Sgt. Flynn's Lonely Hertz Club Van: A short story set in the world of Inspector Christy Kennedy

by Paul Charles

  ‘What have we got here, then?’ the owner of the stretching hand inquired.

  ‘Well, sir,’ began the young detective constable nervously, ‘it seems like a suicide.’

  His inquisitor’s face gently creased into a well-worn smile. ‘No that’s not the way we do it.’

  Because of the smile, it was not taken as a reproach. Instead, the DC was now eager for the warm, soft voice to advise him further.

  ‘First we work out, as best we can, what happened. We’ll need assistance to fully ascertain this. We have – as you can see – a full team of experts here and there’s a lot more waiting in the wings. The second thing we do is to find out the name of the deceased and as much about them as we can. Next we find out why whatever happened, happened to this person. Okay? What, Who and Why.’

  He paused for a few seconds while his eyes survey the scene unfolding before and around him, his left hand flexing again.

  ‘Then, and only then, detective constable, will we be in a position to know what really happened. When we reach that point we have a chance of figuring out the perpetrator of any crime that may have been committed.’ Satisfied that this was now properly understood, Detective Inspector Christy Kennedy beckoned to his young assistant to accompany him down the grass slope towards the river. ‘And perhaps now, you can help me solve a simpler mystery by telling me your name?

  ‘Detective Constable Ian Milligan, sir.’

  ‘You’ve just transferred from Wimbledon, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes, sir, arrived today. It’s my first day in CID.’

  ‘Wimbledon – a-ha, I see.’

  Kennedy could keep the chat up no longer. He had delayed for as long as possible the inevitable – the inspection of the dead body. Eighteen years on the force and the sight of a corpse still made his stomach churn. He had even thrown up on more than one occasion. Kennedy had never been able to fully understand his feelings. He wasn’t exactly squeamish – at least, no more than the next guy. But then the next guy doesn’t usually get to peer into the face of a body that has been robbed of life. Kennedy would choke with sadness as he contemplated the sad remains of somebody’s father, somebody’s son, somebody’s mother – a person with dreams unfulfilled.

  What he now saw before him on the bank of the canal was a well-dressed, well-fed male – probably aged in his late twenties. The body looked as if it had not long been in the water – hours, not days, he reckoned. Kennedy was happy about that much. The colder the corpse, the harder the hunt – that was his motto.

  “Who found the body, Milligan?’ Kennedy asked quietly, as he forced himself to further scrutinise the lifeless carcass.

  ‘A longboat worker – Mr Martin Shaw, sir. That’s him over there – the one wearing the Black Pogues T-shirt, sir.’

  ‘I’d like to speak to him first. And make sure this area is kept clear until the pathologist has had a chance to examine the body.’ Kennedy’s voice betrayed his emotions – his words hardly audible to DC Milligan, who strained to catch his superior’s order.

  ‘Yes sir,’ he replied, relaxing a little on realising that the detective inspector was, at the very least, human and, what’s more, probably from the same planet as himself – something you didn’t find too often in today’s Metropolitan police force.

  For himself, Kennedy was glad that his stomach had at least stopped shouting at him, the volume dropping to a mere mutter, though it would take some time before it quietened altogether.

  ‘So then, Mr Shaw – who are the Black Pogues?’ he asked the long-boatman. Kennedy had found over the years that witnesses remember more when they’re relaxed and it was his practice to begin the conversation by talking about anything other than the facts of the case.

  ‘What?’ Martin replied in disbelief.

  ‘This shirt of yours – my DC told me it has to do with the Black Pogues.’

  ‘They’re more like the green Pogues. They’re a group who would like to be Irish.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ Kennedy replied, though not fully comprehending. ‘My DC also tells me that you’re the one who discovered the body. Would you mind telling me about it?’

  Martin was totally thrown by that – quiet and polite are not the usual attributes of senior police officers.

  ‘Early this morning, just as we were casting off for the first trip, I heard this really loud splash. It had been on my mind all morning so when we took a break I decided to try and see what had caused it. It had seemed to come from near our moorings and if it was a bag of rubbish – as is often the case around here – I didn’t want it getting jammed up in our propeller. The canal is only four feet deep over there.’ Martin pointed to the moorings about twenty yards back up the bank from where the corpse lay.

