19. Who Let the Cadaver Dogs Out
nineteen
Who Let the Cadaver Dogs Out
We aired the first episode of Unalive on Air on the same day, Monday night, but since I’m no longer bound to Swindon Sounds’ stupid schedule, we chose eight p.m.
It didn’t take long for Pixie to muster the emotions she needed to press all the right buttons. The way she kept looking over at Stove when her ability to hit the keys faltered let me know she definitely wasn’t over his little tirade.
And that was that.
Unalive, episode one of season one, was officially out there.
And now it’s just a case of finding more evidence, building the next instalment, and waiting to see if any higher powers of authority get involved. Or rather, when they get involved.
At three o’clock on Tuesday, a police van appeared in The Paragon’s car park, shortly followed by an estate car with enormous blue lettering on the side that read POLICE DOG UNIT.
I’d shared the rough location of Jeanie’s body on the podcast, and Josh then shared the podcast with Detective Constable Jazmin Zhou of Helzephron Police Station.
I mean, I asked him to. It wasn’t as though he did it behind my back, but it was the only way I figured we’d move this case forward and get any new information.
Jazz steps out of the van with a few other suited and booted officers, but notably, no Dave Davies. Something tells me he’s not on annual leave.
After what feels like forever hanging around in the car park, and then again in the hotel foyer, Jazz et al., with Helga in tow, make their way out to the scrubland at the rear of the premises.
It takes Lottie, the English Springer Spaniel, less than ten minutes to locate Jeanie’s remains. She finds the exact location, goes as far into the brambles as her furry little body will allow, and sits quietly.
“Good girl,” a police officer says, magically producing a tennis ball from her pocket and offering it to Lottie.
Another half an hour later and there’s a guy strimming the bushes, someone else taping off the entire area, and police sentinels positioning themselves at each corner of the cordon.
“What’s going on?” Helga asks Jazz. “Where’s Sergeant Davies?”
“I’m not at liberty to say,” Jazz replies. She looks around to see if anyone’s within earshot. “We received a tip-off to check this location.”
“For a body?”
“I can’t really say.”
Helga’s gaze lands squarely on the new vehicle pulling down the hotel’s long service drive, then off-roading it to get as close to the burial site as possible. On the side, blue letters spell out FORENSIC INVESTIGATION. She raises a brow, challenging Jazz to contradict her.
But Jazz merely repeats herself. “When we have official news to share, you’ll be one of the first to know.” It’s clear that her time with Dave Davies hasn’t rubbed off on her.
Helga doesn’t give up. “Jean Johnson?”
Jazz opens her mouth to speak but closes it again.
She looks around once more. “The person who left the tip-off did it publicly. Via podcast. We are looking at taking the episode off air while we investigate, but at the moment it’s still in the public domain if you wanted to have a listen. I haven’t told you this.”
“A podcast?” Helga asks. Jazz nods. “Whose?”
“Someone referring to themselves as Gary Runcorn.”
Helga is stunned into silence.
Jazz continues. “Who you’ll obviously know as—”
“The man who got squished by the chandelier here a week ago,” Helga finishes. “How is that . . .” She looks around wildly, but her eyes never focus. She frowns, chews her lip, runs her fingers under her chin. “How is that possible?”
“It’s my belief Gary recorded the episode before he died,” Jazz says, and Helga’s shoulders immediately drop, the relief evident on her face.
“And that he scheduled the release for the following week. What remains to be seen is how many episodes he recorded. There’s a possibility he knew more than he should have and was .
. .” Suddenly Jazz seems to realise she’s admitting too much and stops mid-sentence.
“Where’s Sergeant Davies?” Helga asks, quickly changing tack.
“He’s . . . taking a short break,” Jazz says.
“Get in! Old Sergeant Saggy Pants is under arrest!” Stove blurts out.
“How come they haven’t arrested Hels, then?” Pete says. “Or Franny or Angel.”
“Probably because I didn’t name any suspects, and Davies is, I expect, only under investigation for failing to follow protocols.
Essentially, he’s responsible for decades of shoddy police work and brushed-under-the-rug evidence.
But they won’t arrest him, or anyone else, until they’re fairly sure he’s the one,” I say.
The fellow ghosts look at me as though I’m doing a run?through of Unalive’s next episode.
“In the UK, the police have a certain number of hours they can hold a suspect before they have to let them go. It’s a maximum of ninety-six for egregious acts.
