Both Tweedy and Wilson, having also attended the scene, were more casually dressed than Murray who hadn’t been there, had managed a good night’s sleep and was more presentable in a light grey suit, pink shirt and striped tie. Mid-thirties had brought with them a swelling neck size and waist, not helped by his appetite for snack food and the demands of his job. Still, Murray remained a handsome officer, tall, fresh-faced with large eyes, a man not long divorced and once again playing the field. Tara could tolerate him as a colleague; beyond that he wasn’t her type. Not that she dwelt upon the subject but it had been quite some time since she had any type when it came to men. Again, the demands of her job, although she was becoming proficient at using this as an excuse not to go on dates. Her recent experience at the hands of a date-rapist hadn’t helped stir enthusiasm to pursue anything close to a romantic relationship.
‘Can we discuss the MO?’
‘Weird, to say the least,’ said Murray.
‘Seems like a ritual killing,’ said Wilson.
‘Or made to look that way,’ Tara suggested. ‘Going by the amount of blood on the ground, the victim was killed at the scene and the head, apparently, taken away by the killer. For what purpose?’
No one, including Tweedy, was prepared to offer any reason. Tara thought it very strange. She was used to her boss making suggestions, giving advice, issuing orders. He was a gentleman among coppers. Now in his late fifties, he’d seen it all through Merseyside Police, and he managed his team with a calm and respectful air. He didn’t shout, certainly did not swear, and yet managed to produce results from his officers. His pale, wrinkled and long face belied his compassion. One had to look closely to see the caring nature and the happiness hidden in blue eyes. He derived great comfort from his Christian faith and was often to be found reading the leather-bound Bible that he kept on the left-hand corner of his desk. This morning, Tara had noticed him glancing several times at the book. She wondered.
‘What about the message pinned to the wood between the legs of the victim?’
‘Religious wording of some kind?’ said Wilson. Tara saw Tweedy give a slight nod in acknowledgement.
‘The work of a religious nut-job, a bible-basher,’ said Murray. Tara cleared her throat, and the realisation of what he’d just said in front of Tweedy registered with Murray. He blushed red.
‘Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices,’ Tara read. ‘Do you know if it is Biblical, sir?’
Tweedy got to his feet.
‘Yes, it is indeed. I checked when I first got back. Old Testament, Proverbs chapter one, verse 31.
‘What do you think it means, sir?’
Paula Bleasdale, a young female Detective Constable, tall with long brown hair pinned up, appeared at the window of the office door and beckoned Murray to join her. He rose from his seat and went to speak with the DC. The others in the office looked on as Bleasdale spoke to Murray.
‘Any news?’ Tara asked when he stepped back into the office.
‘Yes, they’ve found the head.’
Chapter 4
Free at last, free at last. Hey, hey they let me go. I’ve served my time for what I did to wee Tara, and now I’m on probation. It’s not so bad, really. Okay, I’m a registered sex offender; they know who I am. I have to go to regular meetings with my supervisor, and there’s a whole list of things I’m not allowed to do and places I’m not allowed to go. For instance, I have to stay well away from DI Tara Grogan. But they’ve set me up in a flat, and I can claim housing benefit and job seeker’s allowance. It’s a one bed affair in Wavertree. Doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I could live anywhere so long as I have the opportunity to see beautiful women every day. Some charity that looks after ex-prisoners gave me a single bed, an armchair, a fridge and a TV. There was already a cooker in the flat, so I’ve got all I need. My supervisor has arranged a couple of job interviews, I’ve a wee bit of money saved that’ll keep me ticking over and I still have my boat, Mother Freedom. Last I heard, she’d been taken from the harbour and stored in a boatyard. I probably owe some money for that, but I can’t wait until I can get her back in the water and using her for what I like doing best.
