Chapter 3
DAY ONE
Ascenes of crimes van arrived at Mason’s house before Deryn got an answer to his question about Mason and drugs.
The civilian officer bustled into the back garden, looked irritably at the chickens, and headed for the kitchen in a full set of white overalls, mask, hair covering, gloves and bootees.
Murphy asked if she planned on taking fingerprints.
She scowled — at least that was how it appeared behind the mask — and said no, she’d only been told to test for blood.
Deryn shrugged at Murphy’s raised eyebrow. He’d come across this particular SOCO before and knew there was nothing to be gained by asking her to do anything other than her assigned task. To be fair, she was efficient.
“It’s blood,” she said, twenty minutes later. “Confirmation will have to wait on the lab,” and she was gone as quickly as she had arrived.
Murphy had spent those twenty minutes complaining about the lack of finger printing. “There should be a proper search…” he kept saying.
Deryn agreed, especially once the blood was confirmed. “But there could be innocent explanations,” he said. “We don’t know yet that it’s your friend’s blood, and even if it is, we don’t know that he didn’t cut himself and go to hospital for stitches.”
“Without his phone?”
“Maybe he had another one. Or maybe he didn’t expect to be gone so long.”
“I know,” Murphy said, not troubling to hide his sarcasm, “maybe he cut himself so badly that he forgot. We should find out.”
That was something Deryn could do. He rang the two hospitals with emergency departments within driving distance, neither of whom had a Mason Abruzzi as a patient.
“He could have called an ambulance.” Murphy said. “Or a cab.”
Both would have taken him to the same two hospitals, but he rang the ambulance call centre anyway, and the only taxi firm that was likely to come as far as Cwmcoed. Nothing.
“Something has happened to him,” Murphy insisted. “It doesn’t make sense that he would beg me to visit and then just go out for the day.” There was an edge of desperation in Murphy’s voice, or so it sounded to Deryn. Murphy’s face was pale with a bright red spot on each cheekbone.
“You’re exhausted,” Deryn said. “There’s every chance that your friend will be back by the morning. There’s a hotel a bit further down the valley. Better not stay here just in case. Why don’t I show you where it is, then you can phone him again and come back in the morning?”
The red spots on Murphy’s cheeks became redder. “Don’t patronise me.”
Deryn blushed. “I wasn’t. But we both know that I can’t commence a major search for a non-vulnerable adult.
We both also know that people do behave out of character.
Yes, there is blood and overturned furniture, but it isn’t enough and you know it.
And you are exhausted.” Quite why Deryn was so concerned about a man he had only just met, he didn’t know.
But he was. Murphy was easy to talk to, as strangers so often are.
Murphy nodded slowly. “We should make the house secure, and probably do something about these chickens,” he said, sounding weary, as if these tasks were too much. The sun had begun to dip in the sky, casting shadows over the garden.
“We can put the chickens to bed early,” Deryn said, with no real idea what this might involve, but unwilling to leave them outside all night at the mercy of the foxes who must live in the woods.
“I can put crime scene tape over the back door.” He could see that Murphy wasn’t entirely happy with either of these proposals but was too tired to object.
“What about the cat?” he asked. “There’s cat food in the shed as well as chicken food.”
Deryn sighed internally. “I guess we feed the cat, too,” he said, glad that DI Glover didn’t know how he was spending his time.
The sun had almost gone down by the time the animal and security-related jobs were done.
“I’ll drive you to the hotel,” Deryn said. “You can collect your car in the morning.” Murphy didn’t even make a token objection, just got a small suitcase from his hire car. Glover rang as Deryn turned the ignition key. He turned it off again and answered.
“Where are you?” Glover demanded.
“On my way to the station,” he replied. Which was partly true.
“Don’t bother. Go home. Meeting about our two DBs first thing.”
Deryn said he’d be there and the call ended.
“Bodies?” Murphy sounded alarmed.
“Definitely not your friend. Drug overdoses. A young couple with a baby. One of them still had the needle in his arm when he died.”
