by L M Krier
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
About the author
Contact details
When I'm Old and Grey
DI Ted Darling Book III
L M Krier
First Kindle Edition
Copyright © 2015 LMK Tither
All rights reserved.
Cover design DMR Creative
The author asserts the moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
All Rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Fisherman's Friend is a registered trade mark of the Lofthouse of Fleetwood Ltd Company of Lancashire
To Jill Pennington
my alpha beta reader
who encourages me to keep writing
Chapter One
'Ted? Bill here,' a familiar voice greeted DI Ted Darling when he answered the phone on his office desk. 'There's a woman at the front desk, asking to speak to you. She won't give a name or say what it's about, but she's adamant she wants to speak to you and only you. What have you been up to?'
Ted chuckled. Bill was a uniform branch sergeant who had known Ted long enough and well enough not to stand on ceremony with rank. He also knew that Ted was in a stable, long-term relationship with his partner, Trevor, so was not likely to have been up to anything, especially with a woman.
'Any other clues?' Ted asked.
'None at all,' Bill replied cheerfully. 'She doesn't look particularly dangerous, though. Not that you can ever really tell.'
Ted looked at the pile of paperwork on his desk which, despite his best efforts, seemed to be breeding in his in-tray whenever he took his eyes off it. He knew that he needed to be in court later that morning to give evidence in a complex case which he and his team had finally managed to bring to trial. It was tempting to take the opportunity of a break. Doubtless, though, the woman would turn out to be another time-waster, wanting to confess to a crime she had not committed, just to get some attention. Such instances were all too common in modern society.
'I'll be right down, Bill,' Ted said, as he rose from his desk.
Before he left his office, he carefully adjusted his tie to cover the fact that his top button was undone, as usual. His friend and former boss, DCI Jim Baker, had always been relaxed about dress code for his CID officers. His replacement, the formidable Superintendent Debra Caldwell, universally known as the Ice Queen, was much less tolerant.
As Ted reached the front desk, he could see a woman sitting on a chair opposite it, nervously clutching a bulky handbag in front of her and looking ill at ease. She appeared to be well into her sixties, the lines on her face indicating clearly that life had not always treated her kindly. She had light brown hair, verging on chestnut, in a cut which was neither flattering nor skilfully done. There was something familiar about her which Ted could not immediately place.
As he moved over towards her, she jumped hurriedly to her feet, looking even more anxious.
'I'm Detective Inspector Darling,' he said, by way of introduction, in his usual measured tone. 'I believe you wanted to speak to me?'
The woman's eyes filled suddenly with tears. Her right hand moved upwards and out towards Ted, almost as if she wanted to touch his face. Ted, highly trained in several martial arts, instinctively raised his left forearm to block any possible attacking movement, then realised there was none and let it fall again, a little embarrassed.
'Teddy? My little Teddy?' the woman asked, her voice quavering uncertainly.
Ted felt himself go cold. 'Is there something I can help you with?' he asked formally.
He could see the hurt in her eyes at his tone, but she carried on, in spite of it.
'I came to tell you that your Grandma Jones died suddenly last night,' she said.
'I'm sorry to hear that, and sorry for your loss. Was that all you wanted?' Ted's voice was totally professional, devoid of any warmth.
'They said it was natural causes, Teddy, but I don't think it was. There's something not right, not right at all, and I thought you'd know what to do. . .' Her voice trailed away into silence.
'Please don't call me Teddy,' he said stiffly, then he softened slightly. 'All right. I can't give you long, I have to be in court later this morning. Come up to my office and you can tell me all about it and explain why you don't accept that it was natural causes.'
Bill was watching them from behind the desk, clearly intrigued but not listening in on what was obviously a private conversation. Ted gave a curt nod in his direction, then guided the woman up the stairs to his office. Bill seemed to grab all the shifts going. He appeared to be almost always on duty. Ted suspected that filling his days with work was better than being at home alone for the widowed officer.
'I only have green tea or coffee to offer you in my own office, but I can arrange something else, if you prefer,' he told her as they made their way through the main office. Most of his team were out, several already at court, while others were following up on enquiries. Only DC Maurice Brown was at his desk, plodding reluctantly through his own pile of paperwork.
'Just ordinary builders' tea would be lovely, if it's not too much trouble,' she said.
They both paused as Ted said, 'Maurice, would you be kind enough to rustle up a cup of tea for …' he broke off, not yet ready to acknowledge her as his mother, '... for this lady, please.' Then turning back to her, he surprised himself by asking, 'A cloud of milk and two sugars?'