I realise I can’t go within a beagle’s growl of Tara Grogan, but I can deal with that later. For now I’m happy to get back into my groove. I can take my time, set everything up the way I used to, buy a van, set about choosing some wee honey and having my wicked way with her. Of course, I’m more than happy to go the conventional route, meet a nice girl, take her out for dinner, a few drinks, bit of a chat, get to know her. Only problem is that it might get awkward when she asks what I do for a living, when she decides maybe to check me out and discovers I’m an ex-prisoner, a man on the sex-offenders’ list. Doesn’t bode well for an intimate relationship. And besides, I’m supposed to inform my probation supervisor when I’m planning to have an intimate relationship with someone. Now I can’t see that happening. Spoil the mood, wouldn’t it? Not forgetting that my last attempt to go the romantic way with young Tara ended with me near losing it and then spending eighteen months in the nick. No, for now, everything is back to basics. Good planning, careful choosing of my girls. Get back on my bike. And maybe, when all has settled down, I will do real homework on DI Tara Grogan and make sure that next time I take her the right way and do the business.
Chapter 5
Priory Road had been closed to traffic. To her left Tara had Anfield Cemetery and to her right, Stanley Park. A team of Scene of Crime Officers, SOCOs, were already at work on the pavement by the park railings. But Tara, along with Tweedy and Murray, were focussed upon the appalling vision of a male head impaled upon one of the spikes of the railing.
‘Sick bastards,’ said Murray, out of earshot of Superintendent Tweedy, a man not given to expletive.
‘I really don’t like this, Alan. Why here? Why remove the victim’s head and bring it here?’
‘Whoever did it must revel in the shock value. Last night a group of kids had the fright of their lives, and this morning two elderly ladies walking their dogs come across this.’
Tara’s mobile burst into life, Moves like Jagger attracting several glares from others standing close by. Her friend Aisling was calling.
‘Hi, Aisling, what’s up?’
‘Tara luv, you won’t believe the shoes I’ve just seen in Harvey Nic’s.’
‘I’m a bit busy at the moment, Aisling.’
‘I won’t keep you. They’re black, leather sandals, exactly what I’ve been looking for.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘They’re Francesco Russo.’
‘How much?’
‘Only six-twenty.’
‘You’ve more money than sense, Aisling luv. I’ll have to go.’
‘Should I get them? I don’t know what to do.’
‘Yes you do, Aisling. If I say yes you’ll get them, and if I say no, you’ll phone Kate and ask her. And even if she says no you’ll still go and buy them.’
‘Will you come with me, this evening?’
‘Can’t, Aisling, I’m working. You’re a big girl, you’re quite capable of going on your own. Got to go.’ Tara cut the call, exasperated yet slightly amused that the dilemma of her friend’s day was deciding whether or not to buy a pair of shoes, while her friend Kate worked in a cardiac ward at the Royal Hospital and she, Tara, was stood in the middle of a road looking at the severed head of the victim in her latest case of murder. These days she hadn’t worked her previous case out of her system before another came along. Maybe it was just her but each new case seemed to raise the level of horror by several notches. Her last investigation of homicide, before her months laid off, had involved two killings, frenzied slashing of the victims. And no sooner had the case been put to bed when she almost suffered at the hands of a date-rapist. Thoughts of that evening seldom left her now despite her having little memory of what actually occurred. She’d been abducted, she’d been drunk at the time, out for a
n evening with Kate and Aisling, and the man, James Guy, had injected her with fentanyl. Fortunately, she’d been rescued before he could do anything more beyond removing her clothes in the back of his van. But still she was left with a peculiar trauma as if she lived permanently in winter, a cool wind constantly blowing through her and she flapping uselessly like the grass. She’d been informed two days ago that he’d been released from prison on probation. Free again, free to hunt for another unsuspecting victim. And at night, alone in her flat at Wapping Dock, she pondered another case that had never actually been a case. Absurd, she realised, but she couldn’t shift from her head those pictures of girls, missing girls, she’d found in the flat of murdered journalist Terry Lawler. At first she’d thought that Lawler was responsible for taking these women until she discovered that one of the missing was Lawler’s sister, Ruth. The journalist had been searching for her and quite possibly had stumbled upon the work of a serial killer. But Terry Lawler had been murdered by someone close to him, and she’d had to focus on finding his killer. It wasn’t her job to go searching for a long list of disappeared girls. No trace of any of them had ever been found, and she doubted that any police officer in the entire country was even looking for them.
