Death of a Dancer

by Anthony Litton

  ‘That bad?’ Calderwood asked, his spirits reviving a little with the Welshman’s humour, which, had he but known it, was largely the point of it. Gwilym, unknown to Calderwood, had seen him walking towards him and had been immediately struck at how unusually fed-up he looked. He knew the younger man well enough to know that however difficult the case currently was, he was more than capable of dealing with it, so it couldn’t be that. He gave no sign of any of this, however, as he continued to happily malign Desmond.

  ‘I understate the case, believe me! So we now have this arrangement that any involvement in one of his shopping trips stops with me leaving him at the nearest café or similar, and meeting up with him whenever he’s finished. It suits us both – me, because I hate shopping, and him, because he hates my – I quote – ‘constant whine’ – if I’m actually with him!’

  Calderwood, despite himself, found himself unwinding a little and laughed at the picture the Welshman was conjuring up.

  ‘Anyway, how are things with you?’ Gwilym asked. ‘Apart from being wet through,’ he added, looking at Calderwood’s wet suit and hair.

  Robert grimaced. ‘Oh fine, thanks. We’re making some progress on the case. We now know the figure is human and is, almost certainly, Ariana Kujenikov. How she died is still being investigated. I’ve just got back from London where the sheath is being opened at the moment. Once it is, we can then find out a bit more of how she actually died,’ he said, as he sat down.

  ‘Not tempted to stay until it was opened?’ Gwilym asked, carefully casual, as he attracted the waitress’s attention to order more coffee for them both.

  ‘I would normally stay, of course, but I needed to get back to oversee things here,’ Calderwood answered vaguely.

  As though you don’t have a more than competent deputy, well able to handle things for weeks, not just days, if necessary, Gwilym thought, saying nothing.

  ‘We’ve made contact with the North Wales people, about the nursing home, Desmond told us about,’ Robert went on, ‘so fingers crossed on that. Thanks, no,’ he said, waving away the offer of coffee. ‘I’d best get off, actually, before the sleet starts again,’ he said, looking out at the clearing clouds.

  Gwilym looked out of the window with him and started laughing. ‘Here comes Desmond – and you can see I wasn’t exaggerating!’ he added, as his partner struggled to get through the doors of the café, without loosening his grip on any of his numerous bags.

  Robert turned round and smiled, as Desmond managed to finally get inside the doors. ‘Anyway, I must get to work,’ he said, standing up. ‘Nice to see you both,’ he said, as he passed Desmond and left the building.

  ‘Something I said?’ queried Desmond, looking over his shoulder at the young policeman’s retreating back.

  ‘Not this time,’ Gwilym assured him. ‘He’s been in London, to start the process of getting the sheath opened, and, hopefully, finally confirm it is Ariana. He needs to get back to the Incident Room to find out what been happening here while he’s been away,’ Gwilym explained.

  ‘Oh. is that all,’ Desmond said, thankfully dumping his parcels. ‘I just thought that he looked a bit, you know, not quite his usual self.’

  Gwilym didn’t reply, because he knew his partner was right. Whatever had been happening in the capital was more than just the sheath being opened, important though that was and which, curiously, despite being in charge of the case, his friend hadn’t stopped to oversee that opening. I wonder why? Gwilym pondered, his curiosity aroused.

  Chapter 41

  ‘Sod it!’ muttered a dispirited Bulmer, very early that same morning, as he hung up his phone. ‘That’ll not please the guvnor,’ he remarked to Cerian. ‘That was Jim Featherby, a DCI he knows in the North Wales force, getting back to us over that query we sent about the nursing home. Apparently it was demolished five years ago.’

  ‘Do they know where the residents moved to?’ she asked hopefully.

  ‘Apart from the hereafter, you mean?’ Bulmer responded cynically, shaking his head. ‘It’d been empty for seven or eight years before that, so it’s unlikely they’ll find anyone, but they said they’ll look,’ he added. He privately doubted, though, that, like any other overstretched and increasingly underfunded force, they’d have much success, or spend too much time on it, despite his boss knowing one of the force’s Chief Inspectors.

