In Dark Water (Detective Shona Oliver 1)

‘Well, I’m in Cornwall Mount from Monday to Friday daytime. Murdo, Ravi

and Kate are on a rota to cover call-outs on the weekend. Thankfully, we have one of the lowest crime rates in Scotland, so I’m rarely contacted at weekends. One of the few benefits of rank.’ She smiled. ‘When I’m in Kirkness I carry my RNLI pager and respond to shouts. We’re well supported, and a fairly quiet station. It works. Why? Tempted to join? Did Silloth try to sign you up last week?’

‘No chance. I get sea sick standing on a beach.’

‘Well, Admiral Nelson was a famous sufferer and it didn’t stop him. We may get you yet. Come on,’ she indicated the industrial unit, ‘let’s go and see if anyone’s home.’

The paint-peeled gates were propped open. A battered caravan sat in the far corner of the yard. Gulls wheeled above them but there were no other signs of life. Shona led the way between piles of fishing nets, their tumbled blue, green and orange flanks like the discarded skins of giant sea monsters. She thought again of the woman wrapped in their coils. Is this where she’d met her killer? It was certainly possible.

Dan crossed to the caravan, knocking and calling out a hello. A movement caught Shona’s eye and she turned to see a balding, middle-aged man in filthy overalls, the thighs shiny with wiped-off oil, edging up behind Dan from the blind side of the caravan. He was holding an axe handle high in his right hand.

‘Stop! Police! Drop your weapon!’ Shona yelled, her right hand flying to her belt. As a London City officer, she’d regularly carried a firearm and the reflex was still strong. Finding only empty air she grabbed her warrant card and held it towards the man. ‘Police! Drop it!’ Alerted by Shona’s shout, Dan darted back to where she stood and brandished his badge too.

‘Police?’ the man said suspiciously, his small, pale eyes darting between the officers. Strands of hair from his comb-over rose in the breeze like the crest of an angry bird.

‘DI Shona Oliver, Dumfries Police.’ She replaced the warrant card in her pocket and held up a pair of handcuffs. ‘We’re here for a chat. I’m not gonnae have to cuff you, am I?’ Her voice was firm but calm as she sought to de-escalate the confrontation. It was a bluff. She wouldn’t risk tackling him. ‘Or shall I get a police dog down here?’ The sight of big, sharp teeth usually did the trick, but she didn’t think it would get that far. ‘Last warning, put down the weapon.’

The man eyed the cuffs then held up his hands in submission. ‘Okay, you are police. Well, it’s about bloody time you lot showed up,’ he boomed, not in the local Dumfries accent she’d expected but in flat Cumbrian vowels. He chucked the axe handle behind a battered wheelie bin. ‘Sorry. Thought you were the bailiffs.’

‘If you threaten Sheriff Officers with violence, I’ll make sure you’re very sorry,’ Shona warned, tucking the cuffs back into her pocket. Dan stepped forward and searched the man for any other weapons. When he finished, she said, ‘Now, why were you expecting a visit from the police?’

‘Well, not expecting,’ the man sneered. ‘I live in hope, not expectation, where coppers are concerned. It were nearly a month ago I called your lot.’

‘What was the call in connection with, Mr… er?’ Dan said. Shona noted the increased interest in his voice. The time frame matched the period the girl spent in the water.

‘Don’t you know, lad?’ he jeered. ‘And it’s Jones. Nathan Jones.’

‘Let’s start again, Mr Jones,’ Shona said. ‘This is DC Ridley from Cumbria CID, and we’re here in connection with a missing person inquiry. We’d like to ask you some questions, out here or in there.’ She nodded to the caravan.

Nathan Jones stepped between Shona and the door. ‘Here’s fine.’ He adjusted the jeans below his overalls, which were fighting a border war of attrition with his overhanging stomach. ‘Missing person?’ He glanced suspiciously from Shona to Dan and back. ‘That’s got nowt to do with me.’

‘Why did you call us a month ago?’ Shona asked.

‘Goings on. Next door.’ Jones thumbed at the neighbouring building, a single storey metal box with no signage, set at right angles to his yard. ‘Shouting at all hours. Squatters, immigrants.’

Shona and Dan exchanged a look. He got his notebook out and prepared to follow her lead.

‘Do you live here? On site?’ Shona guessed the terms of Nathan Jones’s lease were for business use only, no overnight stays. The threat that she might report him sleeping here gave him an incentive to co-operate.

Jones shifted from foot to foot, searching the sky for an answer. ‘My missus lives in Carlisle,’ he said eventually, as if that explained his current domestic arrangements.

‘So, you heard a disturbance next door?’ Shona asked.

‘It were late, midnight. I heard a car pull up. Shouting. A man shouting.’ Jones screwed up his eyes in an effort to remember. ‘Been comings and goings for a few weeks, always at night. Thought they might come round here and smash the place up.’

‘Can you describe the people you saw?’

‘Not faces, like. Don’t know if it were the same folk every time or different.’

‘What were they shouting, Mr Jones?’

‘Dunno, just noise, like. Most likely they were drugged up, looking for trouble.’

‘What makes you think drugs were involved?’ Shona said, but Jones just shrugged. ‘So who owns that unit?’ she continued.

‘No one, that’s the bloody problem.’ Seeing their blank faces, he spelled the word out, as if to a child, ‘Car… mine. Them that went bankrupt? Used to be them that had it.’

‘The Carmine Group? The building and infrastructure company?’ Dan jotted a line into his notebook.