A Forest Full of Bones

Seven years ago

The blazing inferno of an unconscious body spiralled downwards, piercing the surface with a violent hiss, sending icy spray slicing through the air like shards of glass. The water, frigid and relentless, wrapped itself around the body with icy tendrils, leeching warmth from every living thing it touched. The cold crept deep into the bones, numbing the senses and leaving a trace of sharpness in the air, as if the water possessed a sinister consciousness, intent on draining the vitality from anything daring enough to enter its depths.

A doctor would declare that third-degree burns covering eighty per cent of the body spelt doom. Such catastrophic damage strips away the body’s ability to breathe, to sweat, to raise the tiny hairs that regulate warmth and coolness. Without these vital functions, the body teeters on the brink of death.

Plunging into merciless waters, the flames were not just extinguished, they were obliterated. The freezing water consumed the fire, and the body’s core temperature plummeted, offering a fleeting shield to this nearly lifeless husk against the cruel grip of death.

A relentless torrent seized the body, propelling it eastward with chilling indifference, rushing it towards The Wash, an estuary that led to the sea, fraught with obstacles, any of which could spell the end. Should the body reach the estuary, it would vanish forever into oblivion. It felt inevitable that this body would perish, a fate sealed by the water’s chill and the fire’s destruction

Now.

Retirement

The recreation centre’s emergency exit door burst open with a resounding bang. A sharp, biting chill swept in, enveloping Detective Inspector Jack Pearce as he stepped out into the night. The icy-cold air nipped at his skin, and he took a long, deliberate drag on his cigarette, the smoke curling upwards in lazy spirals. Shivering, he hastily buttoned his jacket, pulling it snugly around his frame in a futile attempt to ward off the cold.

In the early morning, a full moon was setting across the reservoir before him. As he walked towards it, the water glistened as it lapped at the edge of the man-made shale beach. Pearce tried to stifle another shiver as the cold enveloped him like a walk-in freezer. Glancing down at his black leather shoes, they’d gathered some morning dew from the grass as he sauntered down to the water’s edge, in no particular rush, despite the chill.

Although he didn’t want to admit it, he felt a dark cloud loom over him. He stood looking out over the reservoir while smoking, something he hadn’t done for a long while. Although the taste was familiar in his mouth and the smell of the smoke was something which he had always enjoyed. He wondered what would happen next in his life; this was the end of a nearly thirty-six-year career.

‘What the hell am I going to do now?’ he mumbled to himself. He slapped his face with both hands in an attempt to drag himself out of his malaise. Probably the drink talking, he thought.

Taking one last drag on his cigarette, Pearce turned away from the water’s edge and dropped the stub-end into the water. The hiss of the stub as it extinguished seemed louder than it should have been in the silence of the morning before the dawn chorus filled the air. Pearce exhaled the remaining smoke and a cloud of icy breath coalesced in front of him.

He had tried to give up smoking years ago, and it worked to some extent. Now, the occasional one was all Pearce needed. This was not the case when he joined the shift as a probationary constable back in ’89. Everyone smoked back then, before the ban. In his naivety, Pearce followed suit, managing to get through twenty or more a day. When the ban was introduced, he was surprised that he was able to stop immediately and had never opened a packet since, until tonight, but this was different. A more leisurely smoke that he had begun to enjoy as he got older, along with his whisky, brandy, and an occasional cigar. He smiled as he walked back to the centre and reminisced about a shift sitting at an early morning briefing in clouds of smoke.

Looking back on his service, it seems incredible that life was to take such a turn. How would Pearce have known that the people ahead of him in the recreation centre would have turned against him so unjustly? Yet years later, here they were, drinking to his health and eating the food he had laid on for them.

Of course, only some of his older colleagues knew. He was just an old dinosaur of a copper being put out to grass, to the younger ones.

The walk back along the grass and gravel path felt longer than his escape from the building some fifteen minutes before. Most of his guests had left; some were still huddled in corners recounting old times and getting pissed at his expense. After all, this was Pearce’s retirement party.

As he stepped into the centre, he undid his jacket, shook out the cold, and returned to the bar. He was slapped on the back and looked at the grinning face of Detective Sergeant Toby Woods, nicknamed ‘The Joker’.

‘Cheer up, mate,’ he said, slurring his speech slightly.

