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

by L M Krier

  'I'm glad. The cats miss you, too. They've been giving me a hard time as I worked late.'

  'I wish I was there to give you a massage. Oh God, that's making me feel horny now. And I've got the munchies, as usual. I'd better go and eat. I'll call tomorrow. Love you.'

  Ted was smiling to himself as Trev ended the call. No matter how bad a day he'd had, Trev could always make him smile. With him away, it just emphasised to Ted how much he relied on his support.

  Chapter Twelve

  'So how do you think you're going to get more out of the bus driver than anyone has so far?'

  DC Eccles was interested, in spite of himself. He didn't see himself ever being pally with the DCI like he had been with the old DI. He knew it wasn't PC these days and he had to keep his feelings to himself, but he just couldn't get past the mental image of him in bed with another man. But he had a good reputation and a better clear-up rate than the old boss by a land mile.

  Maybe he could learn something from him. Perhaps even make progress towards that promotion the missus was always nagging him to go for. They'd been married forever, since they were nothing but kids, really, and she was always wanting more. Bigger house, newer car, fancy holidays, private lessons in this and that for their two kids. Why not? DS Eccles had a ring to it. It had never seemed much of a possibility with the old team and their sloppy ways.

  'I might not,' Ted admitted. 'I just have a few more techniques I would like to try, to see if he can remember more than he thinks he can. I splurged a bit of my budget on update training, so I'd better make the most of it.

  'One of the things I'd like to do at some point is to take him back to the scene of the incident. I came up in my official car, so I'd like you to drive, while I talk him through what I want him to do. Are you happy with that?'

  The DC couldn't get used to a senior officer asking his opinion and approval all the time. He was used to being given orders and being expected to get on with them. Ted was certainly not like any officer he'd served with before, and not just because he was on the other bus.

  He nodded his agreement and Ted went on, 'Other than that, I'd just like you to sit quietly and observe once more, plus take notes of anything he says, please, then write them up as soon as possible. So, let's go and see if Mr Arnold knows anything of value that he's not yet told us because he's forgotten it.'

  Ted's opening gambit, whether he was talking to suspects, witnesses or anyone indirectly connected to an enquiry was always to make the interviewee feel relaxed in his presence, off guard even, disarmed by his appearance and quiet voice.

  'Thanks for coming in, Mr Arnold. I know you've been over all this a few times, with me and with other officers. I just wanted to take you through everything once again, in case anything else has come to you in the intervening days. What I'd also like to do, but only if you're comfortable with it, is to take you back to the scene. That's simply to find out if being back in the context of the incident might jog a buried memory.

  'So, first of all, please tell me, in your own time, everything you can remember about what happened last Wednesday.'

  Calmly and methodically, the driver went through his version of events, which was almost identical to the last time. Ted had no reason to doubt what he was saying. He just needed to use various techniques to find out if there were any details tucked away subliminally, which could be teased out of him.

  'Thank you, Mr Arnold. Now I'd like you to go further back, before the incident. You'd driven, what, about two hundred yards down the road before the collision took place? Had you made a stop already on that road? Where was your first stop, in relation to where the collision occurred?'

  'I was just coming up to my first stop on that road. Another twenty or thirty yards, perhaps. I was going quite slowly all the way, because I like to be careful, but I was also slowing down, getting ready for the stop.'

  'You've described seeing the youth coming towards you. Can you go back from there. Go back to the first moment at which you became aware of the youth.'

  Ted was being careful to use gender-neutral words and phrases in relation to the suspect.

  'I think he came out of a shop lower down. Perhaps the newsagent, there's one just near there. No, hang on, wait a moment.'

  His brow was furrowed with the effort of remembering, then he looked surprised.

  'Well, bugger me, that's strange. I hadn't remembered that until now. Just briefly, when I first saw the figure coming out of the shop, I thought to myself, that looks like Beryl's lass, from round the corner to me. Then as it got closer, I could see it was a lad, not a lass.'

