Fic, Misper, Part 3 of 3, Nick, OCs, 12
Sep. 16th, 2017 05:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fredbassettTitle : Misper, Part 3 of 3
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Rating : 12
Characters : Nick, OCs
Disclaimer : Not mine (except the OCs), no money made, don’t sue.
Spoilers : None
Word Count : 8,200 in 3 parts
Summary : A woman has disappeared. Her husband wants to find her.
A/N : 1) This is a sequel to a fic I wrote earlier this year, You’d Be Off Your Trolley To Go Anywhere Else, looking at the events eight years earlier when a gorgonopsid trashed the car park at Asda in the Forest of Dean. 2) This now forms one of the many prequels to my Stephen/Ryan series 3) Posting now for Forest of Dean Week in 52 Weeks of Primeval at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
primeval_denial
Sam watched as Cutter swirled the whisky around in his glass, watching the way the pale amber liquid caught the light of the log fire in the hotel bar.
She didn’t rush to fill the silence.
Eventually, Cutter sighed. “The fossil record is full of anomalies. We only know about a tiny fraction of what’s inhabited our world in the past. But Helen had started to believe that there are more anomalies that we’ve suspected.” He took a mouthful of his whisky, obviously wondering how much detail he could go into before her eyes glazed over.
She sipped her lemonade. “My kid brother is a bit of a dinosaur freak. I can’t pronounce things properly, but I get the general idea.”
“Something from the Permian that ended up in the La Brea tar pits.”
Not wanting to show the depth of her ignorance quite so early in the conversation, Sam just nodded, inviting further explanation.
“They’re Pleistocene. The Permian was about 250 million years before that. There’s no way that a diictodon could have ended up in the same tar pit as a dire wolf.”
“So why haven’t I seen anything about this in the newspapers?”
A swift grin lit Cutter’s face. “Because no one in academia wants to end up looking like a complete dick.”
“I thought it happened all the time and the rest of you just pointed and laughed.”
“Good point, well made.” Cutter’s flash of good humour vanished as quickly as the sun on a wet Forest morning. “That’s one of the things we were arguing about. Helen didn’t give a toss about her career.”
“And you did?”
“Helen’s got a brilliant mind, sergeant. I didn’t like watching her throw her career away in pursuit of smoke and mirrors.”
“And you didn’t like the pointing and laughing.”
“No, I fucking didn’t.” He shot her an apologetic look but that was as far as it went, and Sam was pleased. It pissed her off when men apologised for swearing in front of her.
“So, there’s a dicky-don in the wrong place…”
Cutter’s eyeroll was expressive. “There was more to it than that. Helen had become…” he searched for the word, looked like he was busily rejected most of the candidates and finally settled for. “… obsessed.”
“I thought academics were meant to be obsessed.”
“Not when it doesn’t lead to publications. Look, Sergeant Lewis. Universities are tough places these days. You need to keep publishing, and not just anywhere. It has to be in decent publications, and then you need the citations as well. Helen’s work just wasn’t…” he hesitated again and looked almost pained, as if he’d been admitting to his wife’s infidelity or something, “… it just wasn’t getting past referees. She was getting more rejections that acceptances and it was starting to be noticed.”
“And that mattered?”
“Of course it bloody well mattered. Welcome to the world of universities, sergeant. You’re only as good as your last publication. Blot your copybook and the whole world knows about it. Academics are as bitchy as a classful of teenage girls…”
“Sexist…” Sam muttered.
“Have you ever taught a class of teenage girls?”
Sam had to admit she hadn’t. She gestured to Cutter’s now empty glass. “Refill?”
He glanced out of the window, as though weighing up whether he could continue his search.
“Don’t even think about it,” Sam said quickly. “You were over the limit before I even got here.”
She stood up and waked back to the bar. Another large whisky wouldn’t go amiss, not if she wanted him to open up to her.
“When did Helen’s obsession for anomalies in the fossil record begin?”
“Hard to say. She’s always been interested in the things that don’t fit, but then when the rejections started to come in, she became more stubborn. More determined to prove herself right. My wife…” There was no mistaking the almost wistful expression on the man’s face. “My wife is a very stubborn woman.”
