The Spanish Connection - British Detectives

This novel uses British English, so if there is a word or phrase you don’t understand, there is a handy alphabetical listing at the back.

‘Shh,’ said Matheson. ‘What was that?’

‘I didn’t hear anything.’

The two young police constables on night duty were freezing, even though it was July. They were concealed in the ditch at the side of a farmer’s field that had become an archaeological dig since Old Farmer Giles found some ancient treasure.

Nighthawks had come visiting in the early hours two days ago, looking for what they could steal. One of the professors with the dig had called in a favour from the Superintendent, and Matheson and Peters had been here on night duty guarding the dig site ever since. But it was now Sunday and the Nighthawks hadn’t been back. That didn’t make them feel any better. If anything, the anticipation, the expectation that they would be back for another go, made them feel progressively more jittery.

The sky crouching over them like some huge Mantis didn’t help. It was as black as the devil’s soul, and they spoke in whispers so they wouldn’t waken...whatever was out there. Each was grateful for the other’s presence, though neither would ever admit that they felt intimidated by the vast black sky and the fear of eternity. It was silent, apart from some cows lowing in an adjacent field, and Peters shifted uneasily, his behind numb from sitting on the hard packed earth. At least it was dry, for which he was grateful, as he remembered his Gran’s warning about damp ground and chills in the kidneys. He shivered, not only from the cold, and spoke again just for the reassurance he gained from hearing his own voice.

‘Matheson?’

‘What?’

‘What’s the time?’

‘Five minutes later than the last time you asked me.’

‘No, really.’

Matheson sighed and squinted at his illuminated watch. ‘Four o’clock. Why? You got somewhere important to go?’

‘No. Worse luck. Never thought it’d be like this when I joined the police. I’ve got this new girlfriend, see, and—’

‘Shh. There it is again.’ Matheson wriggled himself up, and looked over the rim of the ditch.

But it was a moonless night, and Peters doubted he could see anything; he could barely see his hand in front of him. But he asked anyway, just to hear his voice once more. ‘What can you see?’ he questioned, hoping he didn’t sound as nervous as he felt.

‘Nothing. I’m going to look round.’

‘What about me?’

‘Wait here.’

Matheson snaked his way up and over the ditch, then keeping low, he vanished round the side of a heap of soil from the dig.

‘Matheson?’ Silence.

Peters heard nothing for a long five minutes. He felt abandoned to the darkness, to the fear. Then he heard a thump and more silence. Peters waited, getting increasingly agitated. But he heard nothing further. In a quavering voice, he called Matheson’s name again. No answer.

Seriously worried now, Peters tugged at his uniform jacket. Its shiny buttons reminded him that he was an officer of the law and it gave him the spark of confidence that was previously lacking. Peters crawled out of the ditch. He stilled as he heard a car start up. Then he began crawling again. Two minutes later, he found Matheson. He was sprawled out on one of the heaps of soil excavated from a trench, unconscious.

Peters’ heart thumped so loudly, he thought whoever had attacked Matheson must hear it and come after him. If he hadn’t gone off in that car. He looked around fearfully. Then he saw another body. It was at the bottom of one of the trenches, and utterly still, just like Matheson.

With shaking hands, he wrestled to free his radio, fighting a growing urge to run. Then called it in.

All he could do then was wait. Alone. In the darkness.

DETECTIVE INSPECTOR Joe Rafferty gazed around at the archaeology site that was now the scene of a murder inquiry.

Strangely, it looked just like a builder’s site, without the steel skeleton thrusting to the sky, of course, but the same piles of muck. The same builders’ bums from some of the low-slung jeans were much in evidence, among the students at least. He almost began to feel at home. All that was lacking was the good-natured joshing of the building crew. But the lack of joshing reminded him forcefully that this wasn’t a building site, and that camaraderie was noticeable only by its absence. The natives were distinctly unfriendly, too. Rafferty began to feel less at home.

Whoever had attacked the dead man had also attacked the young uniformed officer, Matheson, who was currently in hospital still unconscious. His parents were with him. Rafferty had called to let them know as soon as he heard what had happened to him. He’d asked them to inform him as soon as he regained consciousness. If he regained consciousness...

