by Damien Boyd
‘You really shouldn’t be doing that through your clothes,’ said Poland. ‘It could lead to all sorts of—’
‘Yes, Mother.’
‘Jane still in bed I suppose?’
Dixon nodded.
‘Bet you’re glad you were driving last night,’ said Poland, placing a mug of coffee on the desk next to Dixon.
‘That pillbox was bad enough, but with a hangover? I’d have—’
‘I nearly did.’ Poland smiled. ‘So, what’s this training course Jane’s doing?’
‘Child Protection and the Internet. Then she joins the PPU.’
‘Remind me.’
‘The Public Protection Unit. It’s based at Portishead.’
‘Odd choice.’
‘You go where the vacancy is, and it splits us up at work now we’re living together. Then she’ll transfer to the Bridgwater SCU.’
‘Are you taking the—?’
‘Safeguarding Coordination Unit,’ mumbled Dixon through a mouthful of sandwich.
‘You lot enjoy a good acronym, don’t you?’
‘And what are all those letters after your name?’
Poland shrugged his shoulders. ‘So, what happens now?’
‘We waste valuable time trying to find out who he is,’ replied Dixon, shaking his head, ‘before we can start finding out who killed him and why.’
‘Is that you or me?’ asked Poland, rummaging in his pockets as a phone started ringing.
‘Me,’ said Dixon, reaching into his coat pocket. ‘Dixon.’
‘Duty sergeant, Sir. We’ve had a missing persons call. It fits with your victim. Male aged sixty-five, bald, moustache.’
‘Who made the call?’
‘A neighbour. Not seen him since Friday. She’s worried about his elderly mother, and the dog’s been barking non-stop since yesterday.’
‘Have we got a name?’
‘Alan Fletcher, Sir.’
‘Where?’
‘Easter Cottage, North Curry.’
Dixon drove over the large rock on the edge of the verge and parked on the grass opposite the war memorial in the centre of North Curry. Two uniformed officers were sitting in a patrol car further along Church Road, but he recognised neither of them.
He walked across the grass, leaving the first footprints in the fresh snow, and along the pavement in front of the cottages. Easter Cottage was the second one along. Built of red brick with old fashioned sash windows, two either side of a white painted front door and three upstairs, it was definitely the right house, judging by the barking. A small terrier of some sort.
Dixon peered in through the letterbox, turning when he heard the doors of the patrol car opening behind him.
‘What are we waiting for?’ he asked, holding up his warrant card.
‘The RSPCA, Sir, for the dog.’
‘Which neighbour made the call?’
‘Next door but one, Sir.’
Dixon turned back to the letter box and looked in. There was a small porch with a tiled floor and a glazed inner door. Behind that a small Jack Russell was barking for all he was worth.
‘It’s just a bloody Russell,’ said Dixon, straightening up. ‘Get this door open.’
‘The RSPCA will be here within the hour they said, Sir.’
‘We can’t wait for them. Now get it open.’
One of the officers fetched a handheld battering ram from the boot of the patrol car and hit the door just above the Yale lock. The door swung open.
Dixon stepped into the porch and closed the door behind him. He glanced along the coat hooks to his left. A dog’s lead was hanging on a hook behind an old coat, so he unhooked it and looped it around his neck before trying the inner door, which was unlocked. He opened it just wide enough to squeeze in. The letterbox moved behind him, and he turned to see one of the uniformed officers watching his every move.
The dog hesitated and then started barking again, more agitated this time, so Dixon sat down on the floor with his back to it and waited.
It took no more than a few minutes for the barking to subside. Dixon reached slowly into his coat pocket and took out a dog biscuit, which he dropped on to the carpet behind him. Monty could spare a couple. He waited for the crunching sound and then dropped another on the floor. Then another. The fourth he held in the palm of his hand, scratching the dog behind the ears as he took it.
‘Hungry, aren’t you, old son?’
Dixon checked the dog’s collar. ‘Nimrod’, and on the back ‘Fletcher’, then a phone number.
