Death Wish

by Maureen Carter

  ‘Are forensics in the loop, Roy?’ She knew a team had been beavering away in the school since first light.

  ‘They sure are, Bev.’ Chris Baxter materialized at her shoulder, hoisting a steel case. ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Wotcha.’ She returned the fleeting smile, glad to see the crime scene manager put in a personal appearance. Baxter was the archetypal safe pair of hands. Just under six foot, he’d put on a bit of beef recently and she’d swear he’d started dyeing the thinning hair in his not so old age. The ginger locks looked suspiciously auburn to her. ‘Found much yet, Chris?’

  ‘Loads – it’s like the bloody Tardis in there. Looks like dossers have been bedding down in a couple of the rooms. Well, someone’s lit fires and left a shed-load load of junk. And I don’t think it’s down to the resident rats.’

  ‘That a no, then?’ On anything significant.

  ‘Not what I said, Beverley.’ He winked. Get on with it. They were working the classroom nearest the main entrance, he said. Blood, hairs, fibres had been lifted and were already on the way to the lab.

  ‘Top man.’

  ‘We aim to please.’ He gave a mock bow. ‘Anyway, the boffins know to give us a steer soon as. So fingers crossed.’

  ‘Damn right.’ Course, the blood might only be the girl’s. They’d certainly no evidence from the post mortem that she’d put up a fight. Doc King had been unable to extract anything from under what remained of her fingernails, let alone the killer’s skin cells. Her clothes had been whisked off to the lab, though – maybe the guys there would have more joy. Written confession in a pocket would do nicely.

  ‘Let’s take a shufti, then.’ Baxter hunkered down and slowly ran his gaze over the hair. Bev regarded it as the best lead yet to identifying the victim, if not tracking down her killer.

  ‘Guy was no Vidal Sassoon.’ Baxter’s first observation. Not what Bev would call a big revelation. The plait had clearly been hacked off and the tip end had started unravelling. He glanced up at Roy and asked if they’d come across anything that might have been used to secure the strands – tie back, elastic band, maybe. The sergeant shook his head, said the lads were keeping a look out.

  Using both gloved hands, Baxter lifted the plait, then gently turned it over. Bev shuddered. Ants and spiders wriggled among the fine hair. The soil where it had lain was crawling with creepies squirming in the sudden exposure.

  ‘Shame they can’t talk,’ Baxter said. ‘They’d give away more than the hair probably will.’ He gave the insects the brush-off before reaching for a clear evidence bag. Bev watched him write the tag, aware that without roots extracting DNA wouldn’t be easy and even then they’d need to find a match on police databases.

  Not that it was a downer. She’d seen from the start that they were more likely to get a break on the victim’s name by knowing more about her appearance. Surely the fact she’d had waist-length blonde hair would provide a head’s up? But why the hell had the perp–?

  ‘You okay, Bev?’ Baxter asked.

  ‘Yeah, sure.’ She wiped the frown off her face. ‘Still trying to figure out why the killer left it here. Even if he dropped it and had to leg it quick, why not come back for it later?’

  ‘Pissed? Stoned?’ Baxter proffered. ‘Didn’t know he’d dropped it? Shit scared to show his face again? Or … it might just be it was ditched deliberately. Maybe he decided he could live without the grisly reminder. Take your pick, detective.’ He tapped his temple in a mock salute. ‘Now where’d I send the bill?’

  ‘Mates’ rates?’ Watching him saunter back to the school, Bev’s smile faded as a thought struck. You missed one out, pal.

  What if the perp had left it and someone else had taken it?

  17

  ‘So you want local dossers tracked down and questioned?’ Mac scratched the side of his cheek.

  ‘Problem with that?’ Bev sniffed. Other than sounding like she’d asked for the location of a rainbow’s end. The one with the colony of leprechauns that dished out pots of gold.

  ‘It don’t make sense, boss. Why’d a wino nick a length of hair just to sling it in a bed of nettles?’

  Think it through, man. Besides: ‘Makes a damn sight more sense than letting that supercilious little shit give you the slip.’ Bev tapped a foot waiting for him to catch on, and up. They were heading over to knock doors on the estate that butt-joined the school grounds. Mac hadn’t long returned from his failed fact-finding mission. He’d been puffing like a dragon on sixty-a-day and had his tail firmly wedged between his legs. The bloke with ice-cool eyes had done a runner, apparently. Mac had given chase, natch, but with his bulk stood little chance of catching up, especially after getting a foot jammed in the top of the railings. Knowing Tyler, she reckoned he’d have omitted to tell her the last bit, had he not come back with a limp.

