Ruth rolled her eyes — he was really milking it.
“You got shot and you knocked yourself out when you hit the floor. Surely even you must have recovered by now. Think about the timescale — all that was over two months ago. So . . . I have to ask, what’s stopping you?”
“I broke my arm too, don’t forget that.” He snatched up his grapes and stuffed the bag behind a cushion, out of her reach.
“If I didn’t know you better, Tom Calladine, I’d say you’d become a tad work-shy,” she suggested and took a step back out of his reach.
“Like I said — a hard woman,” he grimaced, picking up the cushion and throwing it at her. “You’ve got some cheek. I’d like to see you apprehend a villain with an arm like mine.”
“If that’s all that’s bothering you, then I’ll do the apprehending, and you can come back and do the thinking. Seriously though, we really do need you. It’s crap at the nick right now. Jones got the push — don’t even bother asking me what happened because no one’s talking. So what do they do? They put Brad Long in charge! Brad bloody Long, for heaven’s sake. Called him ‘acting DCI’ and stuck him in Jones’s office.”
“That bad, eh? Well, looks like you could certainly do with a bailout.”
“Too bloody true we could. So when can we expect you?”
She was willing him to say the right thing. Life at the coalface was no fun at the moment, and without Tom it would only get worse.
But Tom Calladine didn’t get time to answer. Ruth went to see who it was knocking on his front door.
* * *
“Rocco!” he called out to the young detective constable. “Great to see you. Get yourself a coffee or something and join us.” He nodded in the direction of the kitchen.
“Sorry, sir, it’s Ruth that I need to see,” DC Simon Rockliffe’s face was serious — this was obviously no social call.
“We’ve got a major incident on our hands — at Hopecross,” he explained. “A consultant from City Hospital in Manchester was found dead on his kitchen floor this morning.”
“You should have rung,” Ruth told him.
“Well, I’m glad you didn’t,” Calladine piped up. “Not only is it good to see you but now you can give us both the grisly details. I presume it is murder?”
“Yep — stabbed in the back and there’s something else — something rather creepy. The poor guy had a playing card nailed to his head — can you believe that? Goodness knows what it means, but it’s already looking like a real head-scratcher.”
“Anything else?” Calladine was sitting up now.
“Not that I know of but we need to get down there quick,” he said, turning to face Ruth. “Long’s sent DS Thorpe to the scene but he’ll miss more than he notices.”
“I’m getting pretty sick of having to cover his back. The man’s a menace and a real lazy sod. He’s sticking his nose in everywhere and all because it was his DI that got the leg up.” Ruth folded her arms, looking long and hard at Calladine. “It should have been you, you know. Fallon or no Fallon, you’re the best man for the job. The whole nick knows it.”
But Calladine knew Ruth was wrong. It was all about Ray Fallon. Fallon was a criminal, awaiting trial for murder and, as far as everyone knew, the man was his cousin! If he wanted to move ahead in his career, he’d have to come clean and do something about the information he was sitting on.
“What about this new case, then? How are you going to tackle it?” He pointedly did not reply to Ruth’s observation about Fallon.
“Well, if you got your arse off that sofa, you could come with us. Once Thorpe sees you’ve reappeared he’ll back off, so will Long,” Ruth suggested, tapping her foot.
“That’s no way to speak to your DI, Sergeant,” Calladine retorted.
“Well, you’re not, are you? Not at the moment anyway.”
“Hopecross, you said?” Calladine reached for a notepad on his coffee table and hastily scribbled a couple of lines. “Just letting Lydia know where I’ve gone. She worries,” he confided with a grin.
“Quite the little housewife,” Ruth noted sarcastically. “Got you wrapped round her little finger good and proper. I bet it’s down to her that you’ve stayed home with your feet up all this time.”
“What if it is? I like being wrapped round her little finger,” he smirked. “I like her being here — she’s been brilliant.”
And she had. Despite reservations about her housekeeping skills, she’d come up with the goods where it counted. She’d been his nurse, his cook; she’d sorted out his finances and even advised his daughter about her problems when he’d been still groggy from the morphine.
