‘I haven’t the faintest idea, but I’ve never seen or heard anything like today before in all my time in the police. Can I come now, please?’
‘Come on over. Company will do you good, and with one of my little bombs inside you, you’ll sleep like a top.’
‘Thanks, ma’am … Olivia. I’m on my way.’
When she got to the cottage, there was no peace to be had there, though. She could hear the shouting from outside the front door.
‘You bloody stupid thoughtless little shit. How could you do this to me in my position? You could lose me my job, as well as frying your own brain,’ she heard, before Hal opened the door to her stentorian knock.
‘Do you want to end up in the gutter or in a filthy squat with a dirty needle in your arm?’
‘I only took a bit of blow,’ replied a voice Lauren had not heard before.
‘Ben,’ said Hal in explanation. ‘I saw him in the club, although he was too drunk to notice I was there. It would seem that he’s now experimenting with drugs, and Olivia’s not too pleased.’
‘I thought he was at college,’ she almost whispered as he beckoned her to come inside.
‘It’s the local college, and he just goes in every day, but not usually from here. He stays at mates’ houses so much that he might as well not live here. Tonight he’s decided to show his face, but apart from his mother knowing all the signs, he doesn’t know yet that I saw him buying something from under the bar at the club.’
‘Should I go?’
‘Not at all. Let them yell themselves out, and we’ll sit in the kitchen with a glass of wine. I’ll go through when things aren’t quite so heated and read him the riot act in fairly calm tones, pointing out that he’s taken his first step on the road to hell. It might do some good, and at least it’ll get Olivia off her high horse for now. What a stupid little shit he’s been, though.’
‘Look, Olivia said something about sleeping tablets. If I could just have one of those, I’ll go back home. You don’t need me here tonight. It’s been a tough day, and you’ve got this to cope with on top of what happened earlier.’
‘Give me a minute, and I’ll see if she’s got some in the downstairs bathroom.’ Hal returned a couple of minutes later with a small wrap of tissue paper in his right hand. ‘I’ve put two in, just in case. Are you sure you don’t want to stay on?’
‘I’m sure. I’m a big girl now, and it’s time I started acting like one. Thank Olivia for saying I could come over, but I need to face up to this on my own, because that’s how I usually have to cope with everything else … on my own.’
When Hal went into the sitting room to take over the lecture from his wife, Olivia was surprised but ultimately relieved to find that Lauren had already left. Another bird with a broken wing was the last thing on her list of things she wanted, at the moment.
Ben mixed up in drugs was one of her recurring nightmares and, come to think of it, she hadn’t seen Hibbie for some days. She worked in the next town, and, as she had a friend there who hadn’t left school yet, she’d asked if she could stay with her for the half-term break. Now Olivia came to think of it, it wasn’t half term. That had passed, and she’d just been too busy at work to take that fact in. What was the little madam up to? She’d have to phone the friend and find out exactly what was going on, and when Hibbie came back, have a stern talk about keeping her word when parental trust was put in her. Her daughter had been given a freedom that many others of her age were not, and Olivia was determined she should live up to it.
CHAPTER THREE
‘He had no ID on him – nothing in his pockets, no wallet, no phone, nothing. We’ve got no idea who he is, and his clothes are just washed-out cheap brands that he could’ve bought new or even in a jumble sale. We don’t even know what he looks like, he was so badly beaten. We need to find out who this poor kid was and who did this to him.
‘Start with missing persons, and check his fingerprints and DNA against the national database. Put out a message on the local radio that we’ve found a young lad, murdered, about eighteen or nineteen. Give them a description and ask for anyone with information to come forward. Also, go round the local squats and the homeless and see if any one of their number is missing. This poor lad didn’t just drop out of the sky.
‘I’ll see if I can get someone to try to build a photofit of him looking something like he must have looked before he took that savage beating, and I’ll get copies to all of you to use on your travels. Good luck.’
