by L M Krier
He looked around the office, deciding who to take. Steve and Jezza were both on a day off today. 'Jo, you're in charge. If it's all right with you, Mike, I'll take Rob on this one, with Virgil, leave you with Sal and Megan to carry on here.'
Mike smiled his gratitude. 'Fine by me, boss. If it's anything like the last one, I'm quite happy to pass on it. Save me from disgracing myself again.'
'Right, Rob, you and Virgil get the keys to the pool car. We might need the twos if there's heavy traffic. I'll be right with you, when I've just let the Super know.'
Ted let Rob drive. They made excellent time, with the occasional use of the car's siren to give them a clear run where they needed it. On the way over, Ted gave Rob and Virgil a word of warning.
'DI Foster runs his team in a particular way and I should warn you, Virgil, that black officers, and women, have tended to have a very short life expectancy with him. Just get on and do your jobs, as I know you can, but please report to me on any grief anybody in the team gives you.'
Pausing only to sign for their passes, Ted and the others took the stairs two at a time up to the CID office on the first floor. There were four officers waiting there for them. Pointedly, no one even made a show of standing or even straightening up as the SIO on the case came in. The looks being thrown at Ted were decidedly hostile.
Ted moved to the front of the room, flanked by Rob and Virgil.
'Morning, everyone. I'm DCI Darling, these are DS O'Connell and DC Tibbs. I'm SIO on this case because it may well be linked to one we're already working on. I want to get to the scene as soon as possible, but I also wanted a few minutes to introduce myself first. You'll all be wondering why you've been saddled with a short, gay bloke from Stockport.'
Ted's usual light-hearted ice-breaker barely raised a smile from the four stony faces which looked at him. He knew Foster's team would be hard nuts to crack and he hoped he wouldn't have to waste his time dealing with attitude issues when he should have been going after the killer.
'Well, it's orders from on high so you're stuck with me. Until I get to know you, please tell me your name and rank when you have anything to say. And for the record, I don't like to be called guv, so either sir or boss will do.'
'We already have a boss,' one of the four men said truculently. He sat with his arms folded across his chest, knees wide apart, feet pulled back under his chair, his expression aggressive. Ted knew all four officers present were DCs. He didn't like to judge, but knowing who their boss was, he was not optimistic about working with any of them.
'I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name?' Ted said quietly, his tone questioning, knowing full well the man hadn't given it.
'Terry Coombs,' he said, his tone sneering. 'DC. And DI Foster is our boss.'
'Well, DC Coombs, sir will do very well for me. Now, I imagine DI Foster has already told you who he wants on this?'
'All of us for now, with as many Woodentops as we can rustle up,' Coombs told him, deliberately not calling him sir.
'Uniformed officers, please, in my presence,' Ted told him calmly enough. It was clear that the man was going to be trouble. 'Right, let's go. DC Coombs, you're with me, your car. The rest of you, with DS O'Connell.'
As soon as they were on their way, Ted half turned in the front passenger seat so he could look at Coombs while he spoke to him.
'Right, DC Coombs, let's get a few things straight, while it's just the two of us. I'm here to catch a killer.' The man opened his mouth to speak but Ted cut in. 'Be quiet, and listen carefully. You're busy playing who can piss highest up the wall. Well, let me tell you something. It's me. I can piss higher than any of you, that's why I'm SIO on this case.'
Coombs' knuckles were going white where he was gripping the steering wheel and his voice was angry as he spat, 'You can't talk to me like that, you little prick. You're not my guv'nor.'
'I just did. And I've not finished yet. I don't like people who are judgemental, especially not police officers. It doesn't make them good at their job and I only want the best people working a case like this, under me. I'm just putting you on notice that I will be watching you, and so far, you've got some way to go to stay on this case.'
Coombs lapsed into angry silence for the rest of the drive. The hotel where the body had been found was near the town centre and didn't have its own car park. Instead, the DC parked in a nearby municipal multi-storey then led the way, still saying nothing, to walk the short distance to the hotel.