He stood up and walked along the passageway into the kitchen at the back of the cottage; it was ‘in need of refreshment’, as an estate agent would say, and there were several piles of dog mess by the back door. The dog’s water bowl was empty, so he filled it from the tap and listened to the slurping as he walked back to the front door.
‘Call off the RSPCA, then have a look around, will you?’
‘Yes, Sir.’
Dixon was opening a tin of dog food when one of the uniformed officers appeared in the kitchen doorway.
‘There’s an elderly lady dead in bed upstairs, Sir. Back bedroom.’
‘Call it in.’
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘The neighbour says there’s a daughter. Lives over Ilminster way apparently.’
‘Give her a ring and get her over here,’ said Dixon. ‘There’s an address book by the phone in the hall. We’ll need Family Liaison too.’
‘Ground floor is clear, Sir,’ said the other officer.
‘You got a dog?’ asked Dixon.
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘Good. Feed this one, then put him in the back of my Land Rover. It’s not locked. Here’s his lead.’
Dixon stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked at a small red pennant mounted in a wood framed glass case on the wall. A leek set on a red background encircled by the words ‘Cymru Am Byth’ in white on a blue background with a crown on top. Underneath it, engraved on a small gold plaque, were the words ‘Presented to Captain Alan Fletcher QGM by the Warrant Officers, 1st Battalion, Welsh Guards, Pirbright, June 1991.’
That explained Nimrod.
A colour photograph next to it showed two army officers in full ceremonial uniform – black trousers, red tunics and bearskins, swords at their waists – both Welsh Guardsmen judging by the golden leeks sewn on to their collars. Dixon recognised the officer on the right with the big smile. Younger, happy and yet destined to end his days in a freezing cold pillbox on the Bridgwater and Taunton Canal.
She looked asleep, were it not for blue lips and grey skin. Dixon thought she must be well over ninety and in poor health if the different boxes of pills on the bedside table were anything to go by. He picked up a small red and white box and looked at the label. ‘1 Nitrolingual 0.4 mg Pumpspray, spray twice under the tongue when required. Mrs Lillian May Fletcher.’
On the bedside table was a silver framed photograph of a young Alan Fletcher with his bride on their wedding day, both of them grinning at the camera. The photograph looked very much like it had been taken on the same day as the one at the bottom of the stairs. Perhaps the other officer in that photograph had been Fletcher’s best man. A second wedding photograph on the bedside table was presumably the daughter and her husband.
Mrs Fletcher was propped up in the bed on three pillows, her head back, mouth open and eyes closed. ‘Peacefully in her sleep’ the obituary notice would say. Unlike her son’s.
‘The neighbour’s here, Sir.’
Dixon stopped on the landing and looked back. Then he turned to the uniformed officer waiting at the top of the stairs.
‘I want this treated as a crime scene until we know otherwise.’
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘We’ll need Roger Poland and SOCO out here. All right?’
‘Yes, Sir.’
Dixon was halfway down the stairs when the neighbour appeared in the doorway of the sitting room.
‘Is she . . . ?’
Di
xon nodded.
‘This is Mrs Westlake, Sir. The neighbour from two doors down.’
‘Detective Inspector Dixon, Mrs Westlake. Can we have a word back at your house perhaps?’
‘Yes, of course.’
Dixon followed her along the pavement and through her front door, which was standing open.
‘How old was Mrs Fletcher?’
‘Ninety-six, Inspector,’ replied Mrs Westlake, opening a door on the right. ‘Let’s sit in here. I’ve lit the stove.’
‘Did you know her well?’ asked Dixon, sitting down on a chair opposite the wood burner.
‘Yes, reasonably well. We met when my husband and I moved in here. That was eight years ago.’
‘And was her son living with her at the time?’
‘Yes. Alan. He keeps himself to himself really. He’s her carer. She’s got . . . had . . . angina and renal failure, amongst other things. I helped out if Alan was away. Beta blockers, statins, diuretics. She was always taking pills of some sort.’
‘And was her death expected, if that’s not a stupid question to ask of a ninety-six year old?’
