by Mike Crowson
* * *
Millicent snatched a sandwich and a coffee and took them up to her office in the Incident Suite, leaving DC Bright to eat a more leisurely lunch in the canteen. She had no sooner settled herself at her desk than there began a succession of callers.
DC Goss came in waving his notebook. "Hot from the presses," he said. "In fact, so hot it hasn't even been to the presses yet."
"The syringe?" Millicent demanded eagerly, and Goss nodded.
"So what do forensic say about it?"
"Very odd," Goss said. "There were no prints on it but those of Hunter himself, and they were entirely natural as if he'd used the syringe himself. Thumb print on the plunger and so on."
"That is odd," Millicent agreed. It had upset her calculations completely. She hadn't been expecting any particular prints at all, but the one set she hadn't expected were those of Hunter."
"Very odd," Millicent repeated. "What had they to say about the contents?"
"Morphine," Goss said. "There were traces of other substances but they were too similar to be certain of either the proportions or the quantity, but they thought the mixture would have been effective in anything from two or three minutes to about twenty minutes, depending on dosage."
Millicent leaned back, tapping her fingers absently on the desk as she tried to make sense of the new information.
Could Hunter really have given himself a fatal dose of a dangerous mixture like that? Obviously he had done, but had he done it knowingly and willingly? In spite of Doctor Leverett's remarks, he was possibly a drug user himself. At least he was closely aware of them, so it was very unlikely that this was a conscious decision or risk. If he was dying of cancer suicide seemed a possibility, but he had continued to act like an obnoxious thug to the very end, which didn't seem suicidal. Why had he done it? And when? His mad driving at quarter past midday on Saturday suggested a high. So why had he gone to Knowles's to die?
She was still miles away when Lucy Turner and Tony Gibbs walked in.
"How did you make out with the O'Connor woman?" Millicent asked.
"On the Saturday she was in the ‘Bulldog’ at Burley Woodhead from before two until after three," said Gibbs. "She and Hunter were regulars, the landlord identified them. Her story is that this was the usual place that she mentioned in the letter and she went there as arranged to meet Hunter but he didn't turn up. "
"What does she say about a phone call?"
"Denies there was one." Lucy said.
"And did you believe her?
Lucy hesitated and considered. "I'm not sure," she said, "but unless Rosie called from home we might have trouble proving it, even if she was lying."
"Yes," said Millicent. "Well, leave me to think this one through. All three of you go and get some lunch."
Goss, Turner and Gibbs trooped out to get their lunch. One of Millicent's strong points was that she always thought about the welfare of her troops, as it were, even though she drove herself hard at times. The army had taught her that leadership and command are as much about responsibility for others as delegation to others: both are absolutely essential in the right mix.
Once on her own, Millicent began to go beyond considering the various elements of the crime as a detective solving a puzzle, to an individual deliberately allowing her own higher self a chance to resolve it. Instead of waiting for a flash of uncontrolled insight to come of its own accord, she decided that she would try and induce the kind of trance N'Dibe had induced two days earlier.
It is, however, easier to decide something like that than to do it. Dowsing with a pendulum, gazing at a crystal ball, casting the I-Ching or studying Tarot cards all, in their different ways, do nothing more than allow the user to tap into the hologram of what we already know. The question was, which route to follow.
Millicent decided that she would get all of these items and try them at home over time, to see which worked best for her. In the mean time the safest thing to use at Witchmoor Edge Police Headquarters was nothing at all. She would attempt the remote viewing she had done with N'Dibe. As she was less likely to be disturbed in her own office, she went there, telling her Secretary she was not to be disturbed.
Sitting back in her armchair with the office door locked and her eyes closed, she scrunched up her muscles in turn and let them relax. With deep breathing relaxing was easy, but visualising was not quite so straightforward in broad daylight. She broke off the pulled down the blind, and then relaxed again. This time she was able to see the narrow valley and follow the path up to the portal to other worlds where the guardian stood waiting.
Without realising she was doing it, she consulted the guardian. He, she or it led her through the gate to a quiet, chapel-like room, calm and still, where the whole problem might be considered. On a wall of the silent room, as on a TV screen, there flickered images. Suddenly she saw clearly how the crime might have been committed. The death of Simon Hunter and the various side problems seemed to be no problem, though proving any of them undoubtedly would be.
