Preacher Man: 'their blood shall be upon them' (Ted Darling crime series Book 9)

by L M Krier

  ‘Good, thanks, Maurice. The problem is that now he’s back home it’s going to be harder for me to justify the cost of keep sending you up there to talk to him. I know you’re the one he’s most likely to talk to, and we need his testimony. But you all know how things are currently with budgets. Every penny spent has to be accounted for and justified.’

  ‘I’ll keep going in my own time if I have to, boss. I’m not letting that wee lad down.’

  ‘I appreciate it. Just don’t forget that Megan needs you as well, especially now.

  ‘Right, the rest of you. A bit of a grunt, I know, but back to traffic cameras. Now we know roughly what time The Preacher’s car may have been in the area, we need to look again for anything which looks possible.’

  ‘Boss, we’ve been over most of it already,’ Rob O’Connell pointed out.

  ‘I know you have, Rob. But before, we were going on the basis that Darren might have been brought here from Preston. Now we need to consider that The Preacher was actually holding him in this area before he released him. So you need to check cameras from different directions, and spread out wider. Somewhere out there might be the footage we need, which will finally give us an ID on The Preacher.’

  Maurice’s mobile phone interrupted them.

  ‘Sorry, boss, it’s Darren’s mam. I’d better take it.’

  He picked up the call but instead of speaking he listened then asked, ‘Dal? Is that you Dal? It’s all right. You’re cold? Is your mam there? Can I speak to her?’

  He listened again then spoke, looking at the boss for his approval. ‘You’re scared? It’s all right, bonny lad. Don’t be scared. I’ll come, straight away. I’ll be there in an hour. Hang on, lad, Maurice is coming.’

  ‘You gave them your direct number?’

  ‘What was I supposed to do, boss? There’s no one to help that lad. I’m all he’s got at the moment. And he’s trying to talk. He told me he was cold and scared. So can I go, or not?’

  ‘Go. Let me know if he says anything else, anything to help us.’

  ‘So what is this place and why have we come here walking?’ Trev asked curiously, looking round the seemingly uninteresting moorland.

  ‘Ludworth Moor. There are supposed to be some Bronze Age remains here. Traces of what might have been a Druidic stone circle. I thought it might be nice to discover some of the ancient history on our own doorstep.’

  He’d found a map online of a walking route so that it looked less suspicious, bringing Trev along.

  ‘Besides, it’s got Celtic connections, and you have Celtic blood, so I thought it might interest you. It’s a nice day for a walk, and not too far to drive.’

  ‘Ted Darling you are possibly the worst liar I’ve ever encountered. I’ve never heard such a load of utter bullshit. Since when were you ever interested in ancient history? I bet you don’t even know the dates of the Bronze Age. Do you?’

  ‘A long time ago,’ Ted replied evasively, looking all round him as they walked. He was interested in more recent constructions. He thought there may well be old farm buildings, perhaps shepherds’ huts or the like, remote, isolated. The perfect place for someone to be held captive without being heard by anyone nearby.

  ‘Is this to do with a case? Have you brought me to a crime scene? Oh my god, Ted, tell me we aren’t looking for buried bodies?’

  ‘No, it’s nothing like that, honestly. I just needed to have a look about to see if there are any old, abandoned buildings up here. I’m sorry for the subterfuge. I wasn’t sure you’d give up the chance of going riding if I said it was work. I should have let you go off riding without me. At least you could have been having some fun while I was working.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure we can find a way to have some fun. And this is going to cost you, big time. If you thought Friday’s meal was expensive, you wait until you get the bill for making this up to me.’

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘Darren Lee is just starting to try to talk, but only to Maurice. Not even to his mother. Maurice went up to see him again yesterday. Darren’s repeating “cold, dark and scared”, but so far nothing else.’

  Jim Baker grunted at this. ‘I think we could all have worked out for ourselves that he would have been cold and scared, being kept the way he was, without paying man-hours to hear that.

  ‘Thank you, Debs,’ he added, as the Super put coffees in front of them all. She clearly thought it was a meeting in which they would have need of them.