Pearce smiled. ‘I’m perfectly cheery, thanks, Joker; I’ve got four hours before I’m out of this forever.’

He laughed. ‘You look as though you’ve been out in an Arctic storm.’

‘Been outside, it’s a bit chilly.’

‘Better warm you up then. What are you having?’

Pearce contemplated whether he should have any more to drink, then said, ‘Whisky.’

‘Double it is then.’

Pearce didn’t want to complain, but ‘Joker’ was halfway to the bar. He hadn’t stopped walking since he was slapped on the back. Neither had he come to think of it.

He thanked Joker for his drink and sat down. Removing his glasses, Pearce rubbed his eyes. He knew that he was far too old for these all-nighters.

As he sat, drink in hand, he got to thinking about some of the shindigs he’d done as a young detective, usually after a good win in court. Then he would be able to get into the office on time, suited and booted and perfectly capable of doing an eight-hour shift without a blink, which seemed such a long time ago.

Now his other colleagues were drifting away and wished him well before they left. The older stalwarts kept talking loudly, telling stories of the bad un’s they’d banged up mixed in with some filthy jokes, none new. He’d heard them all before. Some of them were probably as old as he was.

In all honesty, Pearce wasn’t looking forward to retirement, something he’d mused over outside; he was told by the Chief to take his pension and run before the government fucked it up again. He did offer him the opportunity to come back as a civvy, but Pearce told him he wanted to go—clean break, finish—never to darken the doors of police HQ again. Pearce thought no more about it and returned to studying the inside of his glass.

His mood had changed. Realisation probably. It had become dark. A feeling of uncertainty as to his immediate future flooded his consciousness. He had no idea what he would do the next day. He’d known for so long what time he was to start work. He could stay in bed tomorrow if he wanted to, without needing to get up at 6 am every morning. This melancholy made him register that in four hours, he would no longer be a police officer. Stripped of his powers and the King’s Warrant. Thrown on the scrap heap of life—just another old copper. But as they say, “Once a copper, always a copper,” so what would he do?

Pearce looked up as a shadow fell across him.

‘Last one for the road, Jack?’ the barman said as he took his empty glass.

‘Why not?’ Pearce said dourly.

He returned with a full glass, and Pearce took it as the barman sat in the opposite chair.

‘We’ve known each other for a long time, Jack,’ he said, sipping his glass.

‘That we have, Ranjit.’

‘Got to be, what? Twenty years?’

Pearce nodded. ‘Easily.’

‘And if it wasn’t for that robbery, we’d probably never have met.’

Pearce nodded again. He sat back in his chair.

‘So what are you going to do now?’

Pearce shrugged. ‘Been a copper for a long time, Ranjit, I have no idea.’

‘You gotta do something.’

Pearce shrugged again. ‘We’ll see; no doubt I’ll find something. I dunno—stacking shelves at Tesco, driving a van, or, God forbid, being a senior citizen working for B&Q!’

They both laughed. ‘I can just see you stacking shelves at Tesco’s; I’d have thought Waitrose or M&S might be more your style.’

‘Yeah, thanks for that vote of confidence.’

As they chatted, they realised they were alone now; everyone else had finally gone.

Pearce heard the sound of a police radio nearby, which seemed to be getting closer. An officer walked past the window, and Pearce watched as the door opened and a young policewoman stepped in. Amelia.

Pearce stood as she walked towards him, smiling. They embraced as best they could, despite all her police gear. She kissed him on the cheek.

‘Hello, Uncle,’ Amelia said, walking over to the bar.

Pearce wasn’t her uncle, really. There were no familial ties between either of them. It was just he had raised her through her teenage years after her mum went missing, later making her his ward. She started calling him uncle. Pearce didn’t fight it, and the name stuck.

‘Have you come to drive me home?’ Pearce asked.

She grinned. ‘I didn’t think you’d still be here. It’s five in the morning.’ She looked at Ranjit. ‘Why didn’t you pack him off sooner? He has an important interview with the Chief in about four hours.’

Ranjit, now moving back behind his bar, smiled at Amelia. ‘It’s his retirement party, I didn’t think it would matter.’

‘Mmm, you’re probably right,’ Amelia conceded.

Turning to her uncle, she said, ‘I didn’t think I’d get to see you, but it’s been an okay night.’

Pearce knew what she meant; nobody said it’s ‘quiet’ because, after that, sod’s law states that everything will kick off.

