by M A Comley
“Add this one to your list. Stan Foster, friend of the deceased. Apparently, he was drinking with him a few hours before Daws died. I received a threatening call, I suspect from Foster, telling me to back off. I sent two officers around to pick him up and bring him in for questioning, but he’d gone AWOL.”
“Same kind of thing, petty criminal, yes?”
“Yep. There’s one other thing to consider when you’re questioning the snouts. A drug element. Daws had cannabis in him. We’re thinking that possibly a gang dealing in drugs might have killed him. Pure conjecture, of course, but if you’re asking the questions anyway, you might as well put that one around, too.”
“Right. I’ll get on to this when I return to the office. Ring me if you think of anything else, okay?”
“Things are a little thin on the ground at present, mate. The term ‘clutching at straws’ comes to mind, until something else crops up. As quick as you can with the info. I’d appreciate it.”
Both men finished their drinks and left the pub. As he shut the door, Hero looked behind him, and sure enough, Cathy Daws was glaring at him through narrowed eyes. Feeling devilish, he wiggled his fingers and smiled broadly at her, much to her annoyance.
CHAPTER FIVE
The incident room was busy with chatter when Hero returned to the station. “What’s going on?” he demanded with a frown.
“A body has been found under a railway bridge, sir,” Jason told him.
“On our patch?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Right, get me the details. Julie, are you ready to go?” His partner glanced up at him, and he saw immediately that she’d been crying again. “Would you rather I took someone else with me?” he asked as he walked over to her desk.
She nodded and swallowed hard. “If you don’t mind, sir.”
“Go home, eh?”
“I couldn’t do that. Foxy can go with you. I can take over her job with the CCTV discs.”
“Did you manage to find out anything about Cathy Daws while I was out?” She lifted her notebook and handed it to him. The answer stared back at him from the two lines she’d written: nothing much. “Great, well, there’s little we can do about that, is there? Okay, if you’re sure you want to sit this one out and stick around here, I’ll take Foxy with me.”
“It’s about time she started using her talents more out in the field.”
“If everything gets on top of you, you have my permission to go home, all right?”
“Yes, sir, thank you.”
Hero nodded then marched across the room to Foxy. “Grab your jacket. You’re coming with me, Foxy lady.” He stopped dead and turned to give her an embarrassed smile. “Er…that kind of came out the wrong way.”
As though the comment had passed her by, Foxy rose from the chair with a look of confusion covering her face. “I am? What about this lot?” She swept her hand over the discs scattered across her desk.
“It’s all in hand. Julie’s going to take care of that while we’re out.”
Foxy looked over at Julie, who nodded her acceptance of the situation. “I’m good to go then, sir.”
“Right. Let’s get out of here.” Hero strode past Jason, grabbed the piece of paper the young detective was holding out to him, and left the incident room with Foxy trotting behind him.
Once in the car, Hero programed the location into his sat nav and headed off. Foxy struck up a conversation, and Hero could hear in her voice how nervous she was.
“Hey, you’ll be fine. Stop fretting. How’s that hubby of yours doing in Vice? Is promotion on the cards for him yet?” Hero knew how much Sally loved talking about her husband and how proud Frank was of his work with the unit. As far as Hero was concerned, Frank was welcome to it, Hero had never considered joining Vice in the past, and he couldn’t envision joining in the foreseeable future, either. He couldn’t imagine dealing with the dregs and scum of Manchester every day. His last case had put him in direct contact with some treacherous people, and he’d found himself slap-bang in the middle of a gang war that had forced him to investigate several crimes in a notorious police no-go area. His nerves had jangled constantly during that case. He definitely couldn’t live with shredded nerves on a daily basis the way Frank had to.
“Yes, it looks like they want him to start climbing the ladder. It’s his call. I think he likes being involved at ‘ground level,’ if you like. Not sure he could hack being stuck in the station all day, buried under a mountain of paperwork. It’s something he needs to consider carefully over the next few weeks.”
