the country road, creating a long, narrow lake with high hedges on both sides. The road rose out of the water, perhaps seventy yards ahead. But how deep was it in the middle?

  The fields, visible through gaps in the hedges, were under water too. There was a rusting cattle feeder in the field to the right, the water lapping at the bars, but that was thirty yards away and not much use as a depth gauge. In the far corner of the same field a herd of twenty or so cows was standing on the only dry land available to them, pulling the last bits of greenery from the hedge.

  Nick Dixon crept forward in his old Land Rover Defender, watching the bow wave either side wash through the hedge and across the field beyond, each ripple flickering in the low winter sun. He wound down the window and looked at the water level beneath him. It was almost up to the doors now and no doubt over the exhaust pipe too. Much deeper and it would reach the air intake. Fatal for a diesel engine. And very expensive.

  He looked in his rear view mirror but his view was blocked by a large white Staffordshire terrier standing up at the back window and staring at the dry land behind them.

  ‘All right, Monty, I get the message.’

  Dixon reve
rsed slowly, keeping the revs up to blow the water out of the exhaust. He looked for the white line in the middle of the road but the water was too deep to see it.

  Pick a line midway between the two hedges and stay straight, for God’s sake.

  Once clear of the flood he revved the engine several times and then switched it off.

  ‘I should have bought myself a Portuguese water spaniel,’ he muttered, balancing on one foot while he tipped a tennis ball out of his wellington boot.

  It was eerily quiet, except for the click of his hazard lights and the sound of the water lapping along the road in front of the Land Rover. Dixon pulled a dead branch out of the hedge and then began edging into the water, testing the depth in front of him with the branch as he went. After only a few paces he was in up to the level of his boots so he leaned forward as far as he could to test the depth further ahead. The road seemed to level off so he decided to keep going. What was the worst that could happen?

  He looked back when he heard Monty barking and saw him standing on the front seat of the Land Rover with his paws up on the steering wheel.

  He was now more than halfway through the water and both of his feet were wet. Either he had a leak in his boots or water had got in over the top. He threw the branch into the hedge and began wading along the road. The water reached the tops of his knees before shallowing off and he was soon looking back at his Land Rover from dry land, although it hardly felt like it with wellington boots full of water.

  He looked down at his trousers. The tide mark was halfway up his thighs, which would take it up to the wheel arches on the Land Rover, perhaps, but it would still be below the air intake. He would need to take it slowly to keep the bow wave down but otherwise it should be fine. And he was insured, after all.

  Dixon waded back to his car, stopped to empty the water out of his boots, and then climbed into the driver’s seat.

  ‘Let’s get this over with then, old son, before I change my mind.’

  Dixon crept forward, keeping the revs up and controlling the speed with the clutch. He watched the bow wave rise up in front of the Land Rover and slowed to a crawl so that it stayed below the level of the bonnet. He glanced down. Water was trickling in under the door but it was still six inches below the air intake. There was no going back now.

  Monty was standing on the front seat barking at the water bubbling up under the passenger door.

  ‘You’re not helping, matey,’ said Dixon.

  He was starting to wonder whether he had done the right thing when he felt the Land Rover rising up and noticed the water level dropping away beneath him. He opened the driver’s door and looked down. The water was no more than six inches deep now so he accelerated out onto dry road and then stopped to watch a Mazda MX5 in his rear view mirror. It had arrived at the same puddle and Dixon was relieved when the driver thought better of it and reversed back to the junction.

  Dixon reached over and took a photograph album out of the glove compartment. He glanced at the warning that some kind soul had written on the cover in bright red ink: ‘Do not open unless you have a strong stomach.’ Then he read the address out loud.

  ‘Stickland Barn, Muchelney.’

  Dixon turned left off the main road on the approach to Muchelney, following a lane past a row of terraced cottages with sandbags at the front doors and ‘Dredge the Rivers!’ signs in the windows. He glanced up at the sky. It was clear blue, for a change, criss-crossed only by vapour trails, and no doubt the residents were praying it stayed that way.

  Stickland Barn was the last building on the left as Dixon drove out of the village, and he slowed as he drove past it. Set sideways onto the road and built of grey stone, it had ornate carved stone mullion windows and an oak front door. Dormer windows on the first floor were set into a thatched roof that had seen better days. Dixon spotted the odd patch here and there. He also noticed a For Sale board. He was not going to be popular, but then he had long since given up worrying about that.

  He parked on the grass verge a little way beyond Stickland Barn, he hoped hidden from the house by the orchard behind it. Better still, there would be no one at home. Then he followed the track that ran along the back of the orchard towards a five bar gate. He was flicking through the photograph album as he walked and had found the photo he was looking for by the time he reached the gate.