  'You're sure? It was definitely a male figure walking towards you, who pushed Mrs Murray?'

  'I'm sure it was a lad. In any case, a girl wouldn't do something like this, would they?'

  'Don't worry about that aspect for now, Mr Arnold. Just concentrate on the figure you see walking towards you, and anything you can remember about it. Did you see the face at all, at any point?'

  Again, the look of surprise.

  'I didn't think I had but I must have done because now I have an image of a white face. Not pale, I mean white, not a black person. Is that the right way to say it? It doesn't sound racist?'

  'That's fine, Mr Arnold, I understand what you're saying. Is there anything else? Any other feature you can remember, no matter how insignificant it might seem?'

  He thought hard for a moment, then shook his head.

  'And going back to that first moment you saw the suspect. Are you able to say what it was about the figure that made you think it could be female? Concentrate on that moment. Close your eyes, if you feel it might help you to see it more clearly.'

  The driver looked from one officer to another, suddenly a bit wary. He probably hadn't been asked to close his eyes and imagine anything since his days in junior school, Ted thought. After a pause, he did close them, or rather, screwed them up in evident concentration. Then he opened them again, shaking his head.

  'I can't just pick out what it was. Something about how they moved? But then, these young teenagers, they do all look alike in baggy clothes and just slouching about. When he came walking towards me, he had his head down so the hood fell forward and I couldn't see anything about him, not even his colour. He had his hands in his pockets, walking along. Then I saw a hand dart out and grab something from the old lady's trolley. It was windy and the flap on top was blowing about, like she hadn't fastened it properly. Then he shoved her and I was braking as hard as I could and trying to control the bus so I didn't see anything more of him, just that he'd run off.'

  He took a steadying drink of the cup of water which had been provided for him, obviously still shaken every time he thought about what had happened.

  'Thank you very much, Mr Arnold. That's been very helpful, and I know it's hard for you to have to keep going over it. So now is it all right with you if we go and visit the scene? Have you been back there since it happened?'

  He shook his head again.

  'I've been avoiding it, to be honest. But I have to go again some time. I'll be going back to work next week and I might be on that same route again, so I have to face up to it eventually.'

  'Very good, thank you. DC Eccles, can you go and bring the car to the entrance, please. It's a black Ford.'

  He handed the keys to the DC as he asked their key witness if he needed a break or any refreshment before they went. He didn't, so they followed DC Eccles down and waited at the entrance while he brought the car round.

  Ted installed the witness in the front passenger seat and sat in the back himself. Eccles drove carefully and meticulously through the morning traffic to where the incident had happened. Ted wasn't sure if he was normally such an exemplary driver or if it was his presence, or that of a professional driver in the vehicle, which made him more careful than usual.

  As they turned into the road they were heading for, Ted could see ahead that the area where the incident had happened was still taped off. It was, of course, a p
olice crime scene, as the death was being treated as a murder enquiry. He made a mental note that Mr Arnold's estimations of distance were accurate. It always made for a more reliable witness, to know that there were no wild guesses involved. It's what he would have expected from someone who had driven for a living for many years, with a clean licence.

  'If you could just indicate to me the point at which you first became aware of the figure, please, and DC Eccles, could you please pull up just before the tapes.'

  There was still a uniformed presence at the scene. A Police Community Support Officer was standing near the tapes, keeping an eye on things. Ted had asked if that could be done, aware that sometimes a certain type of killer would return to the scene of their crime for some sort of gratification.

  As soon as Eccles pulled closer to the kerb and slowed down to a crawl, the officer moved quickly forward. Ted lowered the window on his side.

  'You can't stop there, mate, it's a crime scene. We don't want any bloody rubber-neckers.'

  Ted produced his warrant card and held it out of the open window. He kept his voice quiet, so it was not easy for the two men in the front to hear what he had to say.

  'What about the SIO on the case? Is he allowed to rubber-neck?'

