Dead of Winter

Chapter 12

The sky was steely grey and the further north Ebony drove the thicker the snow fell. She wasn’t a confident driver. She’d only taken her test when she wanted to join the Force and she didn’t own a car. The hire car was new: a poppy red Renault Clio. It smelt much too clean and chemical-y and the unfamiliarity did little to reassure her that she was capable of driving in conditions that no amount of driving lessons could have prepared her for. It was already nearly dark at only two in the afternoon. Ebony looked at the sat nav for encouragement. It hadn’t talked to her for ages, not since it sent her on several turnoffs and then abandoned her on what looked like a road that no one had used for a hundred years. The hedges rose to block her view of anything but the winding lane in front.

She needed a pee. She slowed right down at the entrance to a field then she got out and waded through the snow, knee deep in places. Crouching behind the hedge, she dropped her trousers and peed into the snow. The icy wind started her teeth chattering. She wasn’t happy. She was a London girl, not meant to go more country than Kew Gardens. This was proper countryside. She cursed Carter. He had known it would be like this, miles from anywhere and anyone. She pulled up her pants and walked back to the car.

Just as she put the car into gear and began pulling away, a woman appeared at her window. She had eyebrow and nose piercings. She wore layers on layers, and wellington boots. Her henna-red hair fell in snow-flecked plaits from beneath a bobble hat.

‘Hi. .’ Ebony wound down her window. ‘I’m looking for a farm owned by a man called Callum Carmichael?’

The woman stared at Ebony for a few seconds, checking her out, before walking around the front of the car and opening the passenger door. She got in as if she had been waiting for a taxi, and Ebony was it.

‘Go straight. .’ She took out a packet of tobacco and started rolling a cigarette. ‘You a friend?’

‘Of Carmichael’s? Not really, just need to see him about something. You? Sorry. . you can’t smoke in here. .’

‘I’m not going to. I help him sometimes.’ Ebony looked sideways at the woman. She was a ‘once wild’ teenager. She was pretty but neglected. She smelt of patchouli oil and bonfires. She was beginning to defrost, her plaits were now steaming. ‘I help him with the lambing.’

‘Is it lambing time now? It’s the winter.’

‘Carmichael produces lambs early. Saves buying foreign. People like to eat lamb for Easter. Got to be fattened in time. Not me. I never eat ’em. I know ’em all by name. Be like eating one of my own family.’

‘What about him, Carmichael? Does he know them all by name?’

‘He does but he pretends not to; it’s easier to kill them that way.’

Carmichael stopped chopping wood to listen. Rusty, his Jack Russell terrier, had begun the low growl that signalled the approach of visitors. Carmichael put down his axe and came out of the log store. He wiped his brow on his shirtsleeve as he watched the car lights coming up the lane from half a mile away. He held his hand up for Rusty to be quiet. He glanced across at his rifle resting on the inside of the woodshed door.

Ebony turned the car into the yard, narrowly missing the wheelbarrow full of steaming horse manure, and came to a stop outside the stables. Rusty ran over, barking excitedly. Carmichael watched Bridget, his farm hand, and a young woman get out of the car; he made no attempt to call Rusty away. Ebony wasn’t fazed. She lived in an area where pitbulls came out at night. She reached down to pet him. His barking turned into excited whines, his tail wagged. Bridget walked across the yard, head down, and merely glanced Carmichael’s way as she said:

‘Police. . found her taking a piss in the lower field.’

‘Inspector Callum Carmichael?’ Ebony pretended she hadn’t heard.

Carmichael didn’t answer. He picked up the handles of the wheelbarrow and wheeled it across to the far end of the courtyard so that he could tip out its contents on to the dung heap.

‘I need a few words please, sir.’

He put down the wheelbarrow and looked at her. ‘ID?’

Ebony pulled out her warrant card and held it up for him to see. He appeared to look at her face rather than the card yet her name still seemed to register.

‘DC Ebony Willis?’

‘Yes. .’ Ebony replied.

He finished filling hay nets and tied them inside the horse’s stall then he picked up his rifle from the woodshed and walked past her.

‘Follow me.’

Ebony had her eye on the gun. It was very like the rifles they used in the Police Force, with a shorter barrel and only a metre in length. But it was definitely made for hunting: it had a powerful looking scope attached. Judging by his eyesight and the way he’d read her warrant card, Ebony thought that he could probably hit her running at a mile away with or without a scope.

