FF 07 Creature Discomforts Read online

  “So, that’s what you use then,” asked Grant, “It works better than a lime-pit such as the ones you see in the films, does it?”

  “Never believe what those film-makers tell you,” Fergus had said. “It takes less than seven drops in an oral dose, a mere taste, for it to be lethal to a seventy-kilogram human being. A single taste of lye causes third-degree burns on the mouth and the tube connecting the throat to the stomach. If a sufficiently large dose of lye gets swallowed, the alkali can cause perforations in the stomach, which can lead to death.”

  “I admit it sounds a gruesome way of killing someone,” Grant said, taking a swig of his pint. “But how do you persuade someone to drink the stuff? If they did, you’ve still got a body on your hands. How do a few drops of this lye stuff help to get rid of the bits of pig you’ve got left?”

  Fergus McHugh had explained the process.

  “Under high heat and pressure, lye turns corrosive enough to disintegrate fat, bones, and skin. My lye solution, heated to three hundred degrees Fahrenheit, dissolves an entire body into an oily brown liquid in just three hours.”

  “Just say, for argument’s sake, I had something I wanted to dispose of,” Grant had asked. “Could you do it for the right price?”

  Fergus McHugh had thought for a moment and then nodded.

  “The equipment stands idle most of the time. If you see me right financially, I don’t see a problem. After the process is over, I pour the oily liquid down the drain.”

  Grant decided to make an immediate change to their method of disposing of bodies. Before that chance meeting in the pub, he, and his father before him, buried any corpses in nearby woods or dumped them in sewers or the river. That method was risky. Dead bodies could get discovered and the evidence they contained get used against them. Fergus McHugh’s operation offered a perfect solution.

  Grant had called ahead yesterday to tell Fergus McHugh that a van would arrive this morning. Fergus’s job was to make sure he had enough stock whenever someone from the Burnside gang delivered a package, and to carry out his side of the bargain.

  Grant and his son entered the outbuilding and loaded Todd’s remains into the large steel container in the centre of the room. Grant placed an envelope filled with the cash payment on a nearby table.

  As soon as they drove out of the yard, Grant knew Fergus would appear from inside the farmhouse. Once inside the outbuilding, the elderly farmer put on protective gloves and a gas mask. He then boiled the package in the lye solution for eight hours until only the teeth, and the nails remained. Fergus destroyed those last pieces of evidence by burning them with petrol in a wood near the farm boundary.

  Fergus and Grant hadn’t met in person since that night four years earlier. The occasional phone call was the only link between them. Nobody questioned why an unmarked van appeared in the farmyard to make a delivery. Why should they?

  “That was money well spent,” said Grant as they returned to the Cheney Manor Industrial Estate to collect Denver and Vic, the clean-up crew,

  “Sly Todd has disappeared for good,” said Gary. “There’s no danger of us getting linked to anything. We’ll do what we always do, make sure the right people know why he’s not around. It will send a clear message not to cross us.”

  “What are you doing later?” asked Grant, “this work has made me hungry. Once we’ve dropped off your gophers, why don’t we collect the girls and go for a Sunday lunch?”

  Gary wasn’t sure his stomach was stable enough after the events of this morning to tuck into a roast dinner. He knew his father didn’t want to hear that, so he called Kirstin and told her to get herself ready.

  “Do you want me to call Maggie?” asked Kirstin, “to warn her Grant will expect her to be ready to jump to it as soon as he reaches home?”

  “Good idea,” said Gary, “forewarned is forearmed. I’ll see you within the hour. I need to shower and change before we go out.”

  Denver and Vic were still inside the warehouse unit when Grant backed the Mercedes van up to the roller door.

  Gary went inside to check on their progress. He needn’t have worried. The heavy-duty plastic sheeting had been hosed down and stacked away in the corner. The unit floor bore no visual evidence of what had occurred two hours earlier.

  “Did you clean the tools too?” he asked.

  Denver Drewett nodded.

  “They’re locked in the cabinet, ready for use whenever needed,” he replied.

