by Giles Ekins
The next to speak was Brian Endcliffe, he was 32, married with a 7-year-old daughter and 18 months old twin boys, he was 6.4’’ tall with boyish good looks marred by a broken nose from his rugby playing days. He was dressed in a white shirt and plain blue tie, blue corduroy jacket, black trousers and black shoes.
DC Brian Endcliffe, ma’am.’
‘Grace, not ma’am. Ma’am makes me sound very ancient. That applies to all of you.’
Jessica Babalola spoke next, at 5’2’’, she was a petite 25-year-old beautiful woman of Nigerian heritage with gleaming white teeth, her hair in braided corn rows and wearing a pale green blouse, tailored short black jacket, black trousers and grey trainers.
‘DC Jessica Babalola, ma’am.’
‘Grace!’
‘Yes, sorry, Grace.’
The final member of the initial investigative team was a fresh-faced young man who wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before speaking. ‘I’m Pc Daniel…Danny Moss. I’m on a 3-month detachment from uniform, ever since I joined, my aim has been to make CID and this assignment is part of that process.’
‘There’s no glamour in it, you know, son.’ Fred Burbage said disparagingly, ‘You’ve been watching too many detective shows on telly. You mark my words, son, you’ll be askin’ to get back to uniform by the end of the month.’
‘You call me son again, granddad, and I’ll put you through that window.’ Danny Moss snapped back at Fred,
‘Just saying, best you know now,’
‘Leave the lad alone, Fred,’ Terry remonstrated. ‘You were young and green behind the ears once.’
‘At least I got me boots broke in before I made CID’ Burbage continued, determined to have the last word.
‘OK, enough, thank you,’ Grace said sharply. ‘Meanwhile, as you can see, we have a major incident to deal with. This is the first briefing of the operation that central computer has designated ‘Operation Snowdrop.’ Again, for the record, I am the SIO, DS Terry Horton the Deputy SIO. This day one following the discovery of the bodies of Donald Jarrett and Janet Jarret.
We will hold a briefing every day at 8.30 am. Additional meetings will be called as necessary. Now, without wanting to teach you investigative strategies but again for the record and to go into the Policy File, I am going outline the strategy to be followed, which I’m sure you will recognise from the Murder Investigation Manual.’
Grace walked over to the third whiteboard, picked up a black Sharpie and wrote:
WHAT + WHY +WHEN + WHERE + HOW + WHO.
‘Firstly, what? What type of homicide? The manual gives us three offences classified as homicide; murder, manslaughter or infanticide. We can rule out infanticide and manslaughter seems unlikely.
Why? The motive, or motives, are what we must establish as soon as possible.
When? Yesterday and once we have the information from the post mortem, a clearer time line can be established,
Where? Apparently, the kitchen and garage at 27 Blackmires Road, Fallswood, West Garside.
How? Presumed blunt force trauma to the head and death by hanging, to be confirmed or otherwise by post mortem.
Who? The 20-million-dollar question and why we are all here.
Now, we have two bodies, Donald Jarrett,’ rather obviously pointing at his photo, ‘apparently battered to death with a hammer in his kitchen by a person or persons unknown. However, the son, David Jarrett, is pointing the finger at his mother, Janet Jarrett, who was found hanging in the garage of the house in an apparent suicide. Currently, I am not buying into this scenario.
Emma and Brian, you made preliminary enquiries yesterday, what have you got?’ Grace asked, ‘Emma?’
‘Yes, OK …Grace,’ she answered checking notes in her pocketbook, ‘According to the immediate neighbours Darrell and Susan Blakeney, the Jarrett’s were ‘a lovely couple’, good neighbours, they rarely seemed to quarrel or argue, ‘not like some round here.’ Janet teaches at Fallswood Primary School, has done for years, ever since they moved into the house maybe twenty years ago.
Donald Jarrett ran an accountancy business,’ Emma checked her notes again, ‘at 74 Denmark Street, trading as Donald J Jarrett and Partners, Accountants, Financial and Mortgage Advisors. They do the books and tax returns for local businesses as well as, as it says, act as financial advisors and mortgage facilitators.’