Tears started to her eyes once more as she said, 'You remembered.'
'Right you are, boss,' Maurice got to his feet, clearly pleased to have the distraction from his work.
Ted showed her into his office, installed her in the spare chair and placed the mug of tea, which Maurice had rapidly produced, in front of her. He then sat down and said courteously, 'All right, tell me everything, from the beginning.'
'Your grandma has been in a car
e home for years. She has – had – dementia and I couldn't cope with her at home any more. I've been living with her since … since I moved out,' his mother began. 'Physically, she was very well, still very active, which was the problem. She would go outside, wander off, even get on a bus. You couldn't tell by looking at her that there was anything wrong with her. She always dressed nicely and did her hair tidily.
'I always used to visit her every morning, then go on to work. I'm a home carer, afternoons and evenings. I was with her yesterday morning and she was absolutely fine, nothing wrong at all. Then the care home phoned me very early this morning to say Mam had been vomiting violently in the night and her heart had just stopped because of it. Their doctor signed a certificate to say it was natural causes, but I don't believe it was.'
Ted tried to curb his mounting impatience. He had not seen either his mother or his grandmother for years, not since he was a little boy and his mother had walked out on him and his disabled father. He was sorry to hear of the old lady's death, but so far he had heard nothing which made it a police matter.
'She must have been well into her eighties, though, surely? I would imagine that a sudden virus at that age could easily prove fatal for a frail, elderly person.'
'She was eighty-four, but she'd never had a day's illness in her life,' his mother replied. 'The home said she was the only one who'd been ill, no other sickness among any of the other residents. And there's something else that doesn't add up at all, something not right. They told me she'd been fine in the afternoon and had had a nice time eating cake and chatting to her granddaughter.'
'You had other children, then, with the man you left Dad for?' Ted asked neutrally, trying to keep any note of bitterness out of his voice.
She looked puzzled. 'But there never was another man. That's not why I had to leave. And there were certainly no other children. I had a bad time when you were born, Teddy. I nearly died. They had to operate on me. There could never be any more children.'
'So you have no idea who this supposed granddaughter might be? ' Ted asked and she shook her head, still looking bewildered by it all.
'I don't know who she is, but the home said she often visited Mam in the afternoons. She may have been one of the last people to see her before she died, and she was giving her cake just before she took ill. I don't understand it, it doesn't seem right to me.'
'But you say there's a death certificate saying natural causes? Well, it may just be possible to get a post-mortem in spite of it, if there are sufficient grounds to classify it as a suspicious death,' he was almost speaking to himself. 'Where is she now?'
'She's still at the home in Marple,' his mother told him. 'I've just come from there. I'm meant to be making the arrangements for the undertaker to take her to the Chapel of Rest. I came straight here, because I thought you'd know what to do.'
'How did you know I was here?' he couldn't resist asking.
'I've followed everything about you that's ever been in the local papers. I was so proud to read about your career and your promotions,' she told him, her eyes shining.
'Marple's on my patch, that's a good start. Right, give me all the details and I'll just make a few quick phone calls,' he said, his tone brisk, professional and impersonal. He was a policeman, talking to a member of the public who had reported a suspicious death. Nothing more.
His first phone call, to the home, was to advise them of a possible post-mortem examination, in spite of the death certificate, without going into any details. His next call was to ask a massive favour.
'Bizzie? It's Ted. I wondered if you could possibly help me out with something which is way above and beyond the call of duty on your part. That is, unless you're too busy?' he added, then groaned. 'Sorry about the appalling pun, I bet you've heard it a few thousand times before.
Professor Elizabeth Nelson, the senior pathologist, gave a throaty chuckle of delight. 'Good morning, Edwin. How very intriguing! And no, since only family and very close friends use my nickname, the pun has not been overused to date. What can I do for you?'
Ted smiled. The Professor was the only person, apart from his partner, who even knew Ted's full name, let alone used it.
Ted briefly outlined what his mother had told him and added, 'I know it's a bit irregular and that I should go through the senior coroner, but he's never been my number one fan. I wondered if there was any way you could have a word first, prepare the ground for me a bit? I'd be eternally grateful.'
She laughed again. 'I'd be delighted to. Give it twenty minutes or so then call him yourself and we'll see what can be done. I'm sorry to hear of your grandmother's demise and I do hope there is nothing sinister about it. I'll try to arrange to carry out the post-mortem myself. I take it you're suspecting a possible poisoning?'
