Wild Thing: 'a chilling cold-blooded killer' (Ted Darling crime series Book 7)

by L M Krier

  Ted had seldom been known to refuse tea so he went willingly with her into a small kitchenette down the corridor, where she put the kettle on and started opening cupboards for mugs and the makings.

  'Sir, if I call you boss, will you call me Leona?' she asked, waggling a packet of tea bags at Ted, who nodded.

  'Yes, I'd like that. I just don't like to presume. So, how are you getting on with DC Eccles?'

  'He's not too bad, really. He just needs a bit of house training. He got very sloppy, working with the old team and their dirty ways, but he's coming round, slowly. How are you getting on with the little boy's murder? That must be so hard for everyone to work on, especially any parents on the team.'

  'Do you have children, Leona?'

  'Yes, boss, my wife and I have a little girl, Ellie. She's two and she is unutterably gorgeous. I would rip out the eyes and the heart of anyone who touched a hair of her head.'

  The way her face changed when she said it made Ted fairly sure they were not just empty words.

  'What about you, boss? Do you have any?'

  Ted laughed as he shook his head. 'I'm not always good at being a grown-up, between you and me. I'd be hopeless as a parent. And my partner, Trev, is just a big kid. We content ourselves with cats.

  'Now, tomorrow I'll be sending you over Jo Rodriguez, and a DC, although I don't yet know who will be best to send. Do you know Jo?'

  It was Leona's turn to laugh as she replied, 'Only by reputation, boss, and of course he will be wasting his time with me. But I don't mind a bit of harmless flirting, I'm not going to start screaming sexual harassment or anything. I'm sure he'll be a great help.'

  Ted drained his mug. 'Right, I'd best get going. I'm on the end of the phone if you need me for anything, don't forget, and good luck with Jo.'

  He was on his way to have lunch with his mother, then had promised to take her for a run out to Roman Lakes. It was a place of fond memories for both of them, so the damp and drizzly day wouldn't be too much of a deterrent to their enjoyment.

  She'd gone to a lot of trouble, as usual, to cook his favourite meal. Ted had to admit to himself that it was nice to have some company, and some good home-cooked food. He still wasn't completely at ease in his mother's company. The conversation tended to be light and centred round the time when he was a small boy, before she'd left him and his father.

  Although Ted didn't like to talk about work, his mother was keen to ask him about the case. She felt an affinity with any mother who lost a child, through any circumstances.

  Ted remembered to ask her if she knew why he was so afraid of dogs. Her expression was guilty as she replied.

  'Oh, Teddy, bach, I'm so sorry, that was my fault. We were out walking together when you were just a little twt.' She still slipped into her native Welsh for odd words, sometimes without even noticing it. Ted was surprised at how many he still remembered when in her company.

  'We were walking along the pavement, down Dialstone Lane, and a great big dog came bounding out of a garden, barking. He was bigger than you. I found out afterwards that he was a big softy, just trying to be friendly. But it frightened you so you jumped out of the way right into the road and nearly got hit by a car. I grabbed you and scooped you up. We were both a bit hysterical. The dog's owner came out, all full of apologies, and wanted you to pat the dog to see that he was really gentle but the whole thing had frightened you half to death and you were always scared of dogs after that.'

  They were strolling round the waterside when Ted's mobile phone rang. He checked the screen then smiled, 'It's Trev, not work. Do you mind?'

  'Of course not! I'll go and look at the ducks. Do give him my love.'

  He appreciated her discretion in letting him talk privately. He hoped that, during the afternoon, Trev might have a bit more time to talk to him. He did, and he was still full of enthusiasm.

  'The weather's fabulous. I'm getting a bit of a tan already. It's gorgeous here, we've had a trip out this morning looking at some of the locations for the shoots.'

  Ted was picturing him already turning golden brown, showing off his sculpted form to perfection. It all sounded right up his partner's street. Ted wondered if Stockport would be enough for him when he got back. He wondered if he would be enough for him.

  Chapter Ten

  Unusually, Steve arrived at the last minute for morning briefing on Monday. Even more surprisingly, he was not dressed in his customary shirt and tie. He was wearing washed-out jeans, with a Star Wars T-shirt and a bomber jacket which had seen better days. He looked as if he'd been dragged through a hedge backwards, more than once.

