The DCI Morton Box Set

by Sean Campbell

  Stevenson nodded appreciatively before asking if there was anyone she could call.

  'I'm all she's got left,' her sister interjected. Her diction betrayed her upbringing. While Mr Sugden was as blueblood as they come, his in-laws were, at best, nouveau riche.

  Standard procedure was to never leave the widow alone, but she was well cared for by her sister, and didn't seem to need any additional support. She would need to formally ID the body at some point, but that could wait for another day. She clearly wasn't up to it that day.

  ***

  A plate zinged through the air, missing David by millimetres. He ducked through the doorway, and retreated into the den.

  He and Sarah rarely argued, but when they did it was as if a volcano had erupted. Months of petty squabbles and disagreements were regurgitated in a fit of unrepentant rage.

  She never forgot a thing either. Insults, snide comments and sarcasm that had long vacated his memory came back to haunt him in quick succession.

  The evening had begun normally enough. He had come home from work a little after five. Now that he was on desk duty his hours were far more regular, and they had slipped back into the habit of sharing dinner around six o'clock.

  It was work that transformed a pleasant dinner into the slanging match from hell. David had been offered early retirement in light of his years of service. It would reduce his pension somewhat, but the house was already paid for so the Morton family were on solid ground financially.

  Sarah wanted him to take it. The force had always been the third person in their marriage, beckoning him away in the dead of night and consuming his thoughts even when he was home. David had been a career man for a long time, and Sarah wanted her husband back.

  It was an impasse, and the yelling soon kicked off.

  'I will not stay at home and watch television when there are criminals to catch.' David boldly declared.

  'You can't right every wrong, but you can start by spending some time with me.'

  'I do spend time with you. Every moment I can. I need to get back on active duty. I'm a policeman, it's who I am.'

  ***

  The second gold-embossed note fell through the letterbox on the day the neighbourhood found out about Mr Sugden's death.

  'Dear Mrs Sugden,

  My wife and I were truly sorry to hear of the loss of your husband in such tragic circumstances. Please allow us to extend our deepest sympathies to you and your family at this difficult time. I know you have many friends in the area to find solace in, but if we can support you in any way please do not hesitate to ask. We're here to help make things a little easier for you, if that is at all possible.

  Our warmest thoughts and most sincere condolences,

  Qadi Qumas'

  Mrs Sugden's eyes welled with tears as she read such heartfelt words from a family to whom her husband had shown nothing but scorn.

  Chapter 30: No Luck

  Edwin's plan to eliminate Barry and remove himself one step further from the original kill had backfired spectacularly.

  The death of Peter Sugden had been big news for the last few days, and Edwin was sweating it badly. Rather than closing a loose end he'd opened a whole new can of worms. If the police became suspicious, the whole plan could unravel faster than Edwin could fathom. He wondered if he'd ever be free of the mess that he had created.

  As well as causing a killer to go on the run, Edwin now had the curiosity of the press piqued. They wanted to know why Sugden would attack an apparent stranger, and who the stranger was. If either issue was investigated thoroughly then Edwin could be exposed. Finding Barry would give the game away. He'd already panicked once, and if his neck was on the line he'd give up his online contact if he thought it would help. Through Barry's first victim, Vanhi, he could then be tied to Eleanor.

  If the press hounded the Sugden widow they might find out he was plotting online, and that would lead just as quickly back to Edwin. It seemed to Edwin that at this point in time all roads led back to him.

  He needed Barry taken out, and he needed him gone. Soon.

  ***

  It was half five when WPC Stevenson arrived to pick Rosenburg up.

  'Morning, sir. Nice flat.' Stevenson's comment implied a question as to how a policeman, even a detective inspector, could afford such a nice duplex.

  'G' mornin',' Rosenburg replied drowsily. The overtime was killing him. He had been jacked up on coffee for a week straight, and was beginning to crash.

