by Ted Tayler
Gus shook his head. Her eyebrows were thick and black. They seemed to be stencilled higher than nature intended. The girl looked permanently frightened. As Gus stared at her ear piercings, nose ring and labret, he thought it odd that she looked afraid.
It was he who was scared to death.
Geoff Mercer had got used to her appearance.
“Two sugars for me, Kassie, please,”
“Cutting down, are we?” asked Kassie.
Gus stifled a laugh.
“I’ve got cakes,” the young girl continued, leaning forward to retrieve a plate from the lower tray of the trolley.
Gus noticed more tattoos. A small heart on the left, a bluebird on the right, as you looked at them. They disappeared when she stood upright.
“Baked them myself,” she added, proudly.
“It would be rude of me not to try one,” said Gus.
“I was leaving the plate,” said Kassie, “You always insist, don’t you, Mr Mercer?”
Geoff Mercer went redder and redder. The balloon would burst in a minute.
“I’ll come back in half an hour,” said Kassie, as she wheeled the trolley towards the door. “I want to see empty plates, okay?”
“That’s us told,” said Mercer, as the door closed behind her.
“Things certainly have changed,” said Gus.
“Kassie’s heart’s in the right place.”
“I did notice.”
Geoff Mercer smiled more naturally at that remark and brought his cup of tea and two cakes over to sit beside Gus.
“Look, we need to clear the air. I was a different person when we crossed swords all those years ago. Blind ambition made me behave in a way that I’m ashamed of now when I look back.”
“Sometimes we need to block out things happening around us to achieve things that don’t seem possible,” said Gus.
“I reached a rank I never dreamed of, but I’m under no illusions. Detective Superintendent is as far up the greasy pole as I’ll be allowed to climb.”
It was evident from his slumped shoulders that it had been a tough pill to swallow.
“I’ve done plenty of reading in the past couple of years, trying to make sense of it,” said Gus. “You were extremely ambitious, aiming to become Chief Constable. Nothing less would be good enough. To paraphrase Machiavelli, if you get to a position where you cannot climb higher, then all you have to look forward to is a fall from a great height. At least, that’s the gist of it.”
Mercer sipped at his tea but did not comment, at first. He relaxed his shoulders and eased back in his chair.
“The austerity programme had begun when you retired. It never stops. Job cuts, increased workloads and stress levels for the remaining employees have led to a deterioration in mental health. Those of us in senior positions are not exempt. We’re in situations day after day where we feel we’ve let down the public. We feel we’ve let ourselves down. So it’s no wonder some take that last drastic step. Suicides are on the increase.”
“What you need to avoid is blaming yourself for your failure to grasp the ultimate prize, Geoff. That way lies madness. The job’s not worth falling into the pit of despair and never climbing out. Listen to the voice of experience.”
“I can’t imagine what you’ve been through, Gus. Despite everything, I’ve clung onto my wife and children. I didn’t deserve to. I wouldn’t blame Chris if she’d given it up as a bad job. On the few occasions I got home for any length of time I behaved like a pillock. The ACC told me how your wife died. That must have been an awful shock. An aneurysm wasn’t it?”
“It was, although I knew nothing about the condition or how it affected people until afterwards.”
“How long had you been retired when it happened?”
“Six months.”
“Shit. Could nothing have prevented it or managed it? It just seems so brutal.”
Gus found himself agreeing with Mercer for the first time.
“A brain aneurysm occurs when a weak spot in the brain’s arterial wall bulges and fills with blood. It can affect a person at any age. If it bursts, as in Tess’s case, it’s an emergency that can result in a stroke, brain damage and death, without immediate treatment. Tess was home, alone, that day. I’d gone to Swindon to give evidence in an armed robbery case. I didn’t return home until eleven o’clock. The verdict saw three villains sentenced for the maximum term allowed. It was a time to celebrate the system working as it should for a change. My joy was short-lived. When I fell out of the taxi and rocked through the front door, three sheets to the wind, I found her on the kitchen floor. Her hands covered in flour. She had been preparing to do some baking.”