Sam raised her eyebrows questioning.
Cutter gave a rueful laugh. “Aye, I’m stubborn too. But like I said, Helen has a brilliant mind. I didn’t want her turning into another Myra Shackley.” In response to Sam’s puzzled look, he said, “She ended up believing in the yeti and Bigfoot.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
“As I said, welcome to the world of universities. Mud sticks. There’s always plenty of others willing to brown-nose, toe the party line and churn out enough papers a year to keep the bean-counters happy. Anyone who might attract the label maverick isn’t exactly welcomed with open arms.”
“Were you worried some of that mud might end up sticking to you?”
Cutter sighed. “There’s always that possibility, but that isn’t why it bothers me. Helen has a fine mind. She deserves recognition. Just not that way.”
The way he stuck to the present tense was a point in his favour, especially after her own tense shift. The last guy she’d dealt with who’d offed his wife hadn’t been quite so smooth.
“Did anything else bother you, Dr Cutter?” If she was on a fishing trip, Sam believed in casting widely. And she’d been certain that the Dean had been holding something back.
Cutter met her eyes. “We argued, Sergeant Lewis. I’ve already told you that. But Helen and I have a good marriage, even if it can be a tad… stormy at times.”
“Do you often go away for a few weeks at a time?”
“It’s summer, we always do a dig somewhere with students. Helen is due to supervise some fieldwork in three weeks’ time. We’ve got a bunch of students looking at fossil trackways.”
Sam kept her gaze strictly non-judgmental. “I hope you understand that I have to ask intrusive questions, Dr Cutter…”
“You want to know whether either of us has been having an affair.”
Sam smiled. “Go to the top of the class, Dr Cutter.”
“Call me Nick. No, neither of us is having an affair.” He held up a hand to forestall her next question. “And before you ask, no, neither of us has played away in the past, either. We’ve been married seven years. Yes, we argue, but it’s always a quick bust up, then things calm down. Neither of us is very good at apologies, but we don’t bear grudges, either.”
“That helps. Can you think of anyone your wife might have gone to stay with?”
He shook his head. “I’ve called everyone I can think of.” He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket with a short list of names addresses and phone numbers. “I thought you might want something like this. It’s always possible they might tell you something they wouldn’t tell me, but I don’t think it’s likely.”
Sam stood up and held out her hand. “Thanks for the chat, Nick. I’ll talk to you again as soon as I can, and you have my number in case you hear anything.” His handshake was firm and he looked genuinely grateful for the fact that she appeared to be taking the disappearance seriously.
She needed to talk to Whitey, and as the mobile reception at the hotel was shit, she’d need to get home or back to the station to have much of a chance of that.
The rain had eased slightly. She made a damp dash back to her car and, to her surprise, her phone beeped just as she jumped inside. A text from Whitey read: Meet me in the Black Bear. Drinks on U. Sam rolled her eyes, but wondered what he’d found out. She could dump the car at home and walk there.
Lemonade wasn’t exactly her preferred tipple.
*****
Pete White took a long pull of his pint of Doom Bar and sat back. “Dunno how you can drink that muck, sarge.” He gestured at her pint of Amstel.
“Likewise. Your mum’s shepherd’s pie up to scratch, was it?”
“Bloody lovely.” The usual pleasantries having been consigned to the dustbin, Whitey ripped open the packet of pork scratchings she’d bought and helped himself. “Wonder if they can make these out of the sodding boar? Saw half a dozen of the little buggers dashing across the road on my way to Valley Farm.”
“Ted Granger still sore about his tractor?”
“Damn right he is. His insurers are giving him stick. It’s the second he’s had nicked in three years. Reckons his premiums are going to go through the roof.”
“Stick a report on the system. What about our misper?”
Whitey took another drink and then helped himself to the largest of the scratchings. He had something to tell, and he was enjoying stringing her along. She crunched on one of the porkies and waited.
“He met her in the woods the morning the car park got done over. Said she was asking a load of questions.”
