A Long Time Dead

by Andrew Barrett

  “But they must’ve put all that to him in interview?” Firth tried to catch up.

  “I’m sure they did.”

  “Then how did he get out of it?”

  Roger shrugged.

  “Friends in high places?” And then Firth added, “Or not enough evidence.”

  “The petrol station attendant didn’t see anyone else... And something else that struck me as wild: would you refuse an escort when you’re carrying all this firepower, and send your men away on a false recce? I know he’s not in line for Mensa, but come on.”

  Firth patted Roger on the shoulder. “You’re all strung out over this shit, aren’t you?”

  “What I find strange, Lenny, is that you’re not.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Work it out.”

  “Why don’t you let it go? They held their enquiry, they found him innocent – stupid, but innocent – so let it ride, what’s it matter to you?”

  “I already told you why it matters.”

  “But—”

  “And what do they do? Rather than risk Weston announce in public that he, a man with years of loyal service, was dismissed for being robbed and beaten while on duty, they transferred him back inside and closed the file. Sick.”

  “If you feel so strongly that he’s escaped justice, and he hates you enough to make your life miserable, why don’t you put in for a transfer?”

  Roger stopped and turned. “Why should he escape justice, as you say?” He looked at Firth long enough to make him back up a pace or two. “You trying to warn me off, Lenny?”

  Firth gently held Roger’s arm. “But justice found him innocent! It’s you with the problem, Roger.”

  Roger snatched his arm free. “He got to you, didn’t he? That’s what all this is about.”

  “You were proved wrong, and you can’t leave it alone. No such thing as ‘double jeopardy’ yet, mate.”

  “Won’t need ‘double jeopardy’ when he kills some poor bastard, will we?”

  — Two —

  The door marked ‘male changing room’ sighed closed and a solitary figure glided discreetly inside. He entered the first toilet cubicle and locked the door behind him. It smelled of bleach and air-freshener. He checked his watch. Conniston had been playing squash for twenty minutes, he guessed, which meant he had another fifteen or twenty minutes remaining. Plenty of time.

  Calmly, he sat on the toilet, placed the black cotton bag on the floor beside him, then listened and waited.

  Someone entered the room and made for the urinals. After a while, a zipper jerked up and footsteps approached the sinks. A moment later, they headed away and the door squeaked open. Noise from the corridor briefly leaked in.

  From the black bag, he took a pair of latex gloves. Snapped them on. Then he took out a white mask and stretched it over his face; it covered his mouth and nose. Finally, he pulled on a further pair of gloves. Nice and easy, he thought. Don’t forget your procedure. Just do it as you rehearsed, slick as a greased eel.

  He unbolted the cubicle door and stepped out, about to go around the urinals and into the locker room when the door opened again.

  He retreated inside the cubicle. Locked it, eyes rolling upward.

  This time he did not sit, but stood there silently cursing, counting the seconds, ticking off the minutes with trembling fingers. Sweat glistened on his forehead.

  Again, the door opened.

  Now it was just him, the auto-flush, and the hum of an extractor fan.

  Holding his breath, he left the cubicle again and hurried around the corner and into a long aisle of monotonous grey lockers. At the aisle’s end were the double doors leading down to the gymnasium and courts. The doors’ glass showed only his reflection; blackness in the corridor beyond them.

  Around him, he saw that most of the locker doors were insecure, half of them were wide open like dark mouths draping their clothing tongues. There were slacks, shirts, clip-ties, body armour and boots lying all over the place, messy as a kid’s room. Other bits of uniform and civilian clothing littered the damp floor tiles and the slatted wooden benches over red plastic duckboards. Wallets and warrant cards on full display.

  How trusting, he thought, finally letting out the breath.

  It took only moments to find Conniston’s locker. Inside was an Adidas sports bag. He grabbed it, unzipped it and pushed aside socks, jeans, a checked shirt, before finally finding it. From the black cotton bag, he pulled a clear plastic bag with a built-in sealing strip across its neck. He reached back inside—

  A noise. He stopped. Listened.

  Rippling through the doors to his right was the confused echo of chatter.

