Wild Thing (DI Ted Darling Book 6)

by L M Krier

  'When I saw him and realised who he must be, I panicked and tried to run out of the door. He grabbed me by the back of my hair, pulled me back, then slammed me against the cupboards. I think I slipped in the blood because I fell and hit my head hard on the edge of a work surface. It hurt a lot and it was bleeding. Then he grabbed me again and tied my wrists together with one of those plastic things. You know, they make like a loop and when you pull it tight it somehow locks itself and you can't pull it open again. He pulled it really tight. It cut into my wrists and hurt a lot.'

  As she spoke, she stopped sketching for a moment and with her pencil hand, she rubbed subconsciously at her other wrist. Ted could see that there was still a red mark where the cable tie had clearly bitten into her flesh.

  'Where did it come from? The cable tie, I mean?'

  Again, the question seemed to take her by surprise. Her eyes narrowed slightly, then she said, 'He took it out of his pocket. He must have had it with him.'

  'And the hammer, Morgane? What can you tell me about that? Had you ever seen it before?'

  Another tear squeezed out of the corner of one eye and he could see that the memory of the murder weapon had caused her pain. She put the pad and pencil down and wrapped her arms round herself, for the warmth and comfort. She still looked frozen.

  'That was ours. Mum's, I mean. Well, probably one of Dad's he left behind when he moved out. I got it out ages ago. I'd been on at Mum to put up some of my drawings. She didn't want me to do it myself. I don't think she trusted me. I kept asking her to do it and she kept saying she would when she had time. It was another thing we were always rowing about. I could have done it easily enough but she wouldn't let me.'

  'Now think back to the youth you saw come into the kitchen. Tell me anything you can remember about him. What was he wearing?'

  'He had a hoody on, with the hood up, and, like, baggy tracky bottoms, I think. I noticed he had those blue gloves on. Plastic ones. Like they wear on television in hospital dramas, police series, that sort of thing. And he had plastic bags on his feet, over his shoes. I remember thinking that looked strange, but then realising it meant he wouldn't be leaving any clear footprints or any traces of himself.'

  'What about his height? In comparison to you. Could you estimate how tall he was?'

  She was looking at Ted appraisingly, pausing in the sketching she'd resumed.

  'You're not very tall, are you? Could I stand next to you, just to get an idea?'

  Ted obligingly stood up and waited expectantly. She moved her pad and pencil aside, got off the sofa and came to stand next to him, quite close. She was about four inches shorter than he was. She lifted her hand as she said, 'He was about up to here, I think.'

  As her hand made contact with the side of Ted's face, there was a crack of static electricity that made him flinch involuntarily. He thought he saw the pupils of her light blue eyes dilate suddenly and for an absurd moment, he thought she was flirting with him.

  'Oh, I'm sorry,' she said, flustered.

  'It's fine,' he assured her. 'It's the fleece. It happens to me all the time with my cats when I'm wearing a fleece, especially in a warm room. So you're saying he was a couple of inches shorter than me?'

  She nodded, then turned to go back to her seat.

  'You're doing brilliantly, Morgane, but I think we could all do with a short break and a drink now. Why don't you take Kate and show her where everything is so she can make us all a brew? Mine's tea, white, two sugars, please.'

  He nodded imperceptibly to Kate. He wanted Morgane out of the room for a moment so he could talk to her father. Kate got the message and stood up, ushering the girl out of the room, asking her to show her the kitchen and the kettle. The sketch pad lay face down on the sofa next to where the girl had been sitting.

  Once they'd left the room, Ted turned his attention to the father.

  'How do you find her, Mr Edwards? You know your daughter better than anyone. How is she bearing up, would you say?'

  'She's amazing,' he said, unmasked admiration in his voice. 'I don't know how she's coping so well. Morgane has always been a very strong individual. She's very much her own person, never mixes with the crowd. Likes going around by herself. Very self-sufficient. But I'm amazed at how she's handling things so far.'

  'How old was she when you and your wife got divorced?'