That wouldn’t have gone down well. Ted Granger was a curmudgeonly old sod who had no truck with anyone from ‘Off’. That was why she’d sent the Coleford born and bred Pete White over. He was probably related to Granger in at least three different ways, one of which probably wasn’t even legal.
“What sort of questions?” she said, playing the game and letting Whitey string out his story.
“Wanted to know if he’d had any trouble with animals. Said she was with DEFRA.”
That wouldn’t have gone down well. DEFRA was about as popular round there as a dose of foot and mouth. Maybe Helen Cutter wasn’t quite as bright as her husband thought.
Whitey grinned. “Ted said he knew she was talking bollocks. Reckoned she was a reporter. “Spent ten minutes telling her about what a pain the boar are, then another five giving her recipes for pork. But said he didn’t reckon that was what she was interested in. Thought she might have heard about other… things.” White’s normally open face took on a slightly more shuttered look.
“What sort of… things?” Sam had heard a few odd rumours since she’d moved to Coleford, but the locals were a cagey bunch and with her accent, they could peg her for an outsider a mile off.
Whitey shrugged. “Just daft stuff. Bit like the Beast o’ Bodmin. That kind of crap.”
“They reckon there’s a big cat living in the forest? Are they sure they don’t mean Garfield?” They got more complaints from the local postman about Mrs Morse’s ginger tom than they did about any of the dogs in the area.
“Little fucker had a go at me last week. Would have booted it if she wasn’t mam’s auntie.” He crunched up another porkie, clearly not caring that it bore a distinct resemblance to a pig’s nipple. “There were funny stories going the rounds when I was a kid. Funny peculiar, I mean. We used to dare each other to go into the Scowles at night. Nearly shat myself one night when that little sod Jimmy Mudway jumped out at me from behind a tree.”
The same Jimmy Mudway now did deliveries for Asda. And drank in the Cock Pheasant, the pub opposite the supermarket. Sam had half liked him for the damage in the car park, but him and his mates swore blind they’d been in the back bar playing darts and the landlord had backed them up. Mind you, Freddie Yearsley, would swear to anything if it involved a good customer.
“So what did Helen Cutter think of his stories?”
“Ted said she looked quite perky. Took down a load of details in a notebook and thanked him kindly for his time. He said she went off happy. She tried the same sketch on Ollie Page at Marchmount. He told her something had had a go at his chicken house the day before and she insisted on taking a look. He saw a lorry around there the night before, too, parked up in one of the laybys. Got a partial on the number plate. I’ll run it through the system tomorrow”
The abrupt change of subject made Sam blink, then she realised he was back onto the missing farm machinery. “Good work. So our Mrs Cutter has been sniffing around the area looking for big cats or whatever. Any sightings of her after the night Asda got their car park turned over?”
Whitey shook his head. “Not so far. I’ve asked Ted to ask around and get back to me if he hears anything. Folks’ll talk to him.”
They talked to Whitey, too. It was one of his main strengths. If Helen Cutter had been seen in the area after that night, he’d turn them up. But Sam was coming to the conclusion that they’d draw a blank.
Something had gone down that night and she still had no fucking idea what had happened, but whatever it was, Helen Cutter had been in the thick of it, that much was certain, and she was going to have to break that bit of news to Nick Cutter sooner rather than later.”
*****
“Someone saw my wife banging on a window and shouting for help and they just stood there and did nothing?” Nick Cutter’s voice had risen sharply, ricocheting off the stark walls of Interview Room Two with their peeling duck egg blue paint that Gloucestershire Constabulary had clearly bought in a job lot back in the 1990s and were still using up.
“He thought she just wanted to buy booze.” Sam didn’t think telling Cutter that Jerome had actually gone back to cleaning the floors rather than doing nothing wouldn’t go down too well.
“Happen a lot round here, does it?”
“It was Friday night, and the prices Dev charges in the 7 ‘till 7 are pretty outrageous.” Before Cutter could claim she was being flippant, Sam moved quickly on. “Constable White has talked to several of the local farmers. At least two of them saw your wife earlier that day, but none of them have seen her since. She was claiming to be from DEFRA and was asking about animal sightings, but they thought she was a journalist.”