  He was wrong.

  *

  ‘You are not serious!’ he said an hour or two later, choking on his chicken sandwich.

  ‘I knew you’d not like it,’ the SOCO team leader said, apologetically, ‘but we’ve been over everything, every ornament, every piece of furniture, every square inch of the whole blasted room, not once, but twice more, to be sure. But nothing came up. The fact is that the only fingerprints in that room were hers, the daily cleaner’s and her aunt’s. All the other stuff, blood and other samples, found in that room were Arabelle DeLancy’s.’

  ‘Bloody hell!’ murmured Bulmer, his half-eaten belated breakfast sandwich and untouched mug of tea, banished from his mind, as he pondered this latest twist in what was one of the most baffling, indeed, bizarre, investigations they’d ever undertaken.

  ‘Well, that tells us two things,’ Calderwood, remarked later, on his return to the office: ‘One, that robbery wasn’t the motive and two, whoever killed her went with that single aim very much in mind.’

  ‘Yep, and frighteningly well prepared,’ agreed Bulmer. ‘To not leave a single trace after such a struggle, means he – or she – or they – wore not just gloves, and strong ones at that, but protected their face and head somehow, too.’ ‘Do you reckon it’s linked to finding The Dolphin and the other two bodies?’ he asked.

  ‘I think it must be; though I’m blessed if I can see how at the moment,’ his superior replied, gesturing in frustration. ‘From what every one tells us, Arabelle DeLancy was increasingly a recluse. She rarely left the house, had very few friends, and the few that she still had were drifting away, as her drinking became more and more of a problem. Virtually her only social contacts were what remained of her family.’

  ‘Which, on the face of it at least, leaves us with a very small field of suspects,’ murmured Bulmer.

  ‘Indeed,’ agreed Calderwood, ‘but it also means that we have to interview them all again and, perhaps, extend our enquiries into others in their various circles.’

  ‘Anyway, Cerian’s got some news that cheered us up a bit, last night,’ the DS added as the Welsh girl entered the office with a large mug of tea, emblazoned, inevitably, with the Welsh Dragon.

  ‘Really?’ Calderwood, asked smiling up at her.

  ‘Yes, sir. We heard back from the North Wales police. They used that photo of Gerald DeLancy we’d sent nationwide and showed it to a couple of ex-residents from the care home, that they’d managed to track down.’

  Calderwood nodded, his hopes rising quickly.

  ‘And one of them did recognise the picture!’ she added triumphantly.

  ‘Good Lord!’ said Calderwood. It’d only ever been the longest of long shots and he’d held out little hope anything would come of it, so his day had suddenly brightened considerably. ‘Go on,’ he added.

  ‘He was calling himself Peter Renick. It seems he was a regular visitor to a resident for several months in the mid-nineties and,’ she added, anticipating his next question, ‘they know the name of the resident!’

  ‘Is the resident still alive, and do they know where she, or he, is?’ he went on, holding his breath.

  ‘Yes to both, sir! Because of the links to the murders up here, they said they realise we would probably want to do any interviewing of the resident. I said we would and also...’ she hesitated. ‘I hope I didn’t overstep the mark, sir, but I told them about the latest murder and... and... asked whether they could have someone make sure the resident, a Mrs Rowena Jeffries, could be safeguarded, just in case...’ She trailed off, looking worried.

  ‘Go on,’ said Calderwood, sensing there wa
s more.

  ‘They, well, they were a bit reluctant, manpower being stretched as it is, so... so I... said it was a personal request from you to DCI Featherby,’ she ended, in a rush.

  ‘Did you indeed,’ murmured Calderwood, more impressed at her initiative and amused at her nerve, than upset. ‘You did correctly,’ he went on to reassure her, ‘and well done. Until we...’ he started to add, when his phone rang. ‘Calderwood,’ he said, as he picked up the handset. His features hardened with temporary shock. He listened in grim silence for a minute or two. ‘I see... yes, of course... we’ll be there, first thing tomorrow – and thank you,’ he added, as he put the receiver back.