He took what was presumably a short-cut, through a ginnel behind some shops.
There was a uniformed presence in front of the hotel. Ted showed his ID to a young constable who greeted him with a polite, 'Sir,' and gave them the room number. They went into the hotel, Coombs still maintaining a sullen silence.
Rob O'Connell and the others were waiting at the reception desk. There was no sign of the local team's detective sergeant, so Ted addressed his own.
'Rob, witness statements from all of the staff and any guests still around,' Ted told him. 'And anything and everything they have on the victim. You know the form. Ask about CCTV, too. Maybe we'll get lucky this time.'
When Ted and DC Coombs went upstairs, there was another officer from Uniform branch outside a bedroom door which stood open. Inside, Scenes of Crime Officers in coveralls were still working, and Ted could see from a pair of naked legs near the foot of the bed that the body had not yet been taken away. He took out his Fisherman's Friend lozenges and slipped one in his mouth, which brought another sneer of derision to Coombs's face.
DI Foster appeared from the doorway of what was presumably the shower room. He was wearing latex gloves and had on shoe covers, a pencil in his hand, with which he was busy poking and prodding at objects of interest. He looked up when he saw Ted and DC Coombs pause outside the door, waiting for permission to enter.
'Morning, Ted. Put covers on and you can come in but watch where you walk. SOCO have pretty much finished this floor area and the pathologist has been and gone, but there are bits of blood and brain splattered everywhere.'
Ted nodded to him in return. 'DI Foster,' he said, hoping his formal tone might remind the man that Ted now outranked him and was SIO on the case. 'What can you tell me so far?'
Foster was not much taller than Ted, with weasel-like features and thinning hair in a comb-over. A somewhat scruffy short raincoat emphasised the old-style cop image. Ted knew he was not far off retirement and that his sole aim in life was to keep plodding on until he could draw his pension. Ted neither liked him particularly as a person nor rated him as a detective, but he was professional enough to keep his feelings to himself.
'Richard Hutchinson, according to his reservation details. Not local, he's from out of town. Harrogate. Pathologist reckons he was killed shortly before midnight last night. Found by the cleaner when she came in to do the room. He was due to leave today. His business cards, on the desk over there, call him a Health and Safety consultant.'
'Cause of death?' Ted asked, not yet having gone close enough to look for himself.
'Multiple stab wounds, followed by someone kicking the shit out of his head and face. His own mother wouldn't recognise him.'
'Laptop and mobile phone?'
'Also on the desk thing, over by the window.'
'I'll take them back with me. We have a CFI on the team who's working on the ones from the first case. Get them bagged up for me and I'll sign for them. So, if the cleaner let herself in, presumably she thought he'd checked out? DC Coombs, can you ask at reception if his key, or card, or whatever they have here, had been handed in.'
Coombs hesitated and looked towards Foster. 'Boss?' he asked, pointedly asking for his permission. It was borderline insolence, but Ted didn't have time to deal with such petty behaviour now. He fully intended to mark Coombs' card for him when he got the opportunity, though.
'The DCI's the gov'nor on this one, Terry, best do as he tells you.' Then, as Coombs disappeared off downstairs, Foster said to Ted, 'Take no notice of Terry; he me
ans no harm.'
Ted looked him squarely in the eye as he replied, 'But I do take notice, Cyril,' dropping the rank now Coombs had left them. 'And I don't like what I see so far. Right, let me have a look at our victim, then you can tell me how you're reading the scene.'
This time the dead man was wearing only the less than generous-sized towel provided by the hotel, tied round his waist. There were several frenzied stab wounds to the torso, with some defensive injuries to his right arm. Once again, there was a stab wound to the throat, which had clearly resulted in catastrophic blood loss. And as before, the killer seemed to have lost all control once his victim fell to the ground. The damage to the face was possibly even worse on this occasion. Ted had no idea how this body was going to be made presentable enough for identification.