  Whoever had written the warning on the front cover of the photograph album had been right, but then a strong stomach was an essential requirement for a police officer. And if you lacked one to begin with, you pretty soon developed one. Dixon grimaced. He had seen the photograph for the first time earlier that day but it had lost none of its power. He leaned on the gate and held it up in front of him, trying to focus on the crime scene rather than the victim. An elderly woman, according to the file, lying in a puddle just inside the gateway.

  The small timber field shelter against the hedge on the right in the photograph was now a much bigger block of three stables to Dixon’s left. It had a tack or feed room set at right angles at the far end with a concrete plinth in front, all fenced in to create a small stable yard. The line of leylandii behind it was new too, presumably to give added protection from the prevailing wind, which raced across the Somerset Levels in winter.

  The field itself was the same size, although there was now a steel five bar gate on the far side. It looked a recent addition and Dixon guessed that new residents had been able to buy the adjacent field off the farmer to improve the grazing. That might explain the increase from two Shetland ponies to the three large horses visible in the far field and the lack of mud in such a small paddock.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  Dixon spun round, snapping the photograph album shut.

  ‘Detective Inspector Dixon, Avon and Somerset Police,’ he said, holding up his warrant card.

  The woman leaned forward and peered at it for several seconds before looking up.

  ‘Never seen one of those before,’ she said.

  ‘And you are?’ asked Dixon.

  ‘Julia Woodgates. Mrs.’

  ‘And these are your horses?’ The Mountain Horse jacket, jodhpurs and wellington boots were a bit of a giveaway.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you live in the house?’

  ‘No, I just rent the stables and paddocks. The house belonged to Mrs Harber but she’s gone into a care home so it’s being sold. Are you buying?’

  ‘Sadly not.’

  ‘What are you doing then?’

  ‘I’m investigating the death of Wendy Gibson. She . . .’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘You sound surprised,’ said Dixon.

  ‘No, it’s just . . . that was years ago.’

  ‘You know about it?’

  ‘Everybody round here does.’

  ‘And what do they know?’

  ‘Well, just that she was shot dead and they never found out who did it.’

  ‘Were you living here at the time?’

  ‘No, I moved here in 2001. When was it?’ asked Mrs Woodgates.

  ‘1994,’ replied Dixon.

  ‘I was in Peterborough then.’

  ‘What does the village rumour mill say?’

  ‘How d’you know there is one?’

  ‘There always is.’

  ‘Not a lot,’ replied Mrs Woodgates, shrugging her shoulders. ‘There was a story going round that she’d been a spy and it was something to do with that.’

  ‘A spy?’

  ‘Oh, and a concentration camp guard, but that was years ago.’

  Dixon sighed.

  ‘I know, I know,’ said Mrs Woodgates, shaking her head.

  ‘Mind if I have a look around while I’m here?’ asked Dixon.

  ‘No, you carry on.’

  Dixon handed her his business card. ‘If you hear of anything . . .’

  Julia Woodgates put the card in her pocket. She was looking down at Dixon’s wet trousers.

  ‘You found the deep puddle on the Langport road, I see.’<
br />
  ‘Er, yes.’

  ‘Go back through the village to the main road and turn left. You can still get out via Martock.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘What’s the point of it?’ she asked, opening and then closing the gate behind her. ‘I mean, after all these years. Surely, if you’ve not caught who did it before, you’re not going to catch them now, are you?’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ replied Dixon. ‘Forensic science has moved on a bit since the early nineties.’

  ‘I suppose it has.’

  Dixon watched her trudge across the field to the far side. She untied two of the head collars that were looped over the steel five bar gate and then climbed over it into the far field, before disappearing behind the hedge.

  ‘What time d’you call this?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Ages I slaved over that curry.’

  ‘Sorry!’

  ‘You could’ve phoned.’

  ‘I said I was sorry.’

  ‘It’s on a plate in the oven.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You’re lucky it’s not in the dog.’

  ‘Is there any mango chutney?’

  ‘In the fridge. Top shelf.’

  Detective Constable Jane Winter walked into the living room of the cottage she shared with Dixon. She was carrying a tray and stood in front of the television looking down at him. He was stretched out on the sofa with Monty curled up on his lap and a can of beer on the floor next to him.

  ‘Shift over then.’

  Dixon pushed Monty onto the floor, swung his legs off the sofa and sat up. Jane sat down next to him.

  ‘Open that for me,’ she said, passing him the jar of mango chutney. ‘You eaten?’

  ‘I had mine earlier,’ replied Dixon. ‘Because of the diabetes.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ replied Jane. ‘Regular meal times. How’d you get on then?’

  ‘Suspended on full pay.’

  ‘Full pay? Sounds like a paid holiday to me.’

  ‘Not quite. I’ve been assigned to the Cold Case Unit at Portishead, reporting to a retired DCI old enough to be my grandfather, investigating murders that took place before I was born.’

  ‘And your interview?’

  ‘Tomorrow at ten.’