Father and Son by John Barlow Page A

half-hidden behind the curtain.
    He checks the road’s clear, then feels his body pressed back into
the driver’s seat as 530 brake horsepower take him away.

Chapter Sixteen
    Detective
Inspector Steven Baron, hands in his pockets, looks down at the hole in the
ground. A square tent is being erected around him, four SOCOs in white overalls
struggling against the wind to get the thing moored to the soft earth. Behind
him there’s a steady coming and going of vehicles as another crime scene moves
into its familiar routine, the constant chirping of police radios, the ordered
bustle of it all.
    The smell of petrol hangs in the air, and close by his feet is a
pile of fresh vomit, several little mounds of the stuff in the grass, bits of
half-digested chips and baked beans glowing a strange, almost florescent pink
in the police lights.
    The boys who found the body were nine years old, out on their own at
dusk. Tough little nuts, a mile from home in the woods as darkness fell, doing
whatever they wanted. Now they’re at home huddled close to their mums, kind-faced
police counsellors trying to get some sense out of ’em.
    And they’ll need counselling. Nightmares for months after something
like this. He thinks of his own boys, same sort of age. They’d never be allowed
out alone in a place like this. Not with night drawing in. Never. At least, he
doesn’t think they would.
    He puts the twins out of his mind, focuses on the job at hand and
tries to imagine what happened. Two lads are kicking about down here by the
beck. Quiet spot, lots of trees, not that far from the main road, but secluded.
They see the fresh earth, reckon they’ve hit treasure. Then they’re down on
their knees, wide-eyed, digging with their hands. One of ’em feels something
strange, grabs it. A human nose, coming away from the head like a lump of plasticine.
    DS Steele joins him, grey suit flapping in the wind.
    “Shallow grave,” Steele says, rubbing his hands together. He’s an
inch shorter than Baron, but a good deal wider in the shoulders; rugby
shoulders, and he doesn’t mind who knows it. “What? Two feet, you reckon? Lazy
bastards, whoever did it.”
    “Just far enough from the road,” Baron says, still looking down. Out
of the soil pokes the left side of a face, caked in mud, as if it’s wearing a
mask. And the nose is missing. “So they bring the body over, don’t dig more
than they have to. Quick job. Two of ’em. If there were more, they’d’ve dug
deeper. Ground’s soft enough.”
    “Why burn the body if they weren’t going to finish the job?” Steele
says, sniffing against the cold, the smell of petrol not hard to detect,
despite the swirling wind. “The nose wasn’t even charred.”
    “Hands were. No fingerprints.”
    “But why not let it carry on burning? Why leave it like this?”
    “They got disturbed? Lost their nerve?” Baron looks at his watch.
Tomorrow is his turn to have the kids. That’ll be off now.
    “We’ve just dragged two shovels out the beck,” says Steele.
    “They got rattled. Couldn’t wait for the body to burn. Covered it up
quick and got off.”
    Steele stretches his arms, quick body-yawn.
    “Hacked the nose off with a shovel? Clumsy, panicking? It fits.”
    Baron shakes his head. “Cuts were too clean. See what Coultard says,
but I reckon the nose was before.”
    “Why cut the nose off a dead bloke’s face?”
    “Who says he was dead? You got a match tomorrow?”
    Steele nods.
    “You haven’t now. Come on, this is a bad ’un.”
    The tent is finally in place, and as they step back out into the
evening wind the police pathologist Michael Coultard is striding purposefully
towards them.
    “What we got, Steve?” he says.
    A stocky man in his fifties with a ruddy, over-indulged face, he has
one hand under his chin, holding the neck of a dark blue raincoat tight.
    Baron smiles. “I don’t think this’ll keep you long, Michael.”
    “Good. I’m supposed to be picking Deborah up. Shall