If I Should Die (Joseph Stark)

by Matthew Frank

  ‘Stark!’ Fran. Impatient. The moment slipped from Stark’s grasp, like a cheated memory. Shaking his head, he hurried after his masters.

  It was a climb to the upper plateau of Greenwich Park, past the Royal Observatory, to where the bandstand stood, a short distance off one of the main paths. Sergeant Clark and the same young constable stood guard over the outer cordon, tape flapping loosely between trees and traffic cones. SOCOs were busy inside. The sergeant’s face was grim as he stared at the corpse on the small strip of tarmac at the back of the bandstand. Kyle Gibbs stared back through lifeless eyes.

  Groombridge sighed. ‘Nice boots, Tony.’

  Clark looked down at the blue wellingtons. ‘They’ll have to let me keep them if this carries on. I’m down to my third best shoes now.’

  ‘The price of being the legendary Sergeant Clark, the first man they call when they find a body. What have you got for us today, then?’

  ‘Face battered and bruised, knife poking out his back, sir. An ugly end to an ugly life.’

  ‘Poetic injustice,’ suggested Groombridge. ‘Jones again?’ He jerked his head towards the blue-booted rookie.

  ‘Not his lucky week,’ muttered Clark. ‘To his credit, he wasn’t sick this time.’

  Groombridge glanced at Stark, who pretended not to notice. ‘All right, Clark, take Jones for a cuppa in the Pavilion, and get a statement from the manager.’

  ‘Got a preliminary statement here, sir.’

  ‘Tea plus cake for you both, then, on me.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ Clark took the proffered tenner, winked at Stark and beckoned to the unfortunate PC Jones.

  Marcus Turner was already passing through transition and took his time looking over the body with the CSM. When he was done he wandered over, his face grave. ‘Ah, DCI Groombridge. Which should sadden us more – young life truncated or Lady Justice cheated?’

  ‘Marcus.’ Groombridge nodded.

  ‘DS Millhaven. And young Stark. Three murders to investigate now, in at the dirty end.’

  ‘Darkness dogs our steps indeed,’ said Groombridge. ‘First impressions?’

  ‘Preliminary, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘At this stage suppositions are few. There’s a wallet in his inside jacket pocket, suggesting this wasn’t a mugging, unless the killer spooked and abandoned their spoils, and the grass around appears scuffed as if by multiple persons. The only blood appears to be the pool beneath the body but I’ll let you know. Body position suggests it hasn’t been moved. Cause of death probably stabbing but marks to the face and throat suggest at least the possibility of other fatal trauma. Body temperature places time of death between one and five but I’ll narrow that down. I’ll remove the knife during autopsy but from the handle it’s clearly a modern flick-knife, one of those with the index-finger hole for better grip. If I had to guess I’d say multiple persons left the scene diagonally across the grass there towards the Flower Garden. I’ll wander that way with the CSM for a look-see.’

  ‘Look out for lager cans – Tennent’s Super,’ said Stark, earning a look from Fran – speak when spoken to.

  Turner smiled, polite enough to be told how to suck eggs by a fool. ‘All too common a poison, I fear.’

  Fran watched him go. ‘Internal gang squabble?’

  ‘Or inter-gang,’ mused Groombridge.

  ‘We stopped a fight between them and another group when I was patrolling with uniform in my first week,’ said Stark, and described the incident. ‘Names were taken.’

  ‘Really?’ Groombridge pursed his lips. ‘And you think Gibbs was carrying a knife?’

  ‘Just a hunch, Guv. I didn’t see one.’

  ‘There’s only one knife at the scene,’ said Fran. ‘So far,’ she added, gesturing at Turner’s receding form.

  ‘Too many possibilities as usual.’ Groombridge looked at Stark and forced a smile. ‘Don’t worry, it always starts like this, flapping in the wind. Don’t let yourself get used to it. Frustration is the detective’s sustenance.’

  ‘Shall we round up the usuals, Guv?’ asked Fran.

  ‘I suppose.’ Groombridge didn’t sound enthusiastic. ‘What’s left of them. Get Harper on to it.’

  ‘Maybe one or all of the faithless little shits will finger Kyle for everything now,’ she offered cheerily, ‘while continuing to deny involvement themselves.’

