by M. C. Dutton
‘This is the second weirdest and most insane murder I have ever had to deal with since I became a SOCO many years ago,’ stated Jenny as she sipped her coffee. She added that both had happened within months of each other. Jazz asked if she was referring to the Columbian Necktie murder in Barking Creek and she nodded. She had dealt with many, many murders in her working life and some were particularly gruesome with a tortuous and painful ending but nothing so – and she thought carefully about the word – so theatrical in its way. She added disparagingly that she didn’t think anyone in Barking and Dagenham had the sort of imagination and flair to commit such an act.
Jazz, deep in thought, added that John Carpenter was a particularly nasty piece of work; some would say he deserved everything he got and this looked like a revenge killing. So was the Columbian Necktie killing of Barry Jessop, a scrot who preyed on the naivety of good people and stole their money. He’d also got away with his crime. But all of the victims had good alibis for the murder of Barry Jessop. He couldn’t believe any of the Kent family would be capable of committing such an act but he would have to visit them. At present the murder of John Carpenter was under wraps and the press hadn’t been informed yet. He wanted to talk to the Kent family, Amanda in particular, and also James, the father, who always hid himself away. He asked how long Carpenter had been dead and Jenny said about one week. Animals had carried on eating him and there wasn’t much left, but no animal ate anything near his eyes and throat because of the acid.
Jazz made his way to Ilford Police Station a little late; it was now about noon. He had spent a lot of time with Jenny. You just couldn’t read such a report and not ask questions and confirm the facts. It felt strange. John Carpenter deserved all he got but this was something else. It was the work of a madman or madwoman. No normal person would do this. He would take the report to Tom Black and discuss it with him. Ash would be waiting for him as well and he needed to get him on board. No more leaving him out. He had promised Ash he would be involved in everything – well, nearly everything. There was still something Jazz was organizing that no one else needed to know about.
Ash was waiting for him. Ash was always punctual and not used to someone being late; it made him edgy and cross. He had information for Jazz and had tried to ring Jazz on his mobile but it had gone to answer phone. Last night Jazz had asked him to find out when John Carpenter had missing. They needed to correlate when he had been taken and when he died. On his way to work Ash had gone to Carpenter’s residence. A caretaker had told him the last time he had seen Mr. Carpenter and that his newspapers hadn’t been taken in. They were able to establish when he was taken within a few hours.
Jazz looked at his watch and beckoned Ash impatiently to follow him saying loudly The game is afoot Watson! Ash thought darkly that Jazz sure wasn’t Sherlock Holmes and he wasn’t Dr Watson! He moved quickly though and caught some of the infectious excitement emanating from Jazz. They both strode towards Tom Black’s office. All the way along the corridor Jazz gave a potted version of what was in the report on Carpenter. Some of it was so graphic Ash almost stopped in his tracks not believing what he was hearing. This was beginning to feel good; he, DC Ashiv Kumar, felt part of a real investigation and he wanted to stop and savour the moment. Jazz was having none of it. He grabbed Ash’s sleeve and pulled him along, saying there was a lot to get done before the press got wind of this.
Tom Black was in his office and took a quick look at Jenny’s report. His face was a picture of disbelief. He and Jazz talked for a while about the case and what was happening next, while Ash sat and listened. Jazz wanted to go and speak to the Kent family before the press got wind of the story. He wanted to see their reactions.
Having rung the Kents to say he was on his way and that he had some information for them, he arrived to find the front room just as he had left it last time he visited. The dining chairs were arranged against the wall as if there was going to be a party of people arriving. This time, the grandmother, Grace, was the only other relative with Amanda and again James was missing from the room. Jazz presumed the rest of the family felt they had done their duty and disappeared; he didn’t blame them. He introduced Ash and all nodded at each other. Amanda looked very skittish and Jazz wasn’t sure if she was going mad or had already reached that state. Grace looked older than he remembered. The lines in her face were deeper and she looked as if she carried the worries of the world on her stooped shoulders. Jazz felt so sorry for her. She was patting Amanda on the back in a motherly way but Amanda’s back was taut and she looked like a piece of string about to snap under the tension; it made Jazz almost stand back from her, not sure what she might do.