“Sod’s Law,” said Mercer, “if cases didn’t take so long to get to court it would have been wrapped up months earlier. You would have been there to get her the help she needed.”
“It wasn’t relevant. I don’t blame myself for not getting home by seven o’clock which was when I told her to expect me. We’d been married long enough for her to realise things cropped up that buggered up our schedules. If the case had ended earlier, I could have been on the allotment for several hours that day. Unless I’d been stood beside her when it burst at around eleven or noon, she was done for, regardless.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Geoff Mercer, “were there no symptoms whatsoever beforehand?”
“Tess would tell people she’d never had a day’s illness in her life. She suffered from common colds most winters as we all do, but that didn’t count in her book. Tess had measles, chickenpox and mumps as a kid, and had her appendix removed at fourteen. The doctors asked me if she’d had severe headaches, pain behind the eye, blurred or double vision, stuff like that? I told them, yeah, if we’d had a night out and suffered a hangover the next day. Whether she had any of those symptoms in the weeks before she died and yet was sober as a judge, I have no idea. She never complained. I was adjusting to being retired, to the pace of village life and a new allotment. Tess dashed back and forth to the college in Salisbury, working split shifts. That week it was half-term, and she was at home. I’d worked on the armed robbery case, and my boss called to say they would need me there to give evidence. They wanted to make sure the bastards went down. No way I wanted to miss out.”
“I don’t blame you. We work hard to get the villains into a court in the hope we see them get what they deserve. The system’s flawed, we know that, but it’s what we have to use. I have high hopes for this Crime Review Team. You were always a better copper than me. No, don’t argue…”
“I wasn’t going to,” laughed Gus.
“Not many murders are committed on our patch in a year, thank goodness. We don’t have the serious crime statistics of our major cities, but when we fail to solve a high percentage of the few we do have, that doesn’t sit well with me. We need to do better. Blokes like you are needed to educate the younger detectives in the art of reading people. They think everything can be solved by checking suspects’ social media accounts or using HOLMES and its free text database, which allows users to ask unstructured questions and present the results in order of relevance.”
“Easy for you to say,” said Gus, “that stuff is all Greek to me.”
“It’s possible to combine the skills and experiences of crime investigators with the acquired knowledge of the system to identify new lines of enquiry. Those statistics can provide a list of the people most likely to commit a particular crime.”
“Where is this outfit housed? Here at HQ?”
“Yes. Do you want that last cake? If not, I’ll keep it for Ron.”
“Later on, yeah, I remember. No, you’re fine. I’ve already had more cake than I eat in a week.”
“Let’s walk over to the Hub, then. As for those other issues you wanted to raise before you officially agreed to start work, perhaps we could talk them through later over a pint?”
“The only question I had was over the suitability of the Old Police Station as our home base. Until I look around it, I won�
�t be in a position to tell whether it will work.”
“We’re limited to where we can house you. Money is a big factor, of course, but I felt it important for this case in particular for you to be near to the murder site. I know you. You’ll immerse yourself in your surroundings, root around under the surface and follow a line of inquiry Dominic Culverhouse missed.”
Kassie Trotter looked up as they left the office together.
“The cakes were scrummy, Kassie,” said Gus, “thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
The tattooed clerk levered her bulk off her precarious-looking perch on an office chair and trundled her trolley towards the ACC’s office to retrieve the tea things. Gus Freeman idly wondered what lay ahead. Was this graduate going to be a sight to behold? The ACC had hinted that she was no shrinking violet.
Geoff Mercer swiped a card through the scanner to gain access to what was a restricted area. Gus wasn’t a stranger to desktop computers. His superiors may have considered him a dinosaur when he retired, but even he had picked up a few basic skills. He had negotiated his way around his smartphone too without asking for Tess’s help. However, the programs the technical staff within these walls dealt with was beyond him.