  ‘Thanks a bunch, boss. As it happens –’

  ‘La-la-la. Listen up, Mac. Baxter says dossers, winos, call ’em what you will, have been using the school like a bloody hotel.’ She’d phoned the forensics boss to pin him down about what had been found to indicate rough sleepers. Usual stuff: makeshift beds fashioned from cardboard and newspapers, empty tins, drinks cans, fish and chip wrappers. She’d felt a right dork for not picking up on it when he first mentioned it. ‘I haven’t a clue what they might have done with the hair. I’m not that interested what goes on in dossers’ heads. It’s what might have passed in front of their eyes.’ As in witnessing something.

  Keeping pace along the pavement, they exchanged glances. Mac nodded. ‘Got it.’

  ‘Has to be a possibility,’ Bev said. Why else vacate a cosy gratis berth? Unless the poor buggers were scared shitless of the perp returning, spotting signs of human habitation and realizing he might have had an unseen audience that night? She’d bet the non-paying guests couldn’t check out fast enough. Course it was an assumption on her part that it was dossers, plural. Could just be a lone wolf.

  ‘There was a wino propping up the railings earlier with the other ghouls,’ Mac said. ‘Did you spot him?’

  She nodded. ‘Stacey Hardy had a word with him, apparently.’

  ‘She getting back to you?’

  ‘Soon as.’

  Hopefully the detective wannabe would point them in the direction of the dosser’s current hangout. It sure wouldn’t do her chances of joining the squad any harm.

  ‘About time we got a result.’ Mac raised crossed fingers. Bev rolled her eyes. The case had set off more crossed digits than a compulsive liars’ convention. If she never saw the gesture again it would be too soon.

  Bev checked her watch. ‘Come on, Mac. We’re running late.’ If they didn’t get back to the station pretty rapido, never mind a result – they’d be in for a rollicking.

  ‘What time do you call this?’ Powell dashed along the corridor, tie askew, file tucked under elbow. Glancing over his shoulder, he snapped: ‘Come on, woman, keep up.’ Sounded like a sergeant-major on surly pills. Eyes crossed, tongue poked out, Bev lengthened her stride. Yes sir, no sir, three –

  ‘You’ll stick like that, Morriss.’ Since when had the blond had eyes in the back of his head?

  ‘I was recalling the traffic, gaffer. Like I say, if it hadn’t been for the jam on –’

  ‘Yadda, yadda, blah. It boils down to time-management skills.’ Pausing with his hand on the door, he turned to face her. ‘You’re fresh out.’

  Cheeky toad. He knew that was a porkie. She’d even maximized Mac’s timetable: persuaded him instead of stopping for lunch he should go check out an address Stacey had come up with for the dosser’s possible new whereabouts. Hinting he could do with dropping the weight might have swung it. Or maybe not. As for Bev, she was rarely late and definitely no time-waster. So what was Powell’s beef?

  She spotted beads of sweat oozing above his top lip, the tic near the jaw. Right, so that was it. All the busy-busy rush-rush had been a bluff and this current little charade was a delaying tactic. For some reason, the DI
had the wind up him and since push had come to shove, as in opening the door, she reckoned he was trying to put off the inevitable.

  ‘Best not keep those hungry hacks waiting any longer then, eh?’ Smiling broadly, she made to barge past.

  ‘Hold it, hold it. Look, can you take the conference?’ She raised a querying eyebrow. ‘I need to be somewhere else’ – dropped voice, lowered gaze – ‘it’s sort of … personal. I’d really appreciate it … Bev.’

  She toyed with forcing a grovel. Nah. ‘No sweat, gaffer.’ Scrub that. There was a clammy print where his palm had rested on the wood. ‘Don’t forget, though. You owe me.’

  ‘Big …’ He gave a sheepish grin, stopped himself just in …

  Time? Okay, the smirk was childish. So was the two-fingered fluttery wave, but probably not as much as the upbeat, ‘Laters.’