  He watched his own startled reflection in the doors, saw himself freeze. Then he dropped the bag, lunged for it, and knocked it further away. “Shit, shit!” he mouthed between clenched teeth.

  The voices grew louder.

  Quickly he retrieved the bag.

  Voices. Conniston’s voice.

  From the Adidas bag, he seized it and thrust it inside his plastic bag. To his left, the door opened. Someone whistling walked into the toilet area. He was trapped.

  He rammed the plastic bag inside the black cotton bag, the mask too. He felt sick.

  The whistler stopped. A cubicle door closed and its latch banged across. The whistling, quieter now, resumed.

  Still shaking, he moved, half running, half sliding around the corner and back into the urinal area, panting furiously. A moment later, the double doors swung open. The incoherence of the voices became clear and distinctive. For a while, he stood with his hot back against the cold tiled wall, and tried to bring his breathing and heart rate under control. Silently he removed the gloves, wiped a sleeve across his forehead and left the room before anything else could go wrong.

  Chapter Five

  Late Sunday 17th into Monday 18th January1999

  — One —

  If you worked for the police and you worked alone, Turner Avenue was a place you stayed away from at night. Tonight, Roger had no choice, but the consolation was he wasn’t alone.

  He brought the van to a halt and took a moment to think calmly about the scene. He made a note of his arrival time, and watched blue strobes flick across the wet bricks of a rundown terrace. At both ends of Turner Avenue, police cars blocked the path of restless on-lookers.

  It wasn’t working; he still didn’t feel calm. He hated dead bodies. Despite the cool exterior, underneath he was dreading it. Sometimes, just sometimes, he hated this damned job. Roger shuddered. “Welcome to Wakefield’s Wonderland,” he mumbled.

  This was Kirk Steeple; one of a dozen tiny villages spawned by coalmining that lay on the south edge of the otherwise resplendent and progressive city of Wakefield. And since mining died of heart failure fifteen years ago, these villages were growing septic, supported by nothing more than grants, welfare, and meagre helpings of stubborn Yorkshire pride.

  Kirk Steeple’s main street was about three hundred yards long, with ten rows of dishevelled terraced houses shooting off at right angles on either side. From above, it looked like the skeleton of a cartoon fish.

  Drugs were like profanities: dwelling in every home and used as often as required and in anyone’s company. But if drugs were common, then robbery and prostitution were rain and wind. Kirk Steeple was miles from anywhere, largely devoid of proactive- or community policing, and like an old Wild West town with tumbleweed scooting down the road, it was essentially free to govern itself.

  On a grassed verge, at the end of town nearest Wakefield, was the dead colliery’s twenty-five foot winding wheel, sunk into the earth and painted black and gold; a new-world crucifix. ‘Welcome to Kirk Steeple’ a ceremonial sign declared. ‘Please drive carefully’. Across it in white paint someone had sprayed, FUCK OFF.

  Good advice, Roger thought.

  He turned off the wipers and the grim scene melted into the misty windscreen. The van window thudded and he jumped hard enough to
bang his knees on the steering wheel. An officer peered at him through the fogged glass.

  “Micky,” Roger smiled reticently, “you prick—”

  “Come on, Weston’s waiting for you.”

  “I don’t remember running over a black cat.” Reluctantly, Roger climbed from the warmth of the van, watched the rain dripping from Micky’s helmet. “Where is he?” he said, pulling up the collar of his old waxed jacket.

  “This way.”

  Roger locked the van door and followed Micky under the blue and white cordon tape that marked the scene’s perimeter. It whipped in the wind like bunting on a second-hand car forecourt.

  Surrounded by bouncing rain, by intermittent police noise and by the hostility of the residents’ hand gestures, they walked around dancing puddles, past shabby front yards littered with broken bottles, disposable nappies and animal faeces, moss-covered flagstones and dirt-smeared windows as neglected as the garden gates swinging on rusty hinges.

  It was almost two o’clock Monday morning, and the rain came heavier. It always rains, Roger thought, when I’m on nights. He gripped the Mars bars residing as emergency rations in his jacket pockets.

