by Candy Denman
When she finally stopped, she was aware that everyone in the incident room was watching, and listening, to the argument. Miller glared at them, and they very quickly went back to their work.
“Look, I don’t need you to tell me what I need to do or not do. And, frankly, it’s more than a little insulting,” Miller almost hissed. “I do know how to do my job, you know.”
“I’m sorry. I’m just frustrated that no one seems to be listening to me.”
“Perhaps if you spoke to them in a reasonable way, they’d be more likely to listen to you.”
He really was cross with her, she realised. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You are absolutely right. I didn’t mean to lose my temper like that.”
“That’s your problem. Running off half-cocked, interfering in things that have nothing to do with you. Like turning up at the rally on Saturday. What on earth was that all about? Didn’t you realise we would be there, in the background, collecting information on everyone there?”
“Well, yes, I suppose I did,” she said, although would she have gone herself if she really had known the police would be there? “But I wanted to find out if anyone knew anything about the sabotage to the boat.”
“What do you know about that?”
“Nothing more than what was on the news. A journalist questioned the MP, Ted Savage, about it.”
“Why did you think you might find out more at the rally?”
“Because it seemed like the sort of thing a fanatic from the FNM might do.”
There were a few moments of silence. Miller seemed to be trying to make a decision.
“I can’t think that anyone else would have any reason to damage the boat, can you?” she prodded him.
“The boat wasn’t damaged, at least we don’t think so,” he finally said. “The lab has been over it very carefully, their report specifically raised the question of sabotage and then dismissed it. The damage all seems to be from the boat being dashed against the rocks. It’s understandably hard to be sure but there are no cut marks that they can see.”
“Then where did that reporter get the story?”
“That’s exactly what we’d like to know. Unfortunately, he’s fallen back on the old chestnut of needing to protect his sources.”
Actually, Callie was all in favour of journalists being allowed to protect their sources. It was vital for whistle-blowers everywhere that they were protected but she could understand how frustrating it was for Miller in this case.
“Perhaps someone was trying to pin the blame on them?” she said finally.
Miller shrugged.
“Or it was just someone who wanted to give the reporter a story, you know, feel important for a moment.”
“That’s possible,” she agreed, and it did have the ring of truth about it. “Why don’t you make a statement to say that it’s not true.”
“What difference would it make?” he said, tiredness oozing from every pore. “People will still believe what they want to believe. Whatever the police say actually happened won’t change a thing.”
The trouble was, she knew he was right.
Chapter 11
Callie thought about what Miller had said about the person who had misinformed the reporter. He had said they might have been wanting to impress the reporter, perhaps even wanting a moment of fame. But, having given it more thought, Callie thought the timing of the leak, or fake news, was what was important. The interview had taken place just before the FNM rally and the news of the deliberate damage, wrong or not, was bound to stoke up feelings about it. Someone wanted to make the FNM seem either more villainous than they were, or more heroic, depending on your point of view. It was no wonder that the anti-racism groups turned up at The Stade in force, and no wonder it turned into the brawl that it did.
But who would want to do that? There was no doubt that Dixon and the FNM got plenty of publicity from both the report and the brawl, and all publicity is good publicity, or so they say, but was it? Would anyone honestly think that even being linked to the sabotage of a boat full of refugees who died was a good tactic? Even for an anti-immigration group, that was pretty hard-core.
So maybe someone wasn’t trying to help them, but to break the rally up. Make sure the anti-fascists turned up in force, accusing the FNM of damaging the boat. Calling them murderers and making them look bad. Now that was an action that Callie could fully sympathise with, and the more she thought about it, the more she thought it might be what had really happened.
That said, who could have told the reporter, and, more importantly, would have been believed by him? It had to be someone who might really know. Newsmen were not complete idiots. If they were going to ask questions of an MP, they would want to be pretty sure the information was correct, or at least could be. And the fact that the source hadn’t come forward openly suggested it was someone who might not be allowed to talk about it. Someone who the reporter would expect to have to shield. That is, someone from the police, the crime scene investigation team, or the lab itself, Callie thought to herself, as she poured herself half a glass of pinot grigio from the open bottle in her fridge. It was the last of the bottle and a brief inspection of her cupboards told her that there was no more. She was going to be sticking to health recommendations on drinking simply because not to do so would involve a trip to the shops or the pub.
Callie sat back down on her sofa and pulled her laptop towards her. She went to the website of the forensic lab. Lisa worked there and knew about the rally. The dropped flyer told Callie that, as well as the undeniable fact that she had been at the rally. And finally, Lisa was now off sick. Either she was embarrassed that Callie had seen her there and was worried that she would say something to her manager, or Lisa was hiding from other people. People who might be asking the same question that Callie was: who could have plausibly given false information to the reporter?
