Heads or Tails (The DI Nick Dixon Crime Series Book 7) Read online

  ALSO BY DAMIEN BOYD

  As the Crow Flies

  Head in the Sand

  Kickback

  Swansong

  Dead Level

  Death Sentence

  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. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2017 by 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: 9781542046619

  ISBN-10: 1542046610

  Cover design by @blacksheep-uk.com

  For my father, Michael

  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

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Manchester City Council

  Social Services

  Dr S Beckwith CPsychol FBPsS

  75 Harley Street

  London

  W1G 8QL

  21 May 1977

  Dear Solomon,

  Re: Child A

  I refer to our telephone conversation earlier today and should be grateful for your assistance, please, with Child A.

  As discussed, he is twelve years of age and is currently placed with a foster family in Oldham. For reasons that I hope are self-explanatory, we thought it sensible if the placement was made outside the immediate Manchester area.

  Child A is very withdrawn and yet displays outbursts of violence that his foster family are currently able to manage. Having said that, the violent episodes are becoming more extreme and more frequent, and it is not known at this stage how long this situation can continue. Removal to a specialist children’s home may be the only option, but I am anxious to avoid that if we can.

  By way of background, Child A’s mother died of cancer when he was seven years old, leaving him an only child living with his father. Physical examination (a medical report is available) reveals evidence of prolonged sexual abuse, which Child A says began soon after his mother died and continued until his father’s murder on Good Friday.

  I will not go into detail here about the precise nature of the abuse Child A suffered at the hands of his father, suffice it to say that it has taken some time and patient coaxing to extract any detailed information. What has become clear is that it was sexual, physical and mental abuse of the utmost violence and severity, suffered over a prolonged period.

  Child A believes that his mother’s death was his fault and that the abuse was his punishment. He remains convinced that he deserved it, and no amount of assurances to the contrary appear able to persuade him otherwise.

  To complicate matters, his father met his death at the hands of Child A’s best friend, a fifteen year old boy who has since confessed to the murder. He was, he says, acting to protect Child A. He has pleaded guilty to one count of murder and is due to be sentenced next month.

  Needless to say, the murder has had a profound effect on Child A, who witnessed it at close quarters. His father was stabbed in the neck on answering the front door and fell at Child A’s feet, his jugular vein severed. Child A then watched as his father was shot in the head at close range. When police arrived on the scene, they found him covered in blood and cradling his father’s head in his hands.

  Child A is currently under the care of Dr James McDonald, and it is at his suggestion that I am writing to you now. Dr McDonald’s view is that more specialist assistance will be required if Child A is to avoid being institutionalised for much of his life.

  His foster family can, of course, bring him down to your consulting rooms at your convenience, and I very much hope you are able to assist.

  I look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible, please.

  Yours sincerely,

  Steven Grey

  Senior Social Worker

  Children’s Services

  Chapter One

  Rotting seaweed. It was more of a stench than a smell. Nick Dixon grimaced. Being downwind of the sewage treatment works wasn’t helping either, although it was keeping him awake. That, and the cold.

  He was standing on top of a concrete sluice gate looking down at the tidal section of the River Huntspill, where it snaked out a short distance to join the River Parrett. The thick grey mud below the high tide mark shimmered in the moonlight, revealing the outline of a net shaped like a huge funnel and suspended on a long pole just above the waterline.

  Several sheep grazing along the base of a steep grass embankment off to the right were just visible, and beyond them the River Parrett, the incoming tide bringing with it yet more seaweed. And elvers, millions of elvers.

  ‘We don’t usually get a detective inspector when we’re out catching poachers.’

  ‘How is your colleague?’ asked Dixon, turning to Keith Bates, the Environment Agency officer shivering next to him.

  ‘Still in an induced coma.’

  ‘You nick ’em for elver poaching and I’ll nick ’em for grievous bodily harm, all right?’

  ‘Point taken.’

  ‘What time’s high tide?’

  ‘Just after eight, but they’ll be here well before sunrise. They’ll come for them while the tide is still coming in, otherwise the elvers will get swept back out of the net. It was pure luck we spotted it, really.’

  ‘How long have we got, then?’

  ‘An hour or so, maybe. The net’ll be under water in ten or fifteen minutes, then it’s just a case of how long they want to leave it. Too long and they won’t be able to get to it until the tide goes out again.’

  Dixon nodded and turned up the collar of his coat. It had been a long night, stuck in the middle of nowhere, and he’d lost all track of time several hours ago. The will to live had followed soon after.

