by L M Krier
Jim leapt back in horror, suddenly nimble on his feet. ‘I can’t do that.’
‘Of course you can! You want it to be right, don’t you? Look, put one arm round his waist, like that, and hold his other hand here, close to your chest. That’s perfect. Just keep your hand off my husband’s bum.’
‘Trev, behave,’ Ted warned him, seeing Jim’s horrified look. ‘Come on, Jim. I’m no more comfortable than you are, but just think how thrilled Bella’s going to be.’
‘If you ever breathe one word of this outside this room, Ted, you will find your career making a rapid U-turn. I can guarantee that. Right, let’s bloody get on with it, then.’
Chapter Twelve
It was late on Friday evening before Ted got a text from Maurice. A photo of him beaming happily, a sleeping baby cradled in the crook of each arm. A brief message: ‘Owain and Killian arrived safely. Mother and babies well.’
Jim had gone home long since. Ted and Trev were relaxing on the sofa, surrounded by sleepy cats. They were, as ever, watching a film chosen by Trev. He’d picked Scent of a Woman, clearly inspired by his dancing earlier, and had already rewound and replayed the tango scene three times.
He paused the film while Ted looked at the text then held the screen up so Trev could see it too.
‘Oh my days, that is so cute! Just look at those little faces. Are you sure we shouldn’t adopt a baby, Ted?’
Ted was worried for a moment, never sure whether his partner was joking or not.
‘Completely sure, yes. With my hours? Is that what you really want, though?’
Trev had taken the phone from him and was looking at the happy scene, smiling.
‘You know how fickle I am. Right now, yes, I’d love to have a little munchkin like this. As soon as it started screaming and waking me up at night, the novelty would wear right off.’
Ted seriously doubted whether anything would wake Trev once he was asleep. He’d never yet discovered anything that did.
‘We should have a drink to wet the babies’ heads. I’ve still got some wine. Do you want me to make you a Gunner? Something to do, to stop me feeling broody and wanting another kitten, at least, to satisfy the latent parent in me.’
‘It’s fine, I’ll do it. You enjoy the film.’
Ted got up and headed towards the kitchen. His mobile rang. The ACC calling him. It must be something important for him to be phoning so late in the evening.
‘Russell Evans, Ted. Sorry to call at this hour but I thought I should put you in the picture. You’re at home now, I take it?’
‘I am, sir.’ Ted went into the kitchen and closed the door behind him, so he wouldn’t spoil Trev’s film-watching while he talked shop.
‘Well, so am I and long since changed out of uniform so for god’s sake stop calling me sir, you bloody dinosaur.’
Ted laughed. He couldn’t rationalise, even to himself, why he stuck to the formalities. But he did, unless under orders not to.
‘Right, you’re not going to like this. Not at all. But the Chief has signed off on it, so it’s a done deal and there’s no going back on it.
‘The Press Office had a call from that funny mousy little reporter from your local rag. Instead of wanting to do the whole “drunken cops on rampage on the Costas” stuff like that cretin in Gib, she wants to do the “local police hero spots Britain’s most wanted whilst enjoying three days well-earned leave with his partner after a difficult case”. And, yes, I know, that’s stretching the truth a bit but don’t they say never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
‘Amazingly, her news editor has backed her and it’s going to be for the local weekly and the parent evening paper. Plus the website, of course. On Monday. Hence me calling so late, to give you advance warning.
‘I think the lass has a bit of a crush on you, secretly. Anyway, it’s a godsend, from a PR point of view. So the Chief and I worked with the Press Office to put together a piece they’re going with. The Chief’s going to chuck in a commendation for you. Above and beyond the call of duty and all that malarkey. But that’s just on paper. No need for a presentation because I know you’d fight that. We’ve given them the photo from your bravery award. Don’t worry, not the one with your Trevor in, as I know that caused problems once before. Just a shot with you and the Chief and your prize.’
Ted started to speak, to protest, but the ACC cut him short. ‘I told you, Ted, it’s a done deal. If you don’t like it, talk to your Federation Rep and arrange a meeting. But don’t forget, you’re on thin ice for having let your Trevor go with you on that raid. And yes, I know you said he stayed in the car the whole time, but still. So this is the best and the neatest solution all round.
‘Like it or not, Ted, you’re the GMP’s new poster boy. Until someone else comes along to steal the limelight. So it’s a case of sucking it up and saying nothing. Yes?’
There was nothing Ted could do to stop it from happening, if that was what had been decided at high level. And he knew it. It didn’t mean he had to like it.
‘Yes, boss.’
It didn’t happen often, but right now he felt like something considerably stronger than ginger beer or green tea. But he hadn’t touched a drop since his dad had died and he wasn’t going to weaken now. He hated publicity, but he was clearly going to have to grin and bear it this time. Especially if it made the critical stuff go away. He wasn’t bothered for himself. But he didn’t like to give the press any more excuses to start bashing the police. Especially not when it spread to Josie Balewa.
‘Trouble at t’mill?’ Trev asked him, when Ted went back into the living room with his freshly-made Gunner.
‘Not really,’ Ted told him as he sat back down. ‘Just the ACC letting me know the local press are running a piece on me on Monday, about the Spanish case.’