She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned around to face her boss, Harold Tweedy.
‘Tara, if you are free this evening I wonder if you would mind calling at the house? I would like to discuss what’s happened here outside the confines of the station.’
‘Sir.’ She thought it a strange request, but since Tweedy had so far offered little input on the case she was keen enough to hear what he had to say.
‘Lorraine will be cooking dinner anyway, so you’re very welcome to join us. Say seven o’clock?’
‘Fine, sir, thank you. I’ll see you then.’ Without another word Tweedy strode off, waving acknowledgement to the Crime Scene Manager.
She watched and pitied the young forensic officer charged with removing the head from the spike. She realised too, at this moment, they had to assume this head belonged with the body recovered from Rimrose Park. She shuddered to even think there could be more than one victim of such a killing.
‘What did the old man want, mam?’ said Murray, who had been speaking with the two women who’d made the gruesome discovery. Tara thought it strange that at the time no passing motorist had stopped at the scene.
‘He’s just invited me to dinner at his home.’
‘My, my you’re privileged. Didn’t think Tweedy was one for mixing business with pleasure.’
‘He wants to discuss the case. Away from the station.’
‘What’s going on, Tara? He’s been acting very odd this morning. You don’t think he’s had enough of the murder game, about to pack it in?’
Tara never ceased to be amazed at how her Detective Sergeant could switch from the formal to the casual in the same breath. She was well aware that he coped poorly with her being a Detective Inspector, eight years younger and half as many years in policing. It wasn’t that she was a stickler for protocol but, in Alan Murray, she couldn’t help the feeling that he did it deliberately just to get up her nose. She chose her moments carefully to remind him of her seniority.
‘No,’ she replied, ‘I think he has an inkling as to what’s going on here. Maybe it’s personal, close to home.’
‘You think he knows the victim?’
‘No, but I think the MO is familiar to him. I’ve never seen him so shaken at a crime scene before. It was like he was reliving some horror from his past.’
Chapter 6
Harold Tweedy appeared perfectly relaxed within his home. He greeted Tara at the front door of his bungalow on Allerton Road in Calderstones, one of Liverpool’s leafy suburbs, wearing brown slacks, an open-neck shirt and suede moccasins.
‘Tara, come in, come in, welcome. Terribly cold night out there.’
‘Another frosty one,’ she replied, stepping into the warmth of the hallway.
‘I really appreciate you coming, especially after such a difficult day. But we’ll talk later.’ He led her into a sumptuous living room containing two cushioned sofas and an armchair, the room lit by up-lighters in opposite corners. It was a more contemporary setting than she had imagined, judged only by Tweedy’s demeanour at work of all things classical. As she was about to remove her coat and take a seat on one of the sofas, the lady of the house, Lorraine, barged in with a gracious welcome.
‘For goodness sake, Harold, take the girl’s coat. Hi, Tara, great to see you again. You’re looking well. How’ve you been?’
‘I’m fine thank you, Lorraine.’
‘Managed to settle back into work again? That was a dreadful business.’
‘Keeping busy is the best way to deal with things, I suppose.’ She slipped off her black overcoat and red scarf, both instantly whisked away by Harold. For a second she felt examined by Lorraine. She’d managed to dash home from the station and change into a red lace, mid-length dress and a pair of black sandals with an ankle strap. Not the most appropriate for the cold evening, but she didn’t have much of a choice. She really should take a leaf from Aisling’s book and let shoes become the centre of her world.
Lorraine Tweedy, despite home ground, looked glamourous in a navy blue, body-contour dress, and although a woman of fifty-three she did still have a trim figure. Her rust brown hair was styled inwards around her neck and cut in a heavy fringe. With carefully tended makeup she looked ten years younger. But it wasn’t difficult to like the woman, Tara had always thought. She had a cheery smile that said, whatever the weather we have to get on with things.