Ted found it hard to gauge the exact height of the prone body, but the man didn't look tall and his build was medium. It was almost impossible to judge his hair colour because of the amount of blood. Ted steeled himself to look closer. Part of the scalp had been peeled away, presumably as a result of his head being stamped on.
'Wedding ring?' Ted asked.
'Not wearing one,' Foster replied.
Curbing his impatience, Ted asked, 'Have you looked for one? In the room, or in his clothing? There's a reason why it might be significant.'
Foster shrugged indifferently. 'Not everyone wears one.'
Ted asked one of the SOCOs still working on the scene if he could look in the bedside drawer, and in the man's clothing. Sure enough, when the drawer drew a blank, the officer found a wedding ring in the jacket hanging on the clothes rail.
'This could be relevant, based on what we know so far in the other case,' Ted said, then walked across to the entry door, pushed it to and had a look at the handle on the inside. He went back again to the body and looked at the hands and at what remained of the hair. Then he looked across at Foster and said, 'Tell me what you see.'
Foster looked slightly disinterested. 'Picked up the wrong person for a bit of how's your father? Or refused to pay a tart for services rendered so she lost it and took her own payment?'
'You think a woman did this?' Ted asked in a neutral tone. 'What about his wallet? Are his credit cards still there?'
'I haven't looked yet,' Foster admitted. 'I just got his name from reception.'
Ted had always suspected the man was next to useless. He wondered how he had ever made detective inspector. Again, he turned to the SOCO, who found the wallet and reported that there was cash in it and several credit cards.
'Whoever killed him was almost certainly not in the room with him. The victim let them in. As with the last case, this victim appears to have been disturbed when taking a shower, gone to the door to let someone in, and been stabbed almost immediately.
'Right, let's get down there and start interviewing people, see if we can get any more information before we head back to your nick. DSU Baker is coming over as soon as he's free, for a progress report.'
Foster looked at him as if he had made an obscene suggestion. 'Interviewing witnesses? I usually leave that to my lads and to the Woodentops.'
Ted looked at him hard, trying to keep the distaste from his voice. 'Inspector Foster, I like to keep it respectful always. Uniformed officers, please. And an extra couple of pairs of experienced hands can only be a good thing in helping us to wrap things up here for now, surely?'
As Ted turned to go out of the door, he distinctly heard two things. The first was at least one of the SOCOs stifling a snort of laughter. The second was Foster spitting between gritted teeth, 'Jumped up little prick.'
Chapter Twelve
When Ted got back down to reception, he finally saw the man he took to be Foster's DS, who had so far been conspicuous by his absence. He had a Mars bar, partly unwrapped, stuck between his teeth, and a cup of coffee in each hand, from the vending machine he was standing in front of. He thrust one of the coffees at Foster and took the chocolate out of his mouth so he could speak, although he completely ignored Ted.
'Thought you might fancy a brew before we head back, boss.'
Foster accepted the coffee and took a noisy slurp before he said, 'This is DCI Darling. My sergeant, Jock Mackenzie. Have you met?'
Mackenzie gave a brief lift of the chin and a muttered, 'All right?' in greeting. Ted hadn't met him, but his reputation preceded him and it was no better than Foster's.
'We're not ready to go back yet, any of us,' Ted told them. 'I want to get statements from everyone before we leave. Some of these hotel guests will be from well out of the area. I don't want to be having to chase them up all round the country once they've left.'
'You can safely leave that to the lads and the W …' DS Mackenzie only got as far as the first consonant before Ted rounded on him, tired already of the total lack of respect from this team.
'We'll get through this much more quickly and efficiently if everyone pitches in. I'll phone one of my team to start running PNC checks now because we'll want to find his car, for one thing. And DI Foster, you might want to warn your team that I will not tolerate disrespect in any form. Uniformed officers are to be referred to as exactly that, likewise Community Support Officers. I do not want to hear any more references from anyone to Woodentops, nor to Plastic Policemen. Clear?'