  ‘Okay, just stop there for a second.’ It was something Kennedy did quite often, making time and space to digest facts, being careful not to misread the way someone said something, in case it veered him off in the wrong direction.

  He stared at the water. It looked so harmless, yet it possessed the ability to end your very existence. You could try and pick it up and it would innocently fall through your fingers.

  ‘So you wanted to make sure whatever it may have been that caused the loud splash was not going to interfere with your propeller. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes. Exactly. I used a pole to poke around in the water. It’s much too dirty to see anything. I’d all but given up. I’d worked my way up the bank to here, when I struck something solid. At first I thought it was a sack ‘cos I could feel it give. But it seemed either too heavy for a rubbish-bag, or else I thought it might have been stuck to something. So I called to Junior and he fetched a pole as well and we heaved and pulled at it. Eventually it gave way and we dragged it towards us. When the head first emerged from the water we both let go of our poles and fell back on to the bank. I ran up over the bridge to the main road to ring for the police and saw that copper walking along…’ Martin was pointing in the direction of the uniformed officer, currently engaged in crowd-control ‘…he radioed for help and we hauled the body out. I’ve been shaking ever since.’

  ‘Have you any tea-making facilities on the boat, Martin?’

  ‘Yes – yes, of course,’ came the quavering reply.

  ‘Good. It’s my experience in these matters that there is nothing as good for the shakes as a strong cup of tea – with lots of sugar.’

  This was all a bit new for Martin. ‘Okay, sir – sure. Why not?’

  ‘And do one for me while you’re at it. Cheers.’

  Chapter Three

  Christy Kennedy was sitting on the longboat, sipping a cup of tea – one of his favourite occupations. Junior’s recollection of the morning’s events tallied pretty much with Martin’s, excepting that he had not, it seemed, heard any splash.

  Kennedy was thinking that he should make a trip on the boat himself to see if the noise of the engine was indeed loud enough to drown out a disturbance as loud as a body falling – or jumping – into the water. He was also considering asking for another cup of tea, when he recognised the voice of a new arrival. ‘I know those tartan tones. Are you to be my bagman, Sergeant Irvine?’ Kennedy asked the smartly-dressed detective walking down the tow-path towards him.

  Detective Sergeant James Irvine straightened his bow tie before answering, ‘Indeed I am, sir. Sorry to be a bit late. I’ve been otherwise engaged up on Primrose Hill all morning.’

  ‘And what’s been going on up there?’

  ‘Some nutter was sniping at dogs from the high-rise flats. He killed four of the pets before we managed to disarm him.’

  ‘What was ringing his bell, then?’ Kennedy asked, not sure whether he should be amused or angry.

  ‘Apparently, he was fed up going out for a walk on the hill every morning and ending up with dog-shit on his shoes.’

  ‘Maybe it’s the owners he should have been after, not the dogs. Anyway, can you put together a system for this? DC Milligan seems to have most of the facts at his finge
rtips. He’ll fill you in. I’m going for a walk.’

  Kennedy put his hands into his jacket pockets and wandered around the scene of the incident. He reminded himself that it was still the scene of an ‘incident’ and not yet the scene of a crime; perhaps that would come later. That was his job – to find out exactly what had happened.

  Irvine’s task would be to organise the whole shebang. By the time he’d arrived, the team was already in place. The first job was to seal off the area, using blue and while police tape. The photographer was busy snapping the corpse from as many angles as he could think of. When it looked like he was done, Irvine summoned the pathologist. ‘All right, Dr Taylor, you’re on.’

  ‘A bit theatrical, old dear,’ replied the good doctor.

  ‘Just trying to make you feel at home, old bean. But don’t get too comfortable, DI Kennedy will soon be over, wanting to know every last detail.’

  As he carried his bag of tricks over to the corpse, Taylor muttered something about it not being an exact science but that he’d have a go. ‘Good God!’ he bellowed as he knelt down beside the body.