  “Come on then,” said Gary. “We’ll drop you two home, and then we can enjoy what’s left of Sunday.”

  As the three men walked towards the exit, they heard a crack.

  “What the heck was that?” asked Vic.

  “It sounded like a car backfiring,” said Denver.

  Gary thought it sounded more like a gunshot, but it couldn’t be, not in the middle of nowhere.

  Once they were outside, Denver and Vic climbed into the back of the van, and Gary locked the unit door. He looked around the various industrial units, but nobody was working, and there were no other vehicles in sight.

  “What was that loud bang just now, Dad?” Gary asked as he prepared to swing himself into the passenger seat of the truck’s cab.

  The neat hole in the windscreen caught his attention first, and when he turned his head to the right, Gary saw what remained of his dead father’s face.

  Gary fell back out of the cab, collapsed to his knees and threw up.

  In the back of the truck, Denver Drewett and Vic Hodge banged on the sides, wanting to know what had happened. When he recovered, Gary let them out.

  “Who would have wanted to shoot Grant?” asked Drewett.

  Vic Hodge didn’t say a word. He knew Denver was brighter than him. But be fair. Even Vic knew there was a list as long as your arm of people who wanted Grant Burnside dead.

  Vic thought the question should be–who dared to do it? There wouldn’t be many names on that list.

  “What do you want us to do, Gary?” he asked.

  “We can’t leave him there,” said Denver.

  “Just shut it for a minute, will you?” yelled Gary, “I need to think.”

  Gary realised there was no way to cover this up. He had to call the police, even if it was the last thing he wanted to do.

  Gary looked at the windscreen again. Where had the shot come from? Dad wouldn’t have sat there and let a gunman walk up to the van and open fire. To make that mess it had to be a rifle, with a large calibre bullet. Could there have been a sniper lying in wait on the roof of one of the warehouse units opposite? Any gunman would be long gone by now. How the heck did they know Grant was going to be here this morning, anyhow? It was a Sunday, and Dad never worked on a Sunday. Gary was desperately trying to think who could have fired the shot that ended his father’s life.

  “Are we certain that everything connecting us to Howard Todd has gone from inside that warehouse?” he asked.

  “Forensics might find something, Gary,” said Denver. “You need to get hold of Iverson. He’ll know what to do.”

  Gary made the call, and Patrick Iverson drove into the yard twenty minutes later. He’d been the Burnside family solicitor for half a century. What he didn’t know about the family’s crooked dealings and punishment beatings wasn’t worth knowing.

  His legal representation didn’t come cheap, but Grant’s father George had argued that if Iverson kept him out of prison, it was worth every penny. Iverson was suited and booted, as always, and parked his Jaguar far away from the Mercedes.

  Vic Hodge wondered whether he ever went out without wearing a suit and tie.

  “What happened?” asked Iverson, approaching the van but keeping his distance from the cab.

  “Dad and I had business to attend to,” said Gary. “We visited here earlier with these two and carried out the first phase. Then we drove out Blunsdon way, finished our business, and came back. I went inside to collect Vic and Denver, and someone shot Dad.”

  “Don’t tell me what the bu
siness was,” said Iverson. “I don’t want to know. Is there anything incriminating in the van?”

  “I’ll check the cab,” said Gary, swallowing hard. “I don’t think Dad had a weapon of any kind. There might be blood on the floor in the back.”

  Patrick Iverson shuddered.

  “What about inside the warehouse?”

  “We cleaned it well, Mr Iverson,” said Vic Hodge.

  “Yeah, it’s clean, but it might not be good enough to fool forensics,” added Denver Drewett.

  “That’s okay,” said Iverson, “check the rear compartment of the van. If you have bleach available, then spread it liberally on any affected areas. I’ll think up a plausible explanation. As for the unit, the police will need to get a search warrant. There’s nothing to suggest it’s connected to the killing. If nobody saw you earlier, then you can say the shooting occurred as soon as you arrived. You didn’t have time to work inside before rushing outside to help Grant. I know what you want to do, Gary, but please don’t rush across to the other units searching for clues. Leave that to the police. We need to act fast. We can’t delay notifying the authorities for much longer.”

