by M A Comley
“I’m DI Lorne Simpkins, and this is my partner, DS Pete Childs. May we come in for a moment?”
The woman stepped aside, a confused expression on her face. Lorne and Pete waited for her to show them into the lounge, and the second Lorne entered the room, she knew they’d come to the right place. Above the mantelpiece hung a huge wedding picture of Mr. and Mrs. Wilson. There was no denying that Mr. Wilson was the man lying in the refrigerator at the mortuary.
“Please, take a seat. Is this concerning my husband?”
The three of them sat down, and Lorne smiled at the woman. “Have you been married long?”
“Two years next week.” The woman glanced up at the photo then back at Lorne.
She sighed heavily. “I’m sorry to have to inform you that I believe your husband is dead.”
Mrs. Wilson cried out then buried her head in her shaking hands. “No. No. He can’t be.”
Lorne left her chair and sat beside Mrs. Wilson. “Can I call a member of your family to be with you?”
“I have no one. Are you sure? Sure that it’s him?”
“We have an unidentified man at the mortuary. I went to see the body yesterday. He had no ID on him, but coming here today and seeing your wedding photo, I’m pretty sure it’s your husband.”
“My God, how? Why? When? He went out with his friend and never came back.”
“Have you contacted his friend?”
Mrs. Wilson nodded. “I tried.”
“What did he say about the incident?”
“I tried to contact him but haven’t managed to find him so far. I just presumed they had both gone off somewhere together. Now you’re telling me that Craig is dead!”
“I’m so sorry for your loss. We have no knowledge of your husband’s friend being with him. Maybe, if it’s not too difficult for you, can you tell us what they were up to?”
“Up to? They weren’t up to anything. All they did was go out for a few beers, the usual Wednesday-night outing, the same thing they’ve been doing for years. Now you’re telling me that Craig is dead but Johnny is nowhere to be found. How did my husband die, Inspector? I have a right to know that.”
“You do. It would appear that your husband was beaten up by three men. His injuries proved to be fatal. Even if someone had found him sooner, I doubt that he could’ve been saved.”
“And Johnny?”
“No, he wasn’t there. If you can give us his full name and address, we can look into that for you. He hasn’t come forward, so the signs aren’t looking good.”
Mrs. Wilson shook her head, staring at the rose-coloured rug in front of her. “Why? Why would anyone want to kill Craig? He didn’t have a bad bone in his body. Never fallen out with anyone as far as I know. Why?”
“It’s hard to say. Maybe it was a mugging that went drastically wrong. We’re looking into the person we believe carried out the assault. It’s early days yet, but I can assure you he won’t get away with this. Here’s the difficult part: we need someone to come down to the mortuary to identify the body. Are you up to that?”
“Me? I couldn’t think of anything worse right now.”
“I know, and I hate to put you through this, but if we don’t get a formal identification, your husband will—”
“Okay, I’ll do it. Now?”
“I can take you there if it’ll help.”
“Thank you. Will you be with me when I see him?”
Lorne smiled at the woman. “Of course, if that’s what you want.”
The woman accompanied Lorne and Pete to the pathology department.
Jacques Arnaud was surprised to see them.
“Dr. Arnaud, this is Mrs. Wilson,” Lorne said.
Arnaud’s stern expression softened. “If you’d like to follow me.” He led them into what he called his ‘‘cold room’.
Lorne held the woman’s arm. “Are you ready for this?”
Mrs. Wilson nodded, and Jacques pulled out a large drawer and slowly uncovered the body.
Mrs. Wilson gasped loudly then burst into tears.
Lorne placed a comforting arm around her shoulders. “Are you all right? Is it him?”
“Yes, that’s my husb…” she struggled to complete her sentence.
“Do you want to leave now, or would you prefer to stay with your husband for a moment? We can leave you alone for a few minutes if you prefer.”
“Yes, I’d like that. Thank you.”