Knowing where James would be, he beckoned to Ash to follow him, promising Amanda and Grace that they would be back in a moment. Jazz knocked on the door of the shed and entered a different world of order and quietness. A shed full of woodwork and gardening tools neatly hung on the wall or behind cupboards that James had built himself. There were a few pots of well-tended plants near the window, just about to flower. James had placed a chair in the corner, with a tired but comfortable cushion, and had put in a small TV to go with his little radio. A kettle in the corner and a paraffin heater showed he spent more time out here than indoors.
James looked up, seeming unsurprised by their appearance. He never said much and his hello and a nod of his head were about the best Jazz and Ash would get. Jazz asked him to come into the house, to sit with Amanda and Grace, because he had something to tell them. Again, James didn’t look excited or enquiring; he just nodded and followed them into the house. By now Amanda had started to pace. She had become an ace pacer since Laura had been murdered. The worrying thing was that, when she paced, she ranted and the more she paced the more worked up she became; if not controlled she would start to hurt herself. Last time she had banged her head on the wall and caused a nasty gash. The tablets helped but there was nothing other than a full comatose medication that would keep Amanda controlled. Many tired relatives had muttered she would be better fully comatose. Jazz reckoned she was half a centimetre away from being sectioned and perhaps that would be better for everyone. This was Ash’s first sight of the Kent family and he was glad Jazz was organizing the meeting. He stayed in the background away from what looked like a dangerous situation. Amanda looked capable of doing serious damage to someone if the wrong word was said to her.
In the edgy, electrically charged atmosphere, Jazz asked everyone to sit down. Maybe a cup of tea would help, he suggested. Hearing this, Grace got up and disappeared to the kitchen. Ash went with her to help. He was glad to get out of the front room; the atmosphere was giving him a headache. Grace was past tears. She told Ash she had cried herself dry and now she was left with a severe indigestion that didn’t allow her to eat much. He thought she looked thin. During the time it took to make a cup of tea Ash and Grace connected, and he left the kitchen worried and emotional about her. This was a new experience for him and he didn’t like it.
The pleasantries were unspecific and Amanda was getting seriously rattled. She asked in a controlled yet agitated manner why had Jazz come to visit? The weather wasn’t important to her: never had been, and certainly wasn’t now. James’ plants in the garden were bloody useless and she couldn’t give a tinker’s cuss if they bloody flowered or bloody turned into bloody vegetables. Her voice rising to a crescendo, she finished loudly saying that it all didn’t matter, nothing mattered to her any more. She had built herself up again into a worrying rant. Grace tried to calm her and patted her on the back but Amanda aggressively flicked her hand away. James just stared at the carpet as usual. Everyone sat in their own padded cell of silence without any human warmth between them. It was a daunting sight.
Jazz wasn’t sure what the right way would be to start, but he had to do it. Ash, as asked to earlier, would watch carefully for reactions from Amanda, James and Grace, although an aging grandmother would be laughable as a murderer; she didn’t have the strength or inclination to do su
ch a thing. Jazz told the family that John Carpenter was dead, that he had been viciously and tortuously murdered and had been found in Epping Forest.
