The George Elms Trilogy Box Set

by Charlie Gallagher

  ‘I know, it’s gone crazy all of a sudden. I checked on my phone earlier, it’s not even a full moon.’ George smiled broadly.

  ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘That’s where we are these days, isn’t it? We want to know if the moon is out so we consult our smart phones!’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘I do. Paul Bearn you know and love, of course.’

  Paul walked round to join them. Allesandra pecked him on the cheek. Her eyes fell to his left arm, it was tied off in a sling. The nerves had long since shrivelled and died in it and he no longer had any movement in it at all.

  ‘Hey, Ali.’

  ‘How come he gets a peck on the cheek?’ George complained.

  ‘Because he’s special.’

  ‘I see. What do we have here, then?’

  ‘We have a murder, George. I don’t think we can be any more certain about that. Single gunshot wound to the abdomen. Looks close range but far enough away not to be self-inflicted. ‘Ian Banks is the patrol sergeant here at the moment. They’ve actually done a reasonable job without you detectives pointing and shouting. He’s assigned the front here as the common approach path. Seems a van of some sort has driven to the rear of the house in the early hours of the morning. We’ve got tracks I can recover at the back. There’s another drive that leads to another gate back out onto a side road. It’s normally padlocked but it’s been snipped. The lock was tossed but I’ve recovered that already. I’ve only just moved inside. The husband is back in there. I managed to get him out to a neighbour’s overnight, but he won’t leave the house for long. He’s staying out of the main rooms at least, but he won’t leave the house. Not until his wife does. She’s still in situ.’

  ‘Sounds grim. How’s he doing?’

  ‘Not good — as you can imagine.’

  ‘What are your first thoughts around him?’

  ‘You mean, did he shoot his wife in the belly with his shotgun? That’s a brave call, George. Luckily it isn’t mine.’

  ‘He might have done then?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Not for a minute. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone more devastated. It didn’t stop me seizing his clothes and swabbing him for gunshot residue. Be gentle with him.’

  ‘So you stripped him and swabbed him, and now you’re telling me to be gentle with him?’

  ‘Yes. The difference being that I have a way with people. I don’t just look at them and they think I’m accusing them of something. We actually talked a little. He wasn’t massively engaging, but he told me enough for me to know that I was wasting my time.’

  ‘Wasting your time how?’

  ‘He will be covered in residue. He was firing his guns just a few hours before. He’s fairly regular with them, even at his age. I think he does it for a bit of sport now. Whatever the reason, evidentially any residue found on him will be easily explained.’

  ‘That already gets me suspicious.’

  ‘Because you’re a police officer. You people see the guilt and then work backwards. Like I said, be gentle with him, he’s had quite a time.’

  ‘That I cannot argue with. Is there somewhere we can speak to him where we don’t have to suit up? It’s not ideal trying to build up a rapport when the subject gets the impression he’s ET.’

  ‘You want to speak to him first or do you want to see the scene?’

  ‘I’ll talk to him first. The scene isn’t going anywhere.’

  ‘Okay. Well, yeah, there is then. They have a living room at the front here. The door was shut throughout with no suggestion anyone’s entered there. I’ve processed it already. It’s where he’s sat. If you go through the living room and turn hard right you’ll see him in there with Sergeant Banks.’

  ‘Perfect, thanks.’

  ‘And don’t go in any other rooms. Not any!’

  ‘Yes, ma’am!’

  George recognised the sergeant who stepped towards him as he entered the living room. He was a big man, tall and imposing, even more so in his size twelve boots, body armour and vest with his cuffs and spray attached. The radio lit up suddenly on his chest then faded back to black. George didn’t know him well; he had seen him at a few incidents before, maybe. Certainly he had seen him around the police station.

  ‘Sergeant Banks.’ George extended his hand. The sergeant took it up but not with any vigour.

  ‘Sir,’ he said. Even in a whisper George could sense the acid in his tone. George was maybe a little sensitive to it now. He knew his past meant that he wouldn’t always be a popular figure with some colleagues. He had become more in tune with it since his promotion. He still didn’t really give a shit.