‘We’ll need to go to his office and look into his business dealings, to see if there could be a motive there,’ Grace said, making a note. ‘Anything else?’
‘Yes, about 5 years ago he had a heart attack and so began doing work from home, he always has done so apparently, but since the heart scare, he spent as much time working at home as in the office.’
‘OK, what else?’
‘Donald Jarrett was well thought of in the neighbourhood, in fact they both were. They were polite, friendly without being intrusive but readily willing to help anybody. The entire neighbourhood is, as might be expected, shocked and disturbed by their deaths.’
Emma checked her notes once more. ‘However, from about the middle of last week, there have been the fiercest arguments, mostly it seems, Janet screaming at Donald. According to another neighbour, Mary Edison, this stems from a séance or spiritualist meeting that the Jarrett’s attended at the Easedale Community Centre last Wednesday night. Janet Jarrett was very much into such things following the death of their daughter Julia from an overdose. About 4 or 5 months ago, somewhere in North London,’
‘And?’
‘Apparently, and this is their interpretation, not mine, that ‘from beyond the grave’, Julia accused her father, Donald Jarrett, of sexually molesting her.’
‘Right, we want full details of this, whatever, séance, if there was sexual molestation it could offer a potential motive.’
‘Ma’am’, said Jessica, restraining the urge to raise her hand. ‘I…’
‘Grace! Not Ma’am, I told you.’
‘Grace, sorry. I read something about this in the local paper, the ‘Garside Gazette’ using almost the same words, headline something like ‘Accusation from beyond the Grave.’ I didn’t read it, the Gazette always sensationalises everything, like the ‘Sun ’or ‘Daily Mail’ but I do recall the headline.’
‘Good, do you still have this newspaper?’ Grace asked.
‘No, but my Dad will still have it, he never throws a newspaper out until the night before the blue bin collection, I think he’s afraid of breaking some ludicrous council regulation.’
‘Excellent. Of you go,’
‘Grace, sorry?’
‘Haste ye yonder to your father’s house.’
‘Er…I don’t have a car.’
‘You drive? Have a licence?’
‘Yes, of course.’
Grace picked up her handbag, rooted around and then tossed her car keys to Jessica, who taken by surprise, dropped them. She picked them up and stared at them before looking beseechingly at Grace, not sure of what to do or where to go.
‘And?’, asked Grace, but not unkindly, simply frustrated that here was a piece of information she could not immediately get her hands on and letting Jessica take her precious Alfa was a lot quicker than signing out a pool car.
‘Sorry, but I don’t know what your car is.’
‘It’s an Alfa. A red Alfa Romeo Guilia Quadrifoglio. Speed all you want but don’t scratch or otherwise mark it, if you do, don’t bother coming back, just put in your transfer papers. And just in case you still don’t recognise the car, there is a handy notice in the parking space with my name on it. OK, be as quick as you can.’
Fred Burbage watched Jessica hurry out. ‘Bloody hell, boss, a Quadrifoglio, that’s a 50-grand motor,’ he said with awe, unless he won the lottery, such a car was way beyond his dreams. ‘Mind you,’ he added, ’Odds on you’ll never see it again, you know what these blackies are like, she’ll have it down the local car thieves and it’ll be in a container on its way to Belgium or wherever by tonight while she’ll claim i
t was nicked when she was parked up.’
Grace Swan exploded with fury. ‘Detective Sergeant Burbage, if I ever hear a racist remark like that ever again, I shall have you on a charge quicker than you can say darkie or blackie or whatever other vile name you care to use. Do I make myself clear?’
Burbage sat back as if slapped across the face whilst the others looked as though they could not believe what they had just heard. ‘Yes, yes, sorry, boss, I wasn’t thinking straight,’ he answered contritely.
‘Just you make sure you understand that I mean every word of it. I do not tolerate racism in any shape or form. Understood?’
‘Yes, boss, Grace, I do understand, and I apologise unreservedly. Unreservedly.’
Grace stared at him for a hard 30 seconds, reinforcing her point as Burbage looked down, shame-faced, pretending to read his notes and twiddling his pen between his fingers. With a last angry look, she turned to Brain Endcliffe.