Thus DI Hardy addressed her troops the following morning. Singling out Colin Redwood to try the squats and the shop doorways, she went off to bag herself someone who could do the photofit picture, with the DC’s whining following her down the corridor.
‘I know it’s cold outside, Colin, and some of the squatters and homeless aren’t very polite people, but you’re a copper. If it makes you feel better, take one of the Uniforms with you in case you need nannying.’ All this was called over her shoulder, as Redwood did his usual name-calling and one-fingered salute just out of her eyeline.
He seemed too thick to realise that as long as he kept doing that sort of thing, he was going to get all the shitty jobs. She really didn’t see him going far in CID, and could easily see him back in uniform before long if he didn’t pull up his socks and show some respect for rank.
The word ‘nanny’ had brought thoughts of her DS to her mind, but she immediately dismissed them. Lauren wasn’t on duty today, and she should be all right at home. There really was no need to phone her and see how she was. With a shake of her head, she carried on looking for someone competent enough to fashion a likeness of their dead lad from post-mortem photographs. She’d have to chase up when the post-mortem was going to be, too. Their regular Forensic Medical Examiner was away for the weekend, so she’d probably have to wait until tomorrow for that to happen.
Once again it was a quiet shift, and she managed to complete all her reports for the end of the previous month. Hardy was a stickler when it came to getting the crime figures in on time, and simply wouldn’t tolerate tardiness in this respect. If the lower-ranked officers didn’t comply, the complaints came down from above, a direct line from Superintendent Devenish, and landed on her. The buck stopped at her desk, and she was well aware of this. Why should she get a bollocking because the other ranks were too lazy or too derelict in their duty to get them to her on time?
By lunchtime she had as much of a likeness as she was likely to get of the dead youth, and she diligently issued a couple of copies to each officer as they came back for lunch. ‘Use these this afternoon, and don’t come back till you’ve got me a name,’ she told them all. ‘We need to identify who he was before we can contemplate looking for who did this to him, and why.’
By the end of her shift, they still had no name, but not every place had yet been tried, and there were probably a couple of squats they didn’t even know about. Advising them to try snouts and known dealers next, just on the off-chance that the lad had been involved with drugs, Olivia put on her coat to go home, realising that she had been glad Lauren wasn’t on duty today.
Olivia had dressed particularly scruffily for the day, in jogging bottoms and an old sweatshirt, and she feared that her sergeant’s always-immaculate dress sense was going to force her to examine the clothes she regularly wore into work, and probably smarten herself up a bit. She could do with it – had even been spoken to from on high about it – but had resisted so far for the sake of comfort. Dammit, her sergeant was going to do what the approbation of a senior officer couldn’t achieve: stir her conscience about the impression she gave to members of the public. She went home that night in a thoughtful frame of mind.
When Hal got in from a rehearsal in a buddy’s garage, he found her turfing out her clothes cupboards and drawers. ‘What the hell are you doing, woman?’ he asked.
‘Throwing out the worst of my clothes. I desperately need some new stuff for work.’
‘What’s brought all this on,
huh?’
‘Nothing. I just think that, at my rank, I should make a smarter impression on the members of the public that I have to deal with.’
‘Smart? You? The world’s gone mad,’ he concluded, going back downstairs to raid the fridge.
On Monday morning, DI Hardy surprised the whole station by turning up in a respectable skirt and blazer over a white blouse, and Teri Friend, who she passed in the hallway, asked her if she had an extra-marital date after work.
‘Shut your cheeky mouth,’ she responded, without turning round to see Teri break out into a large grin. One-nil, Olivia thought, as she answered the phone.
When Lauren got in she looked at the inspector in silent amazement, but tried so hard not to say anything that she went red in the face. Olivia looked at her and commented, ‘There’s no need to say it, OK? I just decided that I ought to make a bit more effort, that’s all.’
Lauren sat down at her desk and turned on her computer to check for any new emails. ‘How’s your son?’ she asked, tentatively, hoping that she wasn’t risking a bawling-out for this personal question in the office.