  Ted didn't mind how his team members dressed, as long as they did their jobs. It was the Ice Queen who was the stickler for a strict dress code. Steve's gaming had clearly developed into something else. Ted wondered if he was the only one who noticed Océane trying to stifle a yawn as she sat at her computer. He was surprised by that development.

  'Oh dear, look what the cat dragged in,' Maurice laughed, nodding towards a carrier bag he'd left on Steve's desk. 'I brought you a change of clothes and your wash bag, you dirty stop-out. You look as though you need it.'

  'All right, everyone, settle down,' Ted called them to order as Steve blushed more furiously than ever. 'Some of us have two briefings to get through this morning, so let's make a start. Jo, I need you over at South Manchester today, helping out there. Who else is free to go? Sal? Could you hand Sabden House over to Océane for the day?'

  'Fine by me, boss, if Océane's all right with that? I'd welcome a break from it, to be honest.'

  This time Océane's yawn was more noticeable as she nodded her agreement, and Ted could see from the broad grins that most of the others had made the same deduction as he had.

  'I met a little dog in the park on Saturday,' Ted began conversationally, his voice quiet, so they had to concentrate. 'Bobby. He was very helpful. He gave me a new insight into why Tyler might have gone off away from the garden, when he knew he wasn't supposed to. My experiment showed me that Batman could indeed fly out of the garden, but not far enough away to explain Tyler disappearing. Bobby showed me one possible explanation for that.'

  He told them about his experience with the flying toy. He also admitted his brush with Uniform. He knew Susan Heap wouldn't spread it around but he didn't yet know about the young officer, Gavin Jackson, who might think that a juicy bit of gossip about a senior officer was good currency for someone new to the station.

  'What I want you to factor in now, when you're following up all the witness calls, is to try and find out if Tyler was ever seen playing with other children, or with a dog. Now, I've reminded the South Manchester team for their case, so it's only right that I remind all of you, too, although I don't need to. No leading questions. I don't want the idea planting in anyone's mind. I want you to find it out without suggesting it. I just can't imagine a little lad like Tyler running off after bigger kids, even if they had his toy. But maybe after a dog, especially one he knew, which might just have taken him further away than he meant to go and that might have led him straight to his killer.

  'Right, I'm heading up to South Manchester. I'll take my own car, Jo; you and Sal get yourselves there, then I'm independently mobile to come back here. Don't forget, I'm at the end of the phone if any of you need me. Mike, over to you. Oh, and Steve, make yourself presentable before the Super sees you looking like that at work.'

  Ted didn't really need to go to South Manchester again. Jo was always reliable in charge of an enquiry and Leona seemed to be on top of the case. She was clearly handling the team well. It was just that Ted really didn't like murders on his patch. He took them as an affront, so that solving them became as much a personal mission as a professional one.

  No officer enjoyed dealing with the killing of a young child, but Ted was equally appalled at the seemingly casual murder of a vulnerable elderly person, harmlessly doing their shopping. He wanted to give each case equal attention and was optimistically hoping for an early
result on them both, despite the lack of any significant leads to date. Someone, somewhere, must know something. It was only a matter of time, and methodical police work, before they had their suspects.

  He tried to avoid the negative thought that he'd been telling himself the same thing on the Luke Martin case for two years now. But at least Jezza was looking at some different angles on that one, which always gave hope.

  Leona and the two DCs looked up expectantly as Ted went into their office, flanked by Jo and Sal. He made brief introductions. Sal had experienced some of the old team before but they were new to Jo. The dynamics had changed completely with the suspension, then sudden death, of the old DI, Cyril Foster. Under him, the team had been exclusively white and male. Anyone outside that profile had barely lasted five minutes. Now that the small team was being headed by a black woman sergeant, Ted hoped things would be different.

  'Any suspects yet?' he asked. 'Anything from any of the witnesses, or from your own local knowledge, that's putting anyone in the frame as a possible?'