‘OK, let’s move on, Brian what do you have?’
‘Yeah. The neighbours all say that Julia Jarrett, the dead daughter, was a sweet child until she went off the rails about 15 or 16. Rows with her parents, trouble at school, truancy, that sort of thing. A fairly clever kid apparently but then her grades just gradually turned to rat-shit.’
‘Was she known to us? Any drug offences?’ Grace asked.
‘No, she was unknown to the Drug Squad. She only got onto hard drugs after she left home, apparently after another big row with her mother or father. It’s thought she went to Leeds before drifting down to London, but nobody appears to really know what she did after leaving home.’
‘How old was she when she died.’
‘Nineteen, just nineteen.’
‘Obviously, this girl’s death seems to be the catalyst for all that follows, and we need to find out more and I’ll get on to that in a moment. What do we know about the son, David Jarrett?’
‘No one I spoke to,’ answered Emma, ‘had a good word to say about him. Unpleasant, argumentative, rude, the world owes him a living sort of attitude.’ She checked her notes again. ‘As Mr Graham Mather put it, ‘he’s a nasty little shit.’ and ‘a thoroughly unpleasant little bastard,’ according to Jim Swithin.’
‘Thank you,’ said Grace, ‘good, well done.’
She turned to Fred Burbage. who flinched at the fierceness of her glare. ‘Fred, I want you to act as receiver. Terry says you are good for it. All information to be channelled through you. I want everything to be indexed, collated, cross checked. everything. Phone calls logged and followed up, tell me what bodies you need for that and I’ll arrange it. Anything you consider of particular importance or relevance you send to me first.’
‘Yes, boss,’
Grace rolled her eyes in frustration at Burbage’s reluctance to call her by name. ‘Now, you can redeem yourself by making a good job of this. Details are everything. A case lives and dies on details. Get the details right and you make your case, poor attention to details will lose you the case. The devil is in the details. Am I clear?’
Fred thought about making a response along the lines of teaching your grandmother to suck eggs, but one look at her face and he thought better of it.
‘Yes, boss,’
‘Grace!’ she insisted.
‘Yes…Grace. I’m good to go as receiver and you’ll get a thorough job. A solid thorough professional job, my word on it. And again, apologies.’
‘I expect, demand, nothing less. The receiver is a vital component of any investigation. Emma!’
‘Grace?’
‘Emma, we need to find out everything we can about the death of the daughter, Julia Jarrett. Is it in any way connected to this investigation?’ Get onto the Met, is there any reason to suspect that her death is anything other than accidental OD? Will you handle that, please?’
‘Yes, Grace, will do, I’ll get on to that as soon as we are done here.’
‘Thank you. Brian. I want you to carry on digging into the Jarrett’s lives, Donald and Janet, David and Julia, friends, relatives, business associates. Everything. Bank statements, financial situation, did they owe money to the wrong types? Phone calls, letters, laptops, iPads, you know the drill.’ Grace looked at the to-do list she had drawn up the night before. ‘Look at all Janet’s emails, especially anything related to Julia and spiritualism. I want to know what this woman was into.
‘OK, Grace. Got that.’
‘Good. Now, I know that you all listened to the 999 call made by David Jarrett. Give me your thoughts. Did anything strike you as out of kilter or hitting the wrong notes? Any ideas, anybody, however random?’
‘Can we listen to that last bit again’, asked Fred Burbage, ‘the bit about his mother topping herself in the garage?’
Grace nodded to Terry Horton who played the recording back and forth until he found the relevant section and pressed ‘Play’. They all listened intently, ‘and my mother, she’s missing. I think she must have locked herself in the garage and hanged herself.’
‘Now why would he say that?’ Fred asked, ‘why automatically assume she’s locked herself in the garage and topped herself? She might have gone shopping. Or to a neighbour’s or joined those Hairy Christmas weirdos, there’s any number of reasons why she’s not in the house. It sounds as though he’s trying to point us in a direction that he wants us to follow.’
Terry, Emma and Jessica nod in agreement.