He turned to go and heard the DS mutter something of which he didn't catch much except for the word 'twat'. He spun lightly on his feet to turn back and looked directly at Mackenzie.
'I'm very approachable, DS Mackenzie. If you disagree with any aspect of my handling of this case, please feel free to say so to my face, rather than behind my back.'
Not unusually, Mackenzie was taller than Ted. But something in the way the smaller man held himself and looked at him made him stay quiet. Ted turned back and went in search of where his team and the officers from Foster's were hopefully interviewing staff and potential witnesses. Foster drained his coffee, tossed the cup into a nearby bin and caught him up.
'Lighten up, Ted. We'll get someone for this.'
Ted stopped and faced him. 'Let's be clear on something from the outset, DI Foster. I don't want someone. I want the person who did it.'
He knew that, as well as too many unsolved serious crimes on his books, Foster had also had some wrongful arrests. He had a bad habit of picking a suspect then trying to make a case stick. Ted reckoned he must have friends in high places to have hung on to his job. He wondered if funny handshakes were involved.
Ted found his team in the dining room, patiently interviewing people. Scanning the room, he could see there was no sign of DC Coombs, nor of another of Foster's team, whose name he did not yet know. He could only see two of the local officers, looking bored and going through the motions of taking details. He waited until he could catch Rob's eye. When his own newly promoted DS came over, Ted drew him to one side to ask about progress.
'They're a bunch of useless skivers, boss, to put it bluntly. Virgil and me have been going through the staff and whatever guests are still here. Coombs and another one sloped off on a fag break at least ten minutes ago and I've not seen them since.
'So far, not much of any real use, although there is some CCTV footage we should be able to look through. The woman I've just been speaking to, who was in the next room to our victim, said she heard someone in the corridor last night around midnight. She thinks she heard someone saying they were from maintenance and that there was a problem with the plumbing, but I haven't followed that up yet. We've not yet talked to the manager. He's been running round in square circles trying to deal with panicky guests, so I thought I'd leave him till later.'
'I'll go and find him and ask him about it.' He went back to the local DI and said, 'You and DS Mackenzie liaise with DS O'Connell on what still needs doing. Once we've covered all bases here, then we'll think about regrouping back at the station. And one of you can start by finding DC Coombs and the other one and putting them to work.'
Ted was not going to be winning any friends. It didn't
bother him in the least.
He found an extremely harassed-looking manager on the front desk trying to placate guests who were wanting to check out early. They were clearly alarmed by the police presence and news of what had happened. In reply to Ted's question, the man gave his name as Simms.
'I'm sorry to bother you, Mr Simms. I know this is a difficult time for you, but we do need to get as much information as possible early on, while it's still fresh in people's memories. One of your guests tells me there was some sort of a problem with the plumbing late last night? You had to send maintenance up to the first floor to fix it? Can you tell me anything about that, please?'
The man looked at him in surprise. 'First I've heard of it. We don't have anyone on at that time of night to do anything like that.'
'I see,' Ted said neutrally. 'It's possible, of course, that the lady was mistaken. If you do happen to hear of anything which might explain it, can you please let me know? Here's my card, if I've already left when you find out.'
He went back into the dining room and found Rob talking to a man. He excused himself, drew his DS aside again and asked about the woman who'd told him about a maintenance man.
'She's over there having some coffee, boss,' Rob pointed to an older woman, clutching a cup and saucer. The hotel had put some coffee and biscuits out for guests who were being interviewed. 'I'm just talking to her husband now, although he didn't hear anything. Mr and Mrs Stanley.'
Ted went across to where the woman was just finding herself a seat. He took out his warrant card as he approached her.
'Mrs Stanley? I'm DCI Darling. Would you mind if I joined you for a moment? I could do with a coffee myself.'
He got himself a cup and pulled up a chair to sit down next to her.
'My sergeant tells me you heard someone outside your room last night. I wondered if you'd mind telling me about it, as well?'