Cutter put his head in his hands and closed his eyes for a moment. All Sam’s instincts told her the man wasn’t faking. When he looked up at her, the expression on his face was stark. “There was some sort of a riot in a car park and Helen hasn’t been seen since. What the hell went on that night?”
There was nothing for it but to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, something she’d sworn to do on numerous occasions in court. “I have absolutely no idea, but I’m going to do my best to find out.”
Nick Cutter met her eyes and gave a slight smile. “Thank you, Sergeant Sam Lewis.”
*****
Sam Lewis remained in Coleford for a further two years, until she passed her inspector’s exams and moved to Reading. During that time, along with Pete White, she spoke to three other farmers who remembered seeing Helen Cutter before the trouble at Asda, but never met anyone who had seen her after that night. They made no progress finding out who had decided to trash the car park, but they did catch the gang who were responsible for the thefts of farm machinery in the area. The partial number plate on the suspicious lorry proved crucial. Ted Granger even got his tractor back.
When the UK Missing Persons Bureau was set up, Sam entered Helen Cutter’s details on the database. She remained one of many unsolved mispers in Sam’s career.
A year later, she attended Professor Nick Cutter’s inaugural lecture at the Central Metropolitan University.
He didn’t notice her in the audience, and she had no intention of bringing back bad memories. The man looked like he’d achieved a measure of peace in his life, and she wished him well.
She even found herself strangely nostalgic for the Forest of Dean and Coleford nick.
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Rating : 12
Characters : Nick, OCs
Disclaimer : Not mine (except the OCs), no money made, don’t sue.
Spoilers : None
Word Count : 8,200 in 3 parts
Summary : A woman has disappeared. Her husband wants to find her.
A/N : 1) This is a sequel to a fic I wrote earlier this year, You’d Be Off Your Trolley To Go Anywhere Else, looking at the events eight years earlier when a gorgonopsid trashed the car park at Asda in the Forest of Dean. 2) This now forms one of the many prequels to my Stephen/Ryan series 3) Posting now for Forest of Dean Week in 52 Weeks of Primeval at
primeval_denialSam watched as Cutter swirled the whisky around in his glass, watching the way the pale amber liquid caught the light of the log fire in the hotel bar.
She didn’t rush to fill the silence.
Eventually, Cutter sighed. “The fossil record is full of anomalies. We only know about a tiny fraction of what’s inhabited our world in the past. But Helen had started to believe that there are more anomalies that we’ve suspected.” He took a mouthful of his whisky, obviously wondering how much detail he could go into before her eyes glazed over.
She sipped her lemonade. “My kid brother is a bit of a dinosaur freak. I can’t pronounce things properly, but I get the general idea.”
“Something from the Permian that ended up in the La Brea tar pits.”
Not wanting to show the depth of her ignorance quite so early in the conversation, Sam just nodded, inviting further explanation.
“They’re Pleistocene. The Permian was about 250 million years before that. There’s no way that a diictodon could have ended up in the same tar pit as a dire wolf.”
“So why haven’t I seen anything about this in the newspapers?”
A swift grin lit Cutter’s face. “Because no one in academia wants to end up looking like a complete dick.”
“I thought it happened all the time and the rest of you just pointed and laughed.”
“Good point, well made.” Cutter’s flash of good humour vanished as quickly as the sun on a wet Forest morning. “That’s one of the things we were arguing about. Helen didn’t give a toss about her career.”
“And you did?”
“Helen’s got a brilliant mind, sergeant. I didn’t like watching her throw her career away in pursuit of smoke and mirrors.”
“And you didn’t like the pointing and laughing.”
“No, I fucking didn’t.” He shot her an apologetic look but that was as far as it went, and Sam was pleased. It pissed her off when men apologised for swearing in front of her.
“So, there’s a dicky-don in the wrong place…”
Cutter’s eyeroll was expressive. “There was more to it than that. Helen had become…” he searched for the word, looked like he was busily rejected most of the candidates and finally settled for. “… obsessed.”
