by Scott Hunter
The next bedroom was just past the main bathroom. She knocked, loudly. No response. She opened the door. The curtains were drawn and the room was in semi-darkness. She squinted, trying to discern the layout. There was an odd smell, as though some chemical had been spilled; its taint hung in the stuffy atmosphere of the room making Charlie put a hand reflexively over her mouth. She took a few steps and the shape of a bed materialised, curtained like an old four-poster. The master bedroom, Banner’s parents’ old room. The end of the bed was open, though, and she could see the shape of crumpled sheets inside.
A creeping dread filled her stomach. She didn’t want to see any more. She went to the window and pulled the curtain cord. Sunlight pooled across the floor, lighting the bed as if it had been caught in a stage spotlight. Charlie stood beside it and, heart pounding, slowly drew back the drapes.
And stepped back, hand to her mouth, bile rising in her throat.
Banner lay curled in a foetal position, his face a grotesque mask of agony. Around his neck she could see traces of the thin wire which had garrotted him, squeezed into the swollen flesh like a tramline sunk into wet tarmac. His hands were at his throat, one bloody finger caught beneath the deadly wire in a reflexive but futile attempt to stop it choking the life out of him.
Charlie backed away slowly, her eyes automatically scanning the room, shockingly aware of her own vulnerability. She made it to the door, staggered shakily along the corridor to the bathroom, shouldered the door open, doubled up over the gold-tapped sink and emptied the contents of her stomach into the enamel bowl.
She sat on the toilet and took a gulping breath. Her mobile was in her pocket. She took it out with trembling hands and dialled the station. Message delivered, she ran in a limping half-stumble back to her room, expecting to be confronted by the killer at any moment. She banged the door hard behind her and felt for the key. It wasn’t there. She heard a whimper of fear escape from her throat as she grabbed a chair and jammed it under the door handle.
She waited, shivering, on the edge of her bed until she heard the faint ululation of the sirens rising and falling, carving their way through the rush hour traffic. Only when she heard the urgent knocking on the front door and saw the flashing blue lights in the road outside was she able to kick the chair away with a sob and flee her bedroom, taking the stairs two at a time.
DC Tessa Martin placed a steaming mug of tea on the breakfast bar, just under Charlie’s nose. “Hey. Come on. Drink it. You’ll feel better.” Tessa sat on the opposite stool and rested her hand briefly on Charlie’s forearm.
“Will I?” Charlie smiled weakly. How would she ever?
“Course,” Tess grinned. “Tea solves the world’s problems, y’know. Can’t remember who said that, but there’s some truth in it.”
“Thanks, Tess.” Charlie wrapped her hands around the warm mug and tried to return the smile. The house was a turmoil of activity: SOCOs, forensics, and Moran’s old buddy, Sandy Taylor, the doctor, buzzing to and fro, in and out of the tape-encircled front drive like worker ants supporting the queen – the queen on this occasion being DCI Suzanne Wilder, a senior officer Charlie had heard of but hadn’t met. Wilder now appeared in the kitchen grim-faced, a little shaken perhaps, but with an aura of purposeful intent still very much in place. She took the stool next to Tess and accepted the DC’s offer of tea.
Wilder was an attractive woman in her late forties with a complexion indicative of her recently relinquished Australian citizenship, shoulder-length auburn hair and a no-nonsense approach some had interpreted as being a little on the matronly side; nevertheless, over the comparatively short period since her arrival in the UK she had won her colleagues’ grudging respect. Rumours abounded about her marital, and even orientational, status but as far as Charlie was concerned they were just that: rumours. In any case, Charlie’s philosophy had always been to allow fellow officers’ private lives to be just that. As far as she was concerned, what went on in Wilder’s free time was her own business.
Wilder didn’t beat around the bush. “DI Pepper,” she spoke firmly, “I know it’s early days, but I need to ask you a few questions.”
“Of course. Sure.”
“When did you last see DC Banner alive? Did you see him today?”
