Mercy Killing

by Lisa Cutts

  ‘How about you stop moaning and we go and see these two blokes from the am-dram society?’ said Sophia as she threw her file onto the back seat.

  ‘OK, Soph, but the first “lovie darling” we run into, I’m off home.’

  Once they were in the car, Tom produced a coin. ‘Heads we see Jonathan Tey first, tails we see Jude Watson.’

  ‘I must have been absent the day that was taught on the CID course,’ said Sophia as she reversed the car out of its space and made for the security gate. ‘Have you got anything a little more professional that we could use to decide who to drop in on first?’

  ‘Tails it is. I’ll put Watson’s address in the satnav. So these two have come to light after the chairman of East Rise Players called the incident room yesterday and thought they were possibly up to no good.’

  ‘He thought more than that,’ said Sophia pausing at a red light. ‘According to his call, Eric Samuels said that he knew who was responsible for killing Woodville, after he saw the police at his flat on the news and it was Tey and Watson.’

  She pulled away as the light turned green, then added, ‘You know what my problem is with what Samuels said?’

  ‘Let me guess,’ said Tom, ‘it came from Gabrielle who went out to see Eric Samuels last night and you don’t trust her to do a good job.’

  ‘It’s not so much that I don’t trust her to get it right, she’s a good detective, but she makes me feel uneasy.’

  ‘Whatever you think about her, Gabrielle wouldn’t deliberately lie about something a witness said. Besides, if she hates paedophiles as much as you think she does, then surely what she’d do is underplay any information that was forthcoming from members of the public, and not take a twelve-page statement from them, then come along to this morning’s briefing and talk about it at great length.’

  ‘So you’re another one of the blokes in the office who’ve fallen for her long legs and piercing blue eyes, not to mention her short skirts.’

  ‘Don’t get touchy. You still look OK for a woman of your age with wavy hair and a face shaped like a balloon.’

  ‘I’m younger than you.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Lucky for you, Delayhoyde, we’re here.’

  She pulled up next to a row of modest mid-terraced houses, three doors down from Jude Watson’s home. The windows were closed, curtains drawn and a car was parked on the street close to the front door.

  The information shared at that morning’s briefing was that Jude, East Rise Planning Department employee, was married with two young daughters, so neither of the DCs about to knock on his door were under any illusions that calling on a Sunday morning was likely to result in anything other than a houseful of people wanting to know what was going on.

  They stood shoulder to shoulder on the pavement and Tom rang the bell.

  Before too long, they heard movement and a man of about thirty years of age opened the door. His brown hair was dishevelled but his handsome face showed genuine surprise at seeing two people on his doorstep at 9 a.m. on a Sunday morning.

  Not wanting to be mistaken for anyone other than a police officer, Tom showed his warrant card and said, ‘Mr Watson? Can we come in and talk to you about the East Rise Players?’

  ‘Some of our performances were a bit pitiful, but I don’t think they’re actually a crime,’ he said as he let them in.

  Two blonde-haired girls peered out at them round the kitchen door. ‘Finish your breakfast, you two,’ Jude said to them, ‘then we’ll get over the park in a bit.’

  He shut the door on his family scene of wife and two daughters eating their cereal and showed the two police officers to the privacy of the front room.

  ‘I take it,’ he said, making himself comfortable in the armchair, ‘that this is about Albert Woodville?’

  ‘What have you heard about him?’ said Tom.

  Both Sophia and Tom watched his face for any sign of guilt, a flicker that meant he was holding something back, or even a hint that he knew more than he should about their murder victim’s demise.

  Jude Watson leaned forward towards Tom. ‘You should know what he is – a kiddie fiddler. What are you doing about him being near kids in the first place? It’s disgraceful. Fucking country’s going down the pan faster than bog roll. He better not have touched my daughter or I’ll fucking kill him.’ He rubbed the spittle from his bottom lip and ran a hand through his hair. ‘Sorry, sorry, it’s that I love my girls so much I—’

  He was interrupted by the door opening and one of the children put her face in the gap and said, ‘Daddy, we—’

  ‘For God’s sake, Charlie,’ he shouted, ‘bugger off and eat your bloody breakfast.’

  The door slammed shut and Jude continued. ‘Yeah, I love my girls to bits, don’t know what I’d do without them. So what do you want to know about Woodville? I’m guessing it’s urgent if it’s brought you here on a Sunday morning.’

  Sophia and Tom didn’t want to miss a thing. They both knew that there was never a second chance to gauge Watson’s real reaction.

  ‘When did you last see Albert Woodville?’ Tom asked.

  Watson let out a breath, glanced down to his left, eyes on the worn pink carpet. ‘Don’t know. About two or three weeks ago at rehearsals. Why? What’s happened?’

  ‘He’s dead,’ said Tom. ‘He’s been murdered.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘You don’t sound very surprised.’

  This was met with a shrug and raised eyebrows. ‘He was a horrible bastard. If you do that sort of thing, you’ve got to expect people to come for you. Parents especially.’

  ‘Parents especially?’ echoed Tom with a glance in the direction of the children in the kitchen who could be heard squabbling over Coco Pops.