“I thought academics were meant to be obsessed.”
“Not when it doesn’t lead to publications. Look, Sergeant Lewis. Universities are tough places these days. You need to keep publishing, and not just anywhere. It has to be in decent publications, and then you need the citations as well. Helen’s work just wasn’t…” he hesitated again and looked almost pained, as if he’d been admitting to his wife’s infidelity or something, “… it just wasn’t getting past referees. She was getting more rejections that acceptances and it was starting to be noticed.”
“And that mattered?”
“Of course it bloody well mattered. Welcome to the world of universities, sergeant. You’re only as good as your last publication. Blot your copybook and the whole world knows about it. Academics are as bitchy as a classful of teenage girls…”
“Sexist…” Sam muttered.
“Have you ever taught a class of teenage girls?”
Sam had to admit she hadn’t. She gestured to Cutter’s now empty glass. “Refill?”
He glanced out of the window, as though weighing up whether he could continue his search.
“Don’t even think about it,” Sam said quickly. “You were over the limit before I even got here.”
She stood up and waked back to the bar. Another large whisky wouldn’t go amiss, not if she wanted him to open up to her.
“When did Helen’s obsession for anomalies in the fossil record begin?”
“Hard to say. She’s always been interested in the things that don’t fit, but then when the rejections started to come in, she became more stubborn. More determined to prove herself right. My wife…” There was no mistaking the almost wistful expression on the man’s face. “My wife is a very stubborn woman.”
Sam raised her eyebrows questioning.
Cutter gave a rueful laugh. “Aye, I’m stubborn too. But like I said, Helen has a brilliant mind. I didn’t want her turning into another Myra Shackley.” In response to Sam’s puzzled look, he said, “She ended up believing in the yeti and Bigfoot.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
“As I said, welcome to the world of universities. Mud sticks. There’s always plenty of others willing to brown-nose, toe the party line and churn out enough papers a year to keep the bean-counters happy. Anyone who might attract the label maverick isn’t exactly welcomed with open arms.”
“Were you worried some of that mud might end up sticking to you?”
Cutter sighed. “There’s always that possibility, but that isn’t why it bothers me. Helen has a fine mind. She deserves recognition. Just not that way.”
The way he stuck to the present tense was a point in his favour, especially after her own tense shift. The last guy she’d dealt with who’d offed his wife hadn’t been quite so smooth.
“Did anything else bother you, Dr Cutter?” If she was on a fishing trip, Sam believed in casting widely. And she’d been certain that the Dean had been holding something back.
Cutter met her eyes. “We argued, Sergeant Lewis. I’ve already told you that. But Helen and I have a good marriage, even if it can be a tad… stormy at times.”
“Do you often go away for a few weeks at a time?”
“It’s summer, we always do a dig somewhere with students. Helen is due to supervise some fieldwork in three weeks’ time. We’ve got a bunch of students looking at fossil trackways.”
Sam kept her gaze strictly non-judgmental. “I hope you understand that I have to ask intrusive questions, Dr Cutter…”
“You want to know whether either of us has been having an affair.”
Sam smiled. “Go to the top of the class, Dr Cutter.”
“Call me Nick. No, neither of us is having an affair.” He held up a hand to forestall her next question. “And before you ask, no, neither of us has played away in the past, either. We’ve been married seven years. Yes, we argue, but it’s always a quick bust up, then things calm down. Neither of us is very good at apologies, but we don’t bear grudges, either.”
“That helps. Can you think of anyone your wife might have gone to stay with?”
He shook his head. “I’ve called everyone I can think of.” He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket with a short list of names addresses and phone numbers. “I thought you might want something like this. It’s always possible they might tell you something they wouldn’t tell me, but I don’t think it’s likely.”
Sam stood up and held out her hand. “Thanks for the chat, Nick. I’ll talk to you again as soon as I can, and you have my number in case you hear anything.” His handshake was firm and he looked genuinely grateful for the fact that she appeared to be taking the disappearance seriously.