  ‘He went on Saturday in his own time and at his own expense though, to be fair. It was just yesterday’s trip which came out of my budget. I authorised him to go because Darren actually phoned him. Just as well he did as when Maurice got up there, the mother had been drinking and had passed out cold.’

  ‘He managed to phone him?’

  ‘It just shows how important Maurice is to him. The first person he thought of.’

  ‘It’s not an ideal situation that Darren is in now, at all,’ Superintendent Caldwell observed as she sat down behind her desk, opposite the other two. ‘We all know that the best thing for him would be to be placed in a special unit somewhere until he recovers sufficiently to live at home. The mother clearly needs help, too. But we also know realistically that the cutbacks in services, particularly in adolescent mental health care, mean that’s just not going to happen.

  ‘The problem for Superintendent Baker and myself is, of course, the cost of all this. Not just who pays for what but also the dreaded ROI. What return can we show the purse-holders on all our invested personnel hours?’

  She was always more politically correct and gender-neutral than Jim Baker, a self-confessed dinosaur. He meant no harm by what he said. He just insisted he was getting too set in his ways to cope with change.

  She took a sip of coffee before continuing. ‘The ideal solution would be a Family Liaison Officer from Preston, so the hours were coming out of their budget, to spend time with him to gain his trust and hopefully to encourage him to talk.’

  Ted shook his head. ‘He’s made a connection with Maurice. Like I said, that’s demonstrated by the fact that it was Maurice he tried to contact when his mother was unconscious. It’s probably because it was Maurice’s voice he heard most of when he was sedated in hospital.’

  ‘The ideal thing would be to do it gradually. I think our budget could stand a few of DC Brown’s hours to work alongside an FLO until Darren felt as comfortable with that person as he currently does with DC Brown.’

  ‘The thing with Maurice, for all his faults, is that he inspires trust. Even a trained FLO might not achieve as much with Darren as he’s done, and we desperately need to get Darren to the point where he can say enough to help us move the case forward.’

  ‘This is in no way a criticism of you or your team,’ Superintendent Caldwell continued, looking directly at Ted, ‘but for all the hours invested so far, we still have little to show for it.’

  ‘We’re hampered most by the fact that although we have two surviving victims, neither has been able to talk about what happened to them. Lincolnshire are still looking for Tim Phillips, so far to no avail. He never has spoken about it, as far as we know, and it’s doubtful he will now. But we have to keep trying.’

  ‘What about connections between the three cases? Any links between the victims?’

  ‘Nothing as yet, boss, but we are still looking.’

  Jim Baker had been Ted’s boss for a long time and using the informal address came naturally to him. He tended to call the Ice Queen ma’am more often than by her first name, unless they were alone. Their relationship was not the same and probably never would be.

  ‘And what about suspects? Neither of us is wishing to put you under any undue pressure but Superintendent Baker and I have another budgetary meeting this afternoon, to report back on the staffing reductions that have been put in place here. Clearly this case is going to come up in the course of that meeting. It would be helpful to have some crumb to throw on the table before the top brass. Even the
vague promise of a break-through to come.’

  ‘We’re liaising with Preston to get them to find out who would have had a key to the church where Darren’s phone was left. DC Vine was the one to point out that it’s unusual for churches to be left unlocked in this day and age. As there’s a likelihood it was left there at night, it makes it more probable that someone had the means to let themselves in.’

  ‘She’s a bright lass, young Jezza,’ Jim Baker said admiringly. ‘I take it she wasn’t on your hit list to get rid of? I suppose it would have had to be Maurice if Megan hadn’t given him the get out of jail free card, the jammy bastard.’

  ‘The Chief Inspector has been very coy and refused to tell me who he had lined up,’ the Ice Queen said dryly.

  ‘Come on, Ted, it’s academic now. Debs and I need to know what management decision you reached. We all know you have a soft spot for Maurice, so would you have had the balls to get rid of him? Sorry, Debs, just an expression, nothing meant by it,’ he added hastily.

  It was Ted’s turn to buy time by drinking his coffee. It was Maurice he’d decided on. He had seen no other choice. His performance, although invaluable in some areas, was below par in others, compared to the other members of the team.