  'Sorry, sir, I didn't know who you were.'

  'Precisely, so I would like to think that you would address any member of the public with a bit more respect than that.

  'Now, I appreciate this is restricted parking, but we're just going to stay here briefly, to do some context reinstatement with a vital witness. You're doing the right thing in discouraging onlookers. Just please try to be a bit more courteous about how you do it.'

  Ted had tried to keep his voice down but Eccles had clearly heard everything and started to chuckle.

  'That's enough, DC Eccles,' Ted told him sharply. 'Mr Arnold, first of all, are you comfortable being here? If not please say so and we will move.'

  When the man nodded his agreement, he went on, careful to keep his questions gender-neutral again. 'Thank you. Now, I want you to focus on where the suspect was when you first saw them, and if there is anything more you can remember about the figure you saw.'

  'He definitely came out of the newsagent down there, now that I see the scene in context. He had to step round someone standing on the pavement staring at their mobile phone. That's the moment when he lifted his head and I briefly saw that his face was white.'

  'Could you describe the features at all?'

  'No, it was just a fleeting glimpse.'

  'And now we're here, can you remember what it was that first made you think the figure was female?'

  'I really don't know now. Just something about the way they moved, perhaps? I can't quite bring it to mind. I'm sorry.'

  'Please don't apologise, Mr Arnold, you're doing brilliantly. Just one more thing. Are you able to gauge at all the height of the person, or could you get any impression of their build?'

  He started to shake his head again but Ted continued, 'For example, if I were to go down there and come out of the shop, do you think you'd be able to gauge the height of the figure you saw against my height, for comparison?'

  Ted thought he'd better buy something while he was in the shop. He didn't want the shopkeeper reporting him for suspicious behaviour if he just went in and lurked. He was sure the PCSO up the road would love an excuse to come and exercise his 'any person' powers of arrest to get him taken away. He picked up a packet of Fisherman's Friend and paid for them. He went through them at quite a rate.

  He was lucky that there was someone standing staring at their mobile as he came out of the shop so he was able to sidestep them without having to stage it. It was becoming such a common feature of modern life.

  When he got back to the car and slid into the rear seat, he asked, 'Did that help you at all, Mr Arnold? Could you say whether the figure you saw was taller or shorter than I am?'

  'You're not very tall for a policeman, are you?' Arnold observed, his tone conversational. 'What are you, about five four, five five?'

  'You have a good eye for judging such things, Mr Arnold. I'm five four.'

  'The lad was definitely shorter, but I wouldn't like to have a guess at how much because that's all it would be, just a guess and I'm sure that's no use to you. Same for his build. In those baggy clothes, he could have been any size.'

  'DC Eccles, can you nip down to the newsagent and find out if they have CCTV from last week, if it's not already been done. Also ask if they remember anyone relevant in the shop on the morning of the incident. Any hoodies, anything that can help us. I'll drop Mr Arnold off then see you back at the station.'

  Once again, it was Ted who brewed up. He didn't need to be reminded how Eccles took his tea. He sat down opposite the DC and asked for his thoughts.

  'First off, no CCTV for the day in question. They only keep tapes a few days before they record over them. Secondly, they don't remember any hoodies or anyone who stood out that day. Mostly regular customers, people they recognised.

  'Now, this context reinstatement stuff,' Eccles began. 'And that going backwards thing ...'

  'Reverse temporal order of recall,' Ted grinned. 'Impressive, eh? Works well, too.'

  'Is that the sort of stuff you do on one of these courses?'

  'That's part of it. If you're interested, once we get this case done and dusted, I can look at the budget, crunch a few numbers, and see what we can do for you and DC Winters. I think DS Rakale has already done the course. So, back to our driver. Did we learn anything new?'

  'Short, skinny, white lad. Fits Jake Dolan's profile exactly,' Eccles replied triumphantly.

