MURDER AMONG FRIENDS a totally gripping crime thriller full of twists

by JANICE FROST

  She was paired with PC Tim Sterne again for her third outing. After her busy shifts of the previous weekend, this Friday evening was comparatively quiet — to begin with. An hour and a half into their shift, they were asked to attend an incident at a house on one of the city’s most notorious housing estates, the Cathedral. On the way, Tim listed the alarming variety of crimes he’d encountered there over the years. “Assaults, vandalism, burglary, stabbings, antisocial behaviour, domestic abuse, drug and alcohol-related offences, arson.” His eyes slid to the left, gauging her reaction. “Rape and murder.”

  “Yes. I read the local paper,” Jane said.

  “That rag? Ha! They don’t know the half of it.”

  In Jane’s opinion the estate wasn’t half as bad as people made out. A lot of the kids she’d taught at Ollie Granger lived on the Cathedral, and they weren’t all delinquents. A lot of good stuff happened there too, but nobody bothered to write about that.

  The despatcher had said that the incident was a possible domestic disturbance. A neighbour had reported hearing shouts and screams from the house next door.

  There was no record of any previous callouts to the address, which obviously came as a relief to Tim. “That means it’s unlikely to be a regular occurrence, thank goodness. Those are the worst, the ones who won’t leave a violent partner until he’s beaten them half to death.”

  The Cathedral Estate lay to the north of the city centre. It had been constructed during the interwar years in the spirit of the Addison Act’s commitment to building ‘Homes fit for Heroes.’ Its design had been influenced by the garden suburb movement, evident in its narrow streets lined with grass verges, many with footpaths. Jane admired some of the earliest-built houses, which showed features of the arts and crafts style of architecture in their tall chimneys, deep eaves and swept roofs.

  Nowadays, the estate was a mixture of council and privately owned houses. A few homeowners had individualised their properties, adding unattractive rendering that concealed some of the decorative features of the original façades. Jane winced at a house with some particularly ugly mock stone cladding, which rendered it completely out of keeping with the original red brick of the house next door. She heard a reproachful voice in her head. Really, Jane Bell, you’re such a snob.

  The area was well served by a number of amenities, including a children’s play area, playing field, several shops, a library, a primary school, and churches of various denominations. Many of the public areas had a tired look, with evidence of vandalism and graffiti. Jane thought the estate had the feel of a once-great stately home that still showed signs of splendour amidst neglect and creeping decay.

  Tim parked in a cul-de-sac whose houses were arranged around a circular green. They could see the number of the one they were after from the car. Before getting out, they activated their bodycams.

  Jane felt a bit uneasy as they walked up the path. The door of the neighbouring house swung open. A woman dressed in pyjamas, Olaf slippers and a parka waved to attract their attention.

  “It’s all quiet now,” she said, “but I swear she was screaming blue murder not ten minutes ago.”

  “Please go back inside, madam. We’ve got this now,” Tim reassured her.

  We’ve got this. Jane felt a surge of pride. The woman hovered in her doorway. No way was she going to miss a potential scene. Nor was she alone. Doors were opening all around the cul-de-sac.

  Tim rapped on the door. When they had waited long enough, he yelled, “Police. Open up!” A couple of moments later, a heavily muscled man, dressed in jogging bottoms and a tight white vest, appeared in the doorway. Jane swallowed at the sight of his tattooed biceps. He seemed tanked up, hyper. He danced from foot to foot on the doorstep like a boxer warming up for a fight.

  A flash of headlights signalled the arrival of another police patrol car. It made Jane feel more confident to know that help was at hand.

  “Mr Tickle?” Tim asked.

  Jane suppressed a smile, thinking of the Mr Men books she’d read to her children when they were little. This Mr Tickle looked more like Mr Angry.

  “Yeah?”

  “We’ve had a report of a domestic disturbance at your property.”

  “Not here, mate. That vindictive cow next door been making up stories again, has she?”

  “A woman was heard screaming. Do you have a wife or partner at home with you, Mr Tickle?” Tickle looked uneasy.

  “She’s asleep.”

