Only the Lonely: DI Ted Darling Series Book 5

by L M Krier

  DC Winters had been watching in evident fascination the way the team kicked around ideas. It was nothing like the team meetings he'd been used to with DI Foster. Everyone seemed to be free to say something, without fear of ridicule, so he plucked up the courage to make a suggestion.

  'So you mean what if the women are almost incidental in this?' Then, seeing the mocking glances of his two colleagues, who were looking at him as if he'd turned traitor or was trying for the creep's prize, he hesitated and dried up.

  Ted was nothing if not encouraging. 'In what sense, DC Winters? Don't be afraid to put a theory forward, that's what these meetings are for. We're short on theories at the moment, so let's hear yours.'

  'Well, sir, suppose it's the man who was scammed out of money? Suppose he's the one who lost his savings in an investment that went wrong? Someone he met online, through some seemingly innocent chat group, or social media, perhaps? He doesn't know exactly who the man is, so now he's targeting anyone mentioning investments in the hopes of killing the right person?'

  Winters shifted uncomfortably in his seat when, at first, the only reaction was a snort of derision from his team-mates DCs Eccles and Hope.

  Ted turned his gaze in their direction and said meaningfully, 'I'm sorry, I didn't hear any kind of suggestion from either of you.' He turned back to Winters and continued, 'I think that's something we shouldn't overlook. We've focussed so far on the Lonely Hearts angle, with the dating scene. But that's a valid point.'

  'Boss, we have had a couple of times in the past when women have come in complaining of having been scammed out of money online, if you remember,' Maurice Brown chipped in. 'And it's usually been someone too embarrassed to want it to go to court, because they've swallowed a line and felt stupid about it afterwards.'

  Ted nodded. 'I remember one or two, certainly. Good call, Maurice. First thing tomorrow, can you dig out old files of anything like that, see what happened in each case. Good, that gives us another angle entirely to look into. Well done, DC Winters. And you too, Océane and Steve.

  'Right, we need to find the women who were with these men before they died, see if there's any connection between them. Jezza and Megan, when are you interviewing Suki again?'

  'She's coming in tomorrow after work, boss,' Jezza told him. 'I'm trying not to judge but I'm struggling to see her as an investment type. Although you never know. If she invested a packet and lost it, that could be why she's struggling to pay her rent now.

  'Coincidentally, I do actually have some money I need to invest, to provide for Tommy. Maybe I could start looking around online…'

  Ted was already shaking his head before she'd finished the sentence. 'Absolutely not, DC Vine, too fraught with danger on too many levels. It could compromise the enquiry. Find a proper financial advisor to make sure Tommy's taken care of.'

  The team knew that Jezza had come into money when her parents died in a car crash, and that most of it was already in trust to provide for her brother's special needs.

  'I know someone who could help you, Jezza,' Virgil told her. 'Nat Cowley used to work in a big investment company.'

  'And didn't he nearly bankrupt them with reckless trading?' she laughed.

  'Precisely the reason he knows what to avoid. I'll put you in touch with him.'

  Ted smiled good-naturedly. 'All right, everyone, let's focus on the case,' he said mildly. 'I want witnesses found and statements taken as soon as possible, while details are still fresh in people's minds. Tomorrow, DS O'Connell and DC Tibbs, you go over to South Manchester and work with DCs Winters, Eccles and Hope. See if you can find whoever it was Hutchinson took back to his room. And keep trying to find anyone who saw our possible killer.

  'Jo, you've got the latest PM, and I want to talk to the relatives of the third victim as soon as they come up from Suffolk to ID the body, see what that brings us. Mike, you get over to Cheadle with some of our team and start looking for the woman there, and anyone who may have seen anything.

  'We'll skip a morning briefing tomorrow. You all know what you need to be getting on with. Instead we'll get together here at the end of the day. Six o'clock sharp, everyone. Now you know the way, DC Eccles, that shouldn't present you with any great problem, should it?'

  Eccles merely grunted in response.

  'And before the three of you go back,' Ted said, looking from one to the other of what remained of Foster's team, 'I'd like a word with you all, in my office, upstairs. Follow me.'

