by L M Krier
It was a long shot, trying to spot a murderer in a crowded church, but right now long shots were all that they had left.
Mr Bailey had asked Ted to say a few words, as Tina's boss, which Trev had helped him prepare the evening before.
As funerals go, it was a good one. He knew his team members were all feeling the same acute sense of loss as he was when, after the service, they saw the coffin carrying their friend and colleague lowered into the ground. Ted stepped near enough to place a hand on young Steve's arm when he saw he was struggling for control.
The mood in The Grapes afterwards was subdued. DS Hallam had still not appeared and despite checking his phone frequently, Ted had no word from him to explain his absence. He was seething by the time they returned to the station.
DS Hallam was sitting at his desk when they came in. One look at him showed he was in a terrible state, beaten and bloody, both eyes blackened, a nose which looked broken.
Ted strode past him, muttering, 'My office. Now,' through gritted teeth.
Hallam rose painfully and followed him, keeping his head down. He made sure he shut the door himself. He didn't think he was up to witnessing another kick-trick.
Ted nodded to the spare chair and said, 'Sit down, before you fall down,' then put his kettle on. 'Now, tell me what the hell happened and how you managed to miss Tina's funeral?'
'I was mugged, sir, they took my phone,' the DS said without looking up.
Ted slammed his hand down on his desk in front of Hallam, so the man jumped involuntarily as he raised his voice.
'For God's sake, Mike, stop the bullshit. I don't interfere in anyone's private life but yours just spilled over into the workplace.
'So, let me tell you how it looks from where I am standing, and then perhaps you will give me your own account of what is really going on.
'You don't have any money to chip in for Tina's flowers,' Hallam started to interrupt but Ted held up a hand to stop him. 'You've had a couple, if not more, serious goings-over, and remember I know a lot about such things.
'On the morning after Tina's murder, with a scalpel, you turn up to work with a fresh gash on your hand and yet another implausible story of a domestic accident. You can see how this is starting to wear a bit thin, can't you, Mike?
'Let me put a possible scenario to you, and then you can tell me why it's not the right one. A family man, under a lot of stress at home, wife perhaps not as loving as she once was. Plenty of street girls available, and in fact, the perfect cover to go looking for them, handed to him on a plate by his boss.
'But street girls cost money, of course, and when you can't pay up, if they have a pimp who's doing the job as he should, you're in serious danger of getting a beating at best. The less money you have, the more of a pasting you get.
'Now, just suppose for a minute, that our man gets his jollies by doing away with the girls either during or after the sex act. Then one night he picks up the wrong girl, one with a pimp who's watching her closely, worried about losing one of his girls. So when he wants to get up to his usual tricks, the pimp is there in a shot and beats seven bells of hell out of him.'
DS Hallam was still looking at the floor, shaking his head slowly from side to side, although it was clearly painful to do so.
'You're so wrong, sir, it's almost funny,' he said quietly.
'So tell me, damn it,' Ted snapped. 'You were cagey, to say the least, about your alibi for the night of Tina's death. I cannot continue to ignore whatever it is that's going on when it's having such an effect on your work.
'Your absence from Tina's funeral, without a very valid excuse, risks seriously damaging your working relationship with the rest of the team. I need to know what is going on.'
'I'm too ashamed to tell you, sir,' Hallam said, so quietly that Ted had to lean forward to hear him.
Ted stood up and went into the outer office, where the team were all at their desks working. 'I need you all out on the streets, now, doing police work, doing your jobs. Move it. Maurice, you're senior in here at the moment, get the team mobile. Get them working on that idea we talked about.'
Ted looked hard at Maurice Brown, hoping the usually insensitive DC would pick up on what he was really saying. For a moment, the man simply looked blankly at him until the penny dropped.
'On it now, sir,' he said, standing up. 'Right, everyone, you're all needed to work this latest idea the boss told me about, I'll fill you in on the way. I think it should take us about half an hour, sir?' he looked to the boss for confirmation that he had got the right end of the stick.