She followed him into the house. The farmhouse was Spartan, austere. It was certainly never going to make it onto the top of a biscuit tin.

‘I won’t take up much of your time, Mr Carmichael, and then I’ll be on my way.’ They walked through the tack room, up a step and into a stone-floored scullery. Carmichael propped the rifle next to him as he sat on a stool and pulled off his boots. He said nothing as he washed his hands in the sink.

He looked at her as he dried them on a towel above the sink.

‘Relax. . If I wanted to kill you I’d have done it by now.’ She watched him with the same intense look she always had, but he didn’t know her. He took it to be anxiety. ‘Besides. .’ He hung the towel on a hook to the right of the sink. ‘There’s no way you’ll be going anywhere tonight. The lane is almost impassable already; surprised you made it. In half an hour it will be sheet ice. In that car — you’ll be lucky to get ten metres.’ He wiped the mud and debris from the gun barrel with an oiled cloth. ‘It will be more trouble to drag you out of a ditch than it will be to put you up for a night.’

He unclipped his hunting knife and placed it on the shelf. Walking up the few steps and into the kitchen he indicated that she should follow.

‘You hungry?’ He went across to the Aga and pulled the pot of stew from the hotplate. ‘Sit down. Make yourself useful. .’ He set the loaf of bread and a knife in front of her on the scrubbed table top.

Ebony sat down and took the opportunity to look around the kitchen while Carmichael was busy. It looked like no one had decorated for a hundred years. It was clean and functional. It hadn’t made it to the rustic chic pages of a magazine: no hanging copper pans or bunches of dried herbs. No unread recipe books. Carmichael walked past her carrying the logs he’d been chopping. She heard him stacking them beyond the kitchen. When he returned he took two bowls from an oak dresser and spooned in some stew. He opened two bottles of beer and placed one in front of her. Then he sat down opposite.

He didn’t hide his scrutiny. Ebony wished she had a napkin, kitchen roll, anything; she’d splashed her chin and had wiped it lots of times but her hand still felt wet.

‘You’re very young.’ He paused while breaking his bread open. ‘How long have you been a detective?’

‘Four years. I’ve been in the Force six altogether.’ She looked at Carmichael’s face just a few feet away across the table from her. She was re-reading his file in her head: the keenest marksman in the Metropolitan Police Force. His photo taken with the rest of the firearms team. His smile proud, his gaze steadfast. Thirteen years looked like twenty. He was weatherworn, bearded, sunburnt from the wind and the rain. Special Forces before the police: SBS. He had once taken out four members of the top Iraqi military. He had sat in one spot for a week and waited to kill one man.

‘You’ve done well to get into the Murder Squad so quickly.’

‘I have a degree in Criminal Justice and Law. I think that helped.’ Ebony was feeling like the inexperienced copper she was. Carter must have known it would be like this. Why had he sent her on her own?

‘There are lots of people with degrees but not everyone knows how to make them count in police work — or in everyday life.’ He finished eating his stew before her and he sat back in his chair and watched her eat. She never left food. Carmichael continued to scrutinize her. ‘So you could have chosen to go into a career in Crime Analysis instead or in Profiling? You could have gone into the law side of things?’

‘I could have.’

‘But you chose to go for less pay and longer hours and join the force?’ For a minute he thought she wasn’t going to answer; he could see her mind mulling things over. You could never accuse her of being loose-tongued. That was an admirable quality in Carmichael’s books. He hated pointless chatter. He lived most of his life in silence out of choice. It seemed to him that he was the one asking the questions. She looked at him, her expression unchanged:

‘I wanted a challenge.’

Carmichael smiled. ‘Fair enough. What about your family? You’re mixed race, aren’t you?’ She nodded as she dipped her bread into the stew. ‘I know the name. . Willis. . you’re the officer whose mother was convicted of murder? I read about it.’

She looked up and saw his eyes drilling into her.

‘Yes.’

‘Finished?’ He stood and took her plate from her and stacked the dishes in the sink. She stared at his back. She wondered what he would ask her about it and what she would say when he did. But, when he turned back she could see he’d finished with the subject.

‘Great stew,’ she thanked him.