Millicent relaxed calmly back to the gate, thanked her own higher self and counted to three, as N'Dibe had taught her. As she sat there in the dimly lit office she reflected on the new experience. What she had done was, at one level, no more than concentrate on the problem. She had read somewhere that the human brain is so powerful and underused that the problem does not exist which could not be solved if sufficient concentration was directed at solving it. At another level she had controlled her involuntary psychism and produced an insight to order.
She opened the blind again and, on the way back to the incident room, collected another cup of coffee.
Millicent waited quietly in the incident room until her team drifted back from lunch, sipping her coffee and thinking about the crime, the probable solution and how she might prove her ideas. As Lucy came back into the Incident Suite, she called her over.
"Lucy," she said, "I want you to get in touch with BT and check the numbers called from KHS Investments on Friday the 10th."
"What needle might I be looking for in that particular haystack?"
"It's possible that Hunter called Rosie O'Connor, not the other way round. If he did, he probably phoned from the office."
"You mean that's what Shields overheard?"
"Right. Though I think he may have overheard Hunter saying he wouldn't meet her in the usual place."
"I don't get it," Lucy said. "She went to the usual place. Why do that if she knew he wouldn't be there?"
"That is a very good question. It suggests to me - assuming she did know he wouldn't be there - that she had a good reason why people should think she didn't know. Now run along and do that checking. Have BT email or fax the record of all calls made between twelve and three for a start. And on your way out, ask DS Gibbs to look in."
Tony Gibbs came in immediately.
"I want you to get a search warrant and go over Knowles's garage," Millicent said.
"What, for the warrant application, do you hope to find?"
"A blunt instrument."
"Eh?" Gibbs looked puzzled.
"Hunter was alive when he drove to Knowles's house at twelve thirtyish," Millicent said. "He was dead when Shields and Leverett found him at the picnic site at two. Between twelve thirty and two, while he was still alive, he got a blow on the head with something hard and heavy."
"And you think that the something hard and heavy is still in Knowles's garage."
"If were very lucky we'll find it," said Millicent. "And if we're very sharp, we'll recognise it when we do find it."
"Okay, I'll apply for the warrant."
"And you're in charge of the operation, but I think I'll join the search party, though I'll just stand there and look and think."
It was as Millicent had said. She drove herself and pulled in behind the car driven by Tommy Hammond, in which there were also DS Gibbs, DC Goss and DC Bright.
Gibbs rang the doorbell. Bernard Knowles was still at KHS Investments in Bradford, of course,
but he showed the search warrant to Mrs. Knowles and she let them into the garage.
"I don't know what you think you'll find there," she said. "I'd have let you search without a warrant, because there's hardly anything there."
Gibbs wasn't sure what he thought he'd find there either, but he wisely said nothing.
The garage was roomy: almost but not quite a double. It was clean and well kept and, as the Saab was outside on the drive, almost empty. There was a workbench and drawers at the rear, in front of a window overlooking the back garden. Next to the bench was a trolley jack on wheels. There were a few tools in the cupboards, the drawer held only a few fuses and bulbs. The floor of the garage had been painted with concrete floor paint in the last year or two and the car had dropped very little oil since. Millicent wandered in.
"I don't see a blunt instrument, unless you mean that jack handle," Gibbs said to her.
"I wonder why the jack has two handles," Millicent remarked. "And why the one that doesn't fit has a name on it."
It didn’t have a name on it, but it did have the initials SK and it was too long and too square to fit properly.
"Pity didn’t have the initials SH," Gibbs said.
"Put it in an evidence bag and pass it on to forensic," Millicent instructed. "SK could be Shirley Knowles. We know nothing about where she lived before she was married, but her things would have gone with her to her new house when she married."
"Would she have had something like a jack, though?" Gibbs asked.
Tommy Hammond looked up from the drawers he was checking.
"Using things like jacks or screw drivers and doing car or household repairs isn't something sexual," he said "Admittedly more men than women tend to do jobs like that, but what really counts is some kind of aptitude or ability. I wouldn't get oil under my fingernails doing something like that and, as for DIY, you can do it yourself! But my current girlfriend: she's a looker, but she's really good at practical things."
"Shirley Hunter is a nurse," Millicent remarked. "She must be fairly practical."
"Well, we'll see what forensic make of it," Gibbs said, putting the jack handle in a plastic bag. "Can we go now you've found a blunt instrument?" He added grinning.
"No point in staying, is there?" Millicent replied solemnly. "Get that thing to forensic as soon as you get back to HQ. Draw lots on the way home to see who does it."