  'A few familiar names have cropped up, boss. Graham and Charlie and I have been going through them, trying to prioritise. I thought we'd get out there and start checking alibis, then we can look at hauling in anyone who doesn't have one, for further questioning.'

  'Names that jump out at you?'

  'I've not yet been here long enough to know all the likely ones, boss. Charlie's been here the longest of us, he's got good local knowledge.'

  'There's a couple I would say could be likely contenders. Especially one. Jake Dolan. Proper little scrote, he is. Nothing as serious as this so far, but it wouldn't surprise me. Nasty little sod. I could have a word with him, get him to tell me what he knows?'

  Ted considered him carefully. Bearing in mind the bully culture which had reigned in this nick before, he wasn't sure how much of a threat was implied by what he said.

  'Just so everyone is completely clear, I don't want suspects intimidated in any way. Any questioning must be done by the book, and do it in pairs. I don't want to be in the position of losing the chance of a conviction because of dodgy procedure. Clear, everyone?'

  There was a chorus of 'sir' from everyone, including Jo, but excluding DC Eccles who sat looking mutinous. Ted knew he would have got away with anything under his old boss. He was going to have to learn that his new one wouldn't stand for anything out of order.

  'Clear, DC Eccles?' he repeated pointedly.

  'How are we going to make any progress if we can't lean on the local pond life?'

  'My team and I manage quite well, and our clear-up rate isn't too bad,' Ted told him levelly. 'Perhaps you should watch and learn. Jo, could you go with DC Eccles to have a chat with the young man in question? Show him how we like to do things down in Stockport.'

  'This isn't just some meek kid who'll tell us all he knows,' Eccles protested. 'Like I said, he's a nasty piece of shit. We'll need to send in the Wood...' He stopped himself, just in time. He had at least remembered Ted's dislike of the derogatory term Woodentops for uniformed officers. 'We'll need Uniform, with stab vests and probably spray to get him to come quietly.'

  'Why is he known to CID? What offences?'

  'He bottled someone in the face. There was a ruck in the street and he waded in. Couple of years ago now.'

  'Gang related?'

  'No, he's a loner, doesn't mix with any gangs, as far as we know. He deals a bit of skunk, small-time, so it might have been related to that. Only we couldn't get a positive ID on him, so we couldn't bring a case.'

  'So he allegedly bottled someone. Young person? Is he in school?'

  Eccles snorted. 'He probably turned up to school once, decided it wasn't for him, and hardly ever went back, from what we do know of him. Yeah, still a juvenile, maybe sixteen, by now.'

  'So he'll need an appropriate adult present to be interviewed. Who's that?'

  Again, a scoff of derision.

  'Good luck with that. His mother, Kathleen, is a smack-head who's on the game to fund it. She'll be either off her face or working to earn enough to get that way.'

  'We'll need to alert the Youth Justice Team, then, when he's found and brought in. Right, DC Eccles, million-dollar question. Do you like him for this, as you're the one who knows him?'

  Eccles looked surprised to be asked for his opinion.

  'I wouldn't put anything past him, the little gobshite.'

  'But it would seem to me, on the face of it, to be one thing to attack someone in the heat of a pitched battle, albeit somewhat brutally with a bottle. But to go from that to something as cold-blooded as pushing an elderly lady to her certain death under a bus ... That seems a bit of a leap, to me. Especially as there appears to be some doubt as to whether he did do the bottling.

  'Leona, can you liaise with Uniform, please, about getting him brought in. Then make sure the custody sergeant sorts out an appropriate adult. Let me know when he's here, please, and I'll decide who interviews him first. In the meantime, can you and Jo sort out interviewing the most likely of the witnesses to start with. Find out if anyone saw enough of a face to do an E-fit. Perhaps the driver? If this Jake Dolan doesn't have a reliable alibi, and if we get any sort of a likeness, then we can start to think about VIPER for a solid ID. But just remember, all of you, we don't want to be wasting what resources we have chasing after the wrong suspect.'

  The use of Video Identification Parade Electronic Recording was helping to cut the number of wrongful identifications, but still required a likeness to work on, to find people similar to a suspect.

