by L M Krier
Reluctantly, Ted leaned closer, studying the damaged skull, sucking hard on his customary menthol lozenge.
'They look rather more precise than I would have expected for what we first took to be a frenzied attack.'
'Precisely!' The Professor laughed at her own joke. 'Let me go through it in more detail for you. This blow to the back of the head, almost central, and delivered with considerable force, would most probably have been enough to kill her, though possibly not immediately. It was made from behind and would undoubtedly have felled the victim. But then, and I know you don't like conjecture any more than I do, the pattern of the other blows seems to me to be almost experimental.'
Ted looked at her quizzically, not quite grasping what she was getting at.
'From the precision with which the blows were placed, it's as if our killer were experimenting with what damage each subsequent blow would inflict. The back of the head – smash! Like a boiled egg, hit with a spoon. Very satisfying. Then what about the temple? Thwack! That splits open quite nicely. The crown of the head? The skull is a little harder there, not quite so good.
'You and I have seen plenty of frenzied attacks where the blows fall randomly, with no sense to where they land. But these look different. My report will let you know, in detail, which of the blows were made after death had already occurred. The body was certainly moved. At some point she was turned over and dragged and this wound here, to the other temple, is quite different. It's made from lower down and again with considerable force. In fact, it rather puts me in mind of a golfer lining up for a tricky putt.'
Her words preyed on Ted's mind as he drove back to the station to brief the team on what the PM had shown so far. He didn't like the idea of the kind of cold detachment which would be necessary to carry out a killing such as Bizzie was suggesting. She'd stressed that she was largely speculating, but that it was based on the evidence of the wounds. A frenzied attack with a hammer was bad enough, but imagining someone staying dispassionate enough to deal the kind of injuries Bizzie had shown him spoke of an altogether different profile for their killer.
It was Jezza who first voiced what was at the back of his mind, after he'd described the initial PM findings to the team.
'Boss, does that kind of behaviour fit the profile of our animal abuser? They seem to have been honing their craft with increasingly sadistic acts.'
'I don't want us getting ahead of ourselves,' he warned. 'But yes, on the surface, there's a similar element. Drowning a small boy, even pushing an elderly person under a bus, could conceivably be spur of the moment actions. But from what the Professor was saying, there's a certain degree of cold-blooded detachment in this.'
On the dot of ten o'clock, Ted got a call from Bill at the front desk to tell him that his new FLO, DC Kate Jones, was there. He went down himself to welcome her. He was not the sort of senior officer to send his team members running errands for him. Jim was with the Ice Queen so at least the office wouldn't feel quite as overcrowded as it did with his presence. He put the kettle on to boil before he went down. It would be nice to welcome the newcomer and bring her up to speed with a brew, and he was about ready for one himself.
He liked what he saw on first impressions. DS Jones was pleasantly smiling, in her thirties, auburn hair in a jawline bob. She was casually dressed in jeans and a zipped sweatshirt. She held out a hand to him in greeting.
'Morning, sir. I'm Kate Jones, your new FLO. I'm looking forward to working with you.'
He smiled as he shook her hand.
'Likewise, Kate. Please don't worry about the sir, we're quite an informal team. Would you like to come this way?'
He showed her to the stairs and fell into step companionably alongside her.
'I hope I'm not too informally dressed, boss? Only, I thought that if I need to make a connection with a teenage girl, I might look better like this than in my usual work suit.'
Ted turned and grinned at her. His grin was that of a naughty schoolboy. It was his most disarming weapon. It made him look nothing like a policeman and had lulled many people into relaxing their guard in his company. The fact that he was completely oblivious to how attractive it made him was even more appealing.
'I'll let you in on my guilty secret. By choice, I'd be in jeans myself. It's just that the Super is quite strict on dress code for her officers. I honestly don't mind what you wear, as long as you're doing your job.'
He showed her into his office and invited her to take a seat.
'The kettle's just boiled, if I can interest you in a tea or a coffee?'