‘One of my lambs.’ Ebony wondered if it had had a name. ‘This way. .’ He picked up a basket of logs and led the way into the sitting room. Apart from a sofa and an armchair, the only other piece of furniture was a desk in the corner. The fireplace dominated the room, ancient, imposing. A massive oak beam framed it. Carmichael stacked the logs either side of it. To the left of the fireplace was the doorway to the upstairs, to the right was a dresser. On it were several books about farming, lambing, looking after sheep. There was one about the Yorkshire Dales. There was another about medical procedures in the field. The History of War. The Times Atlas had a shelf all to itself. There were travel books about South America, Argentina. Above all the books she saw a photo of his wife and child. She recognized it from the case file.

He knew that she was looking at it. ‘What do you want to ask me?’ He began cracking small twigs for kindling.

‘In the last twenty-four hours there’s been a murder on the outskirts of London. We found a print that matches one at the cottage where your wife and child were killed.’

There was a pause of several seconds. Carmichael began constructing the fire: stacking the kindling against paper rolls.

‘Do you have a name?’ He reached to his right and pulled a long spill from a holder.

‘No. . We just have a match.’

‘Where?’ He picked a lighter from the dresser and lit the spill.

‘Northwest London.’

‘I said where?’ He paused and half turned towards her but did not look at her.

‘A converted barn near Totteridge.’

He lit the tight wads of newspaper beneath the kindling and fanned the flame, then he picked up two large logs from the side of the massive grate and propped them against the kindling. He rested an elbow on one knee as he watched the growing flame. The light from the fire cast harsh shadows in his lined face. For a big man his body moved gracefully. His hands were precise and quick as they moved to catch the flame and fan the fire. Ebony noticed that kind of thing. She was the opposite: always clumsy. She always felt awkward. Her bones were big, gangly. Her hands and feet were large. Her broad shoulders were too wide for summer dresses and petite pretty clothes. She should have been a runner. She should have been a basketball player; her dad was athletic. Her mum was academic. But her mum hadn’t been clever when it came to choosing men and her dad hadn’t run away fast enough.

‘How many bodies?’

‘Two. . a woman and her baby.’

He moved the smouldering sticks into the flame. She had read his file: there was nothing Carmichael hadn’t seen in the world; there was no nasty experience he hadn’t been through. He was a methodical killer, a man who could kill to order. He could go into a frame of mind where he felt nothing for anyone. She saw the scars on his arms. There were white raised lines made by something she’d read about when she’d researched him. What did the term ‘violent torture’ mean? Amongst other things, it meant ‘the scalpel’. Its knife-like electrode that cut, burnt and cauterized. She knew he would have suffered more from wounds that couldn’t be seen on the surface. Ebony watched his movements and it struck her how gentle he was.

Carmichael sat back to give the fire a chance to take hold. He turned to look at her.

‘Tell me about the victims.’

‘The mother was mid-twenties, Caucasian, healthy, and had been pregnant before. The baby was about thirty-six weeks. The umbilical cord was cut. But it never took a breath.’

‘No “missing persons” answering?’

She shook her head. ‘Chief Superintendent Davidson is concentrating resources on finding that out.’ She watched him prickle at the mention of Davidson’s name.

Sparks sprayed out like fireworks and a burning scrap of wood landed on the rug in front of the hearth. He squashed it between finger and thumb.

‘How was she killed?’

‘We don’t know yet.’

‘I want to see the forensics report.’

Ebony didn’t answer. She knew he wouldn’t be allowed to.

‘The man who we believe carried out the murders went under the name of Chichester. Does that mean anything to you?’ Carmichael shook his head. ‘Can you tell me what you remember about that day at Rose Cottage?’

He shook his head again. ‘I try and remember as little as possible.’ He looked away for a few minutes. The silence resounded round the room. He looked back. He searched her face. ‘What does Davidson expect from me? He mishandled it from day one. He followed the wrong lines of enquiry. Whoever did it was long gone by the time he got his head out of his arse.’ Carmichael raised his voice but then it softened just as quickly. ‘Has he reopened my case?’

She shook her head. ‘Not yet, but we are pushing for it. There is a lot of respect and loyalty for you in the department. People will do everything they can to get a result this time.’

He prodded the logs with the poker. ‘I won’t help Davidson just so that he can get a lucrative fucking retirement deal after he leaves the Force. Come back to me when the case is reopened.’

Ebony sat on the sofa, hugging her legs in close to keep warm. Bridget came in and stood in the doorway:

‘I’ve finished feeding the animals. Does tha want me to stay?’

‘We’ll manage, thanks. How are you getting home?’