  Everyone on the scene turned to look – Irvine and Kennedy quickly made their way to his side. ‘Something bothering you?’ asked Kennedy, cool as ever.

  ‘It’s Eddie Berry!’ whispered Taylor.

  ‘You know him?’ Irvine had a gift for asking the obvious.

  ‘Good grief, yes.’ The doctor searched for a breath that was failing him, and stood up to clear his head. He looked as if he was about to collapse. ‘Just give me a moment, please.’

  ‘Want some tea? Or something stronger?’ asked Kennedy.

  ‘Goodness, no – not while I’m on duty, Inspector. No, I’m okay, really. It was just such a shock. This man is a medical acquaintance of mine. Edmund Berry. He’s a resident at St Pancras All Saints Hospital. Just give me a few seconds and I’ll get on with it.’

  Kennedy felt it best to leave Taylor to his own devices and inquired from Irvine if anything had yet been turned up by the uniformed lads.

  ‘No, sir. Nothing out of the ordinary, just yet. But then – as ever – we don’t know what we’re looking for. But a bit of luck with Dr Taylor knowing the corpse.’

  ‘I’m not sure he would agree with you. Let’s keep on searching. Everything we need is out here waiting for us to find it.’

  Kennedy contemplated the busy scene. Everyone was diligent in their own way and each alone with their thoughts. People would start to become talkative once the corpse was removed from the scene.

  Taylor pulled on a pair of polythene gloves before commencing his examination of the corpse. His first mental note was that the body had not been in the water for long: a matter of hours. No blood or bruising was noticeable to the naked eye. He sealed the hands and feet in plastic bags and beckoned to Kennedy. ‘I can’t do much more till I get it down to the mortuary. Do you want to search the clothes before we remove the body?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose I’d better.’ Kennedy’s reluctance must have been obvious as he called Irvine over to assist in the gruesome task.

  Irvine and Kennedy knelt down on either side of the corpse before going through the pockets – the contents were placed in polythene bags. Kennedy was thankful that the eyes of the corpse were closed. In normal circumstances, the search would have helped to identify the body but, as Taylor had already solved that mystery, the collection of clues would hopefully shed light on Dr Berry’s last hours.

  ‘Not much here, sir,’ concluded Sergeant Irvine. The search had produced a couple of pens – one a cheap Biro and the other a Parker – as well as a wallet stuffed with credit cards, receipts and various bits of paper which would be better examined once they’d had a chance to dry out. Irvine counted Berry’s unspent money – two fifty-pound notes, seven twenty-pound notes, four ten-pound notes and a fiver – neatly folded in half and in ascending order.

  Various coins were also extracted from Berry’s pockets and Kennedy wondered if the deceased had had the same habit as himself of dumping his change into convenient large containers – every vase and bowl in his house and office was full of the stuff. He had never really worked out why he did it. Sometimes – for instance, early in the morning – it would be a pain to go into a newsagent with a ten-pound note for nothing more than the Guardian. When containers started overflowing with coins, he’d transfer the funds to a larger container with the intention of either bagging it for the bank or else dumping it in some charity collection box. Somehow, he never got round to doing either.

  Kennedy noticed that Berry wore sensible shoes – expensive-looking but extremely functional. The job could make you something of an expert on shoes and the like and Kennedy deduced that this pair was no more than four or five years old and wearing well – the time in the water had not deadened the spit-and-polish shine. Berry’s shoes were not unlike his own, and Kennedy wondered if he had purchased them from his own supplier – Ducker & Son of Oxford – but that would have been too much of a coincidence, he thought.

  Irvine was examining a four-inch square of fawn material which he’d found in Berry’s back pocket. ‘Bit small for a handkerchief,’ he muttered to no-one in particular.

  ‘It’s for cleaning his glasses,’ answered Kennedy.

  Sergeant Irvine was puzzled.

  ‘Look at the two marks on the bridge of his nose. Look – there and there. He’s a glasses man. And as spectacle-wearing people grow older, they become more fussy about keeping them clean – hence this little cloth. His specs may have come off when he hit the water. We might find them down below when the divers arrive.’