If Callie was right, that would mean that Lisa wasn’t a member of the FNM and that, perhaps she had been trying to get them into more trouble or to disrupt the rally. Either way, Callie intended to get to the bottom of it. She just wasn’t sure quite how, given that the CSI was not at work, as it meant she was going to have to find out where she lived. Or, at least, where she hung out.
A search online didn’t give her any help there. Lisa’s address wasn’t listed in the phone book – so few people had landlines these days anyway – and Callie didn’t know anyone at the lab well enough to ask them for it. She saw them all the time, of course, but that was professionally and besides, they were always covered in protective suits and masks. It was only because of Lisa’s distinctive colouring that she was able to pick her out so easily, at crime scenes, but also in the crowd.
The reporter himself wasn’t going to talk to Callie, but one of his rivals might. Callie went onto the local newspaper website. The bodies on the beach, the FNM rally and the brawl had given them many, many pages of material, not just reports on the events themselves but large numbers of editorial pieces, mostly written by one journalist, Debbie Smith. Helpfully, the website listed contact phone numbers and email addresses for its reporters in case anyone wanted to let them know about a story. Callie was pretty sure they would mostly get messages about parking, noisy neighbours and dog poo, but they might get the odd gem like when another body got washed up on the beach, and might even check the messages fairly regularly under the circumstances.
Callie picked up her phone and called the number. It was a landline so it wasn’t surprising that she reached an answer phone.
“Oh, hi,” Callie said once the message had finished, “my name is Dr Callie Hughes, I work for the police and wondered if there was any chance of meeting up?” Callie left her contact details and hung up. She had no worry that the reporter wouldn’t get back to her as soon as she picked up the message. Journalists were always trying to speak to her about her role as a police doctor and get her to comment on local deaths. Callie thought that Debbie Smith would be more than a little eager to speak to her.<
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But, eager to get a response herself, Callie also sent an email, in case the reporter was in the habit of checking those from home.
Next, Callie called the hospital to check on David Morris; she was surprised to hear that he had been sent home.
“I didn’t know he’d regained consciousness,” Callie told the ward sister.
“Yes, he came round quite quickly. We’d have liked him to stay under observation a while longer but as he said there was someone at home to look after him and he was keen to go, we let him. I gave him a head injury information sheet, of course, and told him to come back if he experienced any symptoms from his concussion.” The nurse was obviously keen to cover her back with her patient’s GP, not realising that Callie wasn’t really calling in that role. As far as she was aware, he lived alone, so she was surprised that he had told the ward sister that there was someone there to look after him. He must have been really keen to get out.
“Thank you for telling me, sister. I’ll contact him and see if he needs a visit.” Of course, generally speaking, GPs don’t visit patients unless asked to do so, and often not even then, but Callie thought she could make an exception in this case. After all, it was only just gone seven in the evening, so she might just be calling in on her way home to check on him as the hospital had informed her that he had been discharged. She didn’t need to tell him that she had contacted the hospital rather than vice versa.
* * *
There was a slight chill in the air as Callie walked along All Saints’ Street. Morris’s home was just off the narrow road, up one of the twittens that ran between All Saints’ and Tackleway. These twittens, or narrow lanes, allowed foot access to cottages built on small bits of land sold off from people’s gardens. Many of these homes dated back to the nineteenth century and were little more than two rooms with bathrooms added wherever they could be fitted in at a later time. The addresses of the houses in the twittens and their numbering were often eccentric and it always took new postmen, and new doctors, a while to find their way round. Callie hadn’t been to this particular address before but she had been in many others nearby and was fairly confident she could find it from the lower road.
Finally standing in front of a door that had no number on it, but was in the right place to be number 15b, and which was in need of more than a lick of paint, Callie knocked.
“Yes?” a man called, before the door opened an inch or two and someone, a man, Callie thought, peered out.
“Mr Morris?” Callie asked. “It’s Dr Hughes. Your doctor.”
The door opened a little wider and Callie could see that it was indeed Morris.
“I didn’t call a doctor.”
“No, the hospital told me you had decided to go home and asked if I could visit to check you were okay.”
It wasn’t the exact truth, but it could be, Callie told herself as she put on her best concerned face.
“I’m fine,” he said.
“I’m sure you think you are,” Callie countered. “But if I could just run through the concussion tests, we’ll all feel a lot more reassured.”
He seemed to realise that she wasn’t going to take no for an answer and stood back to let her in. It was a tight squeeze getting past him into the tiny living room that the door opened into.
“Sorry about the mess,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting visitors.”
He wasn’t joking, it looked like a bomb had gone off in the room leaving clothes, newspapers, takeaway cartons and empty beer cans littered around the place and all covered with a fine layer of cigarette ash.
Morris grabbed an overflowing ashtray and shoved it in the sink. He didn’t have to move much in order to do it, the kitchen was just a corner of the room fitted with a mini cooker and fridge as well as the sink, which was full of water and dirty dishes, and now also had cigarette ends floating in there.