  ‘If only …’ Groombridge responded. ‘Stark, get one of the DCs and go to Lewisham A-and-E. Ask about admissions or treatment for knife wounds or fights, and tell Harper to send someone to the Queen Elizabeth. Fran, wait and see if Marcus can give us anything else.’

  ‘What about you, Guv?’

  Groombridge stared at the body. ‘Get someone from Family Liaison to pick me up here. I’d better break the news to his mother.’

  Dixon volunteered to go with Stark and they got chatting on the way. ‘Why does the guv’nor keep giving Sergeant Clark money?’

  Dixon laughed. ‘They go way back, started as constables the same day. The way I’ve heard it the guv’nor wanted to go career uniform like his dad, but Clark reckoned CID would find a way to poach him.’

  ‘And they bet on it.’ Stark grinned.

  ‘It’s been their tradition ever since. Last one to the body buys tea and cake. It’s for the rookies, really.’

  The A&E receptionist was as unhelpful as she was casually uncaring to the walking wounded queuing before her throne. ‘Wait over there.’

  ‘This is an urgent police matter,’ insisted Dixon.

  ‘Someone will help you as soon as they’re free.’

  And that was that: her attention was gone. Stark was feeling the effects of an early start, interrupted breakfast and too much walking, and had already met all the self-anointed hospital deities he could stomach. ‘Excuse me,’ he called politely to the amassed host looking busy behind the goddess. ‘Would one of you mind taking over from your colleague here? She’s about to be arrested for obstructing a murder investigation.’

  A little shockwave of silence expanded from him. Dixon froze. The goddess looked indignant, then slowly her faith buckled. ‘How can I help you?’

  ‘By telling us who was sitting in your chair between one and five this morning.’

  ‘That would have been me,’ said a woman, coming out of a side door pulling on her coat.

  She looked dog tired but amused, and listened intently. ‘Yes, we had some last night, we almost always do. I’ll get the list but that injury-type give false names as often as not.’

  ‘I have some photos,’ said Stark, pulling out photocopies he’d made.

  Nothing matched. They scanned reception CCTV but Stark didn’t recognize any faces from the Meridian pub altercation.

  ‘I’m not sure we’re allowed to threaten people like that,’ said Dixon, on the way back to the station.

  Stark smiled. ‘Ignorance is bliss.’

  Harper came up blank too, but didn’t let that smother his glee at having most of the gang back in the cells. ‘Couldn’t find Tyler Wantage. Colin Messenger is at his granny’s house in Dartford according to his mum, and there’s no answer at Naveen Hussein’s flat. I’m trying to track down his mum.’

  ‘Did you tell them why they’re here?’ asked Groombridge.

  Harper grinned. ‘Saved that for you, Guv.’

  Groombridge puffed out his cheeks and blew. His lack of enthusiasm proved justified. The interviews progressed at the usual monotonous pace. Ordered to sit in once more, Stark was in awe of the guv’nor’s patience.

  ‘Once we got past the usual monosyllabic posturing and whining about police harassment they all stuck to their earlier statements regarding the assault on Alfred Ladd and the killing of Stacey Appleton,’ Groombridge reported to the team. ‘And they all have parent-clad alibis for last night – they went drinking in Greenwich, supped up at eleven, went straight home and were all tucked up asleep by midnight, like good little girls and boys. When I asked about Kyle they all
said he’d got separated somewhere.’

  ‘Nikki again?’ suggested Fran. ‘She’s had all night to put the frighteners on them.’

  Groombridge was clearly already thinking this. ‘She never shed a tear for her boyfriend. The rest maintained some semblance of shock when confronted with the news of Kyle’s death but she just lapsed into indifference.’

  ‘She’s a cold little bitch,’ agreed Fran. Others nodded.

  Groombridge clicked his tongue in irritation. ‘I should’ve had them all locked in the cells days ago. We’d still be looking at one death instead of four.’

  ‘Don’t beat yourself up, Guv,’ said Harper. ‘You couldn’t have known.’ Stark couldn’t decide if the man was being sycophantic or merely stating the obvious. Groombridge just grunted. ‘No one’s going to give much of a shit about this lot, Guv,’ added Harper. ‘They obviously don’t even give a shit about each other.’