  “Drinking tea in the back of that Transit.”

  “How come he’s out at a scene? Thought he was a desk Inspector now.”

  “Short staffed, I suppose,” said Micky. “Don’t think he had much choice.”

  “Somebody holding a gun to his head? Oops, shouldn’t say things like that, should I.”

  “Say what you like. The man’s a waste of a perfectly good uniform.”

  Roger turned his face to the rain and pulled his jacket across his chest. “If I had my way, he wouldn’t be in a uniform.”

  “Yeah well, better luck next time, mate.”

  “Conniston,” Inspector Weston jumped from the van, “glad you could make it.” Weston put on his peaked hat, thick grey hair sprouting from the sides, and stared at Roger with barely concealed distaste. “Hope we haven’t inconvenienced you?”

  “I was planning a rather indulgent game of Twister, but how could I refuse your kind invitation on such a fine morning.”

  Weston wasn’t amused. “Tell the ACR he’s here, Micky.”

  “Sir,” Micky said. “XW from 2894.”

  “2894, go ahead.” The radio crackled and then gave out the familiar pips telling other users that a transmission was in progress.

  “Yeah, SOCO 10-6, over.”

  “2894, 10-20. Control to stand-by.” The radio and its pips died.

  “Are you acting as Deputy SIO?” Roger asked.

  “Till Shelby arrives. Got a problem with that?”

  “Not at all. I welcome your experience,” Roger tapped his fingers against the squashed Mars bars. “Who has the incident log? I should let them know I’m here.”

  “Micky,” Weston stared at Roger, “start a scene log.”

  “Retrospectively?” Micky asked.

  Rain dripped from Weston’s peak. “Yes. Retrospectively,” he said, quieter this time.

  Micky sauntered away, cursing the task under his breath.

  Roger closed up to Weston until they were less than a foot apart. “How about we just stay out of each other’s way, so we can get this job sorted?”

  Weston put a firm hand on Roger’s shoulder, and whispered, “My time will come. I’ll fucking have you.” He raised his hand and Roger flinched. Weston adjusted his cap, smiling at the reaction. “Know what I like about you? You’re just an average coward.”

  “And you’re just an average arms dealer.”

  Weston stared.

  “And do you know what I like about you?” Roger smiled, “Absolutely fuck all.”

  Weston’s eyes twitched. “Watch your back.”

  “Why, is that where you shoot people?”

  “You cheeky—”

  “How far have you got with the preparations?”

  Roger’s question put Weston on hold, and he evidently appreciated it. He grinned, “I’ve got something lined up for you.”

  Bet it’s not a weekend in Corfu, Roger thought. “I said how far have you got?”

  “Look around you, Conniston. It’s cordoned off, there’s a log running, we’ve begun house-to-house enquiries—”

  “Who found the body?”

  “A neighbour.”

  “At this hour? What would a neighbour be doing—”

  “He found her a couple of hours ago but didn’t come forward for fear of being done for damage – he kicked the victim’s door in when she didn’t stick to a prearranged meeting.”

  “How was she killed? Gun, knife, glass, rope, needle?”

  “Knife.”

  “How, a stab, a slash? Have you seen the body personally?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you wear a scene suit?”

  “Well, no, but—”

  Roger gawped.

  “I only peeked into the lounge. Anyway, don’t know why we’re going to all his trouble,” he said, “she’s a whore.”

  “Definitely dead, is she, this whore?” He could feel Weston making another slip in Major Scene Protocol coming on like a migraine, and he loved it.

  “Well, she...she’s covered in blood, her neck’s been slit—”

  “Definitely dead, is she?”

  “Well she will be now, Conniston, it happened fucking days ago!”

  “How do you know?”

  “She hasn’t been seen since Friday. Anyway, I’ve seen dead bodies before.”

  So had Roger. And he’d never found one yet he liked the look of. “Your call.”

  “Don’t mess with me. She was dead. Alright?”