  “I’d appreciate it if you’d wake her up. We just need to check that she’s okay.”

  “Why the fuck wouldn’t she be okay?” Tickle shot an aggressive look at his neighbour. To her credit, she didn’t flinch. “I’m not waking her up. She needs her sleep. And you can’t come in unless you’ve got a warrant.” He made to close the door. Tim wedged his foot in the jamb.

  “We can if we have reasonable grounds to suspect that a person inside may be seriously injured.”

  Jane couldn’t resist showing off her knowledge. “Section 17, Police and Criminal Evidence Act, 1984.” Tickle scowled.

  The PCs from the patrol car approached the doorstep. He was now outnumbered four to one.

  “I suggest you stand aside, sir,” Jane said. Tickle did more than that. He bolted.

  “Cover the back door!” Tim yelled, and burst into the house in pursuit of Tickle. One of the two back-up PCs pushed past Jane, the other vaulted over a low brick wall and charged down the path to the rear of the house.

  Believing that three of them would be enough to tackle Tickle, Jane went in search of his victim. She wasn’t in any of the downstairs rooms. Jane felt a growing sense of dread for the woman as she mounted the stairs. She found her in the main bedroom, hunkered in a corner, bloodied and trembling.

  “It’s all right, you’re safe now. We’ve got him.”

  At least she assumed they had, judging by the commotion coming from the back garden, dominated by Tickle’s yells of protest. Jane did a quick assessment of the woman’s injuries. Most of the blood on her face seemed to be from her nose. Then Jane noticed that she was holding her right side with one arm and that the other arm was hanging down limply at her side. She put in a call for an ambulance.

  “Can you tell me your name?”

  “H . . . Holly. Holly Carpenter.” Her teeth chattered. Fearing shock, Jane grabbed a throw from the bed and wrapped it around Holly’s juddering shoulders.

  “Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be all right.” Was it okay to say that? She knew nothing of the circumstances of Holly’s life. The young woman could be one of those ‘heartsink’ cases Tim had alluded to, victims who suffer continued abuse from their partners but won’t leave them. These women — and occasionally men — are often convinced that their abuser didn’t mean to hurt them, that they would never hurt them again. Many might even believe themselves to be somehow responsible for the violence inflicted on them. Worse still, that they deserved it.

  “Can you tell me what happened, Holly? Has he hit you before?”

  “No, I . . . I’ve only been seeing him for a couple of weeks. I didn’t realise what a temper he had on him. This is the first time I’ve been to his house. Soon as I got here, he started accusing me of seeing someone else. He’d seen us together on the High Street. It . . . it was only a colleague from work, but he wouldn’t have it.”

  Jane felt a stirring of anger. “Right. What happened then?”

  “When I denied there was anything between us and that we were just two work colleagues going out to buy a sandwich for lunch, he went off on one, called me names and then started hitting me.” Holly winced and shifted position. She was still sitting on the floor. Jane helped her up.

  “Can we go downstairs? I don’t want to stay in here,” Holly said.

  “Are you sure you can manage the stairs?” Holly nodded. Together, they made their way down to the sitting-room at the front of the house. It took a while because Holly winced and paused at every step.

  Jane sett
led Holly on the sofa and crossed to the window. She pulled the curtain aside and was just in time to see Tickle, hands cuffed behind his back, being jostled towards the back-up police car. She felt a stab of disappointment at not having been in on the arrest.

  The ambulance arrived. A paramedic examined Holly and confirmed that she had bruised ribs and had probably fractured a bone in her arm. Holly thanked Jane and Tim for coming to her rescue. “You don’t have to worry about me going back to him. I never want to see him again. And I’ll be happy to go to court if it helps get him put away.”

  The paramedic whisked her off.

  “It’s not such a bad job sometimes,” Tim said. “This sort of thing can be quite satisfying. Taking a bastard like that out of circulation for a while. Hearing someone thank you like that. Almost makes it all worthwhile.”

  Almost? Jane hadn’t felt such a surge of pleasure since she’d managed to get Liam Connery through his English GCSE with a pass grade. The only thing that could have given her greater satisfaction would have been to have given Mr Tickle a swift taste of restorative justice via a good kick in the balls.