  Kennedy brought the gruesome search to a conclusion. ‘Nothing else of interest on the body. Have the wallet and its contents sent to my office when they’ve dried out, Sergeant. Now, do you think that location van has a brew going yet?’

  Kennedy turned to Taylor. ‘When you’ve … ah … sent the body on its way to the lab, will you join me for a cup of tea in the wagon and give me the SP on our corpse?’

  After indicating his approval of Kennedy’s suggestion, Taylor instructed the ambulance attendants to place the corpse in a body-bag and to deliver it to the mortuary at St Pancras All Saints Hospital.

  As the ambulance – or meat wagon, as it was affectionately known – took Edmund Berry on his penultimate journey, Kennedy made his way back up the embankment, over the bridge to the main road and disappeared into the site wagon, a large, while mobile-office-on-wheels affair.

  ‘That’s that,’ he said to himself sadly whilst he re-packed his box of mostly unused tricks. ‘Now for that tea.’

  Chapter Four

  Dr Taylor found Kennedy up in the site wagon, drinking his tea and surveying the scene from on high. They had an extensive view of Cumberland Basin and the Feng Shang Boat Restaurant to the left of the cul-de-sac of the Regent’s Canal.

  Cumberland Basin is the point where the Regent’s Canal, having run parallel to the zoo on one side and Prince Albert Road on the other, takes a left turn – assuming, that is, you’re walking towards the basin. This left turns the canal in the direction of Camden Lock, the vibrant heart of Camden Town. The canal walk had recently become very popular, largely because of the multitude of colours, from the lively shades of the boats, through the numerous greens and browns of the trees, to the blue sky with puffy smoke-like clouds.

  Kennedy was lost in his thoughts. Rather than disturb him, the doctor prepared his own cup of tea. The noise of the pouring tea soon caught Kennedy’s attention and brought him back to the present with a jolt. ‘I’ll have a refill, Doctor – if there’s another cup in the pot.’

  ‘There certainly is,’ replied Taylor generously. ‘Pass me your cup.’

  ‘Thanks. Milk and two sugars, please.’

  The tea ritual completed, they sat at either end of an ugly mustard sofa, the site wagon’s one attempt at comfort. But it was uncomfortably low, a matter of ten inches off the ground, and the other seating arrangements weren’t much better, variou
s chairs and swivel seats, all too high.

  A couple of sits later, Kennedy became annoyed at the discomfort of the ridiculous sofa and dragged himself off, nearly spilling his precious tea in the process. He made his way back to the window. After contemplating the scene outside for a few moments, he quietly asked Taylor – whose large, generous frame was causing serious disturbance in the sofa – about the unfortunate Dr Berry. ‘How long has he been dead, Doctor?’

  Kennedy was half-expecting the usual, Well, it’s too early to tell but I’d say sometime within the last nine weeks – so he was more than surprised at Taylor’s response. ‘Well, judging by the degree to which the body has swollen, I’d say not too long – possibly three or six hours.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Kennedy replied, weighing up his information. ‘And would you say your colleague was still alive when he fell – or jumped or was pushed – into the water?’

  ‘Quite possibly. But I won’t know that until I open him up.’

  Kennedy’s stomach murmured a complaint at this statement. ‘The timing is interesting, doctor,’ began Kennedy, expelling from his mind the vision of the corpse being opened, ‘because that would mean that the splash heard by our young friend may well have been that of Dr Berry’s last swim, and so perhaps there was no foul play involved, perhaps it was just a simple suicide. There’s no sign of a struggle, no obvious bruising to the body…’

  ‘And I hear from young Milligan that no suicide note has yet turned up,’ interjected Taylor.

  ‘True enough, Doctor. I know it’s not a popularly held belief that every suicide leaves a note but I think that in the majority of cases some message is left – written or not. Anyway, I put the horse before the cart. How about if you tell me all you know about Dr Berry,’ suggested Kennedy.

  ‘Well, began Taylor, ‘as I said earlier, I’ve known him a little socially over the last couple of years – since he came to work at St Pancras. He was gaining a strong reputation for his research into skin diseases. Seemed to be well-liked by his colleagues. He kept himself in good shape, as you can see, and he dressed well – as you no doubt also noticed.’