‘Not as stupid as it sounds. Her kidneys had packed up and she’d refused dialysis. Palliative care they call it, don’t they? She was determined to die in her own home. Stubborn old . . .’
Mrs Westlake took out a handkerchief and wiped her eyes.
‘And Alan was looking after her?’
‘Yes. They’d got some nurses coming in next week from the local hospice. I’d better ring them.’
‘When did you last see him?’
‘Friday morning. He’d walked down to the shop for his paper as usual,’ replied Mrs Westlake. ‘Why, what’s happened to him? He’d have said if he was going away . . . asked me to help with Lillian.’
‘Did you see him again after that?’
‘No.’ Mrs Westlake was watching the flames flickering in the door of the wood burner and shaking her head. ‘No, I’m sure I didn’t.’
‘Did you see anyone else that day? Anyone unusual. Someone you’d not seen before perhaps.’
‘No.’
‘When did you notice the dog barking?’
‘Late Saturday I think. Yesterday. I went into Taunton in the morning.’
‘Does Mr Fletcher own a car?’
‘Yes, it’s over there,’ replied Mrs Westlake, gesturing back towards the war memorial. ‘Opposite the cottage. The blue one.’
‘He won the Queen’s Gallantry Medal—’
‘In the Falklands. That’s all I know. He never spoke about it.’
‘What about friends? Did he have any?’
‘Not that I know of I’m afraid. He was a churchgoer, though, if that’s any use to you.’
‘Down the road here?’
‘Yes.’
‘Thank you,’ said Dixon, standing up. ‘You’ve been very helpful.’
‘Has something happened to Alan?’
‘That’s what we’re trying to find out, Mrs Westlake.’
Dixon was walking back along the pavement when Louise and Mark Pearce arrived and pulled up behind a Scientific Services van that was double parked, blocking the road.
‘Where’s Dave?’ asked Dixon.
‘We left him at the Boat and Anchor,’ replied Louise.
‘I see you’ve made an arrest, Sir,’ said Pearce, pointing at Dixon’s Land Rover.
Nimrod was standing with his paws up at the back window.
‘Shut up, Mark.’
‘Sorry, Sir.’
‘It looks like our victim is Alan Fletcher. He lived here with his elderly mother, who just happens to be dead in bed upstairs. Roger’s on his way to have a look at her, but we’re probably wasting his time. She was ninety-six with heart trouble and kidney failure.’
‘Did well to get to ninety-six,’ said Pearce.
‘There’s a daughter on her way here now,’ continued Dixon. ‘Right then. Mrs Westlake, two doors down. She’s the neighbour who rang us. Go and get a statement from her, will you?’
‘Both of us?’ asked Pearce.
‘Just you.’
Back at Easter Cottage, Dixon leafed through the address book on the hall table. He turned to ‘F’ and rang the mobile number next to ‘Alan’. The handwriting was faint and spidery; Mrs Fletcher’s no doubt. ‘This is the Vodafone voicemail service for 07—’ He rang off.
‘This is his mobile phone number,’ said Dixon, handing the open phone book to Louise. ‘See if we can get a trace on it. Even if it’s off, it might show up on a base station.’
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘Then see what you can find in the living room. Have you got some gloves?’
Louise nodded without looking away from her phone.
Dixon glanced along the hall to the kitchen and watched a scenes of crime officer dusting the back door for fingerprints. Another was dusting the bannister, and a third the front door.
He was staring at the photograph of Alan Fletcher on the wall at the bottom of the stairs when his phone started ringing in his coat pocket.
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘What’ve you got?’ asked DCI Lewis.
‘A neighbour made the call. It looks like our victim is retired Captain Alan Fletcher, ex-army. Lives here with his elderly mother. Only we get here to find she’s dead.’
‘Not another murder?’
‘Doesn’t look like it, Sir. She was ninety-six and terminally ill so, and I’m guessing now, but I reckon he went out on Friday, never came back and sometime between then and now she died in her bed. He wasn’t here to give her her medication of course. There’s no sign of forced entry or a struggle. It’s possible he suffocated her I suppose, or overdosed her before he left, but Roger’s on the way, so he’ll soon tell us.’
