by Deborah Lucy
Sloper was well known for gaining the largest overtime record in the force and for relying heavily on his friendship with DC/Superintendent Harker. Rumour had it that Harker’s friendship had sorted many a situation that would ordinarily have resulted in Sloper receiving disciplinary action.
‘At last, the cavalry,’ Sloper quietly quipped, unimpressed by Temple’s arrival. Harker had confided enough times for Sloper to know Temple was an anathema to Harker.
Sloper cultivated and milked the relationship with Harker for all it was worth. A pre-PACE cop, the short time he’d spent as an RMP before that gave him a swagger he had never lost, something that was useful moving in the circles he did. With nothing to retire for, at fifty-eight, he knew he was viewed by the younger cops as a relic, but he could still teach them a thing or two.
Sloper knew Harker was grateful to him for keeping tabs on his daughter Gemma and Sloper had been quick to exploit this pretext. He was well known to the movers and shakers around drugs and prostitution, and particularly liked to mix with the sex workers in the county. With Harker as top cover, Sloper moved effortlessly amongst them. He loved their seedy underworld and as he observed those who ran it, he was like a fox guarding a hen coop. He told himself – and any local response team who might register his presence around Swindon’s red light district – that he was gaining much needed intelligence and information. The reality was, he’d been sucked in.
Sloper had been at the scene in Ramsbury for nearly two hours and although an old hand at murder scenes, he wanted to hand over the burden of covering some ‘golden hour’ basic actions. If Harker wanted him to chaperone Temple he was happy to oblige, but he wasn’t being paid for being the SIO.
Knowing Temple was a close colleague of Chris Rees and that Rees had been a source of aggravation to Harker, Sloper decided to leave him in no doubt where his loyalty lay.
‘Poor old Reesy, eh? Apparently his missus found him slumped in the shower this morning, bare arse naked. Dead. Nothing they could do for him. Fuck all. Poor cow. Must have let the last job really get to him, poor bastard.’
Temple was still unable to believe Chris Rees was dead.
‘He was a good bloke, he’ll be missed,’ was all he could say. Temple wondered why it was that a man like Sloper survived in the job, when Chris Rees sacrificed his life for it.
‘I never really took to the man,’ said Sloper, pointedly. ‘He was a prick.’
Temple shot him a look of disdain.
‘Let’s get on with what we’re here for, shall we? What’s the score?’ asked Temple, wishing he hadn’t drunk so much the previous night. He’d need to be sharper to counter Sloper. Truth was, seeing Sloper had put him on the back foot.
Sloper briefed Temple as he changed into a forensic suit handed to him by the CSI.
‘The body’s upstairs on the bed. The doc’s pronounced life extinct and left and I’ve called up the path, we’re just waiting for him to get here. Coroner’s got us a slot at the mortuary at 15.30. The deceased is a Mrs Greta Ashton-Jones, thirty-four years old, very fit, well, at least, she was. She lived here with her husband, Maxwell Ashton-Jones. He’s a pilot for British Airways, older than her by some nineteen years, currently away on a long haul flight to Sydney. There’s a son, James, seventeen years old, from Mr Ashton-Jones’s first marriage – he was a widower before his second marriage. The son’s at boarding school.’
‘Who found the body?’ Temple asked.
‘Their cleaner, Irene Cresswell, she rung it in just after 8 a.m. She turned up as normal at 0700 this morning, and let herself in with her key. All seemed to be in order, there were no signs of forced entry. She’d finished her cleaning downstairs, gone upstairs to do the bathrooms and found the body when she went to go into the ensuite.’
‘So she was here cleaning any clues away for an hour. Great start,’ said Temple, flatly.
‘She’s next door at the moment. They’ve given us a police staff investigator, Kelly Farmer, who’s taking her statement.’
‘So let me get this straight; there’s us two, this Kelly Farmer and two CSI, is that it?’
Temple started to feel uneasy. He knew the chief constable had to shave about £25 million off the budget and everyone had to do more with less, but this was ridiculous. With police staff investigators costing half than a detective constable, employing more of those was the way forward and an obvious bone of contention amongst detective officers.