  ‘I’m glad it’s turned out as it has. And yes, even though I didn’t and don’t want to lose him, given the choice between all the current team members, it’s Maurice I would have moved on.’

  ‘Sound management choice,’ Superintendent Caldwell nodded her approval. ‘I hope you will impress upon him what a narrow escape he had and that we will see a consequent improvement in his performance across the board, not just in his specialist field.

  ‘Now, as there’s no telling how long you’ll be tied in up court this week, presumably you’ll be leaving DI Rodriguez in charge of this ongoing investigation?’

  ‘Probably not, ma’am. There’s no telling what else will come in. We’ve had a quiet week last week but who knows when something serious will kick off again. Mike Hallam is perfectly capable of running this one and I’m going to let him do that. That leaves Jo free for anything else that comes in, from anywhere else.’

  Both nodded their satisfaction at his reasoning.

  ‘Bloody good job, Ted,’ Jim told him. ‘Now that my patch is about as big as it’s possible to get without giving me offshore islands as well, I need someone strong on your little Sweeney if I want to send anyone elsewhere.’

  Jim Baker was in charge of Serious and Serial cases for an increasingly large part of the force area. He used Ted’s team as his first resource to send out to lead enquiries where there was no one local sufficiently experienced to do so. He jokingly called them The Sweeney, from the Cockney rhyming slang phrase, Sweeney Todd, for the Metropolitan Police’s Flying Squad, although the remit of the two units was different.

  ‘That applies especially if you get stuck in court for days on end. We both know that’s likely as the defence will want to unpick every part of your investigation. I hope you have all your facts memorised and all your answers off pat because we know already that the defence barrister doesn’t take prisoners. He’ll be going for your jugular. I doubt he can avoid a conviction but he might be able to sway the court not to pass too long a term of imprisonment when sentencing.’

  ‘Right, well if you gentleman have finished your coffee, I think we can wind our meeting up and allow the Chief Inspector to go and brief his team. If there’s any new information we should have, please let me know before lunchtime, when I’ll be leaving for Central Park. Jim, will you be making your own way there?’

  Jim was getting awkwardly to his feet, leaning heavily on a stick to help him. His ankle seemed to be taking the devil’s own time to heal after a recent bad break and subsequent operation.

  ‘Yes, I have other places to visit before then so I’ll see you there, Debs.’

  ‘You all know that the Morgane Edwards trial starts tomorrow and that I’ll be tied up with that, possibly for some time. Mike, I want you to take over the Preacher abduction cases, leaving Jo to pick up anything else which may come in.

  ‘Jezza, chase up your Lincolnshire friends for news of Tim Phillips. Maurice, if Tim is found, you’ll probably need to be the one to go and try talking to him initially. Mike, a priority for you to sort, please, is to get on to Preston and see if there’s an FLO available to help with Darren. And before you interrupt, Maurice, we just can’t justify the cost of you keep going up there. What I have managed to get is agreement for you to work in parallel with an FLO until Darren learns to trust them.

  ‘Steve, you mentioned a good point to me on Saturday, so you can see that it’s followed up. Let’s just check that the people who found the three lads really are just innocent passers-by and there’s no link between them.

  ‘Jezza, how did you get on with finding out who has access to the church?’

  ‘Preston were going to check it out for me, boss, and let me know today. I’ll chase them up if I don’t hear anything from them.’

  ‘Good, because that’s a good point and something we do need to follow up.

  ‘Rob, traffic cameras? Anything?’

  ‘Nothing as yet boss, but we are still looking. Sal’s been helping me. There’s a lot to trawl through.’

  ‘Megan, we still have a week of your valuable presence so perhaps you can do searches for anyone that needs help? Now we no longer have Océane and Baby on tap, could you do some of that to free others up? It’s work you can do sitting down, if you need to.’

  She smiled at him. ‘Thanks, boss, that’s a kind thought but I’m not quite at that stage yet. Sarge, just throw anything my way as you need to.’