Charlie shook her head. “No. He didn’t turn up for his shift last night. I thought he was ill. I didn’t check to see. If only I had checked, I might–”
“Ah, ah,” Wilder shook her head. “Let’s leave the ‘if onlys’ out of this.”
Charlie bit her lip. Banner was dead. It didn’t seem possible. All those times she had quarrelled with him, all those frosty encounters. Now she could never put things right between them.
“So, when?” Wilder prompted. “Yesterday morning?”
“No. I haven’t seen him at all since I moved in.” Charlie took Wilder through the last forty-eight hours, her conversations with G and Andreas and his mention of Banner’s nightclub intentions.
“Right. So where are this G and Andreas?”
Charlie shrugged. “I have no idea. Andreas is in IT. Maybe he has an office phone number in his room. G’s a student. I guess she’s up at the Uni?”
“Ma’am?” One of the forensics, a bespectacled and rather geeky looking girl, interrupted. In her gloved hand she was holding a clear plastic bag in which was coiled what appeared to be a length of looped wire. “We found this in one of the bedrooms. Under the carpet by the window.”
“Ah. Thank you, Monica.” Wilder held the bagged item up for inspection. “Which bedroom?”
“Second along.”
Charlie froze, horrified. My room…
“Covering all eventualities, DI Pepper, it seems.” Wilder pursed her lips and raised her painstakingly sculpted eyebrows a fraction. “I’ve heard through the grapevine that you’re a thorough person. Which is why you made sure you had a spare to hand. Right?”
Chapter 15
Charlie waited restlessly under Tess’ watchful eye as the house was slowly disassembled by the forensics team. As the evening wore on she gradually began to feel more and more detached from what was happening around her. Wilder was here, there and everywhere, asking questions, jollying the team along, probably getting their backs up.
Leaving her till last…
She needed an ally and it didn’t take a lot of guesswork to predict that Wilder wouldn’t fall into that category. Moran was the man she needed right now. She could at least try to reach him. She appealed to her new DC.
“Tess, can I just make one call?”
“Under orders, I’m afraid, boss.” Tess cocked her head in a gesture of regret. “Ma’am says you’re to stay put for the moment. She’ll be with you shortly.” The DC looked sympathetic but it was too early in their relationship to be sure what she was really thinking. Keeping her nose clean and following orders, which was fair enough; Charlie couldn’t blame her for that.
A uniform was at the kitchen door. He looked at Charlie with a kind of horrified fascination before turning his attention to Tess. “DC Martin? Young lady outside. Says she lives here.”
A moment later G burst into the room. Instinctively, Charlie got to her feet.
“What’s going on? Is everything OK? They said it was a serious incident–” G’s face was white with shock.
Tess’ voice had an edge to it which G picked up on immediately. “You’d better sit down, Miss. And you too, boss. Sorry.”
G shot Charlie a bewildered look as Tess gestured to the row of mugs aligned neatly on the shelf above the drainer. “Tea?”
“All right. Thank you.”
DCI Wilder’s voice could be heard rising above the general hubbub elsewhere in the house, issuing orders and requesting updates until she eventually appeared in the hallway. Wilder paused on the threshold, her expression smug with certainty. She’d already made her mind up, that was obvious. Already Charlie felt vilified and dirty.
The DCI’s voice reached a new level of brusqueness. “DC Martin, pleas
e take the young lady into the lounge and establish her recent whereabouts.”
“Ma’am.”
G looked over her shoulder as she left the kitchen and Charlie gave her a nod of encouragement. Wearing an undisguised expression of distaste, DCI Wilder settled herself into the chair G had just vacated and steepled her hands beneath her chin. “Now then, DI Pepper. Let’s start at the beginning.”
“Ma’am, let me assure you–”
“I’m not assured about anything yet, DI Pepper. I just want to establish the facts.”
“You really think I killed Stephen Banner?”
Wilder let the question hang for a few seconds before replying. “I don’t know. Did you?”
“No I damn well didn’t. Why would I?”
“You didn’t get on. That much I do know.”
Charlie shook her head vehemently. “No, we weren’t best mates, but we’d come to an understanding.”