  Roger folded his arms, “If you say she was dead, then she was dead.” He didn’t give Weston the chance of a retort before saying, “I’ll go make some notes about the scene as I found it, and then I’ll get to work. If you don’t mind.”

  Weston turned and stormed away. “You’re on my list,” he called over his shoulder. He aimed a finger gun and pulled the thumb hammer.

  “Bit late for a Christmas card,” he yelled, “but I appreciate the sentiment.” And then Roger turned away, and swallowed. He felt unwell, and successfully ignored the tremor in his fingers as he dialled home to leave a message for Yvonne to wake up to, just in case she was worried for him.

  * * *

  At two-thirty, the rain had turned to snow flurries, and the wind blew in from the north, cold and icy. The blue strobes still flashed. Micky stood at the victim’s gate, a clipboard in his damp hands ready to note the names of people who would enter and leave the scene. So far, it was a very short list, but it was about to grow.

  The police surgeon, an on-call doctor, arrived at 02.40, the same time as DI Shelby. And ten minutes later, the doctor, dressed in a scene suit and overshoes, came out of the house and discreetly nodded. Detective Inspector Edward Shelby recorded ‘life extinct’ at 02.55.

  “Right, Roger,” said Shelby, a pleasantly rotund man with large ears and flabby cheeks, and with a neck that cascaded over his collar; he had the presence of a truck served up with typical Yorkshire brusqueness, “progress report, if you please.”

  Roger took the scene suit from the doctor, thanked him and bade him goodbye. He turned to Shelby. “Not much to tell. Give me another half an hour and we’ll get you started.” Roger pushed the doctor’s scene suit into an exhibit bag with ‘Police Evidence’ written across it in large blue letters. Wearing the suit and overshoes helped prevent inadvertent introduction of anything foreign; losing or disturbing as little evidence as possible.

  “Make that fifteen minutes,” insisted Shelby. “Where’s the coffee?”

  “Coffee? No time for a break yet, you’ve officers to order around and... and whatever else it is you do.” He smiled at Shelby’s crumpled face.

  “Coffee first, orders second, and whatever else can wait until I’ve thought of it.” Shelby reached deeper into his pockets, trying to keep the chill away. “You called a Supervisor out yet?”<
br />
  Roger taped a yellow Criminal Justice Act exhibit identity label to the bag, initialled over the tape and the bag’s seals, and threw it into the back of the van. “He’s on his way, Graham. And he’ll have coffee with him.”

  “Good. Who is it?”

  “Chris Hutchinson.”

  “The Professor? Your Supervisor?”

  “Acting Supervisor; he’s on four weeks’ trial.”

  “You got some real competition there.”

  “Don’t remind me.” Roger paused by the van door, shielding himself from the wind. “I miss Lanky, Graham. Things are going to change radically at Wood Street SOCO now.”

  “You enjoy your month of playing God? I hardly saw you.”

  “Different. It’s all paperwork, stats and shift rotas. And just when you think you’ve caught up, they call you out to a major scene.” He smiled, nodding, “It was a challenge.”

  “I thought it’d be right up your alley.”

  “I ain’t out of the race yet.” Roger swept water from his glasses with a numb finger. “But I don’t have as much going for me as Chris does.”

  “You’ll be fine.” Shelby moved closer and whispered, “You know, Roger, I have a bit of sway with Denis Bell. I could always lean on him a bit.”

  Roger slammed the van door, eyes squinting against the wind. “Well, I appreciate the offer, Graham, I really do. But if you don’t mind, I’d like to see if I can get there on my own. No offence.”

  “None taken.” Shelby cringed as icy water dribbled down his neck. “Bastard weather,” he cursed. “So come on, what’s your plan on this?”

  “I’ll begin with the external photos, by which time Chris should be here. Then we can go in, have a look around and decide whether we need the pathologist to attend. I expect we will, though. Maybe a biologist too.”

  “Yep, okay. By the way, Lenny Firth’s on his way down to act as Exhibits Officer, so liaise with him when he gets here. If you need anything, you let me know, okay?” Shelby walked a few paces, stopped, and then came back. “But be careful with him, he’s hurt his ankle somehow.”