  ‘I’d do anything for my kids,’ said Jude, fixing his stare on the detective constable, ‘but I didn’t kill Woodville. You want to arrest me, go right ahead but the last time I saw him was long before he died.’

  ‘How do you know when he died?’ said Tom, his tone so soft and casual, he sounded nothing like a murder detective stalking his prey.

  ‘What?’ His mouth hung open and he seemed to run out of air. His lips smacked shut and then he smiled. ‘Nice one, nice one. When I last saw Woodville, he was still very much alive. That was some time ago and since then, you’ve come round here asking about his murder. Well, I’m assuming you two’ – he waved his index finger back and forth at them – ‘haven’t left it two weeks to come and see me. If I was a gambling man, I’d say that he’s only recently been murdered.’ There was a somewhat smug look on his face.

  All the while Tom sat, impassive, with only one thought in his head: he didn’t believe what Jude Watson was telling him.

  It was some hours later that Sophia and Tom had finished talking to Jude and finding out exactly where he had been over the last few days, who he had seen and what had happened the last time he was in close proximity to Albert Woodville.

  When at last they had everything in writing, Sophia took a DNA mouth swab from Watson and Tom took his fingerprints.

  ‘It’s standard in an investigation like this,’ she said as she tried to lighten the mood that had got distinctly heavy over the last twenty minutes. It had seemed to go downhill after she’d read out the declaration at the top of his statement that told him he might go to prison if he had misled them in anyway. He didn’t seem to appreciate getting ink all over his hands from the mobile fingerprinting kit either.

  The pair of them stood up with their paperwork, fingerprints and DNA sample and Tom said, ‘Thanks for your time.’

  ‘I didn’t really have much choice, did I?’

  Tom stopped at the living-room door and considered his response. ‘To be honest, no you didn’t, but we’re grateful to have done it this way and not at the police station.’ He opened the door and called over his shoulder, ‘We’ll be in touch.’

  From the living-room window, tucked behind the curtain, Jude Watson stood looking out onto the
street, down the road to where the two detectives got into a tatty Citroën. In one hand he held the edge of the curtain, and in the other his mobile phone.

  ‘Jonathan, we’ve got a problem.’

  Chapter 29

  Afternoon of Sunday 7 November

  ‘Harry,’ said Martha Lipton, head resting against the front door’s frame. ‘How nice of you to come and see me at home.’

  He held a piece of paper up to her face.

  ‘Well, I can’t read it properly as it’s only a couple of centimetres from my eye, but I recognize my own newsletter when I see it.’

  Harry took a deep breath and resolved to keep the promise to himself that he’d made on the journey over: he wasn’t going to show this woman how much she wound him up.

  ‘Have you any idea what you and your mucky little bunch have done?’ he said, aware that he was over-enunciating every syllable.

  ‘What’s up? Spelling mistakes in an article?’

  She leaned into the frame, arms crossed over the front of an impossibly tight T-shirt, one long leg in front of the other, bare toes tapping at the concrete step which separated them.

  ‘You printed this vile shit and then handed it out in the street, the day after a sex offender was murdered.’

  Harry stopped waving the piece of paper around his head. He knew that he appeared to be slightly demented and he had, after all, knocked on the door of her ground-floor flat. It was one of only two in the large converted Georgian house that had its own entrance. The other four flats on the next two floors were reached via a communal door but it didn’t stop everyone within the street or neighbouring buildings seeing and hearing the spectacle he was making of himself.

  ‘Do you want to come in?’ she said. ‘We can stand out here and discuss this if you like.’

  What got to him most was that she came across as so reasonable, so rational and was so beautiful.

  It made it all the worse for Harry.

  ‘I don’t have to tell you what’s on the front page of your own sheet of spite.’

  He held the page out in front of him with one hand and jabbed at the article with the other.

  ‘Right here,’ he said, ‘under the main piece about Albert Woodville being murdered and your helpful top ten of how to spot a nonce, immediately below that, you print the address of Norman Husband House and list the likely sex offences those housed there might have served time for before their release into East Rise.’

  ‘Listen,’ she said, standing tall, the height of the doorstep making her head and shoulders over the policeman, ‘everyone around here knows where Norman Husband House is anyway. Most people know it’s a hostel for those released from prison with nowhere else to go. The only thing they wouldn’t necessarily know is what kind of crimes those people have served time for.’

  Harry stared at her for several seconds. He saw that it unnerved her. That made him smile.

  He took a step forward. He took a step upwards, bulled toecaps touching her bare toes.

  She inched backwards.

  ‘It’s lucky for you that the fire didn’t spread.’

  Her jaw dropped open.

  ‘Fire …’

  ‘There are only two reasons,’ he said, face closer to Martha’s than he would have liked, ‘that I haven’t nicked you. The first is that I don’t at this point think you had anything directly to do with it, and the second is that you’re coming down the police station in the next five minutes to make a statement to one of my officers, telling them everything you know about Woodville and the fire.’

  He moved his head back.

  ‘Got that?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, unable to make eye contact. ‘I’ll get some shoes on and my coat.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘We’re not leaving together. I don’t want to be seen with the likes of you.’