  'Mr Arnold didn't say skinny. He said he couldn't tell because of the baggy clothes. And his first impression was of a female, don't forget.'

  'You don't seriously think this was a girl?'

  'I'm not ruling anything in or out at this stage, Charlie. Do you ever read crime fiction?'

  Eccles had trouble with keeping up with the way the DCI's thought processes seem to jump about all over the place. He shook his head.

  'I do sometimes. Ian Rankin mostly. I read the reviews about them, too. Readers are always saying how easy it was to guess who the murderer was. Well, we can't guess, unfortunately. We just have to plod along methodically on the information we get. Let's just say, I want to keep all avenues open in this case.

  'With that in mind, I want to have a full briefing on both cases with everyone present, from both teams. At Stockport, tomorrow. Eight o'clock sharp. Can you let Graham and the DS know, please. And Charlie, make sure you're on time.'

  He said it with a grin, but it was still a reminder. When they'd first met, on a previous case, Eccles had tried boundary-pushing by turning up late for a team briefing.

  The office was quiet when Ted got back to his own nick. He'd picked up a bagel on his way back and planned on a working lunch. Océane was working at her computer, and Jo was in his office, so Ted put the kettle on and invited him to join him for a catch-up. Jo nodded in response to being asked if he'd eaten yet, but gratefully accepted the offer of a coffee.

  'So, make my day and tell me you've solved our case while I've been up the road.'

  Ted had left Jo behind while he was up at South Manchester himself, although Sal had gone over there and was lending a hand.

  'Can't do that, boss. Good Catholic, remember. If I lied to a senior officer, I'd have to go to confession and that would be an awful lot of Hail Marys and Hail Holy Queens. How did you get on?'

  'What would you say if I told you Charlie had actually asked to be sent on a cognitive interview technique course?'

  'I'd say do you want to borrow my rosary to do your penance, if you don't have your own. Because that sounds like a big whopper, to me.'

  Ted laughed.

  'It's actually true. We managed to get a bit more out of the bus driver using context reinstatement, and it seemed to impress him. The driver was able to remember that the suspect was white, which no one else has sa
id before. Also, interestingly, he remembered that his first fleeting impression was that it was a girl, not a boy.'

  Jo looked at him questioningly.

  'So you're thinking ...?'

  'Nothing involving jumping to any conclusions, at the moment. I'm just saying we should keep an open mind in looking for suspects. I want to call a full team briefing tomorrow morning first thing, for both teams. Because we do now have two apparently motiveless killings, each with a suspect who is small and possibly female.'

  'And you're seeing a connection?'

  'Far from it. It's too soon. I'm just focusing on two cases where we don't know for sure the gender of the attacker in either of them, so I thought it would be a good idea to kick some ideas around together, all of us.'

  When Jo had gone back to his office and Ted had finished his lunch, he typed up his own notes from the morning and emailed them to Leona to keep her in the picture. He added a note to make sure she knew about the briefing the next day. He still didn't trust Eccles sufficiently to pass the message on about the briefing.

  Just then his mobile pinged with a text message, from Trev.

  'Sorry can't talk today. At a shoot location in the wilds and signal is dire. Hopefully tomorrow. Hugs to the pussies. Love you loads. Tx. PS Not stoned today, officer.'

  Ted laughed fondly as he read it, although he was disappointed they wouldn't get to talk. He knew he relied on his partner too much for moral support. Trev was the more gregarious of the two. On the rare occasions Ted left him on his own, he'd seek out company with Willow and Rupe, Ted's mother, any of his biker or karate friends, or even Professor Nelson, who was a big fan of Trev, and an even bigger one of his Triumph Bonneville.

  Ted would see his mother at the weekend as she'd insisted on making a welcome home meal for Trev, knowing her son was busy working two murder cases. He'd agreed, but only if he bought all the ingredients. But he wouldn't normally look for her company just because his partner was away. Until Sunday, it would be just him and the cats – and work.