Amanda, now quiet, suddenly leaned forward which made Jazz lean back, not sure what she was going to do. Amanda asked urgently how he died. Jazz didn’t quite know how much to tell them but what the hell, they’d lived through so much they were entitled to know, so he told them some of it: that John Carpenter had been tortured and left to die alone in the forest in pain. James just continued to look at the carpet but Amanda was a different kettle of fish. She rose joyously and shouted Praise be to God! She was laughing and thanking Jazz, as if he had committed the crime. She danced around the room, kissing first Jazz on the head and then Ash; she shook James by the shoulders and repeated the news, as if he hadn’t heard that the murderer was dead. He nodded to her and agreed it was good news. Amanda hugged and kissed Grace, repeating God is good, God is good, oh my, God is good like a mantra. Then she wanted to know all the intimate details of Carpenter’s death but Jazz couldn’t tell her; it was all classified. Amanda kept asking if it had been painful and had it taken him a long time to die. She was laughing and as she got more and more ecstatic the spittle dripped off her lips. It was all beginning to look a little distasteful. Carpenter was a bastard and he deserved what he got, but normal people wouldn’t put on such an over-the-top show of pleasure. Well, the reaction from Amanda was very clear. Jazz asked James how he felt and James just nodded that he was glad Carpenter was dead. Grace was looking at Amanda and worrying about how she was going to get her to settle down: Amanda was a loose cannon and no one knew how she would act and how she would turn. Grace brought her another tablet and a glass of water, looking as if she could do with a pick me up herself.
With one eye on Amanda, Jazz carefully picked his way through what he needed to say, not knowing what Amanda’s reaction would be. He asked them to provide alibis for the past week. At this James looked up and Amanda said joyously that if it had been her who had killed the foul and despicable John Carpenter, she would tell the world of what she had done and would be proud of it. Grace frowned and said she did the same thing every day, which involved being with Amanda. Jazz tried to make light of it and said that they would be required to come to the Police Station to make statements. It was routine stuff, and it was necessary because they would be obvious suspects and it was important to clear their names. James nodded and said they would come tomorrow. With courteous goodbyes, Jazz said he would see them at 5 p.m. at Ilford Police Station. He and Ash left and once outside they both took deep breaths to rid themselves of the tension.
They made their way back to Ilford Police Station. It was only a couple of hours before the Kents arrived, and there was information to be shared and discussed. They found Tom Black deep in thought. They decided to get a cup of tea and sit in the canteen and talk through the latest information. An incident board was being set up in the CID office and they would go and look at it in a short while.
The lovely and sultry Milly’, as Jazz called her, offered him a fresh cup of tea. She’d never let him have a stewed cup, oh no, her Jazz always got a very fresh cup of tea. This upset many other officers who never got such consideration, more, they were told to behave themselves and come when she called when their food was ready otherwise their meals went cold. She was known as a bit of a tyrant but to Jazz she was a temptress. On many levels Jazz was not spoken well of by many officers. Jammy bugger, lucky sod, and conceited bastard together with cop killer, were the normal descriptions he was given. The last one was untrue and proved so, but it had stuck to him like glue.
Most days Jazz sat alone in the canteen. But today he had Tom Black and Ash with him, and they sat in a corner discussing what had happened to John Carpenter.
Between them, Jazz and Ash could say, hands on hearts, that no one in the Kent family could have carried and tortured John Carpenter. To start with, Amanda was so off the wall she would have alerted the whole neighbourhood had she been involved, and she would have been proud of it too. The woman wasn’t capable of doing anything at present and even if her mother had helped her, the two of them wouldn’t have been strong enough. James was quiet and a bit of an unknown quantity but he wasn’t a big man, and to carry a limp body all the way into the forest wasn’t on: well, not by himself anyway. They would wait and see what James had to say in his statement but these were ordinary people and not the sort to kill, even though they had extreme provocation.
Tom Black had some interesting news. Whilst Jazz had been talking to Jenny regarding the autopsy, Tom had spoken to forensics who had searched the area around the body. They found sixteen cigarette butts on the ground around where John Carpenter lay. It seemed highly unlikely that anyone else would have spent that amount of time in that particular part of the forest. Forensics said there were four different DNAs on the cigarettes. From this it would seem that at least four people were involved in the murder and they’d hung around long enough to smoke four cigarettes each. The question was why? What was the point? If you’d killed someone or wanted to kill them, why would you leave them alive? Presumably this was part of the torture. Carpenter sure as hell wasn’t going anywhere with mashed-up legs and arms, but then why had the attackers waited?