  ‘How is he?’ George nodded towards the elderly man sat on a large sofa. He was leaning forward, looking down at the floor, his elbows resting on top of his thighs, hugging himself almost, like it might be providing a crumb of comfort. He had to be the husband.

  ‘You can see for yourself. The poor fella’s had a rough time. We all have actually — sir. We were night turn. Due off three hours ago. Any chance you can stand me and my people down? Early turn have the scene. It’s just us left in here. They are sending someone over to sit with him, but really we should only be waiting for Major Crime to arrive.’

  ‘Yeah, of course. There’s no need for you to stick around. We’ll be here a while I reckon anyway.’

  ‘Thanks. Early turn have the scene log. CSI are happy for you to stay in here but I don’t think anywhere else is open yet.’

  ‘No, we spoke to CSI on the way in. I understand the common approach path has been set as the front, right?’

  ‘Yeah. One of my lads took an initial account, we were asked to because it was taking too long for detectives to get up here. It’s been hard. Stanley there isn’t really talking too much. He’s not being obstructive — I just don’t think he can speak at the moment. I’ve never seen anyone so bad. But all the action was at the back of the house. Mrs Wingmore is still lying in the rear porch.’

  ‘Rear porch?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s like a boot room, I suppose. It leads into the kitchen. I think they use it as the main door.’

  ‘Okay. We’ll need a copy of your pocket books before you go off-duty. Can you throw them at someone in the office in Major Crime? Then get yourself off to sleep, yeah?’

  ‘Will do.’ The sergeant nodded at his two colleagues, they moved silently out of the room.

  ‘Paul, can you get on the phone, make sure we’ve got a FLO assigned for this. They need to be here sooner rather than later.’

  ‘Will do, boss.’ Paul Bearn turned away, already clutching for his phone. A FLO, or Force Liaison Officer, was someone assigned to work with most victims of major incidents, and always where murder was suspected. They were sold as support for the victims of crime — or their surviving relatives at least. They did fulfil this function, but really they were a key part of gathering intelligence around the family when trying to identify suspects. They could still be with family members after some time had passed and when guards might have dropped.

  George approached Stanley Wingmore. He hadn’t moved — not even turned his head to see who the new people were in his front room. George thought maybe it didn’t matter to him now. Nobody here was going to be able to change what had happened. There was a sofa directly opposite him.

  ‘Mr Wingmore, I’m Detective Inspector George Elms. Do you mind if I sit for a moment, sir?’

  The man raised watery eyes. George guessed that he was in his seventies. He looked in good shape, not an ounce of fat on him — that was certain. Maybe a little too thin. He wore a green suit with sewn patches on the arms, a chequered shirt underneath with a thick tie pulled tight against his scrawny neck. George had seen on the call log that CSI had already seized his clothing from him, a set of blue and white pyjamas. They had been described as stained red. Despite everything that had gone on, the man had still made the effort of changing into a day suit. He looked every bit the gentrified farmer that his sur
roundings suggested.

  ‘Please, Inspector.’ He gestured with a wrinkled hand. George took the invitation, but perched on the edge.

  ‘Call me George. There’s nothing formal about today, Mr Wingmore. And I have come to really hate the sir thing.’

  ‘Stan.’

  George smiled warmly. ‘Stan. Thanks. I know you probably don’t want to be talking to the likes of me, Stan. I know I wouldn’t. But I need to talk to you about what happened here in the early hours of Sunday morning. About all of this. I’m so sorry you got caught up in it. I’m so sorry for what’s happened. I’ve been a cop a long time and every time something like this happens I know deep down that we’ve failed. I’m sorry we couldn’t have been here.’

  ‘There was nothing you could have done. Nothing I could have done either. I’m too old and too feeble to even protect my own wife. Have you any idea how that feels? They laughed at me, George. That’s evil. How could they do this . . .?’ He petered out, his voice quieter, but there was no sign it was breaking. George had seen it before — his expression, his demeanour, his body language. He was empty, devoid of any emotion. A combination of shock, denial and not being able to even contemplate what had happened. This was all going to get a lot worse before it got any better.