‘Suitably chastened, I hope, but he’s eighteen now. What can we realistically do? If he carries on the way he’s been going, our only options are to either shop him or chuck him out, and neither of those would end happily.’
‘See if he settles down for a bit – and if he doesn’t, why don’t you take him over to the rehabilitation centre and show him the state some of the addicts get into?’
‘That’s a damned good idea. I’ll leave things be for now, but the slightest hint that he’s been near drugs again and I’ll drag him over there – kicking and screaming if I have to. This is not a good town for kids of his age, as we discovered the other day.’
As she calmed down, Hardy’s phone rang and she answered it to find DC Redwood on the other end. ‘We need help here,’ he gasped. ‘Probably the fire service, and if they can’t do anything, we’ll definitely need an ambulance to scrape this bloke off the ground.’
‘Slow down and tell me exactly what’s happening,’ responded Hardy, anxious for details of what had so upset her normally unflappable young pup of a DC.
‘There’s a bloke on the roof, and he’s threatening to jump,’ came down the line at her.
‘What bloke? What roof? Why is he threatening to jump? Calm down and tell me slowly, Colin.’
‘I’m outside a squat in River Road – one of those tall, thin old houses. I came here with a Uniform and we went inside. There was this bloke using a bong, and he thought we were either going to arrest him on a drugs charge, or throw him out on to the street. There was no reasoning with him, and he went straight up to the attic and got up on to the roof. I’ve come outside to keep an eye on him, but the Uniform’s gone up to the skylight to try to talk some sense into him.’
‘First piece of advice, don’t panic. You’ll panic him. What sort of state is he in?’
‘Paranoid, I’d say.’
‘Who’s the PC?’
‘It’s not a PC. Sergeant Sutcliffe was the only officer available, and she volunteered to come with me.’
‘Is she talking to him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then you should be all right. Go back in, go upstairs and see how she’s getting on, but stay on the line.’
Hardy waited about two minutes, then Colin’s voice sounded again in her ear. ‘Sergeant Sutcliffe says he’s ready to come down, but he’s frozen with fear and can’t move. Thing is, some of the tiles aren’t that secure, and he’s already sent a couple smashing to the ground. He’s getting panicky now, about falling.’
‘Penny Sutcliffe will talk him down. Tell her I’ve just alerted the fire service, and they’re on their way with a ladder, if she can’t do anything with him.’
Cutting the call short, she did as she had promised, and awaited results with interest. Colin Redwood could be a cocky little sod, but this incident had unnerved him – probably the thought of blood and guts on the ground right at his feet.
Dismissing it from her mind, she was surprised to see Redwood re-enter the office a couple of hours later looking very green around the gills. ‘What happened?’ she asked, wondering where he had been for so long.
‘Tiles slipped,’ he stated curtly, slumping into his chair.
‘And?’
‘The bloke slipped off. ’Scuse me.’ He rushed from the office towards the gents and returned ten minutes later looking pasty and strained. ‘Sorry about that. It wasn’t pretty.’
‘You sit down again and I’ll get you a nice cup of tea,’ Groves volunteered, coming over all maternal at the young man’s evident distress.
Ignoring this act of kindness, Hardy asked him brusquely if he’d got anywhere with tracing who the previous dead youth may have been.
‘Nothing, guv,’ he replied. ‘Nobody’s ever seen him before in their lives. It’s as if he appeared out of nowhere, with no friends and no family to identify him.’
‘Bollocks! He must have lived somewhere, and he needed money to live. This afternoon you can try the job centre, the benefits office, and the post offices. Somebody somewhere knows who he is, and we need to find them. Get that tea down your neck, and get back out there. You can write up your notes later.’
‘You’re all sweetness and light, guv.’ Redwood was obviously beginning to feel a little better. As he finished his tea, Penny Sutcliffe entered the CID office and went straight to the young DC’s desk.
‘How are you feeling now, Colin? A bit better? Ghastly things happen when you’re in this job, and you just have to absorb them and file them away. Don’t dwell on what we saw, just deal with it.’ She patted him on the back and went over to Hardy’s desk to have a word.