On getting Peters’ report, aware that Bradley was likely to be on his back for this one, he’d called at the B & B where the dig staff were staying, rousted the site supervisor, Humphrey Wiggins, from his bed, and taken him to the site. But he had claimed he didn’t know the dead man, and demanded where were Rafferty’s men who were supposed to be guarding the site against events like this.

Rafferty looked hard at him. He felt conscious of the weight of responsibility: for young Matheson, unconscious in hospital; for Peters, struggling bravely to keep the tears at bay for his friend. Wiggins was the sort of man he found it difficult to like. Officious, lacking any discernible spark of humour, and determined to insert his snout in anything and everything to do with the dig. Even murder. He was short with him. ‘In hospital. He was attacked.’ Left for dead like the corpse.

It was beginning to get light, and the dig staff, in spite of being told to remain at the hotel, had come to take a look. Rafferty had herded them behind the police tape, apart from the humourless Wiggins, whom he had led down the designated path in his police protectives, to see if he knew the dead man.

It was unfortunate that Wiggins had been unable to identify him. He was supposed to conduct a murder inquiry, yet from the looks of things, he wouldn’t have nearly enough men. Anyway, these Nighthawks could have come from anywhere in the country. Disappeared back there, too. But, as time wore on, the more Wiggins had been insistent that these Nighthawks were the ones responsible, the less Rafferty was convinced. Wiggins had seen the doubt and it made him even shriller, unfortunately, until Rafferty could tolerate no more and had the man conducted back behind the tape with his colleagues.

That’s what the people who robbed archaeological digs were called, apparently. Nighthawks. At least according to Llewellyn, who’d proceeded to give him a mini lecture on the subject. They descended more like vultures than hawks, but night-vultures didn’t make a good soundbite, he supposed. Whatever their name, they left desolation in their wake. Possibly, their victim was one of the Nighthawks. Possibly.

Superintendent Bradley had already turned up and left again, to prepare his sound bites for the media. In his head, Rafferty replayed it. Bradley had half-prepared his talk for the benefit of the press, and practised a few lines for Rafferty’s benefit. But Rafferty felt that calling the Nighthawks animals and despoilers didn’t really help matters. Especially as they could be looking at something altogether different here. It was just too pat, too easy, to blame some mythical Nighthawks, who could apparently appear and disappear at will.

Behind him, he could hear the archaeologists bemoaning time lost before they had agreed to pack up and leave. They had told him the farmer wanted them hurried up and gone, so he could get his late potatoes in. Or, more likely, look for any buried treasure the archaeologists had missed. Between them all, Rafferty had plenty of aggravation.

And when an eminent professor, and his equally eminent colleagues, had turned up, he realised that Bradley wasn’t the only one expert at manipulating the media. The profs seemed more than capable of giving Bradley a run for his money in the soundbite stakes, to judge by those they’d directed at him.

Things weren’t looking good for the person who had to investigate the murder. With morbid humour, he imagined what would happen were he to call in reinforcements. Ma, for instance. As his mouthpiece, she’d give them all a lesson they wouldn’t forget in a hurry, that was for sure. Reluctantly, he put the thought aside, and concentrated on the murder scene.

‘Get that, will you, Adrian?’ he said, pointing to a particularly clear footprint.

‘I’ve seen it. You’d have to be blind not to,’ replied Adrian Appleby, the Head Crime Scene Investigator.

Rafferty nodded with satisfaction. ‘Just checking.’

The footprint wasn’t the dead man’s, that was for sure. He had a pair of smooth-soled black leather shoes. Peters, for some reason, had been at pains to describe them, although he could see them well enough for himself. But, if it helped him, Rafferty was prepared to listen any number of times. After all, Peters had spent uncomfortable minutes alone with the dead man before either paramedics or his police colleagues had arrived. He’d commended Peters, who, torn between his injured colleague and their murder victim, had remembered his training, and remained with the corpse once the paramedics had taken...