  'We've got a witness in the Eleanor Murphy death. Called the toll-free number last night in a fit of guilt. He won't give a name, sir, but dispatch thinks it's genuine.'

  'Get him to come in.' Rosenburg knew immediately after saying it that it wouldn't be that easy, or she'd already have done so.

  'He said he'll only meet a detective personally. Won't come near the station.'

  'I don't do home visits, Stevenson.'

  'You might want to make an exception for this one, sir.'

  'Why is that?' Rosenburg ducked into the squad car, his broad frame brushing the ceiling as he sat, legs crushed in the foot well.

  'He lives in the park, sir.'

  'Our star witness is a tramp? Kieran O'Connor will love that.' Rosenburg wasn't above massaging evidence and coaching a witness, but even he couldn't work with just the word of a tramp to go on.

  'Will you at least talk to him, sir?'

  'Fine. Drive slowly; I need a nap on the way there.' With that he turned away, leant on the window and closed his eyes.

  ***

  'Shit,' Morton yelped in pain. A few other officers looked over, at first in concern but then to giggle profusely. The great David Morton, thirty-year veteran of the Met and stabbing victim, had stubbed his toe doing desk work.

  'Great, the entire department will know it by lunchtime. Bloody Facebook. Can't keep anything quiet anymore,' he muttered to no one in particular.

  A secretary was already opening up the dreaded social media site. At least no one had caught it on camera. At the policeman's ball the previous Christmas a number of events had been caught on camera phones, and the embarrassment caused when a few had found their way onto YouTube led to a department-wide edict banning them from the office. Despite its being against policy nearly everyone still had one. Even Morton had an iPhone tucked inside his breast pocket, although it rarely saw much action. In truth he didn't really know how to use it, but he wouldn't let Sarah know that, as she had bought it for him on their last anniversary. It had seemed like an insanely generous gift at the time but he was the one the bill for it went to, so it wasn't quite a freebie.

  The one up side was the number of games on it. Now Morton was spending his days deskbound there really wasn't much work to do. He was a slow typist, preferring the one index finger at a time method over the touch typing required of those in the secretarial pool, and he wasn't really earning his wages anymore. He was desperate to get back to active duty, but the Superintendent had flat-out refused to review his case for at least a month after the injury. Thirteen days down, eighteen more to go, he thought as he scanned BBC News for something juicy to read.

  ***

  Chelsea was at a friend's house for a sleepover, and Edwin had the house to himself. He found it a genuine pleasure being able to bask in the silence without having to worry about the school run or any other interruptions.

  It gave Edwin a chance to think, to put things in perspective, and to plot his next move.

  Clearly Barry was capable. An amateur had died attempting to take him out, and the police hadn't managed to catch him. A professional was needed, but Edwin couldn't simply pay for him to be eliminated. There had to be another way of getting it done properly, without leaving more loose ends to grate on Edwin's frayed nerves.

  The obvious solution was to simply pay the man who had responded to his first darknet message. Now that he was back in the house he could liquidise cash assets without being noticed so easily. Some of the furniture was antique, and would certainly se
ll for a pretty penny. It would leave a paper trail, but feigning being broke was not difficult when one was out of work. There were a few niggles with that plan. Edwin didn't want to pay. It was a pleasant change to be back living in West London luxury, complete with all the trappings. To sell the family jewels off would diminish his victory over Eleanor.

  Secondly, some of it was probably technically in probate. He had been married to a lawyer long enough to know that the furniture didn't simply come with the house, but had been her personal possessions. Selling them could even amount to theft from the estate. At best, if it was discovered by the judge dealing with probate, or the executor of her estate (a friend of Eleanor's from law school that Edwin had never been fond of) then he would be ordered to repay the sale proceeds to the estate, which he couldn't do if he had spent them.

  Finally, while it closed one loose end it opened another, and Edwin was a perfectionist. He wanted a neat end to the whole sorry saga, and the closure that would go with that. If he could finish off by tying up every loose end he could start to sleep well at night, safe in the knowledge the police would never darken his door again.