‘More crap about me dancing with Josie? I’m really sorry, Ted. I shouldn’t have turned up like that without asking you. I’ve caused you a lot of grief and I know you hate all this public attention.’
‘I’m fine. Don’t fuss. And this one’s actually going to be a positive piece. A real PR job, about a local copper finding a most wanted criminal. The Chief’s even sticking a commendation on my sheet to add weight to it.’
Trev turned to put his arms round him, smiling, pulling him closer in a hug so Ted almost spilled his drink.
‘Ted, you are funny. You’re the only person I know who pulls a face as long as a wet weekend when they get a big tick from their boss.’
‘Now then, young ladies and gentlemen, I have a double treat in store for you on this wet and miserable Monday morning,’ Professor Bizzie Nelson began, addressing the eager young faces sitting in the viewing gallery.
Ted was impressed, as ever, at the way she was with the students. She’d been right about them being punctual, for a start. He didn’t recognise any of them from his previous visit when students had been present, and he was usually good at face recognition. They must be the latest intake. They all looked as keen and rapt as the previous lot had done. And they clearly already knew, and obeyed, her rules on punctuality.
Ted and Jo had decided between them not to let Amelie attend the PM. She was seconded to them to help with routine work. They both felt that, as stretched as they were with two cases running simultaneously, any training she needed should be on someone else’s time and budget.
‘Firstly, let me introduce you to Detective Chief Inspector Darling, from the local police. And secondly, as you all know, today I am going to attempt to do the impossible for him. With just this incomplete collection of body parts,’ she gestured to the metal table she was standing next to, ‘I am going to endeavour to tell him how this unfortunate person met their end.
‘My usual rules apply. If you must puke at the sight, have the good grace to remove yourself first, or to clean up after yourself if you can’t manage that. And if you behave sufficiently well and come up with some intelligent enough questions and answers, once I’ve finished you’ll be allowed
to come down here for a closer look.’
She moved to stand at the far side of the table so she was facing the students, with the remains on the table in front of her. That way they could see most of what she was doing at all times.
‘Now, I think the Chief Inspector possibly thinks forensic pathologists have psychic powers. He has high expectations of what I can do for him. Perhaps he believes in magic and Father Christmas, too. But I am, as ever, going to do my very best, with what we have here.
‘You’ve all studied anatomy by now so you will have observed that certain crucial parts – vital for arriving at an accurate cause of death – are missing. I’d like you all to think carefully and suggest which part would have been most useful in establishing cause of death. And here’s a clue for the gentlemen amongst you. Yes, I know that’s missing and no, I’m already fairly certain that its removal, although undoubtedly excruciatingly painful if it was done pre-mortem, was not the primary cause of death in this case.’
She exchanged a wicked grin with Ted. He already knew her sense of humour was near the knuckle. It was probably one of the reasons the students appeared to adore her so much.
An earnest-looking young man pressed the intercom first and suggested, ‘The head, Professor? The brain would be able to tell you a lot. If it showed signs of being hypoxic, for example.’
One of the female students took over. ‘The heart, also. That might give some indication as to what caused it to fail.’
‘You are both correct, of course. Although a little gender stereotypical. A woman favours the heart, a man the head. Having been told he cannot choose that other part. So now I shall do whatever is within my modest skill set, working with what little I have to go on, to send the Chief Inspector on his way with as much as I can tell him for certain. Unusually, I might even provide him with a few theories based on what some might call hunches, but I would prefer to call years of experience poking around in dead bodies.’
‘Jo, I just need to check something online before we catch up. I’ll be right with you.’
Unusually for Ted, he hurried straight for his office rather than stopping to give Jo the results, such as they were, from the morning’s PM. He was in a hurry to see what was on the local news website about him. Forewarned was always forearmed, as far as Ted was concerned.
With something of a sense of dread, he found the home page for the local newspaper and entered his own name in the search box. He was soon looking at a photograph of himself receiving his bravery award from the Chief Constable for an earlier case, when he had successfully tackled a man with a knife who had been holding a young girl hostage. Ted had to concede that Trev had a valid point. He didn’t look thrilled to be getting it. He hadn’t wanted to accept. Didn’t enjoy the fuss and the limelight when he felt he was just doing the job he was paid to do. But he’d been backed into a corner that time, just as he was now.
The article could have been worse. He wasn’t comfortable with the publicity, but hopefully it might put an end to any more.
He went out of his office in search of Jo.
‘Sorry, Jo. And before I forget, I’ve got Josie Balewa and Jock Reid coming down tomorrow for a debrief after the Spanish case. Their part in it is wrapped up and we want a catch-up.
‘Right, just briefly, in summary. Professor Nelson was at pains to point out that it’s almost impossible to give an accurate cause of death with what little she has to go on. So, with many caveats, based on what evidence she could find, she thinks the victim might have been suffocated. Shortly after having his fingers lopped off but, thankfully, before having his genitals removed with the same tree cutters. She’s based her conclusions on findings to do with what amount of blood was found in various remaining vessels, and what the oxygen saturation was in that blood.’