‘Exactly’, Grace agreed, ‘He told the response team that he thinks his mother Janet killed her husband Donald before locking herself in the garage and putting the noose about her neck.
‘He wants us to go along with a murder/suicide scenario,’ Fred said.
‘So it seems but it’s too simplistic, there is a lot more going on than is apparent on the surface.’
‘Like a swan swimming on the lake at Grafton Park, ‘Fred Burbage chortled, unable to resist the temptation, ‘calm and serene on the surface, pedalling like mad under the water!’
‘Are you always this insightful, DS Burbage?’ Grace asked, acerbically.
‘Oh no, sometimes I have no insights at all.’
‘That I can believe. However, we have a murder to investigate, with or without insights from DS Burbage. The apparent motive seems to stem from allegations exposed at the séance or whatever it was. We need to question those who attended the meeting and especially I want to need to speak to the medium, whatever he, or she, calls him-herself.’
OK, let’s get to it. Terry?’
‘Yes, Grace.’
‘My office.’
‘Yes, Grace.’ he answered, giving the others a quizzical glance.
Seventeen
‘Shut the door, take a seat.’
‘Yes, ma’am, Grace’
‘I want to talk to you. What the bloody hell is Fred Burbage all about?’ Grace asked, still angry at his racist slur, angry with DS Horton for suggesting such an obnoxious dinosaur as part of her team. ‘Is he always that way?’ she continued, ‘racist and offensive? He’ll not long be on my team if he carries on like that.’
‘Basically, Terry responded, after taking a few seconds to consider his answer, ‘he’s a year or two from retirement. He’s been in this nick and at Endeavour House since the days of the Ark. Two or is it three, or maybe even four marriages, all ending in divorce. He’s got three kids, but the ex-wives don’t let him near ‘em, because of his drinking.’
‘He sounds like a walking disaster zone to me.’
‘Yeah, I know how it seems, but there’s no harm in him, although, thinking about it, he can be a bit of a shit-stirrer at times. But, and it’s a big but, he’s old school and sometimes just says what he’s thinking, without thinking, if you know what I mean?’
‘Well he’d better start thinking. But what I need to know, is he any good at his job? You recommended him, but I’m not impressed.’ Grace said, leaning forward in her chair to study Horton as he responded. Looking to see if he was giving her honest answers. She had to be able to fully
trust her Deputy SIO and this was an acid test.
‘To be honest, Fred is not the greatest detective ever, but he’s a plodder. Punctilious to the Nth degree, thorough through and through. I know he looks like he’s been dossing on the streets, but he’ll do a good job as receiver, the indexing and collating, especially now you’ve given him a good kick up the backside.’
‘He’d better, he’s got a long way to go to get back in my good books.’
‘I’ll sit on him if necessary, but I don’t think it will be needed,’ Terry said, but he’d begun to have doubts, if Fred fucks up it’ll come back on me. ‘No.no, he’ll be fine,’ he insisted again.
‘With that recommendation, I hope so for your sake. What about the others? I haven’t had time to get to know them yet.’
‘They’re a good bunch, sound and dedicated. Emma is keen and ambitious, wears her heart on her sleeve and would do anything for anybody. She’d make a fantastic mother, except that she bats for the other side, if you get my meaning. Nobody else knows that, by the way, especially Fred, so please Grace, keep that to yourself, you can imagine what he would make of that.’
‘Of course, it’s none of my business, or anybody else’s, what Emma gets up to in her spare time or who she does it with. And?’
‘Brian Endcliffe. Brian needs direction but once you tell him what’s to be done, he does a good solid job, much like the 2nd row forward he was in his rugby playing days. Brian is a follower, not a leader and I guess he’ll remain a DC all his career.’
‘We need DC’s as well as Chief Constables, we can’t all be bosses.’
‘More so in my opinion. As for Jessica, Jessica is bright, the brightest. She’s studying for a Degree in Criminology and she’ll go far and fast. And although you might think there’s not much of her physically, she can really kick ass. She could down you and me both with one hand tied behind her back; she’s got black belts in taekwondo, judo, karate, pilates, whatever, you name it. And knitting.’