  A grin passed from one to another of the original team members, who all knew to their cost about the boss's 'words' with team members. Even Megan and Jo had heard about that. Trying not to look too eager, Ted's team hurried up the stairs in the wake of the others, keen to see or hear Foster's cronies get their first taste of Ted in famous kick-trick mode.

  Ted held the door of his office open while the three men trooped in and, finding nowhere to sit down, stood uncomfortably, turning to look back towards Ted to tell them where he wanted them. They turned just in time to see the famous kick-trick in action, a high flying karate kick which slammed the office door shut with such power it shook the partition walls of the small office. Even the noise it made didn't drown out the stifled snorts of laughter from the officers outside, in the main office.

  Winters had gone positively white, while even the other two, who clearly considered themselves hard cases, were looking uneasy.

  'Right, listen up. This is a serious crime enquiry. There's no place for incompetent or corrupt coppers on this team. I highly doubt if DI Foster and the others will be coming back to the team so for now, we're stuck with one another.

  'I expect punctuality, efficiency and respect from everyone on my team. If you're not prepared to give those, put in for a transfer. I'll happily sign it. If you decide to stay, show me you deserve a place on the team.

  'You will all be questioned, at some length, by Complaints and Discipline, so I suggest you get your notes in order. And that doesn't mean getting together and cooking up a bullshit story. You won't get anything past DSU Fletcher and it's important you understand that right from the start.

  'Now you two,' he glared at Eccles and Hope, 'get out of my sight and wait in the car for Winters. And don't ever be late to one of my briefings again, without a very good excuse. Winters, you stay where you are.'

  As the two men left the room and faced the walk of shame through the main office, Ted could hear more barely muffled laughter. He nodded to the chair tucked out of the way under his desk, facing him, and told Winters to sit down.

  'Graham,' he began, his tone now softer, his manner more relaxed. 'If you're not very careful, those clowns are going to drag you down with them. Now, I may be wrong, but I don't think you're like the others. You showed me today that you have something more about you. This is your chance to prove it.

  'It's up to you, of course, but I would strongly recommend you don't discuss anything with those two, and certainly not with the rest of the team members, who are under suspension. Write your own notes of what you know, what was said, even what you suspect. When you see DSU Fletcher, tell him the truth. Don't, whatever you do, try to hide anything or bend the facts. If you follow that advice, and you're not implicated, you'll be fine. But be in no doubt, if you are involved in any way, it will be uncovered.

  'Right, you'd better go and join the Chuckle Brothers, and I'll see you again tomorrow. Good work today, that was a useful suggestion.'

  There was still plenty of the day left and the weather wasn't too terrible, so Ted went shopping for a picnic on the way home. Trev was doing something with his bike in the garage, covered in oil but looking happily absorbed, when Ted got back. He left his Renault on the drive.

  'Let's go for a picnic,' he suggested, leaning over to kiss Trev on the cheek, while he worked. 'Are you at a stage where you can leave it?'

  'Give me half an hour to grab a shower and get changed, but the bike won't be ready to go out on. I'll need to finish off when I get back. If we're taking the car a
nyway, why not phone your mother and see if she's free?'

  Ted made a face. 'I rather wanted a bit of us time. I know I've been neglecting you too much of late.'

  'Call her,' Trev insisted. 'She may not be free, but if she is, she'd love it. Let's go to the seaside.'

  'Are you mad? Have you seen the weather? It may not be raining at the moment, but it's not exactly beach weather.'

  'Come on, stop being a boring old fart. Let's take her to Southport. Walk on Ainsdale beach and see if we can get a glimpse of the sea. Candy floss. Donkeys. The whole works,' Trev grinned at him. 'Do you good. A complete break from policeman stuff.'

  'The donkeys will still be on their winter holidays, if they've got any sense,' Ted laughed. 'All right, all right, I'll ring her. Go and get ready.'