  ‘Naveen seemed to,’ said Stark, ‘about Stacey.’

  ‘Crocodile tears,’ said Harper, who’d not been there.

  Groombridge stood and looked at his watch. ‘Well, maybe a night in the cells will shake their resolve. Owen, nip down the Meridian and talk to the landlady, see if they really were in there,’ he said to Harper. ‘Then come and find us in Rosie’s.’

  There were groans from those left to man the graveyard shift. Stark suppressed his own, knowing he couldn’t excuse himself a second time. Even the walk up the hill to the Compass Rose made him grit his teeth. Christ, was this what he’d come to?

  Harper swaggered in while they were still being served at the bar. ‘The landlady of the Meridian confirmed that the Ferrier Rats were in, Guv, or some of them, but she wasn’t sure when or for how long.’

  Groombridge didn’t look all that surprised.

  ‘We could try phone traces again,’ suggested Harper.

  Groombridge nodded disconsolately. He and Fran soon retreated to their regular table, deep in conversation. Harper propped up the bar with DC Bryden and a handful of cronies, while Stark and the remaining DCs waited to play doubles pool. People made the effort to put a dark day behind them, but it was an effort, you could tell. Stark managed to nab a bar stool but he was struggling. When faces began slipping away early, he quietly did the same.

  His route took him back downhill past the station. On the far side of the street a tramp limped in the opposite direction, pushing his trolley and muttering drunkenly. It’d been such a long day that Stark almost failed to associate the shuffling, rattling shape with the ranting madman in the station that morning. Poor old sod, he thought, wondering where the man was going, where he would be sleeping tonight. He stopped, fished in his pocket and pulled out a ten-pound note, plus change. It would have to do. He saw the old man bump the trolley up the kerb outside the station and push it determinedly up the ramp – looking for a quiet night sleeping it off in the cells, Stark thought, and Mick seemed just the kind of custody sergeant to offer shelter. Then he frowned: the tramp was struggling, favouring one side …

  The cheated memory from earlier crashed back into his consciousness, mocking his stupidity. The cash dropped from his hand as he began to run, sprinting across the road, holding out one palm to the car that screeched to a halt, the shocked driver thumping his horn furiously, and across the station’s small front car park. The tramp had stopped near the top of the ramp, grasping the railing with one hand. Stark charged at the point where the ramp dog-legged halfway up and vaulted the railings unthinkingly, landing on his left leg and driving a jarring jolt of pain through his bad hip, which sent him tumbling. The tramp turned and looked down at him, perplexed. Stark rolled upright with a grunt just in time to catch the old man as he fell, guiding his weight safely to the ground.

  ‘Where is it?’ Stark demanded.

  ‘Piss off!’

  Stark could have kicked himself. He should’ve seen it that morning. The pallor, the sweat, the stiffness, the boots, the clothing, the vocabulary. ‘Don’t fuck with me, soldier, you’re no good dead! Where are you hit?’ He felt round the man’s limbs and torso.

  The tramp’s feeble struggling subsided. ‘Little prick was quicker than he looked.’

  ‘Here?’ A squeeze of the man’s upper right arm elicited a wince. Not enough for the way he’d moved, despite the drink. ‘Where else?’

  ‘You ain’t no medic.’

  The desk officer was standing over them now. ‘Ambulance, now!’ barked Stark.

  ‘Don’t want no fucking ambulance!’

  ‘Too bad.’ Stark’s hand pressed against the man’s lower left abdomen and this time the wince came with a groan. There was a slash in the jacket, unnoticed among the general disintegration. They locked eyes. ‘Show me!’ The man tried to roll away but Stark pinned him. ‘Show me or bleed out. It’s your choice, soldier!’

  ‘All right, all right!’ The tramp lifted his jacket. The various layers beneath were stained with blood. He pulled them up to reveal a yellowing medical dressing held in place with black gaffer tape. Blood was leaching through. ‘Kept me old field kit, just in case. Can’t be too …’ He belched. ‘Behind enemy lines. Stitched ’em up myself. Arm’s just a nick, but little fucker got the point in here.’

  ‘This needs looking at now.’

  ‘I ain’t going to no fucking hospital!’

  ‘We’ll let the paramedics decide that, shall we?’ said Stark. ‘What’s your name?’ The man tried to get up, but Stark held him down. ‘Name, soldier!’