  They barely had time to grab a takeaway coffee before the radio crackled and another callout came through — a report of an assault taking place in an alleyway known as Butchery Court. Jane knew it. It was a cut through linking Silver Street and Clasketgate in the centre of town. She’d used it often, though she imagined it must be quite creepy after dark.

  Jane asked if an ambulance had been despatched. It had. When they drew up at the entrance to the alleyway five minutes later, they could see a figure slumped against the wall and another standing close by, presumably the one who had called 999. Jane looked up and down the street and saw no one else. Hardly surprising, considering it was around two in the morning.

  The victim was bent over, arms clutching his middle. More cracked or broken ribs.

  “Do you know his name?” Jane asked the other man.

  “Ryan Brown.”

  “Ryan. I’m SC Bell. Can you tell me how badly hurt you are?”

  “Ribs. Kicked.” His words were slurry. There were streaks of blood in his hair.

  “He’s got a head wound.” Jane looked down at Ryan’s splayed feet, the blood splattered over the paving stone. “Possible concussion.”

  Tim nodded. “Did you see your attacker, son?”

  “Behind.” He seemed confused.

  “He came up behind you?”

  “Yesh. Lucky.” He didn’t look very lucky. “Got shtartled.”

  “Someone startled you?” Jane looked to the other man.

  “I shout,” the man said uncertainly. Jane thought he sounded Polish.

  “Shtartled,” Ryan repeated.

  “Did he take anything? Your phone? Your wallet?”

  Ryan patted his pockets, shook his head, grimaced. Jane returned to Tim’s question. “Did you get a look at his face? What he was wearing?”

  Ryan shook his head slowly. He seemed distressed at his inability to recall anything about his attacker.

  Jane rubbed his arm. “It’s all right, it’ll come back to you.”

  The sound of sirens in the distance made them all look up. “The ambulance is coming. The most important thing now is for you to get checked out.”

  When Ryan had been driven off in the ambulance, Tim spoke to the young Polish man. “Can you stick around for a bit to give us some more information?”

  He looked puzzled. Maybe he hadn’t understood. Or maybe he was afraid they thought he was Ryan’s attacker.

  Jane tried to reassure him about this, but he still looked uncertain. He began to speak. “I go work. I go home. I hear noise and stop.” He mimicked the actions of walking and stopping, as though accustomed to backing up his speech with gestures. “I see man . . .” Air punches with his fists.

  “Are you saying you witnessed the assault, sir?” Tim asked. The man frowned.

  “You saw?” Jane pointed first at the man, then at her own eyes, then at where Ryan Brown had been.

  “Yes, I see. I call. Shtartle man.”

  Jane smiled, turned to Tim. “Ryan said someone startled his attacker. This man is a witness, but we’re going to need an interpreter.” She looked at the man. “Polish?” A nod.

  “I know someone who’s a Polish speaker. He could be here in five minutes. He’s a registered translator, police vetted. He could help us get some initial information now and come to the station tomorrow.”

  Tim looked dubious but agreed. Jane made a phone call to her friend, Jan Mazurek, whom she’d first met several years ago when his son was in her third-form English class at Oliver Granger. Jan had moved to Lincoln from Gdansk in the early nineties with his first wife, Joanna, and their infant son, Mateus. He was a stonemason employed on the gargantuan task of restoring Lincoln cathedral. He also volunteered as a translator.

  He’d be asleep, she knew. But Jan was often called out at odd times to act as a translator for the emergency services. She called him. “He’ll be here in five.”

  Jane stamped her feet. It was a cold evening. The one thing that had made her hesitate about volunteering as a special was that she would be spending most of her time outdoors. Winter was a season she preferred to experience at home, with the radiators on full blast.

  She was clapping her gloved hands together to warm them when Jan arrived.

  “Hah, you would not survive five minutes in Polish winter.”

  “Nor would you nowadays, Jan. I know why you only visit Gdansk in the summer.”