  ‘Old and feeble, young and athletic, ain’t neither of them that’s bulletproof, Stan. Don’t you start beating yourself up now. You’ve had a bad enough time.’

  ‘It would have been different when I was younger. You have to trust me on that.’

  George smiled again. ‘Quite the formidable one, I bet.’

  ‘A farmer. Man and boy. I used to be able to look after myself. And my family.’

  ‘Stan, I want to find the bastards that did this and now I need your help and all of that fighting spirit you’ve got. I know you’ve spoken to my uniform colleagues already, but I want to go through it again with you, because I’m the one who’s going to find them. I’ll ask you for every detail, Stan. It won’t be easy, but I know you’re strong enough. Does that sound like something you can do?’

  Stan had been back peering at the floor. He lifted his head again and looked right at George but it was like he was looking into him. ‘Nothing matters anymore, Inspector, none of this. What is there left for me to talk about?’

  ‘The men that did this . . . let’s make them our focus, you and me. There’s nothing else worth talking about Stan, not right now. But those men, they’re out there somewhere and between us we can find them and we can lose them their freedom.’

  George heard movement behind him. He had been leaning in, the intensity between him and Stan bringing them closer. The noise broke it like a spell. George turned to where Paul Bearn was standing at the door.

  ‘You okay, Paul?’

  ‘Yeah. I need a word is all. Nothing urgent.’

  George looked back toward Stan. His head had sagged again. George reached out and took hold of his hand. Stan reacted to the touch.

  ‘Stan, I’m gonna pop out to my car and get something to write on, okay? I want to take that detail from you. It gives me a place to start at least. I want you to know, Stan, I’m a fucking good detective.’ George jerked a thumb at Paul. ‘Me and him . . . we’re good at what we do. And what we are doing from this moment until it is done is finding the bastards that came to your home in the early hours of the morning. We need your help, Stan, okay? You up for that?’

  Stan nodded. His jaw creased, just for an instant, but he held his head up this time. George stood and let go of the old man, about to move away. But he stopped as Stan started talking.

  ‘You see that.’ Stan gestured towards the fireplace. It was huge, the entire bottom half of one wall cut out. A double-doored, cast iron wood burner stood in its centre. The top of the brickwork ran with a knotted beam of beautiful oak that had bronzed horseshoes dotted along its length. It was in keeping with the room as a whole. Above it, the white ceiling ran with dark wood beams. George’s eye fell on a picture rail hung with memories — all of them smiling. To George, the house smacked of a family home that had been built around its occupants, and had grown as they had. Now it was just the pictures that were left. And Stan.

  ‘It’s beautiful, Stan. You don’t see fireplaces like that anymore, most new-builds these days don’t even have—’

  ‘Not the fireplace, the floor. The mark.’

  George looked down at the floor. The fireplace had a brick hearth that finished against a wooden floor. They looked to George like original floorboards, polished and worn by centuries of use. ‘What mark, Stan?’

  ‘In front of the fire. Me and Janice. We met at a barn dance, George. Back then, it really was a dance in a barn. Her dad’s barn. The one right outside our back door. We didn’t really have the opportunities to go out on the town that young people have now. That was how you met the women when you were a farmhand. I danced with Janice that night. It was the first thing we did. She could see I was shy, I was sitting on a hay bale with my brother and I was watching her but I couldn’t move towards her. I just couldn’t think of anything to say. And you know, it was like my legs wouldn’t work. She was so beautiful, everything about her. Then she walked over to me and she took my hand and we walked out into the middle of the barn and we just started dancing. We didn’t speak, not for a minute or more. And do you know what I realised, George, in that first minute before we had spoken to each other?’

  ‘What’s that, Stan?’

  ‘I realised that this was the woman that I was going to be dancing with for the rest of my life. And suddenly I didn’t feel shy at all, suddenly I felt like I was dancing with my oldest friend. And of course I was.’