Jacques and Lorne waited outside the room in silence.
A very tearful Mrs. Wilson joined them five minutes later. “Thank you, Doctor.”
Lorne guided the woman out of the building and into the backseat of the car, where she continued to sob her heart out.
Pete shuffled uncomfortably in his seat. He had never dealt very well with grief.
They returned Mrs. Wilson to her family home, ensured she was all right to be left alone, and jumped back in the car.
“Guess that’s one part of the puzzle in place. Wonder what happened to his mate?” Pete asked.
“Yet another mystery for us to solve, partner.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Lorne and Pete met up in the station’s car park the next morning.
“You look how I bloody feel,” she said. “I take it you didn’t get much sleep last night, either?”
Pete shook his head. “Think I’ve got a touch of Lorneitis! I kept going over the case all night long. How the heck do you cope? Can you ever switch off when you’re at home?”
She pushed open the entrance and keyed in her security code before she answered, “Welcome to my world, hon. Why do you think Tom and I are always bickering?”
“I can understand that now. I hope the day brings a conclusion to this case. Not sure how these morons keep dodging us.”
“Frustrating, isn’t it? I’m going to ask the chief to give us more bodies. I want these men caught and Donna found ASAP.” Lorne smiled at the young male constable coming down the stairs.
“Inspector, I’ve just put a note on your desk.”
“Regarding what, Bright?”
“A car you’re searching for. A member of the public recalled seeing it yesterday and called it in.”
“Where?”
“At a disused site over in Clapham. The address is on your desk, ma’am.”
“Thanks.” Lorne ran up the stairs two at a time then barged through the door to the outer office and into her own office. She studied the note as she rang the front desk. “Bert, can we get some squad cars over to Clapham?”
“To the address Bright just brought up?”
“That’s the one. Pete and I are on the way over there now. Tell the uniformed officers to approach without their sirens. Wouldn’t want to scare these guys off.”
“Yes, ma’am. Consider it done.”
With the sheet of paper in hand, she rushed out of the office and pulled Pete with her. “We’re off. Be back soon, folks,” she said to the rest of the team.
They arrived at the scene the same time as two marked police cars. Two officers were already out of the car, walking towards the derelict building.
“Wait, we want to go in first,” Lorne shouted. She scanned the area. The only car in sight was an older-type Renault, definitely not the car they were after. Had the caller been mistaken? What if the gang had placed the hoax call themselves to put the police off the scent? More questions filled Lorne’s mind as she picked her way through the debris, towards the building. “Someone call that car in. Get an owner on it for me.”
Pete caught up with Lorne at the entrance. “Want to split up or stick together?”
“I think it’s too late. That isn’t their car. Looks like they’ve legged it. Let’s split up, Pete.”
Lorne searched the right-hand side of the building while Pete took the left. A few seconds into the search, something just beyond the exterior of the building caught her eye. “Over here, Pete.” She stood over the body, waiting for Pete to join her. She crouched to check the man’s puls
e. “Nothing. He’s ice cold; looks like he’s been dead for hours. Call it in, Pete.” She stood up and surveyed the area. Two PCs approached her. “Section off the area. We’ve got a body, and Forensics are on their way.”
One of the officers ran back to his car and returned with a roll of crime-scene tape.
Walking dejectedly back through the building, Lorne saw a piece of cloth lying on the floor, close to one of the pillars. She bent down to retrieve the article and held it up with her pen. It was a pair of panties. After studying them for a few seconds, she came to the conclusion that the underwear had been left at the scene recently, as there was no dirt on dust on them.
Pete rejoined her. “Kids messing around, or are you thinking they belong to Donna?”
“We won’t know for sure until we run the DNA tests, but yes, I’m thinking they’re Donna’s. Which doesn’t bode well, does it?”
He chewed the inside of his mouth. “We need to find her and quickly.”
Lorne heaved out a breath. “I know, but how?”