‘Oh, I nearly forgot,’ she said. ‘This is for you.’ She handed Tara a large glass, one third full, of red wine at the correct temperature. ‘Harold can get his own drink.’ Her husband rolled his eyes at Tara as he left the room.
Despite the friendly welcome, and again from experience, Tara knew she would have difficulty getting a word in. She would have thought that working as a university lecturer in sociology she would tend to give her mouth a rest after a day’s work, but Lorraine seemed to have deep reserves of energetic chat.
‘So what’s it about tonight? Harold seemed very pensive when he called me to arrange dinner. I hope he’s not expecting you to work all evening? Really, the man sometimes doesn’t think before putting one foot in front of the other.’
‘Something about our present case,’ Tara replied rather sheepishly.
‘Mmm. I’ve warned him, no shop talk until dinner is over.’
The room door opened and in walked a young man followed by Harold Tweedy. The man was tall, dirty fair-hair, long on top, shaved at the back and sides, a gold stud just below his lip, but with a beamer of a smile when he saw Tara on the sofa. Lorraine sprang to her feet.
‘Tara, this is our youngest son Philip,’ she said. ‘He’s at home for a few days. In between jobs or some such nonsense.’
‘Hi, Tara, lovely to meet you. I gather you’re Dad’s right-hand man as it were.’
Tara was already blushing as she got to her feet to shake his hand, gazing up at the man of twenty-nine, wearing jeans ripped at the knees, a faded blue T-shirt and brown pin-striped waistcoat. Being referred to as Tweedy’s right-hand man didn’t spare any continued blushing. Lorraine looked chuffed with herself. Perhaps Harold Tweedy was the only one in the room to remain oblivious of the instant attraction.
Lorraine had ensured that Tara sat opposite her son at the dinner table, where again she insisted there be no shop talk until the meal was finished. Tara enjoyed the vegetable broth followed by stuffed pork fillet, sautéed potatoes, peas and carrots. It seemed an age since she’d last sat down to a home-cooked dinner rather than something she’d pulled from her freezer after a long day. The company, too, was surprisingly entertaining. Lorraine dominated the conversation, allowing her son to chip in with appropriate responses, while Harold focussed on his plate of food. Tara, however, did not escape a contribution to the chat.
‘So ho
w’s the old man at work?’ Philip asked with an impish smile.
‘Less of the old man,’ Harold put in. Tara smiled at her boss.
‘He’s a perfect gentleman, despite what we have to deal with sometimes. And what do you do, Philip?’ The father grunted, and Lorraine stifled laughter.
‘Now there’s a story I would also like to hear,’ she said.
Philip Tweedy made a ceremony out of clearing his throat which both parents found amusing.
‘Looking for the right opportunity at the moment.’ Laughter from the parents brought a smile to his face. ‘I’m keen to get into television production, documentaries, that sort of thing. I’ve done a few recently, acting as assistant. You see, Tara, what my parents believe is that I should be more pro-active in my job-searching.’
‘What our son conveniently ignores,’ said Lorraine, ‘Is that he has a degree from Cambridge and could well have found a career directly related to his studies, such as teaching.’
It seemed obvious to Tara that although this was an issue of some contention within the Tweedy family, it was not one to provoke any real sense of anger. She couldn’t help noting the fun in Philip’s blue eyes as he squabbled with his parents. He resembled more his mother than his father, but was strong, athletic, with a firm jaw that held his smile when he continued to look in her direction. Truth be told, she fancied him.
When dinner had ended Harold led Tara across the hallway to a room he and his wife used as a study. It was warm, a gas fire burning at the fireplace, long drawn curtains at the window and wall space entirely swallowed with books, CDs, records, DVDs and family photos. The only pieces of furniture were two solid desks of dark wood, one presumably for Harold, the other for Lorraine, placed such that husband and wife could sit facing each other. Both desks held lap-top computers and reading lamps. Tweedy fetched a chair from the dining room and invited Tara to sit next to him at his desk, but before any discussion began, the door opened and in walked Philip, who sat down at his mother’s desk, beaming a smile across at Tara.
Lethal Dose; Lethal Justice; Lethal Mind Page 27