‘So there’s definitely a torture element involved in it all? If it was just about concealing the identity, it would have been enough to remove the fingers after death, surely? And conceal the head somewhere. Is there still no word on the DNA results from Byrne’s possessions? And what about from the cigarette butt from the arson site?’
‘Nothing that I’ve seen yet. It’s not been a week for Byrne’s things, with an intervening weekend, so I think we’d be lucky to get them so soon. I’ll chase up the results from the cigarette, though. We should have had that report by now.
‘What’s happening about an inventory of the rest of his possessions, now we’ve extracted what we need for DNA?’
‘Kev’s put two of his officers onto going through everything and itemising it. I doubt Virgil will have missed anything significant, but it doesn’t hurt to have belt and braces, just in case.’
‘And no more body parts or fires while I’ve been with the Professor?’
‘That’s not like you, Ted. Tempting fate like that. If this was a corny TV cop show, it would be “cue fire sirens” as soon as you said that. But, no, nothing new on either case so far. Let’s see what the day brings up, if anything.’
‘You’d be surprised how many clubs there are dotted about Stockport,’ Martha commented as the team got together at the end of the day. ‘More than I imagined. And it doesn’t help that on the night of the fire one of the pubs nearby was having a karaoke evening, with singers dressing up to perform.’
‘Do people still do those?’ Jezza asked in surprise. ‘I thought it was a bit passé now.’
‘Apparently so, and one pub finds it so popular they sometimes do a mid-week slot as well as a Saturday night one. Anyway, when I went in to ask if they’d had a tall man coming in with something like a hold-all, I got asked if I meant Elvis or Shakin’ Stevens. And it didn’t help that they had a drag queen on as well that night. One who looks quite tall and wears big frocks so always comes with a large bag.’
‘As if things aren’t strange enough with some bizarre torture and murder on our hands, we now have the possibility of a pyromaniac drag queen?’ Jezza asked in disbelief.
‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,’ Ted cautioned. ‘But we do seem to have a torture element to the death of our victim. The Professor confirmed the fingers were removed while the person was still alive but not the genitalia. She also favours asphyxiation as the likely cause of death, although she remains guarded on that with so little to go on.
‘Anything else from anyone?’
‘Me and Amelie are still looking into Mr Byrne’s background,’ Eric Morgan put in. He’d clearly stopped teasing her now and they seemed to have reached a working understanding, at least. ‘We’ve been to his old schools. No one left there who remembers him personally but they gave us the name of his old form teacher and we went and had a chat with him. Pretty much confirms what we already know. A bit wild when he was younger but definitely a reformed character after the firework incident. And we still haven’t found out who the little girl is, but we’ll keep at it until we do.’
The prisoner was absorbed in the local evening newspaper when the door to his cell opened.
‘On your feet, Warren. Your Listener services are required.’
It wasn’t until they were walking along the corridor, out of earshot of anyone else, that the prison officer told him, ‘Young Barrow again. In a bit of a state. You seemed to have a good effect on him last time, so we thought we’d get you rather than whoever was on the rota.’
He unlocked the cell in which Joey Barrow was being held, ordered the second prisoner inside to vacate it and allowed Warren to go in. The other inmate would be moved to Warren’s cell while he was in there undertaking his duties as a Listener.
Joey was sitting on his bed. Head down, clearly upset, sniffing noisily. He had a gauze bandage round one wrist.
‘I can’t hack it in 'ere, Mr Warren,’ he said miserably. ‘I can’t, swear to god. There’s blokes trying to get me to do stuff and I’m not into nuffing like that. I’m scared shitless. There’s only you and Farver Archer I can talk to.’
‘What happened to your wrist, Joey? Did you hurt yourself?’
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The young man nodded, his voice wretched. ‘I fought if I could get myself taken to hospital or somefing it might be better. Farver Archer came to talk to me, but then they put me back in here and I got scared again.’
‘And was Father Archer able to comfort you, Joey? Did he perhaps put a comforting hand on you?’
Joey looked up, puzzled. His face was streaked with tears and snot. Warren took a tissue from his pocket and handed it to him.
‘Well, he give me like a pat. When we were talking. He’s kind.’
‘Where did he touch you, Joey?’
Barrow put a hand on his own thigh. Made a clumsy patting gesture.
‘Because you know that if anything like that happens and if ever it makes you uncomfortable, you can always tell me about it. It’s part of my role as a Listener. It will go no further. Unless any time you want me to help you to talk about it to someone else. Someone in authority. In case ever those little gestures of comfort started to trouble you in some way.’
Chapter Thirteen
‘Nice piece about you, boss. And another commendation. You kept that quiet,’ Jezza said at the start of morning briefing. ‘We should take you out for a drink to celebrate. We could probably afford a Gunner between us, if we have a whip-round.’
Ted should have known he wouldn’t be able to keep it quiet. It was on the force’s own website now, as Trev had told him, clearly proud of his partner.
‘It was just a PR exercise. And not of my choosing. Nothing to celebrate at all. Once we get a result on either or preferably both of our current cases, then we can raise a glass and I’ll happily take a Gunner with you all. Anyway, we have Maurice’s new twins to toast first, and that’s far more important.’