  Ted had, as usual, been perching on a desk. He stood up to go, waiting for an acknowledgement that the team had understood. Again there was a general chorus of 'sir', but nothing from Eccles. Ever patient, Ted stood waiting expectantly, looking directly at him. Eventually, he got a grunt of assent.

  'Thank you, DC Eccles. Your local knowledge has been useful.'

  Eccles' brow furrowed as he turned the remark over in his brain, wondering whether it had been sarcastic, but Ted was already preparing to leave.

  'Jo, walk with me to the car, will you, please.'

  As they went down the stairs together, Ted continued talking.

  'Keep a close eye on Eccles for me. He's clearly set in the old team's way of finding a likely suspect then wasting time and resources trying to pin a case on them. I don't want to go down that route again; it slows us down too much. Leona's excellent, I have no complaints there. I just think it might be diplomatically easier for her if you come in as the heavy to keep him in order.'

  Jo chuckled.

  'I get to be bad cop, then? That's fine by me, boss. Don't worry, I'll keep him to heel, and I'll let you know if we track down this Dolan lad.'

  Ted was just about to get into his car when his mobile phone rang. It wasn't a saved number, nor was it one he recognised so he answered neutrally with, 'DCI Darling.'

  'Hello, Ted, it's Sally, Rob's fiancée.'

  Ted knew all his team members' partners through the Christmas drinks parties he and Trev hosted every year and was always on first name terms with them once they got to know one another.

  'Rob said you were interested in any cases we've had recently in the park or the area around it. Could we meet up, today, if you have time?'

  'We could meet at The Grapes at lunchtime, if that suits you? I need to eat, anyway, and I assume you do, too. I'd be happy to stand you lunch.'

  'Ted, I'm not being funny, but I'll be bringing some files to show you which are strictly your eyes only. I wouldn't want to have them out in a public place, just in case anyone caught sight of them.'

  Ted's mind was already boggling, wondering what was in store for him.

  'Come to my office, then. What time suits you best? Any time either side of lunchtime, or during, works for me today.'

  'I'm not trying to be melodramatic here but if we meet before, there's a strong possibility you won't want to eat. If it's after you've eaten ...'

  Feeling increasingly apprehens
ive, Ted opted for a time shortly before what would normally be his lunch break, if he allowed himself the luxury of one. He was hoping that, however bad the files were, he might have recovered his appetite enough by the evening. His mother had sent him home with the leftovers from their Sunday lunch to heat up for himself for supper.

  Several of the team were out chasing up witnesses when Ted arrived back. He noticed that Mike had sent Steve out into the field. It was probably a good idea to separate him from Océane for a bit, if their suspicions were well founded. Ted didn't like to interfere in private lives, but nor did he like any relationships to spill over into the workplace and interfere with ongoing enquiries.

  He headed for his kettle as soon as he got back to his office. Green tea and honey seemed to be a good idea to face whatever Sally had in store for him.

  As he sat down, there was a brief tap on the door and Maurice came in. He was also carrying a file.

  'Take a pew, Maurice. Do you want coffee?'

  Maurice shook his head as he sat down.

  'No, thanks, boss, I just finished one. What about our Steve and Océane, then, eh? Mucky little bugger. I would never have thought he had it in him.'

  Ted wasn't going to get drawn into office gossip, but he couldn't suppress a smile.

  'As long as they both do their jobs,' was all he said. 'So, what have you got for me?'

  'While I've been wading through the cold cases, with not a lot of success so far, it has to be said, I thought I'd take a look at any ones which are still unsolved and which happened around the park.

  'Shadwell Drive. Down the other side of the park from where Tyler lived. There was an arson there, four years ago. You might well remember. It's still an open case. We never got anywhere with it. I just thought I'd flag it up, in case there's any connection. Cover all bases, if we're starting to look for things going on around that area.'

  He pushed the file across the desk to Ted, who glanced at the details on the cover. He did remember the case. A middle-aged man with learning difficulties, living on his own and managing, just about. The butt of a lot of teasing and name-calling locally, especially from children, for some of his eccentric habits. He'd had a huge collection of garden gnomes in front of his home, which had singled him out as something of a target.