Leaning over to speak in a low voice that would not carry round the entire office, she said, ‘Go easy on him for the moment. It was pretty vile. He was very shaken up.’
‘I take your point, Penny, but he’s got to get back on the horse. I can’t let him mope around in the office dwelling on it. He’s got to get straight back out there and get on with the job. I’ve got an unidentified dead lad and I need a name for him, even if it’s just to let his next of kin know what’s happened to him.’
‘Just use kid gloves. He’s only twenty-two.’
‘At twenty-two I was in Traffic and scraping boy racers off the roads round here. He’s got to toughen up a bit or he’ll be no use to me.’
‘Just cut him some slack for the rest of today,’ concluded Sutcliffe, turning to leave the office.
Looking up, Hardy called to Groves, ‘Do you know where the homeless hang out during the day?’
‘I know quite a few of their haunts,’ replied the DS.
‘Can you take Colin with you and go round them with that photofit? I’d feel happier if there were two of you. You never know what one of them will be capable of if he – or she’s – off their heads on some street muck.’
‘Will do, guv,’ replied Groves, and walked over to Colin Redwood’s desk, almost maternally, as if collecting him from school.
After they had left, the inspector received a phone call from Dr Dylan MacArthur, the FME who had returned to work after his weekend away. ‘That’s a fine couple of bloody messes, literally, that you’ve landed me in after a nice weekend in the country with my friends.’
‘It’s hardly my fault if someone gets offed and another lunatic threatens to throw himself off a roof.’
‘Granted. Now, as to your first body …’ Hardy could see him now on the other end of the phone, with his mass of just-beginning-to-grey curls, his strangely flecked cat-like green eyes and the bow tie he habitually wore, ‘there was a whole mess of drugs in his bloodstream.
‘He’d had the shit kicked out of him, then was strung up. His system just couldn’t take anymore, and he died from a haemorrhaging ruptured spleen. It must have bled out slowly, then had a bit of a gush, probably from when he was taken down from that thing that was in the notes. It couldn’t have
been foreseen or avoided. The poor lad was done for from the moment that whoever it was put the boot in.
‘Now, your other body, or what’s left of it, was a simple fall, although there’s nothing simple about falling from one of those tall houses. Blood loss from massive trauma. Any idea who these kids were?’
‘Not yet, but I’ve got a young PC, Liam Shuttleworth, going round there to see if anyone else has returned to the address. He’s a rugby player, and built like a brick shithouse, so he’ll take no nonsense from any complaining squatters.’
‘Keep me informed, just for the sake of interest.’
When Shuttleworth returned, he hadn’t turned up a name as such, only a nickname: Shifty. He did have a rather dog-eared photograph, which had been lent to him by a grubby girl with dirty blonde dreadlocks who claimed to have been Shifty’s girlfriend. ‘I also brought back an old library book that she had claimed was his, so that we could run his fingerprints through the system.’
‘Well done, Shuttleworth. You’ll go far. You’ve even thought to put the book in an evidence bag. Off you go with it, then. No time to lose.’ Shuttleworth shambled off.
By the end of the shift, the fingerprints of the man who had slipped from the roof had been identified as those of a local petty crook who’d been in trouble with the police since he was a child, but he was into nothing big-time, and it just seemed a tragic waste that he had lost his life while high on illegal drugs. At least they had a contact for next of kin now, though, and the case could be wrapped up quickly and efficiently: but there was still no luck with a name for the lad in the field.
Just as she was leaving, Hardy saw Groves and Redwood enter the building, but they shook their heads at her. They must have drawn a blank with their photofit: either that, or the homeless had closed ranks on them.
When she got home, Hal wasn’t in, but she could smell smoke, and there was a rule that there was no smoking inside the cottage. And it wasn’t just tobacco smoke, either. This was rather more exotic. With a bellow of rage she charged up the stairs to her son’s room, and found him sitting on his bed with a very benign expression on his face.
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