  ‘Maggs, Harry Maggs, corporal, serial number five nine seven … something. Now piss off and let me –’

  ‘Lie still.’

  ‘Piss off!’

  ‘Who was quicker than he looked? Have a little run-in with some delinquents in the park last night, did we?’

  ‘At last!’ cried the tramp, holding out his hands, wrists together, just as he had that morning. ‘A blue top with ears!’

  11

  Stark sat near the ICU nursing station at Lewisham University Hospital, yawning and rubbing his eyes. God, he hated hospitals. Footsteps clipped to a halt beside him and he looked up.

  ‘Dinner,’ said Fran, handing him a packet of crisps. She must’ve come straight from the pub. She sat in the next chair and opened her own. ‘Bit tasteless, reading him his rights in the ambulance?’ She smirked. ‘I like it.’

  ‘He actually seemed relieved,’ said Stark, opening his packet and staring at the meagre contents.

  ‘Feather in your cap. The guv might not be so happy, though. Nice juicy murder and he doesn’t get his name on the arrest sheet.’

  ‘It won’t go to murder, though, will it?’

  Fran shrugged. ‘Knife in the back is pretty suggestive of intent.’

  ‘But Maggs has two knife wounds himself. He’s in surgery.’

  ‘Did you get a statement?’

  ‘The paramedics and doctors shut me out before I could get anything coherent.’

  ‘Probably for the best. Gives the defence less chance to argue duress.’

  ‘But CPS will call it self-defence, though, don’t you think?’

  Fran shook her head. ‘Manslaughter maybe, but they do love reaching for the stars … He really stitch himself up?’

  ‘Not very well. I’ve never seen angry paramedics before.’

  ‘They teach you that in the army too?’

  ‘Up to a point. Field dressing, tourniquet, compression, CPR and the rest, but you’re supposed to leave the needle-and-thread stuff for the field hospital unless you have to.’

  ‘Have to?’

  ‘If the helicopters can’t get you to the field hospital quickly.’

  ‘Not enough helicopters.’

  Like most ‘common knowledge’, this was partially correct. Circumstance played just as much a part as availability. You could only ask a helicopter crew to put themselves, the onboard medical team and protection party in so much danger because you had a hole in you. If your position was still hairy with enemy contact you needed to move, or
wait.

  ‘What happened with you?’ asked Fran.

  ‘I was lucky.’ If he’d had to wait he’d have died.

  ‘Well, our suspect isn’t going anywhere. The guv sent PC Barclay here to take over guard duty, plus this arrest sheet for you to fill in and a uniform car outside with orders to take us both home so we’re fresh as daisies first thing in the morning. I’m sure he’ll be ready to congratulate you by then.’

  The guv’nor’s congratulations consisted of an early start and a shitty assignment. Forensics had taken Maggs’s outer garments but the ripe layers beneath had arrived from the hospital. He might not be in the cells but Maggs was in police custody and his belongings were in their trust. Stark was to help Mick catalogue it all. Another tick in Stark’s Professional Development Portfolio. If Groombridge relished assigning him a thankless, smelly task, he knew even less about army life than Stark suspected. The trolley would be dropped back round to the supermarket; everything else had to be carefully described, bagged, labelled and stored. Stark was amused to find an army hexamine stove, the bane and blessing of many a bitter moorland exercise. He also found a battered Swiss Army penknife, the blades and tools showing signs of heavy use, plus a sharpening stone. There were signs of old blood on the blade. Stark labelled it for testing.

  He was folding a foul-smelling pair of thermal leggings when he felt something. There was a crudely stitched U-shape, a secret pocket; once upon a time it had been a common way of concealing personal effects in case of capture. He reached in and pulled out a small bag made from the threadbare toes of a drab-olive sock, stitched closed.

  ‘Found something?’ asked Mick. Stark showed him. ‘Open it up, then.’

  Stark hesitated. It felt invasive. Mick passed him some scissors and Stark pulled himself together. He was police again: he’d pounded beats, stopped and searched, catalogued belongings many times. It was time to get his head back in the game. He carefully snipped open the stitches and tipped out a neatly folded waxed-paper parcel on to the plastic tray.