Callie tried not to show her disgust as she put her doctor’s case on the floor and opened it, taking out an ophthalmoscope. Morris picked up a dark green packet of cigarettes that was lying on the table and chucked it into the kitchen. It was a bit late to try and cover up his smoking habit, Callie thought, as the evidence was all around him, hanging in the air.
“Right, if you could sit down, Mr Morris?”
He did as she asked and she looked in one eye, and then the other, flashing the light into them to check for a pupil reaction.
“You know the hospital only said you could go home because you told them there was someone here to look after you,” Callie said.
“I hate hospitals.”
“Yes, well, I can’t say that I blame you, but that was a nasty knock on the head you got and we all need to be sure there’s no lasting damage.”
“I’m fine,” he said again.
“Do you remember what happened?” she asked.
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, and pulled some crumpled pizza boxes out from underneath his bottom. He chucked them in the general direction of the overflowing waste bin.
“Not clearly,” he answered, hedging his bets. “The police say there was a scuffle between the FNM thugs and the anti-fascists and I got caught in the middle.”
“Really?”
He had the good grace to blush slightly.
“You don’t remember going up to Councillor Claybourne and throwing the first punch, then?”
“How do you know that was what happened?”
“I was there,” she answered him. “A bit to one side, just watching in case anything kicked off,” she hastily explained. “I saw it all.”
“So, you saw those bastards putting the boot in when I was down.”
“Yes, and I told the police that, but I couldn’t see them clearly enough to identify any of them. They all had baseball caps and sunglasses on.”
“Well, it was a sunny evening, wasn’t it?” he said with a brittle laugh.
Callie moved some debris from the single chair next to the fold-down dining table, and gave it a quick brush with her hand before sitting down.
“What is it between you and Claybourne?” she asked gently. “I mean, you had a go at him on the beach, as well.”
He looked up guiltily.
“It’s not really something I can tell you,” he finally answered. “Given that you work for the police.”
“Okay, so can you tell me if it has something to do with the illegal immigrants who drowned?”
“No!” he shouted, looking horrified. “I wouldn’t have anything to do with something like that.”
“Well, that’s good,” she reassured him, although she was actually a bit disappointed to hear it. “You have to understand my asking, seeing as you were at that rally.”
“I was only there because I knew he would be. ’course I hadn’t really thought it through because if I had, I’d’ve known his goons would be there too.”
“Is he connected to the FNM then?”
“Not that he’d admit it, but yeah.”
“It certainly wasn’t listed under his group memberships on the council website.”
Morris smiled at that, and relaxed a little.
“And what about you?” she asked.
“Nah.” He shook his head. “Not into politics. Claybourne says they’re nicking our jobs, but I’ve never seen one of them on a fishing boat, so they’re not the reason why I can’t get work. It’s them Spaniards taking all the fish, that’s what it is.”
Callie ignored the dig at the Spanish.
“So, what is your problem with him? Has Claybourne stopped you getting work?”
Morris shifted uncomfortably again.
“In a way.”
Callie waited for him to expand on this answer, but it was clear he wasn’t going to say any more.
“Did you know any of the men that laid into you?”
Again, Morris kept quiet.
“They could have killed you, David. You can’t let them get away with it.”
“I know!” He jumped up, angrily, and Callie shrank bac
k, frightened at what he might do. Fortunately for her, he groaned and sat down again, gingerly rubbing his side.
“Cracked rib,” he said by way of an explanation.
“That’s going to hurt for quite a while.”
“Yeah, so they said.”
“Have you got any painkillers?” she asked him and he nodded at a half-full bottle of cheap brandy. Callie couldn’t see a glass anywhere, so presumably he had been swigging it direct from the bottle.
“That’s not a good idea. Not with a head injury.” She rummaged around in her bag and brought out some painkillers. “These will be better for you.”
He nodded and took them from her.
“Thanks.”
“Look, I can’t make you tell the police what’s really going on, but I certainly recommend it,” she told him. “Think about it. Please.”
She stood and opened the door.
“Call 111 if you get any symptoms.” She nodded in the direction of the hospital head injury information leaflet that she could see poking out from underneath the brandy bottle. “And make an appointment to see me later in the week. Or one of the other GPs, if you prefer.”
And she left him, knowing that she had got nothing from him that was of any use, but at least hoping that he would take her advice with regards to alcohol and concussion. She had done her best as a doctor.
Chapter 12
Back at her home, Callie had made up her mind to call it a night and have a long relaxing bath. Whilst the bath was running, she checked her emails and saw that the reporter on the local paper, Debbie Smith, had got back to her and was keen to talk. She had left her mobile number and asked Callie to call her back whenever she could. She didn’t go to bed early and would be happy to take a call, no matter how late.
Callie turned off the bath water, and picked up her phone.
“Hi,” she said when the reporter picked up. “Callie Hughes here. Thank you for responding to my message so quickly.”