Body in the Woods (Carlos Jacobi Book 1) Read online

  ‘No need, it’s all under control.’

  3

  Sophie cooked spaghetti alle vongole, knowing it was one of Carlos’s favourite dishes. They shared a bottle of Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio, a famous white wine from the Valdadige region of northern Italy. Carlos had produced a case from his car shortly after Gary arrived home – it was his brother-in-law’s preferred Italian wine. They talked easily during and after dinner, and Carlos relaxed from his hectic day.

  ‘I’d better take Lady out for a walk before it gets any later; the poor girl’s been cooped up all day. I took her to the office today so we could head straight up here after work.’ Carlos checked his watch: ten-thirty. ‘Where do you recommend?’

  ‘There’s a green close by. I’ll come with you,’ said Gary. ‘We can take torches.’

  ‘What about the woods?’ asked Sophie.

  ‘That sounds good. Lady loves woodland – is it near?’

  ‘Yep, just across from the green. Would you rather go there? There’s a circular path we can take, runs for about three miles. We might even hear some owls now the rain’s stopped lashing.’

  The rain had turned out to be a heavy downpour with strong winds that battered the building for the first few hours after Carlos arrived. Now it was eerily quiet, the calm after the Derbyshire storm.

  Carlos nodded. He and Lady often went for late-night walks in London, as his job frequently meant burning the midnight oil and he preferred the solitude the dark offered. He picked up the dog’s lead, which caused her to leap up and race round in circles, tail wagging like a helicopter rotor blade.

  ‘I sometimes think she’s going to take off,’ he laughed while waiting for her to settle. Eventually she sat and allowed him to apply the lead. Carlos exited first with Lady and subconsciously turned to look to where he’d seen the old lady earlier. He was disturbed to see the gaunt shadow still at the window, staring out into the darkness from an unlit room.

  ‘What’s with your neighbour? She’s been staring out of her window since I got here, I think.’

  ‘That’s Mrs Sissons. Her husband went missing a week ago. She’s more or less sat by the window ever since. The police think he’s done a runner, she tells us. It’s odd, because they seemed such a devoted couple; a little eccentric, but decent and welcoming when we first moved in. Soph pops in most days to make sure the old dear’s had something to eat, but other than that—’

  Before Gary launched into one of his long-winded explanations, Carlos cut in. ‘Why do the police think her husband’s left her?’

  ‘I’m not sure, Soph knows the details better than I do. In fact, she’s going to ask you to investigate his disappearance. Mrs Sissons has convinced her there’s something sinister going on, but don’t tell Sophie I told you or I’ll be in the doghouse. Sorry, Lady – no offence.’

  Carlos’s interest was piqued; Sophie wasn’t easily taken in, so if she thought there was more to the story than a wayward husband, there probably was.

  They crossed the field in the dark as drizzle started to fall again, making him wet.

  ‘Do you still want to go into the woods?’ asked Gary, not appearing quite so keen now.

  ‘I’m game if you are.’

  ‘Why not?’ Gary shrugged. ‘It’s just across the road there.’

  They crossed a dimly lit road and entered a clearing through a kissing gate. Carlos shone his torch and noticed the path went in both directions.

  ‘Which way?’

  ‘Either. It’s a circular, so you choose.’

  ‘Looks like Lady’s chosen for us.’ Lady had her nose to the ground, taking the path to the left. Going clockwise, she raced ahead, clearly delighted by the new smells. She dashed in and out of the woods, always coming back to check that Carlos was where she thought he should be.

  Gary laughed. ‘She’s enjoying this.’

  ‘I expect she can smell other dog scents and squirrels; she has a great nose. She’s an ex-police dog, belonged to a friend of mine. He emigrated to Australia.’

  ‘Why isn’t she still a police dog?’

  ‘Seems she has some quirks that make her difficult to work with. Barry told me she wouldn’t work with the guy who was supposed to take her on. Refused to do his bidding, so they decided she was too unpredictable for a police dog. Can’t say I’m complaining, though. She’s been a great help with my investigations. I’ve taught her some new skills; she’s a fast learner. She obviously likes your woods.’