‘Who gave Harker the initial assessment?’
‘I did,’ Sloper replied, archly. ‘As I said to Clive, it’s probably a straightforward domestic. She’s in her own bed, how hard can it be? We either nick the husband, or she was over the side and we nick the bloke she was shagging.’
In the majority of murders, Temple knew the perpetrators were close to home, but he also knew it was important to keep an open mind, particularly in the early stages. He didn’t want to clash with Sloper, but it had taken just five minutes and he was already beginning to feel seriously pissed off with him.
Temple, Sloper and the two CSI went inside the house. An oak wooden staircase led off a flag-stoned hallway. Temple’s paper covered feet sunk into a strip of snowy white deep piled carpet as he put his foot on the first stair. Looking up the flight of stairs, he hesitated slightly.
‘You all right?’ asked Sloper sarcastically, as he almost knocked into Temple.
‘Fine. This all feels quite new to me, like the builders haven’t long been gone,’ said Temple, looking around. ‘There have been people working here, see what they have to say about Greta and Maxwell Ashton-Jones. Write an action down to find out who was here and go and see them.’
All four went into a large bedroom. On a mahogany-framed bed in the middle of the room lay a naked blonde woman, lying on her back with arms stretched out and her wrists tied to the bedposts, her hands hanging like wilted flower heads. Her legs were together and crooked to the side. The rest of her naked form displayed a slim, lightly tanned and very attractive figure. Temple scanned her face; her head was slightly to the side, her eyes were shut, her mouth was half open and her blonde hair was splayed across pillows behind the head. She looked as if she was sleeping, a sleeping beauty, thought Temple, even in death. There were no obvious signs of violence, no signs of robbery; she was still wearing expensive looking diamond rings on her fingers. Looking around the room, the windows were closed.
Standing next to him, Temple became aware of Sloper’s laboured breathing. Turning to look at him, he saw Sloper’s eyes busily scanning the naked body tied to the bed. He had an urge to cover her from Sloper’s view but knew he couldn’t. In an attempt to distract him, Temple spoke his thoughts out loud, turning away from the bed.
‘So the cleaner has come in this morning; after cleaning downstairs, she’s come up here, opened the door and found Mrs Ashton-Jones like this and phoned us.’
Sloper continued his study of the body.
‘Did the doc say how long she’d been here?’ Temple asked, directing the question at Sloper who finally broke his gaze from the body to the CSI.
‘He thinks twenty-four to thirty-six hours,’ said Jackie Newly. ‘The hypostasis has settled in the shoulders, back and on the legs. We’ve taken photos of the room, the body, close shots of the hands, wrists, face and we’ll get the video up here next and run it round.’
‘Good,’ said Temple, as he walked around the room, taking in the scene. He could feel Sloper’s eyes following him and wished he could be in the room alone.
It was sparsely but tastefully furnished. The heavy, king-sized wooden bed dominated the room; discrete built-in wardrobes and two free-standing chests of drawers made hardly a dent in the space of the room and there was an elaborate painted chandelier. He went into a large modern ensuite. Looking around, he noted various products in expensive looking bottles. Above a ‘his and hers’ double marble basin, was a glass shelf under a large gilt mirror. Amongst paracetamol and ibuprofen, he saw a small bottle of medication with Gret
a’s name on it, which he wrote down. Walking back into the bedroom, he went over to a set of closed French doors. These led to a small balcony that looked over a swimming pool in the rear garden and into fields and the River Kennet beyond. There was a garage and stable complex to the left. It was an idyllic setting.
Back in the room, his eyes were drawn to a large framed charcoal drawing of a naked woman hanging on the wall – it was clearly a portrait of Greta Ashton-Jones. On a chest of drawers were framed photographs of Greta. They had a professional style to them. As he looked at them, Temple was struck by her eyes. Their almost feline shape and grey colour gave her a very attractive, exotic look and her tumbling blonde mane of hair and dusting of freckles across her nose, made her look younger, vulnerable even. She had clearly been at ease with both the camera and the taker – there were other photos of her with a man, older than her. She looked effortlessly sophisticated – the photo showed her in a wide brimmed hat, smiling broadly, her generous lips revealing perfect teeth. Temple lingered on the image before he turned and looked back at the bed.