“She got you into this mess. Or have you forgotten it was she who went tearing after your renegade cousin and brought him back here, gun in hand?”
“Fallon was after me before Lydia stuck her nose in. He knew it was me that got the evidence to finally convict him. I was always going to be his target.”
“Any excuse for not seeing things as they are,” she sighed. “Do you want to help with this, or what?”
“I could take a look. I suppose it can’t do any harm.”
“My car, then — I promise to bring you home afterwards.”
“I’ll get my coat.”
* * *
The massive detached stone house was set in a leafy lane bordering the village of Hopecross — very different from his own tiny cottage in the back streets of Leesdon. Calladine wondered how much it would cost to run a place like this — too much most likely. But then their victim was a big-shot doctor, so he could probably afford it.
Amidst the heavy uniformed presence, Calladine spotted the pathologist, Doctor Sebastian Hoyle and the senior forensic scientist, Doctor Julian Batho. He hadn’t seen them in quite a while.
“Good to have you back, Tom!” Doc Hoyle shouted to him, a big smile on his face. “If you are back that is. You had us worried for a while,” he said, handing out white, paper suits. “You never know with knocks to the head. Are you on this one? Only DS Thorpe was here earlier but I don’t think he stayed above two minutes.”
“Yes, Doc, this one’s mine,” Calladine confirmed. “And yes, I think I might be back, finally. I’ve certainly missed it,” he said, matching the pathologist’s grin.
Doc Hoyle nodded. “He’s been dead since last night, no later. His cleaning lady found him earlier this morning. Poor woman, she’s been carted off to the General in shock.”
Calladine pulled on the suit, donned a pair of overshoes and a mask and followed Doc Hoyle into the house.
“According to Ruth I’ve not showed my face a minute too soon,” he told the doc. “She’s getting a bit lippy about the situation at work, and to be honest, I’ve had enough of being an invalid.”
“As long as you’re up to it. This job’s no picnic even when things are slack.”
“Picnic or not, I need to get back. My brain’s going to porridge. I’m in serious danger of losing my edge.”
Tariq Ahmed was lying on the floor. The pool of blood had seeped from the small kitchen out into the hallway.
“One stab wound to the back. The post-mortem should throw some light on what was used but it was a long blade, I’d say. The volume of blood loss suggests one of the major arteries has been severed — possibly the aorta.”
“There are plenty of prints. We’ll start checking them out as soon as, but I’ll lay odds they belong to him.” Julian nodded at the body. “My bet is that our man wore gloves,” he added. “We’ll bag everything and take what we find back to the lab.”
“Did you give DS Thorpe the details?”
“He didn’t stay long enough.” Julian smirked. “He had a quick look round and decided he’d be better off going back to the nick.”
So Ruth had been right.
“Any sign of the murder weapon?”
“Don’t think we’re going to be that lucky, Inspector,” Julian told him.
“What do we know about Doctor Ahmed?” Calladin
e asked Rocco.
“Nothing yet, sir, other than he worked at the City. I’m going to start having a proper look round, see if he had any close family but I get the impression from uniform, who’ve been talking to the neighbours, that he lived alone.”
“What about the neighbours? Someone should find out if they saw or heard anything.”
“One of the uniformed PCs has already been down the road asking,” Ruth said, as she joined them inside. “Apparently they heard nothing. Mind you these properties are big and spaced well apart. Anything could go on and I doubt the neighbours would hear.”
“Could this have been a robbery gone wrong?” asked Rocco. “We could do with knowing if there’s anything missing.”
“We need to search the house anyway. Find the names of any family members so that we can inform them. Also work colleagues; anything and everything in fact that will help us build a picture of this man’s life. But this is no robbery, Rocco. The stabbing is one thing — that might have happened as the result of some altercation but not that.” He nodded at the nail pinning the card to the doctor’s face. “What is that, anyway? It’s not like any playing card I’ve ever seen.”