Ted threw him a grateful glance and said, 'Thanks, Maurice, I'm sure half an hour will be long enough to come up with some answers.'
The team trooped out of the office. Ted returned to his, made two cups of green tea, liberally laced with organic honey and put one in front of DS Hallam before sitting down with his own.
'Right, Mike, we have an uninterrupted half-hour. You need to tell me what's going on, and you can tell me what's going on,' he said quietly. 'If it has nothing at all to do with work, you have my word that it will go no further than this office. But I need to know.'
'It's the wife, sir. She hits me,' Ted could hear the self-loathing in his voice as DS Hallam spoke. 'Knee-high to a bloody grasshopper and she beats the shit out of me.'
He had pulled out a large handkerchief and even though he still refused to raise his head, Ted could tell his DS was in tears.
Of all the answers Ted had prepared himself for, this was not at the top of his list. He bought himself some time by saying, 'Drink your green tea, Mike. It tastes disgusting until you get used to it, but it has the advantage of being sweet and wet.'
The DS took a gulp. 'Bloody hell, sir, how do you drink this stuff?' he said, but at least he now looked up from studying the floor.
'How long has this been going on? Ted asked gently.
'We were having a few problems before the mother-in-law's accident,' he said, and was managing now to hold eye contact for a few moments at a time. 'Joan always had a bit of a short fuse. It just used to be the odd slap, though.
'When she had to give up her job, things changed completely. She loved her work, everything about it. She didn't want to give it up, didn't want to move back to Stockport, didn't want to be stuck at home all the time as a home carer. She started using the lad's baseball bat on me.'
'Have you spoken to anyone about it?' Ted asked.
'Are you kidding, sir?' the DS looked horrified. 'Look at me, I'm a six-foot tall copper, Joan is a five foot nothing midwife. I'd never live it down.'
'There's specialist help available to you, and to your wife, and you certainly do need it. This cannot go on,' Ted told him. 'Does she hit the children?'
'Oh good God no, she's as soft as butter with them. She's not even particularly strict with them, although she used to be a right little dragon of a theatre sister,' Hallam said.
'What about the mobile phone thing? Is it related that it's always been her who has answered when I've called you at home?' Ted asked.
The DS nodded. 'She's insanely jealous, convinced I'm having affairs right, left and centre,' he snorted. 'I couldn't, anyway, she has me so scared I'm not up to much. She lets me bring the phone to work, of course, but takes it off me when I get home and goes through every incoming and outgoing message and text. I delete things, obviously, but if ever I forget …'
'And the money?'
'That too. I'm not allowed any cash, in case I spend it on my so-called other women. She lets me carry a credit card because she can check up on anything I spend.'
'And the wound to your hand on Christmas Eve? What was the real cause of that?' Ted asked.
'Because I talked to Tina in The Grapes. It was just a brief conversation, work stuff, but the wife saw us talking and I paid for it later on. The boiling water, too, that was her.'
He made direct and steady eye contact with the DI for the first time since they had started to talk. 'I didn't kill anyone, sir, an
d certainly not Tina.'
'I believe you, Mike,' Ted said reassuringly. 'Thank you for telling me. Now, this is what is going to happen next. You're going to take some sick leave … ' he waved away the protest the DS started to make. 'That was not a suggestion.
'I'm going to make a few phone calls, get you the right sort of help. Professional people, Mike. No one will judge you. I certainly don't. Most importantly, we're going to see that your wife gets the help she clearly needs.
'Once that's all sorted, you're going to come back to work, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and none of the team will know a thing. Trust me.'
Chapter Forty-three
If Ted didn't have a single new lead to go on in the days after Tina's funeral, at least he didn't have another body. The case was a long way from being over, he and the team were still working flat out, but there was no fifth body – yet.
Trev suggested they take advantage of the relative calm while they could and have a postponed Christmas dinner. He once again suggested they invite Willow, as he said she had something she wanted to tell them.
It still felt wrong to Ted to be celebrating anything with Tina barely cold in her grave but he knew he owed it to Trev, for all his unending support, to agree. He once again told him to invite Willow to stay over.