  Head held high and chin thrust forward, she said, ‘How do you know I’ll turn up?’

  Harry looked her up and down.

  ‘You’ll turn up all right.’

  He turned and walked away.

  Chapter 30

  Jonathan Tey was a man with a lot on his mind. He sat in front of the television with his wife curled up beside him, daughter on the floor doing her usual last-minute homework before school the next day.

  It was a scene that should have shown domestic Sunday-evening bliss but he couldn’t help feeling restless. He couldn’t stop his foot from tapping, a nervous sign that gave him away.

  His wife glanced at him a couple of times, distracted from the drama she was watching on the screen. He knew that she wouldn’t ask him what the matter was. That was a comfort.

  Everything probably would have been all right if he hadn’t decided it would be a good idea to go along to a vigilante meeting. That was probably a dumb mistake to have made.

  He hadn’t been all that interested in finding anything to replace the void left by his exit from the East Rise Players, an unusual mixture of individuals, all in all a decent albeit clueless bunch of people. On joining them Jonathan had immediately gained a self-importance he hadn’t expected. Other than his enjoyment at being on stage, they asked his advice, got him to settle squabbles between them. That was what he missed – not having something to occupy his time and his already overcrowded mind, but the sense of purpose and belonging.

  How was he to know that the day after he walked out of the Cressy Arms, livid with Eric Samuels for his stupidity, he was going to watch one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen stride towards him on the High Street?

  He had barely regained his composure when she handed him a leaflet and smiled.

  Jonathan had found himself smiling back, unable to drag his eyes away to look at the news-sheet he was gripping on to as if his life depended on it.

  ‘We could do with some new members,’ she said, unbuttoning her jacket.

  Rather than stare at her chest, he concentrated on the words in front of him.

  ‘I don’t want to join a cult,’ he said, a frown on his face.

  ‘We’re not a cult,’ she said. ‘It’s all very out in the open what we do. Have a read of that, and here—’ She opened her jacket to remove a pen from the inside pocket and taking the leaflet back scribbled her mobile number on it. As she handed it over she looked up at him, eyelashes fluttering, and added, ‘And my name’s Martha.’

  It was some time later that Jonathan got the creased-up newsletter out of his overcoat pocket and read through it. His interest was piqued at what the Volunteer Army were trying to do, although that alone wouldn’t have been enough to ensure his attendance at their meeting. What tilted the balance was the smile and wink Martha had cast over her shoulder before the throng of dreary shoppers swallowed her up.

  Smile still playing on his lips, Jonathan realized that he was back in his own living room, wife watching some brain-numbing period drama on the box and his daughter whingeing under her breath that she didn’t understand the point of learning about the industrial revolution, it wasn’t as if it would happen again.

  Elaine turned towards him at the point where he was recalling the full details of Martha’s backside, skintight leggings moulded to her buttocks as she sashayed away from him.

  ‘I knew that a night at home with us would cheer you up, love,’ said his wife.

  ‘Something like that,’ said Jonathan as it crossed his mind that even in her heyday Elaine was no Martha. And especially not recently.

  She’d let herself go quite a bit. He might even reward himself with an affair.

  Chapter 31

  Hazel’s phone bleeped somewhere in the living room, jolting her from her thoughts. Still full of nervous energy, she jumped up to find it, moving magazines, cushions and handbags, finally locating it under a couple of old blankets she had fished out of the back of the airing cupboard and added to the heap of bedding on the floor.

  As she unlocked the phone and opened the text, she was half hopeful that it would be another message from work, cancelling the reques
t that she get in at the crack of dawn the next day. She was nervous enough as it was at the thought of having to be there before most of the other DCs were on duty, and then being sent off to carry out enquiries on a murder she knew nothing about. At least the old familiar practice of putting the staff’s welfare at the bottom of the list made her feel as if she had never left. Nothing had changed in that respect.

  It was also doing little to make her think she had made the right decision to rejoin Major Crime and that she could pick up from where she had left off. The problem was, she had missed the work more than she imagined she would. Hazel had battled against choosing an easier but less fulfilling option over the biggest buzz a career was capable of giving her, though it gave room for little else.

  The one other thing she did make time for outside work was now messaging her on her phone.

  Hazel, she read from her phone’s screen, is there any chance you’re free for an overnight emergency? Wouldn’t ask but I’ve tried everyone else …

  She held the phone to her chest and let out a long sigh. She couldn’t say yes when she was starting a new job so early the next day. Any other time, she would have requested a last-minute day off, but there was no way she could ask her detective inspector she hadn’t yet met for a favour. Not before she had a chance to set foot inside the department’s door.

  After a few seconds, with heavy heart, she tapped out a reply.

  Really sorry but off to work at 5 a.m. Call me tomorrow morning if you’re still stuck. Hazel xx

  She hated to say no when someone needed her and couldn’t help but wonder if getting the blankets and spare sheets out of the various storage places around her home had triggered the call. This was something that she knew was nonsense and Hazel was by no means a superstitious person, but it had been several weeks since she’d been contacted out of the blue asking if she would take in a last-minute lodger.