‘What about his car?’
‘Still here, so either he went on foot or was picked up by his killer. He may have caught the bus to somewhere, but we’ll check that.’
‘Any other relatives?’
‘A daughter is on her way over from Ilminster. We’ll get her to do the identification when I’ve spoken to her. Family Liaison is on the way too.’
‘Good. Keep me posted.’
‘Yes, Sir.’
Dixon rang off and peered into the living room. Louise was sitting in front of an open bureau, flicking through the bundles of papers in the various compartments.
‘See if you can find his Christmas card list. And find out what bus routes come through North Curry, will you?’
‘Yes, Sir.’
Dixon turned when he heard voices behind him in the hall.
‘This is Mrs Fletcher’s GP, Nick,’ said Poland. He was wearing a set of white overalls and blue latex gloves. The doctor was dressed casually.
‘Dr Saltmarsh.’ She shook hands with Dixon.
‘SOCO haven’t found anything, but we need a cause of death.’
‘Probably heart failure,’ said Dr Saltmarsh. ‘I’m surprised she’s lasted this long to be honest.’
‘Let me know,’ said Dixon. ‘I’m going to give the dog a run in those gardens over there.’
Dixon was leaning on the gate of Queen Square Garden, a small walled garden opposite the cottage, watching Nimrod cocking his leg on the base of the flagpole when Dr Saltmarsh appeared beside him.
‘Looks like the heart. I’ve notified the coroner. There’ll need to be a post mortem anyway because of the way she was found.’
Dixon nodded.
‘I’ve left Dr Poland in there,’ continued Dr Saltmarsh. ‘We couldn’t see any sign of anything untoward.’
‘Thank you.’
‘You do know the sign says no dogs?’
Chapter Three
‘The daughter’s here, Sir. Mrs Painter.’
‘What about Family Liaison?’
‘Karen Marsden is downstairs.’
‘Has Roger finished?’
‘Not yet.’
Dixon was sitting in what had once been a spare bedroom at the back of the h
ouse. The bed had gone, but the bedside table was still there, in amongst several stacks of boxes piled high against the wall. Each box was sealed with tape and the contents written in black marker pen on the outside. Military style. Ornaments, dining room; pictures, living room, small; plates, kitchen; books, fiction; books, non-fiction. None of them touched since the day Alan Fletcher had moved in with his mother, judging by the dust.
It was a store room but also Fletcher’s office. An old laptop on a camping table ‘designed for Windows 98’ according to the sticker by the keyboard, and a printer of pensionable age. Dixon took his phone out of his pocket and opened ‘Settings’, then he selected ‘Wi-Fi’. He waited several seconds, but there were no networks in range, and a laptop of this vintage would need a modem cable anyway. He checked under the desk. Nothing.
On the floor under the window was a black bin liner, full and tied at the top. Next to it was a small shredder. Scientific Services would have fun with that lot.
The built-in wardrobe behind the door contained nothing but old clothes, moths and empty suitcases. It smelt damp, but not as damp as the pillbox.
Dixon closed the door behind him and walked across the landing to Mrs Fletcher’s bedroom. Roger Poland was standing in the window, talking into a handheld Dictaphone, his large frame blocking what little light there was left coming in from outside.
‘The daughter’s here,’ said Dixon.
‘Show her up. There’s no sign of foul play, but the PM will confirm it one way or the other.’
‘Where is she?’ asked Dixon, arriving at the bottom of the stairs.
‘In there, Sir,’ replied Louise.
‘Find anything?’
‘No.’
Mrs Painter was sitting on the sofa with her back to the door. Sergeant Karen Marsden from the Family Liaison Team was sitting next to her. Steam was rising from mugs of tea.
‘Mrs Painter?’ asked Dixon.
She stood up and turned to face him. Late fifties, early sixties – definitely Fletcher’s younger sister – she had short, dark hair, professionally dyed no doubt, and wore a long wool coat and brown leather boots.
‘This is Detective Inspector Dixon, Eve,’ said Karen.