“I’m sure he’ll make the right decision in the long run, for both of you.” He steered the car slowly down the narrow lane that led to the crime scene. Several cars blocked the way, and two uniformed officers were standing behind the crime scene tape. Hero parked the car behind all the others, and the two detectives stepped out of the vehicle. Hero flashed his warrant card, then both he and Foxy ducked under the tape and headed down the muddy bank towards the Scene of Crime Officers already working the area.
“Are you all right? Probably not the best footwear to have chosen.” Hero pointed at Foxy’s three-inch heels.
“I’ll be fine. I can clean them up when I get back to the office. I really wasn’t expecting to be out in the field today, sir.”
“Sorry, I suppose I should’ve checked before volunteering you for the role. Okay, let’s see what we have. Ah…I see a familiar face.”
Hero entered the tunnel and walked up to a man wearing a protective white paper suit. “Hello, Gerrard. What do we have?”
“A dog walker found the body, or rather his dog did. It’s not pretty. Looks like the corpse has been here for somewhere between two and three weeks. Heavily decomposed. I think the strays have been feeding off his face and hands because there’s very little left.”
Both men turned when Foxy gulped and her face went a mild shade of green. “You all right, Sally?”
She nodded. “I’ll be fine in a minute, sir. It’s the smell…” With that, she hurled against the tunnel wall. Luckily she’d had the sense to change direction in time so as not to contaminate the crime scene.
Hero and Gerrard smirked and moved towards the body. They crouched as Gerrard continued his briefing, revealing what he’d discovered about the body so far.
“I’m estimating the man is in his mid-twenties to early thirties. He probably died from the wound to his throat. It was a vicious attack—his head was virtually severed.”
“An intentional attack full of rage for the victim, in that case?” Hero suggested.
“Looks that way, although I’ll be more definite once we’re back at the mortuary. You can see that he suffered numerous wounds to the chest area, presumably with a knife of sorts. So either one of them could have been the fatal wound.”
“Is there enough of him left to get an ID? Have you found any ID? I suppose I should have asked that first.”
Gerrard shook his head. “Nothing as yet. Maybe the killer wanted us to believe it was some kind of mugging, but the ferociousness of the attack leads me to think otherwise.”
“Why here? I’m inclined to believe you’re right in that he was probably, or unfortunately I should say, led here with one thing in mind. Have your guys found a possible vehicle anywhere nearby?”
“Another negative. That doesn’t mean to say he didn’t have one when he arrived. The killer could have stolen it, or the victim might have parked his car a few streets away and arrived on foot. Once we can get him identified, you can start searching for the vehicle.” Gerrard stood up.
Hero remained crouching and scanned the area around the body. But he came up blank. “You don’t think he was killed somewhere else and dumped here, do you?” he asked Gerrard as he stood up.
“No, I don’t think so. There’s a lot of blood pooling, and”—he held out his hand to one of his team for a torch—”there’s a lot of blood spatter on the walls. Of course, we’ll have to analyse the blood to see if it came from th
e victim, but the likelihood in this case is there for all to see, I believe.”
Gerrard moved to where the victim’s head pointed north, then he made a stabbing motion. He was right—if the murderer had been standing in that same position when he attacked the victim and the victim fell on the spot, then, yes, the victim’s blood could have easily splayed across the wall behind them, to form the pattern on the bricks.
“I see. If there are no fingerprints to help with identification, is there any way we can maybe get one of those clay models made up of his face?” Hero bent down and studied the face. “The bone structure is all there. It’s just the skin that’s missing. How about it?”
“I can certainly have a word with a colleague of mine specialising in the forensic sculpture field. Depending on her workload, I can’t see why we shouldn’t be able to sort that out, Hero.”
“That’s great. The sooner we can obtain some features or a face, the quicker we can get the word out in the media. Get back to me today about that, will you, Gerrard?”
