What Lies Beneath

Chapter 5

5

Caroline was thankful she’d managed to get this far without any serious pressure to hand the case over to EMSOU, the East Midlands Special Operations Unit. She knew that time would come, so for now her priority was to get her investigation up and running as quickly and smoothly as possible. She was determined to show she was up to the task, and that her tiny CID unit was capable of handling more than the odd case of fraud or burglary.

There was one thing she couldn’t change, though. Resources. Rutland had by far the smallest police force in the country, by virtue of being the smallest ceremonial county and it enjoyed an historically low crime rate. Even with their tiny numbers, they were rarely swamped with work. It was usual for a murder investigation to consist of dozens of specially trained officers at EMSOU. So when such an event came along in Rutland, it was extraordinarily rare for it to be dealt with ‘in house’. That made Caroline even more determined to prove her worth.

Although she was a Detective Inspector, her day-to-day duties tended to cross over quite substantially with uniform. It was an odd setup, but one she’d come to respect and enjoy in her short time in the job. There was something safe in the mundanity of ensuring resources were deployed properly, setting and assessing key performance indicators or identifying and managing local threats. But she couldn’t deny it lacked the excitement and exhilaration of a murder case. And this would be her first since leaving the Met.

She’d always intended to take full control when — if — that first murder case crossed her desk. Although convention dictated handing it over to EMSOU, it was far from a written rule. It was more a recommendation for reasons of expediency, and because it was deemed impossible for her small team to deal with something that big. Caroline, though, knew that the size of a team rarely mattered. From her experience in the Met, bloated teams often moved more slowly. There was a certain diligence in smaller units — a sense of deep personal responsibility. Besides which, the decisive breakthrough in any case tended to come from a discovery made by one sharp-eyed officer, and was not usually dictated by the size of the team.

They’d all be working long hours. Annual leave would be a distant memory. But Caroline was determined to lead from the front. She needed to — even if the thought gave her a flicker of doubt and a twinge of nausea.

With her team assembled in front of her, she opened the first of her morning briefings on Operation Forelock — the name that had been chosen by the Police National Computer from a pre-approved list of ‘neutral’ words. She watched the officers as she reeled off the familiar pre-amble — familiar to her, at least — and noticed an atmosphere of keen anxiety that seemed to be shared by everyone. They recognised the magnitude of the situation and were keen to do all they could to manage it to the best of their abilities. Caroline knew major cases were what tended to show either the strength in a team or expose its cracks, and she hoped Operation Forelock would provide her with the former rather than the latter.

‘First things first, I believe we have an identity on the victim. DS Antoine?’

‘That’s right. His name’s Roger Clifton, sixty years old. He’s a local businessman. Lived in Rutland all his life. He’s been on and off the local council for years.’

‘He’s well-known locally, then?’ Caroline asked.

‘Enough for one of the forensics boys to have recognised him as soon as he turned up to the scene.’

Caroline smiled inwardly. How very Rutland, she thought. ‘So what’s the situation? Is he popular?’

Dexter shuffled awkwardly. ‘Like I say, he’s been on and off the council for years.’

A ripple of laughter rumbled around the room.

‘Alright, I think I get it,’ Caroline said. ‘What line of business is he in?’

‘Construction,’ Dexter replied, the hint of a smile on his face.

‘Ah. I think I see the connection here. Would I be right in presuming there’s a correlation between his spells on the council and his involvement in local construction projects?’

‘Not for me to say, boss. Got to be worth looking into, though.’

‘I’d say so. We’ll need to speak to his colleagues, too. Let’s have a look into the setup of his company, see what’s going on there. We might struggle today with it being a Sunday, but let’s see what we can do. What else is there?’

‘The company’s based in Burley. Arthur Clifton Construction, it’s called.’

‘Arthur?’

‘His grandad, according to the company’s website. He was the original owner, and it’s since been passed down to Roger.’

‘If Roger’s sixty, Arthur must be long gone by now. There’s a good chance his dad, Arthur’s son, will be too. Any living family that we know of?’