  ‘This is a dog walker’s paradise, so I’m not surprised.’

  The two men walked along the path with Carlos training his torch to light the way ahead. The path was wet and muddy from the earlier rain and the drizzle fell a little more heavily, although the larger tree branches and evergreens provided some shelter.

  ‘I bet this is beautiful in the summer,’ Carlos remarked.

  ‘It is. Once the leaves are on the trees, they form a canopy. They’ve taken a lot of the trees out to let some light in. It’s called Shady Woods because it used to be exceptionally dark. Now, it’s just dark. The woods are a wildlife haven with many varieties of birds nesting in the spring. We’re looking forward to that. The locals tell me they often get a pair of green woodpeckers. There are bats, badger setts and fox dens.’

  ‘Sophie spends a lot of time here, then.’ It was a statement rather than a question. Carlos was aware his sister loved bird watching and he imagined her out with binoculars and camera.

  ‘She’s started to. At first, we were too busy doing up the house and arranging furniture how she likes it. You know what your sister’s like; has a real eye for interior design. Wait until you see what she’s done upstairs, I think you’ll be impressed. Her new job’s time-consuming as well, but she loves it.’

  Carlos smiled at the pride in Gary’s voice, feeling as much pride himself. He was pleased that the man next to him loved his sister. It made him easier to get along with despite his nerdy ways.

  As children, Carlos and Sophie were sometimes teased for their Italian accents. Sophie had been a sensitive little girl who never saw bad in anyone. She took it badly. Carlos dealt with boys who teased his sister, but he couldn’t do anything about the girls, as he had been taught to treat girls with courtesy and respect. The teasing only lasted a few months. Sophie toned her accent down, told people to call her Sophie rather than Sofia and adapted so much, she sounded English until she got excited. Carlos hung on to a slight Italian accent more by stubbornness than necessity. He was proud of his heritage, but could sound as English as anyone when necessary.

  He and Gary had been strolling around the woods for twenty minutes when Carlos realised Lady hadn’t checked in on them for a while. They stopped walking and he listened to a tawny owl’s familiar hunting call: a sound that could be frightening on a dark night. He sensed Gary’s unease at the spooky sound as the owl obviously dived towards its prey, then he heard barking in the distance.

  ‘That’s Lady. I bet she’s found a foxes’ den. LADY!’ he called, but she didn’t appear. The barking continued.

  ‘Good job we put boots on; it’s coming from the woods through there,’ moaned Gary. ‘Perhaps we should get her and go home; the rain’s getting heavier.’

  Carlos puffed out his cheeks in despair, but led the way, shining his torch to light the route ahead of him, calling his dog as he went.

  ‘Sorry about this, she doesn’t normally run off, but it’s a new place and I guess she’s found something interesting.’

  Finally, Lady appeared from nowhere, paws covered in wet mud.

  ‘Am I glad to see you, you filthy mutt. Come on, Lady, it’s wet. Let’s go home, girl.’ Carlos turned to go back in the direction they’d come from, but Lady barked and dashed back into the dense part of the woods again.

  ‘I think she wants us to follow her,’ he said and walked faster, taking the direction his dog had gone. Carlos felt the damp seeping through his trousers and muttered, ‘If this is a fox den, she’s getting no supper.’
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  Gary slowed down; Carlos could hear his footsteps cautiously following. He turned and checked on his brother-in-law who was now using a mobile phone as a torch. Lady’s barking drew Carlos off to the right. As he turned, he tripped over a raised tree root and stumbled headlong into a holly bush. He cursed. The torch hit a large stone and stopped working. He felt the pain in his palms as holly leaves pierced his skin.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Gary arrived and shone his mobile on Carlos’s face.

  ‘Fine, just a few prickles, and feeling like a bit of an idiot. Torch’s stopped working now; I’m afraid my girl is being a nuisance tonight.’

  ‘If I were a dog in these woods, I’d be running around like a headless ape, too! You might want to take a shower or a bath when we get back, though. How do we clean her up?’

