by Ted Tayler
Gus and Neil stood up and prepared to leave.
“That’s what Culverhouse promised ten years ago.”
“I accept that, Mr Morris,” said Gus, “but we’ve got more tools in our box these days. It’s far harder for the killer to avoid capture. Our man or woman probably think they’ve got away with it. If they relax for one second, they’ll slip up, and we’ll pounce. This team has never failed to crack a case.”
The two officers left the old couple on their doorstep, smiling.
“That cheered them up, guv.”
“We do our best, Neil.”
“A bit naughty not telling them we haven’t solved one yet either.”
“We learned a lot there. Whether any of it is important, I don’t know. If we keep unearthing little nuggets hidden from view ten years ago, it’s only a matter of time before we learn which one is the vital clue we need.”
“Back to the office, guv?”
“Not yet. Alex left a message on my mobile. It came through while you were in the kitchen. He’s arranged an interview with Carl Brightwell. We’re off to Bristol.”
“Why not call Alex back and get him to arrange for us to meet up with John Morris in Filton? Either at work or home. We can kill two birds with one stone.”
“Good thinking. I’ll call Alex anyway. He can tell us what progress he’s made with Lydia today.”
“A gentleman doesn’t tell, guv.”
“Just drive, Neil.”
They left HMP Bristol at one o’clock. Carl Brightwell had offered very little of any use. He had no suggestions for the identity of the person in the woods. The original file said he had been a surly teenager with a chip on both shoulders. They had just left a twenty-seven-year-old dimwit destined to spend the rest of his life in and out of prison.
“Carl’s alibi is rock-solid, guv.”
“I lost count of the times he answered, ‘no comment’. Where did he pick up the Bronx accent? I don’t recall him ever spending any time Stateside.”
“Brightwell’s a muppet, guv. Thinks he’s a hard man. Over half his mates with him on the night of the murder are in the nick. The others are either hooked on drugs or dead. When he comes out next year, he’ll commit another crime within a month. He won’t know anybody on the outside. Any friends he has are where we left him, back in Horfield.”
“A depressing thought isn’t it? What do we know of John Morris? Is he at home or at work?”
“He’s home this afternoon. Should be out of bed. Mick Morris’s son works night shifts in a warehouse in Filton.”
“What’s the latest from the office, Neil?”
“We now have a list of those people in the area with a criminal record. So far, Alex hasn’t matched a name to someone from our list of most likely candidates. Gavin Shaw had a record as a juvenile for an affray charge. No surprise, given his short fuse.”
“Hold it, Gavin Shaw was twenty-four when you arrested him, right? He was sixteen in 2008. Shaw could be our youngster in the woods. He’s known to use his fists when provoked. He might not have registered on Culverhouse’s radar, but he laid into Percy Pickering, didn’t he? If Daphne Tolliver caught him at it in the woods, he could well have lashed out and killed her.”
“Gavin moves back onto the list of persons of interest, guv.”
“Blimey, we’re here already. It was only a five-minute drive from the prison. We may catch John Morris having his breakfast.”
“Do you still call it breakfast when you work nights and get up in the early afternoon?”
“What else should you call the first meal of the day?”
“Eighty-six, eighty-eight and ninety. Here we are. The place looks a mess, guv. The garden is a tip, and that car hasn’t been through a car wash in months. Look at the large oil slick underneath.”
“Neil, his missus buggered off to Oz with another woman and took his kids with her. Do you honestly expect to roll up and see a semi-detached house out of Ideal Homes?”
“Perhaps, not.”
They could hear the TV blaring away inside as they approached the door. Neil rang the bell twice. Knocked hard on the glazed window and as a last resort yelled through the letterbox,
“Come on, Mr Morris. We know you’re there. Open the door. It’s the police.”
A bleary-eyed man in his mid-forties dragged open the door. It might have moved more freely if he’d bothered to pick up the many flyers, free newspapers and legitimate mail that had collected on the mat.