‘I’m staying with my dad tonight; haven’t been able to get to him for three weeks; I’ll drive tractor across the fields.’ Her eyes went back to Ebony. . ‘I’ll be back tomorrow, in the morning. . early. . ’

‘Okay.’

Carmichael thanked her and then turned his attention on the catching fire. Bridget took a last look at Ebony and was gone. A draft of arctic air came around the room as the door swung behind her. Ebony shivered. Carmichael stood and went to a box chest at the far side of the room, opened it and pulled out a shawl. ‘Here, put this round yourself.’

‘Thanks.’ She took it and wrapped it around her shoulders. ‘It’s beautiful.’ It was hand crocheted. The intricate weave looked like thick lace.

‘It’s a nursing shawl. It was my wife’s.’

Carmichael picked up the whisky bottle from the dresser. He poured out two shots and handed one to Ebony. He drank his whisky as he leant against the oak beam above the fireplace.

A few minutes passed as Ebony stared at the fire and Carmichael stared into his glass.

‘Can I ask you some things about your past?’

‘You can ask.’

‘You were tortured in the Iraq war?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you allowed to talk about it?’

‘Allowed, yes, some of it anyway. But I don’t choose to.’

‘Can I ask you about what you did after you left the Special Boat Service? Where did you go?’

Carmichael moved the logs around on the fire. He pushed the small sticks into the flames. His fingers were hardened to the pain.

‘I went travelling.’

‘Where did you go? I’ve never been abroad.’

‘Never?’ She shook her head. ‘Then I envy you. You have a world waiting for you out there.’

She smiled. ‘Maybe one day.’

‘I didn’t go anywhere specific. I searched for answers. I never found them.’ She looked at him with an expression that told him that wasn’t going to be enough of an answer. ‘South America, Africa, Europe. I told you I was searching.’

‘Searching for answers to do with Louise and Sophie?’

‘Yes. Mostly.’

‘Did you find anything?’ He shook his head.

She wrapped the shawl around herself and sipped the whisky. It wasn’t a drink she liked and she wasn’t much of a drinker, but the Scotch warmed her. She looked at him.

‘You resigned. Why didn’t you fight it? You have a lot of support from serving officers in the MET.’

He threw another log on the fire. Rusty jumped up onto the sofa next to Ebony. She was grateful for the heat of his small body as he lay across her lap. Carmichael shook his head, stared into the fire.

‘My mind went into meltdown.’ The fire crackled. ‘I trusted those in charge to think for me. . big mistake.’

‘Did you ever come up with a motive for the murders?’

He shook his head. ‘I delved into Louise’s life before she met me. . nothing. Nothing she hadn’t told me.’

‘What about Chrissie?’

‘She studied medicine at Edinburgh. She went off travelling for a year. She got pregnant — by accident or by design, I don’t know.’

‘Did you meet her father?’

‘Yes. . at the funeral. James Martingale is an arrogant fuck but you can’t argue with the amount of money he puts back into charities. Chrissie had an older half sister; I never met her.’

‘Were they here in the UK when the murders happened?’

‘No. Did you see his statement?’

‘Yes. I read it last night. I just wanted to hear things from you.’

He looked at her and almost smiled; deep creases were indented either side of his face. Ebony saw a glimpse of the handsome man of thirteen years earlier. ‘So. . at least I’m not the chief suspect in your mind, otherwise you wouldn’t have come here alone. Thanks. It’s a solid gesture. . it’s been noted.’

Ebony stroked Rusty’s velvety ears. He sighed. The room felt warmer.

‘Why didn’t you go there, that night, to pick them up like you were supposed to?’

‘I got drunk. Blind, steaming drunk.’ He spoke softly as he stared into the fire.

‘On your own?’

‘Yes. No one walks away from war and isn’t affected by it. You wouldn’t be human. You eat, sleep and pray to stay alive and see your family again but, when you do, you don’t know which is the reality any more. You live in constant alert mode and fear and nothing is real any more. Louise understood me when no one else did. . and Sophie gave me a purpose to my life. . but. . sometimes I needed to be alone. Sometimes my memories are too much for me. I thought they needed a break from me too. . I know how difficult it was sometimes.’

‘Was your marriage okay?’

He looked at her, surprised. ‘You mean about my affair?

She nodded. ‘Just seems an odd thing seeing that you were a family man.’

‘What you mean is: was it so out of character that it means if I could do that, I could do anything?’