  ***

  The solution was staring Edwin in the face. A professional would be an ideal get-out-of-jail-free. They would be sure to finish the job cleanly, unlike another amateur who would leave the web open for the police to investigate. If Barry were to disappear without a trace, Edwin would be safe, and while he couldn't pay for one himself, there was no reason he couldn't extort someone else into paying. He had a number of darknet contacts still to try, and hopefully at least one of them would agree to a transaction involving cold hard cash.

  ***

  The cash Barry had stolen was running out. He'd managed to steal food a few times, but his reserves were fast evaporating. Including the stash from the old woman's apartment, he'd started out with a little over £700. In London, that didn't go far. Barry considered ditching on the last B&B without paying, but they knew what he looked like, and the last thing he needed was another police report.

  Bill paid, Barry left with less than £200. He needed to get out of London. He could go virtually anywhere, and the choice was so wide it was almost paralysing. Scotland would give him a huge area in which to hide, but a stranger in a small town would garner attention. Likewise, Wales was discounted. His fake accent would never fool a local.

  Barry really needed to leave the country. He spoke fluent French, as his mother had taught him as a small boy and helped him hone his skills with a summer-long sojourn to southern France every year during school. Flying was out of the question. There was no way he could get by without a passport there. The Eurostar might work, but the best bet was to try and take a ferry. Customs and Excise at ports were much more concerned with keeping foreigners out than keeping people in. A foot passenger could board at Dover, Portsmouth or Southampton and be in France in less than five hours. Barry still had family in France, and they wouldn't ever have thought him a criminal. None of them spoke much English, so unless the police involved Interpol he could simply disappear.

  Dover was the busiest route, but customs had always been quite heavy there. Southampton would involve going via Portsmouth anyway, so it would be quickest to go direct. The train to get to the port would take around £30 of his remaining funds, and the ferry would be another £27.50.

  Barry was amused that the relatively short train journey would cost more than an international ferry, but now was not the time to comment on the extortionate price of rail travel in the UK. All in, Barry would arrive in France with £140. With the euro stronger than the pound, he'd need to be frugal when he got there, but it was certainly doable. He'd travel down to Portsmouth in the morning.

  ***

  Edwin's plan had received some responses. They were a mixed bunch. A few of the replies flat-out refused to pay for a hit. One offered to pay after the hit, which was a possibility if Edwin could borrow the money temporarily, but it wasn't ideal. A final contact had appeared more interested.

  'Possible, how much?' the message had asked.

  Edwin replied quickly, quoting the £50,000 he had first received.

  'LOL' came the reply. Edwin was ready to give up when the contact messaged him again.

  'Can't do £50k. How about part cash part swap?'

  The man clearly thought Edwin's first post had not been fulfilled. It wouldn't work of course; Edwin couldn't kill someone without exposing himself to too much risk. The money would be helpful, but it would simply complicate the paper trail.

  ***

  They found the witness where he had promised, sleeping under a bench in Battersea Park near the toilets. Rosenburg kicked him none too gently.

  'Wake up.'

  'Five more minutes,' the homeless man mumbled.

  He was used to being abused and moved along. In London it was a crime to be a vagrant. The law saying so was 180 years old, and as vague as Parliament had ever been, but it was still on the statute books, so homeless people like Frank got kicked to the kerb every day. It didn't help that a number of beggars weren't really homeless, and it stopped those genuinely in trouble getting the help they needed.

  'Get up you, worthless shit.' Rosenburg pulled his leg back to kick him again.

  Slowly, Frank rolled over and sat up. He was shivering badly. WPC Stevenson leant forward towards him.

  'Coffee?' she smiled.

  Frank returned a toothy grin. It was rare for him to receive a kindness. One Christmas a lady had helped him into a shelter, but it had closed in the New Year, with the rich feeling they had done their bit by housing him for a couple of weeks. He'd even had a job interview lined up when he was last cast out onto the streets. Ever since he'd been living on soup and curry handed to him by charity workers. It rarely tasted good, and his weight was a slim fraction of what it had been before the streets.