  'She was nine when I left home. The divorce happened a couple of years after our so-called trial separation.'

  'And can I ask what the cause of the marriage break-up was?'

  'Not me playing around, in case that's what you were thinking. No, I just didn't measure up to Stephanie's expectations in many ways. She was always ambitious. I wasn't, so I didn't fit her purpose.'

  'And what will happen to Morgane now? You mentioned there's not really enough room for her to live here on a permanent basis. What about the house in Hillcrest Road? Who gets that? If Morgane inherits, would you move back there to look after her?'

  The questions were all posed with Ted's usual disarming candour, but the man's eyes narrowed at the implication behind them.

  'In other words, you're asking me if I killed my ex-wife, or arranged for her to be killed. So not only would that stop her bleeding me dry for child maintenance and the like, but I'd then get my daughter back, and the family home to live in.'

  He reached for a piece of paper, lying face down on his desk, and handed it to Ted.

  'I knew you'd need to check out my alibi, so I've written down the name of the woman I was with, and her address and phone numbers, as well as my mobile number. I know you have a way of tracing where a phone is whenever it makes or receives a call. The police phoned me to tell me what had happened, so I assume you'll be able to verify where my mobile, and therefore where I was, at the time I took the call. Like I said to you on the phone, Morgane doesn't yet know about Carla so I'd be glad if it could stay that way for now. I think she has enough to deal with at the moment, don't you?'

  'Thank you, Mr Edwards. I hope you appreciate that it is my job to ask these questions. I'm here to get justice for the victims and their families. I wouldn't be doing my job properly if I didn't investigate every possible angle.'

  Edwards nodded his understanding. He looked weary, worn down by the whole affair. Ted strongly suspected the man hadn't slept much more than he had since it had happened.

  'As far as the house goes, my wife being a solicitor, and she having taken the family home as part of the divorce settlement, I imagine she'll have made provision for Morgane in her will. I suppose I better contact her lawyers and find out, on Morgane's behalf. Then I would need to discuss it with her to see what she wants to do. I can't imagine her wanting to carry on living in the house where her mother met a violent death.'

  'Thank you. And can I just take your first name, please?'

  'It's Clive. Another thing Stephanie didn't like. It wasn't quite trendy enough for her.'

  They broke off conversation as the door opened and Morgane and Kate came back in, each carrying two mugs of steaming drinks. Morgane had Ted's drink and brought it over to him. He instinctively tried to avoid contact with her hand as she handed it to him. He'd found the static shock surprisingly unsettling and was keen to avoid another one which he risked as she was still wearing the fleece.

  The girl sat down, moving her sketch pad to the side table next to her end of the sofa. She lifted her slippered feet up onto the seat in front of her, then pulled the fleece down over her knees to cover her legs. It may never resume its former shape, but she seemed to be seeking warmth and comfort wherever she could find them.

  Ted allowed time for them all to have some of their drinks. He was watching the girl closely over the rim of his cup as they drank. Once he judged that she had thawed out sufficiently and relaxed a little, he started his questioning again.

  'Going back to the youth, Morgane. Did you know him? Had you seen him before?'

  Still clutching the mug with both hands, blowing on its contents then ta
king sips of the hot liquid, she shook her head.

  'No. No, I don't think so. I didn't recognise him, at least.'

  'Can you describe what he looked like?'

  She put down her mug and picked up the sketch pad, turning back a page.

  'I can do better than that. I've drawn him for you.'

  She held up the sketch pad, facing towards him. Ted was careful to try not to react in any way. It was an incredible piece of drawing. Even for a quick sketch, it was better than some old Identikit pictures he'd seen done. Her father was beaming proudly.

  'I told you she was artistic. She's brilliant at portrait sketches. I keep telling her she could be a court artist. If ever she needs to earn a few bob, she could make a fortune as a street artist, maybe in a tourist town.'

  'How accurate would you say your drawings are, Morgane? How close would you say that is to the youth you saw?'