  ‘Please keep me updated at all times, especially of any new possible leads. Other than that, I need time to go over all the notes I’ll need for this trial, so I’d appreciate some time to get on with that. I’m also going to try to get away at a reasonable hour this evening, to do more of the same at home. We desperately need a good result in court on this one after all the work we’ve put into it.’

  Ted made himself a mug of green tea before he sat down with his notes. He’d been over them endless times already but he needed to be word perfect on this one. He was always a good witness, giving faultless performances in court. This would be the toughest court case he’d ever been involved in and he couldn’t afford to be off his game.

  Trev was teaching again that Monday evening but had promised to be back by about seven-thirty, eight at the latest. He was not just Bizzie’s stylist but Ted’s too and would enjoying fussing over which shirt and tie he should wear. They’d discussed the upcoming big day on Sunday evening.

  ‘That sounds fine. I should be back before you, with any luck, although I’ll need to bring work home with me. I’ll pick up a takeaway on my way home and keep it on a low light. Let me know when you’re on your way and I’ll have it ready for when you get in. What do you fancy?’

  ‘Not Indian. You won’t give a good impression in court if you stink of curry. Something subtle. Thai, perhaps? Or Chinese? I’ll probably grab a quick snack when I get home to change to keep me going. I don’t want my students to be put off by the sound of my stomach rumbling all through the lesson.’

  Ted had smiled at him fondly. ‘I’ve no idea how you stay so slim, the amount you put away.’

  ‘I get plenty of exercise,’ Trev had told him, shamelessly preening, sucking in his already non-existent waist to show off the hardened six-pack. ‘Especially of the horizontal kind.’

  The memory made Ted smile again as he started on the job in hand. He knew he was lucky with his relationship. Coppers didn’t make the best partners and many a police marriage had ended as a result of it. Ted worked hard to make sure Trev was happy because having a loving and stable home life was essential for him to concentrate on the job in hand.

  He’d asked the team for some quiet time and they’d largely left him alone, apart from a brief visit later in the day from Jezza and Mike.

  ‘Boss,
sorry to disturb you but I thought we’d better run this one by you because it might be significant. Jezza’s had the list from Preston now of people known to have a key to the church. One of them is, of course, the vicar. But, and here’s the part which may be of interest to us. He’s relatively new to the parish, took it on just over three years ago.’

  Jezza broke in impatiently. ‘And three years adds up to Tim Phillips, missing six months and followed by a six-month break. Ditto Robbie Mitchell. And ditto again for Darren Lee. Three twelves, thirty-six months, which is three years.’

  ‘Thank you, DC Vine, I’m not too bad at maths. But yes, it is interesting. We don’t want to go rushing over there half-cocked harassing a man of the cloth without a bit more to go on, though. So please get Preston to find out everything they can about him and his previous history. Then discuss it in detail with me or Sgt Hallam before you take any further action. Or Jo, if I’m not around for any reason. This is not a decision for you to make on your own.

  ‘I’ll be coming into work before and after trial times for as long as I’m needed there so keep me up to speed at all times. And don’t get too carried away. It may be nothing more than a coincidence.’

  ‘But you don’t like coincidences, boss, you’re always telling us that.’

  Sometimes, Ted thought to himself as the two of them left his office, Jezza was only just the right side of being a smartarse.

  He was surprised he hadn’t heard from Trev by eight o’clock that evening. He’d bought the takeaway as promised and put it on a low light. He’d give it a quick boost as soon as he heard his partner was on his way home. It made a pleasant change for him to be the one dishing up the supper. The kitchen was relatively tidy, which was an unexpected bonus. Trev had clearly grabbed a quick snack before he went back out but he had at least rinsed his mug and plate and had attempted to load them in the dishwasher, although it was not how Ted liked them to be stacked. He’d made an effort though and Ted was touched.

  When he still hadn’t heard anything by eight-thirty, he decided to phone, worried the meal was going to be dried up by the time Trev got back. Trev loved company, loved to chat. His classes often ran on as he was so enthusiastic and his students were usually having so much fun they didn’t want to go. His call when straight to voicemail.