  Perched on the edge of a shiny black table in an overheated windowless room, Bev cast a glance over the assembled hacks. As large gatherings go – it didn’t. Even the press officer had left her to it. Still quality, quantity. She’d just have to hope the maxim held good, because in this instance less would have to be more as far as getting coverage of Operation Twilight in the papers went. Radio and telly hadn’t even bothered turning out.

  All four news-pups looked as if they were on work experience. And not making the most of it. Didn’t they know they were supposed to lob in killer questions? Be thoroughly objectionable and so full of themselves they made Donald Trump look like a bloke who’d inherit the earth?

  Suppressing a shudder, Bev clocked the hacks’ smooth complexions and bland expressions, wondered idly whether cops knew they were cracking on in years when reporters started looking younger. Nah. They’d prefer using crims as a benchmark. Bev would, anyway …

  ‘I’m happy to take questions,’ she said, forcing a smile to show she meant it. Anything to liven proceedings up a bit. The cub reporters had barely scribbled a note yet. But there’d not been a lot she could tell them, and even then it had been in police-speak. Anxious to trace … Keen to talk … Appealing to anyone …

  It had all been included in yesterday’s news release, apart from the line about the victim having long blonde hair which was sometimes worn in a plait.

  ‘So,’ a finger went up on the front row, ‘is there a picture?’

  Bev resisted an eye-roll. Felt like saying, ‘Of? The Hanging Gardens of Babylon? The Sistine Chapel?’ She settled for: ‘Afraid not. Not at the moment anyway.’

  A visual of a bloated stiff wouldn’t do much for their papers’ circulation, or their readers’.

  The finger went up again. It was attached to a loose-limbed guy with a blond afro and horn-rimmed glasses that his face might just grow into, given time. ‘So.’ Save me from sodding so and sos. God knew where the verbal tic originated but it drove Bev demented. Enough already.

  ‘So,’ he said. Like she hadn’t heard the first time. ‘With no pic and no name, it’s not much of a story, is it?’

  ‘That is the story.’ Plonker. ‘How can a girl go missing and no one appear to notice? Start a campaign. Get your readers on board: “Who is this girl? Where did she live? Why did she go missing?”’

  ‘So.’ Help me. ‘How come the information about her hair’s only just come to light?’

  Bev’s ankle stopped twirling. Yeah, well. She’d wanted a killer question. Not that she could give him a straight answer. See, it’s like this, son: some nut job hacked it off and we only found it this morning.

  Talk about cleft stick in a quandary. Cracking cases often relied on informants coming forward, mostly after media appeals, but cops couldn’t reveal the gritty detail editors would go for because nine times out of ten it’d scare half the population shitless. And ten times out of ten it revealed too much information to the perp. Not to mention feeding bright ideas to every fantasist and fuckwit in town.

  ‘Good point.’ She lied. ‘We should’ve released it earlier.’

  ‘Anything else you’re not releasing?’

  Bev glanced up in the direction of the voice. Well, well, a late arrival at the policeman’s secrets’ ball. Summer Raynes had slipped in at the back and now took up wall space. Cheeky sod turning up at all. Bev folded her arms, holding the reporter’s insouciant gaze. Last thing she wanted was the bloody woman dishing the dirt on the razor blade to a wider audience.

  ‘Why’d you ask?’

  ‘Well, I guess now would be a good time to come clean, wouldn’t it?’ The slow smile showcased pointy white teeth.

  ‘You tell me. I’ve nothing to add.’ Bev said, but continued the staring contest. She was banking on the reporter being more than reluctant to reveal an exclusive to the competition, such as it was. Mind, Raynes was no Pulitzer-prize contender. According to Powell she worked as a stringer for The Sun.

  Breaking eye contact, the reporter peeled herself off the wall and stepped in further to take a perch. ‘Fair enough.’

  Phew. ‘I shouldn’t bother. We’re about done here, aren’t we?’ Glancing round, Bev interpreted the nods and closing notebooks as agreement. She watched the hacks file out, then stood and turned to check her phone. Not so much as a spam email. Course, it rang the minute she shoved it back in her pocket.

  ‘Mac, watcha.’

  ‘I’ve found the dosser.’

  ‘Top man. Where –?’

  ‘Dead.’

  Shit. ‘Suspicious?’