  Gary was clearly concerned about the hall carpet. Carlos ignored the question for now, looking down at his hands under the illumination of the torch from Gary’s phone. They were grazed and prickled. Spots of blood mixed with dirt trickled down his palms, his clothes were covered in mud, but getting Lady back was his main priority.

  ‘I just hope it’s only mud I’ve fallen in.’ He grimaced as he picked up his torch, shaking it a few times. The light came back on and they walked another hundred yards towards Lady’s barking. Carlos saw his dog, who stopped barking when they arrived at a small clearing.

  Lady sat still, head in the air, exactly how his friend had taught her to, and Carlos’s heart sank. This was not a good sign. He looked at the ground in front of her where she had carefully dug down through the soft earth.

  Gary gasped as Carlos shone his torch on where she sat. Carlos immediately recognised the remains of a human hand, exposed by her digging. As Gary turned and walked quickly away to the edge of the clearing, Carlos empathised slightly before rolling his eyes as he heard his brother-in-law heaving up the dinner he’d eaten earlier. Meanwhile, Lady continued to sit stock-still and barked, waiting for a meaty treat. Lady had initially trained as a cadaver dog.

  4

  Carlos shone his torch, trying to analyse the scene while waiting for Gary to return with the police. There was no phone signal in this part of the woods, but Gary had been pleased to get away to make the call; his brother-in-law had never seen a dead body. Carlos suggested Lady accompany him as she would be able to retrace her steps and lead the police back to the exact spot; he didn’t trust Gary in his state to remember where the body was and didn’t want to spend a wet night in the woods.

  Lady had been meticulous in her digging, revealing just enough to show the bloated hand. A man’s wristwatch was buried deep within the flesh that bacteria and gases had caused to swell. There wasn’t much else for his torch to reveal.

  The hand protruding from the mound of wet earth where Lady had dug a small hole was that of a male Caucasian. It was a left hand, no wedding ring. Older men didn’t always wear them, Carlos mused. Maggots had already begun their work of moving through flesh and the stench of the bacteria, which had been released along with the hand, now assaulted Carlos’s nostrils. He had come across this smell before in Afghanistan and more recently as a PI, but he took a deep breath, nonetheless.

  ‘Anaerobes,’ he muttered. This, and the state of decay, pointed to the body being buried in recent days or weeks. Forensics would be able to provide a more accurate estimate.

  The body appeared to have been carefully buried and well-hidden. Carlos sorely wanted to move more earth and investigate, but knew he shouldn’t disturb the scene. He realised it was a lucky find: only a canny fox or a dog such as Lady, trained in searching for cadavers, would have been able to dig this one up. The earth was soft, but well-camouflaged with rocks, twigs and leaves. Anyone crazy enough to be walking this deep inside the woods would have walked right over the burial site without noticing anything was amiss.

  It wasn’t easy searching around with a torch in the drizzly black night, but he picked up a piece of cloth from the hole Lady had dug and pocketed it. He argued with himself about doing this, but shook his head, on instinct refusing to listen to his conscience.

  Carlos was relieved to hear Lady’s barking, shortly followed by torchlight and the sound of a man’s voice as the police finally arrived. He was cold, wet and tired. Lady came bounding into the clearing and brought herself to a halt, sitting stock-still in front of the exposed hand just as she had done after she revealed the body.

  ‘Good girl.’ Carlos gave her another meat treat from his pocket. The dog wagged her tail vigorously in response.

  A burly uniformed officer arrived, brusquely insisting Carlos move away before taping off the scene around the body.

  ‘I hope you haven’t touched anything,’ he growled.

  ‘Not a thing. My dog exposed the hand you can see over there, that’s all. She was a trained cadaver dog before I had her.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ the officer grumbled, ignoring Carlos and Lady, continuing to set up the required cordon with striped tape.

  ‘Totally unnecessary,’ Carlos muttered to himself, particularly annoyed as it had taken all his willpower to resist unearthing the body and looking for more clues.

  ‘You can go now. CID is on the way.’

  ‘Don’t you want to take a statement, Officer?’ Sarcasm flowed through Carlos’s voice.