* * *
After witnessing the gang kill that innocent man who’d only been trying to help her, Donna had grave doubts as to whether she was going to get out of the situation alive. The men had thrown her in the boot of their car and left the area rapidly. She could hear them laughing over the loud music. Her fear levels were at an all-time high, and her heart had begun to miss several beats as she thought about what lay ahead of her. The gang had already shown how ruthless they could be. Why would they spare her?
The car suddenly braked. Donna smashed into the rear of the backseats. The men cursed and shouted at each other. What’s going on? Have they been in an accident? It didn’t feel like the car had been struck by another vehicle.’ She froze and strained her ear, trying to make out what the men were arguing about, but they seemed to have a language of their own. A car door slammed, and she closed her eyes, realising what was about to happen next. When the boot opened, the sunlight hurt her eyes.
“Get her out,” the leader ordered the other two men.
“Please, don’t hurt me.”
“Whine once more, and I’ll slit your throat, bitch.”
The two men grabbed her arms and legs and effortlessly lifted her slight frame from the car. They threw her on the ground. Her legs and arms were bound with thick rope, and there was no wriggle room for her to try to escape her bindings.
“Take her over there.”
They were in a green open-spaced area close to the river, somewhere she had never visited before. The surroundings would have made a beautiful picnic site, but she had a feeling those kinds of thoughts were the farthest thing from the gang’s minds. The river’s edge grew nearer. She knew she should put up some kind of fight to save herself. But what’s the point?’ They had immobilised her ability to strike out and her ability to think straight. All she could think about was the water getting ever closer.
* * *
Lorne’s mobile rang. “Boss, we’ve had another sighting on the car, close to the area where you are now.”
“Give me the address, AJ. Then call the Armed Response Unit, get a team to the site immediately.”
The young detective rattled off the address and hung up.
“Quick, Pete, back to the car. Two of you come with us; the other two stay here and guard the area.”
“What is it?” Pete asked, trying hard to keep up with his sprinting partner.
“There’s a sighting. This could be the break we need, Pete.”
“Let’s hope you’re right. Any sign of the woman?”
“AJ never said. I know I hate using the siren, but something tells me we’re going to need it. Full pelt, matey.”
Pete slapped the light on the roof of the car as they set off. When they were a few streets away from the location, he switched off the siren, and Lorne crept closer to the area in second gear.
“There! Shit! They just threw something in the water.”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck! We need to get nearer, but without the ART for backup, we’re fucked.”
“That’s not like you, boss. We need to get in there. If that was Donna they just dumped, she’ll drown.”
“I know. Wait, there’s the wagon now.” Lorne ditched the car and ran towards the ART vehicle, waving her arms like a madwoman. She flashed her ID. “I called you. The suspects are about to get in their car. We need to stop them. We think they’ve just dumped a hostage in the water. Do what you have to do. I need to get in there quickly to save the hostage.”
“Leave it to us, Inspector. In position, men. Take the car tyres out. Prevent them from escaping. Use your Tasers, if or when, the suspects leave the vehicle.”
Six officers dressed in black combat gear and armed with guns left the vehicle and took up their positions. The suspects’ car screeched as it raced towards the nearby road. The officers fired at the vehicle, bringing it to a halt, and the three men tried to escape on foot, no weapons to hand, thankfully. The ART officers moved in, shouting warnings. When the men ignored the warnings, three officers Tasered them while Lorne and Pete rushed to the riverbank. Bobbing around in the water, was Donna. Terrified, she looked up at them. “Help me! My hands and legs are tied.”
Lorne slipped off her jacket and shoes and jumped into the freezing water. Gasping for breath, she swam towards Donna and grabbed her arm as her head dipped below the water’s surface. “Get the tow rope from the car, Pete.”