“Had you?” Wilder toyed with her bracelet, stroking its contours affectionately. It looked expensive and featured a plain, rectangular section embossed with an ornate letter or marking Charlie didn’t recognise. She found herself wondering if it had been a gift from an admirer, and if so what sort of person would have been attracted to this handsome, yet hard-nosed woman . Maybe she was different off duty, but looking at her again Charlie decided no, probably not. Wilder gave her bracelet a final jangle before switching focus back to Charlie. The grey-green eyes prompted.
Charlie leaned forward. “We had a chat. I told him that as long as he did his job well it didn’t matter that we didn’t see eye to eye socially.”
“You didn’t see eye to eye socially, so you moved in with him?”
“It’s not like that. I needed a place to stay. I didn’t feel safe in my old flat on my own–”
“Ah yes, the break-in.” Wilder tapped her nails on the breakfast bar.
“It wasn’t a break-in.” Charlie struggled to keep her cool. “Someone tried to kill me.”
“But he was no match for you, was he, DI Pepper? You’re quite the little fighter, I understand. Would you say you had an aggressive nature?”
“Aggressive? No. Absolutely not. What are you implying? I resent that remark.”
“Maybe you moved in here so that you had a better opportunity to fix Banner for good?”
“Ridiculous.” Charlie was fuming now. She folded her arms. “I want to talk to the DCS. I don’t have to put up with this.”
“No?” Wilder leaned forward. “You’re in a lot of trouble, missy. There’s a dead policeman upstairs. I have a plastic wallet containing a garrotte. Maybe it’ll have your prints on it, maybe not – we’ll see. In the meantime, I suggest you start talking.”
“Look, Wilder, someone’s fitted me up.” Charlie felt herself close to tears and mentally gritted her teeth. This woman would not get to her. “I don’t know why or who, but it’s obvious. Check my records. I’d never do anything like this, never. Can’t you see that? And the killer is walking further away with every passing minute. I–”
“It’s ma’am to you,” Wilder said coolly. “And nothing is obvious, as you put it, until proven. Your record cuts no ice with me, love. Understood?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Charlie felt hatred burn in her gut. She fought the impulse to lash out, run, flee the house. Instead, with a huge effort she made herself say it. “Yes, ma’am.”
There was a pregnant pause during which Charlie could hear a continuous banging and scraping from upstairs. Floorboards were coming up. Incongruously, someone began to whistle.
Wilder’s eyes gleamed. She looked almost happy. “That’s much better. Now, shall we go over everything from the start? I want detail, mind. All of it.”
DC George McConnell wasn’t thinking about work when the phone rang. He was thinking about the end of his shift and how he was going to get through the evening without a drink. The worry of his regular indulgences had begun to prey on his mind a while back. He was young, true. Well, young-ish – if late thirties counted as such. But he’d noticed a growing reliance on his daily alcohol intake which had begun to ring alarm bells in McConnell’s Celtic and very ordered mind. His mother had been an alcoholic, his father had died young for the same reason, and now, if he wasn’t careful, he might also begin to slide down the helter-skelter of no return which led to pancreatitis, liver calcification, stomach ulcers and who knew what else. McConnell actually knew very well what else because, in his usual precise way, he had researched all the signs, symptoms and likely outcomes of alcohol abuse. And having completed his investigation he had to admit that he didn’t much like what he had discovered. Trouble was, he had a reputation for being a bit of an entertainer, a ‘good laugh down the pub’. The truth of the matter was that without a few drinks inside him his natural shyness and lack of self-esteem formed a barrier so impenetrable that he was barely able to converse, far less assume the ‘life and soul’ persona anticipated by his peers.
The magic formula was two swift pints and a whisky chaser. From that point on McConnell became the true life and soul. Nothing was beyond him: jokes, impressions, anecdotes; they tumbled out at a rate of knots which always surprised newcomers and delighted the old hands. And that had been fine, for a long, long time. Until the morning he had woken up with shaking hands and an overwhelming desire for a large scotch. He hadn’t told anyone. No one seemed to notice anything amiss, so he comforted himself with the thought that he probably just had some ‘habitual’ issue with drink. It was part of the routine, part of the job. He could stop if he wanted to. No problem, right?