  Her smile had a hint of self-satisfaction about it as she replied, turning back to the page after, which she held out.

  'I thought you might ask me that, so I did this.'

  The second sketch she showed Ted was a stunning likeness of himself. In a few quick strokes of her pencil, she'd captured the essence of him. His overall expression was serious, in policeman mode, but his mouth was showing a smile of encouragement. It was so realistic, in such a short time, that there was something almost disturbing about it.

  'That's excellent, Morgane, thank you. Very helpful. If I may take the one of the suspect? We may well still need you to come into the station at some point to help make up a computer composite, but this is a great start.'

  She tore it carefully out of her pad, then removed the other one.

  'I did it for you, hoping it might help. Here, have them both.'

  Ted thanked her, then asked her to continue her recollections, starting from the point where she said the youth had tied her hands.

  In between swallows of her drink, she told him everything she could remember. She spoke clearly and without hesitation. Ted merely prompted her gently from time to time, asking for more detail. She told him that the youth had forced her out of the house by the back door and through the garden gate onto the field behind. It was dark and there was no one around. He'd pulled her hood up, she thought so that it would disguise the fact that she was bleeding.

  She said he had an arm around her neck as they walked, which could, at a distance, have looked like a possessive hug. But he'd told her that he had a knife in his pocket and he would use it if she made the slightest sound or sign to try to alert someone to come to her aid.

  They saw no one, she said, as they crossed the field into Broadway, and he then steered her towards a side road where there was a car parked, which he opened with the keys, then forced her into the back seat.

  'Do you remember which road it was?'

  'I'm not really sure. I was so scared by this time. I knew he'd already killed my mother and I thought he might do the same to me if I didn't do as he said. I didn't know if he was going to kill me. Or to take me somewhere and rape me.'

  She made direct eye contact with Ted as she said that, her expression earnest. Her father shifted uncomfortably in his seat at that moment.

  'I think it might have been the road with the funny name. Mum and I always used to make a joke of it and call it Kippersley so I can never remember what it's really called.'

  'Knypersely Avenue,' Ted told her, as much for Kate's benefit with the note-taking as anything else. 'When you went out walking earlier, did you happen to go that way, after you crossed the field?'

  Her face screwed up in a frown as she tried to remember. Then realisation dawned and she looked horrified.

  'You mean he might have been there earlier on, watching and waiting for me to leave?'

  'I'm not saying anything, Morgane. I'm just asking if you can remember where you walked when you went out earlier.'

  No, she couldn't remember. No, she couldn't tell him what make or model the car was. She wasn't interested in cars, only in people, so she wouldn't be able to draw the car for him. She thought it was black, certainly dark in colour, and remembered it had a loud stereo system playing Rap, she thought it was, although it wasn't her thing. The car wasn't very big, she remembered.

  'He told me to keep right down on the back seat. I was really dizzy by now, my head was spinning, so it's all I really wanted to do anyway. I couldn't tell which way we were going really, but I tried to look out at one point and I recognised the end of Lisburne Lane we were going past.

  'I kept trying to untie my hands with my teeth but I couldn't, the strap was too tight. Then before we'd gone all that far, he stopped and I could see traffic lights on red. I thought I'd take a chance. I pulled the back door open, jumped out and ran as fast as I could, in the opposite direction. Then I ran across the road as soon as I could, to get away from him.

  'Then the lights must have turned to green because I heard cars beeping their horns, then tyres squealing as if he was pulling away quickly. I ran up a road I came to until I saw a house with a light on, then I started screaming for help.'

  She took a welcome large gulp of her drink after talking so much. Ted decided it was time to wind up the questioning for now. He thanked her for her help and was just about to think up a reason to ask Kate to walk out to the car with him when she clearly read his mind.

  'Boss, before you go, can I just check in the car to see if I left my other notebook in there?'

  As they reached the car, she looked at him shrewdly and asked, 'You recognised her sketch, didn't you? Of the killer?'

