The Wharf Butcher Read Free

head, it stopped with a loud clunk. Suddenly, the riverbank was a hive of activity.
    Drawn up alongside the Atlas crane, the driver of the Mercedes Sprinter recovery truck began positioning his two rear tail ramps. After checking the winching gear, he laid out a series of straps down either side of his truck. Dressed in their distinctive yellow high visibility jackets, several road traffic officers gazed on in anticipation. One of them, the senior officer, began dishing out instructions to the crane driver. Nearby, Carlisle picked out the portly figure of Carl Jones, the crime scene photographer. Standing beside him was the smartly dressed Sharon Dexter, a new member of the Forensics Team. As the crane-driver winched the submerged vehicle from the bottom of the river, anticipation levels heightened. Boot first: two thick yellow lifting straps had been attached to its rear axle. Suspended out above the river, murky brown water now poured out from every available orifice. The car’s roof was flattened, and both passenger doors appeared badly buckled and dented.
    An image formed in his head. Carlisle detested water, especially fast flowing water. Ever since his beautiful wife Jackie had been taken away from him in a tragic, freak ferry accident, he had struggled to come to terms with her loss. Only now was he coming out of the fog.
    Still grappling with his emotions, he spotted Sergeant Kevin Morrison, one of the old-school Road Traffic Officers, moving towards him.
    ‘What brings you to this neck of the woods, my friend?’ the Sergeant asked.
    ‘Certainly not the weather,’ Carlisle replied.
    The Sergeant flapped his arms about in a vain attempt to keep warm. Standing six-foot two, Kevin Morrison was a good four inches taller than him.
    ‘What a mess!’ the Sergeant said, pointing up at the mangled Mondeo.
    ‘How long has it been in the water?’
    ‘A few weeks I suspect, it’s hard to say.’
    As the police launch pushed back in the water, all kinds of emotions tugged at him. Trying to solve a crime scene was hard enough, but the emotional strain was even worse. Why must he always blame himself for his wife’s death? It wasn’t his fault, surely. Feeling sick in the pit of stomach, he took another deep breath.
    ‘How’s business nowadays?’ the Sergeant asked.
    ‘Money’s tight, and I could do with a few good cases–– ’
    The Sergeant returned his notebook to his jacket pocket, and stared up at the Mondeo. Now stationary, the car’s grille was ignominiously pointing back at the river. Water now trickling out from the radiator grille, the bonnet lid clanked in the breeze.
    ‘Does Jane Collins still work with you?’ the Sergeant asked.
    ‘Yes. Why?’
    ‘It’s just that I’ve seen her at Police Headquarters a lot lately.’
    The Sergeant was in a talkative mood, informing him that an Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) had already been carried out on the Mk3 Ford Mondeo. Reported stolen in Gateshead, its occupant was wanted in connection with a murder concerning a forty-six year old male. Whoever Ernest Stanton was, he’d been viciously stabbed to death in a frenzied knife attack at his home in North Shields.
    They chatted a while, before the Sergeant’s radio crackled into life again. Answering the caller, he gave him a friendly salute and moved off towards the recovery truck. Over the years David Carlisle had got used to the dead being described as ‘celebrities’– it came with the job. Yesterday’s headlines were tomorrow’s history as far as he was concerned. Staring up at the wreckage again, he was half expecting a body to slide out through the open passenger door. Some things never changed; he could never take anything for granted nowadays. Soon forensics would be crawling all over the place, picking up the pieces and looking for the minutest scrap of evidence. Somehow he doubted they’d find much in the way of DNA samples. The river had made certain of that.
    Bracing himself