  “You are right. Tonight is brass monkeys. Why you call me out of warm bed? This better be good.” Jan spoke near-perfect English, but sometimes he liked to exaggerate his accent. He also enjoyed using obscure aphorisms. He laughed when Jane told him no one knew what they meant anymore. It tickled him when he got the opportunity to explain English idioms to the English.

  “A young man was attacked just inside that alleyway, Jan. This man witnessed the assault, but he doesn’t speak much English. Can you interpret for us?”

  “He is Polish?” As well as his own language, and English, Jan spoke fluent Russian, which he’d learned from his paternal grandmother. He was always having to point out that, contrary to common perception, the two languages weren’t interchangeable.

  “Yes. Can you start by explaining to him that he’s not being arrested?”

  “Dobry wieczór.” Jan used the formal greeting, ‘Good evening,’ rather than the informal, “Cześć,” that Jane was more used to hearing him say. Within minutes, he had established the young man’s name as Krzysztof, or Kris. He was nineteen years old, and he came from a street in Gdansk only a few minutes’ walk away from where Jan was born. Jane appreciated that Jan was putting the young man at his ease before moving on to discussing the assault he’d witnessed, but she could sense Tim’s impatience to get down to business. Sure enough, he butted in. “Ask him what he saw.”

  It took some time for the questions and answers to be interpreted. Kris was returning from a late shift at work. He was a hospital porter. He’d been alerted to Ryan’s plight by the sound of cries as he approached the alleyway. Ryan Brown was on the ground, shielding himself from his attacker’s kicks. Kris acted out the whole scene as if he were in an action movie. It seemed that he was a naturally demonstrative person, not just when speaking English. Jane fought an urge to duck as he waved his arms around.

  “He called out. Ryan’s attacker was startled and immediately ran off. There was no confrontation between them,” Jan explained.

  “Can he describe Ryan’s attacker?” Tim asked.

  As soon as Jan put the question to him, Kris raised a hand an inch or so above his own head, then threw his arms wide.

  “He says he was a white man, medium height, solid, like he works out.”

  “What about a description? Did he get a look at the assailant’s face?” Tim asked.

  Kris mimed pulling a hood around his face, making translation unnecessary. He then said something to Jan
, his head lowered as if in shame. “He says he is sorry he did not pursue the man who attacked Ryan. It all happened very fast and he was worried about Ryan’s injuries.”

  Tim nodded. “Tell him it’s okay. He did the right thing.”

  Jane was disappointed that they’d learned so little about Ryan’s attacker. Then, just as she thought that his statement was complete, Kris began speaking with Jan again.

  “What’s he saying?” Tim sounded tetchy. Jane suspected he was frustrated with how slowly the interview was proceeding. He was probably also peeved that he had been all but ignored throughout the exchange. Jan had looked at Jane whenever he translated Kris’s responses, even when Tim asked the questions.

  “He thinks the man was not old. From the way he moved. His gait? That is the right word?”

  “Yes.”

  “Kris wants to know if he can go now. You want his contact details?”

  Finally, the interview was over. Kris gave his details to Jan and headed off.

  “Thank you, and thanks for stepping in, Jan.” They were standing next to the police car. Jan kissed her on both cheeks. Tim rolled his eyes. “Kissing an officer on duty is an arrestable offence, you know.”

  “You want one too?” Jan puckered his lips. They all laughed.

  Jan kissed Jane again. “You owe me.” He mimed downing a shot.

  “There’ll be a double vodka with your name on it next time we meet.”

  The remainder of Jane’s shift passed without incident. Tim dropped her off near her house on Danesgate.

  Despite her exhaustion, sleep didn’t come easily. Her body wasn’t yet used to these nocturnal shifts. She lay on top of the bedcovers for a while, prickling all over with the discomfort of an incipient hot flush. It would be followed by clamminess and shivers as her body cooled. The flushes were a recent phenomenon. At forty-five she considered herself a little young to be perimenopausal, but her mother had ‘gone through the change’ younger than that.

  She wished she could embrace this new phase of her life with enthusiasm, like those admirable women she frequently heard on Woman’s Hour, those who became high achievers in middle age and had fabulous sex lives.