‘She was a bit of all right, wasn’t she? Good body.’ Sloper had joined Temple looking at the photos.
‘Who’s the guy, do we know yet? And what about this one, who is he?’ Temple pointed to another frame with a picture of a different man.
‘Yes, we ID-ed them earlier with the cleaner; that’s her husband, Maxwell, and that one is her father.’ Sloper walked back to the bed. ‘He goes off to work, she gets her bit on the side in, we’ve just got to find out who it is – after all, she can’t tie her own wrists.’
Irritated by Sloper’s comments, Temple gave him a list of instructions. A mobile sounded; Sloper drew two out of his pocket, turned and walked away, putting one to his ear, the other back in his pocket. Temple watched him. The call was short and their conversation resumed. Temple wondered if it was Harker. He continued to list the initial actions.
‘As a matter of priority, I want to know what time Maxwell Ashton-Jones left for work, what time his plane left and where he is now. Have we covered the phones? I want the last number called and the last number received. Seize any mobile phones and laptops and get them back to HQ for examination. Search her handbag and purse. Ring the Financial Investigation team at HQ, I want a full financial profile of husband and wife. I’ll leave you to run the video camera all over the place while I go and see the cleaner.’
Temple divested himself of his forensic suit and walked to a neighbouring house. He knocked on the door. It was answered by a woman wearing a grave expression who showed Temple into the kitchen. Sitting at a pine table was Kelly Farmer. She looked up at him. Recognition hit him as soon as he saw her. A tall, striking brunette, with a sharp cut bob hairstyle, he had last seen her in the police bar at a recent leaving do. Temple had watched from afar as friend and colleague, Paul Wright, attempted to chat her up, only for her female partner to turn up and promptly plant a full kiss on her lips.
Kelly Farmer had finished taking the statement and Irene Cresswell was reading it whilst sniffing into a paper hanky. Temple drew Kelly to one side and spoke to her in a low voice.
‘Kelly, we haven’t met before, I’m DI Temple, I’m the senior investigating officer. What’s she saying?’
Kelly referred to a hard back notebook as she started to recount the information given to her. Temple sensed her inexperience.
‘Slow down, Kelly, slow down. Where do you usually work?’
‘I’m normally on burglaries and ABHs in Swindon.’
‘You won’t have been involved in a murder inquiry before then?’
‘No, boss, I haven’t, but I’m up for it,’ she replied confidently.
‘That’s just as well because there’s not many of us at the moment, which is even more of a reason to ensure we cover all the bases. So, how long have you got in?’
‘I’ve been investigating for nearly a year now, done my courses, started on tier 2 interview course last month.’
Kelly knew this was a chance to prove herself. She didn’t want to fuck this up. If she could prove herself in this investigation, she might get on the MCU where her pay would increase. She and her partner were struggling to pay a chunky mortgage on a townhouse on a new executive estate in Swindon. While investigating was a far cry from her previous work in a car insurance call centre, the situation demanded further ambition and Kelly already had her sights set elsewhere. If she could acquire enough interview skills and experience, she could work in more lucrative areas, such as fraud and money laundering investigation in London.
‘OK. So, tell me everything she’s told you, slowly.’
Kelly took a breath and began.
‘Right, Irene Cresswell is the cleaner for the Ashton-Jones. Maxwell and Greta live here, their son James, who’s seventeen, is a full-time boarder at Stilcombe Public School – that’s near Newbury – but comes home at weekends and holidays.’
‘Where is he now, do we know, did he come home this weekend?’
‘She says that he came home on Friday, but that he didn’t stay the whole weekend as he was going to stay at a friend’s from school.’
‘And what’s Irene’s routine?’