Ranjit handed Amelia a Cola and filled Pearce’s glass again. By now, he was even feeling a bit wobbly on his legs. Wandering over to the table, which had the remnants of food and empty plates that were liberally abandoned, he picked up a cheese and ham sandwich with crusts that were beginning to curl up at the edges.

‘How come you’ve managed to get here?’ Pearce asked Amelia with a mouth full of sandwiches.

‘Had a quick job up the road. Domestic.’

‘Everything okay?’

‘Yeah, Brian lifted the wife.’

Pearce raised an eyebrow and glanced at her. ‘Unusual.’

‘Well, if she hadn’t come out of the kitchen with a knife and threatened us, she could have been sleeping in her own bed. As it is, she is reclining in one of our high-class suites.’

Pearce chuckled. Despite the trauma of Amelia’s early life, Pearce liked to think that he had been at least partly responsible for how she turned out, with enough of the black humour that permeates everyone in the emergency services.

He’d convinced her to join up. Pearce told her that there was no better job in the world. She believed him for a short time. Then the truth hit. Yes, the job on the street was good, but there had been a few changes—a lot more aggression on the street towards cops and little else. The political manoeuvring of the bosses and the government was one thing that annoyed both of them, and probably many other coppers as well.

Now, she stood in front of him on his retirement night in full uniform, drinking Cola at 5 am on the day he was to start life as an ordinary citizen—Mr Joe Public.

Pearce was proud of Amelia. Her mother, Pearce knew, would have been proud of her. Her father as well, had he not been killed by an IED.

‘What are you going to do?’

‘I wish people would stop asking me that question. It seems that’s all anyone wants to know.’

‘Because everyone does. Just what do retired Detective Inspectors do?’

Pearce shrugged. ‘We just fade away.’

Amelia looked at him. Pearce could see the sadness in her eyes over his predicament—if that’s what you want to call it.

Amelia strolled over to him, sitting in Ranjit’s recently vacated chair. She removed her stab vest and sent a message on her radio to control, telling them where she was.

After making herself comfortable, she said, ‘I was thinking about the first time we met.’

‘Oh, yes. That was a long time ago. Do you think about it often?’

‘Not really, no. It just came to me as I was driving over here.’

‘And what thoughts were you having?’

‘I remember the day quite well, strangely. I think I was about twelve.’

Pearce wobbled his free hand. ‘…ish.’

‘I remember it was a hot summer that year—2007. Mum had dressed me in a long flowing dress, which I tore at the bottom, on the undergrowth in the woods. I hated that dress.’

‘You were always a bit of a tomboy.’

‘I liked playing in those woods, alone, keeping myself to myself, you know.’ Her tone was reflective.

‘Where is all this going, Lia? You don’t have to torment yourself with this.’

‘I still worry about what I found in the place I built to hide away in.’

‘But what you found that day changed everything.’

She nodded and gulped Coke. ‘I was frightened when I first saw you.’

‘You ran away if I remember.’

She smiled and nodded again. ‘I thought you’d deliberately left those bones in my hideaway.’

‘But you know now that I was looking for them.’

‘Yes, but you didn’t tell me that till years later.’

‘You didn’t need to know, really.’

‘Perhaps not, but now I’m plod, I feel I need to know whether they ever found the owner of the severed hand. Or who cut it off?’

‘I don’t know the answer to either of those questions, Lia. Remember, I was only a young DS then.’ He paused. ‘They never did find the rest of the remains. They’re probably still there somewhere.’

Lia nodded. ‘That’s a pity,’ she said. Before she could say anything else, her radio sparked to life, indicating they were calling her.

She answered it and then waited for the message to be delivered personally by the mobile telephone function on her radio. It rang almost immediately, and she answered it just as quickly. She listened to the message; whoever was talking to her spoke briefly.

She said, ‘I have DI Jack Pearce with me.’

She listened again and signed off. ‘How would you like to accompany me on one last job before I take you home?’

Pearce gave her a wide grin. He hadn’t handed in his warrant card just yet. ‘I thought you’d never ask,’ Pearce said.

‘Come on then,’ she replied and started heading for the door while putting her stab vest back on.

Pearce thanked Ranjit, telling him he’d contact him later and headed out the door with Amelia.

And that was the start of Pearce’s final struggle.