  The call from the Environment Agency had come in just before last orders and Dixon had left his girlfriend, Detective Sergeant Jane Winter, and his Staffordshire terrier, Monty, sitting by the fire in the Red Cow. Then he’d left the new Bridgwater Police Centre at Express Park just before 2 a.m. and had spent the rest of the night lying in the bushes,
losing all feeling in his legs until Bates had suggested checking on the net. Running any distance, and at speed, would be out of the question, but the dog handlers were on hand to deal with a chase, if it came to it.

  The streetlights along the Esplanade at Burnham-on-Sea were visible a couple of miles away to the north, as was the marker buoy on Stert Island, but apart from that, light pollution was non-existent. The night sky offered some small consolation, not that he could identify many of the stars he was looking at.

  ‘What will you do with the elvers?’ he asked.

  ‘They’ll be released further up, beyond the tidal reach.’

  ‘How many will there be?’

  ‘Thousands. At Dunball, where it’s narrower, maybe fifteen kilograms. That’s about three grand’s worth. Not bad for an hour’s work.’

  ‘And here?’

  ‘Half that, probably. But they know we’re after them at Dunball.’

  ‘They’ll know we’re after them here soon if we don’t get back under cover.’

  Dixon followed Bates down to an area of dense undergrowth on the edge of the service road that followed the River Parrett behind the embankment. He glanced up at the old sign on the edge of the bushes, NATIONAL RIVERS AUTHORITY, PRIVATE ROAD, NO UNAUTHORISED ACCESS, and wondered who had been using it for target practice. There were several bullet holes in it, and it had taken at least four shotgun blasts at point blank range.

  Armed Response?

  No thanks. It’s just a couple of fishermen.

  He ducked under the wire fence and then crawled under the bushes until he was alongside PC Cole.

  ‘Everyone in position?’

  ‘Yes, Sir. The vans are ready to block either end of the service road, and both dogs are still here.’

  ‘Better make sure they’re awake.’

  Dixon tipped his head to the left and right, trying to work out what was lying on top of the embankment in front of him while he listened to Cole whispering into his radio. A Christmas tree; it must be a Christmas tree, its dead branches obscuring different stars as he moved his head from side to side. He was killing time, which was not something he had ever been very good at. Watching the dew forming on the sleeve of his coat was next on the list.

  ‘Bats.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Can you see ’em?’

  ‘This isn’t bloody Springwatch, Cole.’

  ‘No, Sir.’

  Dixon turned when he heard movement behind him and watched Bates crawl alongside them, his bobble hat catching on the brambles.

  ‘Did you say bats?’

  Dixon rolled his eyes.

  ‘I did,’ whispered Cole, lying next to Dixon.

  ‘There are bat boxes in the roof of the pumping station over there.’

  ‘You’d have thought they’d still be hibernating,’ said Cole.

  ‘The days have been mild and it is late March. The clocks go forward on Sunday, don’t forget.’

  Dixon smiled, thinking of evenings after work and walks on the beach with Monty.

  ‘You haven’t got your waders on, Sir.’ Cole grinned, his teeth glinting in the moonlight.

  ‘If you think I’m going anywhere near that mud, you’re very much mistaken,’ replied Dixon.

  ‘It’s not too bad, provided you don’t panic,’ said Bates. ‘Just keep still.’

  ‘How deep is it?’ asked Cole.

  ‘Deep enough.’

  ‘Deep enough for what?’ muttered Dixon.

  ‘It’ll take them, what, twenty minutes to get the elvers out of the net and boxed up?’

  ‘About that,’ replied Bates.

  ‘And they’ll want to be well clear before dawn,’ continued Dixon, squinting at his watch in the darkness, ‘which is less than an hour away.’

  ‘Yes.’

  He started crawling backwards out from under the bushes.

  ‘Where are you going, Sir?’ whispered Cole.

  ‘Check the net.’

  ‘But, we’ve had no reports of—’

  ‘Boat, Cole,’ replied Dixon. ‘They must’ve come by boat.’

  He crawled to the top of the embankment and peered into the darkness beyond. The water was still several yards below the top of the mud bank, although the line of seaweed that marked last night’s high tide was much higher, on the grass, which explained the manmade embankment to catch the spring tides.

  Away to Dixon’s left, two men were emptying the contents of the flow net into two large plastic crates filled with seawater. One was gathering the net and tipping it, the other trying to guide the wriggling mass of baby eels into the crate with his hands. The elvers glistened in the light of the men’s head torches, a handful escaping over the side of the crate and sending the second man scrabbling in the grass.

  Dixon scanned the waterline, spotting the outline of a small boat out on the bank of the River Parrett, perhaps fifty yards away. Then he crawled back down the embankment to where Cole and Bates were waiting for him.

  ‘They’re here,’ he whispered. ‘There’s a boat out on the Parrett. Get the dogs and tell the vans to close in. I’ll circle round and go for the boat. Quick as you can.’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘I’ll get the net,’ said Bates.