“It’s a tarot card, Inspector,” Julian informed him in that superior way of his. “They’re used for divination purposes. That one in particular is rather interesting. It’s one of the Major Arcana — ‘the Tower’, otherwise known as the bolt from the blue.
Calladine was astonished at the seriousness of Julian’s tone. “You mean mumbo jumbo?”
“As you wish, Inspector. But as I said; this card is interesting. It has a number of different meanings, but to many, it symbolises failure, ruin and catastrophe.”
“Neither Doctor Ahmed nor I would argue with you on that one.”
“Perhaps the killer was trying to tell us something, Inspector. We should be open to all possibilities.”
Calladine shook his head. He had no idea how such a clinical, logical guy as Julian Batho would know about stuff like this, but he didn’t ask. He didn’t fancy a lecture on the subject. Even so, it was intriguing in a rational individual like Julian.
Calladine looked back towards the front door and then went into the kitchen and sitting room to look at the windows.
“There’s no sign of a break in. So whoever did this was either let in or had a key. The doctor knew him,” he observed to Ruth. “Find out if he was expecting anyone — a visitor or even a patient. Look for a diary, laptop or something, and see if you can find his mobile phone. Perhaps he saw patients privately. Look around, see if you can find a consulting room. The house is certainly big enough. We need to know everything there is to know about the man. That thing on his face could be meaningful but it could also be nothing other than the killer having a laugh at our expense.”
“It’s weird though, sir. Perhaps we should have a look at the local fortune tellers — he might have a link to one of them,” Rocco suggested.
“Okay, if you must,” he told the young detective. “But don’t waste too much time. It might be more use to find out if there’s any CCTV in the street outside. Properties like these often have their own cameras. One of them might have caught something. Ruth!” She was talking to Doc Hoyle. “Will you get back to the nick and put what we’ve got on the incident board? Ask Imogen to find out what she can about Tariq Ahmed from the hospital, particularly regarding his family.”
“Don’t you want a lift back home, sir?”
“No, I’m going to the morgue with the doc. See what his preliminary findings turn up.” He smiled.
He was back, well and truly back in harness once again. This case was everything he’d been missing. Languishing around the house with Lydia at his beck and call was one thing, but this was what he was really made for.
Chapter 2
Calladine got himself a cup of coffee while Doc Hoyle and his assistant prepared the body. By the time the inspector entered the post-mortem room Tariq Ahmed was laid out on the table.
He’d never been squeamish; even as a rookie cop the post-mortem room had held no fears, but since the shooting that had changed. He couldn’t help but picture his own body lying cold and still on the slab. He shuddered.
Tariq Ahmed was Asian and slight in build. He had a full head of greying black hair and the only obvious wounds were those to his back and right eye.
“It’s as I said, Tom. He was stabbed in the back. Interesting angle though — I’ll have to open him up to clarify but I’d say whoever did this was shorter than our victim. Calladine watched the doc poke at the air in an upward movement, demonstrating what he thought the deadly stroke might have looked like.
“He isn’t particularly tall himself,” Calladine noted. “So what are you saying?”
“Don’t rule anyone out, that’s all. This is a crime that could have been committed by either a man or a woman. With the element of surprise, no great strength would be needed.”
“Or a youngster?”
At that the doc pulled a face. “Grim idea that one — but yes, I suppose so.”
“Any signs of a struggle, Doc?”
“There are no abrasions or defensive wounds on his hands or arms. No knocks to the head or face, other than the one where he banged his head as he fell.” He examined the body. “It looks like it was pretty clean to me. One stab to the back and it was all over.”
“So he didn’t see it coming. He was taken by surprise, and our killer chose the right area to aim for. Would that require any special knowledge, familiarity with anatomy for example?”
“Possibly. This is a cool customer and no mistake. But it could equally just have been a lucky blow.”
“Lucky! God help the poor bloke on a bad day.”
“Back for good, Tom? Recovered? Finally over what happened?”