“This is what we call the Hub,” said his guide. “These tech wizards compare cases seeking matches. Inactive files are sent for processing from central after two years. These guys can run a program to see whether the MO matches any other cases we already have on file. They find a similar MO and then check the physical evidence. It might be a car that was sighted. A partial number plate. A DNA sample that they couldn’t match with anything at the time, but now there’s a new suspect to match it against.”
Gus could tell Geoff Mercer was proud of the tricks they could pull here in this ultra-modern suite of offices. The place must have cost a fortune. The lighting, air-conditioning and ergonomically designed accessories perfectly complemented the array of screens, scanners and printers humming merrily in the background.
A glance at the pictures on the walls confirmed they featured prints of classic paintings by Van Gogh, Gaugin, and Rothko. At least, he assumed they were prints.
Naturally, there was the official record of the day this Hub opened. The usual suspects were there. Stop it, Gus told himself. They were dignitaries, not suspects — the Chief Constable. Well, the one before the incumbent. That bloke had left under a cloud. Gus spotted the Police and Crime Commissioner. The man who held the purse strings. He looked pleased with himself. They couldn’t have exceeded the budget by too much. The Mayor was there also judging by the chain of office he wore. Gus scanned the remaining faces but didn’t see anyone he recognised.
“Where were you that day, Geoff?” he asked.
“Cheeky bugger. I’m there at the back, behind the local MP. The big wigs made sure they got their faces in prime position. Those occasions are for showing off. They aren’t like the old days on the football terraces where the little ones were passed over the heads of the grown-ups to stand at the front.”
Once the tour ended, they returned to the main building. Geoff Mercer had a team briefing to attend in ten minutes. Kassie confirmed the ACC was still otherwise engaged.
“Right then, Gus,” said Geoff, “I’ll let you get off home. About that drink? The Bear, next to the Corn Exchange, do you know it?”
“I’ve driven past it many times, but I’ve never been in there. What time?”
“Let’s say at eight o’clock. Is that good for you?”
“Is the first round on expenses, Geoff?”
“Get off with you. See you later.”
Geoff disappeared along a corridor towards offices at the rear. It wasn’t all sweetness and light in the Superintendent’s life, Gus mused, he didn’t qualify for a room with a view.
Kassie Trotter called to him as he made his way towards the top of the stairs.
“It’s cream cakes, Monday, for the Chief Constable’s birthday,” she said, “they won’t be home-made though.”
“I won’t bother dropping by then, Kassie,” said Gus.
Kassie gave him a big smile. Her eyebrows barely moved.
Later that evening, Gus drove into the Market Place, parked the Focus and walked across to the sixteenth century Inn. The place reeked of history, and even on a Thursday evening, the main bar was busy. He stood inside the door for a second. Geoff Mercer was on the far side, beckoning him over. Gus threaded his way through the mix of guests and regulars to the small table near a window. He spotted a half-finished pint of bitter. Geoff pointed to two stools.
“Take your pick,” he said, “I’ll get another half to go with this 6X. Can’t risk getting stopped. What can I get you?”
“A pint of cider, please,” Gus replied.
While Geoff waited for the bar staff to notice him waiting for service, Gus looked around the bar. There was little chance he’d see anyone familiar. He tried to recall what the pubs were like near his proposed workplace. He wouldn’t recognise anyone there either.
“There we go then,” said Geoff, managing to make his way through the crowd without spilling a drop. “Good health.”
“Cheers,” said Gus.
“So, the Old Police Station? You have reservations about it being suitable?”
“I have concerns over security; given the nature of the confidential paperwork, we’ll be holding. Something else struck me too. I get the thinking behind us using the place as a base in the town, and I support that. However, as they decommissioned the station, is it even legal for us to take people into custody for questioning there? Do we possess an observation room? Could we hold an identity parade, for instance?