‘His wife and daughter live in Empingham. On paper, so does he, but what we’re hearing is they’re not exactly a conventional couple. He “works away a lot”, apparently.’

‘Lovely. Nice and simple from the outset, then.’

‘I’ll put a few feelers out, see if we can get to the bottom of what’s going on there,’ Sara Henshaw said. Sara was a young DC who’d initially made her mark as the community liaison officer for Oakham. She’d lived in the town her whole life, and her innovative and engaging use of the Oakham Community Policing Team’s social media account had drawn plaudits both locally and beyond. Caroline knew Sara would be key to getting under the fabric of what had led to Roger Clifton’s death.

‘Actually, Sara, can you put out a call for witnesses? Social media, local radio, the lot. There’s no way we’ve got the staff numbers for door-to-door just yet, so we need to get whatever we can.’

Sara nodded and wrote something down on her notepad. ‘To be honest, no-one lives round Normanton anyway, so door-to-door enquiries wouldn’t be much use. I’ll speak to the staff at the Normanton Park Hotel — that’s just next door. Other than that, by the time you see a residential property you’re in Edith Weston.’

‘Alright. See if there’s any registered CCTV in the area, too. The hotel’s probably a good bet. Try the fishing lodge as well, and any other business premises round there. If that doesn’t bring anything up, look at residential. Might be worth a wander down the main road in Edith Weston. Might be someone who’s got a camera pointing at the street and recording in higher resolution than a postage stamp. Unlikely, but worth a shot.’

‘Boss, I think we’ve probably got to assume it was dark when the body was put there,’ Dexter said. ‘It’s wide open down there. The church can be seen from the North Shore pretty easily. If you’ve got a pair of binoculars, you can even get a clear view from Egleton. And then there’s pretty much the entire of the Hambleton peninsula.’

Rutland Water was more than three thousand acres in size and shaped like a horseshoe, the village of Upper Hambleton standing proudly on the peninsula, accessible only from the west, along a service road which met the A606 on the outskirts of Oakham. Although the tip of the Hambleton peninsula was barely five hundred metres from Normanton Church, getting there via dry land meant an almost eleven-mile, twenty-minute drive back along the peninsula and around the outside of Rutland Water.

‘If it was dark,’ Dexter continued, ‘someone in the know could drive pretty much right up to the church. It’s pitch black down there at night.’

‘If that’s the case, we’re looking at someone involved with the church or the upkeep of the area, because I’m told the gates are locked up at night.’

‘Is it possible the body wasn’t dumped there, but was washed up from elsewhere? It could’ve been put in the water at a far more remote spot,’ Sara Henshaw said.

Caroline shook her head. ‘No chance. I saw the body. It was too fresh. It would’ve sunk before it reached Normanton, and only floated later. And from the way it was laid out on the rocks, I just can’t see it. It was almost perfectly arranged. Not to mention bone dry. Tell me it’s a coincidence that a body just happened to be left on the rocks outside the church on a Sunday morning, in full crucifixion pose, facing the altar.’

Much to Caroline’s expectation, no-one challenged that point.

‘So,’ she said, changing the subject, ‘we need to see who we can speak to. Find out who his fellow councillors are. See if there were any disagreements on that front, who his enemies were, who would’ve wanted him dead. Get onto his phone records. Aidan, can you get phone triangulation on his last known movements, please? We need to find out where he went and how he got there. Let’s get a list of those colleagues at the construction company, too.’ Aidan Chilcott was quiet, but diligent. Ever since she’d arrived in Rutland, Caroline had strongly suspected Aidan had a thing for Sara, but that was something everyone else seemed completely oblivious to.

‘Sara, find out the wife’s plans,’ she said. ‘We’ll need to speak to her, too.’

‘Alright,’ Dexter said. ‘We’ll get right onto it.’

‘No you won’t,’ Caroline replied, picking up her notebook. ‘You’re coming with me.’