Gerrard shook his head and tutted. “I’ll do my best. I’m not going to make promises I can’t keep. As you can see I’ll be a little preoccupied first thing.”
Hero shrugged innocently and joked, “You will? Can’t imagine what you’ll be up to. Right, I better get out of here while my scalp is still intact. Anything else I should know before I leave?”
“No, I think we’ve covered everything. I’ll make the necessary calls and get on with the examination first thing. Do you want to observe?”
“Do you need me to be there? I’m still three feet deep in another case right now.”
Gerrard shook his head. “No, you don’t need to attend. I’ll get back to you later with my conclusions.”
When they were back in the car, Hero asked Foxy, “How are you feeling now? Had I known you had a queasy stomach, I would have asked one of the boys to join me. Sorry about that.”
“There’s no need to be sorry, sir. It was a bit of a shock to me. That’s all. Stupid, really, considering I spend half my days looking at gruesome photos and never have a problem. Yet when I’m called to attend a scene, the first thing I do is spill my guts. Hardly professional, is it?”
He laughed. “Don’t feel bad. It happens to us all on the first case.”
She turned sharply to face him. “You? It happened to you, too?”
“Yep, and ninety-nine percent of the force, I suspect, if they dare to admit it. It’s not so much the sight of seeing a dead body that upsets the stomach. It’s the vile smell. That one back there was a particularly nasty one, I have to say.”
“Then why didn’t it affect you, sir?” Foxy asked, a perplexed look creasing her brow.
Hero pulled a small pot of Vicks out of his jacket pocket and handed it to her. “Meet your new best friend.”
“Vicks! I don’t get it, sir.”
“Call it a trick of the trade. Most coppers apply a little under their noses when they either show up at a bad scene, such as that one, or when they have to sit in on a post mortem.”
“Come to think of it, I remember seeing something about using this as a barrier in one of those autopsy programmes on the crime channel,” she admitted.
“You live and learn, Foxy, every day in this job, so it would seem.”
“I guess I have a long learning curve ahead of me, if that’s the case,” she said quietly, leaning her head against the headrest.
“When we get back, I want you to chase up the address of the dog owner who reported the crime. We’ll call and see him this afternoon, if he’s free.”
“Yes, sir.”
• • •
Once Foxy had tracked down the man’s address, they set off again. Hero was pleased to see that the colour had returned to his temporary partner’s cheeks. They pulled up outside what appeared to be a warden-protected block of flats for the elderly.
Mr. Mitchell was eager to see them and made a point of introducing the two detectives to his little beagle, which had dragged him to the body of the victim. “He’s the hero in all this. Jackson led me to the body, not a pretty sight. Have you seen it? Turned my stomach upside down and put me off my tomato soup. I always have tomato soup for lunch, I do.”
Hero smiled at the wizened old man and patted the dog, which had propped himself up against Hero’s leg.
“Do you often go down that way to walk Jackson?” Hearing his name, the dog turned to look at Hero. He stroked its head and glanced up at the dog’s owner for a response.
“Now and again. Haven’t been down there for a few days—maybe it’s weeks. I can’t be sure, really.”
“Any reason for you changing your routine?” Hero asked, thinking the man might have stumbled across an altercation or witnessed something untoward and been afraid to get involved.
“The weather mainly. When it’s wet, it gets terribly muddy down there, like today. I hadn’t anticipated that today, any of it.”
“I see. Can you remember when you last visited the area?”
The man tapped the side of his nose with a finger. “Ah…I see where you’re going with this. You’re trying to find out how long the body has been down there, ain’t ya? I’ve seen enough of them CSI programmes on the TV to understand what you’re getting at.”
Hero smiled at the man and stroked the dog again. “There’s no fooling you, Mr. Mitchell. I was also asking if you’d seen anything out of the ordinary. Anyone you perceived to be up to no good, perhaps?”