If they charge the person during this time, they can obviously hold them longer, but there are strict laws governing this.
If they’re going to arrest Davies, or Helga, or Franny, or anyone else for Jeanie’s murder, they’re going to make sure they’ve got the right perp before moving forward. ”
“That’s . . . frustrating,” Pixie says.
“It is, but I’m hoping that by the time we figure out who killed us all, I’ll have a pretty solid case to present to the police, so that justice is served,” I say.
Once all the brambles have been strimmed to the ground, a small marquee?style tent is erected over the burial site.
“Because there’s inclement weather due tonight,” Jazz, who’s taken up one of the sentinel positions, tells any member of the public who happens to walk by and inquire about the tent. “We need to protect the integrity of the investigation.”
But there isn’t a cloud in the sky, and nobody’s falling for her subterfuge.
“Look, the paps have arrived,” Jeanie says, pointing towards the bushes beside the east wing of the hotel.
A stranger dressed all in black loiters in the shadows, aiming an enormous camera lens at the forensics tent.
“Won’t be long now before it’s all over The News at Ten,” she says, enjoying herself immensely, and clapping her hands together like an excited toddler.
More officers arrive, this time plain?clothed, and I already know they’re the bosses. They chat in a quiet huddle away from the crowd of Helzephron locals who obligingly stand behind the police line.
Sadly for the police bigwigs, none of the ghosts pay homage to the vinyl tape barrier.
“Do we have any leads on the podcaster yet?” An older Black guy with a thick, handsome moustache asks.
A tall woman with light brown skin and a stylish grey coat answers.
“We think it was likely scheduled by Runcorn before he died. Perhaps he knew someone was out to get him, so he recorded the episode as a backup, a plan B, a just in case. Or . . . it’s somebody pretending to be him.
Intelligence is looking into the IP address. ”
Hmm, so none of them suspect I’m a ghost podcaster. Kinda disappointing, actually.
Moustache nods. “It’s obvious why someone wanted him gone, if he had information like that. He made the journey from Swindon—”
“London,” Grey Coat corrects.
“London? My reports say he lived in Swindon.”
“Intel got back to us. They tracked his movements over the weekend prior to his death. He was at Swindon, took a train to Paddington, used his credit card to buy a family pack of cookies and a Fanta in M&S—”
“Credit card for cookies?” Moustache asks.
Grey Coat nods. “Mastercard. Then he got on the underground to south London. We’re not sure where he went from there, but approximately four hours later, he’s seen in the same Tube station holding two heavy-looking carrier bags.
He then takes the train back to Swindon, and on Monday, he’s spotted in the station once again boarding to Penzance. ”
I’m entirely enthralled. How often I’d dreamed of getting this close to investigating officers.
“Why are they talking about you?” Jeanie whines, slapping her legs. “This is supposed to be about me. They’re supposed to be figuring out who murdered me, not you.”
“I thought it was the same person,” I say, and Jeanie puffs out an exasperated sigh. “From what I gather, these officers believe whoever killed you may also have killed me to silence me.”
Now that I think about it, that’s a very plausible motive. So plausible, in fact, that I wonder if that’s not the reason a few others have been murdered as well.
And maybe, maybe it was the motivation for killing Jeanie too. Did she know something about Peter’s or Pixie’s death that would warrant being silenced? I need to ask her, but away from the others.
“If the officers think our deaths are connected, it also stands to reason they believe the killer’s still out there,” I say, though I’m not sure why. It’s info we already know, and besides, we can’t die again, but I guess the breathing stakeholders still have something to be concerned about.
“Do you think Davies did it?” Trystan asks me as we watch a couple of people in clinical white coveralls enter the newly erected tent.
“I dunno. At the moment he seems like the most likely suspect, but I still don’t understand what his reasoning could be. If anything, that guy was the most work?shy son of a badger I’ve ever met. Why would he create more work for himself?”
For a while, it feels as though we’re getting no new information.
Inside the tent, an area is sectioned off, and a very slow digging process begins.
Outside, officers stand silently watching the horizon, not saying anything of note to each other besides accepting takeaway cups of coffee and relieving each other for bathroom breaks.
“I’m going to go into the hotel and watch the news in the bar,” Jeanie says. A few of the other ghosts follow her, including Pixie, Pete, and thankfully, Stove.
Josh, Camille, and Trystan stay with me as Jeanie’s bones are painstakingly exhumed and laid out on a nearby table.