“That’s usually fentanyl or one of its relatives. Not one of my country’s finest exports.”
Deryn had heard of fentanyl, but as far as he knew, it hadn’t reached this part of Wales. Except perhaps it had. He felt the anger building inside him, tightening his chest and making his breathing shallow and painful. He banged the heel of his hand on the steering wheel. “Fuck.”
“You OK?” Murphy asked.
Deryn forced himself to breathe properly and calm down. “Fentanyl,” he said. “Not something we’ve a lot of experience of to be honest.” He switched the engine back on and set off down the narrow streets.
“The homemade stuff is deadly. There’s no way to say how much you’re getting, and if someone’s adding it to heroin…”
If someone was adding fentanyl to heroin, then it could kill instantly, leaving a baby to grow up without his parents.
The baby might have left a damp spot on his clean shirt, but he could still feel the small body in his arms. The poor kid might have had two druggies for parents, but he didn’t deserve to lose them both so some dealer could make a few quid. The anger started to rise again.
“Thing is, if you’ve got a batch of heroin with added fentanyl, there may be other deaths,” Murphy said.
“I dare say I’ll find out,” Deryn said grimly.
The hotel, one of a downmarket chain, was on the main road down to Cardiff. It badly needed a facelift. Murphy didn’t look impressed, but Deryn told him that if he wanted to be close to Cwmcoed, this was his only choice. This wasn’t somewhere people came on holiday, and certainly not for work.
“If they do food and beds, then it’ll be fine.”
Deryn parked and Murphy got out, taking his suitcase.
“May I call you in the morning?” Murphy asked. “If Mason hasn’t come back, I want a proper search.”
Deryn nodded, distracted by the sight of a familiar car in the hotel car park.
How many people in the Valleys drove a silver Jag?
“Sure,” he said. He watched as Murphy went through the revolving glass doors to the hotel reception, then he moved his car to an out-of-the-way parking space while he gave himself a moment to think about what to do.
His brother-in-law Phillip was probably in the hotel bar.
What he had to say to Phillip didn’t need an audience, but a car park was hardly the place for the discussion he wanted to have.
The problem was solved when Phillip and another man came out of the hotel.
The other man veered off, leaving Phillip alone.
Deryn jumped out of his car and planted himself in front of his brother-in-law.
“I want to talk to you,” he said.
“What if I don’t want to talk to you, little bro?
” Phillip said. Phillip was married to Deryn’s oldest sister, which made him fifteen years older than Deryn.
He was a big fleshy bruiser of a man, with a Donald Trump tan and the kind of stomach that demanded custom-made suits.
Deryn’s father had made a big deal of welcoming Phillip to the family when he married Branwen, and he had referred to Deryn as 'little bro’ ever since.
Deryn hated it, but objecting would only make things worse.
“Two people died this morning, and left a baby an orphan. Fentanyl mixed with heroin is my best guess,” Deryn said.
“Too bad, so sad. Shit happens.” Phillip shrugged.
Deryn fell a chill, and it wasn’t only the cooling evening air. “If there’s a batch of fentanyl-enhanced heroin going round, then more people are going to die.”
“No one makes them take the stuff. They’re junkies. That’s what junkies do. If a bit of something extra gives them a better high, who am I to stand in their way?” Phillip said.
“You might get away with two dead bodies, but any more and the spotlight is going to be on the valley.”
“Then it will be up to you to switch it off, won’t it?”
“Not this time. Not when people are dying.”
“Really, little bro? Because it won’t bother me if the spotlight turns on to you. It won’t bother me at all. You’ve addressed the problem before, you can address it again. Get it? Address the problem.”
Phillip leaned against his car, legs wide and a grin on his face. Everything about his posture spoke of confidence that Deryn would do what he wanted.
Deryn stepped into Phillip’s personal space. “Get that stuff off the streets,” he hissed.
“Or?” Phillip said.
Deryn’s fists clenched without conscious thought and the desire to punch the man in front of him was almost overwhelming. Instead, he walked back to his own car and drove away, hearing Phillip’s laughter behind him.