He returned swiftly and threw it into the water. Lorne caught the rope and instructed Pete to pull them in while she kept Donna’s head out of the water. Lorne assured Donna that she was now safe, but the woman’s teeth chattered in response. One of the ART officers helped Pete to pull first Donna, and then Lorne from the water. Donna was wearing only a mid-thigh nightshirt, so Lorne wrapped her jacket around the woman’s shoulders, despite the cold seeping into her own bones. Pete removed his jacket and draped it around Lorne. She smiled up at him.
Pete nodded. “The ambulance is on its way. Let’s get this rope off her.” He helped the other officer remove the bindings.
Lorne reached out and hugged Donna as the woman sobbed. “Thank you, thank you. I thought I was going to die, just like those two men. Have you found the other man? All he was guilty of was trying to rescue me. I presume he’s dead?”
“Unfortunately, he didn’t make it. However, you have, Donna—concentrate on that. I’m glad we found you before it was too late.”
“So am I.” Donna shuddered.
Lorne rubbed her arms to get the circulation going until the ambulance arrived.
The paramedics gave Lorne a quick examination before she and Pete returned to their vehicle and headed back to the station. They walked into the office amid cheers of jubilation from the team.
She raised her hands, feeling embarrassed by the attention. They had just been doing their job, after all. “All right, team, yes, we’ve recovered Donna Moran, but there is still a missing person out there, Johnny Craven. We need to know if he’s still alive. If he’s not, then we need to recover his body. I’m going home to change before I get stuck in to questioning the gang members. I hope you’ll have some good news for me regarding Johnny when I return.”
Lorne called out to Tom and Charlie when she opened the front door of their home. There was no reply. Shrugging, she went upstairs, jumped in the shower to rid herself of the Thames’s grimy residue, then slipped on a clean suit before returning to work.
EPILOGUE
Over the weekend, the gang members being held in custody repeatedly replied with “No comment” during their interviews, but Lorne was determined not to give up. Deciding to break the youngest member of the gang, she asked, “How would your mother feel about you going to prison for murder, Dan?”
He looked at her. Instead of the usual anger resonating in his eyes, Lorne saw something that resembled shame. “It wasn’t me. I didn’t kill anyone. Those guys kept staring at us in the Chinese restaurant. Zippo came up with a plan. We followed the
guys home and waited for them. One of them cottoned on to what we were up to and decided to pick a fight. Zippo knifed him in the gut.”
“Where was this? Did the man die?”
Dan shrugged. “Outside his house at the end of his road. Zippo told us to dump his body down a small alley. He said he knew the area and no one went down there, so he reckoned we’d get away with it.”
She shook her head and turned to her partner. “Get uniforms over there to search the area, Pete.” She turned back to Dan. “So this was all about someone giving you some grief in a restaurant?”
Dan nodded. “Yes, Zippo gets antsy when he thinks people are laughing at him.”
“So he kills them?”
Dan just stared at her.
“Okay, one more thing that’s puzzling me is how you found out Donna’s address.”
The youth chewed one of his nails for several seconds. “If you tell me that information, I’ll put in a good word with the judge.”
“You will? I saw her plate number, and Zippo passed it on to one of his friends on the street. I don’t know how, but he came back with the girl’s address within a matter of hours.”
“In other words, you’re saying that Zippo’s contact received that information from the police computer?”
Dan shrugged. Lorne feared she wasn’t going to get anything more out of the young man and decided to end the interview, as it was nearing ten o’clock on Sunday evening.
She walked slowly up to the office. Pete eyed her warily. “Something wrong, boss?”
“I’m not sure. Something has just come to light and I’m not happy about it.”
“Are you going to let me in on the secret?”
“Not yet, Pete.”
Lorne knew officers were on the take at other police stations, but she hadn’t expected to be confronted with it on her own doorstep. She thought the best thing to do was run it past the chief and see how he wanted to deal with the situation. She sensed another bad day around the corner for her and the team, something she wouldn’t relish dealing with, either.
THE END
Bonus – read the first chapter in the bestselling thriller IMPEDING JUSTICE