  ‘Well, well,’ he said looking up at his colleagues. ‘That was Jim Featherby. Thanks to your initiative, Cerian, a certain Mrs Rowena Jeffries is still alive.’

  Chapter 42

  ‘Sir?’ she queried in shock.

  ‘Your ploy worked. They allocated a protection officer who got to the sheltered housing complex where Mrs Jeffries has a wardened bungalow, at a little after ten o’clock last night. He got no reply at the front door; from either Mrs Jeffries or the warden. Fortunately, he also used his initiative and, rather than merely go away and try again later, he went round the back and was just in time to see a figure clamber in through a downstairs window. He called in to his base and then followed the figure inside; against procedure of course, but it was as well he did. He got into the room just as the bedridden Mrs Jeffries was being smothered by a pillow. He pulled the attacker – a man – off her and there was one heck of a fight. Fortunately, again, a squad car was only two roads away, so help got there very quickly. Had it not, the story may have had a different ending.’

  He paused. ‘The man, whose name is George Paget, is well known to them. Jim Featherby tells me that he’s a small-time, but vicious and very unpleasant, thug who often works as “enforcer” for various unsavoury loan sharks. When he’s not beating people up for a living, his “hobby” is still using his fists, with or without provocation, just for fun, on anyone weaker than he is. As he’s in his late twenties and weighs in at sixteen stone, that covers pretty much every one else’

  ‘This doesn’t sound as though this sort of job is his usual thing, though, does it, sir – attempted murder, I mean,’ she murmured slowly.

  ‘No, it doesn’t, does it,’ he replied neutrally, curious to see if she’d follow through her remark. She did.

  ‘As you’re travelling up there, they must think there may be a link to our case – that he was acting for someone else – our someone,’ she said, nodding to herself.

  ‘Absolutely correct,’ he nodded, appreciative, but unsurprised.

  ‘But why, sir? Why, after twenty odd years, would he want to have her killed now?’ she went on, her brow furrowed in concentration.

  He nodded. ‘Precisely what I’m wondering, Cerian. Why not twenty years ago, if he deemed her a risk? And if she wasn’t a risk then, what’s changed so that she is, or he thinks she is, a threat to him now?’

  Chapter 43

  Bulmer and Calderwood agreed that Cerian’s foresight deserved recognition, so it was she who accompanied him to North Wales. They entered the small interview room which, with its small table holding a digital recording system and a couple of chairs placed either side of it, walls covered in drab green paint, and with tiny windows set high into them, was, they reflected, very little different to their own, back at County HQ. Taking their seats opposite the two men already seated, both officers looked at the suspect. He, in turn, deliberately looked Cerian up and down and slid his tongue in and out of his mouth, licking his lips obscenely, as he did so. If he’d wished to unnerve her, he’d miscalculated; her only response was a fierce desire to thump him.

  ‘Brutish’ was the word that sprang to Calderwood’s mind, as he took in the greasy brown hair tied in a ponytail, the small, muddy eyes, that now turned to him and stared with a flat, cold disinterest. These were set in a hard, brutal face, itself set on top of a neck so short, that, at first glance, his head seemed to sit directly onto his bulked up shoulders. Add the muscular arms and torso, tattoos, numerous piercings and heavy, lethal-looking rings on most of his short, powerful-looking fingers, and it was clear that they were sitting across from a very dangerous man.

  Brutish and dangerous he may well be, Calderwood thought some thirty minutes later, but he’s also a devious sod, well used to parrying police questioning.

  ‘So, in essence...’ the DI started to say, then, realising that the thug opposite almost certainly wouldn’t know the word, added, ‘the gist of what you’re saying is that you were not in the room to kill Mrs Jeffries, as my colleagues maintain, but that you broke in to steal whatever you could; that the PC misinterpreted what he saw and that he attacked you so savagely that you felt threatened and instinctively fought back, not at first realising that he was, indeed, a policeman. Have I got it right, so far?’ he asked politely.