  Gary checked the glove compartment and the floor of the cab. As he had thought, there weren’t any hidden weapons. The paperwork for the vehicle was in order—nothing to fear there. Vic and Denver checked inside the van. Because they’d made a grand job of wrapping Howard Todd’s body parts, there were only a few stains that needed a quick scrub with bleach from the warehouse unit toilet. Patrick Iverson took a quick look.

  “Okay, Gary, make the call,” he said. “When they ask what time I arrived, tell them you rang me immediately after you made the emergency call, and I was driving towards the Manor.”

  Iverson turned to the others and said, “Leave as much of the talking to me as possible, do you understand?”

  Denver and Vic nodded.

  Ten minutes later, the four men heard sirens in the distance.

  Monday, 26th May 2014

  Grant Burnside’s murder made headlines in every regional newspaper and on local TV.

  Gary Burnside watched the news reports at home with his wife, Kirstin. Their children had gone to primary school despite the death of their grandfather.

  “Is your Mum going to be okay, Gary,” asked Kirstin, “should we be with her?”

  “My sister Kerry’s at home, and Henry and Joseph said they’d drop by.”

  Kirstin decided not to say another word. Maggie wouldn’t get a slap for a word spoken out of turn from either of those three. Grant had been her tormentor for forty years. So, in her world, Maggie was already okay. Kirstin leaned into her husband’s shoulder and listened to the reporter on screen.

  “On two occasions in the past three years, a smiling Grant Burnside walked from court a free man. In 2010, a jury cleared him of the murder of Spencer Curtis. The forty-four-year-old gang member was found stabbed to death in the back of his car near Wroughton in 2009. Burnside’s background as a hardened criminal with convictions for assault, robbery, firearms, and drugs was not revealed to the jury at the Crown Court in Chippenham. Burnside served four years for robbery from 1977, got sentenced to a further five for an armed raid in 1983, and got six years for drug dealing in 1996. The court heard that Burnside abducted Curtis and drove him to land near a golf club on the outskirts of Calne. Police found Curtis’s mutilated body in the back of his car the next morning after receiving an anonymous phone call. Despite the prosecution’s claims, the jury found Burnside not guilty. The Burnside family solicitor, Patrick Iverson, applauded the verdict and said that switching the trial from Swindon to Chippenham had given his client a better chance of a fair trial. A crowd of twenty Burnside family members cheered his comments to our reporter. Police believed that Curtis’s murder resulted from a drug deal that went wrong. Spencer Curtis’s widow, Jasmine, had to identify her husband’s body after returning from a holiday in the Maldives. Her comment after the trial was - ‘Somebody killed my darling, Spence. If it wasn’t Burnside, who else could it be?’ Last year, Blake Dixon died days before he was to give evidence against one of Grant Burnside’s sons. Grant Burnside got charged with having blasted Dixon in the chest at point-blank range with a sawn-off shotgun. The shooting happened in the presence of at least four witnesses at a snooker club in Swindon. The police couldn’t find a single person to stand up in court and say what they witnessed. Blake Dixon was a thirty-seven-year-old entrepreneur well known on the nightclub circuit as a drug dealer. Yet again, Burnside walked from court with a huge grin. Detective Inspector Theo Hickerton from Gablecross Police Station told me that Grant Burnside believed he was invincible. He intimidated potential witnesses, threatened their families, and punished severely anyone who crossed him. Grant made too many enemies. It was only a matter of time before someone took care of him.”

  “Who did it, Gary,” asked Kirstin, “do you know?”

  “Not a clue, sweetheart,” said Gary, “but he’s a dead man walking.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Friday, 15th June 2018

  Gus drove home from work to Urchfont at lunchtime and grabbed a quick sandwich and a cup of coffee before walking up the lane to Bert Penman’s house. The funerals of six of his old friend’s close family members were taking place today, many miles away in Saskatchewan, Canada.

  On days like today, it was essential to put everything else to one side. Words weren’t always necessary but being there was vital.