He went over to make the drinks himself but she stopped him.
'Boss, would you be offended if I asked to make my own coffee? It's just that people never believe me about how strong I like it and how little milk I take.'
'Let me guess – just a cloud of milk? I can do that, if you trust me. It's how my partner Trev drinks his tea.'
Ted's reputation for being relaxed and informal was widely known in the force. She'd certainly never had a DCI brew up for her before, and he'd almost got her coffee right. He'd just been a bit generous with the milk, although it was nearer to her taste than most managed to make it.
They chatted for a few moments as they drank. Kate had doing her homework on her new temporary boss and had heard a lot about him, particularly his love of cats. She told him about her large ginger tom, Garfield. The DCI was certainly easy company, even when he switched into professional mode to tell her what he needed from her. She didn't often encounter senior officers who said please and thank you when briefing their team.
'We're going to go and question Morgane at eleven o'clock. She's currently staying with her father in Bramhall, and this is my first chance to meet her and see what she has to say. Whatever we get from the interview, she and her father are going to need support in the days ahead, which is where you come in.
'Statistically, you know as well as I do that there's a strong possibility that whoever did this is known to the family in some way. It might be someone related to a criminal case Stephanie Mason had worked on, so not necessarily someone Morgane would recognise. I need you to get close to her, please, find out if she knows something without realising that she does. Maybe her mother talked to her about some of her cases. I also need to know if there's a boyfriend on the scene. For either of them. Her father told me she doesn't talk to him about such things.
'When I interview her, I'd like you just to observe and take notes for now, please. If I miss anything, ask her later on. Find out what she knows, and how reliable a witness she is. If you've finished your drink, we should make a start. Do you want to take your own car, so you're independently mobile?'
'Do you need me to come back in at the end of the day for a catch-up? I shouldn't need a car during the day, should I, so I could leave it here for now.'
Ted shook his head.
'Phone me if there's anything urgent, otherwise come in for morning briefing tomorrow and fill me and the team in then, before you go back to Bramhall. If you're not taking your car, I'll take my official one. Would you mind very much if I asked you to drive, please? I'm always getting told off for not using it enough and for not having a driver.'
She decided she liked him even more when he settled happily into the front passenger seat and chatted informally as she expertly handled the car through the traffic, heading out towards Bramhall.
As they turned into the road where Morgane's father lived, Ted added, 'I'd quite like the chance to talk to the father on his own at some point. If I give you a nod, can you perhaps take Morgane out to make a brew or something while I do so, please?'
She was still smiling at the number of pleases since she'd first met him as she went with him up the drive to the ground-floor flat in a large detached house which was Mr Edwards' home. Most of the front garden had been sacrificed to make room for cars belonging to residents of the multi-occupancy. There was room for Kate to park on the driveway. Ted imagined most of the residents would be out at work at
this time of day.
They found the right bell push for Edwards' flat and the man came to the door himself to let them in.
'Good morning, Mr Edwards. This is DC Jones, your Family Liaison Officer. She's going to be spending a bit of time with Morgane, and with you, to give you any help and support you need.'
'Please call me Kate,' she said as she shook his hand.
'Are you taking time off work at the moment, Mr Edwards? If there's somewhere you need to be, Kate can stay with Morgane.'
'I work from home, fortunately. I design and build websites for clients, as well as doing some graphic design for them, any marketing material they need. Morgane gets her artistic side from me. Please, come in. Follow me. It's a bit narrow in the hallway, where they split the house into flats. This is mine, on this side. Do come in.'
He led the way into a modest-sized living room with a bay window which housed a desk and a computer. There was a gas fire, which was on high, inset into the chimney breast. A leather armchair alongside it faced a flat-screen TV in a corner of the room. Opposite the fire was a sofa, which was where Ted got his first look at Morgane.