  'Alleged killer,' he corrected automatically. 'You're very observant. And yes, I did, and it's rather shaken things up a bit. It's the spitting image of Max Newman, the lad with the snake.'

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Before he left to go back to the station, Ted asked Kate not to mention Max Newman's name to either Morgane or her father. He knew he didn't need to. He'd seen enough already to know that she was a thoroughly professional officer who knew her job. He just liked to cover all bases.

  He realised he was suddenly hungry. He hadn't risked breakfast before the post-mortem, meaning to grab something afterwards, and realised from the way his stomach was rumbling that he had yet to do so. He remembered the bacon rolls of Monday and decided the short detour to the same café was worth it to line his stomach with a couple of those. His eating patterns became so erratic when working a difficult case that he often wondered how he'd escaped the ulcers which plagued others he knew of, like Kevin Turner.

  The office was relatively quiet, with many of the team out. Rob was in charge of things, with Jo at the Hillcrest Road crime scene and Mike still coordinating house-to-house near to Tyler's home. Ted asked Rob to contact everyone and pull them in for an update at five. He wanted to arrange to bring Max Newman in for further questioning the following morning. He'd ask Kevin Turner to send a couple of his officers round to get him and his father up first thing. Nothing like an early morning visit from the boys in blue in an area car to emphasise that things were serious.

  Jim Baker was in their shared office. Ted headed straight for the kettle for something to wash down his second bacon roll. He'd already devoured the first one hungrily on his way. Jim shook his head at the offer of a drink, indicating his own half-full mug on the desk.

  'So, how was the girl? A good witness?'

  Ted sat down with a smile. He carefully unrolled the sketches she'd given him, trying not to get bacon fat on either of them, then handed the one of himself over to Jim.

  'Bloody hell, Ted! That's uncanny. She did this? She's certainly very talented. Any particular reason for drawing you?'

  Ted held up the other sketch as he said, 'She did this one of the youth she said killed her mother, then she did the one of me to convince me of its accuracy.'

  Jim took it and scrutinised it carefully.

  'Is he known to us?'

  'He's known to me. I've already interviewed him. It's Max Newman, the lad wi
th the python, or someone who's a dead ringer for him. I'm going to pull him in first thing in the morning and question him further. I didn't much like him for the Tyler Bradbury case and his feet are too big for the footprints there, but he's going to have to go some to talk himself out of this.

  'I want to get some incident boards in place up around Seventeen Windows, asking for the public's help with anything at all suspicious they may have seen. From what the girl told me, it's very likely that at least one driver will have seen her jump out of the car at the lights.'

  'You heard what Debs and I said, Ted. Whatever it takes, let's do it. Sort it out with Kevin. And do me a favour, will you? Don't bring bloody bacon rolls in, while we're sharing an office. Bella's got me on a bloody low fat diet and I could just murder half a pig between two loaves of bread.'

  Once the team were all together, Ted brought them up to date with everything he'd learned from his interview with Morgane. He'd put her drawing of the person she claimed was the killer up on the white board. Megan recognised it straight away.

  'That's Max Newman, isn't it, boss? The boy with that creature I refuse to name? Or if not, it's someone who's strikingly like him. How accurate is it likely to be, though, after all she's been through?'

  Ted unrolled the sketch of himself and held it up for them all to see.

  'She did that one of me in a few minutes, while I was talking to her. She said she'd done it so I'd know how accurate she was. I've arranged for Max Newman to be brought in first thing and I want to interview him again myself.'

  'Boss, just one thing,' Jezza began. 'A teenage girl, going out without her mobile phone. I'm finding that a bit hard to swallow, I have to say.'

  'I must say I tend to agree with Jezza, boss,' Jo commented. 'My two eldest, George and Sophie, are fifteen and fourteen and they have to be surgically removed from theirs. I'm forever having to read them the riot act for texting at the table. Her phone was found in her bedroom, so she did genuinely leave it behind, and it's gone off for testing. And talking of her bedroom, there's a rather interesting development there.'