‘She turned up this morning at 7 a.m. as she does on every Monday and Friday. She cleans on Fridays for the weekend and then on Mondays from the weekend to take them to the next Friday. She last saw Greta Ashton-Jones alive last Friday morning. Greta told her that Maxwell had left for Sydney the evening before, on Thursday. Maxwell is a pilot for British Airways and he does long haul trips. Greta told Irene that Maxwell would be away for nine days – this is normal apparently. Irene says there’s a twelve hour flight to Singapore, then a forty-eight hour stopover. She knows this because Greta used to be an air hostess, that’s how Greta and Maxwell met. If her timings are right, by my reckoning, he’s now in the air going to Sydney or thereabouts.’
‘Good work. Have you asked her what she actually did this morning?’
‘Yes, she thought Greta was out this morning as she usually sees her car on the driveway, it’s a red Porsche. She didn’t know the registration. Maxwell drives a black Range Rover Sport. Her car was not on the drive so Irene let herself in and came straight in here to the kitchen to tidy up. She said she thought she might have driven over to some nearby stables to have an early morning horse ride as she did this sometimes; her own horse died two years ago apparently. She washed up and gathered up some rubbish, washed the floor, opened the French doors to let the floor dry, went into the lounge, tidied and hoovered.’
‘Was the house secured when she arrived?’ asked Temple, impressed by the level of detail that Kelly was providing.
‘She says so.’
‘When did she discover the body?’
‘She’d finished in the lounge and went upstairs to collect any washing and start tidying the bedrooms, that’s when she went into Greta’s room and discovered her lying on top of the bed, dead.’
Sloper rang. ‘Temple, the path’s here, just dressing up.’
‘I’m coming back. Is there a red Porsche or black Range Rover Sport in the garage?’
‘I’ll have a look.’ Sloper rang off.
‘OK, finish it off, Kelly. I want to find out about Greta and Maxwell, everything she knows about them, anything. I also want to know what she cleaned up – what was there to tidy? We’ll get together later for a debrief.’
Temple walked back to the scene to see Sloper in the driveway.
‘There are no cars in the garage.’
‘Right,’ said Temple, ‘get the reg number for the Porsche and ring into PNC, get them to run Greta as the registered keeper and put a marker on it to stop it if seen and ring me immediately. We need to find that car.’
Temple and Sloper met the pathologist and after introductions, went back upstairs. In his early fifties, Tim Yardley was a big, avuncular man with a distinctively deep voice. He had just joined the regional consortium and had travelled up from Exeter following the call. Yardley, Slo
per, Temple and Jackie Newly stood around the bed, looking at the body.
‘What do we think then, guys?’ said Yardley, as he reached into an open briefcase to retrieve a pair of latex gloves and a thermometer.
‘Death by auto-erotic asphyxiation, sex game gone wrong is my bet,’ Sloper ventured. He’d worked on something similar in the past.
‘That’s what it could be.’ Yardley examined the face, gently raising the eyelids with his thumbs to look at the eyes. ‘There are slight signs of petechiae, a characteristic of death by strangulation. Of course, I’ll only be able to give you what you want once I’ve done a full examination back at the mortuary.’
Sloper watched as Yardley continued to conduct a quick check of the body with his latexed hands and finished with a temperature check.
‘No obvious signs of a struggle, finger nails are in place, no bruising to legs or arms although there will be once we remove the ties on the wrists. There’s some bruising coming through around the ankles so looks as though the legs were restrained at some point.’
‘Estimated time of death?’ asked Temple.
‘Notice the weather this weekend? Clear skies at night and particularly harsh frosts for late May. This would have kept the temperatures down and help to slow decomposition. I’d say she’s been dead for twenty-four to thirty-six hours, late Saturday, early hours of Sunday morning.’
‘Thanks, Doc, I’ll see you later at the mortuary in Salisbury.’
As Temple assimilated the information, he watched Jackie put a bag over the head and untie the hands and feet of the body to ensure any forensic evidence that might have been left were not lost in transition.
He knew, with Greta Ashton-Jones’s husband apparently out of the country at the time of her murder, this was not the cut and dry ‘domestic’ that Sloper had assessed. Conscious of Sloper’s direct line into Harker, Temple’s experience of similar inquiries was enough to tell him that he would need more resources if he was to make ground in the next couple of days. The local press would soon pick up on the story and the public would know there was a killer on the loose. He gave Sloper a further list of fast-track actions.