She was small, blonde, her hair long and slightly frizzy as if from a recent shampoo, loose around her shoulders, falling forwards to partially mask her face as she bent over an artists' sketch book, working away with quick and confident pencil strokes. She looked up when the two police officers followed her father into the room. Her eyes were wide, a striking light blue. She was wearing pyjamas under an over-sized fleece jacket, despite the warmth in the room, which looked as if it belonged to her father. Her feet were encased in big fluffy slippers in the shape of lions. She looked more like twelve than sixteen; vulnerable, innocent.
'Hello, I'm Morgane,' she said. 'Morgane with an E.'
Ted remembered she had said the same thing in the 999 call. She trotted it out almost like a mantra. Comfort in the familiarity of it, perhaps.
'Hello, Morgane, I'm DCI Darling. This is DC Kate Jones. She's your Liaison Officer. She's going to be spending some time with you. She's here to help you.'
The girl's father indicated to them to sit down. Kate sat next to Morgane on the sofa, Ted took the armchair opposite. Edwards turned his work chair round from the desk to sit facing them all.
'Sorry it's so warm in here,' he said. 'Morgane can't seem to thaw out at the moment. I suppose it's the shock.'
'First of all, Morgane, I know that this is difficult for you and you may not find it easy to talk about what happened. Please just take your time, and tell us anything you can remember, in your own words. There's no rush; don't feel under any pressure. If you think of more you want to say after I've gone, Kate will be staying on and you can tell her anything - anything at all - that you think will help us. Kate's going to be taking some notes, if that's all right with you?'
The girl nodded, and turned over a page in her sketch book, her pencil going to work once more. Ted let her carry on. If it helped her to feel comfortable, he didn't mind what she was doing while she spoke to them.
'Just tell me everything you can remember of Monday night, please.'
'My mother and I had a row. Another one. I keep thinking that the last time I spoke to her, it was angry words. And shouting.'
She kept glancing up at him from time to time as she spoke, then her eyes would return to whatever it was she was doodling or drawing.
'What was the argument about?'
'Oh, you know, the usual mother/teenage daughter sort of stuff. Do your homework, tidy your room, you should help round the house more. I'm out at work all day and you don't even load and unload the dishwasher. Get a sensible career. You're not going to make any money out of art.'
Her father opened his mouth to speak but Ted held up a hand to silence him. He wanted to hear the daughter's words, not his.
'In the end, I'd had enough. I did the whole stomping off in a temper thing. What mum always calls me being a stroppy teen. Flounced out of the back door, slammed it shut and went out the back way, through the garden gate onto the field. I'm not supposed to go out that way at night. Mum likes to keep it locked, in case someone comes in that way.'
This time, when she looked up, her eyes were full of tears and her lips were quivering.
'I keep thinking that this is all my fault. I left the back gate unlocked and he must have come in that way, mustn't he? I was a complete cow to my mother, the last time I saw her, and I let her killer into the house.'
Kate silently handed her a tissue and gave her hand a gentle squeeze.
'Please try not to think like that, Morgane. It doesn't help, and it might not even be true. Just focus on telling us everything you can remember,' Ted told her encouragingly. 'Where did you go? About what time was this?'
'I don't really know. About ten o'clock, perhaps? I'm not sure. I was so angry I just went off without my mobile and I don't wear a watch. I walked for ages, trying to calm down. Then I thought I'd better go back and make it up with my mum. We were always having rows about nothing, but we always made up before bedtime. We'd both say we were sorry, we'd have a cuddle, then we'd both go to bed happy and everything would be fine for a few days. Until the next time.
'But now I can never do that, can I? I can't tell my mum how sorry I am and get a cuddle from her. Never again.'
This time, as she looked up, she let the tears spill from her eyes, dripping from her face onto her sketch pad. Kate instinctively moved close enough to put a comforting arm around her. Morgane gratefully fell into her arms, her shoulders shaking with the violence of her sobbing, clearly overwhelmed by her feelings of guilt and loss.
Chapter Twenty-two
'Are you all right, sweetheart? Do you want to take a break?'