Tom added that it would be a hell of a coincidence but the Barking river guy Barry Jessop, as Jazz had found out from Musty Mary, had been grabbed by more than one guy. They’d spoken to Musty Mary’s friend Yen, whose full name escaped Tom at this stage. Yen had thought at first that there was a whole army of men outside his cubicle but then he’d heard about four different voices, maybe more, but he wasn’t sure.
What was going on in their town they asked themselves. It was agreed they would speak again after interviewing the Kent family. Tom would help and they would take one each when they came in. Tom, Jazz and Ash finished their tea, shared a few jokes and went off to the custody area to wait for the Kent family.
The interviews went well. Jazz drew the short straw; he got Amanda, which wasn’t easy. They had all talked about where they were and so their statements were very similar. James had driven to Chester for a few days taking Amanda and Grace to visit his brother, and they stayed there for three days. That was during the time that John Carpenter was taken to Epping Forest, which made their alibis tight. Even if he was Stirling Moss, James couldn’t have got back to London that quickly. It was a relief to Jazz; he didn’t want them to be part of the murder of John Carpenter. The family had suffered enough without being accused of his murder.
Back in the CID room, they debriefed. Ash had spoken with Grace and she’d told the same story. She said that they had intended to stay the week in Chester but Amanda was scaring members of the family with her hysterical and perverse ways, so after three days they decided to return. Tom said James didn’t say much but he confirmed they were in Chester and therefore couldn’t have had anything to do with the abduction and murder of Carpenter. It seemed as if they had no leads; the DNA matched nothing on their database and no one had seen anything. Tom looked at Jazz and Ash. ‘Bollocks!’ he said. Which seemed to end that conversation.
They took a look at the incident board in the CID room but there was nothing much on it yet. Jazz did have a thought and he asked Tom and Ash to be open-minded and listen to his theory. He asked them to consider two unusual murders in the same town. Both were defendants who had been found innocent of the charges. So no justice. Both were unusual murders. Both seemed to involve a vigilante group. They all thought and decided that at present it didn’t get them anywhere. If there was a vigilante group what the hell had it got to do with each of the murders? They were different types of offences and different parts of town. The police would know about a vigilante group. You couldn’t keep it quiet; someone would talk. For the moment they felt they had talked themselves out of a lead. Door to door enquiries were being made by Tom’s team and he promised to let Jazz know if anything came up. In the meantime, Jazz would talk to his contacts to see if
there was any change in the idea of a vigilante group in Barking and Dagenham. It wouldn’t be long before there was a chink of light at the end of the dark tunnel.
It was time to head home and outside the station Jazz patted Ash on the back and thanked him for his work. Ash left hoping this might be the start of some worthwhile casework. Jazz left with the thought that tomorrow they would search out his contacts that might have something to tell them.
He was running out of vodka so he stopped off at Sainsbury’s on the way home. He picked up one of those microwave lasagne meals and also bought some Doritos and Nacho cheese sauce dip for later. He hoped Mrs Chodda would give him a rest tonight. He needed to have a word with her. It was getting stupid with the girls he was being introduced to. But when he got home the kitchen door was open and he saw Mrs Chodda at the stove stirring something; she looked miles away. He shouted out, ‘Good night, Auntie!’ and saw her jump with surprise. He dashed upstairs, giggling. The day had been full on and he needed the little bit of silliness. A drink would help now, and he put his dinner in the microwave and poured himself a generous vodka. There was nothing much on the TV but he watched some mindless game show and was just about to get his meal out of the microwave when he heard a timid knock at the door. ‘Oh bugger,’ he thought. Why had he brought himself to Mrs Chodda’s attention? She was going to make him come downstairs to meet another distant relative or some such. He wondered if he could pretend he was asleep. But at that point there were loud cheers and claps on the game show. No way could he pretend to be asleep now.