The man’s mouth twisted as he thought. “Nothing that I can think of. I’m sorry. I’d tell you if I had. I haven’t been around that area for at least three weeks, if that helps. I’ve not been too steady on my feet of late, to be honest, so Jackson there has been neglected for a couple of weeks. He’s a good dog, doesn’t bother me at all, as though he senses when I’m not so well.”
“Dogs have a knack of picking up on things like that, it’s true. Oh well, if you can’t tell us anything else, we better get off and leave you to it.” Hero stood up and walked towards the front door.
Mr. Mitchell held out a hand for Hero to shake. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you more, son. I hope you catch the bastard who did it. No one deserves to get done over like that. Horrible business.” His final words were attached to a shudder.
“Thanks, Mr. Mitchell. Take care of yourself and little Jackson over there.”
“I will. He’s all I’ve got in this world,” the man said sadly, eyeing the dog standing next to the living room door.
When she got back in the car, Foxy pulled the seatbelt around her and said, “That must have shaken him up, finding the body like that. Poor bloke.”
“Yeah, there are some things in this life that folks should never be allowed to see, and that’s one of them. Let’s see what everyone’s been up to back at the station, and then I think we’ll call it a day. I don’t know about you, but I’ve seen enough and had enough excitement for one day.”
“Yeah, me, too. God knows what we’ll be eating for dinner tonight. Not sure my stomach’s up to much.”
“These things are sent to try us, Foxy. You know that, right?”
• • •
“Okay, what do we have?” Hero asked the second he and Foxy arrived in the incident room. He made his way over to the blank whiteboard, not the one they’d started for Stuart Daws’s murder, and began writing out the details of the second crime.
His team brought their notebooks and settled into the seats nearest the boards.
Lance spoke first. “Regarding the other case, sir, I looked into this guy Foster’s past. Actually, I’m still finding some snippets out about him.”
“And, Lance?”
“Well, it’ll be no surprise to you that, yes, he drives a similar model car to the one seen on the CCTV footage. He’s been in and out of nick for the past twenty-odd years, since he was nineteen.”
“For what?”
“Anything and everything, really. Petty stuff, that is, nothing too heavy. I supp
ose the heaviest charge is actual bodily harm. He’s into drugs, burglary. To me, he’s been let off lightly by certain judges over the years, only carrying out community service in a few cases. Not sure what kind of deterrent the judges thought they’d be, especially for a reoffender.”
“Shit happens, Lance. Trouble is, the judges are being told to stop sending people to prison for minor offences because the prisons are all pretty much full. I know it isn’t right, but…”
“Yes, sir.” Lance nodded reluctantly.
“Have we got a licence number for his car?”
“Yep, I’ve put out an alert for it already, sir. Considering he’s gone missing, he’s obviously got something to hide,” Lance informed him.
“That’s my take on it. Julie, any advancement on the CCTV footage? Can we match the plate to Foster’s yet?”
“Not that I can see, no. Disappointingly, there’s nothing more on the footage to help us as yet, sir. Maybe we should just concentrate on tracking down Foster, bring him in for questioning, and go from there?”
“Thanks, Julie. I think we’ve already established that should be how we proceed,” Hero shot back at her, instantly regretting his harsh tone. He tried to offer a brief smile as an apology, but his partner just returned a blank gaze. “Right, this is what Foxy and I uncovered about the new case. It’s basic at the moment, until the PM has been carried out. The man, in his late twenties to early thirties, had his throat slit. Not just that—his attacker almost severed his head from his body during the frenzied attack. The victim’s body was found by a man walking his dog. The pathologist reckons we’re looking at the corpse being at least two to three weeks old. The dog walker believes it has been three weeks since he walked his dog down there because of the poor weather, so that would definitely match up to the pathologist’s speculation. Not only was the victim strangled, but he was also attacked with a sharp object—in all probability, a knife—and stabbed numerous times in the chest.”
“So he saw his attacker then, sir?” Jason asked.