  'You rang us. Start talking,' Rosenburg demanded.

  Frank glared at him. He didn't like this one. He turned back towards the kind one with the coffee.

  'I saw someone. Every day that week that lady died. She stole my bench, kept her bag spread across it like, so I couldn't even share it. Never so much as glanced at me proper.'

  'Did you see her kill the woman?' WPC Stevenson asked

  'Naw, she was looking mighty shifty though.'

  'This is getting us nowhere.' Rosenburg was tired, and he had no patience after several double shifts had left him sleep-deprived.

  'What did you see?' the WPC continued, ignoring her supervisor's temper tantrum.

  'She sit in same place all week, and she was there ever' day. Never saw her before or since, and I've been here for months.' Frank tried to explain, but he was less than eloquent. He hadn't had a conversation this long since the shelter.

  'What'd she look like?'

  'Pretty lady. Asian. 'Bout your height I guess.' Frank had been drinking to numb the cold, and his recollection wasn't perfect.

  'Anything else?'

  'She had a mobile, and did her make-up.'

  'Thanks.' Stevenson tossed him a pre-packed sandwich.

  Frank grabbed at it greedily, tearing the packaging and discarding it to the floor as he stuffed the whole sandwich in his mouth. He hadn't eaten in almost a day.

  ‘Fanks,' he said with a mouthful of BLT.

  ***

  'Single to Portsmouth please.' It had taken less than ten minutes to get through the queue at Waterloo.

  'Got a railcard?'

  Barry dithered. He did have a railcard, but it had his name on it, as well as an old photo. Would it give him away? Before he had a chance to reply the man had printed his ticket.

  '£31.80 please.' Barry shook his head, and gingerly handed over two twenties.

  Ninety seconds later he stood under the big clock staring glumly up at the big screens with the departure times. The 10.31 to Portsmouth Harbour didn't have a platform number yet, but Barry still had a quarter of an hour to wait. He grabbed a copy of the Metro, and leant against a sign to read
while he waited.

  By the time he'd read a story about himself (thankfully without a picture) the board had refreshed and platform 14 was glowing luminescent on the board above him.

  ***

  David knew he had to apologise. He didn't really think he was in the wrong, and he wouldn't give up on getting back on active duty, but he was going to apologise to Sarah.

  She was out at her mother's for a day, and wouldn't be back until around seven. She hated to leave during rush hour, so David knew he had plenty of time to make good his apology.

  He took a day off from his accrued time off in lieu, and began to clean the house. He usually hated doing it, but somehow the action was cathartic. It certainly beat data-entry work all day. Once the house was sparkling he made a trip out to Sainsbury's. Flowers and fine food were the order of the day.

  It had to be orchids of course. They had always been his signature flowers at university, though Sarah never knew that. She thought he bought them because they were her favourite colour, purple. He wasn't going to disabuse her of that notion. With the flowers sorted, he picked up a couple of decent wines and sea bass. David couldn't cook much, but those recipes he could cook he had practised to excess. Tonight would be Szechuan sea bass with sautéed potatoes and a starter of edamame.

  The edamame was easy enough. Boiled, tossed in sea salt and chilli flakes and served, it looked like hard work but was the essence of simplicity.

  The sea bass was a bit harder. It was easy to overcook, and balancing the flavours took real effort. David started with deboning the fish, and removing the guts. Sarah would have cheated and bought fillets, but it was far more manly a task if done properly, and not one for the squeamish. Once that was done, he chopped onions, chillies, lemongrass, ginger and garlic for later. He'd deep-fry it while she ate the starter and grabbed a glass of wine.

  A few rose petals scattered about the kitchen leading up to the bedroom finished off his preparation. He was nothing if not an old-fashioned romantic, and wanted to take full advantage of being well rested after desk duty.