Catch as Catch Can (The Merseyside Crime Series Book 1) by Malcolm Hollingdrake (popular books to read .TXT) 📕

the officers were fighting and manhandling a forensic tent against the stiff breeze. The Crime Scene Manager noted the arrival time on the log.

‘Where’s the man who found the body?’ April asked the officer as he was logging in the new arrivals.

Without lifting his head, he swung an arm in the direction of the dunes.

‘John Radcliffe. He gave me a quick statement but to be honest he was rather shaken. The doctor checked him over and he’s okay otherwise we’d have got him away. We put him behind that makeshift windbreak, the beach patrol guys always carry them to hide what gets washed up or dumped that they don’t want the public to see.’

‘It happens often?’ April questioned as she watched the white-suited figure photograph areas of the beach.

‘Usually, sea creatures or dogs are washed up. We had a whale once. Bloody huge it was. Got the nickname, Acker Bilk.’

‘Sorry?’

Tucking the board beneath his arm he mimed the playing of an instrument before he started to whistle a tune. Seeing her confusion, he stopped.

‘Meant to be a clarinet.’ He waggled his fingers in the air. ‘Stranger on the Shore, it was a famous tune by Bilk in the sixties. Before your time I guess, and mine, but I’m an old-fashioned guy. Got to number one in the charts.’ He shook his head. ‘The whale was known locally by the guys who patrol the beach as Acker Bilk.’

He could see from her expression he was getting nowhere. Retrieving his board, he checked the names.

‘Bilk? Never mind.’

‘Right. As you say, before my time.’

April walked across the sand towards the billowing shelter that had been turned away from the prevailing wind and the sea. She lifted the collar of her coat conscious of the increasing chill. Walking around she ducked down, immediately feeling the benefit of the hooded shelter. Radcliffe was sitting on what appeared to be a blue plastic crate and he was wrapped in a foil blanket, his detecting equipment to his right. April proffered a hand and looked into the man’s eyes, judging his first response.

‘DI April Decent. You’ve certainly found more than you bargained for today, Mr Radcliffe! How are you feeling now?’

She was surprised to see a brief smile appear.

‘Decent you say?’

‘Decent by name and I hope decent by nature.’ She smiled.

Radcliffe returned the smile and then the frown returned.

‘You can say that again, young lady. Not the treasure I was seeking that’s for sure.’ His strong Liverpudlian accent seemed as cutting as the wind. ‘You’re not from here, love, are you? Wiganer or are you from St Helens?’ From the look in his eyes he seemed genuinely interested.

‘Yorkshire. I’m a long way from home. You were telling me about the body.’

‘Right, yes. It was about this far below the sand’s surface.’ He moved his index finger and thumb apart to represent the depth. ‘I saw the object first and then after moving more sand, I noticed the chain and hoped that it might be connected to something else. The signal from the detector was massive. It was then that I saw a hand, bloody strange colour it was too and I noticed what appeared to be plastic. Looking more closely I could see it was a head; it was wrapped in what seemed to be cling film. At first, I thought it was one of them shop window dummies but the smell gave it away … hard to describe but it’s still in my nose. Strangely, there was no ear. I had to look twice but … Thank goodness for mobile phones.

‘The guys in the 4x4 were here within fifteen minutes. As you can see from today’s weather there aren’t many swimmers.’ He laughed at his attempt at a joke. ‘Just a few people up by the beach parked on the sand as usual but they seldom come this far unless they’re walking the dogs or on horseback.’ He took a breath and pulled the foil blanket around his neck. ‘The famous racehorse, Red Rum, was trained near here. Did you know that? Not many do now. Long time ago.’

April paused before speaking. Everyone seemed to have a tale to tell about the beach, what with the musician and now a horse. She tried to appear interested and smiled. ‘Really?’

‘You know who I’m talking about, don’t you, miss? Won the Grand National three times but that was probably before you were born.’

April suddenly felt young and naïve as he talked about horses. She needed to bring him onto a different tack.

‘You mentioned an object. Had you found anything up until this point?’

‘Mostly bottle tops, can you believe, they’re easily carried within the surf and left on the strandline. The best thing was what I found just before I discovered the body.’

He fished into his pocket and retrieved the find. He brought it to his lips, spit on it and rubbed it with what looked like an old rag before passing it to April. April held the round object on the palm of her hand before looking back at Radcliffe.

‘It’s a medal of some kind. It’s heavily tarnished and could be silver but I won’t be too sure until it’s been cleaned. It’s old too as you can see from the edges, but it has some writing, foreign I think, inscribed around the edge.’

April looked carefully at the object and immediately understood the wording to be Latin. She removed her phone and took photographs from different angles, trying to capture as much detail as possible.

‘How far from the body was this?’

Radcliffe used his hands like a fisherman describing the length of his catch and after a few guesses he settled on a length to demonstrate the proximity.

‘So, would you say it was possibly with the body?’

Radcliffe shrugged his shoulders. ‘Who knows? Could be coincidence. On finding that I laughed out loud, as just a piece of metal like that wouldn’t have given the strength of signal I received. Thought there might be hundreds! I moved more sand and