“What do you want?”
“John Morris? Wiltshire Police. I’m DS Hardy, and this is former DI, Mr Freeman. We’re from the Crime Review Team having a fresh look into your aunt’s murder.”
“You got ID?”
The two officers held their cards in front of Morris’s face. Whether they registered was hard to tell.
“Is this going to take long? I need to get ready for work.”
“Unless you’ve suddenly switched shifts, or the chance of overtime has turned up since we talked to your employer, I’d say you’ve got six hours to spare. We won’t be that long.”
Morris gave Gus a long stare. Gus could almost hear the cogs working away inside his brain.
“Now, I don’t want to stand on your doorstep shouting, so let’s get indoors, and you can turn off that TV.”
“If you give us the right answers, we can be out of your hair in no time,” said Neil, stepping forward. Morris moved more quickly than when he answered the door.
The inside of the house wasn’t any better than the outside.
John Morris flopped onto a leather settee covered with a woollen rug. He did not attempt to clear the empty lager cans, fast-food cartons and overflowing ashtrays from the seat and arms of the only other chair in the room.
If Neil had to sum up Morris’s design style, he’d call it basic brutal.
“We’re re-interviewing each of the members of your aunt’s family,” said Gus, “can you tell us your whereabouts on the afternoon of her death?”
“I took the kids into town. We spent an hour looking in shop windows. I treated them to a milkshake in a café. Then we called on Mum and Dad.”
“Did you stay long?” asked Gus.
“I don’t know. Thirty minutes? An hour, maybe? It couldn’t have been long. I took the kids to the cinema later.”
“What did you watch?” asked Neil.
“Daddy Day Camp. It had been out a while, but new films used to take ages to reach us in the sticks. These days you can watch them five minutes after release. If your kids are still in the country.”
“What did you do afterwards?” asked Neil.
“The usual, for a Saturday night. Fish and chip supper. We arrived home at half-past eight. Dad called with the news before Match of the Day started.”
“Was your ex-wife at home when you got back?” asked Gus.
“Yeah, lounging on the sofa. I doubt my ex-wife had moved since we left the house. Lazy cow.”
“I think that covers everything,” said Gus, turning to leave.
Neil had stood beside him throughout the conversation. There was nowhere they wished to sit. When they reached the door, Neil stopped.
“What did you and your Dad chat about while you visited them in the afternoon?”
“I can’t remember.”
“Did it strike you as odd that your Aunt Daphne was considering walking through Lowden Woods that evening?” asked Gus.
“I had no idea that was where she was going. I can’t remember either of them mentioning it. The kids dominated the conversation with their grandparents. That’s what we did most Saturday afternoons back then. Now I sit in the pub and get pissed.”
Gus and Neil left him in his pit of sorrow.
“That was a nice Columbo moment back there,” said Gus.
“Thanks. John will never get over his wife leaving, will he?”
“We don’t know the whole story, Neil. As coppers, we appreciate how many marriages break down. What’s the usual reason
? The unsocial hours we work. The wife’s at home with the children. She has to cope with the illnesses, the tantrums, the non-appearance of Dad at the school nativity. The list is endless. John worked all hours, Monday to Friday. At the weekend he overcompensated on the time he spent with the kids. I wonder if he ever took the wife out on a Sunday. Just the two of them. I doubt it. A small thing like that could have saved their marriage.”
“Stephanie Morris found someone who told her she was beautiful. If he bucked his ideas up, he could find someone. Will his kids ever come over to visit while he’s living like that? Never in a million years.”
“We can’t do it for him. He’s going to want to change the way he lives for himself. He’s not our man though, Neil. The timelines don’t work. I thought there was a possible motive, but if he was seeing someone else, it wasn’t on that Saturday night.”
“Another one crossed off our list.”
“Back to the office, Neil. We can spend two more hours nagging away at the Morris family members. Move the pieces around the board. Try to make connections.”