  Gus knocked on Bert’s front door and heard him call out.

  “It’s open.”

  Gus found Bert sat in a comfortable chair in his living room chatting with Irene North and Clemency Bentham. The two ladies had kept Bert company since mid-morning. The Reverend’s idea had been to keep Bert occupied, so he didn’t dwell too much on the awfulness. Gus looked at the faces that turned towards him as he entered.

  There was little chance of that, as Gus suspected. To lose a son and daughter-in-law in a traffic accident was bad enough. Bert’s granddaughter, her husband, and two children had also died after an express train obliterated their vehicle on a level crossing.

  Clemency Bentham nudged Irene North. The older lady was nodding off in the chair. It was time to let the afternoon shift take over.

  “We’ll leave you two gentlemen alone,” said Clemency. “I’ll drop in to see you later, Bert.”

  “Thank you, Reverend,” said Bert. “Irene, don’t forget to pick up those vegetables I put by for you. They’re on the kitchen table.”

  “You do too much for me, Bertie,” said Irene, kissing the retired butcher on the forehead. “Thank you.”

  “We grow more on our allotments than we can eat ourselves, don’t we, Mr Freeman?” said Bert. “They’d only go to waste if I didn’t give produce away to those whose need is greater than mine.”

  Irene North shuffled off to the kitchen.

  “How am I going to manage this lot?” she cried when she saw the produce piled on the large wooden table.

  “There should be a trug by the back door, Irene,” called Bert. “Fill it with as much as you can carry and let me have it back when you’re ready.”

  Gus could see the puzzlement on Clemency’s face.

  “It’s a shallow oblong basket made from strips of wood. They’ve been around for centuries.”

  “Ah, I see,” said the Reverend, “I learn something every time I visit him.”

  “One new fact every day is the high road to success,” said Gus, “or so I learned at school.”

  “That trug was my mother’s,” said Bert, “so you’re not far wrong, Mr Freeman. That old basket has certainly seen service. They made things to last in those days.”

  Irene North returned from the kitchen with her basket filled with broad beans, cabbages, lettuces, spring onions and a dozen new potatoes.

  “We’ll be off then,” said Clemency. Gus watched the pair negotiate the front garden path and reach the safety of the village street.

  “Peace at last
,” sighed Bert. “I’ve drunk too many cups of tea today. They mean well, both of them, but now you’re here I reckon we can do better. Did you walk over from the bungalow, Mr Freeman?”

  Gus nodded.

  “Fetch us a flagon of cider from the kitchen,” Bert continued. “I’ll get two glasses from the cabinet, and you can tell me what you’ve been up to this week.”

  Gus gave Bert a summary of the Mark Malone murder case. Then they spent the rest of the afternoon putting the world to rights, polishing off a second two litres of cider. Gus took the empty cider bottles and the glasses through to the kitchen. The old clock on the wall showed a quarter to four.

  The few remaining members of Bert’s family would breakfast now if they could face it. His daughter, Margaret, and her family had flown from New Zealand to grieve with Brett, the sole survivor from the Canadian branch of the Penman family.

  Clemency had told Gus that Margaret planned to visit the UK before returning home. Her nephew, Brett, might accompany her, and as he had nothing to hold him in Canada any longer, he was considering emigrating. His veterinary skills would soon find him a job, especially in Wiltshire. There seemed to be more animals than people in these parts some days.

  “What do you plan to do until the Reverend gets back?” asked Gus when he walked back into the living room.

  Gus found Bert stood by the front door with his walking stick.

  “With the prospect of a warm summer evening ahead, I reckon we should walk along the lane to the allotments, Mr Freeman,” said Bert. “I can get two hours of work done before the Reverend returns to hold my hand.”

  “We both need to put work in, Bert,” sighed Gus, “I’ve not had the time to spare.”

  “There’s always something that needs attention, even in July,” said Bert, as they made their way slowly along the lane. “I want to sow my main crop of carrots this weekend. Last year, I remember you were getting on with your winter cabbage and leek. What were you thinking of planting this year?”