The chosen evening was a deceptively mild one, for January, and they were able to enjoy drinks on the small terrace of the garden behind the house. Ted and Trev had erected high mesh netting all around the garden in an attempt to deter any cats from wandering onto nearby roads. There was a construction like a fruit cage, where Ted grew his lilies, keeping them out of feline harm's way because of their toxicity to cats.
Willow had been trying to learn the cats' names. She knew they all had a Queen connection, hence Freddie and Mercury, and she thought it hilarious that it meant having a cat called John.
A robin was chattering cheekily at them from an ornamental cherry tree in the garden and one of the cats, with luxuriant, long blonde fur, tipping to rich chocolate at the ends and points, was advancing stealthily towards it, belly low to the ground, tail tip twitching menacingly.
'Which one's that?' Willow asked.
'Roger, the wanton killer,' Trev said, hurrying after him, scooping up a furious, growling cat, whose blue eyes flashed with anger at being interrupted.
Willow threw back her head and laughed. 'Oh, how very apt,' she said. 'I can't think of a more appropriate name for a psychopathic killer than Roger.'
'Why do you say that? Ted asked, intrigued. 'Does our Professor have real skeletons in his cupboard?'
'If he has, he never let me see them,' came the quick reply. 'But seriously, nothing about him would surprise me. There is an incredibly cold and cruel streak about him. A lot of people said about Jimmy Savile that nothing that ever came out about him would surprise them. I'm like that with Roger.'
'Interesting,' Ted said. 'How long did you live with him?'
'Oh, the blonde jobs are never allowed to live with him,' Willow told him. 'We're allowed to stay over for shagging purposes but never, ever, to dream of moving in so much as a change of undies, except in your own bag. I actually lasted a couple of months, which is close to a record.'
'I've always thought it a fascinating house,' Ted said musingly. 'Have you seen all round it?'
'Ted, stop being such a policeman!' Trev told him. 'Right, I'm ready to dish up, so come in, sit at the table, and no more shop talk, Ted. Willow, I'm dying to hear this news you have for us.'
'Well, I've met someone new,' Willow told them as they sat at the table. 'I think it might be pretty serious. Tall, dark, very dark, black, actually, and totally ripped. A model, like me, which is how we met.' She smiled happily at them and added, 'I feel so safe when he's around.'
Trev leapt up to give her a hug and a kiss. 'That's fantastic news, I'm so pleased for you. You deserve someone lovely after Hard G. What's his name?'
Ted also leaned over to give her a kiss on each cheek.
'Ebony,' Willow said and winked. 'But he's no more an Ebony than I am a Willow. His real name is Rupert, it just doesn't go with the image.'
'I still can't see why you were ever with Hard G in the first place,' Ted said. 'Sorry if I'm out of line asking that, I'm just curious.'
'I don't mind talking about it,' Willow assured him. 'Revolting as Hard G is as a person, it did get my photo into Cheshire Life and Tatler, being seen out with him. And he is an accomplished lover, if you don't mind things a little rough. Accomplished and insatiable, largely due to an inexhaustible supply of little blue pills from the family pharmacy.'
'I'm still intrigued about the house,' Ted said. 'I imagine he has an extensive wine cellar, knowing his expensive taste?'
'So he told me,' Willow replied, 'although I never saw it for myself. The house is huge, but I was more or less restricted to the bedroom, bathroom and the main reception rooms. But yes, there's a wine cellar, a game larder, even a cheese room, I believe. I understand some of the cellar rooms are climate controlled for storing his most precious things.
'There's also a fully functioning laundry down there. As you probably know he is obsessed with clean bed linen daily, and at least three clean shirts a day. And some sort of big incinerator thing, a bio-mass boiler, I think he said. He's obsessive over personal documents, always prefers to burn stuff rather than putting in out in dustbins.'
'Does he just have the two people looking after him?' Ted asked. 'It seems a colossal workload for one couple.'