Once they returned to the Old Police Station, Alex Hardy gave them a rundown of the tasks they had handled in their absence.
“This is all in the Freeman File, guv, for us to keep abreast of our progress,”
“Or lack of it,” said Lydia.
“I’m sorry, guv. We’ve corroborated the statements supplied by Stephanie Morris, as she was, plus Megan and Mick’s daughters, Kathy and Fiona and their husbands Jack and Emilio. They were where they said they were from the afternoon until the following morning.”
“It is what it is,” said Gus, “they couldn’t all have done it. We’re not talking ‘Murder on the Orient Express.’
“We’ve removed Carl Brightwell and John Morris from the list too,” said Neil.
“Can you take us through the information supplied by the Hub, Lydia?” Gus asked.
“They delved into the 2001 Census data and determined there were thirteen hundred and forty men and women between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four resident in the area we highlighted. There would have been a degree of movement in the intervening seven years. We’re waiting for a more useful physical description of the youthful person seen in the woods. Once we get that description, we can reduce that list to a more manageable number. The results can’t be conclusive, but if one of the names is known to us, it brings them into our number of most likely suspects.”
“When you say, known to us, that includes names on the large list of potential suspects that Alex compiled, plus those who have criminal records.”
“Yes, guv, sorry. I meant those we have begun to investigate, plus those that a criminal record suggests we should study closely.”
“Phew!” said Neil, “it’s complicated, isn’t it?”
“That’s because we haven’t talked to Holly and Percy yet,” said Gus.
“They’re our best bet for a breakthrough on the runner’s description,” said Alex.
“Gavin Shaw has difficult questions to answer if our updated description puts him in the frame,” said Neil.
“I think we’ll swap team members tomorrow. Lydia, you can come with me to interview Holly Wells and Percy Pickering.”
“What do you want us two to prioritise while you’re away, guv,” asked Neil.
“Getting that list reduced in size. Use the Hub’s resources if you can find the right questions to ask. The ACC and Geoff Mercer will be on my back if we don’t make full use of their shiny new toy. That’s tomorrow, right now, it’s coffee time. Your turn, I reckon, Lydia.”
Gus watched her make her way to the restroom. As the door closed behind her, he turned to his two sergeants.
“There’s a method in my logic, guys. Lydia’s presence can help put Holly Wells at ease. She was a sensitive body based on the file. As for Percy the Pervert, well…”
“She will go mad if she finds out, guv,”
“All’s fair in love and war, Neil. I won’t ask her to wear a revealing top, or wear stockings and provocatively cross her legs. Her mere presence can help distract him. I want him to tell me something he doesn’t want to admit he knows.”
“You need that conversation with her, guv,” said Neil.
“Did I miss something?” asked Alex.
There was an awkward silence as Lydia returned with the coffees.
“Alex, can you arrange those meetings for tomorrow? I don’t mind which order they’re in, but nothing earlier than, say eleven o’clock. We’ll meet here at nine, Lydia. Come dressed for a walk in the woods. I want to visit the murder site. We’re missing something. I need inspiration.”
Alex wondered why Neil was grinning. He would ask him in the morning.
“I hope you find it, guv, every stone we’ve turned over so far has just given us more trouble, rather than less.”
“Trouble is the common denominator of living. It is the great equaliser,” Gus replied.
“That’s deep, guv,” said Neil.
“Soren Kierkegaard,” said Gus.
“Who did he play for, guv? It wasn’t for any of the top six clubs in the Premiership. I would have heard of him. Was it Palace, or Charlton when they had a brief spell in the limelight? He’s like that Eric Cantona, isn’t he? The seagulls following the trawler, and that.”
Gus groaned and shook his head in resignation. The youth of today.
“Kierkegaard was a philosopher, Neil,” laughed Lydia.
“Oh, right. Well, my old English teacher told me that one new fact every day was the high road to success. I’ve learned something new today.”