  Dixon nodded, then turned and ran a few paces along the base of the embankment, before crawling up and over it. Once below the skyline on the seaward side he was up and running again, tiptoeing along the waterline, crouching as low as he could. He arrived at the boat just as the silence was broken by voices in the darkness.

  ‘Police! Stay where you are!’

  ‘Shit!’

  Then a dog barking, closely followed by a scream.

  ‘You get the other one. He went that way.’

  Dixon sat down in the boat and listened to the footsteps coming towards him, the beam of light from a head torch bouncing around as it approached. A large bearded figure wearing a dark green one piece waterproof suit loomed out of the darkness and stopped abruptly when he saw him.

  ‘Nice boat.’ Dixon smiled.

  The man turned and ran past him, a police dog handler not far behind being pulled along by a large German shepherd. Dixon watched the handler release the dog and waited for the scream.

  One, two, three . . .

  ‘We’ve got him, Sir.’

  ‘Where do they end up?’ asked Dixon, watching Bates shaking the last elver from the net.

  ‘They’re sold to the Continent. A bit of a delicacy in certain parts, apparently.’

  Dixon shook his head.

  ‘Never fancied jellied eels, myself.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  Several police vans had arrived, lighting up the scene with their headlights. The eel poachers were handcuffed and sitting in separate vans, each arrested on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm. A flatbed lorry was on its way to collect the boat.

  ‘I wonder where they put it in the water,’ said Cole.

  ‘Stolford, possibly,’ replied Bates. ‘Or Combwich.’

  ‘Let’s get those places checked for a vehicle and trailer, Cole.’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘Any weapons?’

  ‘There’s a crowbar in the boat. I’ve bagged it up for forensics.’

  ‘Good.’

  Dixon looked down at the water and watched it lapping against the concrete sluice gates at the end of the River Huntspill. The tide had come in another six inches in the time it had taken to make the arrests, the tide line just visible in the half light of dawn.

  ‘I wonder what’s holding them up.’ Cole pointed north along the River Parrett at a police van parked half a mile away on the concrete service road, beyond where it crossed over the embankment and followed the high waterline. ‘They were blocking the Highbridge end.’ Both officers were out of the van and appeared to be looking down at something in the water.

  ‘Get ’em on the radio,’ said Dixon.

  Cole turned away, speaking into his radio.

  ‘D’you th
ink it’s them?’ asked Bates. ‘The two who hit Colin?’

  ‘We won’t know till we get the forensics,’ replied Dixon. ‘Unless they confess. It’s either that or we’ve got to hope Colin wakes up.’

  ‘Well, we’ll—’

  ‘Excuse me, Sir,’ interrupted Cole.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘A van, Sir. Stuck in the mud. And there’s a body in it.’

  Chapter Two

  Dixon fastened his seatbelt as Cole accelerated along the service road. They followed the concrete track that veered up and over the embankment opposite the entrance to the West Huntspill Sewage Treatment Works, before screeching to a halt in front of the police van.

  ‘Get those two back to Express Park and booked in,’ said Dixon, climbing out of the patrol car.

  ‘I’ve got everyone keeping an eye out for a vehicle and trailer.’

  ‘Good. And we’d better get the rest of the team out of bed. Louise, Mark and Dave.’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘Tell Louise to get herself over here and get Dave to ring me.’

  ‘Will do.’

  Dixon turned to the uniformed officers standing by the van.

  ‘Coastguard?’

  ‘On the way, Sir,’ replied an officer with thick grey mud plastered halfway up his thighs. A set of footprints led no more than a few paces out into the mud.

  ‘You didn’t get very far, I see.’

  ‘No, Sir. We’ll need the hovercraft. It’s been paged.’

  Dixon nodded.

  ‘Where’s the body?’ he asked, looking down at the van.

  ‘Driver’s seat, Sir,’ replied the other officer. ‘If you walk along a bit and look back you can see him.’

  ‘Him?’

  ‘Yes, Sir. IC1 male, approximately forty years of age. Short dark hair. Slumped forward over the steering wheel. That’s about all we can get from here.’

  ‘And you’re sure he’s dead?’

  ‘Looks it, Sir. He hasn’t moved the whole time we’ve been here. We’ve tried shouting to him, but the driver’s window is shut.’

  The mud bank shelved away steeply towards the water beyond a band of rocks covered in thick black seaweed. The rocks were small and looked like quarry debris, probably dumped along the bank to act as makeshift tidal defences. A set of tyre tracks ran from the top of the embankment behind Dixon, across the concrete and the rocks, and into the mud. The van had then slid down to its present position, no more than a foot above the waterline, before the suction had brought it to a halt.