‘No, not really. I just would like to understand what made you do it.’

He prodded the fire with a poker as he talked: ‘I’d like to say I really understood it, but I don’t. I had a brief affair with a woman I worked with. I let my guard down. I knew we were attracted to one another, had been for a long time and I kept well away from her until I had no choice but to see her every day, all day, all night. We ended up working together, staying late, we ended up in bed. She wanted it to happen, badly, and I was going through a phase of feeling unworthy, self-destructive. You destroy what you treasure most because you don’t think it can be real, it can’t last. I was guilty of believing I didn’t deserve Louise or Sophie. I regretted it as soon as I did it. It was one night, that was all. I told Louise. I couldn’t have kept it from her. Maybe I should have.’

‘How did Louise react?’

‘She considered leaving me, I know. She knew I was sorry. I wasn’t sure whether things would ever be the same between us or that she could ever forgive me.’

‘When you arrived that day at Rose Cottage and you saw what had happened. When you looked at the bodies. .’

He bowed his head. ‘Jesus. .’

‘I’m sorry. .’

‘Don’t be.’ He looked up and smiled sadly. ‘You have a job to do.’

‘Can I ask you why you moved the bodies?’

‘I moved Sophie. .’

‘You didn’t move the others at all?’

He shook his head as he swallowed the last of his whisky and wiped his burning mouth. He stared into the fire as he talked. ‘I got to the cottage and knew something was wrong even before I had parked the car. The curtains in the lounge were closed. The door was open. I saw Chrissie first. I walked into the kitchen and found Louise: butchered.’ He looked into the fire and coughed to clear his throat and his head before going on. ‘I looked around and I called Sophie’s name. Then I ran upstairs and found the baby, Adam, first; he was asleep, doped, but alive, and I had a few seconds’ hope that I would find my daughter. .’ He swallowed, shook his head. ‘They cut her throat.’ He stared at the fire. His voice dropped until it was barely audible over the hiss and crackle of the burning wood. ‘I know I shouldn’t have touched the crime scene but this wasn’t a crime scene; this was everything in the world I cared about and it had gone. These were my angels. I carried her down to lie next to her mother.’ He turned to look at Ebony and shook his head to clear it. ‘I don’t know why they did it but no matter what anyone says, if you ask me, it was premeditated, it was planned. There was a reason why my family died. Now we know that’s true because they’re back and killing again.’ The firelight reflected in his eyes. ‘I’ve waited a long time for this day to come.’

As he stared at Ebony she saw the eyes of a troubled mind that was never going to find peace. She’d seen it all her life. It was the look of someone not destined ever to live a normal life and be happy. The eyes were full of demons and nightmares. Ebony had seen eyes like that before, in the tortured souls that looked at her when she went to visit her mother. Broadmoor was full of them. Her mother was one. Rusty barked; Ebony jumped. He stood alert on the sofa and tilted his head to listen to some noise from outside. Carmichael held up his hand to silence him. ‘Stay.’

‘What is it?’ Ebony whispered.

Rusty jumped down from the sofa. Carmichael put his foot out to stop him but Rusty jumped over it. ‘Rusty. . COME!’ Carmichael picked up his rifle as he ran after the dog, but Rusty was already out of the door.

Ebony threw her coat on and ran towards the barn and the dreadful sound: the lambs like babies with their high-pitched cries and the deeper distressed bleating of their mothers trying to protect them.

The barn door was open. Inside the sheep were stampeding round their pens and the bodies of the killed lambs were littered in the straw. She stopped in the doorway. Carmichael’s face was murderous as he turned towards her, rifle in his hand. He swung away from her at the sound of snarling and yelping coming from the rear of the barn. He started running towards the sound, calling Rusty’s name as the sound of a dog’s growling turned to squeals of pain. The squealing stopped and an eerie silence fell in the barn as Carmichael searched the pens. The sheep scattered. He found what he was looking for. Rusty’s body looked as if someone had tried to skin it. Carmichael placed his hands beneath him and lifted Rusty out of the blood-covered straw. He carried him into the house.

The dog fox stopped on the brow of the hill and looked back down at the farmhouse. He saw the big man carrying the dying dog. The dog’s warm blood was on his mouth. Its flesh was in his teeth. He saw the pheasant that Carmichael had set to trap him, still hanging there, swinging now. Above him his mate stood guard, in her mouth the body of a newborn lamb.