Edwards got up and went anxiously to his daughter, hovering about ineptly. Clumsily rubbing her back as she sobbed against Kate Jones, who had come well-armed with tissues and was handing some to Morgane.
'It's fine, Mr Edwards, it's quite normal, don't worry,' Ted said quietly. He didn't like to appear heartless but he needed information only Morgane could give him to make any progress with the case. He had experience and endless patience in carrying out similar interviews, and he knew already that he could rely on Kate for exactly the support Morgane needed.
'Morgane, we can take a short break any time you need to, but you will understand that I have to ask you these questions to help us catch whoever did this. The sooner I get your answers, the sooner my team can go to work.'
She sniffed a few times, blew her nose, then sat up and looked at him.
'I understand. I'm sorry, I just had a little wobble. I'm all right to go on now.'
Her father still hesitated, looming over her, but at a gesture from Ted, he went back to resume his seat.
'And you can't remember where you walked, Morgane, when you left the house? You can't remember anywhere you went?'
The question seemed to surprise her. She looked at him for a moment, her eyes dry now.
'I, er, no, I'm not really sure. I can't remember. I just walked about for an hour or so, I suppose it must have been. Maybe longer.'
'That's fine. Don't worry about anything you can't remember. Just tell me what you can. Now, and I know this is going to be hard for you, can you please tell me about when you went back home. Tell me what you saw, what happened then.'
'I went back in through the back gate. It wasn't locked, so Mum hadn't closed it. She was probably waiting for me to get home first. The light was still on in the kitchen, but the back door was partly open. I remember slamming it shut when I left, so I thought Mum must have come outside looking to see if I was back yet.
'I went up to the back door and I could see straight away that something was wrong. My mum was lying on the floor, not moving. I thought perhaps she'd fainted or something so I ran indoors. Then I saw the blood. Oh God, there was so much blood, everywhere.'
She paused, screwing her eyes up tight. She'd stopped sketching for the moment and was clutching her pad and penci
l to her chest. Her father made a move to get up again but Ted motioned towards him and shook his head gently. He needed to let her speak, to recount her memories. Kate was there to support her and she was doing a good job.
After a moment, the girl reopened her eyes, let out a long, slow breath, and started to sketch again.
'I didn't know what to do at first. Mum was making a sort of moaning noise in her throat. It was awful. I went to her and tried to wake her up, to make her talk to me. It didn't seem right, her lying there on the hard tiles. I thought perhaps if I could move her onto the carpet in the hall, she would be warmer, more comfortable. I wanted to call an ambulance but I couldn't see my phone anywhere. I couldn't remember where I'd left it. I started to go into the hall to use the landline, but then I was afraid to leave her.
'I tried to make her wake up. Like they do on the TV. I shook her gently by the shoulders. I kept asking her if she could hear me. But she couldn't. She couldn't. I think I knew then that she was dead. That the sound I'd heard her make was her last breath. I just wanted to cuddle her. One more time. I didn't know what else to do. I hugged her and hugged her. I kept telling her how sorry I was. But she didn't wake up. She wasn't responding at all. I knew really that she'd gone.'
She broke off, a small choke in her voice as she sniffed back more tears. She put her pencil down and took another tissue from Kate to pat her eyes and blow her nose again.
'Are you all right, treasure?' her father asked her.
She nodded resolutely, once more picking up her pencil.
'I need to do this now, while it's still fresh in my mind. I don't suppose it will get any easier to go through, just by waiting any longer.'
'Tell me what happened next, Morgane,' Ted told her encouragingly. 'You're doing really well. Just tell me what you remember next in the sequence of events.'
'He came into the kitchen then. This lad. It really scared me. Even though I could tell now that my mother was dead, I didn't think there was anyone else in the house, so I jumped a bit when he came in and I think I screamed. He seem startled, too, like he hadn't realised I'd come in, or something, even though I hadn't been trying to keep quiet especially.