She needed to talk to Whitey, and as the mobile reception at the hotel was shit, she’d need to get home or back to the station to have much of a chance of that.
The rain had eased slightly. She made a damp dash back to her car and, to her surprise, her phone beeped just as she jumped inside. A text from Whitey read: Meet me in the Black Bear. Drinks on U. Sam rolled her eyes, but wondered what he’d found out. She could dump the car at home and walk there.
Lemonade wasn’t exactly her preferred tipple.
*****
Pete White took a long pull of his pint of Doom Bar and sat back. “Dunno how you can drink that muck, sarge.” He gestured at her pint of Amstel.
“Likewise. Your mum’s shepherd’s pie up to scratch, was it?”
“Bloody lovely.” The usual pleasantries having been consigned to the dustbin, Whitey ripped open the packet of pork scratchings she’d bought and helped himself. “Wonder if they can make these out of the sodding boar? Saw half a dozen of the little buggers dashing across the road on my way to Valley Farm.”
“Ted Granger still sore about his tractor?”
“Damn right he is. His insurers are giving him stick. It’s the second he’s had nicked in three years. Reckons his premiums are going to go through the roof.”
“Stick a report on the system. What about our misper?”
Whitey took another drink and then helped himself to the largest of the scratchings. He had something to tell, and he was enjoying stringing her along. She crunched on one of the porkies and waited.
“He met her in the woods the morning the car park got done over. Said she was asking a load of questions.”
That wouldn’t have gone down well. Ted Granger was a curmudgeonly old sod who had no truck with anyone from ‘Off’. That was why she’d sent the Coleford born and bred Pete White over. He was probably related to Granger in at least three different ways, one of which probably wasn’t even legal.
“What sort of questions?” she said, playing the game and letting Whitey string out his story.
“Wanted to know if he’d had any trouble with animals. Said she was with DEFRA.”
That wouldn’t have gone down well. DEFRA was about as popular round there as a dose of foot and mouth. Maybe Helen Cutter wasn’t quite as bright as her husband thought.
Whitey grinned. “Ted said he knew she was talking bollocks. Reckoned she was a reporter. “Spent ten minutes telling her about what a pain the boar are, then another five giving her recipes for pork. But said he didn’t reckon that was what she was interested in. Thought she might have heard about other… things.” White’s normally open face took on a slightly more shuttered look.
“What sort of… things?” Sam had heard a few odd rumours since she’d moved to Coleford, but the locals were a cagey bunch and with her accent, they could peg her for an outsider a mile off.
Whitey shrugged. “Just daft stuff. Bit like the Beast o’ Bodmin. That kind of crap.”
“They reckon there’s a big cat living in the forest? Are they sure they don’t mean Garfield?” They got more complaints from the local postman about Mrs Morse’s ginger tom than they did about any of the dogs in the area.
“Little fucker had a go at me last week. Would have booted it if she wasn’t mam’s auntie.” He crunched up another porkie, clearly not caring that it bore a distinct resemblance to a pig’s nipple. “There were funny stories going the rounds when I was a kid. Funny peculiar, I mean. We used to dare each other to go into the Scowles at night. Nearly shat myself one night when that little sod Jimmy Mudway jumped out at me from behind a tree.”
The same Jimmy Mudway now did deliveries for Asda. And drank in the Cock Pheasant, the pub opposite the supermarket. Sam had half liked him for the damage in the car park, but him and his mates swore blind they’d been in the back bar playing darts and the landlord had backed them up. Mind you, Freddie Yearsley, would swear to anything if it involved a good customer.
“So what did Helen Cutter think of his stories?”
“Ted said she looked quite perky. Took down a load of details in a notebook and thanked him kindly for his time. He said she went off happy. She tried the same sketch on Ollie Page at Marchmount. He told her something had had a go at his chicken house the day before and she insisted on taking a look. He saw a lorry around there the night before, too, parked up in one of the laybys. Got a partial on the number plate. I’ll run it through the system tomorrow”
The abrupt change of subject made Sam blink, then she realised he was back onto the missing farm machinery. “Good work. So our Mrs Cutter has been sniffing around the area looking for big cats or whatever. Any sightings of her after the night Asda got their car park turned over?”