“Yep, I rather think I am,” he admitted with a smile. “I’ve had enough of sitting about feeling sorry for myself. Ruth tells me things are bad at the nick so they need me.” He grinned.
“She’s struggling with Long and his sidekick. Their methods are . . . shall we just say, an acquired taste.”
“God knows what the powers that be were thinking putting Brad Long in charge,” Calladine snorted. “Want their bloody heads looking at.”
“Jones was a mess, and you weren’t available, Tom,” Hoyle reminded him.
“Wouldn’t have wanted the job anyway. I’m getting to the point where I want to take on less, not more.”
Hoyle gave him a doubtful look. Calladine sighed. He’d never explained the reasons why he’d not made DCI, and the Doc had never pried.
“You do know who this is, don’t you, Tom?” He changed the subject.
“Some doctor from City Hospital.”
“Not just some doctor — he’s a consultant oncologist and one of the best in the north of England. This guy will be greatly missed by the profession as well as family and friends.”
“Would he have enemies — within his field, I mean?”
“I wouldn’t have thought so. He was very well thought of.”
“Well, someone bore him a grudge, that’s for sure.”
“I’ll do all the usual tests, confirm exactly how he died, and get back to you. I should have the full report some time tomorrow.”
* * *
“Guv! You’re back,” Imogen Goode exclaimed as Calladine walked into the main office, surprising them all. The blonde DC got up from her desk and, abandoning all protocol, threw her arms around him and kissed him on the cheek. “Sorry! I don’t mean to be overfamiliar or anything.” Her cheeks were pink with embarrassment. “But we haven’t half missed you. I shouldn’t have done that, should I?” Her cheeks flushed an even brighter shade of red.
Calladine chuckled and gently removed her arm from his shoulder. “Okay, Imogen, I get it and it’s fine. No fuss — but a cuppa wouldn’t go amiss.”
“I’ll get you one, sir, good and strong just as you like it.”
He looked around the office — Joyce, the team�
�s admin assistant caught his eye and nodded. “You look a lot better,” she told him. “A lot better than you did in hospital when we visited.”
“The rest has done me good.”
He watched as she grabbed a pile of papers from her desk and made for the door — she was blushing slightly too. What was it with the women in this room? It was rumoured, mostly by Ruth, that Joyce carried something of a torch for him. Hopefully that uncomfortable bit of tittle-tattle would come to nothing. He’d no idea what he’d do if she suddenly found the courage to ask him out for a drink or something.
Imogen, Joyce, Rocco and Ruth — the same team with as yet no additions, so they’d still be stretched. He’d speak to Long — not that he expected an acting DCI to have much influence.
Ruth had made a start with the incident board. A photo of Tariq Ahmed and a tarot card — not the one from the scene; that was with Julian Batho. She had bought a pack on her way back to the station.
“There’s a shop just off Leesdon High Street that sells them. In fact it sells all sorts of weird stuff: crystals, cards, incense and the like. I’m nipping back later for a chat. It’s possible that our murderer bought the cards there.”
“They’re available online too don’t forget — all different designs and quite cheap,” Imogen piped up as she returned with Calladine’s tea.
Julian will tell us if it’s new or old. It was difficult to make that out with all the blood on it,” Ruth told them. “But if it was new, then it’s worth a shot.”
“Imogen, have you got anywhere with the staff at the city hospital?”
“Doctor Ahmed’s secretary was not available when I rang and the medical team he worked with were in various clinics. So no, I didn’t get anywhere.”
“We should get down there. We need to speak to Doctor Ahmed’s colleagues quickly,” Calladine told Ruth as he sipped his tea.
“Hadn’t you better check in with Long first?” she suggested with a smirk. “He’s got Thorpe on the job don’t forget.”
She had a point. So where was Thorpe? Where had he got to with the case? Calladine left the main office and walked down the corridor to what was now DCI Long’s office. The door was open and he could see DS Thorpe lolling in a chair with his feet up.
Bayliss & Calladine Box Set Page 37