  George beamed. ‘I love that story, Stan. Beautiful.’

  ‘Janice thought it was too. And we kept it up. We’ve been married sixty-two years, George. Not a cross word. And every Sunday evening, no matter what, we would come in here and we would dance in front of that fire. Those marks on the floor are where we’ve damned near worn the boards through. I used to rush the Sunday jobs to get back. Janice talked about fixing it once. I couldn’t think of anything worse. Sixty-two years, Inspector. Now those marks are all I have left.’

  George looked closer. He knew what he was looking for now. The marks were clear — tiny scuff marks, but it was more than that, the boards were worn down, there was an almost circular dip in the floor, the wood slightly lighter. ‘I can see it. I can see exactly where it is!’

  Stan was looking over at it too. His head dropped again. ‘Sixty-two years married. She was everything, George. What do I do now? What do I do now?’

  George exhaled in a loud sigh. ‘What can I say to that, Stan? Me and Paul here . . . we can’t possibly understand what you are going through. We can’t know how you’re feeling. All I want to do, Stan, is to appeal to that angry, stubborn, tough old bastard that lives inside of you. I want that man to shake this all off for just an hour or so and to tell me exactly what happened. And I want to see you angry when you do it and sad by the end. I just want to know that you are still feeling something, Stan, because right now I’ve never seen a man more empty. Life will go on, you know — even after what’s happened. I know you can’t see that right now and I don’t know how long it takes to get there, but life goes on. The little bit I do know about you mentions that you have children, right? Have you called them?’

  ‘One daughter. Just one. My Louise. I haven’t even thought about what I might say. She lives in Europe. She has her own life now, George.’

  ‘We can help. Let me take the strain with that a bit. I’ll take some details from you in a minute and, with your permission, I can make those calls. Or I can get someone round to speak to her in person — whatever you think is best.’

  ‘I don’t know. I just don’t know.’

  ‘Okay, Stan. We’ve made a start though. There are things that need to be done and we’ll take you through them. We’ll get your girl here and we’ll start to piece together what we can. What you’re feeling ri
ght now, it is going to get better. I know it’s easy for me to say that, but trust me. And helping us . . . that’s a big part of how it gets better. Do you think you can summon that tough old bastard for me? I just need him for an hour.’

  Stan might have smiled. It was weak and his eyes lit for just a second. ‘Yeah, I know he’s in there somewhere.’

  ‘You can’t keep that man down, Stan. Let me go and get my paperwork, okay?’

  George left the room; Paul had pushed out ahead of him. They stepped down onto the gravel drive. Allesandra was leaning into the side door of her van and back in full forensic garb. She pulled her mask away to speak to them.

  ‘How’s it going? With Mr Wingmore, I mean?’

  ‘Okay. As well as can be expected at least. The poor fella’s a bit of a shell in there. It’s going to take a bit of time to build him back up before we can even start to find out what went on.’

  ‘I spoke briefly with the uniform skipper,’ Ali said. ‘They have really scant details. He said that three blokes turned up in a van and demanded money. Stan in there tells them he doesn’t have any. They get a bit more insistent and he loses his temper, gets his gun out of his cabinet and they get it off him. The rest is laid out for us in the kitchen.’

  ‘Horrible, isn’t it? I’m conscious I’ve left him in there on his own, Ali. I’m only getting some paperwork and then I’ll be back in to make sure he doesn’t move around the house.’

  Ali smiled. ‘You’re alright. I’ll keep my eye on him. I had a chat with him earlier. I reckon the last place in the world he wants to be right now is in that kitchen.’ She pulled her mask back over her face. ‘It’s not high on my list either to be honest!’ She stepped back towards the house.

  ‘Paul, where are we with the FLO?’ George asked.

  ‘A couple of minutes and I’ll have a name for certain. I’ve been waiting for the coordinator to call me back. It looks like Tim Betts is next in line. They’re just checking he’s able.’