  ‘We have your details from the man who called us. Someone will be in touch.’ His tone remained gruff, but Carlos saw no need to argue so shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘What have you done with my brother-in-law?’

  ‘He’s waiting on the path at the edge of the woods, didn’t want to come in, said the dog would lead the way, and he did.’

  ‘She.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She. The dog is a she.’

  The officer shrugged his shoulders. ‘Well, whatever the sex, it shouldn’t have been digging. Might have destroyed a crime scene.’

  Carlos raised his eyes at the man’s ridiculous comments. ‘I can assure you, she hasn’t destroyed anything. She used to be a police cadaver dog, as I just said. I’m sure my brother-in-law would have mentioned it as well!’

  ‘He did say something about the animal. Difficult to hear in these woods.’

  Carlos clenched his fists in his pockets. ‘Yeah, although I heard you coming long before you arrived, but perhaps your hearing’s less acute than mine, PC Brandon.’

  The officer stopped what he was doing. ‘How did you know my name?’

  Carlos swung his torch over the officer’s shoulder. ‘It’s on your epaulette.’

  ‘Can you shine that thing elsewhere?’ Brandon growled. ‘Anyway, as you can see, I need to get on.’

  ‘No problem, Officer. Come on, Lady. Good girl, time to go.’ Carlos gave her more treats, praising her as they left the scene. He very much doubted PC Brandon would get on with anything other than wait for senior officers to arrive, but was glad to see the back of him. He would try to find out more about the cause of death when whoever was in charge interviewed him.

  Lady relaxed now she was released from duty and bounded ahead towards Gary, who they found pacing back and forth along the path.

  ‘Sorry, Carlos. I couldn’t face that sight again.’

  ‘I get that. Not pretty.’

  On the way out of the woods, they noticed torch lights approaching from a different direction, cutting through the undergrowth rather than taking the path. They veered off out of sight.

  ‘I don’t think that copper liked coming out on his own. Complained the whole time he was with me that he should have someone with him and how he’d only just cleaned and polished his shoes. Then he moaned about cutbacks before trudging after Lady. I’m not sure he believed there was a body at all.’

  ‘He gave me much the same impression, a true professional.’ Carlos couldn’t keep the sarcasm or his annoyance at the officer’s attitude back any longer. ‘He’s in for a long night once forensics is on the scene.’

  Gary didn’t say anything else until they
were almost at his house. The drizzle continued to add to the macabre atmosphere following their discovery. Carlos knew his brother-in-law was shocked by the experience.

  Carlos spoke first. ‘I have a sinking feeling that might be your neighbour’s missing husband.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Too much of a coincidence not to be. Obviously, we won’t know until the body has been identified, but how likely is it to be someone else when a man goes missing and a body in the right state of decay turns up a week later, hardly a mile from his home? I had a closer look while you were away. The hand was that of an elderly white male, so unless you’ve got a geriatric serial killer in the neighbourhood, my money’s on it being him.’

  ‘Poor Mrs Sissons.’

  Carlos felt relieved when he noted she was no longer sitting in the window. ‘Get some sleep while you can,’ he whispered.

  It was well after midnight when Sophie suggested they go to bed having been brought up to speed with the grisly find. She had taken the information in her stride as she always did, except for the part about the probable identity of the body. Carlos hugged her goodnight and she looked up, tears welling.

  ‘Poor Meg. I do hope it’s not Harold – she’ll be devastated, you know. They doted on each other; she hardly ever went out without him. She’s been completely lost since he went missing. I was going to talk to you about his disappearance. When I told her what you did for a living, she suggested she could hire you to trace him. The police told her he’d done a bunk. They haven’t been helpful at all, she tells me.’

  ‘That’s the bit I don’t get. Why did the police think that? It seems an odd conclusion unless they have evidence she doesn’t know about.’

  ‘I’m not sure; you’ll need to ask them if it does turn out to be Harold.’

  ‘I will, and from the sounds of the racket outside, I won’t have to wait too long. You go up to bed, Gary needs the rest. I suspect he won’t want to relive the scene again tonight, delicate man that he is. I’ll deal with the police.’