  'And by the way, next weekend, you and I are going down to Somerset to watch Shewee compete. No excuses. I don't care how many bodies there are. You've got Jo now to stand in for you, and if you say you can't get the time off, I shall phone the Ice Queen and Jim myself and make sure you can. And I mean it, Ted, if you let me down on this one, I shall divorce you.'

  'We're not married,' Ted reminded him. 'I keep asking but you keep refusing.'

  'Well, I'll marry you first, just so I can divorce you. Now go and phone your mother.'

  Chapter Twenty

  Trev was right about Southport. Ted's mother was free and delighted to be asked. The day brought back long-forgotten happy memories for Ted, of times before his mother had left him as a child.

  Annie and Trev got on brilliantly and genuinely enjoyed one another's company. Trev had never known warmth or affection from his own parents, even before he told them he was gay. He'd not had much contact with them while growing up and what he had had was stiff and formal. Annie was warm and loving, happily returning his hugs, fussing over Ted to make sure he had a good time.

  Trev was like a big kid at the seaside, insisting on drawing 'Trev loves Ted' with his heel in the damp sand. Ted had forgotten how much his mother loved to collect coloured pebbles and pretty shells. He carried them for her in a bag left over from their picnic in the dunes, sitting close together to shelter from the keen wind.

  Ted would have loved more family time like this. The sort people with ordinary jobs enjoyed. The type of thing so often out of reach of coppers, and so frequently the cause of failed relationships within the force. He didn't hold out much hope of escaping for an entire weekend the following week but he would certainly try. At least Jo was proving to be reliable, though Ted was still worried by the evidently flirting looks that passed between him and Océane, and how they always seemed to manage some fleeting physical contact when they were discussing work. If the weekend away looked like even a remote possibility, he would try to have a word, just to allay his fears and reiterate the boundaries.

  He felt considerably more relaxed going into his own nick on Monday morning, with the smell of sea spray still lingering in his nostrils from the day before. Rob and Virgil had gone over to South Manchester, and Ted was keen to do some essential catching up on routine work. He needed to touch base with the Ice Queen, for one thing. Although the current murder case was not her remit, as a courtesy he would keep her in the loop, and he would need to talk to her as well as to Jim about taking time off, if he could.

  'The main problem is that I'll be about five hours away, if I go, so I can hardly rush back,' Ted told her.

  'But you're confident DI Rodriguez is up to the job of holding the fort in your absence? Even if we should have another body in your serious serial case?'

  'He's excellent, no worries there. A good find. I just don't like taking time off in the middle of a big case like this. But Trev is threatening to leave me if I don't,' he said with a laugh, 'and I'm not sure how much he's joking.'

  'We can't take that risk,' she smiled in reply. 'I'd be happy enough to agree, if DSU Baker does.'

  He needed to call Jim next, to find out how things had gone with Foster, Mackenzie and Coombs and their meeting with C&D.

  'Mackenzie is singing like a canary in a coal mine,' Jim told him cheerfully. 'It wasn't him, guv, it was all that nasty DC Coombs and he couldn't do anything to stop him. He's clearly too stupid to realise that even if he escapes the conspiracy charges, admitting such a thing is not showing his leadership skills as a DS in a very good light.'

  'And Foster?'

  'Well, he really is stupid. So close to his pension, all he had to do was keep his head down and his nose clean. He's denying everything, even what day of the week it is, but he's implicated up to his neck. If your Mr Bosko would agree to testify, we could put them away for a nice long time and show the public that we do try to clean up our act.'

  'What about Coombs?'

  'I interviewed him myself. Now that is one nasty piece of work. And not your number one fan, Ted, either.'

  'I'll try not to lose any sleep over it,' Ted responded ironically. 'Let me guess – something of the homophobic about him?'

  Jim's rich chuckle came over the phone. 'Oh, yes, but as much as anything, I think he resents you being good at your job. He seems to me to be a lazy bastard, whose mission in life is to get results by doing as little work as possible. Then you pitch up and have the audacity to suggest he should do some proper police work. I'm prepared to believe it was all his idea, and that, as much as anything, it was to make your life difficult.'