Wrong.
It had got steadily worse, and now he was struggling to go cold turkey. What he needed was distraction. Work, in other words; preferably lots of it. He wasn’t one for corporate misery-sharing, which ruled out the local AA meeting. No way was he going to carry that membership card. He was going to handle this one himself. He could do it; it was just a question of will power and bloody-mindedness. That and avoiding the dreaded social gatherings altogether. But that was asking a lot. He couldn’t just become a recluse. Or could he?
“George, are you going to pick up that phone or just let the poor sod at the other end hang on till Christmas?”
McConnell looked up, startled, to see DC Bola Odunsi grinning at him like a Cheshire cat from across the office. “I’ve got it, Bola, keep your brakes on, OK? Hello?” He glowered across the desk at Odunsi, who was shaking his shorn head and chuckling loudly.
As McConnell listened he forgot his colleague’s amusement and his mouth gaped. “Steve Banner? Are you sure? You’ve got to be kidding. I mean, Steve Banner?” McConnell had never warmed to Banner but he was thoroughly shocked.
“I know,” DC Martin said through the earpiece. “But there’s worse to come.”
McConnell fell silent as Tess updated him.
“Bloody hell,” McConnell said. It felt less than adequate.
“Wilder’s giving Charlie the third degree right now. She’s bringing her in. Thought I’d warn you.”
“Charlie’s no killer,” McConnell said.
“I know that. You know that. But Wilder–”
“Yeah. I’ve heard about her. Stickler.”
Tess Martin’s voice was terse. “That’s what I heard too. And now I’ve seen her in action, let me tell you ‘stickler’ doesn’t cover the half of it. George, I haven’t worked with Charlie for long, but any fool can see that she’s been stitched up.”
“Aye. I’d have to agree.”
Sensing something of interest, Odunsi had sidled over and was now perched on the edge of McConnell’s desk, trying to follow the conversation.
“But,” McConnell said to Martin, rolling his chair back as Odunsi’s invasion of his personal space gained another couple of centimetres, “it’s no secret that Steve Banner and Charlie didn’t get on.”
“That’s neither here nor there,” Tess’ voice had adopted a more covert tone. Either someone ha
d come into the room, or was earwigging what was being communicated. “Anyway, look, I have to go now. DI Pepper asked me to remind you to deliver that message to the guv.”
“Message?”
“Yes. Something about bogs?”
“Ah, right. Sure. Will do.”
“His contact number is on her desk. She wants you to tell him everything you know.”
The emphasis on the last few words needed no further explanation. Charlie needed Moran here. And fast.
Chapter 16
“Any messages, Terl?” Moran made for his usual stool, aware that he was falling into a comfortable routine. Same pub, same area of the bar, same beer. Well, why not? Surely he could salvage something from his break, even if it was only a regular pint or two?
“Nope. Nothing, I’m afraid.” Terl selected a fresh wineglass from a full tray and set about polishing it with gusto.
“Are you sure?” Odd; Charlie was usually pretty quick off the mark, even if she’d drawn a blank.
“Aye, positive.” Terl held up his latest glass for inspection. Satisfied, he bent to place it on some unseen shelf below bar level and rose stiffly to his full height with a groan. “Back’s killing me today. Getting too old for this caper. Now then.” He clapped his hands. “Usual, is it?”
“Yes, please.”
“Back to the real world soon, then?” Terl said as he pulled the pint.
“I may stay on a day or so,” Moran remarked casually. “I want to be sure the missing lady is accounted for. Or should I say ‘ladies’?”
“It’s a storm in a teacup, Brendan. Marital tiff at the Harrisons’. Visitor given the usual Matthew treatment. Nothing to worry about, if you want my opinion. Folk sort themselves out around here.” Terl gave a gruff laugh.
“Well, just to be on the safe side, you know. I’d hate to think I left someone in trouble. Or danger.”