Whitey shook his head. “Not so far. I’ve asked Ted to ask around and get back to me if he hears anything. Folks’ll talk to him.”
They talked to Whitey, too. It was one of his main strengths. If Helen Cutter had been seen in the area after that night, he’d turn them up. But Sam was coming to the conclusion that they’d draw a blank.
Something had gone down that night and she still had no fucking idea what had happened, but whatever it was, Helen Cutter had been in the thick of it, that much was certain, and she was going to have to break that bit of news to Nick Cutter sooner rather than later.”
*****
“Someone saw my wife banging on a window and shouting for help and they just stood there and did nothing?” Nick Cutter’s voice had risen sharply, ricocheting off the stark walls of Interview Room Two with their peeling duck egg blue paint that Gloucestershire Constabulary had clearly bought in a job lot back in the 1990s and were still using up.
“He thought she just wanted to buy booze.” Sam didn’t think telling Cutter that Jerome had actually gone back to cleaning the floors rather than doing nothing wouldn’t go down too well.
“Happen a lot round here, does it?”
“It was Friday night, and the prices Dev charges in the 7 ‘till 7 are pretty outrageous.” Before Cutter could claim she was being flippant, Sam moved quickly on. “Constable White has talked to several of the local farmers. At least two of them saw your wife earlier that day, but none of them have seen her since. She was claiming to be from DEFRA and was asking about animal sightings, but they thought she was a journalist.”
Cutter put his head in his hands and closed his eyes for a moment. All Sam’s instincts told her the man wasn’t faking. When he looked up at her, the expression on his face was stark. “There was some sort of a riot in a car park and Helen hasn’t been seen since. What the hell went on that night?”
There was nothing for it but to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, something she’d sworn to do on numerous occasions in court. “I have absolutely no idea, but I’m going to do my best to find out.”
Nick Cutter met her eyes and gave a slight smile. “Thank you, Sergeant Sam Lewis.”
*****
Sam Lewis remained in Coleford for a further two years, until she passed her inspector’s exams and moved to Reading. During that time, along with Pete White, she spoke to three other farmers who remembered seeing Helen Cutter before the trouble at Asda, but never met anyone who had seen her after that night. They made no progress finding out who had decided to trash the car park, but they did catch the gang who were responsible for the thefts of farm machinery in the area. The partial number plate on the suspicious lorry proved crucial. Ted Granger even got his tractor back.
When the UK Missing Persons Bureau was set up, Sam entered Helen Cutter’s details on the database. She remained one of many unsolved mispers in Sam’s career.
A year later, she attended Professor Nick Cutter’s inaugural lecture at the Central Metropolitan University.
He didn’t notice her in the audience, and she had no intention of bringing back bad memories. The man looked like he’d achieved a measure of peace in his life, and she wished him well.
She even found herself strangely nostalgic for the Forest of Dean and Coleford nick.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2017-09-16 05:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-09-16 06:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-09-16 06:38 pm (UTC)I mean, er, yay for Sam and Pete and a job done as well as it could be. Fantastic read :D
no subject
Date: 2017-09-16 06:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-09-16 07:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-09-16 07:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-09-17 09:06 am (UTC)Sam is superb, and poor Whitey and his itchy balls. O_O
It pissed her off when men apologised for swearing in front of her.
I agree with Sam on that one!
...Academics are as bitchy as a classful of teenage girls…”
“Sexist…” Sam muttered.
“Have you ever taught a class of teenage girls?"
*snorfle*
Well done. I do hope that Sam shows up again!
no subject
Date: 2017-09-17 10:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-09-17 09:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-09-17 10:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-09-17 01:18 pm (UTC)I liked the talk between Nick and Sam.
I wonder what Sam would think of the things happening years later.
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Date: 2017-09-17 06:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-09-24 05:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-09-24 09:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-03 12:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-03 03:49 pm (UTC)