  He told Ted that the three were not yet in custody, while further investigation was going on into the false forensic evidence, but that all were suspended and under orders not to contact each other or anyone else from the team.

  'I've got Rob and Virgil over there today riding shotgun on the Three Musketeers who're left,' Ted told him. 'Winters looks promising. Quite bright, good ideas, but probably just kept down by the others. I'm not sure about the other two yet. I'll reserve judgement on them until I hear what they've managed to achieve today. We've got a catch-up at six this evening.'

  'I'll come over for that,' Jim told him. 'I want to make it abundantly clear how seriously Complaints are taking this matter. I know your team are solid, but it never hurts to remind everyone what lies in wait for them if ever they think of taking the easy option.'

  Ted decided to raise the subject of his weekend away while he had Jim's full attention. He knew he might well be busy later on when he came over for the meeting.

  'I hate to ask, Jim, and I know it's not easy, with a big case ongoing, but Trev is threatening to divorce me if I don't go with him.'

  'I thought you weren't married.'

  'We aren't. I keep asking him, but he knows how uncomfortable it would make you, if I asked you to be my best man, and I wouldn't want anyone else.'

  There was an embarrassed silence from the DSU, who was also one of Ted's oldest and best friends. It was true, and he knew it. Jim tried his best to be accepting of their relationship, and he liked and respected Trev. But the idea of the two of them getting married was always going to be one he would struggle with.

  'Jim, it's fine, I was teasing you,' Ted assured him, to break the awkwardness. 'Trev and I are solid, you know that. We don't need the marriage label. Just he is threatening me with dire consequences if I don't go with him. It's some horsey thing for his sister. I don't know much about it, but apparently it's important to them both.'

  'Then you should try to be there. Family is important and us coppers often forget about that. It's fine by me, if you're sure the team can hold the fort? And of course, you'll be contactable by phone at all times, if they need any advice?'

  They finished off by discussing who was leading which part of the meeting later that day. Ted was glad Jim would be there. His presence would definitely impress upon everyone how seriously the force took any signs of trying to falsify evidence.

  Ted's main task of the day was going to be talking to the next of kin of their latest victim. As the post-mortem was only taking place that morning, they would be going to the hospital later in the day to make the formal identi
fication. They had been asked, and had agreed, to come to the station first to talk to Ted. There was little doubt about the identity of the body; the identification was just a formality. In a sense it would be easier to talk to the widow first, before she had to undergo the ordeal.

  When Ted went out into the main office later, to find out if Jo was back from the PM, he found his DI perched on Océane's desk, his black-haired head leaning close to her auburn one as they talked. Ted noticed that Jo's thigh was close to Océane's mouse-hand as she worked on her computer, almost touching. He saw, too, the looks the two were getting from Steve. The green-eyed monster was much in evidence once again.

  'How was the PM, Jo?' he asked, and noted the way the DI shot off the desk like a scalded cat. Time to have a word, before things got out of hand. 'Can you come into my office and fill me in, please?'

  Ted went to put his kettle on, inviting Jo to take a seat as he went, and offering him a brew.

  'Coffee, boss, please. And shall I shut the door, or is this going to be my kick-trick initiation?'

  He was grinning broadly, clearly amused by the situation, when Ted turned back to him.

  'Have you done something to warrant it?' Ted countered.

  Jo laughed. 'No, but I can see how it might look as if I have. Boss, if I tell you something, can it stay between us, or it could totally blow any street cred I might have?'

  'As long as it's not something that's going to affect the smooth running of the team, your secret will be safe with me,' Ted said cautiously, turning back to make the drinks and put mugs in front of them both.

  'The thing is, I'm a hot-blooded Latin male. I love women. I mean, I really love women. The trouble is, my wife, Sofia, is even more hot-blooded Latin than I am. If I did anything, anything at all, she would cut off my sausage and serve it to me instead of chorizo in a paella. I know it, and she knows I know it. It doesn't stop me flirting though. I can't help myself, especially with someone like Océane around. But honestly, boss, that is as far as it will ever go. I swear. On the lives of the six children Sofia has presented me with.'