'Oh no, the Collinses are more like directors of operations,' Willow explained. 'There's a professional cleaning firm that comes in daily, with industrial machines to clean right through. All the food is courtesy of outside caterers, the bed linen goes out for professional laundering most of the time. Mrs Collins sees to his shirts herself in the cellar laundry.'
'Have you been to any of his overseas properties?' Ted asked. 'Fabulous meal, as ever, Trev,' he said as an aside.
'I was really looking forward to going to one of the winter resort ones this year, but he got tired of me and dumped me first. I adore skiing.'
'Do you know where all the overseas ones are? Could you give me a list of them?' Ted asked her.
'Ted!' Trev said, 'you are being decidedly policeman-like at table. What are you up to?'
'Sorry, I'll stop,' Ted smiled at him. 'But if I'm very good and eat up all my greens, will you let me ask Willow just a few more questions over coffee? And I'm going to need your help, too. I'll need to borrow your linguistic abilities.'
Trev sighed theatrically. 'Which languages?' he asked.
'Not entirely sure yet but I'd say certainly French, … what do they speak in Switzerland?'
'French, German, Italian and Romansh,' Trev replied. 'I may struggle in Romansh.'
'I'm not sure where you're coming from Ted, but I'm guessing you might want to add Spanish and possibly Portuguese,' Willow said.
'Does Roger just have the Jag or does he have any other cars?'
'Ted, we're not at the coffee yet!' Trev chided him.
'I know, I'm sorry, I'll make it up to you, promise,' Ted said, clearly without a shred of true remorse. 'Just this one more question, then I will be good, honestly.'
'I've only ever seen the Jag, but I haven't been in the garage and it is huge,' Willow told him. 'The Collins have a big old Mercedes estate, a real old bus, but immaculately kept. Roger is as anal about the cleanliness of his motors as he is about his bedding.'
'Trev, just one more thing … ' Ted ducked as Trev hurled half a bread roll at him. 'I may need you to take some time off tomorrow morning, to make these phone calls for me. They may be urgent.'
Ted managed to keep quiet through the rest of the meal. As Trev was serving coffee, he asked Ted, 'You're surely not thinking of Hard G in terms of being a suspect, are you?'
Ted looked pointedly at Willow. Much as he liked her, he was not about to start discussing a case in detail in front of her, especially as they'd not known her long. H
e barely discussed his work with Trev.
'It's just a couple of things Willow said which made me think of a completely different angle that I'd like to explore. It's going to mean phoning round a few countries though, which is why I need your help. You know I can just about order a coffee in French and that's my limit. Is Switzerland on the same time as us?'
'An hour ahead,' Trev told him. 'I'll phone work first thing and say I'll be in later. It's just as well my boss thinks I am the greatest thing since sliced bread, he won't mind. But you are so going to have to make this up to me somehow.'
'It might not be the best of times for me to ask Hard G for the loan of that ski chalet he offered me,' Ted warned him with a wink.
Chapter Forty-four
Ted phoned Maurice Brown's mobile first thing. With his DS temporarily out of action, he needed someone to head up the team when he was not there. Maurice was the longest serving of them all, though not the brightest, but Ted hoped that asking him to step up might just produce a bit of inspiration from him.
'Maurice, it's the boss,' he said. 'The DS is on sick leave for a bit, nothing too serious. I'll be in later. You know what needs working on. Can you make sure the team are on it, then fill me in when I get back. Any problems at all, phone me. Don't try flying solo if there's too much turbulence.'
As soon as Willow had left for work, Trev asked him, 'You can't seriously think Hard G is your killer, can you?'
Ted sighed. 'I really am right out of ideas and clutching at straws on this one,' he admitted. 'But there were a few things Willow said which got me thinking. I'm not a bad copper and I've got nowhere at all on this one. No traces, no DNA, nothing.
'But what if I really was up against the best forensic pathologist in the country? I wouldn't find anything, would I? Especially if he was also the person who did the PMs on three of the bodies. I've been going nowhere fast, even to the point of asking Jim for his alibi.'
'What help do you need from me, then?' Trev asked.