'I'm not sure that I'm suspecting anything untoward at the moment. It does just seem a bit of a coincidence that an unknown visitor is feeding cake to her one minute then she becomes seriously ill enough for her heart to fail shortly after. It's certainly worth looking at a little more closely,' Ted replied. 'Thanks, Bizzie, I really am grateful. You must come to dinner in payment one of these days.'
He hung up the phone and turned to his mother, 'That's as much as I can do for now, but if you leave me your contact details, I'll be in touch to let you know what the post-mortem shows, if the coroner agrees to allow one.'
'Does that mean I can see you again?' she asked, hopefully.
'I'll be in touch,' he repeated, distantly, jotting down the details she gave him in his notebook. He then rose to show her politely out of his office and possibly out of his life once again.
Chapter Two
Ted was proud of his team. He had one detective sergeant, four detective constables and a TDC, a temporary detective constable. They were one member down on the full team complement at present, and he was constantly reminding the Ice Queen of that fact. All his team members worked together with efficiency and mutual respect. Between them and Ted, they had an enviable crime clean-up rate.
Sometimes though, despite all their best efforts, circumstances conspired against them to bring a case crashing down around their ears. Unfortunately, today had been one such day. Late that morning and completely out of the blue, a key prosecution witness had suddenly changed his testimony. The Chief Crown Prosecutor tried everything he could but the witness, who was clearly scared for his life, resolutely contradicted his earlier statement.
Without his critical eyewitness account and identification of the suspects, the prosecution case was in tatters. By early afternoon, it had collapsed completely. The jubilant accused men headed out to freedom with air punches and noisy cheers from their friends and family, both inside and outside the courtroom.
Ted knew he should head straight back to the station to debrief the Ice Queen, but it was the last thing he felt like doing. He tried his best to boost the rock-bottom morale of his team, promising them a round of drinks in their usual watering hole at the end of the day. Then he told his sergeant, Mike Hallam, that he had somewhere to be for the next hour or two, but would be back in his office as soon as possible.
He fully expected the post-mortem on his grandmother to confirm that her death was due to natural causes. Bizzie Nelson had done a good job of softening up the coroner for him. With his usual brusque manner, he had agreed to Ted's request for one to be carried out, without comment.
But Ted had decided to start initial enquiries before the autopsy findings, as he would for any such death which was suspicious. It gave him a valid reason to be out of the office for a while, and he felt he needed one.
His mother had given him the address of the care home, near to Marple. At least it was on his patch, so he could feel some justification in going to check it out. It was a newish single storey building, functional but completely devoid of any character, with an antiseptically tidy front garden. A sign by the entrance announced it as 'Snowdon Lodge – High Quality Care for the Elderly'. Ted wondered if his mother had chosen it for h
er mother simply because of the name, as she was Welsh.
He parked his elderly Renault in the visitors' car park and sat for a moment, observing. Another car pulled up alongside him and what looked like a family got out. Mother, father, two teenage children. The boy was glued to some sort of hand-held gaming device. Ted was a complete technophobe and knew little about such things.
The girl was wearing earphones, her head nodding and twitching in time to some music only she could hear. From the looks on their faces, a visit to an elderly relative in a home was not what they had in mind for an afternoon in the school holidays.
Ted fell into step behind them, heading for the front door, interested to see what, if any, security measures were in place at the home. He discovered that there were, in fact, two doors. The outer one was unlocked and led into a small entry hall, where a visitors' book was spread out on a shelf. The man wrote in it while the woman rang the bell of the inner door, which was locked.
Ted took the pen when the man offered it and made a show of writing his name, although in fact he wrote nothing. He noticed that the man had written 'Adams Family' and wondered if that was ironic or was really their name.
They were kept waiting for some time until finally a rather harassed-looking member of staff came to unlock the door. She gave the Adams Family a cursory greeting but totally ignored Ted, trailing in their wake.
Once inside, the family headed off down a corridor, clearly knowing where they were going. Ted didn't know, so he stood for a moment in a light and airy vestibule, looking around. Seeing him standing there, one elderly woman in an armchair near to the door called out to him, raising a gnarled, blue-veined hand to attract his attention.
'Sid! Sid! I'm dying for a wee. Can you take me to the toilet, Sid? Hurry up, I'm bursting.'
From the all-pervading smell of urine, Ted thought that it was likely to be too late already, but he looked around hopefully for a member of staff. The elderly woman reached out her hand again, with its paper-thin skin, and tried to catch hold of him.