The rest of the afternoon saw Alex and Lydia searching social media to gather relevant physical descriptions for anyone they hadn’t already eliminated from their listings. Neil and Gus keyed their versions of the day’s witness interviews into the Freeman File.
When he drove home that evening, Gus wondered how long before he heard from Geoff Mercer. He’d relayed his concerns over what was happening on the land above Cambrai Terrace before leaving for work this morning. It might be something of nothing, but Geoff would call before long. Only two days into the review or not. The clock was ticking. The top brass would be itching for the team to make progress.
Wednesday, 11th April 2018
“Good morning, guv,”
Lydia had arrived on time. She was wearing the ubiquitous Barbour jacket, dark trousers and knee-high boots. She strode across from her Mini to meet him as he stepped out of his car.
“Are we going straight there, or are we going up to the office first?”
“I need to check Alex received confirmation of our meeting times later today. Once I know we’re okay with those, we’ll walk the route Daphne Tolliver took. It’s a nice day for it.”
They travelled up in the lift to find Alex and Neil were already at work.
“Morning, lads. What news, Alex?”
“Mrs Wells is confirmed for eleven o’clock. I’ve left her Chippenham address on the card on your desk. Pickering resides at HMP Leyhill. You can be there in forty minutes via the M4.”
“That’s near Wotton-under-Edge isn’t,” said Neil.
“That’s right. Category D for Delightful,” said Alex.
“We’ll leave you two to crack on, and Lydia and I will see you this afternoon,” said Gus.
“Good hunting, guv,” said Neil.
When they reached the car park again, Gus nodded towards his car.
“We’ll use my car to get out to Braemar Terrace. Then we’ll walk from there.”
They made their way through the early morning traffic towards the town’s outskirts.
“What’s my role in these meetings later, guv?” she asked.
“I want you to observe. Watch and learn. We each have our style. Neil’s impressed me this week. When you work with him in the future, you’ll see him adopt different methods. For me, interviews are like a game of chess. I use an opening gambit. Then I prefer to introduce a shock tactic designed to put th
em off balance. It might appear to be a strange question, but I want them thinking about that instead of their defensive tactics. Anything to get the answers I want.”
They had to park a distance from Daphne Tolliver’s old house. The scaffolding indicated that the homeowners had decided to make the improvements Wally Tolliver had eschewed for so long.
Gus set off at a leisurely pace to the footpath across the meadow that took them to Battersby Lane. Lydia had to shorten her usual stride to stay beside him. They reached the stile, and Gus clambered over first, then offered his hand to help Lydia negotiate the narrow wooden steps.
“I can manage,” she said.
“Did you encounter many stiles in the Scottish cities in which you’ve lived?”
“No, but it’s not hard to work out what to do,” she replied.
“Touché,”
“Were you talking about me when I fetched the coffee yesterday afternoon?”
“Has that been gnawing away at you for the past eighteen hours?”
“Of course not, but it was obvious when the conversation stopped abruptly as soon as I opened the door.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but what are you wearing under that Barbour?”
“Oh, I get it. This outfit wasn’t merely to cope with walking across damp grass and muddy pathways. You expect me to suppress my individuality and conform to the uniform appearance that my male colleagues must display.”
“I’d have no objection to Alex or Neil dressing more casually in the office. I don’t find what you’ve worn this week inappropriate either. However, the public has a perception that we should look professional at all times. A uniform helps. A detective in a suit helps. If I turn up in a kaftan, torn jeans and sandals to interview the grieving parent of a stab victim, what message does that send?”
Lydia unzipped her jacket. The orange, red & yellow top almost blinded Gus.
“I got it wrong again, didn’t I?” she said. “You need me to dress for the occasion. I get it now.”
“Cover yourself up. There may be others enjoying a stroll in the countryside.”
“Who in their right mind carries a pair of sunglasses in April, on the off chance they need to ward off the sun’s glare?”