“That’s taken care of, Gus. I can show you the layout on Monday morning, first thing, if you wish. You no longer have the power of arrest, but the ID card authorises you to carry out everything else you need. I imagine the majority of your interviews will take place in the home, or the workplace. You’ll take an officer with you at all times on those occasions. When you need to use the facilities you describe I’ve arranged for the new station on the outskirts of town to be at your disposal. It will only require a phone call. They’ll accommodate you if you want an ID parade. You’ll have the necessary recording equipment available in the interview suites. If you decide to go it alone in an interview, your DS will be in the observation room. If you opt for a good cop, bad cop routine, you can request a senior officer to observe. Whatever we do has to be squeaky clean. Despite this being a no-brainer of an idea, it wasn’t easy to get the PCC to cough up the finances. Be aware; he’s hovering in the wings to pounce if you mess up.”
“Duly noted, Geoff.”
“I take it you haven’t been to either of the stations in the town?”
“Never had a reason.”
“I knew Dominic Culverhouse, of course, who worked there at the time of Daphne Tolliver’s murder. Another fine officer we lost to Avon & Somerset. You must have heard of one of his predecessors, Phil Hounsell, surely?”
“Ken Truelove mentioned him briefly, but although his reputation made it further than Salisbury, he was another one I didn’t get to work alongside.”
“He arrived in the West Country at twenty-one. By 2001, he was a Detective Inspector. Then the shit hit the fan with a vengeance.”
“The bloodbath caused by those two gangs clashing, yeah, that I do remember,” said Gus, “that has to be the worst night in the county’s history.”
“He made his reputation and disappeared two years later to join the UK version of the FBI, which for a while operated as the Serious Organised Crime Agency. He moved back to Manvers Street, Bath and covered himself in glory there. Portishead grabbed him in 2011. He operated out of their HQ until he became disillusioned with the way the force was changing. He started his own security business in Bath.”
“Didn’t I hear they held a memorial service for him in the Abbey a few years back?”
“Early in 2015. Phil Hounsell died at home. Someone broke in, and
he disturbed them. They strangled him. They never caught his killer. The bastard strung him up from the loft space to make it appear he topped himself, but the physical evidence proved otherwise.”
“You’re giving me plenty of background on him. Why?”
Geoff Mercer rang a stubby finger around his collar. Gus guessed he might not enjoy what he was going to tell him.
“Hounsell had a good team around him there. Then there was Terry Davis. He was a DS, but a lazy sod. Everything was too much trouble. We were thankful when he took early retirement six years ago. He lives on the outskirts of Marbella now.”
“Costa del Crime?”
“That’s the rumour.”
“So, why is Terry Davis relevant?”
“His son Neil is one of your Detective Sergeants.”
“Terrific.”
“There’s never been a whisper that Neil takes after his father. The lad is twenty-eight-years-old, recently married, and on a fast-track to higher things.”
“Do you have any other surprises for me?”
“We’ve had to make modifications to the offices at the Old Police Station to accommodate DS Alex Hardy. Alex joined the police after university, and his passion for motorbikes saw him train as a qualified pursuit officer. Twenty months ago, he was seriously injured in a high-speed crash while chasing a suspect. He is thirty-eight-years-old, single and in a wheelchair. He joins the Crime Review Team as part of his rehabilitation. Alex is adamant that he will eventually recover sufficiently to resume active duties. We have reservations, but he has had to be incredibly strong-willed even to make it this far. So who knows?”
“I imagine he will be permanently confined to our base, leaving Davis as the only DS able to accompany me on investigations. What shocking revelations will I learn about the graduate? Don’t bother. I’ll find out soon enough. You’ve given me enough things to worry over tonight.”
Geoff drained the last of his drink. He patted Gus on the shoulder as he rose from his stool.
“I’ll meet you at your new abode at nine on Monday morning,” he said, “I promise you there’s no cause for concern. Hardy and Davis are good coppers. They both understand how to use the digital support system at the Hub. They’ll find out anything you need to support you in your face-to-face dealings with witnesses. Rely on them, rely on the system. That’s why the resource is there. When you need a senior officer to make an arrest, call me or someone on the list I’ll get to you on Monday.”