  ‘As it gets.’

  ‘Where are you?’ Squat. 14 Foundry Row, Stirchley.

  ‘I’ll be there in ten.’ She stowed the phone in a pocket, grabbed her bag. ‘Shit, shit and treble –’

  ‘Are you in a rush?’ Raynes?

  Bev spun on her heel. ‘Are you still here?’

  ‘I’d like a word.’

  ‘I think you’ve said enough, love.’ She made to brush past but Raynes placed a hand on her arm. Bad move. No one, but no one, touched Bev without written permission and at least a month’s notice. She didn’t have to say a word, the Morriss glare said it all.

  Raynes stepped back sharpish. ‘Look, we got off on the wrong foot. I’m sorry.’

  Wrong foot? She couldn’t even get that right. ‘We?’

  ‘I didn’t say anything, did I? About the razor?’

  ‘I’ve got work to do.’ Bev strode past, but Raynes tagged along. Should’ve tied her bloody ankles to a chair.

  ‘And I didn’t mention the hair.’

  The hair? Apart from a deepening frown approaching mammoth proportions, Bev froze. Surely she’d misheard?

  ‘Come again?’

  18

  Short of bringing her along for the ride, Bev’s only option had been to leave Raynes cooling her heels in an interview room, pending arrival of one of the two Ps. She’d briefed Pembers in a quick phone call and left a voice mail for Powell. Whoever arrived back at Highgate first could pick up the questioning baton. All Bev had managed to elicit before getting away was that the same caller had provided the reporter with both tips. Male voice. No accent. She’d not heard the voice before. And he’d not asked for cash or anything else in return for his largesse.

  Bev wound down the window, welcomed the breeze. If she’d not been in such an all-fired rush, she’d have had the roof down as well. She’d found the MG roasting in full sun at the back of the nick. Felt like driving a sodding mobile sauna. She already had both sleeves rolled up to the armpits.

  At least Raynes had the benefit of air conditioning. She’d baulked initially at the prospect of a bit of solitary in an interview room. Changed her tune pretty quick when Bev asked casually whether it had occurred to her that the tip-off merchant just might be the perp. It had to be a possibility, given how quick off the mark the info had been fed to her. Plus only a minimal number of cops knew about the hair, and Bev couldn’t see any of them risking their pension without a big fat backhander in the offing.

  The bigger question, of course, was why? Why would the perp risk blowing his cover? Unless he was fed up that his
criminal handiwork – she used the term loosely – had gone unnoticed. Maybe the cocky bugger just wanted to read all about it. But why choose a two-bit reporter like Raynes to write it?

  Hey-bleeding-ho. Right now it wasn’t Bev’s baby. Not with a dead dosser to contend with. Was the guy’s rapid demise a coincidence? It smelt suspiciously convenient to her. Mind, until she’d seen the set-up, there wasn’t much mileage speculating any further. Number 14, according to Mac, was bang in the middle of a row of condemned terraces. The council had re-housed the last few pukka residents of the sleazy back street a couple of months ago. She sniffed. Best cross Neighbourhood Watch off the investigation tick list, then.

  Soon as she turned into Foundry Row, she clocked Mac. He’d clearly been busy on the blower. Three police motors and the meat wagon were also in situ. And that didn’t include the large number of uniforms in patrol cars scouring the streets. Mac was currently pacing the narrow pavement, hands deep in pockets, presumably keeping an eye out for her. She flashed the lights and he pointed to a parking space on a patch of waste ground opposite the shabby properties. Before she’d even hauled herself out of the low-slung seat, he queried if she’d eaten lately. She took one look at his face and knew he wasn’t asking if she was hungry.

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘Lucky you.’

  Mac hadn’t been so fortunate. Bev cast him a covert once-over as they crossed the road. The clues were the pallor and the sheen of sweat, clincher was the stink. She glanced down. Yep. The desert boots had taken a hit.

  He raked a hand through his hair. ‘Hell of a long time since I threw up at the sight of a stiff.’

  ‘Didn’t barf on it did you, mate?’

  Mac did a quick double-take, then: ‘Anyone ever tell you you’re all heart?’

  He had. Countless times. She scrambled round in her bag for a jar of Vick. Rubbed a blob under each nostril. The fumes never failed to mask CSSs: crime scene stinks.