  ‘You’re a smart man – for a copper!’ Paget smirked across the table, then fell silent, flexing his fingers and admiring the numerous rings on them. These, the detectives knew from his records, were what had got him the nickname of ‘Dusty’, after his habit of using them as lethal, blood-soaked knuckledusters.

  His solicitor then took over. ‘That’s exactly what my client is saying, Inspector,’ he said, his thin, pale features alive with pretended sincerity. ‘Attempted murder is not something he’s ever been charged with previously, whereas breaking and entering, even fighting, are. Indeed, what possible reason could my client have to murder an elderly woman of limited financial means? Your point about the young policeman being two stone lighter than my client is irrelevant. Mr Paget says that the young man misconstrued what he saw, attacked Mr Paget from behind, without provocation – and without saying he was from the police. Naturally, my client had to defend himself, hence the fight the other policemen saw when they arrived.’

  ‘Indeed, you have a point, sir. Although I would say that several, if not most, of the “fights” to which you refer, were, in fact, murderous attacks on weaker individuals,’ replied Calderwood coolly.

  ‘But none led to a murder charge, Inspector, or even one of attempted murder, that’s my point,’ interjected the other man, equally coolly.

  Calderwood was perfectly aware that the man had a valid argument. Paget’s record, allied to there being no corroboration of the relatively inexperienced PC’s version, meant that it was possible, to put it no higher, that the slobbish thug sitting opposite them, would avoid the heavier penalty. But then, he mused, they themselves were not without options.

  ‘Yes, but you see,’ he began, starting to deploy the first of them, ‘the circumstances are different this time. We think that your client did attempt to murder Mrs Jeffries because she had information that could connect him directly to another murder; one committed in a way very similar to Mr Paget’s modus operandi. So, you see, we do have grounds for a more than reasonable suspicion that Mr Paget was in that room to kill her,’ he continued calmly.

  ‘You’re not serious!’ sneered Paget, though, suddenly, a little less forcefully.

  ‘I am extremely serious, Mr Paget,’ Calderwood responded, speaking more coldly than Cerian had ever heard him before. ‘If, as you infer, you had nothing to do with it, you won’t have a problem in telling us your movements between last Monday, midday, and the time you were apprehended in Mrs Jeffries’ home.’

  He’d deliberately extended the period they were interested in, to lessen the risk of Paget having an alibi for the actual night of the murder. Whether or not he had committed that, Calderwood didn’t yet know. That he was somehow involved in the affair, he hadn’t the slightest doubt.

  ‘You can’t fit me up for any murder, so piss off and stop trying!’ shouted Paget. ‘And you...’ he snarled, turning on his suddenly apprehensive solicitor, ‘start earning your fucking money; get these bastards off my back and get me out of here!’

  ‘I am, at this stage, mere
ly asking you to provide us with details of your movements for the days in question. We can scarcely “fit you up” for anything, if you can convince us you were somewhere other than where the murder took place,’ Calderwood continued reasonably.

  ‘Which was where, Inspector?’ the solicitor asked, with a quick, nervous glance at his client.

  ‘All in good time, sir,’ Calderwood replied, courteously but firmly. ‘Mr Paget?’ he repeated, turning back to the scowling thug sitting opposite him, though ‘sitting’ didn’t, he thought, really describe the coiled, pent-up ferocity of the man, as he balanced on the extreme edge of his chair. His whole demeanour made it very clear just how much he’d enjoy clambering across the table and attacking the two officers.

  ‘I would add that, without an alibi for the period in question and with your previous record and facing a charge of attempted murder, it’s very unlikely that you’ll get bail. Particularly so, if we also formally charge you with the previous murder, which, as I say, has many similarities to your preferred method of working.’

  Paget shrugged. ‘You’re fucked, copper. I was mostly with my mates over the last few days. We had a wedding and a pal getting out of the nick, to celebrate, so a gang of us have been mostly out on the piss. That good enough for you?’ he sneered.

  ‘Provided your “mates” are people whose word we’d have confidence in, then you will, of course, be in the clear for the murder charge, though the charge of attempted murder on Mrs Jeffries would certainly still apply,’ Calderwood responded calmly.